Almost There...

[Anonymous]

Somehow, Nikki had managed to find a dark room of an inn that was affordable and was well-furnished. She had placed Lomion on the bed stomach-down and put a few more balms on it before departing.

She knew he needed to feed. But she didn't know how to capture prey. She did the best she could do, however. She bought two rabbits, put them in cages, and set them beside Lomion's bed. She then went out to catch more and succeeded in catching an overfed hare. She put it in the cage as well and wondered what else to do for him. She wasn't feeding yet, so she didn't know exactly if this was what he wanted. She would just have to wait...

During this time, she had fallen asleep on the floor, hair covering her face and fingers touching the cage. The sharp teeth of the oversized rodents didn't bother her because of the length of her fatigue.

[Anonymous]

Lomion had lost track of just what he had been doing about three fourths of the way to the village. By the time he realized what was going on again, he was laying face-down on something soft. Soft...what was it?
A short groan escaped Lomion as he slowly moved his hands around whatever it was he was laying on. It felt like...a bed?
Had they made it then?
He was so bleary eyed he couldn't focus on anything, even though it was nice and dark in what he supposed was some room at an inn. Where else would she have taken him?

He waited a few moments, allowing his fuzzy brain to slowly come back into his use. First were smells...Nikki...and then...rabbit? Lomion sniffed, and confirmed the scent. Rabbits. There were rabbits in the room.
The hell...?
He could then smell the creatures' accelerated heart rates, normal for them. That frantic pace, pulsing blood all through their bodies...warm, alive...
Now he got it.

Lomion had sucked the critters dry without even budging Nikki. Somehow, the sight of him tearing into a bunch of fuzzy little rabits seemed a bit cruel. Yeah, Nikki could do without that one. Once he was finished, he lay the rabbits back into their cages gently, though they were dead, and made sure his face was clean. He then nudged Nikki a few times.
"Hey, hey. Wake up Nikki."
It was almost morning...
He would need to sleep soon, but the least he could do was let her know he wasn't dead or anything. Not to mention say thanks. The three rabbits hadn't been much, but it was enough to last him for now.

[Anonymous]

“Mm? What...?� She stirred as she spoke in her sleep. “No, no. All is fine. I just...� She trailed off, being taken a little deeper into her dream world. She then remembered his voice. “Lo...Lomion!� She murmured. It felt as if she was being physically yanked from her sleep to reality. She looked up, pushed the hair out of her face, and turned to Lomion. She noticed that his hand was outstretched. So she did feel someone pushing her a little.

“Lomion! Oh, thank goodness. You...� She blinked, then turned to the cage. She smiled softly at the sight of the dead rabbits. She was sorry she had to sacrifice them, but it was better than losing a fellow Carpathian. She blinked up at Lomion. “You’ve been out for quite a while, you know.�

She stood and stretched, watching him intently. “Is your back feeling any better?� She asked hopefully. “I tried to heal it a little bit, but I’m not sure if it did any good...�

[Anonymous]

Lomion sat back a bit stiffly, his back now feeling like one solid sheet of charred, painful flesh. He wouldn't be moving around much for awhile...
He arched a dark brow as it took a while for Nikki to fully awaken and remember her surroundings. The worry in her voice threw him off a bit...
...it'd been awhile since he'd heard genuine emotion like that...especially concerning him...

"Yeah, I noticed. It's nearly morning..." He glanced toward the covered window. Her words brought him back, and he had to look up at her now. "Actually, it does feel a slight bit better." He remained sitting, and shoved the rabbit cages to the other side of the room with a sweep of his long leg. "I'm going to have to sleep under the bed. Just...give me a few pillows, and make sure all the sheets and blankets hang down over the edges of the bed so that no light can get even remotely close to me, ok? Otherwise you're going to have a char-broiled Carpathian on your hands."
He grinned weakly, at least trying to keep up his unusual humor.
"And...thank you Nikki. Really. I would be dead by now if you hadn't helped me." He gave a slight, but meaningful, bow of the head to her.

[Anonymous]

She smiled. She had helped some. She watched him shove the rabbit cage aside as he spoke. She immediately jumped up to grab the pillows from the bed and began to fluff them. She always thought that fluffing pillows helped sleep come to someone with ease. She nodded and murmured a soft "Yes, sir" as he spoke. She laughed softly at his attempt at his usual dark humor despite the fact that the thought of him being fried to a crisp scared her to death.

Looking up, she noticed something: he had thanked her. She blinked as he bowed his head to her. "B-but I didn't do much. All I did was buy the room and...and catch the rabbits...nothing big." She blushed slightly. "A-and don't bow your head to me. I'm not worthy of anything like that..."

