August Catch-All

[sing_for_me]

Who: Alex Benedetto and various people
When: Mostly the full moon
Where: Various places
What: Dealing with a slightly more volatile merrow
Warnings: May contain violence!

If anyone else would to do anything for either the full moon or anywhere in the month of August feel free to pm me or hit me up at mightycheese

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[whomthebelltolls]

Maria winces again as the teeth slide out of the wounds, and rather than the persistent pain of the bite, her arm is allowed to sting and ache as it bleeds into her glove. She cradles the arm against her stomach, ignoring the droplets of blood as they stain the front of her trousers. The cool night air sinks in to her water-soaked clothes, but it's not entirely the chill she feels from it that makes her shiver when Alex's hand caresses her cheek.

In fact, it's the gentleness of that touch which nearly unravels her entirely. She grabs desperately to whatever shreds of dignity she has left and cracks one eye open, looking down, meeting Alex's eyes. It helps, to see the slightly hazy edge of hyperfixation in that gaze that tells her a predator is looking at her; that there's still plenty of the Beast called "merrow" driving the other woman. She's not sure what Alex is going to do, if the tenderness of that touch is going to turn into fingers curling around her vulnerable throat - all she has protecting it at the moment is her cravat.

She realizes she doesn't really care, either, if that's how it goes.

Maria realizes, belatedly, she's been asked a question. She is so exhausted, so worn that for a moment she doesn't really know how to answer it. Not with the swirling in her mind, the bits and flashes that keep cropping up from that night. She never remembers all of it, but she does remember different parts of it nearly every time, even as she forgets others; that whole evening the broken cascade of words and images and feelings of someone who had imbibed far too much alcohol, and woke up somewhere unfamiliar, unsure how they got there.

She can't say it, though. Even with her broken weariness, she can't admit to what she did, and she's not sure her voice will last that long anyway.

"I've done enough," she replies, voice trembling; the tears she never did shed over the whole situation are stuck in her throat, and don't seem to be able to move to her eyes.

For a moment, Maria is glad she isn't Bonded; that she's been so stubborn and reticent about it. The ice she carefully constructed over that swirling, churning sea of despair has cracked, the black water flooding up through the breaks. No one needs to feel that first hand.

She wants this night to be over. She doesn't want this hunt anymore. She wants to go home, and go to sleep, and maybe when she awakens the nightmare will be over.

But first, she wants Alex back. So she stays.

[sing_for_me]

The metallic taste of blood still lingers in her mouth, the smell of it also in the air. Alex's eyes look down at the stained clothing, then back to the state Maria was in. She props herself up on her free arm, moving closer towards the other woman.

"Why would you go through all of this..and not kill me?"

[whomthebelltolls]

"I am a Hunter," Maria says, hollowly, and immediately hears her own voice in her mind answer, no I am not. She rises, a bit, from where she was leaning so heavily against her sword, leaving it buried in the sand. Her mind bleats a tired warning - those teeth are sharp, and they're getting closer to her more vulnerable areas - but she ignores it just as wearily. "I hunt Beasts."

She takes a breath in, notes the metallic tang of blood still on the air, but doesn't feel the blood within her quicken at the scent of it, like it used to. Her bloodlust is gone, just as surely as the corruption from the Vileblood had also been stripped. She remains hunched over, but she's not leaning anymore. This is about as much energy as she can muster to meet her fate. She's a Hunter who is not a Hunter anymore... who cannot even Hunt. Not the way she used to.

"It is all I know. But... you are not a Beast, are you?"

[sing_for_me]

Alex's hand doesn't go after Maria as she pull away, slowly lowering as she takes in Maria's words.

"Even after everything..I did to you?"

There's a quiver in her voice, something more familiar to her usual tone. That she had done something so very wrong was only beginning to settle in Alex's mind, her instincts and her consciousness debating over what had transpired. Maria was intervening, the merrow was only defending herself. But Maria was her friend. If Alex could do that to someone she considered important, how could that make her anything but a beast?

"Why would you..Why did you let me do that?" Maria could have stopped her so easily, could have defended herself without a problem.

[whomthebelltolls]

"Everything you did to me...?" What a strange turn of phrase for what happened - though that Alex is shifting the blame onto herself tells Maria that Alex - actually Alex - is returning to her, and whatever madness the moon and the merrow were influencing her with is fading.

But now there's a more delicate subject appearing. Maria lifts her injured arm a little - not flinching nor hissing at all, though the motion stings. "This? My glove took the brunt of it; this is nothing. You would have to try much harder to scar me as the Beasts at home have."

She shifts a bit, reaching down to delicately grip Alex's elbow. Assuring her is making it easy to stay calm, to make the screaming and curses and voices in her head fade away, though Maria's hands are still shaking.

"You were the one who gripped my sword. Let me see your hand - the Rakuyo's blade is not kind."

[sing_for_me]

"Doesn't change the fact that you're bleeding." And thus Alex keeps her own injured hand to herself and resisting Maria's hold, squeezing it into a fist as the pain anchors her consciousness more.

"I shouldn't have--it shouldn't have even gone this far!"

[whomthebelltolls]

"Alex," she barks, hoarsely. She can barely hold herself together at the moment - she's not sure she can support Alex too, so the best she can try to do is head it off before the worst begins.

(And she's afraid - terrified - that if Alex loses it, she will, too. She can't afford that right now.)

"We're both bleeding. This could have ended worse for both of us. So... please," she hates how weak and tired she sounds, but she can't muster the energy for anything else. The fading adrenaline, the relief of Alex's old demeanor returning, the slow ooze of blood out of the wounds on her wrist, they're all sapping her yet further. "Let me see your hand."