and my heart went 'boom!'

[reddosmod]

FEBRUARY 2023 EVENT

Due to the cyclical nature of Trench, prompts from the PREVIOUS FEBRUARY are available for use again. Please note when you are using this years prompts vs last years prompts when plotting or writing top-levels to avoid confusion.

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A broken mirror with a woman looking into it, pressing her fingers against the glass. ]
[Image Two: A rose lit up like embers. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Neon hearts glowing on a wall. ]
[Image Two: A pocket watch on top of a book page. ]

Prompt Three
[Image One: A young woman with dark hair standing in the snow with red flowers. ]
[Image Two: Footprints in the snow. ]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

BAD LUCK OF THE EARLY WORM

WHEN: February
WHERE: All around the city
CONTENT WARNINGS: Curses, violence, danger, misfortune

---

Everyone has their own streak of bad times. There are some days or weeks whre it feels like nothing is going right. Most people would try and tell say that it's just the tendency to focus on the negative. That it can be relieved by writing down all the good things that happen in our lives, because we have a tendency to only ever focus on the bad. And maybe most of the time, people are right! Maybe the idea of luck really is just perspective.

But not in Trench. Not this month.

No matter what way it's looked at, bad luck seems to be clinging to some people. It might start out small, with simple things like knocking over a favorite drink or snack, or ruining a project that had hours invested into it. Then it might become bigger. A person might start to trip over things and injuring themselves, they might get lost in a blizzard and nearly freeze before finding their way home or to someone they know. Eventually, it could even become undeniably dangerous. The person impacted by bad luck could start to notice corruption levels rising quickly, they could start to turn into a beast at random, they could start to attract violent beasts to them and put themselves or others at risk with heavy battles. The possibilities seem to be endless and none of them are good. Did someone break a mirror? Or twenty?

It will be easy to see that this isn't just impacting one person. Sleepers and Trenchies alike seem to be being plagued by streaks of bad luck across the board. Luckily, the locals seem to know what to do about it. Bad luck pops up from time to time, and of course there would be a ritual to help cleanse it.

Small vendors will start to pop up through the city selling wooden carvings that they promise will absorb all the bad luck that's been going around and dispell it with a simple ritual. A drop of blood from the person impacted and a drop of blood from someone they are close should be placed upon the carving. The blood types of the persons involved should not match (i.e. Coldblood/Coldblood would not work, but Coldblood/Warmblood would). It must be left to soak into the wood overnight, leaving behind deep red stains. The carving must then be placed with a fully bloomed rose and burned in the entrance doorway to the home of the inflicted. The ashes should then be placed into a container and kept somewhere in the home for the duration of February, to make sure that the bad luck stays away.

It seems like it really works! The tricky part is making sure that the bad luck following doesn't get in the way of the ritual while the blood is soaking over night. It may be best for both parties involved to hunker down together until morning, just in case. Time to break out the small talk. Or the deep, meaningful conversations that can sometimes happen in the middle of the night.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU

WHEN: February
WHERE: A magic room in the city.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Reference to mild shocks. Forced honesty. Embarrassment. Lots and lots of embarrassment.

---

Honestly, after being in Trench for so long, people should be used to not ending up in the destination they initially intended for. This month, it seems like the city is trying to encourage people to social, to form new bonds, whether they're romantic, platonic, familial, or any other option one could think of. The bright idea this month for that sort of thing?

Speed dating.

It's not traditional speed dating, necessarily. No one is here to exclusively seek romantic partners, although there are certainly options for it. And it's not something people are signing up for out of their own free will. Instead, people seem to simply show up at the event, with no real recollection of how they got there. Maybe they just woke up on one of the comfy couches and found a "Hi, my name is..." sticker slapped on them. Or maybe they were wandering in the snow and got lost, ending up finding shelter in this strange place, and are now forced to participate until the blizzard passes. All in all, it's harmless fun, isn't it? Who doesn't need a few new friends.

Each person will have a small information blurb given about them that can't be seen by the naked eye, but will appear as soon as someone looks at the other party through their omni. What the blurb says is unique to each person, but it might become clear pretty quickly that they didn't write it themselves... Deerington survivors may find themselves having flashbacks to the days of DeerlyBeloved.