[Anonymous]

He grinned a bit as she fluffed the pillows, wondering if that had any affect other than dislodging dust from them into the surrounding air. Oh well, they would make him more comfortable either way.
Taking the pillows from her when she was finished, he began to stuff them under the small bed. "Go ahead and sleep on the bed today if you want. I know a good bit of the blankets will be hijaked to shield me, but hopefully it'll still be more comfortable than the floor."

Lomion began to position himself next to the bed when she spoke. He arched an eyebrow at her retorts. "Nothing big? Nikki, you saved my life. If you hadn't done those things, I'd be out there starving, and then burning as the sun comes up." He rolled his vibrant green eyes at her next statement. "The hell you don't." He replied gruffly. "I don't give thanks easily and without reason Nikki."
He wasn't really mad, a bit grouchy, but not mad. As long as she realized somewhere in her that she was deserving of his thanks.
"Suns coming up...I'm going to sleep." And with that, he rolled onto his stomach, and stiffly shoved himself under the mattress. "Could you pull the blankets down now? The sun is about to rise." He sounded infinately more tired than he had just moments ago.
The sun was zapping his strength and energy...
Time to pass out until nightfall...
If he woke up at all, that is.

[Anonymous]

She smiled faintly at his short speech and nodded. He was respectful about her efforts and appreciated them greatly, no doubt. She fiddled with the blankets as Lomion slid under the mattress. She made sure every inch of the blanket concealed Lomion in darkness. She checked once, twice, thrice, and four more times before deciding that the blanket was covering him well enough.

Nikki wondered if she should sleep on the mattress. He was underneath it and she wasn't as small as she used to be after all. She shook her head. She wasn't tired anyhow. Probably because of the adrenaline that was coursing through her. She padded along the floor quietly and settled in a chair that rested beside a corner table. On the table was a book. It caught Nikki's interest and she began to read it, occasionally looking over at the bed to make sure that the blanket was still keeping the sun's rays from Lomion.

After a while Nikki fell into a fitful sleep, lashing out at the air now and again. In her sleep, she murmured the name "Satu" over and over again...

[Anonymous]

Lomion passed out before he could quip about how many times she checked the blankets. His body struggled to begin repairs on the limited amount of blood running through his veins. And it was not even human blood, making it even more ineffective. It sufficed to keep him alive, and not much more. He would need human blood this next night.
And Nikki was going to have to get it for him.

The day faded away, and with Nikki still asleep, the room was perfectly still. It took Lomion longer than normal to awaken, and once he did, he realized that something was terribly wrong.
He couldn't move.
He knew how he must look at this point, and it was not pretty. His muscles would have wasted away during the night, leaving hardly anything but skin and bone. His body was attempting to preserve itself until blood could come to him.
He then noticed a soft sound outside, and after a few moments of careful listening, he made it out. Satu...?

"N...Nikki..." He called out hoarsely, hoping to wake her. "Nikki..." He called it again and again until he was sure she was awake. "D..don't...look..." He wheezed. "Just...get me...a human..."

[Anonymous]

Nikki awoke to the sound of his desperate calls and rubbed the sleep hurriedly out of her eyes as she went to the bed. She was just about to look under to see if he was all right when he instructed her not to. She just lay on the floor, listening to his wheezy instructions. She paled. A human...? How would she be able to...?

No time to think now. She had to go and find a human...fast. She went to a place where she was certain to find limitless amounts of humans; at least, in this place, if one human left, three more were sure to enter. This place was called a tavern.

She spruced herself up with a little brushing of the hair here, a dab of something sweet-smelling that she found there, and a lily that she bought to put in her hair. If there was one thing about her, it was this--she was beautiful when she wanted to be. After a few moments of sitting about doing nothing, a couple of men began calling to her. She talked with them, half-listening, half paying attention to how sturdy they looked. She ignored one and chose the other to bring back to the inn. He was getting a little too close to her for comfort. She told him off, but it was to no avail. He began to use derogatory language and forced her into a chair.

She growled. "Don't come any closer. I didn't bring you here for--"

"Ah, so you're just teasing me? Is that it?" The man said, drawing nearer to her.

"Yes. I'm teasing. Go sit over there." She nodded at the bed. He, glancing suspiciously at her now and again, sat down on the bed.

"So...you bought me here...so you could...tease me."

She walked over to him and sat down beside him and smiled. "I couldn't have explained it better myself."

"You're a strange one."

"Am I? Well, that's the first time I've ever been called strange." She gave him a toothy grin. Was she supposed to kill him herself or what?

[Anonymous]

Lomion had no concept of time in his weakened state...at some points minutes seemed to take hours, but at other times they flew by like seconds. Therefore, he had no clue as to just how long Nikki was out trying to find a human to bring back for him.
He was incredibly grateful she had even decided to do it for him...
He had realized now she was not even yet old enough to drink blood.
Damn...

