Room to Breathe
This article is a part of Spooktober 2024 and is still a work in progress. Written for the Breath prompt.Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Darragh kept his eyes closed as he went through the slow motions of breathing. After more than a century of ignoring the need his body no longer remembered how to do the function that so many mortals took for granted on its own. And if he was intending to really integrate himself back into general society like his bloodsister Gnaea suggested, he needed to be able to blend in amongst the mortal population. If he couldn't blend in, he would be a target. Hunters knew who he was, of course, as he had killed almost two dozen since he had been turned. They called him Bloody Ó Conaill and his name was one of the highest on the list the clans shared of the most dangerous vampires. He had tortured a proud member of the Kosho clan once for nearly a month in 1704 before they had finally surrendered, telling him everything he wanted to know about clan politics. Should the hunters find out that he was no longer Bloody Ó Conaill, they would come for him. They would hunt him down in droves to try and take him out. He needed to lay low and hide because as much as he wanted to live, he didn't want to kill. Not anymore. It had already been nearly fifty years since he had all but disappeared from the public eye but hunters had long memories. If he laid low long enough and blended amongst mortals, they would eventually forget about Bloody Ó Conaill and the swath of destruction that he had sown across Europe. Maybe even believe that he was dead. Sighing, Darragh opened his eyes and looked towards the open doorway of the patio where Gnaea stood watching him. "Practicing?" she asked with a smile. "Practicing," he confirmed as he sat up slightly in the wooden chair. "It's...slow." Nodding, she leaned against the doorframe and said, "It will take time for your body to relearn itself, little brother. But you are probably the strongest of us, I know you can do it." Darragh scoffed. "I'm the one who attempted to commit suicide by sire, how exactly am I the strongest?" he asked. Gnaea just looked at him for a long moment before softly saying, "You know why, little brother," and he flinched. Darragh had never liked the reminder since he had become himself again of what he was. Of how so very close he walked the knife edge between normal vampire and Rogue. His sister had been reminding him since he had returned to her Italian villa after his little trip to Ireland that he did not have to be the monster his instincts wanted to make him. Looking away from her out over the countryside, he sighed. He had never spoken to Gnaea about how he fought against the bloodlust that seemed to be ingrained into him now. How he was sometimes afraid to leave, terrified that he would kill and slaughter and drink his way through mortal after mortal to slake the clawing thirst in his throat. Freed from what he had been, he wanted her to see him as something beyond that beast he was before. Of course, Gnaea had seen the beast. She had helped temper him into something with a semblance of control and not just a relentless killer. She knew but was usually polite not to say it. Her hand gripped his shoulder then and he sighed, lifting his own hand to rest over hers. Barely tanned skin against olive, a study in contrasts that no mortal would believe were related and yet...those around her villa accepted him as her brother without question. "One day you will draw breath without feeling the claws at your throat, little brother," Gnaea said gently. "Keep practicing." Darragh breathed in slowly and let it out before squeezing her fingers. "Thank you," he murmured. "For what?" "For allowing me the space to learn how to breathe again." He meant it in so many ways. Learning how to blend in again. How to live again. And how to slowly pack away the monster that he had been to become some semblance of a man again. Gnaea pressed a warm kiss against his temple - he could smell the hint of mortal blood on her lips and it made his stomach clench in agony - and then rested her forehead there, leaning against him. "You are my family, Darragh," was her soft reply, "it is nothing." "It's everything," he whispered in response and meant it.
Timeframe: 1830
Location: Italy
Event: Darragh Ó Conaill works on learning on to breathe like a mortal again and has a conversation with his bloodsister, Gnaea Abella.
Consquences: Darragh Ó Conaill and Gnaea Abella, never truly close despite the bond of blood between them, grow closer as he continues to live with her after the fallout of his memories returning.
The third child of the vampire Ebio, he lost his memory of who he had been when he was turned in the 1660s and became little more than a killer driven by intense bloodlust. By the 1780s, he regained his memory and has since struggled to control the aftermath of his years of bloodthirsty killing and figure out a place to belong.
The daughter of a Roman senator, she and her mother were forced to sell themselves into slavery after her father was killed and his reputation ruined. That was where Ebio found her, buying her and eventually turning her into her first child. Though the pair were lovers for years, they eventually grew apart due to Ebio's bloodthirsty nature. Gnaea continued to aid her sire, however, both helping to temper her younger bloodbrother and taking him in after he regained his memories.
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