What he’d built here. He didn’t know why he’d said that. He had never meant to look like he cared about growing roots, that he was trying to build anything lasting. Still, there was a certain satisfaction in having set something down here - made connections, fashioned a life, people in orbit around him - that was at odds with the thought of wandering on. On, and on, and on. There would come a time to move on, and he wouldn’t fight it. But he didn’t want to exist as a ghost, as a shadow, as a wisp: he still wanted to have his presence felt, wanted to roll up his sleeves in the world, wanted to have things to remember even if no one was left to remember him.
Azazel would bring it all down without thinking, would force him to move on much too soon to save himself. And she wouldn’t understand, because she hadn’t lived that way. He had been nothing before he was this, but he knew where she had been born, and as what. She might’ve had the world at her fingertips already in her life if she hadn’t longed for something different. If she hadn’t wanted her freedom so fiercely, too fiercely to wait. And she had that now: she was free to do as she liked, free to roam the whole world. Perhaps she had, since he had last seen her. But she had built nothing, and would build nothing, and be nothing but a destroyer. It was in her eyes.
Unless she - maybe, perhaps, possibly - decided to listen to him. He didn’t think she would - he knew he had no power over her, and hadn’t since the moment he’d sunk his fangs into her neck and turned her - but he might as well try. A last ditch attempt. For old times’ sake. Because he’d made her this.
She was stiff and upright and still, he thought, on the defensive, but Ishmael stepped in close to her, tracing a finger along the arch of her neck pensively. “Learn a little control,” he told her. “Drink all the blood you like without killing. Ask me for help.” He wouldn’t - couldn’t - help her unless she asked, and he thought she might be too proud to. “You don’t always have to be running. It doesn’t always have to be a war.”
Azazel would bring it all down without thinking, would force him to move on much too soon to save himself. And she wouldn’t understand, because she hadn’t lived that way. He had been nothing before he was this, but he knew where she had been born, and as what. She might’ve had the world at her fingertips already in her life if she hadn’t longed for something different. If she hadn’t wanted her freedom so fiercely, too fiercely to wait. And she had that now: she was free to do as she liked, free to roam the whole world. Perhaps she had, since he had last seen her. But she had built nothing, and would build nothing, and be nothing but a destroyer. It was in her eyes.
Unless she - maybe, perhaps, possibly - decided to listen to him. He didn’t think she would - he knew he had no power over her, and hadn’t since the moment he’d sunk his fangs into her neck and turned her - but he might as well try. A last ditch attempt. For old times’ sake. Because he’d made her this.
She was stiff and upright and still, he thought, on the defensive, but Ishmael stepped in close to her, tracing a finger along the arch of her neck pensively. “Learn a little control,” he told her. “Drink all the blood you like without killing. Ask me for help.” He wouldn’t - couldn’t - help her unless she asked, and he thought she might be too proud to. “You don’t always have to be running. It doesn’t always have to be a war.”
