Chapter Text
Klara prepares to die the summer before her fortieth birthday.
She does not want to die. Isolde does not want to kill her.
Not again.
One of the very first things Isolde told her about vampirism was that there is absolutely no guarantee of surviving a vampiric transformation, that the painful so-called ‘embraces’ do not always take, leaving the would-be vampire to perish in absolute agony.
It is not a decision made lightly or without considerable thought and deliberation, sometimes contention, between her and Isolde, but Klara is so sure of this choice, has been ever since that conversation between the two of them on a sleepy weekday morning years ago.
“This lifetime isn’t enough for me, my light,” Isolde had said that morning as she fretted over how many years Klara might live, how long they might have together.
Klara had given a hedged response, only merely raising the possibility of Isolde turning her, but her decision was made as she spoke. Even then, she had been skeptical of there being any more chances for them.
Call her greedy, but one mortal lifespan isn’t enough for Klara, either.
/
The blaring of her phone’s alarm rouses Klara from her sleep, as it does nearly every day, alerting her that it is now time to get ready for her usual morning run. Before Klara can pull the covers over her face, hoping that her alarm snoozes itself and gives her five more minutes of sleep, Isolde reaches over and silences her phone.
She burrows into Klara’s shoulder and drapes an arm around Klara’s midsection. “Stay in bed with me,” comes her muffled voice, and, well, Klara can’t exactly say no to that, can she?
“You’re a bad influence,” she mumbles, still half-asleep. This is the fourth morning in a row Isolde has convinced her to skip her run.
“Mm, yes, the worst.”
Klara can always run tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Right.
With the slightest wrinkle to her brow, Klara falls back asleep almost immediately. She doesn’t see how, after a few moments, Isolde props herself up on her elbow, looking down at Klara, a melancholic affection coloring her expression. With a supreme gentleness, as if she were handling a glass so fragile it would shatter at the slightest of touches, Isolde runs her fingers over Klara’s face, smoothing out that furrow in between her eyebrows. Unconscious though she is, Klara relaxes into the touch.
Isolde traces over the light summertime freckles sprinkled over Klara’s cheekbones, the small scar on her chin from when she tripped over a rock while running a year ago and fell right onto her face, and the thin, barely there wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She strokes the line of Klara’s jaw, the bridge of her nose, the curve of her lips. None of this would be surprising to Klara were she awake; Isolde has taken to doing this for the past several months, memorizing every inch of Klara’s face and body, doing all that she can to preserve Klara’s image in her mind, just in case she loses her again.
Because they both know Klara might not be here after tomorrow night.
Klara wakes up curled into Isolde’s side, her wife’s cool fingers threading through her hair and lightly scratching her scalp. Isolde is sitting mostly upright against the headboard and her pillows, a book in her lap.
“What time is it?” Klara asks, yawning. “I hope I didn’t sleep for-” An audible grumbling from her stomach interrupts her, and Isolde laughs, the sound prettier than any birdsong. “For too long,” Klara finishes, mildly sheepishly.
Isolde smiles at her, continuing to card her fingers through Klara’s hair. “Nearly nine, my light.” Her smile turns teasing. “You must have been quite tired. You were snoring.”
Klara startles. “Wha- I don’t snore!”
“You do. Softly, though. More of a loud breathing than anything and not every night.” This is not the first time Isolde has brought up Klara’s supposed snoring nor the first time Klara has vehemently denied it.
Because she absolutely does not snore, thank you very much!
Klara harrumphs and pouts half-heartedly. Isolde sets her book aside and scoots down so they are now level with each other. She kisses Klara’s frown away like she always does, and the two of them giggle in between their morning kisses as if they’ve no worries in the world.
Eventually, Klara extricates herself from Isolde’s embrace, promising to bring her her preferred tea from the nearby cafe she frequents. The employees there know her by name at this point, along with her usual order.
She leaves the cafe with a drink tray holding Isolde’s tea and her coffee, along with some pastries for herself that she’ll eat along with the last of the fresh fruit they have. As she walks home, Klara cannot help but think of familiar strangers and the odd place they occupy in her life and she in theirs.
Would this cafe’s employees notice if she suddenly stopped coming? Or would that older couple she always passes by and waves to in the park on her morning runs? What of the people she sees every day when she takes public transit to work?
Would she notice if they vanished? Klara would like to think so, but-
A stray tabby cat jumping out from a bush to walk alongside her on the sidewalk jolts her from her existential thoughts. Carefully balancing her drink tray, Klara bends down to pet the cat, who seems content to tolerate the sudden attention. She scratches it behind its ears, runs her hand down the fur of its back, and then as quickly as it appeared, the cat scampers off.
Klara stares at its disappearing form wistfully.
Walking to grab coffee, petting a stray cat, the sunshine on her face… It’s hard not to think of her possible death tomorrow, and how she might not experience these mundane parts of life ever again.
Years ago, Klara was never prepared to grieve and mourn over her own passing. It feels like receiving a terminally fatal diagnosis. She has no other framework from which to work.
She thinks of her mother and how she acted when the doctors informed her that she didn’t have much longer. She kept it so together, together to an alarming degree, and lived life as fully as she could in those final months. Back then, Klara found it admirable, but now she recognizes how her mother kept her sadness hidden away from everyone, not wanting to further weigh her loved ones’ hearts down with grief.
It’s like looking into a mirror. Klara always knew she took after her mother the most out of her siblings, but sometimes it hits her a little too hard.
But Klara’s current situation isn’t like her mother’s, not remotely. She cannot tell her family about this or even most of her friends. Aside from three people, she is quite alone in this.
Klara doesn’t know if she will die or not; there’s no odds to examine, no treatments that may miraculously work out, none of that. Isolde has frequently told her that there is a limit to how much science or logic she can apply to the supernatural, and that leaves Klara floundering a bit.
She will either die or become a vampire, and she has no idea which will happen. Klara doesn’t want to die. She wants to be with Isolde forever, but just because the universe listened to her request once, as she died, doesn’t mean it will do so a second time.
The uncertainty that looms over her is nigh unbearable.
Her eyes sting as tears begin to form, and Klara hurriedly shakes her head and resumes walking home. It won’t do to cry her eyes out over her own mortality in the middle of the street like this.
Once was enough.
Klara returns home quickly.
Isolde greets her as always with a kiss to the cheek that Klara returns as she hands her her tea.
She’s pleasantly surprised to see that Isolde has already cut up the last pieces of fruit and placed them in a bowl for her.
They sit together on the couch and enjoy their breakfast as a Brazilian jazz album spins on the turntable, filling their apartment with the sounds of sublime guitar. Like most mornings they spend together, when neither of them have their careers or other responsibilities calling, they work on the daily crossword as they sip their drinks and chat about everything and nothing.
It is mostly Klara prattling on about whatever topics she has found interesting recently, and Isolde listening intently, though Klara wonders if her attention isn’t more on the strands of Klara’s hair that Isolde braids and unbraids repeatedly as she talks.
What does someone do with what may be their final hours on earth? It’s a common enough thought experiment or a quandary for those facing down their own mortality. For Klara, it is this exceptionally mundane and unremarkable morning.
There is nothing outwardly special about it. It’s a morning similar to so many others they’ve shared. Some may even call it boring.
Klara wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“I will be in my music room,” Isolde says after a while, pressing a kiss to the corner of Klara’s mouth. “You are more than welcome to join me.”
“I will in a bit, promise.” Klara squeezes Isolde’s hand once before she disappears further into their apartment.
Klara stands and slowly heads over to her office, pausing to look at the photos they have scattered about in their living room and hallway. Her heart swells at just how many memories they have captured in their time together. Almost five years now they’ve known each other, but it simultaneously feels like an infinite amount of time and no time at all.
Isolde slotted into her life so easily, having always belonged there and filling it with more happiness, acceptance, and fulfillment than Klara thought was possible.
Her eyes land on one of their wedding photos, on the bright, genuine smiles on both of their faces, on the joyous tears in her own eyes. Klara had sobbed throughout the entire ceremony. A little embarrassing, but she couldn’t help it! Isolde had only shed a few artful tears, claiming that one of them needed to maintain their composure that night, but she had broken down in Klara’s arms later in the privacy and comfort of their home.
The sounds of Isolde playing a lively jazz melody on the piano filter into the hallway. Her door must be open.
Klara steps into her office, the room quiet and tidy, save for her desk and the persistent miscellanea that covers it. She hurriedly tries to somewhat organize it all into piles, not quite neat but better than it all being scattered on her desk.
Paintings hang on her wall, all gifts from Isolde, one for every year they’ve known each other. That untitled painting still brings a smile to her face; it never felt right to give it a name herself, so untitled it remains.
A frown tugs at her mouth at the thought that that painting isn’t the most expensive one on her wall, not even close.
Her gaze falls on a large rectangular painting of cloudy shapes and hazy, dreamlike hues with rich textures spread throughout. The colors remind her of the tones in Turner’s works and are what first drew her to the painting that rainy night at a gallery show the fall after their wedding.
Over two hundred thousand for this painting. Much more than what she makes in a year. Christ.
She has gotten slightly better at accepting these absurdly expensive gifts Isolde showers upon her, as well as growing more accustomed to how much money Isolde really has (and Isolde would frown at Klara referring to it as Isolde’s money and not theirs), but it does all continue to make her a little uncomfortable years into their relationship.
Klara knows that Isolde loves to spoil her, wants to give her everything beautiful and good in the world, and it is easier to accept artwork and similar things than other material objects such as jewelry. It also helps that Isolde does ask before buying her such gifts, instead of surprising her.
