Fade to red

When he came to, Dagaz had expected to find Ysabelle still there. To his horror, she had vanished.

No, wait. Rewind.

Not vanished.

Wherever he was, this wasn’t his room. He was outside, but this place held a certain familiarity. The air was still dark, but his newly enhanced vision had no trouble discerning details even with the reduced light. He was on the roof of his apartment building, but not alone.

As his eyes took in the scene, he recoiled. Looking down in horror, the reality of what had happened sunk in.

Cradled in his arms was a small form, held tight against his chest with a strength he could not yet fully control, blood leaking slowly from twin puncture marks on her throat. A woman, if you could even call her that, she looked barely old enough to have been in her twenties. He could feel her blood on his lips, and knew instinctively what he had done, even though the process of getting to this point yet eluded him. He watched her for signs of life, hoping, praying that he hadn’t killed her.

There. Her chest rose and fell, almost too shallow to perceive, but she drew breath still, ragged as it was. Dagaz released a breath of his own he hadn’t realised he had been holding. Relief flooded through him. He hadn’t killed her, but he knew that he had come dangerously close to crossing that line. If he'd drunk just that little deeper, her life would have been snuffed out with ease.

His relief gave way to frustration, and frustration soon melted away into anger. Why hadn’t Ysabelle stopped him?
Had she even tried?

The answer soon presented itself.

‘This lesson I couldn’t teach, and for that I am truly sorry.’

“Damn you!” he said aloud. “Why?”

It was as his question broke the silence that it dawned on him that his ears hadn’t picked up her words, but rather that he'd heard her voice once again in his mind. The sensation was akin to a tickle across the nape of you neck, a minute pressure as her thoughts invaded his own.

‘This is something each of us must learn alone. Restraint. Against the hunger, the Beast within.’

Dagaz tried answering mentally. ‘The Beast?

‘The hunger. But it is oh so much more than that I’m afraid. The Beast is metaphorical, and not, at the same time. The hunger is real, as you have discovered already. So is the urge to feed completely until it is sated. If you do, you will find that little sliver of control you cling desperately to slip from your grasp, until all that remains is the Beast. It will consume you until none of your Humanity remains.

As he looked down at the frail woman he held in his arms, the urge to drain her completely, to take those last few precious drops of blood from her veins, brought home Ysabelle’s point sharply.

He was, had been, a man, and planned to remain as one. In that moment, Dagaz made the choice that would define his existence from that moment forward. He would fight the Beast, he refused to become a monster.

‘Teach me Ysabelle. Please.” he begged.

Not yet. You must teach yourself to survive before I teach you anything.

Now hear me.

At the dusk and the dawn,
They rise and they fall.
In one you'll be nourished,
The other you'll perish.
Greet your seventh alone,
Without my Embrace,
Thrive on your own,
Then return to this place.
Here I'll be waiting
To mourn or rejoice.
At my fledgling's success,
Or my own poor choice.
You'll live or you'll die
By our kinds simple rules
It would be a shame to let you
Go to waste,
Mark my words well.
Heed the Masquerade.

Dagaz fucking hate riddles.