Loves Passing By
This article is a part of Spooktober 2024 and is still a work in progress. Written for the Teeth prompt.Xiang had always been very capable of knowing when she was being followed, from that very first moment that her love, her own Malloy, had begun stalking her in the streets of...had it been Xi'an? Kaifeng? Jinan? She could no longer remember which streets had been her home before but that mattered little now. They were more than two centuries behind her and she had not been that frightened waif of a girl for a very long time. She shook off the reverie and spun, casting her eyes across the Parisian streets on the hunt for her stalker. After a moment she caught sight of him and froze. Tall. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Dark hair. The bare scruff of a beard on his chin. Her child, that sweet man that she had left because otherwise she would break him down and rebuild him into a monster. Daman. As if caught in a spell, Xiang drifted towards him, smiling as he just stood there and let her approach. When she got close, he dipped his head respectfully and murmured, "Hello, sire mine." Smiling, she pulled him down into a brief kiss, taking stock during it of how he was. He hunted, she knew that in an instant, mortal blood new and old powerfully evident on his breath, but not overly so. Good. He had stayed strong with her lessons but hadn't gone to madness without her there to guide him. "Son mine," she purred as she pulled away from him. "What brings you to Paris?" "You," Daman replied. Then he spun the two of them off the street into a dark alley and slammed her roughly against the wall of a nearby building, his fangs at her throat as he snarled, "How dare you never tell me that my brother was still alive! You knew and you didn't tell me. Not one word!" Xiang grunted at the impact and then hissed, "He was not fit for you to approach then. I thought it safer to leave you ignorant." He growled, low and dark, and spat, "Oh, I've heard about him and all of the things he's done. I got the full details of his deeds in 1725 when I spoke to a witch about it." "Torture?" she asked, one eyebrow arched in amusement. And she was curious as to how far he had drifted into the darkness. How far he had allowed his nature to taint the sweetness she had not wanted to destroy years before. Daman sneered in disgust at that. "No," he hissed angrily. "I spoke with her, like a normal person." He killed but he had not become like them. She was...shockingly pleased by that revelation. Lifting her chin, Xiang asked, "And what do you want now, son of mine? I haven't seen your brother in forty years now. Forty-one this summer, when he got back that which was taken from him by the change." Suddenly the pressure against her shoulders was gone as Daman stepped away, straightening his fine coat again and checking his sleeves. He then looked at her with a frown and stated, "I eavesdrop on hunters rather frequently and they seem to be under the impression that Bloody Ó Conaill is dead given his lack of activity over the past four decades. Is he?" While she had some anger at him for shoving her against the wall, Xiang couldn't hold it against her child...and it wasn't strictly attacking her either. Straightening up, she dusted off her skirts before replying, "After evidence was given, Nazar made judgement upon Darragh and allowed him to live. It was...crueler, I think...in the end." Shaking her head, she looked up at him and continued, "Your brother and the beast he became were nearly out of our control for so many years. Malloy, Ebio, myself, Gnaea, we all tried to temper him but his bloodlust was so great. Most days all we could do was to keep his violence regulated to a small area. And he must live with that now." "Where is he, Xiang?" Sighing, she replied, "Gnaea was given charge of him. Ordered by Nazar and Issuru to keep an eye on him in case the boy that he was was incapable of controlling the beast at his heart. I assume that he is still there, with her, hiding from the world in her little Italian villa that she loves so. Your witch may know of it, she shielded their kind once." Daman huffed out a breath and spat, "My so-called witch died in 1754 and was safe in her bed, God rest her soul." He then looked at her sharply and began, "When you stayed in Ireland...when you came to me...you knew he was alive. You knew what he had become." Xiang nodded and replied softly, "Yes." "You...you groomed me for five years. Trying to make me what you wanted." He gestured between the two of them and continued, "You made me believe that you wanted me. Loved me. And that I wanted to be with you forever." "Yes," she confirmed softly. "You hoped I would be like him," Daman growled. "You wanted me to be like him. That's why you said you had to leave, because you were going to try and see if you could make me like my brother." She looked up at him and sighed. "Yes," she replied simply. "That is what I hoped