A Chance Meeting of Twin Souls (Elira)

[Dye]

Summer 34, 512 AV Petching offal, these men are. The curvy woman was doing what she does best; her feminine wiles were being used on an aging man in the drug den he had chosen. Little more than a room on the edge of the Docks, set deep into a small alley. The prey was in a stupor, his eyes rolling back in his thick head. Each finger of her right hand, each sharply pointed nail, ran over the elderly human's chest; they tore through his deep red shirt, leaving deep red lines of blood across his torso. Not a person noticed, not even the man being scratched, because the cuts were shallow enough that none of the drugged men came out of their hallucinogenic reveries. A red tongue shot out of Dye's mouth, lapping up a bit of the vital fluid, and the man sighed his approval in his hallucigen-inspired landscape. With another swift motion, the vulture's hand dipped into the victim's coin purse, pulling out a single gold miza and an intricately tooled silver ring. Petching cheapskates. At least the bastard has something! She slipped the ring onto her right hand, the small band fitting perfectly on her ring finger. Small fingers. Must be small elsewhere. Good thing I won't have to bed the vagik, eh? A chuckle, then the Kelvic stood. She needed another target.

[Elira]

Candles flickered above the basket on the table. Tiny bundles of black wriggled inside as Elira readjusted the soft blanket underneath them. The blanket was one her mother had knitted and donated to the Healing Hand. She sighed and stroked one of the dark wet noses peeking out, with the tip of her finger and felt the first twinge of guilt settle in. Her heart was breaking for the bitch’s owners. They’d brought the dog in to birth her first litter. They were sitting out in the cramped room that barely passed as a waiting room and had no idea the little girl that was so excited, she couldn’t sit still, had lost her best friend. It was the first time Elira was grateful her shift was over. I’m such a coward. She knew it, but tonight she couldn’t wrap her head around such a big loss. Daron was on her mind again. He was always on her mind. The room was getting cooler. A light breeze stirred where she was standing. She touched the back of her neck and her skin prickled. She turned around to face whoever had slid up beside her but no one was there. Still, there was no letting up in the uneasiness inside of her. She grabbed her backpack and headed out of the room, toward the front door of the clinic. As she got closer to the exit, she caught a glimpse of herself in the window. Her clothes were covered in drying blood. The dark stain spread across her shirt and down her thighs. Petch, I look like I killed someone. Worse, she felt like she’d killed someone. She pulled the sticky shirt away from her stomach. No amount of washing would get all of that blood out. There was no stopping the bombardment of images that pushed out of her memories. Nothing about the labor had gone the way it should have. More guilt. As the other veterinarian came out to get the dog’s owner, Elira snuck out the front door like the coward she knew she was. She crossed the threshold in a daze, not paying attention to where she was going. She just wanted to get away from the building. She wandered the maze of alleys through the Docks until she reached a dead end and looked up too late, only to realize she’d gone way too far.

[Dye]

The vulture opened the trapdoor into the den, allowing the haze of hallucinogenic smoke to escape out into the night. She hadn't been there too long, and she knew she needed fresh air before the drug took over her senses as it did the man she just tortured and robbed. The gust of smoke was accompanied by the head of the beautiful woman, her icy blue eyes peeking out from feathered lashes as she looked out from the relative seclusion of the den. Places like this were easy pickings, Dye had to use very little effort and a bit of her feminine wiles to get what she wanted from these men. Be it funds, presents, even favours, she could easily weasel her way into the minds and pockets of these befuddled men and eat away at their very marrow, both figuratively and literally. Blood flooded her nostrils, the scent so overpowering in the small, cramped alley. It was metallic, reminiscent of rust and pain, the smells so common to her violent mind. Dye knew that smell well, and it was overpowering. Outside, she saw a feminine form, a tad taller than her own, and less well endowed. The vulture's eyes took on a mischievous gleam, and her voice rang out in a playful manner, with an edge of danger. "Love, is all that blood I smell on you?"

[Elira]

Elira blinked at the wild-looking woman who was staring at her. She had to try to focus. The blood. The woman must have thought she was crazy to be running around with all that blood all over her. How did she even begin to explain what had happened when her mind wasn’t ready to process it?

She did her best to cover the blood with her hands. “I work at the Healing Hand. It got a little messy there today.” More than a little. If the woman wanted more of an answer, she wasn’t going to get one.

She stared down at her hands. She could still see the dark stain of blood from behind them. There was so much of it. All she wanted to do was go home, clean up and crawl into her bed.

...Alone. Because there was no one there to comfort her anymore.

Elira forced her mind to focus, shifting away from the bleak thoughts that threatened to drown her. She didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.

Her eyes slid up the body of the woman in front of her, to her eyes. They were blue like hers, but so different. Everything about the woman was different. She wouldn’t turn away from her questioning stare though. There was something about her that made Elira want to stay where she was. She could smell the smoke in the woman's hair and saw the unfocused look in her eye.

Part of her wanted to be wearing that same look. She felt trapped in her body. She dropped her gaze toward the door the woman came from. “What’s down there?” She asked more to herself than anyone else.

[Dye]

Dye's fierce eyes flashed with delight at the woman's response. A healer, eh? And quite the beauty, even if she is a little young... The blood's metallic odor tingled within the vicious woman's core, her fingers clenching as she stared intensely at the sanguine colour of the fluids dyeing the clothing of the young lady before her. "You look alone, poor thing. Poor dear. No girl should be alone tonight, not on these streets and in such condition!" It was easy enough to feign concern. This girl was vulnerable, that was obvious, and Dye's role of motherly figure was simple to slip into. That is, until it no longer acted in her favour. The looks given to her by the healer were much more than platonic, they were longing. They were looks well known to the kelvic. They were looks she gave few, but received from many. And all who look at me such become wholly mine! The voice in her head tittered with unbound glee, her elation swelling and escaping through her bright, yet clouded, eyes as she moved to slide an arm around Elira. "The men down there are currently in a state of trance too deep to even recognize the lass they have at their arm, lovely. Would you like to come inside? We could clean you up, get you out of those wretched clothes, and perhaps chat a while, yes?" The vulture knew she would get what she wanted, even if it were to require her to seduce, petch, or even kill the bloodied lass. No point in wasting a good source of entertainment. Or food. This one must have the sweetest marrow... But those thoughts must come after all other options were exhausted. After all, who wants to bite the hand that feeds?