But Klara still absolutely refuses to let Isolde buy her a new car, no matter how much she may beg or how many dubious looks she throws at Klara’s perfectly fine and normal car. She doesn’t personally drive enough to justify such a ridiculous expense, as she takes public transport to work and Isolde insists on driving when they are together.
Only when her car stops working beyond repair will Klara even think about buying another.
Assuming she lives that long.
Klara sighs and pulls out a nondescript box from her shelf, where it sat in plain sight, checks its contents, ensuring that everything is in its place. Two dozen letters, handwritten over the years, wax sealing them shut and Isolde’s name written on the front.
Are these enough to accompany Isolde if she does pass tomorrow? She takes a letter from the box, presses a kiss to the floral green wax seal, and holds the envelope close to her chest.
She hopes and hopes that she can hand these letters to Isolde in person, but she is prepared as can be, she thinks, to leave them behind to be discovered.
With a sad smile on her face, Klara returns the envelope to the box and sets the box back on the shelf.
Klara sits at her desk and carefully goes through her patient notes and related documents, making sure that all is well. She is in the middle of a two month leave of absence, and organizing around that was perhaps the single largest headache she has ever faced in her career but necessary.
She is many things and flawed in more ways than she can possibly count, but Klara will not be careless with her patients. If the worst occurs tomorrow, then she can at least rest easy knowing that they will all be properly taken care of in the future, that she did this one thing right.
Tears prick at her eyes for the second time again.
“No, no,” she mutters to herself as she removes her glasses temporarily to rub her eyes and force the tears away.
She breathes in. She breathes out. Clenches and unclenches her fist until she calms down.
I probably shouldn’t be alone any longer. That thought in mind, Klara goes to join Isolde, grabbing a poetry book off her shelf to read.
Klara walks in not on Isolde playing the piano, though she still sits there, but speaking on the phone, sounding like she’s confirming their dinner reservation for tonight. She almost laughs at the nigh imperceptible eager hitch to Isolde’s voice as she says the words ‘my wife.’
Isolde catches her by the hand before Klara sits down. As soon as she ends her phone call, she looks over to Klara, the inklings of worry in her eyes. “Are you alright, my light?”
“Ah, better now, Isolde.” Klara wonders if it showed on her face or if her heartbeat gave her away as it always does. “I’m okay.”
Isolde makes a noise of affirmation and kisses the back of her hand before letting go.
Klara sits down in Isolde’s armchair, and Isolde returns to her piano. As Isolde loses herself in her playing, Klara watches her in open admiration for a while, astonished at how skilled her fingers dance on the ivory keys, before she finally opens her book and begins to read. She won’t dare interrupt Isolde’s music with her voice.
The time passes by in companionable silence, save for the piano. Klara is entirely content to simply exist alongside Isolde.
She always will be.
Their day is peaceful and relaxed, and Klara’s heart is full.
Eventually, they head off to dinner, almost late because Isolde wouldn’t stop fussing over Klara’s collar and hair even though they both knew Klara looked perfectly fine.
It’s a restaurant they’ve eaten at a number of times before, but Klara remembers it as the first place Isolde took her to after their initial not-date. She enjoys the food here yet continues to feel slightly awkward about having Isolde take her out to dinner since food does nothing for Isolde at best and makes her sick at worst, even if they both always have a wonderful time together.
But Isolde always reassures her that doesn’t wish to ever stop their dinner dates and that she is more than adept at maintaining a human facade, so Klara has long learned to keep that smidge of awkwardness to herself.
Isolde giggles at the funny shapes Klara folds their cloth napkins into and the stories she tells, and Klara couldn’t care less about the odd looks their server gives her; she is too happy making Isolde smile.
After dinner, they wander off to a nearby lounge with live music. Isolde’s a fan of one of the jazz groups that performs frequently here, so they are often here.
Klara bobs her head to the music, her fingers tapping along on the table. Her rhythm must be slightly off for Isolde reaches over and shows her the correct timings. Or maybe Isolde just wanted to play with her fingers.
Emboldened by the dim light of the venue and the relative privacy of the booth at which they sit, Klara draws Isolde close and gives her a lasting kiss, smiling into it as Isolde drapes her arms around Klara’s shoulders.
Really, this is all Klara needs, all she has ever wanted: a peaceful day with her best friend and other half.
Isolde had asked if there was anything, anything at all, that Klara wanted to do, a bucket list of sorts. And well, there wasn’t, not really. The couple of things Klara could think of, like visiting world heritage sites and such, necessitated sun exposure, and Klara had less than zero wishes to do anything without Isolde.
She always wanted to see the northern lights, though, but decided to keep that desire to herself. If she survives and if she and Isolde can truly share their whole lives with each other, then she’ll tell Isolde.
It’s something to look forward to, but for now, this is more than enough.
They fall into bed together as soon as they arrive home, just like they have on so many other nights before.
Isolde’s hands are everywhere, removing Klara’s shirt and bra with the same eagerness one might display in unwrapping a present and gently shoving Klara onto their bed. She disrobes with barely concealed impatience, and Klara almost laughs at Isolde’s rare muttered curse of frustration when one article of clothing doesn’t come off as easily as the others.
The lightheartedness helps keep Klara’s heavier thoughts at bay.
Clothing completely removed save for the sapphire pendant she wears most days, Isolde climbs onto the bed and straddles one of Klara’s toned thighs, running her hands up and down Klara’s stomach listlessly, leaving a trail of goosebumps in her gelid wake. “You’re so beautiful, my light.”
“You’re beautiful,” Klara says, almost reflexively, letting her eyes roam over Isolde’s nude body appreciatively. She’s the most stunning woman in the world, and there's not a day where Klara won’t think so.
Isolde’s answering laugh is low and rich. “I know.” She reaches up behind her head and releases her hair from its bun, shaking it loose.
Klara lets out an amused huff. “Humble, too,” she says, receiving a playful wink in response.
She goes to remove her glasses, but Isolde’s hands stop her. “Keep them on for now,” she hums.
Klara’s only response is to blink owlishly, but she does what she’s told.
With a tug at her arms, Klara pulls Isolde down for a deep kiss, relishing the taste of Isolde’s indulgent smile. Isolde nips at her bottom lip and her hand palms Klara’s breast, making Klara arch up into the touch with a gasp.
Hand tangled in Isolde’s hair, Klara tilts her head to the side, giving her access to Isolde’s neck. She plants a kiss right at the corner of Isolde’s jaw, beside her ear, at that spot that makes Isolde weak, and drags her tongue down the side of Isolde’s throat before biting down, leaving a soon-to-bloom bruise and making Isolde shiver.
Isolde draws herself back upright, gazing down at her, and Klara knows how flushed her face would be if she had fed recently. She begins to rock against Klara’s still-clothed thigh, a soft, pleased sigh escaping her lips, and oh, Klara can feel exactly how aroused Isolde is, the fabric on her leg quickly soaked through. Her mouth goes dry at the sight and the sensation of it, at the perfectly sinful expression on Isolde’s face.
Klara grasps Isolde’s hip tighter and angles her thigh to give Isolde better purchase, something that’s greatly appreciated judging by Isolde’s subsequent whimper. She caresses the small birthmark on Isolde’s left hip, the one she kisses whenever able, with her thumb.
As Isolde’s movements against her thigh grow more frantic and the intoxicating sounds leaving her mouth become louder, Klara reaches for her hand and intertwines their fingers. Isolde grips her hand almost painfully tight.
She needs to kiss her, needs to put her mouth and tongue to use. Klara leans up, intending to do just that, but a hand firm against her bare chest stops her, pushing her back into the pillows and holding her there.
“Look at me, my Klara,” Isolde urges, a maddeningly smoky timbre to her voice that echoes the ravenous hunger in her eyes.
“I am.” The words come out as more exhalation than anything else. ”I see you.”
How could Klara possibly look anywhere else? She stares up at Isolde, completely ensorcelled, a willingly captive audience to the performance Isolde is putting on and so utterly happy to let Isolde have her way with her and take what she needs and more, as she always is.
Klara watches Isolde, eyes never leaving her face even as Isolde’s grinding takes on an increasingly desperate speed. Isolde removes her hand from Klara’s sternum as she leans over her, palm flat against their bed’s headboard and her dark hair cascading over her shoulder.
In that moment, Klara knows what she wants, what they both want. She lifts her hand to Isolde’s face, fingers tracing down her cheek and her thumb running over Isolde’s bottom lip.
Isolde opens her mouth with the slightest of nods, granting Klara’s thumb access. With no hesitation at all, having conducted this bloodletting ritual of theirs countless times by now, Klara cuts her thumb open on Isolde’s extended fang. The pain barely registers against the burning overtaking Klara’s body; if anything, it contributes to the pleasure she feels - more kindling for the fire.
And though she teeters on a razor’s edge, Isolde stills completely, right down to her breathing. She always waits for Klara.
Klara holds her there for a moment, blood trickling down her thumb onto Isolde’s waiting tongue. The only movement is the smallest tremble of Isolde’s hand in hers.
“Breathe, Isolde,” she says despite barely breathing herself right now. “Drink, please.”
Nostrils flared, pupils dilated, Isolde begins to move again, drinking the blood as if this might be the last she’ll ever taste of it, making a satisfied sound at the back of her throat. This tiny drink is not nearly enough to sate her hunger, but it’s treasured all the same, both now and every time past.
Isolde sucks Klara’s thumb clean of blood and kisses her palm, the action barely stifling her gorgeous moans as she chases her nearing high, and Klara can only watch with adoring eyes.
