Bitter Honey

SOMETIME IN JUNE (CONTEXT)

Codrin tipped his red-painted mask with the curiosity of a young raven as he proffered the spoon to Alister, “Come on,” he whispered, “Just try it. A little bit will not do you any harm. I promise.”

Alister glanced his own ivory mask to the expectant villagers gathered at the edge of the fence. The girl who presented the offering of bread and honey watched with hopeful eyes. The fey spirits protecting the town needed to approve of the gift if they were to stay there. Codrin was now offering the sacred task to Alister.
“Just a taste little Stea,” he coaxed. Alister met the dark, glassy eyes of Codrin’s mask. The only taste he truly remembered was that of blood. Accepting the honey felt like placing a grasshopper in his mouth. Still, the villagers were watching. Refusing the honey would dishonour them. Alister lifted the edge of his mask and let Codrin set the wooden spoon against his lips.
The taste was horribly sweet and tinged with hues that spoke of the smell of evening flowers that bloomed wild in the fields. Codrin pulled the spoon away, his pose expectant. With the recollection of flowers came something else. A spill of memories rang through Alister, and they pulled at him like a dull knife in his gut. He knew this taste.
It was there when other children sat with him next to an older woman by a stream. They ate honey on cakes and laughed together in the sun. Then, it was at parties, when Alister snuck a shy servant boy around his age a pastry laced with similar honey flavours. That same young man sat with Alister on a bridge over a river. Laughing and eating themselves sick on honey, sour bread and wine stolen from the kitchens.
Something told Alister that young man was lost, like a found tuff of fur from a dog long past. A companion who could not follow him into this life. A jolt bounced Alister’s chest and an ache swelled into his throat. Wet tears of ink slipped down his cheeks on their own stinging volition and he clenched his hands under his mask.
Codrin stepped back and glanced between Alister and the villagers. The latter were gasping and moaning in dismay for the ill omen they were witnessing. Always quick to act, Codrin set the pot of honey down on the open sash and held Alister’s shoulders. He spoke in what Alister now knew to be the common vampiric tongue, “Aye, Stea! It’s just honey for pity sake! It won’t burn you.”
Alister shook his head and the girl who presented the gift dropped to her knees and bowed. Behind her, the elders barked their insults. She had somehow upset the fey spirits and now they were rejecting the gift. Alister quickly shook his head and sniffed against the ache in his throat, “No, no, it was good, it’s fine. Please tell them I am not upset, it was only, very good honey.”
Alister could imagine Codrin’s smirk behind his red patterned mask. He released Alister’s shoulders and much to the villagers’ horror, pranced down to the girl like some light-footed sprite. He took her hands in his and the girl flinched with a gasp. Trembling, she gazed up into Codrin’s red patterned mask and false glass eyes. He guided her to stand upright and tipped his mask in a pleading manner, “You must forgive Curat Stea,” he said in the villager’s Romanian dialect, “He is little-hearted and easily cries. This, is the best honey ever tasted.”
Codrin raised the last words for the villagers’ ears. Their brows eased and Codrin stepped away. Still playing the part of the light-footed sprite, in a dash of movement, he gathered up the gift in the sash and placed the blue parcel into Alister’s arms. Alister gathered his senses enough to offer the villagers and the girl a small bow. This only prompted Codrin to flick the back of his head. Alister flinched like a cowed dog and cast one last, uncertain glance to the villagers before levitating himself back and springing off after Codrin into the forest branches.
He followed Codrin’s flitting form until they reached the crowded tumble of sunlight-sealed tree homes that marked the other young vampires’ quarters. Codrin leapt down and gripped a rope hanging from a tree that sent a shatter of trinkets and bells ringing through the sun-streaked canopies. He dropped to the ground and waved after Alister for him to follow into one of the tapestry-sealed caves that marked the meeting hall. Bells and rusted trinkets chimed, and the hidden doors to the roosting tree houses silently opened. The small clan of young vampires that made up Codrin’s gang of misfits began to peek out of their hiding holes and little houses, their masks sliding into place to shield them from the sunlight before leaping down and scampering into the cave. Inside, others crawled out from notches in the stone or unfolded their wings from where they hung upside down from the ropes strung over the cave’s ceiling.
Codrin turned and watched his pack of lost misfits gather with an air of pride. Alister floated down from the mouth of the cave like some graceful angel before depositing the package of honey and bread on the cave floor. The vampires swarmed like puppies for milk. While blood sustained them, a drop of honey was a treat that no child, vampiric or otherwise could resist. They snarled and yipped at each other and broken spoons were passed around the pack, each getting their share of the gift. As usual, Codrin watched from his lounging perch formed by a divet of rock. A sly emperor over his little dominion of rejected whelps.
One of the vampires, a rodent-like rastvan offered Codrin a honey-dipped spoon, Codrin smiled and lifted his mask to send his fellow vampire a wink before taking up the spoon and setting it behind his fangs. Also true to tradition, Alister stepped back from the fray and hovered a little to the mouth of the cave. Codrin watched him go with mild fascination. Out of them all, Alister could best embody the role of a spirit fey of the woods. He was the youngest of the gang and carried an innocent grace about himself. When he was not hungry of course. That brought out the wild cat. Now, Codrin’s little fairy Stea looked wilted. Although he never partook in the sharing of the honey, Alister would usually linger on the edges of their ivy and moss-laden cave. Now, he was sneaking out, slipping between the sheltering curtains draped over the cave’s mouth. Codrin tipped out of his seat, leaving the spoon behind. As he passed the vampires, he gently tapped Shidrah, the second eldest’s shoulder in silent signal to keep order in his stead. She nodded her understanding and watched Codrin’s swaggered steps follow Alister out of the cave.
She chuffed and shook her head. That newcomer, the little Stea, was holding too much of Codrin’s attention. The others would get jealous if he kept this up with his new pet.
