Post by Catherine on Jun 15, 2010 23:07:42 GMT -5
A woman stood at a window, peering out with stunning crimson eyes, as a white, chiffon curtain fell before her face, closing off her more crisp view of the goings on outside, just three stories below her one bedroom flat at Pinehurst Court, the portered Victorian mansion block at 1-9 Colville Gardens, just off Colville Terrace and near the Portobello Market in Notting Hill, London, England. Currently she was on year 35 of a 100-year lease.
This tenant is Catherine Pickering. And she is no ordinary tenant. For one, she is rarely home. Rarely. It is just a place to keep the items from her long life she has acquired; mementos, new clothes, old clothes she doesn't wish to part with, paintings, books, jewelry, et cetera. When she is home, she seems holed up on sunny days and when she does go out, it's at night or on cloudy, overcast days, and even then she wears sunglasses when she clearly does not need to.
She's pale, although that is not necessarily something out of the ordinary living in England, but she is considerably more pale than the average human.
Which brings us to the number one reason why she is no ordinary tenant.
She isn't even human.
She is a vampire who has walked this earth for a decade and some change shy of five hundred years. She was human back during the times of King Henry VIII and five of his six wives. During the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries. And let us not forget all those wonderful beheadings.
Sometimes Catherine was saddened by the fates of those she knew, even if she only knew them by a far. Sometimes she smiled at the faded human memories, almost laughing at how all those many members of court and the royal family who thought they were untouchable and gods amongst men, and how they were all gone now, on average only living a lifespan of between thirty to forty years. And here was Catherine, all of four hundred and eighty-eight years.
There were times she couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if she had caught the eye King Henry VIII during his short marriage to Catherine Howard, to whom Catherine Pickering was a lady-in-waiting. Upon Catherine Howard's death by beheading, would she have been asked to marry the king? Perhaps she could've been his sixth and final wife instead of Katherine Parr.
Alas, such was not to be. How Catherine's mortal life came to an end is so fuzzy to her now, it's as if it is a mere distant dream or a reality that happened to someone else. All she knows now is that she loves the life, or unlife, whichever it can be called, that she leads now. She has a freedom she never would've been able to achieve in her human life those nearly five hundred years ago, or even seventy years ago. This last century surrounded her and she dove right in, relishing in how the world had changed so quickly in such a short span of time.
Turning from her window, she looked behind her at the living room of her flat, taking in all the trinkets and doodads that made up her existence. Several paintings hung on the walls, paintings she'd managed to save from her family's estate in Essex after killing them all and burning the estate down to the ground to destroy evidence of her massacre. One portrait was of her mother and her siblings in which Catherine had been around seven at the time. Another painting was of her, it was smaller than the previous portrait, but it captured how she looked as a human, with blue eyes that pierced through to the soul of the viewer. An eye color Catherine would never again have, and it bothered her none. A third but not last of the many paintings she had, was of her father, a stern and robust man who looked as if he had eaten something rather sour and unpleasant. His expression brought a giggle to her lips but nothing more came of it.
"Oh, father, if you could see me now," she muttered to herself.
And as she spoke those words, she glanced briefly at her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace and smirked. Her soft dark hair was pinned up slightly on the back of her head, her crimson eyes sparkling back at her, but not as red as usual. They were darker, the pupils larger. Her lips parted and her teeth glistened with her natural venom as she felt two things: the wafting of a warm spring breeze coming in through her living room window which she had open, and the gradual increase of the burning sensation in her throat.
Catherine was hungry.
In the blink of an eye, she had turned her body back toward the window, sprinted like a gazelle and literally dove and somersaulted out the window as graceful as an Olympic diving champion only to land soundlessly on her feet on the ground below.
She knew there was no one around this area at this time of night. It was quiet and peaceful, but she knew there were many people up and milling about at this time of night anyway. Usually plastered out of their mind or looking for a good shag. Or both. Taking off in a mad sprint, faster than human could perceive, she wove toward Kensington and Chelsea College.
She always found it easy to find a good bite to eat there. Young men off at university full of hopes of getting laid and sometimes Catherine is willing to oblige. But more often than naught, she simply feeds on them and discards their bodies in dumpsters for the human bobbies to deal with and eventually chuck it up to wild gang attack or animal attack or crime of passion that ends up being an unsolved murder. Or sometimes she dumps them in the Thames if she's nearby. In a populated city as London, it was easier for her to be more discreet.