She climaxes quickly with a shuddering cry of Klara’s name, shaking and collapsing against Klara who immediately wraps her free arm around Isolde, holding her close and whispering the sweet words Isolde needs as she drifts back down to earth.
Isolde holds her hand the entire time like a lifeline.
Klara feels Isolde kiss her cheek and jawline, strands of hair wisping onto her skin in a way that is almost ticklish. She runs her hand up and down Isolde’s back, her hand eventually coming to rest near the dimples of her lower back.
It’s impossible to not think about whether this may be the last night she can hold Isolde like this.
“Your pants will need washing,” Isolde murmurs against her skin after a few tranquil moments. “My apologies.” The lack of any remorse whatsoever in her tone makes Klara laugh lightly, despite the morbid thoughts that are beginning to creep back into her mind.
“That’s what laundry is for,” Klara replies. “You can make it up to me, I’m sure.” Isolde lifts her head up to look at Klara directly, expression entirely too fond, and Klara grins at her.
“I can,” Isolde says, soft as ever, and removes Klara’s glasses and sets them to the side.
She kisses Klara tenderly, her hand caressing the side of Klara’s face and down her throat before resting over her heart. “Let me take care of you, please.” The words, barely above a whisper against Klara’s lips, reverberate through her chest like a prayer in an empty cathedral.
“Please,” Klara repeats back, filled to the brim with want.
Isolde’s touch is overwhelming in its gentleness tonight, so full of the purest love that Klara has ever known and will ever know. Her fingers slowly dance across skin, followed by her tongue swirling wet patterns into it and her teeth leaving her indelible mark upon Klara. Every action is a searing and a savoring of Klara’s body into Isolde’s memory.
After every bite, every kiss against her skin, Isolde whispers that Klara is hers, hers, hers.
Klara has never been anyone else’s.
Slowly, gingerly, Isolde removes the rest of Klara’s clothes, letting her hands run over a sculpted calf and placing a kiss on Klara’s knee, on her hip, before she returns to Klara’s chest. There’s the circling of her tongue around her nipple, the graze of her fang against her breast, and Klara is naught but a whimpering mess pawing at Isolde’s shoulders and raking her nails over the skin of her upper back.
But she is not so far gone that she does not recognize the new wetness that falls onto her chest nor the tightness with which Isolde now clutches her.
“Isolde?” Klara murmurs, stroking her hair. When there is no answer, she purposefully taps thrice against Isolde’s shoulder, their nonverbal signal to each other, and Isolde lifts her head up immediately, tears glistening on her cheeks. Klara wipes them away gently, cupping Isolde’s cheek. “Where did you go?”
The only immediate response Klara receives is Isolde turning to kiss her palm and then resting her head on her chest, sighing. That’s okay. Klara already knows the thoughts that currently plague Isolde for they are the same that threaten to occupy her own mind. She continues to run her fingers through Isolde’s hair and hums to herself, giving Isolde all the time she needs.
Normally, it is Klara who is too stuck in her head and too swept up in the clouds, and it is Isolde who grounds her and pulls her back into her own body with her touch.
Isolde’s touch has a way of setting such ease into Klara’s heart, as if she were reaching directly into Klara’s cracked open ribcage and cradling the organ itself in her hands. She is so tactile with Klara, and every touch, from the way she plays with Klara’s fingers to how she loops their arms together when they walk, gives her a solace unlike anything else.
And they both crave and need the intimacy and physicality that sex carries, and that somatic, sensual act always brings a blissful peace to Klara’s overactive mind, where she can simply exist and be. Yes, she knows all of the scientific reasons why that is, and yes, the quietude in her psyche does partially result from Isolde often fucking all coherent thought out of her, but Klara knows there’s more to it than that.
Just as she knows that her touch has the same or perhaps an even greater effect on Isolde that Isolde’s has on her.
So, she keeps doing what she’s doing, hoping that these tender ministrations and the sound of her heartbeat soothe Isolde.
“If you die,” Isolde begins quietly, her hand tightening its grip on Klara’s arm. Klara knows what she’s going to say next. “A large part of myself will go with you.”
It’s a fear that has long been voiced between them, discussed and shared thoroughly like all of their fears and worries, but the words still cut deeply every time she hears them.
“I know. I know.” Klara wishes it weren’t so. She wishes she could take all of Isolde’s pain away and prevent her from being hurt, but she can’t.
An apology rests on the tip of her tongue, but Isolde hates it when she apologizes unnecessarily or too much. She swallows the words and offers something else instead: “I love you.”
Isolde places a feathery kiss against her breast. “I know, my Klara. I have always known.” Another kiss. “I love you.”
“Look at me, Isolde?”
“Klara?” Isolde’s eyes no longer shine with tears, thankfully.
“Be here with me,” Klara asks, the most gentle of supplications and invitations. “Just the two of us together.” She cannot promise Isolde the future with any certainty, but she can give her the here and now.
Isolde inhales. Exhales. “I have never wanted to be anywhere else.”
Their kiss is initially soft, but it doesn’t take long for the fire to respark, for desire to return in full force. It never takes long.
Isolde resumes her meanderings across Klara’s body, worshipping and loving every part of her. She knows all of Klara’s most sensitive areas, gives them so much attention that Klara thinks she might fall apart.
She gently sucks a bruise into the side of Klara’s throat - Klara has lost track of how many marks Isolde has left on her tonight alone - and Klara cannot help but crane her neck to the side and push it into Isolde’s mouth, wanting and needing her teeth, wanting and needing to be taken in the way only Isolde can.
Klara knows full well that Isolde won’t bite her neck tonight, hasn’t ever bitten it since that fateful night over a century ago, but she still desires her fangs somewhere in her body, anywhere.
“Patience,” Isolde whispers in her ear, the puff of her breath making Klara squirm.
Isolde won’t fully indulge tonight, no matter how much Klara wants her to, because of what lies ahead tomorrow. One way or the other, Isolde will have her fill of Klara then.
Klara is once again left completely undone at Isolde’s hands and mouth, unable to do much more than leave thin red lines across her light skin with her fingernails and pull her closer and closer.
Isolde leisurely kisses down her stomach, past her navel and the trailing faint hair below it, and settles in between her thighs, placing wet kisses on the insides of them. She skirts close to where Klara needs her most but deliberately avoids it.
It’s obvious what her game is.
With a whine, Klara chokes out, “Isolde, please.”
Isolde hums, kisses Klara’s thigh, and looks up at her, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Please what?”
Klara makes a frustrated noise and attempts to buck her hips, but Isolde holds her down easily. “Use your words, my Klara. You are always so pretty when you beg.”
Her face flushes hot, surely a vivid red. She has never been very good at this. “I need you, please.” Her voice is shaky, desperate, hurried. “Your mouth, fingers, anything, please.”
Isolde smiles at her, so ethereally beautiful. “Good girl,” she murmurs, her breath raising goosebumps on Klara’s skin, and Klara promptly forgets how to exist, let alone think, feeling her fiery blush spreading even further down her chest.
She descends upon Klara and all but devours her, wolfish and so, so voracious.
Klara is wholly at Isolde’s ardent mercy. Every lave of her tongue against or in her, every millisecond she spends sucking on her clit, every single one of her meticulously edacious caresses and touches leaves Klara burning alive.
Her far-too-warm hand finds Isolde’s cooler one, and their clasped hands becomes her lifeline, just like it was for Isolde earlier.
She lets herself be vocal, knowing that Isolde loves to hear her, and oh, Klara does adore the taste of Isolde’s name on her tongue as she pushes her closer and closer to the brink.
A long swipe of Isolde’s tongue sends her tumbling over the edge.
Isolde reverently eases her through it, clearly having no intention of stopping. Klara urges her up before she gets carried away, aching for a kiss. Her eyes briefly flit down to the wetness messily smeared across Isolde’s mouth and chin before she kisses her.
It’s really no surprise that Isolde’s fingers snake downwards as she tells Klara in between their kisses how much she loves her. As utterly insatiable as she is, of course she wants more.
But Klara needs to touch her in return and needs to relish the feeling of Isolde’s skin under her fingers and tongue.
It’s not long before they’re both shuddering in each other’s arms. Isolde leaves yet another florid mark upon her and curls her fingers just so, and Klara is gone.
An odd urge flares up within her again, the same that has occasionally reared its head ever since Klara let Isolde feed from her the first time, and without thinking, Klara clamps her teeth over Isolde’s shoulder in a fierce bite, almost hard enough to break the skin.
Isolde pushes her mouth against Klara’s skin in an effort to muffle her scream as the combination of the bite and Klara’s fingers on her clit unravel her.
Klara presses light kisses to the indentations left by her teeth, each a balm. “Was that too much?” She wouldn’t have ever dared bite someone else like this, but Isolde is hardier than most.
“No. It never is.” Klara knew the answer, but she had to ask, regardless.
Isolde goes to kiss her, but they are both too spent to properly hold it for very long, instead settling for nuzzling their faces together, their physical proximity to each other never quite close enough for their liking.
They lay in their usual positions now, basking in their hazy afterglow. No worries currently run through their mind, only the most genuinely happy of silences.
Sleep tugs at Klara, making her eyelids heavy. Good thing she managed to get up and grab a towel and water for them both already, along with a bandage for her thumb, despite the pout on Isolde’s face that clearly said she didn’t want Klara to leave their bed.
“Isolde?” The name tumbles out in a half-coherent, drowsy mumble. “You know you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, right?”
She feels Isolde nod against her chest. “Just as you are the same to me, my light.”
There’s nothing else to be said.