Pairings are completely random. People will be given a series of random questions they can ask one another or they can always feel free to make up their own. Anyone who tries to lie or avoid answering a question might feel a small shock from the chair they're sitting in, one that gets stronger with every lie they tell. The after effects of the shock seem to encourage the need to answer the question with full transparency. It's important to tell the truth when getting to know someone, after all.

After five minutes, both parties can either press a button beside their chair to continue talking to the person they're paired with, or they can move on to the next pairing. Both parties have to press the button in order to stay where they are.

Have fun and remember to always be honest!

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

LONELY HEARTS CLUB

WHEN: February
WHERE: Trenchwood and throughout the city.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Violence, abuse of power, jealousy, possession, supernatural events, possible death from elemental exposure

---

There's a tale that comes up around this time of year, one that seems to be an old favorite in Trench. Long ago, in the heart of a blizzard, a young woman was found wandering in Trenchwood. She wore only thin fabrics to keep herself warm and had no shoes. Her skin felt cold as ice. The Hunters who found her quickly brought her into town, giving her shelter in a local in to try and get her warm. She stayed for many nights and it didn't take long for the inn keeper to fall in love with her. But she did not seem to return to his feelings and so he was heartbroken and jealous of all the other men who gave her attention. He demanded she offer him something in trade for her stay and when she could offer nothing, he threw her back out into the snow. The woman went back to the woods and some could hear her howling in anguish, carried through on the strong winds of the blizzard. The Hunters tried to find her, following her cries, but they were unable to, and had to return home before they too might freeze to death. The innkeeper was shunned from the town and forced to leave the city for his cruelty, but nothing stopped the howls of the snow woman.

Throughout the month of February, people will start to hear that the sound of the wind blowing strongly through the streets is starting to sound a little more human-like. The woman's cries will be heard in empty alleys, will be loudest near the edge of the woods, and can even penetrate into dreams. The cries might sometimes sound like cries for help, begging for someone to help save her from the cold. There will be a compulsion that sets deep into the bones of some and many will find it hard to resist her call. Eventually, they may even go looking for her in the woods, trying to brave the winter storms to help the lost snow woman.

Those who give in to that temptation will eventually find the snow woman, but she will not be friendly when found. Her skin has turned a pale white, her lips blue, her eyes glowing a bright red, her long hair blowing every which way in the wind. She will rush at whoever she sees, but instead of giving a physical blow to guard against, she will go through any solid objects and latch on to the soul of her target, possessing their bodies. Male or female, it doesn't seem to matter, she simply wants a chance at life again.

Those who are possessed by the snow woman will not realize they are possessed. They will forget why it was they came out into the woods looking for and will return to the city in a daze. As time passes, they will find that they become irritated by any signs of affection, will become physically aggressive towards couples they see around them, and will attack those who care about them most. The spirit does not necessarily hate love: instead, they see affection as a possible risk for all those who love others. Jealousy kills and she wants to save everyone around her from it, as well as keeping herself safe from losing this new chance at life.

Signs of possession outside of the aggression can be noticed by others. The possessed person will have: ice cold skin, blue-tinged lips, they might shiver even when inside where it's warm, and an aversion to fire or warm/hot water.

Information on how to banish the snow woman from another's body can be found in a book of local legends. This book is sold in stores or can be found in the Archives. To save someone from the snow woman, people must tell the possessed person the things they love most about them. It will cause the possessed person to react violently, so it is suggested that they be restrained during the process. The longer they are forced to hear the positive messages about love, the feelings that they can stir up in another (whether platonic or romantic), and the safety that can be found in that love, the more weakened the hold from the snow woman will be. When the possessed person eventually stops struggling, a cut must be made on the back of their neck, before a cloth soaked in warm rose water must be placed on top of the wound. Their skin will begin to steam before a large gust of snow will pour from their mouth, swirling around the room, and smash through the window. It's suggested to leave it open if you'd like to save the glass.

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Comments

[fogsong]

From her point of view, Mayerling is fantastically, and beautifully unique. Unusual. And, for the umpteenth time since she'd walked into this poor excuse of a home, he's taken her breath from her. Shocked her. Her lips press together as she soaks in his declaration; memorizes it and the heat upon his cheeks, even as her own ears burn under her mop of bleached hair.

