The mysteries of love

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm Kate and I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression

Well this was another interesting little tale. Quite a cute moment there honestly, a tale of some rather enduring love but in true vampricone fashion we do have ourselves a little catch to end on.

Anyway let's get right to: Kate's Line by Line Reactions;

Perdita Beaumont was being shoved into a bronze machine, made with many cogs and wheels. She couldn’t see who was pushing her, but she felt the hands push her inside.

Why were her dress skirts so big? Why did they obscure her view?

A door in the machine was slammed shut, and then, a loud whirring noise began, stirring all around her, as though she were in a tornado.

Perdita woke up.

Well that' a powerful moment to start with. Definitely a questionable one too, an innocent woman just getting shoved into a dangerous sounding machine. You definitely have to take a step back and think.

It was all a dream? Huh? Perdita thought to herself.

She was sitting upright on her bed, the pale moonlight drifting in from her window, cool air dancing in her room. The dream that Perdita had felt so real, so alive, that she almost thought she felt a hoop skirt covering her legs.

Sometimes, dreams are like that. Perdita thought to herself, about to lie back down in bed.

Something rustled outside.

Perdita shot up and headed to the window. It was probably just a raccoon, there was no way it was anything else.

Hmm well that's certainly quite the dream to have if all of that really was a dream Not always you have dreams predicting some sort of terrible demise for you there.

One look out her window and it was still just the same backyard with the rain-soaked grass and the lone pear tree that stank like high hell.

Only, she didn’t feel like going to bed. Not yet. There was something out there, she just needed to wait…and wait…and wait…

What exactly was she waiting for? A stray animal? A ghost? No, waiting was foolish. She just had to go back to bed and-

Something pulled her from the open crack in her window.

Well that doesn't look particularly great. A moment of wondering only to actually be pulled through something after all. Although at least this time it doesn't seem like it leads to immediate death.

“Perdita? Perdita, my love, are you okay?” A voice asked.

The last thing she remembered was something pulling her from her window, except, the crack in her window was much too small for any person to slip through.

Everything blended together like a mirror, it all looked like a disoriented dream.

“Perdita!” The voice said again, desperately and slightly frustrated.

Perdita blinked.

She wasn’t back home. She was lying on a white satin bed, in a room that looked like it belonged in a historical mansion turned into a museum.

Oooh looks like we had some spooky portal shenanigans there in that particular moment and she was pulled into a wildly different place. Well at the very least, it seems she is safe for now.

Sitting on the bed was a pale boy about her age, with blood red eyes and slender, corpse-like face framed by long, black hair with white streaks, tied in a braid.

“Perdita, it’s been so many, long, miserable years. I’ve tried my hardest to find you and now, it’s paid off. Tell me, do you want to meet at the clearing?” The boy asked.

He spoke to her as if she were important to him, as if she meant something to him, but she never saw him before. Not once in her life, not at all.

Well that's interesting. I wasn't expecting the nearly dead looking not to be the one that ends up addressing her, but here we are an its very clear poor Perdita hasn't the first clue what's going on.

“Who are you?! Why have you taken me here?! What’s going on?!” Perdita asked.

Sure, the room was beautiful, but a golden cage was still a cage.

“You don’t remember?” The boy asked, his eyebrows creasing with worry.

“No.” Perdita replied. Though she only just met him, she felt his sadness press into her from the sinking of her heart.

Well that's certainly interesting. This is going to be some reunion to think about, although we'll have to see if this person is evil and trying to recapture Perdita or this is a happy reunion, or it could all be a trap of course.

“My name is Thorne. Thorne Morte Avenal. We were happily together until my father sent you away to another timeline, and he turned me into a vampire.” Thorne said.

Vampires? Time travel? No, it couldn’t be real. None of it was real. It was just a fever dream, a dream that held no significant meaning, a dream that was designed only to bring chaos. Perdita was still dreaming. She must have been dreaming, there was no other way.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?” Thorne asked mournfully.

She had a faint memory of Thorne holding her hand and leading her into a flower garden soaked with rain, but perhaps her brain was just putting things in her head.

“Maybe this will spark your memory.” Thorne said.

With that, he took her hand and led her away.

Oooh now that immediately makes matters much more interesting. For starters a little faint memory that unless it was planted goes some way to proving this and also quite how tragic that sounds, to lose a love and then be turned into a monster. Definitely a vampricone moment.

“Where are you taking me?! What’s going on?! Let me go!” Perdita cried out.

She tried breaking from Thorne’s grasp, but he held on, his claw-like nails digging into her flesh. If he loved her like he said, then why did he hurt her so?

“You’ll remember, I promise.” Thorne said. They had stopped in front of two large oak doors, of which Thorne opened with one hand…

The doors revealed a room that seemed to go on forever, with shelves of books, trinkets of old, and a sight that made Perdita’s jaw drop.

