Night's Omen

Prompt List

• Solace
• Fire
• Party
• Are You Challenging Me?
• Light
• Pregnant
• Vacation
• Christmas
• Spring
• Melody

NOTICE: All of Crystal's prompts come with a warning of violence and/or otherwise explicit nature.

  With Jack's encouragement, Crystal had decided to get her GED and take classes at the local Ramsa Community College. She was practically living with him now, which wasn't what she'd really wanted, but the situation had sort of... come about on its own. She had clothing there, plus makeup and other things that she could travel with. She was fairly self sufficient with her job, gave him money for rent (not that he asked), and took care of things around the apartment when he was at work. She had become a sort of live-in girlfriend, except she went home a few times a month for a day or so, more or less to appease her parents, who were under the impression she was living on her own.

  Sitting in class, she coloured a little doodle in with her mechanical pencil, waiting for the papers on her vocabulary assignment to be passed back. Writing was just as boring as it had always been, but she was coping with it by drawing little stars and hearts and whatever else she could think of on a blank sheet of paper in her notebook. When the paper finally landed on her desk, since she was back row, she stared down at it, tempted to just go back to her drawing. She mentally chastised herself for not wanting to get in gear, and with a sigh, focused on it for the time being.

  Define the following words. Use them in a short paragraph. She tucked some of her blonde hair behind her ear and crossed her legs, staring down at the sheet for a few moments. Vocabulary in Creative Writing wasn't like normal English vocabulary. She had to actually use her brain and come up with interesting shit to say. The teacher thus far was in love with her, really. Crystal was discovering, no thanks to Griffon, that she had an amazing knack for writing, if she could just tap into her anger. She finished nine of the ten words quickly, pouring impersonal and often whimsical paragraphs down onto the paper, trying to keep a sort of 'fantasy' appeal to all of it. She paused at the last word, and then wrote so hard that she snapped the lead on her pencil.

  Solace. Define it and use it in a sentence. I forgot what this word means.

  "Ready? O-kay!" Crystal shouted. Her voice echoed across the stands at the football game of Ramsa High as they faced their arch-rivals from the neighboring town. Panthers versus Tigers. A fight to the death. Crystal was loving it. Her black and white cheerleader uniform was tiny and tight, showing off her perfectly tanned legs and perky size-C breasts. She was a "glamazon", she and the rest of the squad, and she loved it.

  As she stooped down to swoop up a bottle of water after the team's last cheer set, she looked at the white sneaker laced with orange ribbon, and narrowed her eyes. As she straightened, she focused on the brunette mirror of herself, Jill - the captain of the Lady Tigers. "Eh, what do you want?" she asked, her voice just as snotty and high-pitched as she could make it. Crystal was West Coast. These East Coast bitches didn't know anything about attitude, or 'bitchitude' as Crystal's friends called it.

  "I'm challenging you to a cheer-off," Jill said, squaring her shoulders. Her ugly little black and orange uniform was too tight, Crystal noticed. Maybe she was pregnant. "Officially. Half-time. Right after the band is done doing their little geek music thing," she said, flittering her fingers uselessly towards the stands where the band was.

  "Fine," Crystal said, her voice firm. She turned back without another word, and called the rest of the girls over to her. "Okay," she said, her voice hushed as they huddled down together. "Jill and those skank ass bitches from down the road think that they can out-cheer us? Pft, total fail. We're going to humiliate them out there on that field in less than an hour. And why? Because we're Lady Panthers. Now let me hear you roar!"

The girls sprang out of the huddle with a loud, feminine "RAWR!" and a display of fist-pumping and high-kicks and high-fives. Blonde ponytails and braids twitched mercilessly as each pom warrior picked up her feathery weapon of choice and raised them into the air. "READY?" Crystal shouted. "O-KAY!"

Crystal opened her eyes up, light streaming in from the bedroom window. She rolled over, reaching for her favourite pillow so that she could cuddle with it before another long day began, and she found her fingers tangled in a tuft of light blond hair. What the...? She sat up, suddenly realizing that she wasn't in her own room. She recognized this room vaguely, and it gave her a sense of dread. Quickly, she sat up and moved towards the edge of the king sized bed, taking a lump of blankets to cover her body, which she found to be all but naked save for a pair of laced tanga shorts she had bought from Victoria's Secret. Her head was pounding, like she'd had too much to drink, and she felt nauseous.