He is embarrassed by his own words and yet he still chose to say them; a sacrifice to assure her. She laughs and it's breathy and unweighted, "I know. I was just teasing. I didn't think you'd ever..." she can't quite bring herself to finish that sentence though and lets it hang there, ears still hot, "I trust you, Mayerling."

Mayerling has never done anything to make her question him and every conversation they've had has only made her more and more certain of his character. And here he was, assuring her, without any hint of sleaze or ulterior motive. She unwraps herself from him only so much as to take him by the hand, intertwining their fingers together, and then begins to move towards the stairs.

"Coffin is up here, right?" She doesn't really need to ask. She's spent enough time here, crashing in D's strange, opulent coffin tower, to know the general layout and location of everything inside the house. As she moves, leading the way like she owns the place, she continues, "So, four romances, huh? Haven't you been around thousands of years? I'm kind of surprised you haven't had more."

[whowillmourn]

The blood continues to flow hot to the surface. Though the air wicks away heat, Mayerling's embarrassment generates more than that cooling system can keep up with. "Thank you," Mayerling says. He pauses. "As I admitted before, I have been accused of taking everything seriously. It is born of millennia alone, wherein most of my interactions have been with people whose decision to attempt to kill me may hinge upon the very words I choose. A habit so long born is not readily shed, even among someone I trust with my life."

He lets her take the lead, having no need to prove some manly dominance or any vampire superiority. Sharon knows her way around the house and wants to show him to his own coffin? Honestly, Mayerling finds it delightful. He nods and moves silently after her, practically sliding up the steps like his cape behind him.

"My romance with another vampire was tumultuous at best, not in the healthy way portrayed in the better romance novels, not even in the unhealthy ways portrayed in the worse romance novels. Though he claimed to share... if not my exact values, the same outcome of them, toward humans, (he said that feeding on them created a dependency upon humans, a weakness that could be exploited), in he end, he could not resist the bloodlust, could not stand by his own values, and thought that he could introduce a human into our lives and our relationship, someone who would be nothing more than a source of blood," Mayerling explains.

He stops explaining to catch his emotions, to calm himself, because to grow to angry about this matter thousands of years in the past, would only make his bloodlust stronger. Mayerling clenches his jaw shut.

"He thought if he kept the person around long enough, I wouldn't be able to resist. We would have our new relationship dynamic, and everything would be fine," Mayerling continues, haughtily calm, "that did not work out for him."

He hangs his head as they reach the room with both coffins. "In my youth and my ignorance, I did not realize he would take it out on the human village where the young man came from. When I learned what he did, when I learned that he was on his way to the next village, that his heartbreak and anger knew no bounds," Mayerling himself sounds sad and heartbroken, "I fought him, and I killed him. It was the only way to stop the murder and carnage. After that, I never courted a vampire again. I decided I would only court humans."

Mayerling leaves that be for the moment. If Sharon needs to ask, he will explain how difficult it is to find a human who doesn't either try to kill a vampire or flee from one. From there, to actually like the rare person you meet from the very small pool of potential partners... Well, it's not something that happens frequently. He lifts the lid of his coffin to reveal a large, well padded space within.

"I am... large and heavy, so I recommend I climb in first," he says.

[fogsong]

A millennia alone. The statement sticks to her and burrows down deep in her brain. She knew what life was like alone but her decades couldn't compare to his centuries. Still, she found herself able to relate to him a little. There was nothing so awful as always being on the outside looking in. The longing it could breed. The pain. It was an injury you grew accustomed to and only ever realized it still hurt when you found someone.

As she leads the way, she listens, glancing back at him only once when he has to stop himself, her expression solemn and understanding. She gives his hand a delicate squeeze — a tiny show of support; an offer of silent comfort. She doesn't know what it's like to fall in love like that; to see the beginnings of cracks in a foundation you thought would last.

Not only did his first love give in to his baser desires, but he also lashed out when their relationship rightfully came to an end. She stares into the open coffin as she soaks in that knowledge, thoughts spiraling. Rage and heartbreak could make a monster out of anyone. A human could do damage, too, but nothing compared to a Noble. Mayerling chose to love humans instead, chose heartbreak and loss, to avoid ever experiencing that again. To love a human as a vampire was to love someone knowing it would end but he would continue on.