She didn't want to invoke the wrath of the Volturi, after all.
[tag any vamps chillaxin' in London, circa Twilight ---> Breaking Dawn, or thereafter]
This tenant is Catherine Pickering. And she is no ordinary tenant. For one, she is rarely home. Rarely. It is just a place to keep the items from her long life she has acquired; mementos, new clothes, old clothes she doesn't wish to part with, paintings, books, jewelry, et cetera. When she is home, she seems holed up on sunny days and when she does go out, it's at night or on cloudy, overcast days, and even then she wears sunglasses when she clearly does not need to.
She's pale, although that is not necessarily something out of the ordinary living in England, but she is considerably more pale than the average human.
Which brings us to the number one reason why she is no ordinary tenant.
She isn't even human.
She is a vampire who has walked this earth for a decade and some change shy of five hundred years. She was human back during the times of King Henry VIII and five of his six wives. During the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries. And let us not forget all those wonderful beheadings.
Sometimes Catherine was saddened by the fates of those she knew, even if she only knew them by a far. Sometimes she smiled at the faded human memories, almost laughing at how all those many members of court and the royal family who thought they were untouchable and gods amongst men, and how they were all gone now, on average only living a lifespan of between thirty to forty years. And here was Catherine, all of four hundred and eighty-eight years.
There were times she couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if she had caught the eye King Henry VIII during his short marriage to Catherine Howard, to whom Catherine Pickering was a lady-in-waiting. Upon Catherine Howard's death by beheading, would she have been asked to marry the king? Perhaps she could've been his sixth and final wife instead of Katherine Parr.
Alas, such was not to be. How Catherine's mortal life came to an end is so fuzzy to her now, it's as if it is a mere distant dream or a reality that happened to someone else. All she knows now is that she loves the life, or unlife, whichever it can be called, that she leads now. She has a freedom she never would've been able to achieve in her human life those nearly five hundred years ago, or even seventy years ago. This last century surrounded her and she dove right in, relishing in how the world had changed so quickly in such a short span of time.
Turning from her window, she looked behind her at the living room of her flat, taking in all the trinkets and doodads that made up her existence. Several paintings hung on the walls, paintings she'd managed to save from her family's estate in Essex after killing them all and burning the estate down to the ground to destroy evidence of her massacre. One portrait was of her mother and her siblings in which Catherine had been around seven at the time. Another painting was of her, it was smaller than the previous portrait, but it captured how she looked as a human, with blue eyes that pierced through to the soul of the viewer. An eye color Catherine would never again have, and it bothered her none. A third but not last of the many paintings she had, was of her father, a stern and robust man who looked as if he had eaten something rather sour and unpleasant. His expression brought a giggle to her lips but nothing more came of it.
"Oh, father, if you could see me now," she muttered to herself.
And as she spoke those words, she glanced briefly at her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace and smirked. Her soft dark hair was pinned up slightly on the back of her head, her crimson eyes sparkling back at her, but not as red as usual. They were darker, the pupils larger. Her lips parted and her teeth glistened with her natural venom as she felt two things: the wafting of a warm spring breeze coming in through her living room window which she had open, and the gradual increase of the burning sensation in her throat.
Catherine was hungry.
In the blink of an eye, she had turned her body back toward the window, sprinted like a gazelle and literally dove and somersaulted out the window as graceful as an Olympic diving champion only to land soundlessly on her feet on the ground below.
She knew there was no one around this area at this time of night. It was quiet and peaceful, but she knew there were many people up and milling about at this time of night anyway. Usually plastered out of their mind or looking for a good shag. Or both. Taking off in a mad sprint, faster than human could perceive, she wove toward Kensington and Chelsea College.
She always found it easy to find a good bite to eat there. Young men off at university full of hopes of getting laid and sometimes Catherine is willing to oblige. But more often than naught, she simply feeds on them and discards their bodies in dumpsters for the human bobbies to deal with and eventually chuck it up to wild gang attack or animal attack or crime of passion that ends up being an unsolved murder. Or sometimes she dumps them in the Thames if she's nearby. In a populated city as London, it was easier for her to be more discreet.
She didn't want to invoke the wrath of the Volturi, after all.
[tag any vamps chillaxin' in London, circa Twilight ---> Breaking Dawn, or thereafter]