Ancient Wounds pt 32i
Greetings my loves and many an apologetic word for my slow pace at writing of late, exams are in their throws and it can get in the way of more important vamtastic pastimes. Anyway, thanks to everyone who's been following the story thus far and here I present the next part....
Author: yours truly, ExMaverick aka Jess
Title: Ancient Wounds
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: Prequel to my vampire fic Deepest Shadow. Ville recounts the events of his mortal life growing up in the poverty of 20th century Finland, wrought with grief, sex, romance, passion and abuse leading into his birth to darkness.
His lengthy tales are imparted to the sleepy mind of his young lover, but only in the seclusion of his own darkest thoughts does he begin to relive the greatest obsessions and deepest hurts rooted in his bygone and decadent time.
Warnings: N/a
Pairing: Vam,Ville/Jonne, Ville/OC (in parts)
Previous Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5i, 5ii, 6, 7, 8, 9i, 9ii, 10i, 10ii, 10iii,11, 12i, 12ii, 13, 14i, 14ii, 14iii, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20i, 20ii,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
--------------------------------------------------------------<3
I walk through the sleeping hills surrounding the little palace we have made for ourselves, weaving my way through the forest that plunges graceful into the stirring city lying below. It’s one hour into morning, and I stand alone in the passiveness of nature admiring in the dark sweet air the oaks that are twitching into life once again as April overcomes the previous coldness of the earlier months. I know you are safe inside readying sleep for when the dawn comes, and am conflicted by a sense of delicious urgency and desire to be both in your embrace, and yet in this utter stillness that blankets the earth and fills me with an overwhelming calm.
I trace the leathery cracked skin of a sleeping giant’s bough, so completely aware of its age and of its tiredness in such longevity, a feeling in my chest almost as if its communing with another ancient and sleepless soul. In a clearing the light is grey from the pallid moon bowing to the arrival of the sun, I feel the pinpricks on the back of my neck and arms that tell me so. Across the cool grass lie the debris of winter storms: sticks and leaves trapped in the braches of shadowy pits worn in the ground, the trees dead on the woodland floor like the picked skeletons of mighty beasts dumped in the night. It becomes hard to believe sometimes that nature herself could muster such force to bring such a thing down.
I turn back and see the flickering of candlelight, catch the scent of roses on the sugary morning air that no mortal man could catch. Home. In so far as I knew that the candlelight and the roses were all because of you, and that the glittering marble haven was only home because of it. I wanted to return to you, to crawl again beside you into bed, or perhaps by the fire if you wished, and for you to hold me. I wanted your blue eyes to look upon with tenderness. I look out once more across the wilderness, look down into the waking city beneath and walk the steady mortal walk back through the woods to find you, at peace with the beauty of what’s within and without the place we have built together.
…….
I sat in my chambers the next evening after leaving Jesse, having told Dyre all details and joys of our conversation-save one. I had not mentioned the proposition of leaving. I dared not to. The matter that had most pressed me was that of the note pressed into my palm that my brother had given me so hastily from his pocket. I had read it four and a million times before the sun had risen-
To My Dearest Ville,
Long has been the day since I last laid eyes upon you but not a day since then have you been away of my thoughts. Oh my angel, my sweetheart, my most darling boy how proud I am of you! No mother ever had such a son as I have had. I can only pray you have grown up into the measure of the man I know it is your destiny to be. I can also only hope that you do not hate me for what I had to do. I understand Ville, I was once a child too, and children begin by loving their parents only after a time judging them, yet it is rare that they forgive them.
Today is warm and full of promise my son, I remember such a day the first time I held you in my arms and your father and I wept with joy at the sight of you. I never wanted us to be separated, but this is the path we have to follow to survive. Bringing you and your brother up in such as cruel and hard a world as this alone would have been impossible. That is the nature of motherhood Ville, to bear you I had to stare into death’s face, to feed you I wrestled with it. Death fought me for you, as all women fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless, seeks to rip them from our arms.