"In you go," she sounds so much less nervous than she feels. She's always been good at masking. It was a necessity growing up. She was a pretender, not an actress, but there's no hiding the flutter of her heart or how her blood rushes through her body, cold as ice. The coffin had just been an idea moments ago and now it was a reality right before her.

The moment he is in and settled, she joins him, ignoring the butterflies that were trying to fly up and out her throat. It's been a long time since she's felt like this.

"This is kinda weird," she confesses but somehow touching him, being this close, provides her with a strange, foreign sort of comfort and the hummingbird beat of her heart settles as she does. She snuggles into him, lets herself relax, and lays her head on his chest.

"So," she starts as one hand reaches across him to find the edge of his cape, pinching it with her thumb and index finger, "isn't it hard to love a human? They can be just as cruel when their hearts are broken."

"And then there's the whole bloodlust thing you have to control and-and the long-lived/short-lived thing," she cranes her neck to look up at him, "How do you manage it? It feels like loving a human would be setting yourself up for tragedy."

CW: discussion of death and potential suicide, turning people to vampires, loss of a loved one

[whowillmourn]

Reality so frequently is harder than the concept of something. The coffin is no different. Though it is a source of comfort and safety, though it is filled with warm memories including those with Charlotte, those are all Mayerling's associations, and Sharon has no way to feel them the way that Mayerling can sense her apprehensions and nerves. He says nothing of them, allowing Sharon her illusion of privacy.

Mayerling leaves the lid open, so Sharon doesn't feel trapped. He wraps one arm around her gently. No worries of falling off; Mayerling is a broad solid and, as much as he can be, soft person to snuggle. He enjoys it, this piece of connection, even if they did not need it to breath. Without that prompting, however, Mayerling doubts he ever would have invited Sharon here. How could he? So personal and intimate. On what grounds?

"Everything in my life is a tragedy, Sharon," Mayerling says, "That is no reason to avoid living. If I merely wanted to avoid pain—emotional or physical—I would have killed myself over a millennia ago. Since I have opted against that, why would I avoid one of the richest experiences in life? Yes, it inflicts some of the deepest pain, but I would take that pain and more for the love I have experienced.

"I will struggle with bloodlust every day of my existence. I bear it the only way I can, Sharon. One day at a time. When one day is too great, I bear it for an hour, five minutes, a minute, a second, a moment at a time. It isn't easy. It never gets easier. It's simply something you do.

"I had one lover who asked to become a vampire, in her fifties. She wanted to turn before she became fragile or before bad luck on the Frontier got her, despite my being with her. It's dangerous, even for me. After years of discussing it, the possibility of being together forever, the risk of it not working out, I turned her," Mayerling admits. His tone is sad. "People's personalities can change after they turn. Hers changed, in a way that was not compatible. My family was still around then, enough of them. We were able to arrange to have her work as a retainer for a fairly distant relation of mine, one who also did not permit feeding on humans. We kept in touch distantly, both my relation and my ex-lover, until they were all killed."

He pauses again. All of his stories end in death. Mayerling was alone in the City of the Night when he came to Trench, everyone he knew and cared about dead and gone. D was alive, yes, but Mayerling would not say that they particularly cared for each other.

"Since then, I have not turned anyone, though Charlotte asked me to turn her. We... were going to discuss it further, but we never got the chance. I— I held her dying in my arms. I could have turned her, but she sensed I didn't want to, for she didn't ask it of me then. She only thanked me for our time together," Mayerling cries now, soft tears that slide down his face to dampen the padding of the coffin. "I promised to take her to see the stars."

[fogsong]

For someone who has lived her life to spite the world, love or no love, alone, Mayerling's words astound her. It has been hate that has pushed her forward through life and while, yes, she has lived for love, and she was willing to die for it, it was spite that drove her forward. Hatred.

She stares at the padded side of the coffin as he continues to speak, unable to find the words to respond, not willing to make some asinine comment as he lays out his past. She makes soft sounds, though. Tiny, quiet 'oh's of disappointment or sorrow and when he mentions losing both his ex-lover and his relation, her breath hitches in the back of her throat, gripping his cape tight in her hand.

She can only imagine the pain. The disappointment. The grief. All those feelings that would be born from loving and losing. And yet he kept going forward. It's a strength Sharon doesn't know. She saw firsthand how the loss of her mother destroyed her dad. How he never truly recovered but how he kept going for Sharon's sake. Mayerling kept going for himself, though, for some hope of another love, of future joy.

