Author’s Note: I write this as scene for a character that I play in a larp game. It’s been a long time since a scene flowed so naturally for me. I had a fabulous time with her angst, I must say.

Esther sat in the darkness of her house. Only a few sparse lights on but most in deep, dark shadow. Her mind raced and tumbled and roiled, her spirit yearned and hated and screamed. Her heart twisted and tore and moaned in pain. She felt forces at war within her, threatening to tear her asunder.
He hadn’t come. She had called for him and he hadn’t come. Gryphon had stood there in that room, watched Porter scream and threaten her with torture and death, watched McGreggor half-drain her and somehow force her to burn away the rest of her own blood. He must have watched her drop, lifeless, to the ground. And yet he had said and done nothing! She needed to know why. Why had he been there? Why had he said nothing, stood as far away from her as he could? What was the point? She needed to know. She was angry, yes, extremely so, but, moreover, she was hurt, confused…betrayed. If he had had no desire to help her, he should have stayed out. She’d almost wavered at sight of him, but finally overcame it.

Yes, she was angry. Angry at Porter for doing this to her (yet, she felt that she could understand why he did it, oddly enough), angry at Gryphon for not helping her or at least standing up for her, angry at Gabriel for blaming himself and crying over her, angry at herself for not fighting  back. And she found herself to be especially pissed at the Nosferatu. They were everything that was wrong with this darkened world – self-serving, arrogant, torturous monsters. It was a Nos who had cut her face open and made her relive the most horrible pain of her lifetime. It was a Nos who had had stabbed Julian, spilled the blood that sent her into frenzy and doomed him, they had a hand in Julian’s death as surely as if they had pulled down those curtains themselves. It was a Nos that had held, half-drained, and forced her burn away the rest of her own vitae from her veins. It was a Nos who had ordered it, and a Nos prince that now ruled her city and had surely said nothing in her defense. It was them. They were the cause of everything! Even Fairchild. He was no better than the rest of them. He served his own agenda, no matter what happened to others. He tucked tail and ran while she met her enemy head on. He was just like the rest of the sneaky rats.

Esther’s heart smote her, the bond punishing her even as she thought those things but she didn’t care. Esther shook with rage and pain and found herself screaming. Thankfully, the shadow-swathed studio was soundproofed and her screams died halfway through the heavy insulation. She wanted to cry, wanted to so badly but she refused to allow herself to do so. She barely cared about the world outside the walls of her home, vampiric or mortal. What the hell was she to do now? Carry on as she had before? Surely, she was no longer harpy or herald and was thus of no use to the Nos-filled court in any case. No one would care for her, no one would protect her if they came for her again.

Shakily, Esther stood to her feet, looking at the mirrors all around her in the dance studio, her reflection blurry in the sparse light of the room. Suddenly, with a rageful roar, she rushed at the mirrors, fist striking out at them. The glass shuddered, bent, then cracked, then shattered, falling in shards and shrapnel and bits to the wooden floor. She rushed at the next and obliterated it as well. Systemically, frantically, logically, madly, Esther Montesori rained glass down on the world that she inhabited, sparkling shards covering the floor. Her bare feet were cut, embedded with the razor bits but she did not care. One could hardly say that she felt them.

Empty frames covered the walls, white and blue reflected from the ceiling and onto the floor but in mere bits and pieces. A broken fascimile of the majestic sky. Esther knelt in the middle of it all. Silently, eerily so.

Slender, red-lined fingers unfolded and crept outward, searching for something. Finally it found it. A sharp point flashing in sparse light. A sharp point met flesh and began its course. A sharp point severed skin cell, flesh fibers, sinew and muscle, leaving an open path in its wake. East to West, West to East the paths – two of them – stretched on Esther’s face.

For the fourth time, the final time, she told herself, she bore the marks of absolute pain, absolute helplessness. She would not do it again. She would die before she would do it again.