My son, I adore you. You have given life to that which was dead: our hope. You are with me in my heart and whether we are destined to meet again I will carry you with me until the day I am dead.
With boundless love,
Anita Valo
The fact of the matter was this: Any debt owed by my mother to my Master was now paid. Jesse had been completely correct, Master Vuori had no power to keep me within these walls now that the servitude I had pledged was spent. I did not care that I was no longer mortal that did not matter, I wanted my brother and wanted his visions of glorious Helsinki , of life and of laughter and happiness. I wanted to leave this place of perverse loyalty. I wanted to be free. But I knew all too well that I was a fool to think he would simply give me up now that I had become his most prized possession, his trophy or trinket . But what choice did I have? I would have to be him for my release, I was not strong nor swift enough to face him and fight. I would have to hope that his love of me would give me anything that I wanted.
With this knowledge in mind I formed a plan that dusk, and when night’s perfume drifted from the blossoming orchards throughout the manor I set to work. To the mirror upon my dressing table I stood dressed only in a linen shirt to the mid-thigh, revealing the creamy white flesh of my slender legs and open collar exposing my pale and shapely throat. I preened my hair, teasing out the dark brown curls and letting tresses fall about my cheeks which where pink from blood. Tonight I would play the seducer, throw myself upon my Lord and lull him into allowing me away if only for a short time-which I would most definitely use to escape. This called for a very drastic change of sexual tact indeed, the body which had enslaved me would now be used to set me free.
The evening was still when I crept into my Master’s chambers but an hour later. He of course was not there, but stalking some poor fool in the neighbouring villages or perhaps in the forests seeking the recluse meal of a starved game poacher. His chambers were grand but false, for never did he rest there. No, though all of us had luxurious bedrooms we all slept in the filth below the ground, for the sun could not reach us there. And false as it was I must say the vain and materialist within me adored the decadence in which he lived, the whole expanse of the room was drenched in rich reds and deepest purples, from the elegance of the laced canopy to the detailed beaded stitching of velveteen pillows. It also struck me how much his quarters were so akin to his own self, the unbridled charm and riches masking the slavery and cruelty that created the whole façade.
The scent of the place was a concentration of hat which often filled the majority of the manor in these summer months, the flowering plants that grew in the orchard, lily-of-the-valley and the tiny ox-eye daisy, filling the air. The man himself, if indeed he could ever be called a man, always carried a spice to his own scent. Something very masculine and dominating yet unsettlingly pleasing at the same time.
I knew he would be back sooner or later and that until then I had but to wait, so took my time to examine the many small curiosities in his possession. He owned an ornately carved desk much like my own against the huge windows, out from which one could view the surrounding forest and the dirt track I had once feared so long ago. Upon the desk were many papers, old crumbling papers written in his hand in an old tongue I knew precious little about, knowing only that it was the language of my native land long since dead and replaced by that which we spoke now. He had many books of literature in Finnish and in other European hands, which I remember he would have had me read aloud in eh years I had first come here. I adored the written word, and as upsetting a factor as it was I had the Master to thank for that for the majority. Had I never been forced into such studied I doubt I would ever have become as well read and rounded in intellect as I had.
I dusted off a familiar volume bound in green leather and opened it, reading the title page’s beautifully printed wording ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ by Wilde. Having always felt an affinity in my youth for eternal beauty and indulgence, I found my love of the novel still quite painfully ironic. I found myself reading the first chapter once again after all these years, absorbing the wonderful vanity of British society in the last decade of the previous century and enthralled yet again by the sexual tension between Lord Henry and Dorian himself. I smirked to myself and wondered if there would ever be a painting aging in an attic somewhere on my behalf. Walking to the bed with it I positioned myself strategically across the exquisitely soft throw, letting the thin nightshirt fall away from my bare shoulders. I sensed suddenly the approach of my keeper, and ran my fingertips underneath my clothes touching somewhere dark and forbidden.