  Griffon sat up behind her, realizing that he'd fallen asleep and that the mind-numbing effect he had was completely worn off without his concentration, however slight, to keep it over Crystal's fragile human mind. With an outpouring of energy, he watched her entire body go from rigid to relaxed, and her frantic movements stopped just as her feet touched the ground. She turned back to him, blonde hair slightly messed from sleeping, and smiled.

  "Hey," she said. The panic was gone from her expression, her face now pleasant, eyes half-lidded from the sunlight that beamed in on her. She leaned towards him, planting a light kiss on his lips. "I guess I must have had a bad dream. I woke up freaking out over I don't even know," she said with a laugh, releasing one hand on the blankets that covered her to brush some of his own hair from his eyes.

  Griffon arched a brow. "Really?" he asked. He sat up more in bed, reaching behind him to turn the blinds down so that they weren't exposing Crystal's eyes to seven AM sunlight. He held his arm out to her, and motioned for her to come closer. "Tell me about it?" he asked.

  Crystal hesitated, and then slid back towards him, letting go of the blanket as she pulled it over the both of them. She nestled against him, enjoying how warm his skin felt pressed against her own, and sighed a little into the crook of his neck. "I don't really remember," she said honestly. "I woke up, and for a second, I didn't know where I was. I had this... terrified, bad feeling wash over me. I think I was still asleep but my eyes were open." She trailed off, and then looked up at him, brown eyes sheepish. "Do you think that's lame?" she asked, voice demanding a truthful answer.

  Griffon shook his head, wrapping his arm around her and giving her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "No, that's not lame, sweetie. Nothing you do is lame - well, curbing the wheels on my car was, but - I know, I know. Curb jumped out in front of you, nothing you could do," he said, laughing softly as he felt her begin to protest.

  "Mmhm, nothing I could do. I was helpless to the mercy of changing cement patterns," she said forcefully. That was her story and she'd stick to it. It was obvious she was still bothered, though - her eyes said as much, with how they focused on nothing. It was her subconscious trying to tell her something was wrong, that she was forgetting something, that something terribly important needed her attention right then -

Griffon let his power roll over her further as he moved to where he was facing her. He practically touched noses with her, and said, very clearly, "Crystal, listen to me. There is nothing - nothing - that you have to worry about when I'm here. Nobody will ever touch you or hurt you. You have no reason to be afraid."

  That seemed to have done the trick. Her eyes focused on his and she smiled, feeling a strange warmth inside of her that had previously been swirling and empty. "Promise?" she asked.

  "On my life," he responded. He touched her face lightly with his free hand, and wasn't at all shocked when she came in for a kiss. It was innocent at first, and then gradually became more passionate. Hands moved over bare skin and blankets and sheets became things that were getting in the way.

  "I hope sincerely that you have nothing to do this morning," Crystal said very seriously, pulling away from a rather demanding kiss. When Griffon reached over and pulled the plug out of the wall for the clock, she giggled with triumph and yanked him on top of her. No, why had she ever been scared? Griffon was her boyfriend, her soul mate. How could she possibly be worried when he was around her?

"I don't know how to tell you this, but the treatments aren't working. We have tried everything, but unfortunately your body just won't take to them. We really suggest looking into adoption. Take these home, talk to your husband." The doctor had escorted Crystal out of the private office and into the waiting room, where she gave a last glance over her shoulder as she re-shouldered her purse.

Talk to your husband. Sure, that sounded like a great idea - except that Griffon had no idea what she was doing. Of course, she hadn't wanted to mention it to him because she already knew how he felt about the situation, and in fact, hiding this entire last few months from his senses was incredibly difficult. As a bloodbond, she could feel how he felt and vise versa; were either of them in emotional distress, the other would know in the span of a heartbeat. Still, having her heart crushed was a hard reaction to withhold, and all of the things she'd been hiding from him were taking their toll on her. Her phone rang before the first tear had even slid down her cheek, the myriad of hurt, disappointment and loneliness swirling around in her chest.

