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31_days2005-09-23 11:49 pm
of-carabas.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-09-23 11:49 pm
[September 23] [Near Dark] A Thousand Miles (19/26)
Title: A Thousand Miles (19/26)
Day/Theme: September 23rd/To Aurora, not to hurry
Series: Near Dark
Characters: Mae
Rating: PG
Mae had never once looked up at the stars and wished she were a thousand miles away, not in her entire life. She'd talked about travelling - she wanted to go to Paris on her honeymoon someday - but she liked being a small town girl. She liked knowing Roy down the street at the gas station who'd ask her about school while she filled up the truck; and Tony, the mechanic who always gave her a discount. She liked helping out her daddy in the family's general store, and even though she was never going to get rich at it she knew she didn't have to worry about getting by, either. She liked that her daddy's house had belonged to his uncle before him, and his grandfather who'd built it before that, and that the table and china in the dining room had been her great-aunt's and that someday it'd belong to her.
She wasn't like Jesse who always knew he and his brother were meant for great things and chose life over a death on the battlefield, or Severen who had embraced this way of life like it was made for him, or Diamondback who'd traded in a world of disappointed dreams for a new husband who loved and cared for her, or Homer who'd always wandered a little too far away from his parents, straining at his leash and finally slipping it entirely. She was just Mae, who hadn't ever asked for her life to be changed like this, and there was no reason at all anyone should expect her to make the adjustment easily.
But she did.
Oh, she'd been scared enough that first night; who wouldn't be? Bitten by that strange little boy, feeling dizzy and lightheaded as his family dragged her into their car and stole her off into the night - heck, she'd been terrified. She'd wanted nothing more than to go home.
But that first taste of blood on her tongue... God, there were no words. Like her first taste of champagne at cousin Annie's wedding, only a hundred times... more. More everything. More sights, more sounds, more sensations running up and down her spine. The feel of the wind on her skin, the grass against her legs - she couldn't think of words to describe it, couldn't even think of pictures to describe it and they said a picture was worth a thousand words; this would take a hundred pictures, and music, a whole symphony, and even that wouldn't come near what she was feeling. The whole world was more than it had ever been before, like she'd been going through her whole life half-sleeping and now she was wide, wide awake for the very first time, and she couldn't get enough of it.
And she never would get enough of it, not in a thousand years. And she'd be here for those thousand years.
She wasn't sure she'd entirely wrapped her head around that concept yet. She couldn't, really. Because every time she thought of it, all she could do was laugh, helpless giggles bubbling up through her like bubbles in champagne. Bloody champagne, she guessed, and that was funny, too.
Homer took her hunting every night for those first few weeks, the pair of them drinking their fill and then running through the night, or flopping onto the ground and just staring up at the stars, drinking their fill of that, too. Every night was just the same, and this was going to be her life, for ever and ever. No family home, no general store, no Tony down the street to rely on; just an endless rhythm of feeding and moving on. And she wouldn't trade it, not to have that old small town life back, not for anything. Because for a small town girl who'd never dreamed of anything else, the greatest wonder was to be taken to a whole new world she hadn't even known she'd wanted.
At the end of every night, she'd still swear the dawn came far too soon.
Day/Theme: September 23rd/To Aurora, not to hurry
Series: Near Dark
Characters: Mae
Rating: PG
Mae had never once looked up at the stars and wished she were a thousand miles away, not in her entire life. She'd talked about travelling - she wanted to go to Paris on her honeymoon someday - but she liked being a small town girl. She liked knowing Roy down the street at the gas station who'd ask her about school while she filled up the truck; and Tony, the mechanic who always gave her a discount. She liked helping out her daddy in the family's general store, and even though she was never going to get rich at it she knew she didn't have to worry about getting by, either. She liked that her daddy's house had belonged to his uncle before him, and his grandfather who'd built it before that, and that the table and china in the dining room had been her great-aunt's and that someday it'd belong to her.
She wasn't like Jesse who always knew he and his brother were meant for great things and chose life over a death on the battlefield, or Severen who had embraced this way of life like it was made for him, or Diamondback who'd traded in a world of disappointed dreams for a new husband who loved and cared for her, or Homer who'd always wandered a little too far away from his parents, straining at his leash and finally slipping it entirely. She was just Mae, who hadn't ever asked for her life to be changed like this, and there was no reason at all anyone should expect her to make the adjustment easily.
But she did.
Oh, she'd been scared enough that first night; who wouldn't be? Bitten by that strange little boy, feeling dizzy and lightheaded as his family dragged her into their car and stole her off into the night - heck, she'd been terrified. She'd wanted nothing more than to go home.
But that first taste of blood on her tongue... God, there were no words. Like her first taste of champagne at cousin Annie's wedding, only a hundred times... more. More everything. More sights, more sounds, more sensations running up and down her spine. The feel of the wind on her skin, the grass against her legs - she couldn't think of words to describe it, couldn't even think of pictures to describe it and they said a picture was worth a thousand words; this would take a hundred pictures, and music, a whole symphony, and even that wouldn't come near what she was feeling. The whole world was more than it had ever been before, like she'd been going through her whole life half-sleeping and now she was wide, wide awake for the very first time, and she couldn't get enough of it.
And she never would get enough of it, not in a thousand years. And she'd be here for those thousand years.
She wasn't sure she'd entirely wrapped her head around that concept yet. She couldn't, really. Because every time she thought of it, all she could do was laugh, helpless giggles bubbling up through her like bubbles in champagne. Bloody champagne, she guessed, and that was funny, too.
Homer took her hunting every night for those first few weeks, the pair of them drinking their fill and then running through the night, or flopping onto the ground and just staring up at the stars, drinking their fill of that, too. Every night was just the same, and this was going to be her life, for ever and ever. No family home, no general store, no Tony down the street to rely on; just an endless rhythm of feeding and moving on. And she wouldn't trade it, not to have that old small town life back, not for anything. Because for a small town girl who'd never dreamed of anything else, the greatest wonder was to be taken to a whole new world she hadn't even known she'd wanted.
At the end of every night, she'd still swear the dawn came far too soon.