in part but there was also something of you that fascinated me even when we came for your brother. You were a child then, only fourteen years of age, and I was...drawn to you. Even my own sire saw it." Xiang then shook herself slightly and stated, "I am not cruel enough that I would turn one still so close to a child like some of our kind, so I stayed away. Until you were older." Stepping towards him, she slowly lifted a hand towards his face and wondered for a moment if he was going to let her touch him. Daman's face was twisted into fury and rage, a sneer on his lips, but he allowed her touch. "I did care for you," she admitted. "Love you, tiánmì de shìqíng. That was never a lie. And it was why I could not stay. In the end, I could not bear to destroy you." Daman let out a long breath and then his expression fell, turning from rage to loss, as he lifted a hand to cover hers on his cheek. "I loved you," he said softly. "And, I admit, I knew there were things you weren't telling me, pretty lies you told between your teeth. I sometimes followed them anyway even when I knew, simply because I loved you. But we were never meant to be anything more than two ships passing by each other on the sea, Xiang." She smiled at that and said, "Would that you had been born some two hundred years ago in my home country. If you had been a boy I knew then, I would have gladly been your wife. Back when I was still just a sweet thing and not the hungry creature I am now." He grunted as if in pain at that and then turned his face into her hand, gently kissing her palm. "Thank you, Mother," he then said softly, looking at her warmly, "for confirming my brother is alive. That he survives." Xiang huffed out a breath and moved her hand suddenly to the back of his neck pulling him down into a savage kiss. Daman hummed into her mouth, an arm curling around her waist to pull her against his lean form, and returned it with the same passion that he had had before she had ever left him. The fires for her still burned in him, then, and...she could feel them still blazing in her too. But she was a monster, formed and forged by her sire's own hand. A killer. A lover of blood and death and torture. Daman Ó Conaill was none of those things and she had to let him go. As Xiang pulled away slowly, she whispered, "Be safe, sweet boy. And what I said then is still true. If you have battles that need fought, I will make them mine." He smiled, slowly releasing his grip on her, and softly said, "I tend to stay out of battles, but I'll keep that in mind. Stay safe. Slán, a chroí." As he turned and walked away, she stood watching him before calling out his name. When he turned back, she asked, "Are you going to go see him?" Daman just smiled and replied, "I made someone a promise once that I wouldn't and I'll keep it. Until he's ready." Then he was gone and she was alone again, amongst the bustle of the Parisian streets. Smiling, Xiang touched her lips before bursting into a bright laugh, spinning in a delighted circle with no regard to the odd looks it garnered her. Her sweet boy lived. Malloy was going to be furious that she had kissed him but she would temper his mood as she always did, using her mouth and body to make him forget. He was her true love, after all, and the one she would always returned to. Even if Daman Ó Conaill would always hold a sliver of her heart, the one small glimmer of it that still belonged to a girl who had once dreamed sweetly of marriage and love.
tiánmì de shìqíng - sweet thing (via Google Translate)
slán, a chroí - goodbye, my heart (via Google Translate)
Timeframe: 1823
Location: Paris, France
Event: Yen Xiang Jun is surprised (but delighted) to be accosted by her own child, Daman Ó Conaill, in the streets of Paris. When he angrily asks about his brother, she tells him what he wants to know.
Consquences: Xiang and Daman made peace with the short-lived relationship they had and move on with their lives.
Eight years junior to his brother, Daman was still a child when his brother suddenly disappeared without a trace. After losing their father to illness, he managed on his own until meeting Yen Xiang Jun who would eventually become his sire in the 1670s. When she returned to her own sire, Malloy, he began to wander the world, becoming an archaeologist in the 1920s amongst other odd jobs.
The only child of Malloy, she at first feared him as the strange man stalking her in the 1570s. After confronting him, fear became desire as he wooed her, eventually leading to her giving herself to him in order to save her brothers' lives after they tried to attack him. The only time after that that she has left her lover's side was to briefly return to Ireland, where she groomed and eventually turned Daman Ó Conaill, hoping to gain another version of his brother. When he did not, she returned to her sire's side as she knew that she would ruin the sweet man that he was.
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