But then he speaks of Charlotte. Her eyes slide shut as she listens. She can hear the sorrow coiled in his voice, an ache she couldn't truly understand despite her own losses; she can hear the changes in the beat of his heart and his breathing. Her eyes start to burn, that familiar sting of tears, and she sniffles stupidly. Moved. Imagining his ache as her own.

His description of his last memory with Charlotte is different from what she remembers seeing, from D's own memory that had been shared on the network all those months ago, but she doesn't dare to bring that up. Not now. Instead, she releases her grip on his cloak and looks back up at him. There's a pause of hesitation as she reaches for his face, almost reconsidering the action but it's already too late, and she wipes away one trail of tears with the pad of her thumb. Her own eyes shimmer but her tears never fall.

"I'm sorry," she whispers with sincerity, heartbroken for him. She's never been big on empathy, her own feelings are too much she can't take on someone else's but here she is, doing just that, "I-I've never dealt with heartbreak like that. I've never even been in love before. A part of me can't even comprehend all of that."

She is woefully, painfully inexperienced with life. She has suffered and she has lived but her life has been limited. It's needed to be limited. She swallows the lump in her throat, some knot of emotion that she can't even put a word to before she speaks again, "Maybe... Maybe you will have some chance at happiness in this place. Even if it's not love, you're not alone here."

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling lets the grief wash over him. Everything, for vampires, for him, comes on strong, the kind of emotion humans generally expect to see on stage during an opera (overacted, they say, to communicate it to the audience). Authentic, Mayerling says, to what he feels in his heart. Sharon's gestures, small as they are, both physical and words, mean so much to him. So few people have expressed as much. Fewer still that were neither family nor lover. In fact, before Trench, Mayerling is not sure whether he could say any others at all truly were. Vampire society was as exhausting as Johan described German nobility.

He exhales and lets it run out, until he feels exhausted, though he had only gotten up a short time ago (or so it seems it should be). "It is not all tragedy, Sharon," Mayerling manages, "You are hearing the endings, not all the rich tapestries in the middle, not the beginnings. It is only my position in time, that which makes all of this my past, which makes those endings weigh heavily. I do not let them outweigh what they were and the good they had.

"We wrote each other farewells, before the turning. Particularly, she to me, as we knew very well she might not care about my letter. I wrote it nonetheless, and she had the decency not to tell me what she did with it or thought of it. Meanwhile, I kept that letter a long time and have its contents memorized, though its physical form was lost."

He reaches for and squeezes her hand. "Even if it's not love. That's an absurd phrase to hear, true though it is. Back home, on the Frontier, that's all the relationships I had once my family was gone. Oh, Bengé, Caroline, and Mashira all gave their lives so that Charlotte and I could reach Carmilla's castle, but that was because they were of the Barbarois. She paid the Barbarois to do as much, so they did. I am grateful, but it was what it was, no more," he says, "Trench is... different."

[fogsong]

Mayerling continues to astound her. It's his honesty and how he deals with every feeling, taking it on as it comes to him with no shame for their existence. He recognizes them and embraces them as part of who he is. Sharon buries her feelings. She swallows them like bile in her throat until they overwhelm her; until she has to release them or drown.

He says it's not all tragedy and, logically, she understands the statement. She knows this. He cherishes every piece of the experience in a way she has trouble fully comprehending. For him, the good outweighs the bad, no matter how powerful the sorrow that's spawned from them is. For her, though, the bad outweighs the good, at least in the long run; it eats away at her and becomes a ghost in her mind, haunting whatever good is left until even that becomes tainted.

There is so much she could learn from a man like him. And not like how she learns from D. Or Duty. Or Maul. Or even Johnny fucking Lawrence.

"Trench is different," she repeats like a confirmation, "For instance, you might see Charlotte again one day here. Or any other lover. Or family." Something pinches in her chest and she wrinkles her nose at it, trying to figure out what it meant or what feeling it was but it's gone just as quickly.

"And it's nothing like the Frontier, at least from what I know of it," from what D has told her, from what she has gleaned from all their talks and his teachings, "We all have opportunities we never had before."

"As much as this world can piss me off and overwhelm me, I made my first friend here. I had my first date. I saw my mother again after nine years without her," there's a smile in her voice but it fades quickly, "I broke someone's heart. I found people I can't imagine living without; people I look at like family."