/
Klara wakes up feeling more well-rested than she has in a very long time, a strange peace having settled in her chest at some point during her slumber.
A look at her phone informs her that it’s beyond early in the morning, just before daybreak.
Isolde lays motionless and unbreathing on top of her, still asleep. Klara makes sure not to wake her as she gets out of bed, placing a kiss on her forehead and pulling the covers up higher over her.
She throws on a loose tank top and shorts before wandering into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. The drink’s aroma fills her nostrils and her eyes flutter shut as she savors that first sip.
All is calm. Their home, her mind, her soul.
She pads out to their balcony, coffee mug in hand, thinking that she should watch the sunrise today of all days.
The cool outside air of the early morning is so refreshing, but already she can feel the beginnings of the coming day’s heat. Klara quickly examines her outdoor plants; she tended to them yesterday, but she can’t keep herself from checking up on them.
Finding nothing out of sorts, she takes another large sip of her coffee before setting the mug to rest on a small table. Her fingers tap a staccato rhythm on the metal railing as she stares at the budding rays of light in the sky.
It is a different kind of quiet that fills the world at this hour than in the middle of the night.
Klara isn’t sure how long she stands out here listening to the morning birdsong and watching the sky, unthinking and pleasantly tranquil.
She hears the balcony door open behind her at some point.
Isolde presses herself against Klara’s back, face nuzzling into the soft corner of her neck and arms wrapping around her waist firmly, a slender hand snaking its way under her shirt. Blatantly needy as ever, Klara thinks to herself with a smile. She delights in it, in Isolde so wantonly and genuinely desiring her, body and soul.
Cool lips plant a kiss and then another and then a third against her mostly bare shoulder, and Klara shudders as she feels the most featherlight graze of a fang on her skin.
“You didn’t have to join me,” Klara murmurs, knowing that even the mildest, earliest light of the blushing dawn causes Isolde discomfort, a sensation she once compared to fiery sandpaper scraping against flesh.
“Of course I did,” Isolde replies, sounding sleepy.
Klara tears her eyes from the brightening hues painting the cloudless sky of what may very well be her final day on earth in colors as warm as high noon’s temperature and turns in Isolde’s arms, facing her and setting one hand on her robed shoulder, the other cupping her cheek.
She kisses the tip of Isolde’s nose and laughs softly at the way her face scrunches up reflexively.
“We can go back to bed, if you want,” Klara offers, her thumb rubbing circles into Isolde’s cheek. No need for Isolde to be uncomfortable on her account.
“I will head inside soon.” Isolde sounds firm or at least as firm as someone clearly still half-asleep can sound. “Let me stay out here with you for a little while.”
“Oh,” Klara replies, a little dumbly. “If you’re sure.”
They don’t speak, but Isolde clings to her arm tightly and plays with her fingers as they watch the burgeoning daylight. Klara wonders if she should suggest they sit instead of stand, and she can’t shake the urge to usher Isolde inside behind the safety of their blackout curtains.
But… It is nice to see Isolde like this. Even though Klara knows her attention ought to be on the sky, she can’t stop looking askance at Isolde. It is a rare occasion indeed to be able to see her in any sort of natural lighting.
Eventually, the silence gets to be too much for Klara; there’s only so long she can keep her mouth shut and her words inside, peace be damned.
“Do you miss the sun? The daylight?” Out of all the questions she has asked Isolde about her vampirism and experiences and life, Klara realizes she has never asked this.
Isolde takes a moment before answering, fiddling with Klara’s wedding band. “No, not terribly. When I was younger, the sun only heralded the roles I must play to perfection in Viennese society.” She sighs. “I missed the relative ease of moving about during the daytime hours, especially during my travels, but I am long used to it by now.”
Klara nods. It makes sense. They faced a number of inconveniences when on their honeymoon or on the handful of chances she had to accompany Isolde, at least for a little bit, when she performed at opera houses abroad.
“The warmth of the sun was enjoyable, but warmth can be found elsewhere,” Isolde continues. “What need do I have of the sun? I have you.”
Klara’s heart leaps into her throat, and she stammers. It is far too early for Isolde to be saying things like that, naturally romantic in a way that still knocks Klara ridiculously off-balance three years into their marriage.
She hopes against all odds that Isolde still has that effect on her fifty, a hundred years from now.
Isolde kisses her blushing cheek with a smile and heads back inside. “Your coffee is cold by now,” she says before closing the door.
Klara startles and reaches for her mug to take a sip.
Ah. Barely lukewarm.
She stays outside long enough to finish her coffee, more out of obligation than anything. There’s no need for her to waste food.
Like most mornings, when Isolde isn’t being a terrible influence, Klara quickly snacks on a granola bar and prepares for a run. She smiles at the sight of Isolde curled up asleep in their bed holding Klara’s pillow like it was Klara herself.
She makes sure to pull on a high-necked jacket before leaving.
The burning of the air in her lungs, the sweat upon her brow, the impact of her feet against the ground, the endorphins flooding her system… Klara loves all of this.
Her sister calls her a weirdo for actually enjoying running, which Klara thinks is a bit much.
She smiles and waves to the elderly couple she always sees and feels a pang of regret that she doesn’t know their names and they don’t know hers.
Klara takes the long way home after her run, strolling along in the now warming air and bright sunshine. Isolde had been insistent on Klara spending as much time in the daylight as possible, and Klara had no reason to protest.
She sweeps Isolde into an overly tight hug as soon as she arrives home, like she always does after a run, and despite Isolde’s usual laughing protestations that Klara smells of sweat and needs to shower, she still peppers her face with light kisses before shoving her in the direction of the bathroom.
“What are you going to be up to today?” Klara asks after she is showered and dressed. She leans against the doorframe outside of Isolde’s music room, where Isolde stands at her perpetually cluttered desk.
Isolde looks over at her, unsubtly giving her an appreciative onceover, and beckons her closer. “Finalizing matters for tonight,” is all she says, and really, that could mean anything.
Klara doesn’t press her. They’ve long gotten Klara’s affairs in order in the event that she doesn’t survive, from her will to what she’d like done with her body after death to even the fabrication of a reason for her sudden death. Everything’s been taken care of, as far as they can manage.
It’s unhappy work, preparing for her own death, but Klara couldn’t possibly leave Isolde to scramble alone in the aftermath if the worst came to pass.
She is committed to this, without reservation or hesitation.
Isolde’s fingers against her cheek pull her from her thoughts. “You’ll be late to breakfast if you linger here, my light.”
Klara makes a noncommittal noise as her hand finds Isolde’s waist and rests there. “You look beautiful today,” she murmurs.
“You tell me that every day.” Isolde smiles at her, and oh, Klara does so adore that smile.
“It’s true every day.”
“Charmer.” Isolde tugs her in by the collar for a deep kiss that sets Klara’s heart racing before pulling back. “Go. Give Marcus my love.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going.” And so Klara leaves but not before stealing one last kiss before she does.
She arrives at the cafe earlier than expected and grabs a nice table outside. It would be a shame to sit indoors in such wonderful weather.
Marcus arrives not long after Klara, her voice ringing out as she calls her name. “Klara!”
With a smile, Klara stands to greet Marcus. “Marcus! Good mor- oof!”
She stumbles back and almost topples into her seat as Marcus tackles her in a hug with alarming force. For not the first time, Klara wonders where the hell she gets her strength from.
Marcus lets go of her before Klara worries she may crack one of her ribs.
They sit and have breakfast, talking while they eat, but their conversation is stilted, skirting around the edges of what they both want to say. What do you say to the best friend you’ve known for half of your life during what could very well be your last meeting?
Klara fidgets with the edge of her napkin as they talk. She has words prepared, had wracked her brain for months to decide what would be the right thing to say to Marcus, but now those prepared words turn to ash on her tongue.
They feel dreadfully inadequate.
Marcus speaks first, saving Klara from further worrying. “You’re really going through with this, aren’t you?”
“I am. I have to.”
That’s the simplest, truest answer. Klara has to do this. There is no other option for her.
“To be with Isolde forever?” Marcus asks gently. “Is that why? I simply can’t see any other reason why you would choose this.” The other cafe-goers sitting in their vicinity keep them both from saying the word ‘vampire’ aloud.
“Yes. I’m not leaving her alone.” Again.
What happened a century ago was a tragedy and neither of their faults, even if Klara knows Isolde blamed herself to no end for it. They have a second chance, and Klara refuses to waste it.
It’s their only chance.
As the months went on and Klara worked through her complicated feelings regarding her reincarnation - and that word specifically still marginally discomforts her in a way she can’t quite explain - she became increasingly convinced to the point of absolute certainty that there would be no next lives for her soul.
This life is the only one she’ll have. Isolde will not find her again in the future, no matter what Isolde may fervently believe.
She does not want to be right in this matter, not at all, but Klara cannot be convinced otherwise.
And well, selfishly, Klara wants to be the one Isolde shares her entire life with. Not her past self, not any future incarnation Isolde imagines she might find.
She wants it to be her.
An argument ensued, an exceedingly rare occurrence for them, the clash of their irreconcilable viewpoints coming to a head a couple of years ago. Perhaps a fight would more accurately describe it, a word Klara could apply to no other disagreement between her and Isolde save for maybe those agonizing days they spent apart following Isolde’s killing of Werner and that other person.
They both said unkind words, unworthy of themselves and each other, and went to sleep in separate rooms simmering with anger, something they had previously agreed to never do.
But despite their anger, Klara was still interrupted in her fitful tossing and turning that night by Isolde situating herself beside her on the living room sofa, equally as unable to sleep without her other half. Too exhausted to be upset any longer, they held onto each other tightly and whispered earnest apologies in the dead of the night.
