Kinjaav

✹☽ Vampires of Redhaven ☾✹

@Cio@yoyohayli@Eviledd1984

So here’s what I was thinking: Evren and Aava leave Lucifer’s apartment to head back into the woods, but see Josuke and immediately attack and kill him because they’re starving. Lucifer, Brian, and Hayato hear the gruesome commotion and come outside to investigate.

✹☽ Vampires of Redhaven ☾✹

@yoyohayli@Cio

“If I require your approval, I’ll ask for it.” Evren said, exasperated and clearly affronted. He sighed with a furrowed brow, holding his index and middle fingers to his temple. His eyes fluttered open and settled into a somewhat sad gaze at Lucifer. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for, but this isn’t a simple preference like a child is picky for food. Aava needs flesh as we need blood. As I need blood. If there was another way, don’t you think we would have found it by now?”
He’d tried several times in his life to feed from other creatures. Deer, rabbits, pigs, cattle, cats, even beavers — all they did was make him feel sicker and more ravenous than before. For some beasts such a diet was enough, he’d heard, but it was not enough for him and he highly doubted it would be enough for Aava. He considered Lucifer carefully as he searched for a middle way.
“I… I can try something.” Evren said. “There’s a pond not far from my cabin. I can take Aava there, we’ll hunt in the forest and we’ll be careful not to… not to upset the order of things. Your patrons will be safe and I won’t disturb you further.” His final words had just the slightest edge to them, perhaps unconsciously.

Evren and Aava

"Minun minun minun! (Is that all you know, demon?)" Evren taunted as he backed himself up to a tree. He looked at the cut on his arm; it was already starting to heal, but he couldn't change form again until it did. He could only blame himself, provoking some unknown creature in its element was, well, stupid of him.
Fleeing Bavaria was lonely business. It was hard to adjust to the isolating wilderness of this world after spending so many years in the states of Holy Rome, even if he was picking up on the new languages somewhat quickly. The villages were so tiny and insular, with no place for an outsider like himself. He had no idea how he would feed without rousing suspicion among whole populations. He groaned and closed his eyes, sinking to the ground and dragging his yellowish talons across the dirt, pulling up blades of grass while he listened to the water devil ask more and more probing questions that he could hardly understand.

Kylmä liha.
Cold meat.

He understood that; he'd heard it in the village where he met the sailors. He sat up to respond, unflinchingly meeting her gaze. "Kylmä liha, kylmä verta. Vampyyri." Evren pointed to his wound and then to himself.

Evren and Aava

The body that dragged itself onto the shady lakeshore to vomit water looked more like a well-preserved cadaver than a living being. Evren’s freckled complexion replaced by shriveled and pock-marked skin the color and texture of pallid leather. He had a few patches of coarse white hair on his head but he was mostly bald, with a scraggly unkempt beard and wild eyebrows. His clothes hung off of his malnourished frame, wet and clinging to his very bony torso. A gnarled hand clutched his wounded wrist, blood seeping between his fingers as the hollow-eyed creature winced in pain and sucked in a breath between stained fangs. Icy black eyes opened and stared death into Aava. ”(You witch! How stupid are you?! Can’t you sense your own?)”
Evren stopped himself; he’d been shouting in German, and realized that wouldn’t get him anywhere. This water wench couldn’t eat him and he couldn’t eat her, even if he’d wanted to, so he settled on recalling some of his victims' words to try and make some sense to her. ”Tämä hirviö! Veren juomari, verenimijä!" He gritted his teeth to snarl at her and continued as best he could in Swedish. "(But you've done what they couldn't, broken my mask and revealed this wretched monster to the daylight. I hope you're proud of yourself.)" He wasn't making a lot of sense, but his anger and panic were plain across his weathered face.

