Saturday, September 16, 2006

PRIMAL REQUIEM EXCERPT: Sasha's Rise



**This follows after The First Movement: Raenos's Regret, where Raenos ends his life believing that he has killed the only woman he ever loved. Sasha, his lover, survives his bite, and wakes...**

Death lay upon her like a languished lover.

The warmth of his body, the warmth of her blood was gone. Consciousness came and went. Chills swept her body, but her skin no longer held the ability to respond. Her heart scarcely beat, and pumped only ache in a slow dance through inert veins. Breathing took all of her will. Speech would not yield itself, nor would her eyes open to the drama which swept the stage of her hearing.

Sasha was alone, and in torment.

She heard his hymn, she knew his plans. And she was unable to stop him. Raenos was doubly guilty, of his suicide and her inability to prevent it. For though she suffered, lingering near death, she loved him still, no matter his sins. She would have offered her throat had he not taken it; she would have surrendered the sun to live in the shadows with him. But, when he drove that dagger into his own chest, he cut out her heart as well.

His fall was hers.

Raenos had cried out his remorse and fallen silent. A tear slipped down her cheek that she could not wipe away. It trailed down her chin, to mingle in the single track of blood across her neck. Sasha surrendered to the encroaching darkness. She sighed, and fell into the arms of black sleep.

But, her rest was not eternal, as she had hoped.

Hours later, the chill of evening crept through the window and woke her with its icy touch. She shivered, the frigid temperature seeping into the marrow of her bones, shuddering through her limbs. Sasha rolled onto her side, groaning against the pain wracking her. The room spun before her glazed eyes and then righted itself with a sickening lurch. Her stomach convulsed, regurgitating spent acid and clotted blood that had drained into her stomach from Raenos's last kiss. She lay, head hanging only inches above the fetid mess on the floor, the true weight of his attack levied upon her with the sight of her own blood.

Her lover was a vampire. In their passion and his savage hunger, Raenos had lost control of the beast in his blood, riding hard between her thighs as he sank his fangs deep in her throat. His primal instincts drove pain and pleasure through her in rhythmic time as he took her toward climax and death in one.

Bliss burned through her, flooding in waves from her core even as he pulled on the last of her life essence. She gasped once, and her eyes fell closed. Raenos had released her then, his canines, hot as branding irons, ripped out of her flesh. A low moan escaped him as he looked at her pale face, and the thin line of blood which trailed across her flesh. He lifted her head, kissing her lax lips, allowing the metallic spill of her own blood to drain into her gut.

Raenos had stumbled backward, then, tearing at his hair and screaming. He could not forgive himself for his sin; his heart broke with a near audible snap, and, void of emotion as he turned toward his workbench.

Now, he was gone, missing from her side, missing from their bedchamber--missing, she was afraid, from life itself. Sasha refused to believe him dead. She dragged her body off from the bed to fall with a sick thud to the hard floor. The evidence of Raenos's self-afflicted wounds lay in thick pool on the floor, and led in a crimson trail out of the room. Trembling, Sasha followed his path through the hallway, tumbled in a loose mess down the stairs to and came to a stop at the bottom. His blood slick lay atop the fibers of the Persian rug she'd once chose to grace the foyer. Sasha clawed her way across the fibers, over the threshold and out into the shadows of evening.

The truth lay before her.

A scorched ring of black encircled ashes piled in the shape of a man. Sobs wracked Sasha's body, but died in her parched throat. Bringing tears hurt, the moisture stung her dry eyes, yet she cried. She crawled toward the evidence of his demise, her knees rubbed raw, her fingernails broke off, her raw flesh leaving ghosts of red behind as she crawled.

She knelt where his head should be, touching the dust which was once the black waves she loved to run her fingers through. Tears fell freely as his ashes packed her raw wounds. Weak from blood loss and exertion, Sasha dragged her legs beneath her, forced her body into a kneeling position as she pulled her betrothal gift from atop the mound of ashes. She recognized its shape, she had lain and watched Raenos carving it. She stroked its gilded surface with an ash-and-blood fingertip before tucking it into the crook of an elbow as she rescued her lover's dagger from his remains as well.

A spark of light caught her eye. She leaned forward, sifting her hands through her lover's remains until she retrieved Raenos's signet ring. The bauble, an heirloom passed through his family for generations, rested on her palm. A band of warm yellow gold, with a large squared field of red enamel beneath the coiled, black form of a carved onyx dragon. She slipped the ring over the knuckle on the middle finger of her life hand, binding herself to him with what was left of her life.