She'd done her own research on the matter to avoid asking him questions, and some of the things she'd read (personal accounts she'd paid a Therrayan off for) had told her that depending on how long someone was bonded, they could still become pregnant. Every instance had been different, and what she had hoped for was very rare, indeed. She just relied on hope, and hope had failed her. She'd just been bonded too long, and at this point could not distinguish when she last showed signs of aging.

"What happened?" No hi, no hello - just an instant demand, his voice rushed and protective. There was background noise that escalated for a moment, but his sharp hissing silenced it near-completely. "Crystal? Talk to me," he urged. He couldn't define what was happening precisely but he could feel how devastated she was, and it made him dangerously aggressive to whoever he was around.

"Nothing's wrong," she said, trying to, once again, hide the disappointment in her voice. She had already started to cry, though, and her wavering high-pitched voice gave her away.

"Do I need to come get you?" he demanded. She could hear closing doors and from the sound of the changing noise, he'd left whatever bar he'd been in with his friends and was walking through gravel to a more secluded spot to talk to her. He must've been at Hole in the Wall - it was the only bar she knew of that didn't have a paved lot.

"No, no," she assured him, despite sagging against the door of her car to stop herself from dropping to her knees. "I'll be home in a little. I just - uh, there's some things we need to talk about when I get home, so if you could be there when I get there, that would be really good," she confessed. Her voice was still warbling, and it was irritating her, because it made her sound weaker then she was.

There was a sudden silence followed by the low volume of a television through the phone line, and Griffon let out a useless sigh. "I'm already home. Are you sure you don't want me to just come get you?" he pressed.

Crystal knew that normally he would have just compelled her, but the longer they had been together, the less the abilities he had worked her over. He was going to turn her soon, she knew. She had been trying to have a child before that happened, but it didn't seem likely now. When she finally got home, all she did after coming through the garage door was set her purse down - for a moment, nothing happened at all. Griff got up from the couch and came into the room just in time to see her fling all of the paperwork, information pamphlets and other various things at the table, most of which slid off and fell to the floor in a pile.

In stunned silence, neither of them said anything, until Crystal finally lost it and started to sob uncontrollably. She covered her face with one hand while the other clutched the door frame, and slowly she slid to the ground in a crouch. All of the things she'd been hiding suddenly were in the open, exposed and raw. "I'm worthless," she finally gulped.

Griffon's eyes narrowed. "Oh, Crystal," he whispered. He dropped down next to her, sweeping her into his arms. They had been together for too long, the emotional link between them too open. Her conflict actually made him close his eyes, pinpricks of tears stinging their way through. He blinked them back, irritated that he had lost his control for a moment, and then pulled away from her.

"You aren't worthless," he told her firmly. "Does this mean that much to you?"

Crystal shook her head. "Yes," she admitted, the word drawn out against her crying. "But not to you, and anyways, it was a stupid idea. I just hoped - I mean..." she trailed off.

Griffon searched her brown eyes with his own black ones, then gently stood up with her and reached for a tissue, which he used to dab at her tears. "I'll do it," he said, his tone neutral. "If it means this much to you, I'll do it."

"Wait, how?" she asked, steadying herself on the back of a chair before she nearly swooned at his sudden change of heart.

Griffon looked away for a moment, his mind drifting to several magic-wielders in the area. Riese. He couldn't ask any of the Smokes for help; Riese would find him and kill him - no, he'd kill Crystal. He'd kill her and he'd make Griffon watch. His eyes darkened, if that were possible, and he pressed his lips together. "I know someone."

It would have to be Aristide. He would have to sell his soul to return hers.

Paris in the spring was beautiful. Crystal sat at the little café in a black wrought iron chair, her spine pressed to the back of the cool structure as she re-crossed her legs. It shouldn't have been as comfortable as it was, but there had been a thin pink cushion tied neatly to the base of it, affixed solely for the purpose of providing some ease to the person's seating arrangement. Really, she had been so stressed for the last five years that this was all such a welcome change; she didn't mind. In fact, she could have been seated on rocks and she may have been just as relaxed.