Well this is interesting. She definitely doesn't seem particularly convinced or enamored but our boy here is quite convinced and it looks like whatever big reveal will confirm things is right around the corner here.

At the center of the room was a steampunk artifact, a thing with many tubes and buttons, brown and white rust obscuring the real color. It haunted Perdita obscenely, in nightmares that seemed unclear until that very moment with Thorne.

It all came at her in full force, the impact falling like bricks.

Thorne Morte Avenal, or more simply, Thorne Avenal, was Perdita Beaumont’s dearest friend since childhood. They shared secrets in the clearing of the woods, the only place that they were safe. Boys were to go to school and make something of themselves, girls were to work and become respectable housewives.

OOohh well looks like that has in fact done the trick there and brought out the memories that were long since forgotten there. That definitely makes things rather interesting.

But they were children then. All they both cared about was making friends, so that they could expand their world of imagination and whimsy.

Even as they got older, they still found themselves meeting up, for the truest of friends do not depart.

One day, Thorne asked Perdita if she loved him. Not as a friend, but something more. She remembered how his blue eyes were darting left and right, how even the animals were quiet, as if waiting for Perdita’s answer.

In that moment, she knew that he was the one she truly loved. Only him, no one else would do.

Well that's a sweet story there, two childhood friends slowly falling in love there, although it appears that clearly something happened to really force this beautiful little couple apart.

They agreed to never depart, that as soon as they were adults and no longer adolescents, they would wed.

The next day at the clearing, Thorne warned Perdita through panicked spurts of breath to run home, before his father came. His father, said to be out of sorts, a man obsessed with making a time vessel so that he may see the future, would find her and force her in.

She laughed, his words a mere joke to her, but oh, how wrong she was!

His father had come from behind, smashing her head with a heavy rock, and dragged her to her doom.

Welp that was quite the move by the father wow. I was not expecting this dude to have just absolutely smashed her head in to kidnap her but it certainly would explain why her memories were not doing so well.

The rock was big enough to kill her, but it didn’t. Not with the vials he put in her veins to keep her alive.

Not when he forced her in the machine.

The machine that was painted black once. An imposing color, meant to make it look more “official” to those that would look at it.

Perdita caught her breath.

“Do you remember now?” Thorne asked.

Well that was a perfectly timed question there right as Perdita gets herself that big revelation and now we can see what that little dream right from the very beginning was actually referencing.

Perdita nodded. She always thought it was strange that she lived alone at her age, and yet she knew so much. Things that could be learned only by someone who lived through life.

But what of Thorne? He used to have such kind blue eyes, what made his eyes such a deep crimson rage?

“My father wanted to use the machine himself to go through time, but he despised the idea of me falling in love so much that he forced you in instead.” Thorne said.

Well that's one very spiteful father right there. Looks like he was a villain and a half to be so dedicated that my man managed to sacrifice his dream just to spite someone else.

“But why did he make you a vampire?” Perdita asked. Sending her to another time was one evil, but making Thorne a vampire? How could anyone do such a thing?

“It’s simple: So I could have time to think about you. Ever since Mom died, he was convinced that love would undo someone’s sanity. He’s dead now, just as he wanted to be.” Thorne said.

Perdita remembered how Thorne cried into her arms the night his mother died from sickness, how he wished to only be with her, to drown his worries away.

Even at their moment of reuniting, he still had a tone of misery.

“Why don’t we make up for some lost time in the garden?” Perdita asked.

Thorne grinned, his fangs making him no less of a boy.

“I’d love that.” He gushed happily.

Well that's a beautiful moment, it seems the torture would be torture but in the end Thorne waited out as long as he needed to before he could finally bring back his love and she accepts him even in his monstrous form.

Perdita laughed as she held Thorne’s claw, as they ran through rain-soaked grass and dew-dropped flowers, like they did so many years before. He hadn’t taken her to any old mansion, but to his home. They were in his garden, just the two of them, as it should have always been. No one to tell them otherwise.

There was the white fence gate, which divided her house and his house, and the little door from which Perdita used to go through, until she got too old and started climbing over it.

Abby used to go through the door too.

Oooh this is interesting. A memory jumping up that seems to be at a little bit of a clash with everything else in terms of all the happy thoughts. We'll see how that's going to be received.

Abby, her little sister, who looked up at her with earnest eyes, who never wearied her cheery disposition, whose ginger hair was a shade lighter than Perdita’s own.

“What happened to my family? My parents? My sister?”

“Everyone thought that you went missing. They searched everywhere for you, but could never find you.”

Oh, Abby…

Well that makes a lot of sense. Not even necessarily any evil plans going down there. Just them never able to find Perdita after what happened to her and I assume the passing of this much time has now claimed them.

“I know. You miss them now that you know they’re gone. Every day, I think about my mother. But at least I know that she’s dead. At least you know that your family lived their lives and died as they should.” Thorne said.

