Post by The Mouth on Jul 4, 2014 11:35:50 GMT -8
Okay. How to spot a Toreador:
Forget the grace, the style, the poise, the… Well fuck, forget what your logic tells you. When you see a Toreador in their ‘passion’ you see them exultant and they share that exaltation. Others can get there, but that fascination with great beauty, great pain, great… Something. It is in nearly everything they do.
Margritte’s nipples got hard every time she thought of carving me up. It wasn’t just arousal; glassy eyed and anticapatory - No, regular psychos have all that. It is the way she holds the knife, how she chose to make her beauty the most important thing in the world to me before she swung at me - The urge, the need to make this moment a perfection capture in violence with an imperfect canvas. Impressionistic murder sadism.
Yeah. That. That is how a Toreador do.
Grigori let himself go to the Beast early in the fight and he and Margritte came at me in a perfect tandem from a mere 5 meters away. Grigori was trying to transform into something really ugly; his skin had gone oily and black.
So I opted for a different option. I used the gifts of my Vitae, I’d been counting on a physical confrontation this entire time and had increased my speed. Funniest thing, I had Seattle iron wood daggers; who knew? Apparently not Grigori.
I’d palmed it from a waist sheath during our chat, as soon as he charged I flipped at him; deeply saddened at how upset it was going to make Margritte.
Grigori had enough time to say ‘Raaaa-URK!’ and fall stiffly to the floor.
Margritte on the other hand wasn’t running to me as much she was doing some odd hop-skips. Her knives were made of bone and steel, crafted and molded to her hands, as she whirled and leapt at me I pulled another with blurring quickness, this one plain steel, curved in the way of the Pesh-Kabz.
For her part Margritte plunged her right blade into my chest; I quickly twist, binding the blade in my ribs and tearing it from her hands. Hissing she comes at me with her other blade, pale beauty, ethereal and deadly, feet stamping and flashing steel. It bites my flesh but does more to my shirt than me. Whirling almost faster than a human could process she slices my leg, a burning cut scored against me and my resilience.
This was going to end quickly.
We danced, Margritte and I. We abandoned the use of Celerity, we needed blood too much to focus our vitae on disciplines in the fight; even lost to her Beast we moved back and forth across the car, weaving, blocking, striking, her inhuman snarls of the cornered jaguar against my silent precision.
I was the better of us, but I was drawn into her passion, her need for this even in the throes of frenzy. I knew she was blending Soviet Spetsnaz training with capoeira our blades ringing a tempo back and forth, our feet stamping.
I learned why the Toreador mourn their loss of humanity; in my living days this exchange would have left me breathing hard, gulping air, and shrieking my defiance at death; a woman and a steak in that order would have been my victory celebration.
Now… My muscles do not tire, do not scream at me. I am fluid and graceful beyond human explanation. If I win… I win. Nothing more.
In that moment of existential distraction Margritte’s blade sank deep into my throat. She howled and triumph and ripped the knife from the wound only to see it close immediately. I could see the terror that suddenly gripped her Beast as she finally realized that I was not a mortal. My knife slipped out and opened her belly, slicing into her intestines and the blood stored there; a sheet of blood ran down her pale legs.
She shrieked and rallied for one more strike; gone was the grace, now there was just rage at being fooled and a need to rend.
My hand flicked out and she stumbled; I’d just stabbed her through the heart, her vitae trickling down her breast, oozing black-red trails. The Beast left her and she mewled on the floor, trying piteously to collect her guts back and to crawl to Grigori.
I pull Grigori away from her, knowing I have a few minutes before her systems catch up to what I did to her body.
“Grigori, if you kill her I won’t just kill you in turn; I’ll end you. I won the bet; you offered safe haven and violated your word, and I know how your Blood feels about that.”
I look at them both, her without the words to express her love; only able to do it in the moment, and that flash of violence, the dance - There I can find Margritte from London, witty, charming, beautiful, amazed at the spectacle or Mary Poppins. She hummed the tune back to the hotel, knowing that she would kill me some day.
But for a few hours she loved me.
And today, today we danced again. And I was able to taste her love for Grigori, her need for the pressure of a partner… So much she could still say without even the mind to say it.
“Corbin will collect the intel. Fuck me on this and you know that I or my friends will come for you. And if we do, I’ll take her from you Grigori. And I will make her better. And I will make you watch. Clear? Oh, and give Corbin my fucking knife back, in perfect condition.”
He is frozen, unable to respond. So, I nod sagely. A few minutes of wandering and a lovely young woman sells me a pair of pants and a sweatshirt. I place them near Margritte, kiss my hand, touch her head, and leave. I won’t have the woman and the steak, but I can settle for something else.
For a few more hours I can pretend that some of those tears were for me.