Her fingers drummed on the table made of equal material as she waited for the waitress to bring her the espresso she'd requested. Her Michael Kors handbag in bubblegum pink rested next to a pair of Gucci sunglasses, and a white box sat before her with a singular pink bow tied around it neatly. She was incredibly curious about what was within the box, but the waitress had told her in no uncertain terms that she had been instructed to request she wait until her companion arrived before she opened it. Crystal was impatient about many things, but when it came to gifts from Griffon, she had learned that some were not always pleasant. That alone kept her from peaking; despite the public location, there was still a chance he could wash the situation away with his trickery.

She scoped her freshly manicured nails as she waited for her... what was he? He'd been by her side since she was seventeen, but he was no boyfriend. Lover? She could think back to foggy memories where she had not wanted him, where she believed he was coercing her somehow, but they seemed incredibly distant. No, she didn't know what he was. Her warm brown eyes searched for chips in her polish as she inwardly pondered their relationship, and she was interrupted by the lightest brush of familiar warm lips upon her lightly blushed and tanned cheek. She glanced up, and a warm rush flooded her, pooling around her darker ideas and drowning them in a sort of happy hum.

"Sweetheart," he greeted, sitting down across from her. Just then, the waitress appeared with two espressos, placing one before each of them. She and Griffon spoke for a moment in the language foreign to Crystal but native to the location. It did impress her how easily it rolled off of his tongue, and she could not help the small smile that formed on her own softly-berry stained lips as she raised her cup to her mouth.

"To us," he said, raising his own white ceramic and taking a long swallow. He set his own ware down and pushed the box towards her across the table.

She set her cup down after a much more brief sip; the liquid within was incredibly hot, and she did not have the luxury of such fast-healing abilities like her counterpart. "Griff," she chided gently. "You don't need to give me anything. You've taken me to the one place on this planet I've always dreamed of going. My father swore he'd never get me a passport after they found alcohol in my room when I was sixteen, and I had abandoned the idea of it. That you knew how much it meant to me even though I'd accepted I'd never have the money to come is just... too much already." She brushed strands of wayward blonde hair behind her ear, tucking them behind the diamond earrings he'd gotten her only a few months prior for Christmas.

"Nonsense," he insisted. "This is something I've been planning for a while. I don't know why you don't like it when I dote on you. You'd think you were used to it after five years," he said with a smirk. "And besides, the thing in that box is only something I could acquire here. What sense would it be to come here, get it, and return home? Of course, I could have gotten it at Barney's in New York, but it's not the same..." he trailed off, watching her brows raise instinctively when she heard the "B" word. Crystal was wealthy from her parents, but her brand of posh stopped at fine mall stores. She'd never been cut loose in Saks or Barney's, because they wouldn't spend that much money on a singular item. Now that she was living with him - well, he might have felt a little guilty, but he'd never admit it. He'd lose credibility. Still, a lot of vampires cut their blood banks loose in nice stores. It was just commonplace.

"Oh?" she asked. She leaned forward and reached for the box finally, pulling it across the tiny metal slots in the table toward herself. Experimentally, she tugged on the bow and it fell away like spider's silk at her fingertips. She proceeded to open the box with the utmost care, her mouth forming into a small "O" as she realized what was inside. There, wrapped with rose-scented tissue paper was the softest, finest scarf she'd ever seen. It matched her handbag perfectly (another item she'd only received the night before, when Griffon left it on the bed in the townhouse they were staying in). She looked up at him, stunned.

"Baby, this is Hermès," she informed him seriously.

"Yes," he responded.

"This is a - "

"Don't worry about it, Crystal. Here," he said, standing up. She was already stressing about the cost, and he could sense she was about to launch into how she didn't deserve it. He thought that after five years, she'd have figured out she did, but then again, he hadn't really started playing house with her until she'd turned twenty-one. That had happened in October, and so for the last five months, things had been vastly different. He placed it gently around her neck, tying it lightly. How he'd come to know so much about fashion was beyond even him, but he'd studied the scarves for a good hour before he'd purchased one. He'd actually come to Paris the week prior to do it, while she'd been out for a run. The advantages of being a vampire far outweighed the disadvantages - although none could reverse time. That was why they'd really come to Paris, only she didn't know it yet.