Author: yours truly, ExMaverick aka Jess
Title: Ancient Wounds
Rating: Pg-13
Summary: Prequel to my vampire fic Deepest Shadow. Ville recounts the events of his mortal life growing up in the poverty of 20th century Finland, wrought with grief, sex, romance, passion and abuse leading into his birth to darkness.
His lengthy tales are imparted to the sleepy mind of his young lover, but only in the seclusion of his own darkest thoughts does he begin to relive the greatest obsessions and deepest hurts rooted in his bygone and decadent time.
Warnings: N/a
Pairing: Vam,Ville/Jonne, Ville/OC (in parts)
Previous Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5i, 5ii, 6, 7, 8, 9i, 9ii, 10i, 10ii, 10iii,11, 12i, 12ii, 13, 14i, 14ii, 14iii, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20i, 20ii,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
--------------------------------------------------------------<3
I walk through the sleeping hills surrounding the little palace we have made for ourselves, weaving my way through the forest that plunges graceful into the stirring city lying below. It’s one hour into morning, and I stand alone in the passiveness of nature admiring in the dark sweet air the oaks that are twitching into life once again as April overcomes the previous coldness of the earlier months. I know you are safe inside readying sleep for when the dawn comes, and am conflicted by a sense of delicious urgency and desire to be both in your embrace, and yet in this utter stillness that blankets the earth and fills me with an overwhelming calm.
I trace the leathery cracked skin of a sleeping giant’s bough, so completely aware of its age and of its tiredness in such longevity, a feeling in my chest almost as if its communing with another ancient and sleepless soul. In a clearing the light is grey from the pallid moon bowing to the arrival of the sun, I feel the pinpricks on the back of my neck and arms that tell me so. Across the cool grass lie the debris of winter storms: sticks and leaves trapped in the braches of shadowy pits worn in the ground, the trees dead on the woodland floor like the picked skeletons of mighty beasts dumped in the night. It becomes hard to believe sometimes that nature herself could muster such force to bring such a thing down.
I turn back and see the flickering of candlelight, catch the scent of roses on the sugary morning air that no mortal man could catch. Home. In so far as I knew that the candlelight and the roses were all because of you, and that the glittering marble haven was only home because of it. I wanted to return to you, to crawl again beside you into bed, or perhaps by the fire if you wished, and for you to hold me. I wanted your blue eyes to look upon with tenderness. I look out once more across the wilderness, look down into the waking city beneath and walk the steady mortal walk back through the woods to find you, at peace with the beauty of what’s within and without the place we have built together.
…….
I sat in my chambers the next evening after leaving Jesse, having told Dyre all details and joys of our conversation-save one. I had not mentioned the proposition of leaving. I dared not to. The matter that had most pressed me was that of the note pressed into my palm that my brother had given me so hastily from his pocket. I had read it four and a million times before the sun had risen-
To My Dearest Ville,
Long has been the day since I last laid eyes upon you but not a day since then have you been away of my thoughts. Oh my angel, my sweetheart, my most darling boy how proud I am of you! No mother ever had such a son as I have had. I can only pray you have grown up into the measure of the man I know it is your destiny to be. I can also only hope that you do not hate me for what I had to do. I understand Ville, I was once a child too, and children begin by loving their parents only after a time judging them, yet it is rare that they forgive them.
Today is warm and full of promise my son, I remember such a day the first time I held you in my arms and your father and I wept with joy at the sight of you. I never wanted us to be separated, but this is the path we have to follow to survive. Bringing you and your brother up in such as cruel and hard a world as this alone would have been impossible. That is the nature of motherhood Ville, to bear you I had to stare into death’s face, to feed you I wrestled with it. Death fought me for you, as all women fight with death to keep their children. Death, being childless, seeks to rip them from our arms.
