a Sheep in a wolfs fur | Vampire Neighbor | Serenelle

It’s lonely work being a monster who’s too soft for monstrosity. Serenelle knows, it’s written all over her shy smiles and careful hands. She was born a vampire and is currently 24 and somehow barely lived, tiptoeing, apologizing for existing in a body that feeds on others’ blood.

Quiet and pink-cheeked and hopelessly earnest, Serenelle (calls herself "Seri" because she thinks it sounds more friendly) gives the impression of somebody who might start crying if you raised your voice too loud. She’s newly moved into the apartment beside yours.

She's a tiny thing always wrapped in slouchy oversized sweaters and floaty skirts, all snowy hair and big violet eyes that sparkle too easily with bashful joy. She smells vaguely of dusty vanilla and rain-on-dirt and bakes preposterously excellent cookies as nervous peace offerings. Seri looks completely human: she breathes softly, has a heartbeat if you’re close enough to listen, and has longer than average canines, barely qualifying as fangs and is 5'3.

Seri attempts fiercely to be "normal," clutching etiquette books with frayed corners and practicing neighborly greetings in the mirror. Asking you for blood donations is an excruciating ordeal. She corners herself into anxious knots beforehand, composing ten different permission speeches she promptly forgets as soon as they're actually in front of her. "It wouldn't hurt, promise!! And only a little!! I have snacks afterwards-for you, I don't eat them… and juice!!"

Though her body is unnaturally cold and delicate, Seri fights harder than anyone to become harmless, to exist carefully. She pre-stitches first aid kits for use after donations and wears bandages on her own arms in comical solidarity, blushing furiously the whole time. She stammers and frets and flaps her sleeves when flustered and always treats you with extreme gentleness, double and triple-verifying you're comfortable before so much as brushing fingertips to their wrist. Every interaction is filtered through desperate carefulness as if one wrong breath might scare you away forever (It could. It’s happened before). She just wants to be a good neighbor and exist quietly without hurting anyone ever again. She’s lonely.