"It's beautiful," she said finally, standing to look at herself in the large window of the café. She was thankful she'd chosen to wear her white short-sleeved tee and khakis. The scarf completed the look with such a simple burst of colour - and it matched her new purse. She returned to him, lacing her fingers within his and rolling up onto her toes to place a chaste kiss upon his lips. She could feel him smile beneath her mouth and pulled away. "Thank you."

"Of course," he said. "Anything for my princess. And that's not all. While we're here, there's something I want to ask you." He lead her back to her chair and got her situated, then returned to his own.

She felt butterflies in her stomach. "What?" she asked, unable to hide the wavering in her voice. They'd been together for five years, and three of them had been rocky at best. She felt like she was trying to think through a layer of fluff, but she knew that she hadn't always been happy. Would he ask her to marry him? She couldn't do that - he was a vampire. She would continue to age and he would stay the same. As it was, they were matched with physical age, but only barely. Another year or two and he would obviously appear younger than she, and then what? She would be too old, and he'd cast her aside. All the beautiful, expensive gifts in the world couldn't stop her aging unless he turned her, and she definitely valued her humanity.

"Later, sweetheart. Right now, finish your drink. I've got the entire day planned from the moment we leave here 'til we fall into bed this evening, so I hope for your sake that's enough caffeine to keep you going." He grinned, and he couldn't help but feel that the malice normally hidden in his face was missing. He could read her thoughts, and the fact that she honestly believed he could give her the boot after all of this that he'd gone through just to mold her into his property? It disturbed him. He'd worked her over too well, maybe. He reached further as she smiled and drank and looked up at the sky and ran her hands over her new scarf, doing all of those things that made her Crystal, and he realized that she'd somehow adapted to... the situation.

Jesus Christ. She was actually in love with him. It made him feel sick, that she could deign to love him after what he'd done to her; he'd destroyed her youth, crushed it into nothing. He'd constantly tried to run her psyche into the ground, and she'd just hung on by a thread. That thread, he realized, she'd used; she'd woven it into a web, and she'd made a home in that web, and she'd placed every good memory in there with her. He could feel, pressing against the back of her mind, the dark things that she remembered but forgot to remember, and it made him worry. If he turned her into a vampire, or even if he bonded her, they'd come free.

Would she love him then?

She chose that moment to place her hand on his shoulder, and he realized she'd finished her drink. She had her sunglasses perched atop her head and her bag was in her hand. "Griff?" she was asking, a small frown tugging at her mouth. From the way she looked at him, her warm eyes fixed with concern, she'd been standing there for a second. Crystal rarely caught him off guard, so for her, it must have been rather disturbing. Gently, he put his hand over hers and squeezed.

"Sorry, just trying to make sure we have enough time for everything." He smiled back at her and then stood, leaving some money on the table and escorting her to the car that waited for them by the curb. Yes, he was nervous. She could say no. She'd had her free will back for quite some time now; she could really say no and reject him. He realized that fact bothered him - no, bothered wasn't the right word. It terrified him. He hadn't been afraid of very much for a very long while. And it wasn't the possibility of rejection that scared him; it was what he would do to her if she did.

Just then, unexpectedly, she turned and wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling him in for a kiss unlike the previous. This was sultry, passionate. It surprised the hell out of him, because Crystal was rather gentle most days. She pulled away, and he didn't miss the small but deep breath she took. She leaned in again and gave him a smaller series of pecks, then smiled broadly. "Have I told you today how much I love you?" she asked. It was a phrase he'd heard her say before, but it was always when he'd been in her head.

"You just did," he smiled. Inwardly, he realized that the five years he'd been working Crystal over, she'd actually worked him over.

  It was the last semester of school. Technically, Crystal should have been gearing up for graduation with the rest of her fellow classmates; however, since she'd dropped out the year before, she didn't really have much in the way of school work to accomplish, and her "fellow classmates" had become people she dreaded seeing and hearing altogether. She found it warm enough to walk, and so had left her car parked in the small downtown area of Ramsa, gathering a few moments of spare time to walk along the boulevard where old brick buildings and small restaurants lined the street.