Lomion had dazed out into a semi-conscious state by the time Nikki returned, and it took all of their loud talking to bring him out of it. He was accutely aware of them sitting on the bed now, but only because he could hear their heartbeats, smell their blood...
It was enough to drive him half-crazy with lust.
The starving Carpathian only had enough mentality left by that point to differentiate his own kin from human before he snatched out at the feet so easily within his reach.
Bony fingers latched onto the man's ankles with inhuman strength before yanking him with godawful might off the bed and under it.
The man probably didn't know what had hit him...

There were a few moments of muffled struggles, a couple of bounces under the bed, and then nearly complete silence. Finally, there was a groan.
"Dammit Nikki...he was drunk..." Lomion muttered from under the bed, feeling distinctly dizzy. Vampires and Carpathians alike could not feel the affects of drugs or alcohol unless they drank it through another's blood. Too much intoxicated blood could kill them. Otherwise, they just acted buzzed or high.
Which was how Lomion was feeling after having completely drained his victim of blood. Now he was drunk...
Oh boy...

[Anonymous]

Once she looked down, seeing a hand grasp the man's ankle. She covered her eyes and kept repeating, "I'm sorry! Forgive me..." Until the struggle was over. She heard the groan and fell to the bed's side. She lifted the blankets to look at him.

"He was? Oh, no...I'm sorry. I-I have a remedy for it, but...but it requires you eating bread. Can you still eat bread? Of course not, you're an adult Carpathian for the gods' sakes." She was panicking. She had known many drunken Carpathians that died a few hours later from the intense intoxication. She reached under to pull him from under the bed. "Come on. Get out from under there. I know it's cramped, and..." There was a knock at the door. She froze. Had someone seen her? She made sure no one saw her...

[Anonymous]

Lomion hadn't been drunk in a long while...this couldn't turn out well. The dizzy feeling was wearing off to be replaced with a feeling of giddy lightness. Woah...
He could hardly focus on what Nikki was ranting on about, and has half tempted to tell her to shut up...
No, no, rude!
He was suddenly grabbed at, and resisted.
"Please Nikki...I'd rather...I'd rather stay under here until it wears off..." He muttered, not trusting himself around a young lady while drunk.
Let's just say it wasn't a good mix.

But the knock on the door came, and he practically shot from under the mattress, still lacking a shirt over his pale chest. His back was looking a bit better, still charred and thick with burnt flesh, but at least there were no more open, bleeding cracks in it. It would still take awhile to heal, and would probably leave traces of scarring.
As though he were not drunk at all, Lomion came up to the door and turned his ear toward it. "Yes? Who's there?" He called out calmly, managing somehow to hide the slur in his voice so he didn't sound totally drunk off his ass.
Which he sooo was.

[Anonymous]

She would have comforted him, letting him know that if he got out of line with her that she could easily put him in his place, but the knock at the door had left her speechless. Nikki stood and straightened herself up, listening.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I...I thought this was Louraine's room." Said the deep voice outside the door. Nikki paled. That was her alias.

 She shook her head. Answer, you idiot!  She put a thick, uncommon accent in her voice. "No one here by name Louraine."

"All..all right. Thank you." There were receeding footsteps.

Immediately, Nikki turned to Lomion. "I'm getting you bread. Like an old friend used to say, 'bread loves mead.'" She bounded off into the night, staying in the shadows to avoid too much attention. She bought bread and a few other items. She came back and set the bag of various items on the ground. She walked towards Lomion, the smell of bread, rosemary, and barley filling the room. She broke the bread and hesitantly held out a piece to him.

"It will help you become sober," she said gently. Another hunger pang punched at her stomach, but she ignored it. She would eat later. Right now, he needed to become sober...

(Really bad post. -.-; Sorry.)

[Anonymous]

(Lol, it is not bad! ^_^ )

Lomion blinked at the foreign name, too fuzzy-headed to even think of pulling the reason from Nikki's mind. It was not until Nikki answered with a thick answer that he realized it was Nikki the man was asking for.
Interesting...
At least she wasn't so stupid as to give out her real name...
That usually caused problems...

Dizzy now, Lomion slumped into a chair, and didn't have the time or brain-power to respond to Nikki before she was out the door and gone.
The...hell...?
"Hiccup!"
Gah...

Nikki finally returned, and Lomion, still slumped into a chair, ignoring his charred back, watched her with bleary green eyes. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the bread, and shook his head slowly when she held a piece out to him.
"The hell I'll eat tha...!" Dammit! Lomion rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to collect his thoughts through the maddening haze of alcoholic blood in his veins.
"Sorry...but I can't...I'm physically unable to eat more than a few nibbles, which won't help..."
He kept his head in his hand, looking rather intensely down at his lap. Concentrate, concentrate...
He blinked slowly, rational thought sifting in and out of his mind, as elusive as water when he tried to grasp it. It just slipped through his fingers...
"You smell good..." He mumbled, closing his eyes. No, dammit! "Go away..."
I do not trust myself, I do not trust myself, I do not trust myself...
This wasn't going to be a pleasant night...