“There’s more, isn’t there? Something you’re not saying.” Marcus’ perception is as sharp as ever, missing nothing. “You don’t have to share, not if you don’t want to, but I can tell that there is more to this. There has been, ever since you first mentioned that you decided on this, right?”
Klara bites her lip and fidgets with her wedding ring.
They’ve told no one else about all of this, about Klara having lived before, about Isolde inadvertently killing her.
Marcus is maybe the one person in the world who would believe them, but it feels too precious and private a matter to blurt out in the middle of a cafe.
“There is,” Klara says quietly. “I can’t say, not here and not now, if ever. I’m sorry.” She breathes in, breathes out. “But what I said is the essence of it, Marcus. I have to take this chance. I refuse to leave Isolde alone, not if I can help it.”
Marcus doesn’t speak immediately, her gaze searching Klara’s face before softening with sympathy. “Okay. I believe you. I’m not trying to dissuade you or anything; I know there’s no doing that once your mind is made up.” She reaches across the small table and takes Klara’s hand in between both of her, holding it tightly. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”
Klara places her hand over Marcus’, her throat threatening to tighten with the oncoming tears she holds back. “I don’t want to say goodbye either, so I won’t.” She smiles at Marcus, bright and full. “I will only say that you are one of my dearest friends, and I treasure your presence in my life like no other.”
A beat passes, and Marcus sniffles audibly. “You’re one of my best friends, too, Klara,” she says as she pulls one hand away to grab a napkin with which to dab at her wet eyelashes. “My life is better for you being in it, too.”
Their conversation gives way to shared fond, warm sentiments, and all of Klara’s earlier prepped speeches pale in comparison to the spontaneous, teary-eyed words that now spill forth from her heart.
They move their seats closer together and speak in low tones, their heads bowed close together and hands still interlocked.
And eventually, they do cry all the tears they can and wipe their faces clean, falling into a companionable silence.
Klara speaks first after sipping her drink. “You know, my eyesight might get fixed?”
“Really?”
“Isolde said there was a chance, but she wasn’t sure. The, ah, change is apparently not consistent in that regard, and this is all hearsay and such, anyway...” Klara pauses before adding with a huffed laugh, “She did seem like she didn’t want me to lose my glasses.”
Marcus laughs.
“Do you think you’ll be able to acclimate to your new… lifestyle?” Marcus asks. “The diet?”
Klara sighs. Isolde had expressed worry about that, as did Semmelweis, both of them bluntly telling her that at some point, she will most certainly kill someone. Blood bags may not be so easily acquired elsewhere as they are here in Vienna.
“I don’t think you’re going to handle it well,” Semmelweis had said before replying with a simple ‘yes’ when Klara had asked if she had killed someone before.
Klara had wanted to press for more details, not at all satisfied with a single word answer, but Semmelweis’ demeanor had screamed reluctance and discomfort to such an extreme that Klara had decided to not press her luck.
Unfortunately, her curiosity had been piqued to a dangerous degree, and Klara has since struggled to keep her festering need to know and learn in check.
She is happy she managed to spend an evening with Semmelweis before she left the country on business a week ago. Entirely different than her current breakfast with Marcus but deeply special and treasured all the same.
“I will manage,” Klara says. She will, even if she is scared of what may happen in the future, even if Isolde’s and Semmelweis’ certainty that she will inevitably kill someone makes her sick to her stomach. “Besides, the flavor profiles that Isolde speaks of after eating are really quite fascinating! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat interested in exploring more. Isolde herself tastes so wonderful, though I’ve only had very few chances-”
Klara shuts her mouth as soon as she realizes what she’s saying, ears burning. That thought maybe should have stayed inside her head.
Marcus’ expression is both amused and dubious, which is fair, Klara thinks.
“I can only be happy that you’ve found something to be, um, excited about with your new diet,” Marcus says blithely but Klara can hear the playful judgment in her voice.
If she survives, it’ll just be another thing for Marcus to tease her about. Klara just hopes she won’t tell Semmelweis, but that may be a wish made in vain.
“Have you ever thought about it?” Klara asks, needing the conversation to move on.
Marcus tilts her head. “About…?”
“Doing what I’m doing.”
“No.” Marcus’ answer is immediate and certain. “I am human, I always will be. My story will one day end, like everyone’s, and that is okay. Between my mother’s recent health scare and you, I’ve had maybe too much time to think about stories ending.” A sad smile spread across her lips. “There is no stopping time, no matter how much we may want to.”
Before Klara can speak, Marcus shakes her head. “I don’t want to say goodbye to those I love, and I don’t want my life to continue on unending. Nothing about becoming something other than what I am interests me, Klara, and I don’t have that same motivation you seem to have.”
“I understand, I do.” Klara’s own thoughts had been so similarly inclined before she found out about everything.
She tries not to think about how in the future they may be saying goodbye to each other again, except one of them will have changed and the other will have stayed the same.
They order another round of coffee for themselves as their conversation turns to lighter topics, and they spend far more than their fair share of time at the cafe as morning turns into afternoon.
As they both finally stand to leave, Klara looks over at Marcus. “I don’t have anything really planned for today beyond breakfast, or rather brunch now, with you. If you’re still free…” She trails off, leaves the question hanging in the air.
Marcus grabs her by the elbow and pulls her along. “We can find something to do!”
So they head off, letting the wind and sunshine take them wherever it wills.
It’s been far too long since they’ve spent time like this together, and Klara’s heart is light and bubbly almost with joy.
They pop into a bookstore and spend far too much time in there, both of them leaving with bags full of books. Klara feels almost guilty for unnecessarily spending money on things she may not even use, but at least she picked out a few books she is absolutely positive Isolde will enjoy.
Unfortunately, everything must end.
“Is it time for you to head home?” Marcus asks, eyes sad.
“Yeah.” Klara smiles, willing herself to not be sad over this hopefully temporary parting and instead focusing on how she got to spend most of the day with her best friend.
They hug, fierce and tight, each refusing to let go for a long while.
Klara will not say goodbye nor will she say something akin to ‘see you later,’ as she doesn’t know if that is a promise she can keep.
She presses a kiss to the top of Marcus’ head. “I love you. Thank you for today.”
“I love you, too, Klara.” Marcus pulls back a little and reaches up to pat Klara’s cheek. “I’m happy we could spend today together.”
And so they part.
Klara returns home, where her dearest one and her future await, and pauses in front of the door to their apartment.
She takes a steadying breath, hand trembling slightly on the door handle, and opens the door, ready for whatever may come.
/
Isolde maintains a harsher grip on the steering wheel than she should as she flies down the highway, well above the posted speed limit.
The nighttime wind blows through her loose hair and through Klara’s, too, neither of them caring.
Save for the roar of the engine and the road around them, the drive is silent, the radio set to a low volume that only Isolde is able to hear.
Isolde is too lost in her own thoughts to speak, and judging by her deeply uncharacteristic silence, Klara is as well, not even making one of her usual smart remarks when Isolde unnecessarily cut a driver off half an hour ago or worrying that Isolde is driving too fast.
She misses those comments, their absence sitting uneasily with her. They are exasperating in the mildest of ways, but they are always expected. Just another part of living with Klara.
Klara had chattered on and on happily about her day as they got ready at home and brought their bags to the car, but as soon as Isolde pulled onto the highway, Klara had fallen into a contemplative silence, her heart beating steadily and normally.
Perhaps the weight of what will transpire has fully hit her, Isolde doesn’t know. She can only believe Klara’s repeated assurances that she is ready for this.
Isolde wonders if she herself is ready.
She has the utmost faith in her own abilities. In 1914, she was naught more than a fledgling, not even a year past her own turning. Of course she failed then. She was too young and incapable to do anything other than kill her beloved.
Isolde knows she will perform her part more than perfectly, but she has no control over Klara’s end; there is nothing she can do to tip the scales in her favor, and that leaves her frazzled. Her Klara can survive the embrace, is stronger than any person Isolde has ever met. She will live. She has to.
The alternative is too painful to bear. She fears it more than anything in this world.
She drives out of Vienna, to the forests that lay beyond and the relatively isolated cabin just outside of a small village she purchased a year ago. Isolde will not turn Klara in their home, for if the worst comes to pass, she could not, under any circumstance, return to the place Klara died.
Klara’s screams will attract too much attention in the city, anyway.
Isolde cannot recall anything of her own transformation, nothing except for a hazy agony and the certainty that it was the worst pain she has ever felt in her entire existence. She remembers her nerves as her birthday approached, how she fretted to no end, how determined she was to meet her mother’s expectations.
Trista had passed as a child. Theophil had killed himself. Only Isolde was left.
She remembers how Klara’s previous incarnation saw her fears and tried to comfort her, despite not knowing just what Isolde had been fearful of until several weeks later.
Her fate had been sealed the day she was born. She was raised with the expectation that she would either die or become a vampire upon reaching adulthood, turned on her eighteenth birthday just as her grandmother had turned her mother nearly four centuries ago now.
Such had been her childhood, a reality she has long made peace with, though some days it eats at her, everything she has been forced to endure.
It makes Klara’s perspective difficult to understand. Isolde had been born into this, viewed her vampirism as a simple fact of her life, sometimes even as a gift, as opposed to the curse many others saw it as. Klara will need to adjust and reckon with outliving her family and friends, with outliving her own identity in human society, with all of the physical changes.
That adjustment is a foreign concept to her for it has always been normal to her, something drilled in throughout her childhood. Only the physical alterations required some acclimation, and even then, Isolde knew exactly what to expect.