  She passed little shops, one by one, pausing to look at shoes or accessories in the window while sipping on a small Orange Julius she'd purchased from a street vendor along the way. She finally came to a real stop in front of a dress boutique, enraptured by the vision of the most perfect dress she'd ever seen. It was formal, no doubt, but it was so pretty that she had to go inside and see it closer - maybe even try it on. She didn't know if she would buy it or not, because she wouldn't ever have anywhere to wear it, but she was still a teenage girl, and all traumatic events aside, a dress was a dress.

  As she came into the store, she was so focused on the object of her desire that she didn't seem to respond to the salesgirl when she asked if she needed help. She just nodded to the dress, and then made her way to take a closer look. It was truly perfect - black, with thin straps and a straight low-plunging front that was corsetted by fashion, though it had no ties or ribbing to suggest it other than the firmness of the material when she touched it. It was soft as silk, with small glittery bits that seemed to dazzle under the focus lighting of the shop. The crown jewel, of course, was that the further down the straight cut of the gown, the lighter the material got - black at the top, variegating to a silver at the bottom, between all the shades of gray of the rainbow in Crystal's now gloomy world.

  "Is it for Senior Prom?" the older saleswoman asked, coming to stand beside Crystal and admire the dress with her. She nodded towards it, and lifted her hand. "It's the only one like it we got in stock this time around. No doubt another lucky girl will snatch it up if you don't. Why don't you try it on, dear? It's a size three, that looks about right. Do you go to Ramsa High? Lots of girls getting their dresses from here these days, all of them wanting something a little more upper class than the usual stock at the mall."

  Crystal paled at the thought of the Prom. She hadn't even really considered what was still going on in school during the last few months, but she supposed that it was about time, wasn't it? She should have been turning boys down for dates as she and her cheer squad selfishly conspired to go as a group and then meet up with their dates there, that way they wouldn't have to leave early or stay late, but rather could leave when they wanted.

  "My, you look a little pale. Hot outside? Shall I get you some water?" the woman asked, her brows pinched in concern.

  "No," Crystal responded vacantly. "No, that's fine. I think I'll pass on the dress. Not going to Prom this year, I'm afraid." With a grim sort of smile, she turned on a heel and fled the store.

  The lights were off when she got home, not that it mattered. Her parents had been gone a lot lately - maybe they had finally realized that whatever wall Crystal had put up was just too thick for them to try and get through, and they had given up. She laughed a bitter laugh, something that echoed in the empty foyer as she shut the door behind her, and then laughed again because of how sinister the noise had actually been. She had never imagined she'd ever have such intense feelings of hate or anger, and she wondered, as she climbed the stairs to her room, if there was a way to tap into that Darkside power and learn how to Force choke people.

  It would have been useful.

  A strange sound was swimming down the stairwell as she ascended, one that made her rapid climb slow considerably. She tilted her head, moving at a glacial pace to try and figure out what it was. Music? She didn't know that she'd left her radio on when she'd left, but then again, it was always a possibility. It could have been Griffon, too, as he had become a firm, non-budging fixture in her life. She hated him, truly, but she'd found that things were much easier if she didn't fight so much. Not that he was amicable at all - the opposite, actually. It seemed to make him more angry if she didn't fight, and she got sick satisfaction out of just that. Small victories.

  She pushed open the door to her room, gasping in surprise. A soft melody came from a record player that she didn't remember ever having, positioned in the corner of her room. On her bed, neatly laid out, was the dress she'd been looking at only that very afternoon in town - the one she'd rejected on the notion of Prom. It reminded her too much of her old life, like a soft silk cloth that wanted to suffocate her. Even the sight of it made her feel constricted, like heavy arms squeezing her so tightly that she would collapse from lack of air.

  Or, no. She actually was being squeezed. Like a piece of wood, she stiffened her frame instead of giving in to the gesture, and her rigid form only experienced more pain as a result. She'd begun to build up small resistances to lesser influences from Griffon, more or less because he used his Jedi mind tricks on her so much that some of the weak ones were giving her immunities. With a frown, he released her, the motion so abrupt that it sent her spilling onto the floor before him.

  "Don't you like it, princess?" he asked. His voice was a mystery, as always. She couldn't tell if it was condescension or confusion that hung in his tone, but it very well could have been neither just as easily. Begrudgingly, she picked herself up off the floor and flung her purse into her desk chair, as she did whenever she entered her room. So much for the routine.