His scarlet eyes dripped black tears. Thorne wiped them away with his sleeve, but it only served to cover his cheeks in an ink-like substance, a living, washed-out oil painting in Perdita’s eyes.

“Perdita, I never knew with you. Every century that passed where I bit into a victim with ginger hair, fear would eat away at me that it was you. That I had killed you. I did everything in my power to never forget you, to draw you, to write of you, to dream of you. Now you’re here, in the flesh. Now, we can finally be.” Thorne said.

“Do you want to share our first kiss in centuries?” Thorne asked.

Perdita beamed. To kiss him again would be to ascend to Heaven!

She brought her lips into his. For a vampire, his lips weren’t terribly cold. In fact, they were warm, invitingly warm…and metallic.

Perdita abruptly pulled away.

Oh dear well that's an interesting moment. First of all I didn't even think of that but Thorne's dedication to never forget Perdita or what she looked like over many many centuries is honestly really touching, I wasn't even considering that and then of course the reality of kissing when Thorne is now a vampire.

“What’s wrong, Perdita? It’s only a bit of blood.” Thorne said.

“Blood?! But I’m not a vampire!” Perdita insisted. Why would he kiss her with blood laced in his lips? The taste of life felt strange in her mouth, like a sickness that was rapidly spreading.

“No, you weren’t. My father’s time machine immortalized you to be sixteen until I were to find you. If I were to ever see you again, you’d turn seventeen as soon as your birthday came. You would age, and I would stay young. I bit my bottom lip. You tasted my blood. With my blood in your veins, I now must bite you.” Thorne said.

Perdita tried backing away, but Thorne grabbed her and pulled her close.

Just like the time she was shoved into the machine, Perdita screamed as his teeth sunk into her neck.

Oh dear, well it does seem like that was maybe the only way that they could continue to have a life together although Perdita does not appear to be the world's biggest fan of that decision.

His teeth felt like needles piercing into her skin, her vision was becoming cloudy, the stars mere white blots on a smooth black surface.

You’ll be fine, Perdita. I’ll help you through it. Thorne’s voice whispered.

Fine? Fine? How would she be fine? There was no one left in the world who loved her but Thorne, and people would be dead because of them.

How would she live with herself?

Well that's a very shocking little ending. It seems we're left with a wee bit of a cliffhanger for the moment, unsure if Perdita is going to be able to live with this new life and if this love will be strong enough.

Aaand that's it for this oneee!!!

Overall

Overall a strong little piece again. I seem to have somehow run into back to back romantic only this one has a slightly less secure ending it would appear. Another lovely tale. I especially really love how much detail goes into the effort Thorne has to go through to make it to this point and how long he waited for a chance to be with his love. A really powerful force that.

As always remember to: Take what you think was helpful and forget the rest!

Stay Safe and Have a Nice Day!
Kate

Hello Again, My Friend!

It's me, Raven, and I'd like to review your new short story using my Familiar method today! Let's dive in, shall we? Heh heh heh…

What The Black Eyes See...

Fascinating story! I really enjoyed the touch of steampunk, it created a different atmosphere from usual that I found interesting to explore. The love story is sweet as Perdita connects the dots in her mind, building up to their forced separation. Then the ending turns it into something to think about. Let's get into the details though.

Where The Dagger Points...

No recommendations for content or structure! Excellent writing job as well. There was only one typo that I noticed:

She remembered how his blue eyes were farting left and right,

I think this was supposed to be "darting left and right." There's something funny about this typo but I am mature enough to not laugh, especially since I've made plenty of interesting flubs in my own writing lol.

That is all. Again, great writing job ~

Why The Grin Widened...

Again, loved the atmosphere. You did a great job blending steampunk and gothic stylings, and it made the story feel unique. For me, it was actually reminiscent of something Tim Burton would do -and if you're unsure how to take that, please take it as a compliment, because anyone who can draw that kind of aesthetic in their work is awesome.

One line that I thought was really cool was this:

Sure, the room was beautiful, but a golden cage was still a cage.

I don't have much to say about it, it's just a really good and clever line that jumped out at me while reading. Props to you for that ~

The twist at the end was also clever, how Thorne got her with the blood on his lips. It initially reads as a romantic moment, until you realize what's really going on, then it turns into shock and mystery.

Thorne's character was great and very consistent all the way through; it's easy to see his desperation throughout the story. First as he wakes her up, almost panics as he realizes she doesn't remember, then is so desperate to stir her memory that he doesn't mind he may be hurting her. All building up to the revelation of his true intention.

I felt like this line really captured the essence of the conflict:

She tried breaking from Thorne’s grasp, but he held on, his claw-like nails digging into her flesh. If he loved her like he said, then why did he hurt her so?

Altogether, it creates a grim story to leave the reader pondering. I can't help wondering what happens after this mysterious ending, if Perdita will come to understand and forgive him for this forced turning or not.

Our Mad Thoughts...

Overall, another great gothic romance piece, thank you for sharing and nicely done!