DARIEN VALENTINE
“ I think my passion is misinterpreted as anger sometimes. And I don't think people are ready for the message that I'm delivering, and delivering with a sense of violent love.”
”Darien Valentine, where the hell is your sister?” a trivial child, concealed in fur as black as charcoal lifted his head at the sound of the mother’s fretting call, turning two soft brown, doey eyes towards the much larger wolf looming over him, her countenance that of an anxious mother, but her own vision black with frothing antagonism and liquid dissatisfaction that he felt pooling into the accumulating ocean of sadness that was his empty stomach. “Well?” She repeated snippily, only to be met with the blank, hollow expression of her only son, her only failure, only fault. Dear Goddess, why couldn’t she of been blessed by another daughter? This, this thing surely didn’t come out of her womb. Always so.. .. She tilted her head, unsure of how to describe him, studying his closely guarded features, and the eyes that wouldn’t follow her, or even look in her direction- so upsetting. . “Are you even listening to me!?” Something between her son’s teeth caught the wolf’s attention. “What are you chewing on? It’s not as if you can catch anything..” The smaller dog looked up at her, the first time since he was born. “I caught sister.”
~seven months later~
I know how she looks at me, when she looks at me, will she look at me? What does she see? She sees a caged up animal, an alien that she’s worried will go feral. Am I? I don’t know. . Sometimes I feel myself on that ledge; all I need is a push…. All my mind and its importance will get detached and float away like a severed balloon, higher, higher, higher, until nobody can see it anymore.
~two months later~
“Recite after me.”
“Yes, mother.”
"Blood for the body,”
“Blood for the body,”
“Blood for your bones,”
“Blood for your bones,”
“Death for the bleeding,”
“Death for the bleeding,”
“A belly of stones.”
“A belly of stones.”
~Nine months later~
Love and hate is a circle- the faster you lean into one corner, the faster you’ll end up in the other.
Hate someone too much, and you’ll end up falling in love.
Love someone too much, and you’ll end up hated. But, what happens when you hate being loved, and you love being hated? He didn’t know.
All wrong. So wrong, to love that now, it was only him.
All alone.
~Present~
Night Blood. He burrowed his head further into the warmth and blood Night provided, feeling that an attachment, if any, was somehow riveted by her name. The gesture was anything but intimate, and if anything, conceived to battle the cold that the healer was feeling himself, if the poorly, but nevertheless valiantly hidden shivers were anything to note upon. Darien was almost oblivious to Night Blood’s attraction, but very loosely aware of his own. Though, if anything, it was to her scent, and not the wolf herself. Valentines didn’t function that way, they didn’t feel emotional pull, but instead very basic instinctual value that was placed in certain individuals based on their scent, statistics, and how that creature could further him or herself. They were greedy, disloyal, and traitorous- but the worst attribute that grew with every generation, regardless of sex or educating? They were clever, deviously clever.
"Yes. This brute does seem to be of use to Abendrot. Perhaps you will survive here after all, Healer!"
His smile was as warm as dry ice, but the throaty purr loosed from between the frozen needles lining his maw was approving, nearly appreciative, of her agreement. He would never admit to being fond of anyone but himself, but feminine male bellow him had brushed his fur in the wrong way, and he was having a hard time putting his nose on why. Was it that his effect was the opposite of literally the very thing that Dairen worshiped, or the promise of salvation should he be struck down by the proverbial stone, so to speak, he didn’t know. And he might have pondered the rest of the nightfall, if Kershov, his alpha, hadn’t of erupted from the frozen woodland, irascibility and anger swaddling him like cobwebs a tree. Something stirred within the beast, something akin to recognition, same as he’d experienced the very first happenstance with the imposing creature, the same amount of awe, neutrality, and contempt. So moved by the recollection and his impression of a stormy night, eager to smash ships and sailors against jagged cliffs and douse those lighthouses willing to guide them, Darien felt next to nothing when the brand of distrust and keen cynicism scorched his chilly flesh. His face unsoiled by emotion when the icy king dryly humored the pair, before turning his attention towards the effeminate wolf on their border, who instantly disregarded the bystanders. Doubting that this was meant to be offensive, Darien shook the female off of him, feeling the loss of companionship muted compared to the loss of comforting cologne, and stood. Honestly, the girl Night Blood had captured his attention in a way that was charming and entertaining, and he knew she would have been a lovely companion if he harbored the capability to maintain such a thing. Unfortunately, that had died along with his libido seasons ago. Pausing only to graze the skin of her neck (careful not to break the skin, however tempting) in farewell and empty promise to continue later, more privately, he leaped from his vantage point, landing with all the grace of a deterred predator. Letting his eyes drift to the virile and his dominant figure, he felt the distinctive unnerving of scrutiny directed not at him, but at Kershov, as if he was turning him inside out, studying his flaws and weaknesses. Pleased to be free of the enterprise of three, which had suddenly become too many, Darien wordlessly, if not erratically and hastily, slipped away, nodding respectively to the sovereign. Peculiar, some might call it, that his depart would be carried out so swiftly, but Valentine had little taste for unnecessary talk and banter, flattery irrelevant and irritating. He’d once heard that it was far better to live your own path imperfectly than to live another’s perfectly, and the motions he’s been following felt too familiar for his liking. His only fleeting regret was that he hadn’t stayed to know his confidantes better, not that he’d left them. |
{Loveless] [Adult] [Male] [word count: 1,092}
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