"Trench is as different for me as it is for you, I bet, and some times I feel like I'm lucky to have wound up here."

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling has to close his eyes again at you might see Charlotte again one day here. Oh how he knows, how he wishes for it every night that he's away, every day that he sleeps or spends in the Archives, how he winds up at the beach looking for her, listening for her heartbeat, her unique heartbeat. His heart feels as though it should burst from a hundred stakes piercing it at once. The pain that comes from longing for his dead wife and not seeing her. Mayerling longs for his family, for his past human lovers... yet they have been long enough dead that to hope for them and not find them hurts less than it does Charlotte, six short years parted. His breathing is uneven, and Mayerling swallows back. A single tear escapes before he gains a hold of himself again.

"I do not know whether the potential for Charlotte's—" He stops. That's not right.

"I would be overjoyed if Charlotte comes to Trench. However, there is no promise it should happen, and I believe Charlotte would not want me to pin my happiness on the chance of her return. After all, every day she does not return would become a nearly unbearable torment."

Something catches in his throat, as though the words are nearly impossible to say. Mayerling tries to speak a few times before he manages it. "Charlotte would want me to live my life to the fullest, whatever than meant. We— we had already spoken of the distant future, one where we lived together husband and wife, vampire and human, and she passed after a long and happy life. She wanted me to find love again after her. She didn't want me to be alone."

The words feel like dust.

"She would be so glad I made my first friends. I live in a town with humans. I have a job in the community," Mayerling manages a pitifully small smile at Sharon, "I cannot say I have been on a date, seen my mother, or broken anyone's heart, but you are someone I can't imagine living without, and I'm so lucky to have wound up here."

[fogsong]

Sharon's regret is instantaneous and she mentally berates herself for bringing Charlotte up. She can feel how his breathing changes; see the twist of sorrow in his expression as if he's been struck with a pain so deep it may be unbearable. Loss. A broken heart. She should have known.

Her eyes close for a single breath, in part to wipe clean the grief she saw in his expression. She is so often thoughtless with her words, reckless with hope, forgetful that others have wounds that hope cannot stitch shut no matter how much she wants to will it. One day, maybe, she will remember that hope isn't always a kindness.

Charlotte wanted him to move on and Sharon finds herself jealous of this stranger woman's love for Mayerling. Her willingness to allow him to move on, recognizing that, even after her, he would continue to live and he deserved joy after her. Would Sharon be able to be so thoughtful? No, she thinks, I am too selfish for that. Her love, she fears, would be a curse. As it has always been.

But then... Oh. Her heart skips a beat at his statement, at you are someone I can't imagine living without, looking up at him with confusion pinching her expression. Suddenly, her thoughts are racing. There are things she wants to ask him. Why? How? Me? Like he must have misspoken. But she doesn't. Instead, she focuses on something else he's said.

"How about I take you on a date?" the words fall out of her mouth before her brain catches up with them and then she sputters a little. Ums, ohs, uhs as if realizing very quickly the implication of her question. Of saying something like this, something thoughtless again, after he spoke of Charlotte, "Like friends. A-A friend-date?"

Next, everything that comes out of her mouth is quick, each word flowing into the next as if she were trying to fill space, "Show you some of the best places to go at night, places I didn't take Johan to. Maybe introduce you to karaoke. Do you like to drink? There's a bar I like to visit and they have pretty good wine. I know D likes wine and so does Alucard and it's not that I think everyone that's a vampire likes wine but you kind of seem like you might be a wine guy."

Shit.

Shut up, Sharon.

[whowillmourn]

A whole universe is born, expands, and collapses, between Sharon's first question and her second. Every moment Mayerling and Sharon have interacted are reviewed and shift, slightly, in his mind with the understanding that Sharon, perhaps, likes him. It's a date. Humans move at paces far slower than vampires, so it would not mean the same thing as Mayerling asking Sharon on a date. He's only finishing seeing their time together through a potentially new lens when Sharon pulls the carpet out from under him yet again.

Like friends?