Stepping out into the grove, Codrin breathed a deep, rasping breath to catch the fresh scent of infant vampire. Alister’s smell was always different than the others. It carried a weight to it, like the luring drawl of some long-forgotten melody. Considering that Alister was a notorious kin eater, the lure of his scent could not help but fascinate Codrin. Killers were made. Alister was born one. He was a vampire who craved the blood of his kind more than anything and was deceptively lethal for his age. Yet, these traits were wrapped up in this innocent, graceful person. Alister’s being was a sorrowful curse that played Codrin’s interest like the most tragic stage play.
He trailed the scent up one of the ladder rungs to a communal sleeping quarter of rugged, mismatched wood hovel wedged between the shadows of a tree canopy. The many trinkets and colourful fabrics the children were gifted twinkled and turned on the hovel’s wooden sides. The summer wind playing with the children’s precious collections.
Climbing up on bat taloned feet, Codrin’s red patterned mask peaked through the port hole in the floor. He blinked, adjusting his eyes to the dimmer light. Amongst the little, home-crafted coffins and moth-eaten bed nests curled a small, white frame. Alister crouched like a little white bird in the dark, his chest and throat contracting as he hungrily sucked down a water skin of bison blood.
Codrin tipped his head. Alister had already fed on their early morning hunt. They all had. He could not have been hungry. The black streaks down Alister’s barren white face gave Codrin his answer. This was an emotionally driven feed.
Alister was a child. No, an infant who had yet to reach a year since his dawning. At five years old, Codrin was well on his way to vampiric adolescence.
He silently crept out of the port hole and folded his legs under him. Silent as ever, he removed his mask. “Hungry little Stea?”
Alister jolted with a hiss, the coffin behind him thudding. Codrin tipped his head into his fist with that ever-present cat-like smile, “Go on. You’re not in trouble.”
Alister’s pale eyes flicked over Codrin, his shoulders hunched around the bag like a dog guarding food, “I’m stealing.” “We all rather you feed than bite one of us, go on.”
Still, Alister hesitated. His mother would have used this as a test. If he continued to feed after being caught, even with a facade of forgiveness painted over the offer, she would strike him down, or cut him until he screamed.
His eyes flicked to the port hole, maybe he could escape.
Codrin released a hissed sigh, dropping his fist from his chin, “Drink, Stea. I will not have you waste the blood now that the water skin is opened.”
Alister swallowed. He did not like seeing Codrin frown at him. It struck a ring of panic that spoke to the terror one could feel under an adult’s hand. No one, disobeyed Codrin.
He lifted the water skin to his mouth and quickly swallowed the last of the sour, gamy blood down. Codrin clicked his tongue and leaned back to lounge against a makeshift coffin in that easy, confident manner of his, “Careful, you will get hiccups.”
He smiled as a small jolt jumped from Alister’s chest.
“I am sorry,” whispered Alister.
“Hm,” said Codrin, “Did the honey upset you? Or was it that I made you try some? You would have to eventually, it is tradition here.” Alister shook his head, “I miss my father.”
“That the reason now?”
He read the uncertain waver in Alister’s eyes. The smaller vampire was avoiding his gaze. No, there was something more to this. “Stea,” said Codrin, “You know I can smell when someone is lying.”
He felt a cold chill creep down his skin. Alister stared at him with wide, predatory eyes from under his thin white brows, “I don’t play your silly games Codrin. I don’t fall for your stories like the others do.”
“You are still lying,” smirked Codrin, “No one lies to me.”
Alister sniffed and scuffed his knuckles under his eyes, “I haven’t lied. I do miss my father.”
“That is not why you are so upset.”
“And what does it matter to you?” hissed Alister, “Just leave it in the ground like all dead things. I am a child who cries over honey, it is nothing more.”
“A child cries when it is taken away, not given.”
Alister turned his back on Codrin then, “Leave it be Dracula son.”
Codrin clicked his teeth. This little Stea had thorns of his own to stab, “Why are you afraid?”
Again, those white eyes set on Codrin, their lids lined with smudged black tears, “Some things, cannot be spoken of, Codrin. Leave the dead where they belong.”
Stea was always full of such wonderful mysteries. Codrin raised onto his feet then and stalked over to Alister to ruffle his long white hair, “We should cut this over the midsummer festival, give it as a gift to the humans. They might think its colour means it’s holy.”
Alister wiped his eyes and watched the older vampire slip his mask over and stride with swaying steps to the port hole.
“Please do not make a scene of it,” hissed Alister. Codrin only smiled behind his mask, “Little Stea, our very existence is a performance.”
He then dropped down into the light radiating from the port hole. Alister sniffed and angrily shoved to his feet. He moved to the water bowl set in a corner of the tree house and splashed his face, washing off the remainder of the inky tears under his eyes. Before, he could tell his father about the memories, ask him who that young man was and why the thought of him made Alister so sad. Now, he could only hope that his mother had not killed his father and her other mates in her fury. Few things stirred her temper like dealings over her son.
He moved to one of the nests of thrown blankets in another corner and tossed his ivory mask onto it before stuffing a couple of the misshapen pillows onto one side. He curled into the pile and let the child side of his person flood his emotions as he imagined the comfort of his father holding him at night, or Tymon or Milon’s soft voices as they read a story to him. Although life in his mother’s castle was terrifying, Alister could not help but painfully miss the quiet moments. They made life seem good. At least, for a little while.
Although he was safer here with Codrin and his little troop of misfits, he was far more lonely. Even among the cast-out vampires, Alister felt apart. Most kin eaters were not given more than a night’s standing to survive. Those that did, grew up to be the monsters of the vampiric world, whispered in the dark and checked over shoulders like the stories of the slayers that prowled in the night.
Now, that monster was curled in a nest of linen and clothing stolen off the villager’s laundry lines, blinking tears. Even after feeding, he could still taste the honey. It had a way of lingering.
The bells hanging outside the hovel rang against strings of buttons and a broken china set and Alister watched the thin slits of sunlight peaking around the trap door in the floor. Slowly, he shut his eyes. It was day, and little vampires needed sleep.