Will Klara handle everything well? Isolde will be by her side throughout it all, for nothing could tear her away, and support her wholly, and she has prepared Klara for everything as much as she possibly could ahead of time, but she worries.
Isolde does not want Klara to regret permanently changing, a transformation she is only undergoing because of Isolde.
It is an act of such profound love. That the most wonderful person in all of existence would want to be with her forever makes her want to cry. She searched the world for 110 years for Klara and would do so again and again, until the earth ceased to turn, without hesitation. No matter what Klara may stubbornly believe about this life being her last, Isolde knows she would find her again if she had to.
But now she won’t have to do that.
Klara will be hers for all of eternity, a choice made in full knowledge of what it means to Isolde and with full understanding and acceptance of Isolde as a person.
It is everything Isolde could possibly want, more than what she previously allowed herself to hope for.
Isolde cannot conceive of a way to unequivocally return such a gesture beyond the bottomless, unconditional love she showers upon Klara already, but she knows Klara is beyond happy with said love, that she doesn’t need or want to ask for more.
Just as Klara’s love and knowing of Isolde is enough, so too is Isolde’s love and knowing of Klara.
As Isolde turns onto the road that leads to their cabin, her thoughts return to the embrace and the changes it will bestow upon Klara. She thinks of Klara’s already beautiful verdant eyes and wonders how marvelous they will look with the unmistakable hues and glows found in the eyes of all vampires that forever remain invisible to humans.
How will the invisible, souldeep bond formed in the throes of the embrace feel between them?
Supposedly it is different for every vampire and fledgling, and Isolde only has the bond between her and her mother for comparison. She remembers the paradoxical steadiness and trembling of that cord, the unbelievable heaviness of her mother’s three centuries of life seeping into the connection, mixing with her love for Isolde and all of the complexities of their relationship.
She remembers how that cord snapped when her mother walked into the sun and stayed there past her allotted hour of safe exposure three days after she killed her husband and their maids.
Isolde wonders for not the first or even twentieth time if they will experience the most preternatural aspects of the embrace, the part only talked out in the most hushed of whispers, the part that makes the embrace such a wildly intimate action.
They say the souls join together, that their lives are seen.
She doesn’t remember seeing anything during her own turning, and if her mother saw something, she never said, a thought that brings a small frown to her face.
Isolde shuts off the car’s engine, snapping both her and Klara from their respective thoughts.
“We’re here, my light,” Isolde murmurs.
The cabin is smaller and slightly more rustic than Isolde has grown accustomed to in her current Viennese life, but she has stayed in far worse places during her travels. There’s a certain charm here, and Klara likes it well enough, which smooths over Isolde’s admittedly minor scruples with the place.
They bring their bags in and set them in the lone bedroom of the house, and Isolde quickly puts the numerous blood bags she brought into the fridge, more than she has ever had in her possession before.
Klara’s appetite will be nigh insatiable for weeks after her turning.
Isolde quickly puts her hair up and gathers her courage before returning to the living room where Klara is waiting.
She will not mess this up. They will be together for the rest of their immortal lives.
Noticing her entering into the room, Klara spins on her heel to face Isolde and bows with a flourish, holding one hand out to Isolde, palm up, the other arm folded behind her back. She looks up at Isolde, that charming, crooked grin Isolde loves spread across lips.
“Mrs. Vingler, would you do me the honor of sharing one last dance with me?”
The question takes her by surprise. Here? Now? But Isolde sees the slight tremble in Klara’s proffered hand, and if she concentrates, she can hear the crimson rush through her Klara’s blood vessels as her heart rate picks up. She is afraid just as Isolde is afraid, and Isolde knows Klara has noticed the tension in her shoulders and all of the other minutiae of fear in her body language.
Klara wants to steal one final moment with her before everything changes.
With the grace of the noblewoman she once was, Isolde takes Klara’s hand and curtsies. “Oh, Dr. Vingler, I would be most overjoyed to dance with you.”
Isolde hums a melody as Klara leads her into a waltz. They dance as if they were dressed in their finest evening wear at Schönbrunn, not in old clothes ready to be ruined in a lone cabin in the woods. Klara’s steps are far more confident now than when they first met; her athleticism and flexibility aside, she really does have two left feet sometimes, Isolde thinks fondly. Thankfully, she no longer steps on Isolde’s feet when they dance, unless it is to purposely mess with Isolde.
Like now.
Klara’s face is the picture of innocence as Isolde half-heartedly glares at her. She pinches Klara’s waist, making her yelp and jump and causing the two of them to stumble and nearly fall to floor with joined laughs, saved only by Isolde righting them.
Their waltz eventually slows to nothing more than a gentle swaying, their arms wrapped around one another, and then halts to a stationary embrace. Klara holds onto her so tightly, like she thinks Isolde will disappear if she lets go. Isolde breathes in Klara’s comforting scent, listens to the steady thrum of her pulse, and soaks up her warmth, knowing it is the last time Klara will ever be naturally warm like this.
Neither of them speak for a while.
Isolde pulls back and gently takes Klara by the chin in that silent request, command, plea to look at her, one Klara immediately heeds, her eyes shining and wet with forming tears. “My light,” she whispers.
Klara blinks and the tears are gone. “Yeah.” She rests her forehead against Isolde’s momentarily and takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?” Isolde needs to ask in this eleventh hour, even though she knows the answer. Klara has always been so sure of this, and even in her brief waverings and uneasiness, her oxen stubbornness more than made up for any possible hesitations.
“Yes,” Klara says, resolute as ever. “I’m sure.”
Isolde reaches for Klara’s left hand and brings it to her lips. She gently kisses the black silicone ring Klara currently wears on her finger in place of her wedding band and the engagement ring Isolde gave her shortly after Klara’s proposal; Klara didn’t want anything to happen to the actual jewelry tonight. Isolde then places another equally worshipful kiss against the small scars left by her feedings on the inside of Klara’s wrist. She hears Klara inhale shakily at the gesture, and Isolde feels how her love’s blood slithers within the vasculature of the hand she holds, how her heart practically skips a beat as it always does whenever Isolde touches her like this, reverent and adulatory.
Her fangs extend slowly and involuntarily in her mouth at that sanguine siren’s call. Isolde has never heard a sweeter song than this.
She swallows. Her hunger will be sated soon.
With the most delicate of touches, Isolde removes Klara’s glasses and sets them on an end table out of the way before leading Klara down to the floor, away from the furniture of the room and anything she might hurt herself on.
Klara lightly traces Isolde’s cheekbone. “I love you.”
Isolde’s hands tremble. If last words must be spoken then let them be this, the greatest truth of her soul: “I love you.”
She pulls the worn collar of Klara’s t-shirt to the side, exposing her neck fully. The blood rushing through those precious blood vessels is impossible to ignore, even if Isolde fears biting into this spot she has avoided their entire relationship.
But it must be the neck.
Klara lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it comfortingly and flashes her a reassuring grin before angling her head to the side and giving Isolde free access to her neck.
Isolde hears the excited beat of her Klara’s heart and cocoons her own within the sea of Klara’s all-consuming love for her as she kisses the soft skin of Klara’s neck and opens her mouth, fangs fully extended, and bites down oh so carefully.
Blood more delicious and dear than anything Isolde has ever tasted in her 133 years of life fills her mouth instantly. Notes of mint and earthiness hit her tongue, unmistakingly Klara in their solace and richness, and Isolde drinks and drinks, barely hearing Klara’s intoxicatingly pleased whimpers in her ear or the way her name tumbles from her lips once in abject exaltation.
She gluts herself upon her love’s lifeforce, bringing her to the brink of sweetest death.
Klara slackens against her, the sounds spilling forth from her mouth growing weaker and weaker, and Isolde forces herself away from Klara’s neck before she falls to a rapidly approaching blood drunkenness.
Lightning-quick and uncaring of the sharp pain she feels, Isolde roughly bites into the inside of her left wrist, ripping a gaping wound into her flesh, her own blood mixing with Klara’s blood smeared across her face. The wound bleeds easily, and Isolde holds her wrist out to a barely-conscious Klara, urging her to imbibe.
With a weak hand, Klara brings Isolde’s wrist to her mouth and sucks, licks, drinks, knocking Isolde aswoon with an ecstasy she has never known, a feeling only compounded when Klara bites into her wrist.
Isolde is unable to think past the brume of frisson overwhelming her to her core, and it is only base, raw instinct that propels her to finish this ritual, this embrace.
She bites down on Klara’s neck again, ripping open the already messy wound there further so she may drink more fully and deeply, anything to sate her unshakable hunger. Would that she could break open Klara’s chest and feed from her heart directly and make her home there and cleave her heart from her own breast to sate Klara’s thirst.
This is the crux, the sum and substance of everything she missed a century ago.
A simultaneous feeding, both of them caught in this rapturous embrace, giving and taking, dying and killing and bestowing life, drinking down, deep into the marrow, all in performance of an ouroboros of purest love and trust.
Life into death into life anew.
Euphoria overtakes the pain, and tears spill from both of their eyes as blood flows unendingly between them in this embrace, from one into the other and back into the one.
Fragments of Klara’s soul and life flash before her closed eyes as she drinks. Memory races into her mind as if it is her own, and in this moment, it is her own as the boundaries between them erode and fade away to nothingness.
Images of a woman and a man that Isolde has only ever seen in photographs appear before her; one of them has been dead for years, and the other may as well be dead. Isolde looks through a young, precocious Klara’s eyes as she gazes up at her parents with the pleading look of a child that wants something.