Mayerling looks confused. Sharon keeps talking. It's enough to get the idea she means like she did with Johan, except his memories of her time with Johan don't provide him enough information for their current predicament. First and foremost because Johan was human, he couldn't sense the same information from Sharon as Mayerling can. He cannot compare Sharon's heartrate, sweat, blood pressure, and many other pieces of information, to when she was with Johan. Second, Johan was happily married to Charlotte. Sharon could have laid in this very coffin in lingerie for him to discover, and he wouldn't have considered her for a moment.

"I have only Johan's memories to guide me, when it comes to the realm of a... friend date," Mayerling says. "I would enjoy going to new places with you."

He pauses, knowing the question is awkward. "I will, naturally, respect your wishes. If I may know, why did you change your question from a date to a... friend date?"

[fogsong]

It happens quickly. Her mouth goes dry, her breathing picks up and then she holds her breath in her lungs for several long beats as if trying still the sudden quick pace of her heart. Or maybe die. She carefully turns her face away from him, more to hide the way her face begins to burn painfully hot even for a Coldblood.

Sharon doesn't know how to answer that question because she doesn't really know the answer. When she was dating Tinya, it had been easy. She just asked her out. But Tinya had already admitted she was in love with her. This was so much more complicated than that.

This was... This felt different. It could be chalked up to the need to touch him, though, or the Coldblood effect this month, this want to be close. But she's not sure.

Finally, she breathes again, "Um. Because we just spoke about your wife? Because that was kind of an asshole question to ask after that? Because I don't know?"

Why is she so nervous? She pulls her hand from his to cover her eyes, her fingers cold against them. She forcibly slows her breathing and tries to think through the sudden haze of panic and shame and uncertainty that seem to crawl up from her belly, "I don't know," she says again, lamely. Embarrassed.

CW: references to Romeo & Juliet like suicide threat

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling smiles, lopsided and amused and fond. He brushes his hair back with his freed hand continues to do so because Sharon's hair defies neatness. He stops only to seriously answer Sharon's answers, themselves questions. His hand rests on her shoulder as a light touch.

"We spoke of my wife, six years past, who wished for me to move on and find happiness with another person, who I shared with you wished for that," Mayerling says. It may be terrible to bring Charlotte up more, but she's tangled up among them, a part of the conversation. Even her memory gives Mayerling the push to live his life. Can she do the same for Sharon?

"I wish I could share memories of her with you, so you could better understand," Mayerling says, "In lieu of that, I will share one memory in words, and with your permission, I will give you the advice I believe Charlotte would."

"Two of the Marcus brothers caught us on a bridge in daytime. They shot Mashira, who leaped over the side of the bridge, and pulled Charlotte out of the carriage. I came out of the carriage after her. Immediately, I began to burn. The elder brother shot me with four arrows. I staggered after her. They laughed. Charlotte broke free, ripped an arrow from me, and held it to her throat. She threatened to kill herself if I let myself die on the bridge, if I let them kill me there," Mayerling says, "No idle threat. Charlotte had a will of iron. She would have fallen through, and knowing that, I could not let that happened. Which was the point of course."

Mayerling smiles. Who couldn't love or at least respect someone willing to put their own life on the line like that?

"I understand if all this talk of her puts you off of me," Mayerling adds, "However, you sound confused and uncertain about what you want. Charlotte had a way of clarifying things, and I believe she could help you. I want to do my best, though it be a pale comparison, because I care most to honestly know which it is you want—a date or a friend date.

"Would that... be okay with you?"

[fogsong]

The fingers in her hair have her stiffen but she does not pull away. In fact, she even leans a little into it. It's like a distraction. Her heartbeat slows and her breathing with it. It makes her feel present, less lost in the rush of thoughts and feelings that always threaten to consume her, and when he stops, she finds herself missing it.

Charlotte sounds like the kind of woman Sharon would get along with. Bold. Daring. Forward. In some ways, they're not dissimilar. Except in matters like this. Her heart is a storm; wild and violent but capable of beautiful things. She simply needs to learn how to listen to it. To understand it.

The more she hears of this woman, beyond what she saw in D's memory, beyond what she heard from Johan, the more she understands how she and Mayerling fell in love. Both of them were dramatic. In her mind's eye, she sees that woman taking her lover's hand and plunging it into her chest and she believes Mayerling when he tells her that she would've killed herself there and then if he'd died.

"Go ahead, Mayerling," she responds after a moment of thought, quietly, mind starting to race again, "What is it Charlotte would advise?"

