#73 Restriction

I feel very…off.
Everything is wrong. Every snide look Amy gives makes me angry. Every biting remark that comes spinning out of Melony’s throat makes me want to snap. I can’t stand to be around Trent more than Sunday mass at best. I want to tear him apart.
And I can’t.
It’s a horrid nagging, only explainable as a torrential conscience berating me for every little thing I did.
I hate the way I think. I’ve been with myself for a century now, thinking is what I do. A constant scribble to keep my Beast away and now, I can’t stand myself. Every cold flippant gesture, every small dig I can no longer muster. Even my sarcasm is stunted.
I can’t lie. I can’t cheat. I can barely fight, and only when myself and others are in mortal danger-(Melony has no idea how close I was to frenzying that night. I don’t know if I’d have stopped. Best keep her ignorant.)
My impressive ability of immaculate calculation and ambivalence towards anyone and anything riled my Beast in ways it never had.
Like I was new to all of it.
I knew what happened to me, what Briske had done. I wasn’t an apprentice anymore. I found out what it was rather quickly, even.
Return of the Heart.
A curse Camarilla Tremere liked to pull on their Sabbat infiltrators and have their packs tear them apart for losing their edge.
I was never happier to be a part of the Shadow Steps than I was the third night after that discovery. Cybil would have destroyed me the minute I got between her and her meal.
I didn’t want to take chances, however. Raven was forgiving, but I did not know how much. Amy would hopefully see it as a delightful improvement. Trent would smell blood in the water.
Melony looked like she still wanted to pull me apart to see how I ticked.
I stay clear of Trent. I keep away from Amy’s tone. I bite my tongue around Cinder. And all the while I feel a roar in my chest.
Hopefully they can take my absences from their festivities as a sign of my unrelenting and cold character. It’ll keep them away from the truth.
But it wasn’t always possible. They got thrust into my face time and time again.
‘Aurora, a little girl, wants a normal life.’
-She is a weakness that has been exploited. Get rid of it.-
‘Crow, previous pack leader, of course wake him up. He didn’t deserve to die.’
-And he could be used just like your Ductus.-
‘Melony does not sleep well, her mind as dark as the past she fled.’
-If you really were the monster you tried to be, you’d use that against her when, WHEN she stabs you in the back.-
‘Harld really does need to calm down.’
-You should have beat his head in until he stopped moving and his body turned to ash.-
‘And fuel a rivalry? She would have killed me.’
-She may be the one fated to kill you anyway. Why else would you dream of her?-
‘Harld means too much. It wouldn’t fair well for Melony.’
-This curse is the ONLY reason you care. WHEN it wears off, WHEN, what happens? What becomes of her ‘Funny Man’ then? When you can’t smile through the numb belligerence on your face?!-
I was thankful the rest of the pack didn’t notice. Or they did not care. When I got my edge back, they’d not have anything to miss.
And the thought of it infuriates me.
When I got my edge back? When I became a cold killer all over again?! Because that is worth attaining?!
-Compassion gets you killed. Survival has meaning. Power has meaning.-
‘But with it I would have had something worth living for.’
-You aren’t alive.-
‘But I feel alive. More alive than I have since…breathing.’
-It’s the curse.-
‘You cannot exist only to survive, old boy.’
-Funny, that came from a dying man.-
‘Funny, the idea of surviving for no purpose came from Briske.’
That was another thing.
With this new…conscience, I’ve started to think about things that I never let bother me before.
1875 to 1888. It was all…gone. Pieces and flashes here and there tried to trick me into knowing I was with Briske that time, but no. That was all in a decade and a half. Thirteen years, missing. I feel like I had known it was gone before, but it mattered so little to the overall scheme to me. Now…it did.
It confuses me, terrifies me. I don’t know why Briske had kidnapped me simply to curse me with a nagging kindness. For my pack to kill me? No. For me to kill the monsters I rode with? Maybe. But something told me it was deeper than that.
There are moments my mind flies a mile a minute and I cannot break out of my own head. My thoughts flood and all I can do is focus on them until the problem is finished.
KillValentinaUseRaventogettoAdamCrowisnotworththeeffortCinderisdoomedMelonyisweakTrentknowsaweaknessAmyisafoolHarldknowswhatyouare-
I often times just sit near the pool when my head runs too fast- thoughtless, ruthless. Then…when I thought of it harder…
Valentina doesn’t know. Her aggression is ignorance. Inform her.
Raven would not survive. He is useless dead. He doesn’t deserve to be a tool.
Crow could help in ways unseen. Give it time.
Cinder would be long gone by now if there was nothing in him to fight for.
Melony still stands, in defiance of time. Still, your only friend.
Trent knows nothing of pain.
Amy is only a neonate.
Harld is waiting to see what you can become.
Cold logic could be tempered by a great many things, and when I stop the ways I used to think and behave, it made it easier.
Yes, I was changing because of a curse, but if I did not, I would fall to the Beast over the most trivial of things. I would find a way to overcome it, even if I couldn’t do all the things I was accustomed to. Even if I started to see Raven in a different light. Even if I had to learn to forgive Cinder his outbursts. If I had to learn who Amy was. If I started to grow attached to the woman underneath the frost.
Live to fight another day, but first you must survive.
And I did everything I could to survive, did I not?