[Anonymous]

She blinked at him as he refused the bread. She pulled it slowly away from him and nibbled it a little herself. She hadn't eaten since the dusky night she met Lomion. Her stomach gave her another punch and she broke more of the bread off. She ate it gratefully, leaving half a loaf left. She set the bread in the bag of various items and went to Lomion again.

As she did, she heard him speak. She blinked. She... what? Smelled good? She flustered momentarily, then remembered he was intoxicated. "You're drunk," she giggled. "But thank you for the compliment anyway." She sat down in front of him, cross-legged. She looked him over. Why were they all destined to end up this way? Not drunk, but...almost without a soul? Who took pleasure in seeing every Carpathian's unexplainable pain? She shook the questions away. Not right now--Lomion needed tending to.

[Anonymous]

He smirked tiredly at the remark about his drunkeness. "Oh, I am that..." He muttered, closing his eyes again for a moment as his head spun. This was not a pleasant experience to suffer throught, that was for sure...
When he reopened his eyes, he wished he hadn't, for Nikki had come to sit in front of him. He couldn't see all of her, but he could see her legs, and that was enough.
With a groan he threw back his head and now stared at the ceiling, keeping his mind as faaar from the young lady in front of him as he could.
This was ridiculous, but there really wasn't much he could do about it.

...she did smell good though.

"Why so quiet?" He mused, hoping that somehow talking would keep his treacherous mind from wandering. As if...
But his mind wasn't quite functioning rationally, so he tried it anyway.

(Icky shortness...blah...lol)

[Anonymous]

((Haha! That's fine. ^-^ ))

She tilted her head at him. He wouldn't look at her. She didn't quite understand why. But she did know that his head could have been swimming at the moment and needed to tilt his head back so he could stop the dizzy feeling. She looked down at her hands at his question.

"I'm just worried about you, that's all," she said. Her mind flashed back to her old name, her home, her sister, and she shook the thoughts away quickly. "That's all."

She looked at him intently, a smile forming on her lips. "How come you won't look at me?" She wanted to tease him while he was in his drunken state, but knew he would lose respect for her if she did. The most she could do was tease him through words, not actions...

(Bad post. Sorry! -.-; )

[Anonymous]

(Lol, poor Lomion...)

Worried about him...? His brow furrowed as he thought about that, one hand swinging up to rub his face. Worried about him...
It was sweet, he supposed...but something in the back of his mind was warning him that it was a bad thing. Why...? Oh, right...
He was slowly becoming a vampire...
Heehee...
No, that was bad...baaaad...that sounded like a sheep...

Woah, alcohol, really messing with his head now.

"How come you won't look at me?"
Erk...
Apparently he'd been pretty obvious then...
"Because I'm tryin' to cleng...cling to what's left of my self control..." Damn, now he was starting to slur. He'd soon be talking like an idiot...alcohol always loosened the tongue...

[Anonymous]

((Yesh, yesh. Poor Lomion. ^-^))

She blinked at him as he went through motions of rubbing his face and thinking intently. She rubbed her temples a few times when he began to slur his words. That wasn't supposed to happen. If things that drunkards had to think about were said, the legend went, then all of their hard thinking would cause them to sober a little. This had done the opposite for Lomion.

She stood and, on tiptoe, leaned over him. She looked into his face. His eyes were glassy. "Maybe you need fresh air. Or...or...something." She had run out of remedies. Bread and hard thinking were the only remedies she had. She lost her balance and began to fall forward. "Ah...!" Thank goodness for reflexes--she caught herself on the arms of the chair.

"Oh, I...I'm sorry!"

[Anonymous]

(Lol, smooth, reeeal smooth...)

Lomion had been staring at the ceiling, and watching as the edges of his vision fuzzed. Woah...
And then Nikki's face was in his field of view, and he blinked rapidly at her, sort of shrinking down in his chair a bit and pursing his lips tightly.
No bad thoughts, no bad thoughts, no bad thoughts...
Fresh air?? Like outside? Somehow he knew that wouldn't turn out well...
Maybe they could open a window...?

And then she fell.

Luckily she had caught herself, but she was now a bit too close to his face for his own self-control. He had to clench his fists into his thighs. Ok, there had to be a way to put this not so bluntly so that she'd understand.
"Heh, Nikki?" He gave a strained grin, glossy eyes flashing. "I haven't been screwed in about a century, so you better stay away unless you want to be ravished right here on the floor, okay?"
Well, ok, so that had been blunt, but at least he hadn't cussed.
And he was pretty sure she was going to get it now.