A bit of research/excerpt

I did mention sharing this, I suppose but now I’m nervous. Also, just generally nervous. As usual, lately. If all of this uncertainty carries on I might run away, and live in Thailand for no major reason (Unrelated: Ganja became legal there last year. My word were they quiet about that. I discovered that by accident, because I lived there before.)

Anyway, I have learned many random things this morning. I’ve been reading about German hunting rules, to get an idea of what kind of animals Abbey might see (They have some very cute deer/goat looking things) and then I thought I’d better check for wolves and bears. They have wolves but not bears.

The last German bear was allegedly photographed in 1835, and I couldn’t find the picture, which was very disappointing because that’s very early photography. Maybe the picture was blurry or something (unless the bear was dead) but I’d have still liked to see it.

Then later (171 years, or something) another bear turned up. They named it Bruno, then shot it. Then I think they stuffed it and put it in a museum. This bear was Italian, but wandered over.

What else did I learn? Oh, I found a photograph of the mouth of a Lamprey for you. They are kinda cute, but also awful looking. I’ve heard they taste good, I think.

Why did I find that? Because I wrote some gross mermaid things, and I thought the picture might match. Here it is:
(First draft, go easy on me) (Also, it’s maybe a pinch sexual, fair warning. And hopefully scary, but that’s the idea.)

In a short while, she found a small river. Frigid water bubbled over a wide stream bed of pale sand and cold pebbles. She filled her bottle, hoping that the water was fine to drink. She couldn’t afford to be picky either way, and the water was clear and fast flowing. After she drank enough, she threw her bag and clothing over a fallen log and decided she might as well wash off. She was hot and felt terrible after her trek, and the dancing the previous night.
She waded into the deepest part of the stream, surprised to find it reached almost to her shoulders. The water was cold, she knew, but on her skin it almost felt hot. She shut her eyes and let her exhaustion wash downstream. She put her head under, then remembered that her hair was still arranged for the ball. The curls had long gone flat but she wasn’t sure how to unfasten it, especially wet. She sat down in the shallows and did her best to untangle her hair. Would Layla really come to find her tonight, or was it wishful thinking?
Abbey tried to ignore her own nudity. She’d managed to put a little weight on over the past few weeks but she felt she still looked boyish. She ran her fingers over her breasts, remembering the first time Sinjen had done the same. She blushed at the memory. Why did Sinjen always stop, even when she was enjoying his attention? And why did Blackthorn always go too far? She lay down against the bank, her ears were just below the water like this. She could see her pale skin and the way her long, dark hair floated in the water, sometimes tickling her waist and ribcage.
She thought of the ring she had lost, and of the woman on it. Her legs had been parted, but she had been carved from behind. The image had seemed explicit, in spite of the lack of technical nudity. Blackthorn didn’t seem to object to sleeping with men. She was confident that Dane was his lover, at the very least. Even so, he stood out among the vampires she had met, as the one with the most interest in women’s bodies. She allowed her hand to slip between her own legs, in a more gentle imitation of Blackthorn’s touch. She closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t really want to think about him; but at the same time, if he’d only asked, she might have wanted him to touch her.
The sound of the stream shifted in some subtle way, and Abbey closed her eyes to listen. She contemplated the term, ‘a bubbling brook’ and reflected that the water sounded a little like speech. As she was wet anyway, she played around with her drawing technique. There must be life in the water, and yet she couldn’t feel anything. She cut her hand with a fingernail, and felt her senses expand. This only lasted until her blood was washed downstream, but for a moment she had been able to sense the slimy green stuff at the bottom of the stream, insects, even fish.
She rested her hands on her chest, and felt a woman’s hands take hers, “Layla?”
When she opened her eyes it was to see an unfamiliar blonde woman leaning over her. She was naked too, and an extreme beauty. Abbey sat up, and pulled away, only to find another woman behind her. They were of a type, and might have been sisters, but their eyes were unnaturally green, and slitted. The woman behind her kissed her neck, as the other one smiled and put a hand around her waist. A third woman appeared from the water, as elegantly as Abbey had ever seen anyone do anything. The three began to sing, softly at first, but as their volume increased, so did some kind of glamour. Abbey couldn’t take her eyes off them, and especially their strange eyes. Their caresses felt like water, and as they pulled Abbey deeper into the water their bodies grew hotter, and their touch more insistent. Without warning, the first one sank her teeth into Abbey’s arm. Abbey panicked, her spear was out of reach, so she yanked the woman’s head back. This required all of her strength and revealed disgusting lamprey-like rows of teeth, and an oval of puncture wounds over her arm.
As one had started, the other two joined in the attack. Abbey screamed as she felt her shoulder-blade punctured multiple times at once, and her thigh. She tried to push the creature off her leg, but the first one seized her arm and lifting it, attached her vile, sucking mouth to her side. The three creatures were working together to drag her under water.
All Abbey could do was grab onto a tree root with one arm and make that more difficult. She could feel an inner row of fangs slice through her skin, and knew her blood was being drained. She wouldn’t be able to hang on for long. She was going to drown. Her breathing became shallow and fast, as fear overtook her. The blood in her veins ran ice cold. She could feel it sliding down the throats of these monsters. Her hand slipped from the tree root and she was pulled under, she tried to kick her way back to land but could do nothing. Even in her panic she caught herself, she shouldn’t be able to feel where he blood was going. She tried to relax and found she could feel the life force of the creatures, as well as her own. With a monumental effort of concentration, she focused on drawing the energy out of them in return. Slowly at first, and then it was like a torrent of energy hit her. The creature at her thigh detached itself and hissed at her, it’s skin was now green, and it’s features had contorted into something else, arranged around it’s terrible sideways mouth. She couldn’t stop it from slipping away, but when the one behind her let go she grabbed it by the hair. It struggled to escape and managed to; leaving a handful of pale hair and scalp in her hands. She’d taken so much of it’s energy before it got away that it’s hair had turned white.
She punched the other one away from her skin, and in a fury dragged it onto the shore by it’s hair. Abbey would have died at that moment, rather than let it escape. When they were mostly on land she twisted it’s head around sharply and sank her fangs into it’s neck. It didn’t even taste bad. She drank until the thing could barely move, then pulled it further out of the water. She was forced to let it go for a second, to reach for her spear, but stabbed the thing through the heart before it was able to retreat. When it was gone, she looked around for the other two, but the stream was as peaceful now as it always had been. She dressed in the last of the light, and looked up in time to see the figure of a man, dressed all in black, disappear into the trees. He must have seen the whole thing.


Image: Lamprey (look at it’s cute eye)