[whowillmourn]

Slowly, gently, Mayerling takes and presses Sharon's hand to her heart. It's no arrow, but they don't need weapons in this non-life and death situation.

"Do not cage your heart, Sharon," Mayerling says, the cadence of his words changing, though his voice remains otherwise the same, "Open the door and let it out. It will leap sharp as an arrow. All you must do is follow it."

He removes his hand from hers, so that Sharon can choose to perform the physical as part of the metaphorical. Mayerling does not explain the choice behind the language, the cage within which Charlotte lived her life for so long, so terrified of the monster that held her there. Even caged she was fierce, so fierce she no longer feared vampires, overcoming the genetic tinkering with human genes. Charlotte's everything Sharon knows of her and all the more impressive for what Sharon doesn't.

Mayerling watches Sharon and waits for what she will do.

[fogsong]

Sharon lays there, hand on her heart, as her mind works at the advice; peels the words apart, and puts them back together again. Over and over. Until they're engraved on her heart.

Do not cage your heart. Is that what she's doing? Maybe it is.

Maybe fear and uncertainty and confusion are the bars of her cage. She grinds her teeth together, jaw clenched tight, and then she releases it like a sigh. She shifts her body, twisting herself so she's almost entirely on top of him, facing him, propped up, arms on either side of him.

"I don't know what I feel for you," she confesses. Her heart still pounds like a drum in her chest but she's bolder now, "You make my heart feel hot and I don't get it."

"But I'd like to," she breathes out, slowly, and then, "Would you go on a date with me, Mayerling? Would you help me figure it out?"

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling lays there and waits patiently. Sharon has to choose whether to open her heart. Her heart has to let itself out. Sharon has to follow it and understand it. Simple words. Simple actions. Not simple to understand.

When Sharon shifts her posture entirely, Mayerling knows something has happened, likely whatever will happen tonight. His heart beats faster, no matter how much he wills it to beat steady. The frisson that something is happening cannot be ignored, no matter that it may disappoint him. Ever the optimist when it comes to love, Mayerling believes it will be... something. Something.

The answer is a variation on Sharon not knowing but a more honest one. A more open one. A request that comes from being open and vulnerable with him. Mayerling smiles, beaming as broad as the sunlight he remembers in Johan's memories. It's hardly a resounding declaration of love a vampire might make, but he's romanced three humans before. Mayerling's an old hat at this, so far as vampires go.

"Yes, Sharon," he answers in his deep voice. "I would like to go on a date with you, and I would like to figure it out together."

He looks up at Sharon framing his body and lightly caresses her cheek. "Most of all, I would like for you not to avoid me. I missed you terribly, Sharon."

"You remarkable woman."

[fogsong]

That smile of his catches her off-guard. She finds herself mirroring it, albeit much more shyly, heart lighter than it's been in what feels like forever; a weight lifted. Whatever she feels for him, she'll figure it out. He would help her figure it out. Her heart could soar.

She tilts herself lightly into the caress, eyelids flickering shut, and when he speaks again her smile softens and warms. He missed her. He thought she was remarkable. That, in itself, is remarkable to her. Without thinking, she leans down and presses her lips against the very edge of his lips; a chaste kiss. A physical show of her gratitude. A silent declaration that she would figure this out.

Or maybe it was a statement. Maybe this was how she felt.

But then she pulls away, shifts her body again to lay against him, head against his chest, thoughts going a thousand miles an hour but with a new kind of certainty to her, "Thank you, " she finally tells him, the words thick with emotion.

"For everything."

[whowillmourn]

Mayerling wishes he could kiss Sharon back, but the way she kisses him would make that awkward at best. It would ruin the moment most likely. Mayerling restrains himself and focuses on Sharon's lips, which perhaps would benefit from lip balm. He likes the rough edges of skin because they reflect Sharon and all her rough edges. The kiss too is a gesture Mayerling never expected tonight, not after the earlier discussions below.

She rests on his chest, and Mayerling slowly pets her back in long steady motions with one hand. You're safe he wants to convey. Indeed his hand stops well above her waist and goes nowhere near her sides, nowhere that he hopes would be deemed inappropriate. Even so, he pays absolute attention to her response, to avoid anywhere that causes her unease.

"You're welcome," Mayerling says, "You help me as much as I help you. I assure you."

"Thank you."