✹☽ Vampires of Redhaven ☾✹

@yoyohayli@Cio

Feeling water seep into his shoe, Evren glanced down to see his foot and lower leg were tangled up in the end of Aava's muculent mane; in his hurry he hadn't realized the mess they'd inevitably made in Lucifer's apartment. He extracted his limb from the mess and clumsily pushed the algal hair into the tub with her, causing a small wave across the waters surface to cause even more spillage onto the floor as the Näkki became comfortable in her 'lake.' Evren's worried countenance and uneasy sigh hinted at the muddy wash of apprehension and discomfiture that overtook him as he came to fully grasp the turn his life had taken this day. Lucifer deserved a lot more than an explanation. "I lived in Finland before I came to the New World. This was… 1610, maybe. It all seemed ready to boil over, swallow Europe whole, riots and rebellions. War was coming. I couldn’t—"
I couldn’t. Evren coughed and continued.
"I wanted to wander again, so I wandered north." He reached aimlessly into his mind for more, but couldn't feel much. He hoped it was just out of hunger that he was suffering this fogginess. "Aava stopped me, I guess. We spent... a very long time together. Hunting villagers, avoiding soldiers. It was chaotic and I... I loved it, we had a lot of fun."
Evren stooped forward to pull the towel away from Lucifer, and he began to mop up the floor himself. "One day I left. I don't remember why but I left and I never came back for her. How she's here now..." He paused and picked up the damp towel. "I haven't the faintest. I really don't."

Evren and Aava

How I wish I could.
Evren practically let the Näkki drag him under the water, practically still until he felt his skin pierced by her claws. All at once he was violently protesting against her grasp as his visage was ripped away from him like a torn shirt. His struggling kicked up sediment as he tried to plant his feet somewhere solid, searching for some leverage to throw the assailant off. Desperate to escape his vulnerable form he made a wild bite for her arm, inhaling a mouthful of water as he let his massive, uneven fangs sink into her sallow flesh. He didn’t want to drink of her or turn her, if even he could; he just wanted to shift back out of his miserable skin, and he didn’t care how many watery breaths it took to get back on the shore, to change again, to get out of this skin.

✹☽ Vampires of Redhaven ☾✹

@yoyohayli@Cio

Evren half lead and half dragged Aava through the narrow corridors between buildings of Redhaven's urban center, if it was large or dense enough to be called that. He was grateful that the streets were still empty.
"That should be fine." Evren responded, though he wasn't actually sure. The lake was always quite cold, even freezing over in the winter, but he didn't remember that being a problem. 'Water demon' wasn't exactly an apt descriptor of what Aava was, and Evren knew that. Nœkken are quite unique creatures, more like sirens maybe, but he was fairly sure Lucifer had never made his way to the wilds of Scandinavia to familiarize himself with the beings that lived there.
”Aava eats mortals; not like us biters do, literally hunts and eats them. That’s why she tried to attack you. She can’t eat us, but in this state she’s too desperately hungry to realize.” Evren explained to Lucifer as he helped Aava into the tub, a worried look on his face. He kept a grasp on Aava’s hand. “I haven’t seen her in over four hundred years, and now she’s half-dead in front of me. I thought she would be safe in Finland.”

✹☽ Vampires of Redhaven ☾✹

I got called into work so my post might not be up until late tonight. But then I’m off til Sunday so if my posts suck then be sure to roast me for it!!

Evren and Aava

A few stray drops of water fell from his mouth to the water’s surface, creating ripples across the face within. Evren blinked once, twice, and stared back at the creature with equally wide-eyed vacancy. He moved to sit in a kneeling position so he could lift his hands from the mud and fold them in his lap.
”(And what happened to you?)” Evren asked in broken Swedish. He wasn’t sure if he cared about the lake dweller understanding him, but it occurred to him that those fishermen and the other Finnish peasants he’d encountered in his journey didn’t talk anything like the Lutheran Swedes he’d known in the past. He supposed it may be like the church’s use of Latin in Catholic nations across Europe, but hoped it had at least some mutual intelligibility. Maintaining steady eye contact with the woman, Evren did something foolhardy. He reached his muddied left hand into the water, making a slow but deliberate motion to touch her face.

✹☽ Vampires of Redhaven ☾✹

@Cio@yoyohayli

”Thank you, Lus.” Evren said with a grateful sigh. He felt Aava reach again for Lucifer but knew it was a weak and instinctual reflex; she was too subdued to pose any threat to the ancient vampire.
He let his crossed arms fall down across her torso so he could take her hands in his and turn her around. Finally looking at his lost friend after all but knowing they would never meet again was overwhelming, equal parts harrowing and galvanic in their sorry states. His eyes blew wide with unadulterated joy at Aava’s semi-comprehensible gurgling, taking his attention away from Lucifer completely.
”(Yes! You are Aava, my dear friend!)” he encouraged, thrilled for the confirmation that the Näkki he cared for so deeply could still be reached. He held their hands together between them and Evren looked kindly into Aava’s eyes. “(We’re going home to the lake, okay? Just follow me.)”