My son, I adore you. You have given life to that which was dead: our hope. You are with me in my heart and whether we are destined to meet again I will carry you with me until the day I am dead.
With boundless love,
Anita Valo
The fact of the matter was this: Any debt owed by my mother to my Master was now paid. Jesse had been completely correct, Master Vuori had no power to keep me within these walls now that the servitude I had pledged was spent. I did not care that I was no longer mortal that did not matter, I wanted my brother and wanted his visions of glorious Helsinki , of life and of laughter and happiness. I wanted to leave this place of perverse loyalty. I wanted to be free. But I knew all too well that I was a fool to think he would simply give me up now that I had become his most prized possession, his trophy or trinket . But what choice did I have? I would have to be him for my release, I was not strong nor swift enough to face him and fight. I would have to hope that his love of me would give me anything that I wanted.
With this knowledge in mind I formed a plan that dusk, and when night’s perfume drifted from the blossoming orchards throughout the manor I set to work. To the mirror upon my dressing table I stood dressed only in a linen shirt to the mid-thigh, revealing the creamy white flesh of my slender legs and open collar exposing my pale and shapely throat. I preened my hair, teasing out the dark brown curls and letting tresses fall about my cheeks which where pink from blood. Tonight I would play the seducer, throw myself upon my Lord and lull him into allowing me away if only for a short time-which I would most definitely use to escape. This called for a very drastic change of sexual tact indeed, the body which had enslaved me would now be used to set me free.
The evening was still when I crept into my Master’s chambers but an hour later. He of course was not there, but stalking some poor fool in the neighbouring villages or perhaps in the forests seeking the recluse meal of a starved game poacher. His chambers were grand but false, for never did he rest there. No, though all of us had luxurious bedrooms we all slept in the filth below the ground, for the sun could not reach us there. And false as it was I must say the vain and materialist within me adored the decadence in which he lived, the whole expanse of the room was drenched in rich reds and deepest purples, from the elegance of the laced canopy to the detailed beaded stitching of velveteen pillows. It also struck me how much his quarters were so akin to his own self, the unbridled charm and riches masking the slavery and cruelty that created the whole façade.
The scent of the place was a concentration of hat which often filled the majority of the manor in these summer months, the flowering plants that grew in the orchard, lily-of-the-valley and the tiny ox-eye daisy, filling the air. The man himself, if indeed he could ever be called a man, always carried a spice to his own scent. Something very masculine and dominating yet unsettlingly pleasing at the same time.
I knew he would be back sooner or later and that until then I had but to wait, so took my time to examine the many small curiosities in his possession. He owned an ornately carved desk much like my own against the huge windows, out from which one could view the surrounding forest and the dirt track I had once feared so long ago. Upon the desk were many papers, old crumbling papers written in his hand in an old tongue I knew precious little about, knowing only that it was the language of my native land long since dead and replaced by that which we spoke now. He had many books of literature in Finnish and in other European hands, which I remember he would have had me read aloud in eh years I had first come here. I adored the written word, and as upsetting a factor as it was I had the Master to thank for that for the majority. Had I never been forced into such studied I doubt I would ever have become as well read and rounded in intellect as I had.
I dusted off a familiar volume bound in green leather and opened it, reading the title page’s beautifully printed wording ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ by Wilde. Having always felt an affinity in my youth for eternal beauty and indulgence, I found my love of the novel still quite painfully ironic. I found myself reading the first chapter once again after all these years, absorbing the wonderful vanity of British society in the last decade of the previous century and enthralled yet again by the sexual tension between Lord Henry and Dorian himself. I smirked to myself and wondered if there would ever be a painting aging in an attic somewhere on my behalf. Walking to the bed with it I positioned myself strategically across the exquisitely soft throw, letting the thin nightshirt fall away from my bare shoulders. I sensed suddenly the approach of my keeper, and ran my fingertips underneath my clothes touching somewhere dark and forbidden.