Toreador
By Ben Vaughan
Forget the grace, the style, the poise, the… Well fuck, forget what your logic tells you. When you see a Toreador in their ‘passion’ you see them exultant and they share that exaltation. Others can get there, but that fascination with great beauty, great pain, great… Something. It is in nearly everything they do.
Margritte’s nipples got hard every time she thought of carving me up. It wasn’t just arousal; glassy eyed and anticapatory - No, regular psychos have all that. It is the way she holds the knife, how she chose to make her beauty the most important thing in the world to me before she swung at me - The urge, the need to make this moment a perfection capture in violence with an imperfect canvas. Impressionistic murder sadism.
Yeah. That. That is how a Toreador do.
Grigori let himself go to the Beast early in the fight and he and Margritte came at me in a perfect tandem from a mere 5 meters away. Grigori was trying to transform into something really ugly; his skin had gone oily and black.
So I opted for a different option. I used the gifts of my Vitae, I’d been counting on a physical confrontation this entire time and had increased my speed. Funniest thing, I had Seattle iron wood daggers; who knew? Apparently not Grigori.
I’d palmed it from a waist sheath during our chat, as soon as he charged I flipped at him; deeply saddened at how upset it was going to make Margritte.
Grigori had enough time to say ‘Raaaa-URK!’ and fall stiffly to the floor.
Margritte on the other hand wasn’t running to me as much she was doing some odd hop-skips. Her knives were made of bone and steel, crafted and molded to her hands, as she whirled and leapt at me I pulled another with blurring quickness, this one plain steel, curved in the way of the Pesh-Kabz.
For her part Margritte plunged her right blade into my chest; I quickly twist, binding the blade in my ribs and tearing it from her hands. Hissing she comes at me with her other blade, pale beauty, ethereal and deadly, feet stamping and flashing steel. It bites my flesh but does more to my shirt than me. Whirling almost faster than a human could process she slices my leg, a burning cut scored against me and my resilience.
This was going to end quickly.
We danced, Margritte and I. We abandoned the use of Celerity, we needed blood too much to focus our vitae on disciplines in the fight; even lost to her Beast we moved back and forth across the car, weaving, blocking, striking, her inhuman snarls of the cornered jaguar against my silent precision.
I was the better of us, but I was drawn into her passion, her need for this even in the throes of frenzy. I knew she was blending Soviet Spetsnaz training with capoeira our blades ringing a tempo back and forth, our feet stamping.
I learned why the Toreador mourn their loss of humanity; in my living days this exchange would have left me breathing hard, gulping air, and shrieking my defiance at death; a woman and a steak in that order would have been my victory celebration.
Now… My muscles do not tire, do not scream at me. I am fluid and graceful beyond human explanation. If I win… I win. Nothing more.
In that moment of existential distraction Margritte’s blade sank deep into my throat. She howled and triumph and ripped the knife from the wound only to see it close immediately. I could see the terror that suddenly gripped her Beast as she finally realized that I was not a mortal. My knife slipped out and opened her belly, slicing into her intestines and the blood stored there; a sheet of blood ran down her pale legs.
She shrieked and rallied for one more strike; gone was the grace, now there was just rage at being fooled and a need to rend.
My hand flicked out and she stumbled; I’d just stabbed her through the heart, her vitae trickling down her breast, oozing black-red trails. The Beast left her and she mewled on the floor, trying piteously to collect her guts back and to crawl to Grigori.
I pull Grigori away from her, knowing I have a few minutes before her systems catch up to what I did to her body.
“Grigori, if you kill her I won’t just kill you in turn; I’ll end you. I won the bet; you offered safe haven and violated your word, and I know how your Blood feels about that.”
I look at them both, her without the words to express her love; only able to do it in the moment, and that flash of violence, the dance - There I can find Margritte from London, witty, charming, beautiful, amazed at the spectacle or Mary Poppins. She hummed the tune back to the hotel, knowing that she would kill me some day.
But for a few hours she loved me.
And today, today we danced again. And I was able to taste her love for Grigori, her need for the pressure of a partner… So much she could still say without even the mind to say it.
“Corbin will collect the intel. Fuck me on this and you know that I or my friends will come for you. And if we do, I’ll take her from you Grigori. And I will make her better. And I will make you watch. Clear? Oh, and give Corbin my fucking knife back, in perfect condition.”
He is frozen, unable to respond. So, I nod sagely. A few minutes of wandering and a lovely young woman sells me a pair of pants and a sweatshirt. I place them near Margritte, kiss my hand, touch her head, and leave. I won’t have the woman and the steak, but I can settle for something else.
For a few more hours I can pretend that some of those tears were for me.
Toreador
By Ben Vaughan