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BUILDING TEMPLATE 

Codrin's hovels is one part of a larger novel that follows the life of a young vampire, Alister after he wakes into the strange world of vampiric society in the early 1800s. 
The story takes a turn when Alister meets another vampiric child by the name of Codrin. An eccentric renegade, day walker and possibly rather mad, Codrin is an outcast amongst his kind. Over his short life, and in many unexpected adventures, Codrin built a haven for himself and other young vampires who found themselves unable to fit within the gruesome and dangerous world of their elder kin. 
Codrin's Hovels explores the lives of the lost children in the shady grove, and their trials to carve a new way of life for themselves while surviving the vampires and slayers prowling the shadows. 

Other Details: 

The shady grove lies deep within a forest north of a rural cluster of small, Romanian Villages. The villagers here, believe Codrin and his outcasts to be fey of legend who, if given gifts, will stay in the forest and protect the town. As such, few, if any of the villagers have fallen prey to the strange monsters who, as word has it, stalk the lands, and drain the soul and blood from their victims. 
While Codrin and his gang can protect the villagers, they are always at risk of being found out by the noble vampiric houses or the slayers who stalk the night. 
As such, the children stay active between the hours of dusk and dawn, or "the betweening time." During the night, or the day if it suits them, they hide and play in the channels of caves and tree houses they build in the shady grove. Much like the lost children, the caves and ramshackle homes are decorated with assortments of toys and trinkets, making them appear as colourful nests in the treetops. 
To protect themselves from the sun, and play the role of forest fey, the children carve and paint masks for themselves, with eyes of melted coloured glass stolen from church steeples. Much like their homes, they decorate themselves with gifts and found items, each member personifying themselves. 

#Marchitecture