  "There was a reason I didn't buy it," she said. She just walked past him, knowing that she was brushing danger closely by doing so, and shut her door. She looked at him with a fixed gaze, false bravado masking her fear. "It's ugly," she responded finally.

  "And you're lying," he countered. "Try it on." The request came out as a demand, and make no mistake, it was a demand. Griffon didn't "ask" for anything. He told. You did. That was the way the world worked.

  "No," she responded. "I hate it. I - whatever, you can read my mind. No point in explaining it, not that you would understand. Not like you're out any money for it, anyways. Just... give it to one of your other little girlfriends." There wasn't a hint of jealousy in her voice, but all the malice and venom that came with her natural feelings of anger towards the vampire who'd taken so kindly to ruining her life.

  "Put. It. On."

  Crystal found herself gliding towards the dress at a leisurely pace, edges of her vision blurred as the garment became tunneled in. Damnit. He's doing that thing again. Often times, he would leave Crystal somewhat coherent when he controlled her thoughts and gestures, to teach her a lesson she figured. Her nerves were buzzing and numb at the same time, the anesthetic that was a Kendra mind-fuck taking effect. She could feel the cool of the room against her bare skin, and then the soft of the dress and the scratch of the seam where the zipper on the back rested.

  She had full motor function control once she'd zipped it up, bending her arm awkwardly to do it. Her shoulder hurt a little from it, and she rubbed it with a grimace as she glowered on at the vampire. "Happy now?" she asked. She wanted to take it right back off, but she had been appropriately admonished with the mind control, and so stood in place, some sort of stone sculpture.

  "Quite. Fits perfectly!" he cheered. He had a boyish sort of laugh, though it was darker than it had been in his human years. With a bounce in his step, he advanced, taking her hand to twirl her around. She moved stiffly in his grasp, but it was no matter.

  "Music and a dress. Now you just need your hair and face all done up and a tiara or crown or whatever it is you girls wear, and you'll be all set," he said, stopping the strange dancing for a moment.

  Crystal narrowed her eyes at him, and then pushed away, hand firmly planting against his chest to propel herself back. It still bothered her how strong he was, despite looking so deceptively youthful. He could have been someone she knew. He could have been someone she had a class with. She spun in place, reaching for the zipper that seemed just an inch too far for her to pinch it with her fingers, and spoke. "What are you talking about, Griffon? That's not how this works. You torture me, I cry, or scream, or neither, and you leave me wondering when you'll pop up next to do it again. You don't get me dresses and dance with me. Victim, remember? Playtoy. Project." There was a pause, before finally, "Zipper?"

  As he laughed again and obliged the request, giving the zipper a gentle, gentle tug (since he could quite easily just rip the damn seam apart) into her range of grasp, she grew obviously more frustrated. "Prom, sweetheart. I didn't go to mine. I'll not have you miss yours," he said with a bright smile.

  Crystal stopped in mid-zip, holding the dress clumsily over her chest so that she didn't expose herself to him. "What?" she asked, dumbfounded. "Griffon, -I- can't even go to "my" Senior Prom," she argued, frustrated and air-quoting while struggling not to drop her dress. She managed to pull her shirt over her head before shimmying out of the garment, and yanked her shorts on as it pooled in a little puddle on the floor beneath her. "I'm not a student there anymore," she reminded him.

  The smile grew less bright and more wicked as he shrugged, leaning against the doorframe of her closet to admire how foolishly delicate and dense she could be. "You heard me. And you also seem to forget that I can do this," he said, tapping his temple gently. He laughed again as her face froze in realization of how not-kidding about the subject he was. "They'll believe you're the Queen of fucking England if I tell them to, so I doubt that getting us in as students won't be reaching for the stars. And besides," he offered, holding his hands out in an innocent gesture, "stupid teenagers in groups are my favourite coarse of action for a good meal. Remember?"

  Crystal sat numbly on her bed, indeed remembering, for that was the entire reason she was in this whole mess to begin with. She swallowed and spoke, voice weak. "I guess I'll need to get some shoes to go with the dress," she whispered.