The memories race by her as Isolde falls into Klara, and she sees so many parts known and unknown of Klara’s life, happy and sad and painful and everything in between, feeling exactly what Klara felt at those moments, reliving them.
She sees faces both familiar and not, some of them appearing more vividly in Klara’s memories, immensely important to her, like Marcus and Semmelweiss and her two siblings.
Isolde sees herself through Klara’s eyes and wavers as the paroxysm of Klara’s immense emotions and feelings towards her consume her so perfectly and thoroughly, leaving nothing left.
A memory flutters forth, the time of which Isolde cannot place no matter how hard she tries. She sits in their living room, clearly preparing for a future performance, dressed casually in loungewear and one of Klara’s stolen hoodies. Her hair is messily pulled up and her face bare of makeup. In fact, there’s an odd, slightly silly expression of concentration on her face, and it takes Isolde aback and makes her wonder if that’s really what she looks like.
Isolde does not know why Klara looks at her so intently in this seemingly mundane yet striking memory, like she gazes at the most spectacular vista in the world, her breath completely taken away, but every emotion seizing Klara’s heart wraps around her own, making it sing with the knowledge that, for whatever reason, in this memory Klara desires to exist alongside Isolde for an unfathomably long time, that she wants Isolde, fully and without hesitation, that Isolde is the one for her.
As that memory fades, Isolde loses herself at the fundamental level, her identity and personhood bleeding into Klara’s and transcending as they both float in sublime heaven, locked in a numinous embrace.
No longer Isolde, no longer Klara, as selfhood vanishes into the sweet darkness overtaken by the most intimate of knowing both themselves and each other for they are now one and the same.
Here in this dream of unparalleled rhapsodic love, they are consecrated to the night and each other, forever bound to each other and forever free with one another.
No separation, no pain. Only their unshakeable, unbreakable trust in each other.
Only them.
The dream breaks, and Isolde stumbles back, torn away from her other half, her sense of self crashing back into her flesh and bones like a fallen star at the same time the wooziness of blood loss drags her deep into a fog.
She has not lost such amounts of blood since she found herself on the wrong side of a firearm in the 1990s.
Klara trembles just out of arm’s reach, her eyes staring ahead unseeing and uncomprehending before a spasm rives through her.
The eternal night lays its claim to Klara, bringing with it its horrors before its gifts, and Isolde can only watch, dazed, as the most inhuman scream rips itself from Klara’s throat, her blunt fingernails carving bloody gashes into the wooden floors.
The transformation, a transfiguration like no other, destroys and rebuilds the body at every level, Isolde knows this intellectually, but to watch it happen to her Klara is something out of a nightmare. She knew it would be terrible, but she will not avert her eyes or leave Klara to suffer this alone.
Klara claws at herself, peeling off layers of skin that instantaneously regenerate and ripping into her own throat and shredding her larynx, as if doing so would stop her screams.
It doesn’t.
There isn’t a centimeter of visible skin left untouched by these lacerations, both self-inflicted and not. Every injury heals with seconds, fueled by Klara’s ravening of Isolde’s blood.
Her bones break and mend, bursting through skin and muscle and taking ligaments and tendons with them, every resounding snap of bone and fraying of sinew echoing throughout the cabin and bringing forth another wretched scream.
Isolde wants nothing more than to somehow stop this, to hold Klara close and soothe her, protect her from anything that would cause her harm, herself included.
There’s nothing she can do but watch every unnatural bend of a joint beyond its range of normal motion, every erupting wound, every bit of viscera dripping from Klara’s body.
Did her mother feel such agony watching Isolde transform like this? Did it hurt her to see her only living child contort into shapes meant for no living creature? To see her rend open her own stomach and be able to do nothing to stop it?
Klara’s screams fade, her voice completely gone. Isolde could not have listened to another second of her beloved in such pain, even if she must still watch as Klara lurches forward, on her hands and knees, heaving.
The sound of broken bones and torn flesh knells unendingly.
Isolde needs it to stop.
Klara reaches into her mouth and with strength beyond her previous means, tears out her two upper cuspids, making room for the growth of new fangs. The bones of her maxilla and the rest of her face break and remend, forcing her fangs into their rightful spot.
Everything remade in the image of the night, a metamorphosis of divine, languishing agony.
With one last rasped breath, Klara collapses to the floor, face down and entirely too still.
An unnatural quiet falls.
Isolde stares, unbreathing and unblinking, her trembling hands clutched over her heart. The blood from her torn wrist seeps into the cloth of her shirt.
Klara does not move.
Click-click goes the metronome in Isolde’s head. Badum-badum beats her heart.
The moment - seconds, minutes, Isolde doesn’t know - endlessly stretches out into infinity.
Isolde waits, desperate beyond all reason, for any sign of life: a heartbeat, a twitch, a spark of that indefinable connection, anything.
Did it take her very long to move again after her own embrace? Did her mother anxiously wait to see if she survived? She doesn’t know nor does she have any idea at all if this is abnormal. There is no set answer for these matters, and she regrets her teasing chiding of Klara’s constant questions.
There are limits to how much rationality can be applied to the supernatural. How many times did she say something along those lines to Klara? They were only meant to be lighthearted remarks, a gentle ribbing. Did Klara take them otherwise, as Isolde shutting down her rapturous curiosity and need to learn? She never gave any indication of such a thing, but…
This over-analyzation of her perceived mistakes comes far too naturally to her, but why now of all times? Why now does she think of this?
What she wouldn’t give for a decisive answer, the kind Klara always wanted.
Silence remains the world’s only response, and that silence is sharper than any brass needle.
Ripping her aching, tender heart out of her chest would be less painful than the reality that struggles to assert itself now before her eyes.
Isolde cannot accept this. She cannot lose her Klara.
Frantic, she crawls to Klara, completely uncaring of the blood on the floor that she must move through, and kneels beside her. With a gingerness that belies her rising fears and distress, Isolde flips Klara onto her back and rests her head on her knees, pushing her hair out of her blood-smeared face.
Klara stays limp and unmoving.
Is this what it was like for Klara their first night together? Did she too feel this hellish dread infusing her soul?
“My light,” Isolde whispers. “My Klara. Come back to me, please. Please.”
Teardrops fall onto Klara’s face, and Isolde shakes her, taps the side of her face, does anything to get her to move again or open her eyes, all to no avail.
An incomparable despair begins to crush her, somehow worse than the agony she felt when she killed Klara the first time. She didn’t think such sorrow was possible, but why would she?
What could possibly feel worse than the love of her life dying at her hand?
They knew the risks and prepared for this. Isolde knew the risks, didn’t she? Yet she feels inordinately blindsided. She had hope, a hope bordering on delusion, that Klara would survive even if she feared her death down to her very core.
An inhumanly mournful keening escapes her.
Again she holds the body of her beloved, the keeper of her heart and soul. Again she has failed.
Did their reach exceed their grasp? Were they too greedy for wanting more than a single mortal lifespan to spend together? If fate gave them another chance, why could it have not given them this?
They only had five years together. A mere five years.
Isolde pulls Klara into her arms, holding her tightly, as if doing so would wrest her from death’s cold clutches. She sobs into Klara’s bloodied neck, missing her warmth but grateful that the marring bite has healed along with her other wounds. There was no such small kindness a century ago.
“Please, dear lord, I beg you. I beseech you,” Isolde chokes out through her tears. “My god, please, Klara, wake up.”
Isolde begs and prays to a god she has long ceased believing in. The only divinity she worships now is held in her arms.
In this excruciating moment, Isolde cannot imagine spending another century searching for Klara. She would do anything to find her again, and she knows she would continue to live, both for that and for herself, along with the promises she swore to Klara to look after her family and friends.
But those thoughts and those purposes to live falter in the face of death, and she cannot see past her unceasing tears and prayers for Klara to return to her.
She wants this Klara, not the one of a century past or any ones that may appear in the future. This one. Incomparable and singular. The one that makes her heart and soul sing.
Klara had worried about that, about not living up to whatever expectations Isolde may have built up during her life or if she was at all worth that century of searching. All of this, along with so many other insecurities, she confessed via lengthy letter, the words too honest and vulnerable to be said aloud, during those tender weeks years ago in which they rebuilt their relationship.
It was the first time Klara had allowed herself to cry in front of Isolde.
As the years went on, Klara learned to manage these insecurities and Isolde did all she could to allay them, but did she do enough to reassure Klara? That she was - is - just right, neither too much or too little, not only for her but in general?
There is suddenly so much she still needs to tell Klara, pieces of herself that she hadn’t yet shared. She thought she said everything that needed to be said before tonight, but how could she possibly do so? A surfeit of sentiments and truths lives within her, and her words do them little justice.
They have so much left to experience together.
Klara can’t leave her. Not again. She promised.
Her sobbing prayers give way to inarticulate choked sounds.
An invisible thread winds around the pieces of her shattering heart and pulls taut in an unbreakable knot.
Isolde lifts her head in a flash and stares down at Klara, disbelieving.
Her heart pounds in her chest. A second, all-too-familiar heart joins it, beating in perfect harmony.
Klara stirs in her arms, and Isolde lets out an elated, hysterical laugh, more tears falling down her cheeks. Her prayers, answered.
Relief crashes into her like a wave, simultaneously refreshing and overwhelming, not unlike what she felt that night when she saw Klara for the first time in over a century and knew.
“My light. You didn’t leave me,” she breathes, her words only being heard by herself. “I won’t be alone again.” Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Her fingers run over Klara’s face, now sorely lacking its original warmth and only registering as a tepid, unremarkable temperature to her fingertips.