It was her ring now, his legacy now her burden to bear...

(Copyright, Savannah Jordan 2006)

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Concert to close Summer


**WARNING: Gratuitous bitching will ensue**

Yeah. It was supposed to the concert event to close out the Summer (a season I am VERY happy to see end). Well, it started raining the damn day before and didn't stop. And, cold rain, too, the kind of damp cold shyt that is not good for my arthritis.

We decided to go, regardless of the weather, $40 is a lot to choke down. Raingear was dragged out, turtle neck and sweatshirts donned, along with jeans and sneakers. I felt like a kid going to school. Hell, my girlfriend Weezer even wore a yellow slicker! Cute on her, too, but she looked like the Unibomber minus the aviatar sunglasses and facial hair. Abby was bundled in blue. Me?? One of those trashbag looking ponchos--oh yeah, loved that look...

Well, we were stuck parking way the fuck out in the feild on the far side of the fair. We walked through the feild, down the hill and into the fairgrounds. Dozens of other people were wearing trashbag ponchos, so at least I didn't feel like a complete fashion accident on feet. We wondered the lanes of Carnies calling for us to play their games--poor bastards looked pretty dismal sitting there like Mother Nature had handed them their own asses. Needless to say, we ladies were above that, so we moved on. We ended up finding a food vendor who had loaded baked potatoes, so we had some hot, somewhat-wholesome food before walking into the track/venue for the Nickelback/Hoobastank/Chevelle/Hinder concert.

The pisser is, Hinder fucking backed out!! Yeah, the one band we all wanted to see other than Nickelback. I hope that band is making good money somewhere else, because I know they pissed off a lot of Michigan rednecks that night!

The race track looked like a mud pit from Hell, a good damned inch of slippery, sloppy muck sucking at your shoes with every step. Lovely. I don't know if I've ever laid it out here, but I HATE dirt. The entire place was dirt. Ew! We walked from vendor booths at one end of the mudfuckingpit to the other, and Abby finally settled on a Nickelback cap. We slopped our way across the mudfuckingpit to the grandstand seating, such as it was, and we managed to stay dry through Chevelle. Not a bad band, especially for not recognizing anything they played. Well, okay, one or two songs of their songs had a ghost of familiarity.

Then, oh yippee fucking skippee, an usher comes up and tells us we are sitting in assigned seating and that we needed to move. We already knew that. It was just a matter of time before we descended the stairs into Hellmuthafuckingmudpit.

Hoobastank--who choose that name??--was okay, I guess. Not as good as the other band that I didn't know, but hey, it was raining, so what the hell, let's stand through mediocrity while waiting for Nickelback.

FINALLY, Nickelback took the stage. It would have been an awesome moment, seeing as the rain had actually stopped, and the tremors in my thigh had ceased as well. Nope. No way. Not happening. We were accosted with the mating calls of inebriated Squealing ColorGuard Bitches. The moment light swathed Chad Kroeger, the teeny weeny teeny boppers started screeching like bitches in heat. "OMG! He's so fucking hot!" Followed by three rabid magpie others. "OMG!! HE'S SO FUCKING HOT!!" Over and over and over again.

No shit. We all know that he's hot, so does he. He also can't hear a damn thing you're caterwauling in my ear!!! Everything fiber of my being screamed to turn and throttle the Squealers, but last time I checked, infanticide was illeagal. "Shut the fuck up," kept dancing on my lips. I resisted the urge to drive their faces into the quagmire we were all standing in.

Other than that, Nickelback rocked ass. They are one of my favorite bands, and once the flock of Squealers took flight, my girlfriends and I enjoyed the show. They didn't play Follow You Home (my favorite), but every other song was awesome. The best tune of the night, for me, was Savin Me--I love that song--followed closely by Figured You Out.

Oh, and Weezer introduced me to a new tune--big fun!--on the way. Cory Lee's title, The Naughty Song. If you don't have it, and you like that naughty, slink-across-the-floor kind of music, go get it! (My friends out there know my email, so if y'all want it, let me know and I'll email ya the file)

So, in summation, the concert season was awesome, but Summer can get the fuck out. Come on Fall!!

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Pissed pussycat

Okay, now I love animals, especially cats, but this video clip had me laughing my ass off...

http://www.break.com/index/looking_for_a_happy_home.html