Klara won’t ever feel cold to her, nor will she ever feel cold to Klara again.
That permanent, ineffaceable bond borne out of a vampiric embrace forever ties them together now.
The second heartbeat in her chest is distracting. Isolde is so used to listening to Klara’s heartbeat, but feeling it is something else entirely. Proof that she is here, alive. Comforting. At some point it will fade to background noise, only perceptible when she focuses, like Klara’s heartbeat had been in the past, but Isolde does not think there will be a time where some part of her isn’t focusing on it, now more than ever.
And unlike before, distance won’t affect her ability to sense it.
Isolde hears Klara try to say something, maybe, but whatever it is is lost in the raspiness and hoarseness of her voice, still damaged from her screams.
Klara blinks open her eyes, and Isolde sees how cloudy and unseeing they still are, no true color to them yet. Even the way Klara grabs at her arms and shirt is unsure and fumbling.
She is as blind, deaf, and uncoordinated as a newborn kitten, all too vulnerable and only partially conscious and aware. Isolde knows Klara’s senses won’t return in full to her for a number of minutes, maybe even an hour, but that doesn’t stop her from murmuring comforting words.
“You’re okay, my Klara. It’s okay,” Isolde says as Klara winces. She will be terribly sore from the transformation for a few days.
Isolde gently lifts Klara into a bridal-style carry, taking care not to discomfort her more. As if on instinct, Klara nuzzles into her.
The first thing Isolde remembers after her own embrace is waking up in her own bed, already washed and reclothed, and her mother sitting in an armchair nearby, their two pet bunnies in her lap. She has no pet bunnies to offer, but she will take the utmost care of Klara.
Did her mother care for her herself after her embrace? Bathe and clothe her? Tuck her into bed? Or did she have the maids do so?
Even if she is entirely certain it was the latter, Isolde forlornly wishes it was the former.
She carries Klara to the bathroom, all too aware of the blood she tracks on the floor. It’s a mess she will clean later. Klara comes first.
Isolde sets Klara down on a stool next to the bathtub and begins the slow process of removing her clothes, starting with her irrevocably ripped and torn shirt. Klara does not make it easy, continually reaching for Isolde with ungainly gestures or otherwise fidgeting.
Sometimes she tries to speak, but again, the words are unintelligible and gravelly. It reminds Isolde of the dreamspeak she’s heard Klara muttering in the middle of the night before, when she isn’t softly snoring.
A light frown crosses Isolde’s features as she tugs off the last of Klara’s clothing. A lack of respiration during sleep means she won’t hear Klara’s hushed snore again.
Isolde pushes the thought away quickly. Klara is blessedly alive and Isolde needs to care for her; she ought not focus on what she may miss.
She lifts Klara again, continuing to reassure her even though she can’t hear the words, and places her in the bathtub. Klara will be okay there for the time being as Isolde tends to her wrist and her own clothing.
There is something meditative in all this, in focusing entirely on care and cleanup. The rush of emotions is fading, and it helps to have something to do as she calms down.
Isolde washes her hands clean of blood, mostly Klara’s, and bandages her wrist. The wound has already begun to knit back together, fueled by how much Isolde gorged herself on Klara. She quickly divests herself of her stained clothing and tosses the garments into the same pile as Klara’s before fetching both of them clean clothes, carefully avoiding the blood on the floor, along with her phone and Klara’s glasses.
She’s alive. Isolde messages Marcus and Semmelweis, knowing they are both awaiting word, one way or the other.
Marcus’ response is immediate, an incomprehensible string of letters and numbers. Isolde knows she is crying.
Thanks for not killing my friend. Now I don’t have to kick your ass. Semmelweis’ response is, predictably, much drier.
Mentally, Isolde tacks on the word ‘again’ to Semmelweis’ first sentence. Klara would be upset with her for doing so, but she doesn’t need to know.
It took her an unfathomable amount of time to work through her excruciating grief and guilt over that tragedy. She knew it occurred because of her own youth and inexperience, but she could blame no one but herself. Dear god, blame herself she did.
Isolde did not ever expect to receive Klara’s genuine forgiveness for it all - she did not know she needed it in the first place - but it lifted an elephant's weight off her chest to hear those words given to her in such a dark hour.
The thought that she may have committed such a heinous mistake a second time…
No, no more. It is over, resolved in the most fortuitous way possible.
Isolde heaves a shuddering sigh, unable to stop a couple of tears from falling.
She returns to the bathroom, clad in comfortable clothing, and finds that Klara has sunk down in the bathtub, fingers lightly tapping on the sides of the tub. Isolde makes sure the lights are at their dimmest setting, knowing full-well that Klara will be overstimulated once she comes to, and sets a downtempo soulful album to play off her phone at a low volume. Her mind needs the music.
“Klara,” Isolde says softly. “I’m going to give you a bath, okay?” She urges Klara into a sitting position. The blood covering her has already begun to dry and crust on her skin.
But Klara squirms, brow furrowed. Is the new position causing her pain or aggravating her soreness? Her heart is beating faster.
Isolde cups Klara’s face between her hands, stroking her cheekbones with her thumbs in a manner that she prays is soothing, and Klara relaxes into the touch as she always does, her pulse calming.
With a grip of surprising strength, Klara grabs onto one of her hands and holds it against her, refusing to let go. She mumbles something incoherent again.
“Working with one hand will be very difficult, my light.” A faint smile spreads across her face.
Even if she could properly hear, Isolde knows Klara would continue to hold onto her hand out of pure stubbornness. That is more than fine. Isolde would never complain about Klara holding her hand, especially now.
She starts running the water, ensuring that it is warm, hot even, but not scalding. The heat will help her Klara’s aches.
Isolde sings as she begins to meticulously wash Klara, the music grounding her as it always does. The water cascades over Klara, running red immediately as the drying blood and viscera slough off her skin. It is painstaking work, from the gentle rubbing of her face with a washcloth to the scrubbing of her fingernails with a brush.
Isolde thinks she may have had an easier time if she placed Klara in the shower and not the tub. Alas.
Thankfully, Klara lets go of her hand at some point.
It's curious to think how, if circumstances were different and Klara had decided to live out her natural, mortal lifespan, Isolde would still be in this position, bathing Klara once she grew too frail to care for herself without assistance. It would have been a privilege to be alongside Klara for her whole life, even if Isolde would have been pained watching her grow old while she stayed the same, the two of them never able to experience that together.
They never will now, but Isolde is all the happier for it.
As she works, Isolde examines every part of Klara, curious as to what scars, if any, may have been healed away by her transformation. That tiny scar on her chin is gone, along with another faint one on her shin. Others remain untouched. Isolde is terribly relieved to see the twin marks on the inside of Klara’s left wrist.
She presses a kiss to them and almost laughs at how she feels Klara’s heart stutter in her chest. Even in Klara’s unlucid state, Isolde still has the same effect as always on her.
After rinsing Klara off one final time, Isolde fills the tub up with fresh, hot water. Klara will need to feed not long after she regains her senses, but it will do her some good to soak before then. Isolde slumps against the side of the tub and rests her head on the edge, the adrenaline and heightened emotions of the night finally having died down to mere embers, leaving her exhausted in every single way.
Idly, she purls the steaming water with her index finger, mind mostly focusing on the sensation of Klara’s heart in her chest alongside her own. What a wonderful, beautiful thing it is.
They’ll be together forever.
The thought makes her as giddy as she felt when Klara proposed and brings a heated blush to her cheeks, only possible because of her earlier feasting upon Klara’s blood. She lets out a breathy laugh.
The sound of water mildly sloshing about in the tub hits her ears.
Isolde glances over to Klara and is surprised to find her staring at her. A similar expression of shock sparks across Klara’s face, her eyes no longer louring and dull. No, they shine with unparalleled brilliance and awareness, and Isolde cannot hold back her gasp of wonderment.
Hues of vivid fern and emerald and terre verte bleed together, with flecks and dapples of sunglow gold swimming in that luminescent verdancy. They’re beautiful and radiant and unmistakingly the eyes of a vampire.
Klara looks at her, slack-jawed; it’s an expression Isolde is used to seeing on her face when she stares at her. She straightens up and reaches out to cup Klara’s cheek, warm from the water.
“Isolde,” Klara manages out, her voice a little less hoarse now and suffused with awe. The surprise on her face has shifted to an expression of amazement and disbelief.
“My Klara,” Isolde says back, equally awestruck. “You’re here.”
“I’m here... I’m- I’m alive!” Klara croaks out a laugh, two partially extended fangs poking out as she does. Despite the strain in her laugh, it remains the sweetest of music to Isolde’s ears.
Happy tears well up in Klara’s eyes and trickle down her face. Isolde begins to wipe them away only to be interrupted by warm water splashing against her shirt and spilling over the edge of the tub as Klara surges forward and wraps her in a solid, squeezing hug.
The bathroom tile is uncomfortable against Isolde’s knees, and her shirt is utterly soaked, but all of that is of no concern whatsoever.
She pulls Klara closer, or maybe Klara is pulling her closer - Isolde doesn’t know. She feels Klara’s wet hand against the back of her neck, playing with the baby hairs there, and the other gripping her shirt tight enough to nearly rip the fabric.
Isolde kisses Klara’s bare shoulder and burrows her face into the crook of her neck as she runs a hand up and down her back, over her dripping hair.
Her best friend, her home, her soul’s other half, her wife, here in her arms, safe and so very much alive. She sends off another thank you to the universe, fate, whichever, for having her prayers heard.
Clinging to Klara like this, Isolde knows she won’t ever let go.