The pleasant pitter pattering of the rain was a lovely sensation for the young girl. Standing in a sea of forest, the little lady looked towards the sky and breathed in the heavy scent of the fresh air. The Fons Silvae was rich in greenery this spring. By the Lazuli lake where she was close to, a trickle of purple and blue hydrangeas gathered around the water, swaying to and fro in the light breeze of the forest.

She had numerous journeys here. But this was the first time that it had rained while she was here.

She closed her eyes, bathing herself clean in the vast nature and allowed her mind to wander away. Her worn cloak was soaked through and through, but she paid it no mind.

All she could see was black. There wasn’t a thought inside her head–and she let the silence pull her away from her body.

Not a single thought clouded her mind. She was free.

The rain continued to pour, tickling her face.

A drop of rain ran down her right cheek before slipping down to her lips. Feeling the sensation at the corner of her mouth, she licked it off her mouth and marveled at the sweet taste of blood.

She opened her cruel violet eyes that shattered her image of innocence, and smiled at the mess that lay before her feet.

The bloodied corpse of an enormous boar was laid across the forest flooring as if it were bludgeoned to death. next to a serpentine creature with wide tusks, and an individual that bore the face of a human but had the body of a fish. They were sprawled all across the grass with a variety of gashes and cuts. The serpent with tusks had one of its tusks broken in half. Its scales glimmered in the rain, but the lower half of the serpent's body was dissected and separated far away from the upper half.

There were gashes and cuts off all sizes and shapes across their bodies that suggested they had all died through different means. However, there was a point of commonality in their injuries. A bite mark consisting of two fangs was on all of them. On a closer inspection the man with a fish's tail was gauntly pale, not just from the effect of death, but from being emptied of his blood.

The fish corpse was a horrendous sight to see, with its human-like visage limp without life, its fins on top of the serpent’s body.

Yet the lady was not bothered at all. She welcomed the man’s presence in her life– after all, it was hard being by herself for days on end.

Using her feet, she brushed the hair off of the corpses’ face and gasped in excitement.

“Little one, big one! A little, little, cute gathering for my beloved~”

Singing a light tune, Lavender pushed back her luscious long white hair with a bloodied hand before kneeling down in front of the remnants of her meal. She dropped her staff to the grass as if it were junk despite her reliance on the weapon.

She gently lowered her hands across the corpses cheeks, lifting the head off the ground and regarded the corpse at eye level.

“How adorable~”

With a gaze full of affection, Lavender played with the corpse like a toy. She pinched the cheeks, grazed her hands along the fins in fascination of its texture, and bent and unbent the man’s fingers.

The pointer finger settled down against the palm. She enjoyed watching the loops on the finger, tracing each of the lines and studying the moles she found on the back side of the hand.

She looked for traces. Traces that exposed the corpses' life habits, and perhaps even their personality. How much did they eat in a day? Were they someone who cared for appearances? Their nails that allowed her to uncover whether they were a laborer, the way smile lines exposed a person as someone with joy–

Jagged bark shot out from behind her. With a reaction as quick as lightning, Lavender whipped her head to the direction of the assailant with her hand firmly gripped on her staff.

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“Leech, get your hand off of Warea.”

A cold voice rang out of the trees. A sharp looking woman with delicate branches on the side of her head came to greet her. She was dressed in a green that matched the coloring of her hair and eyes. Dressed in a delicate garment of flora and fauna, Lavender recognized the beast specter as a resident of the forest.

“Study time hasn’t ended! How unfaithful~”

Lavender pouted a little before the woman lunged straight for her heart.

“Tch.”

Lavender quickly dodged out of her way, before blocking her assailant’s leg with her staff. Despite the strong force the woman put behind the attack, she was able to fend her off.

Lavender widened her red lips mockingly and smiled pleasantly.

“However, I forgive you. Thank you for being my next entertainment!”

The lady had come out and stopped her immediately during her playtime. She could've stayed silent, but her first words to her were in hostility towards her actions to the corpse. She seemed to have caught the attention of a rather emotional one this time. Convenient for her. She would make for easy prey.

“To treat others like your toys…curse you, you vulture of a vampire!”

With a cold gaze the woman twisted her body to the other side and continued her assault with her other leg this time. After sparring with the woman a little, Lavender retreated from the woman and raised her staff.

“Liglux!”

A circle of light appeared around the women with branches. She moved her arms desperately as she shifted her core to and fro. Her legs trembled with effort and her face slowly began to shift to one of panic.

Giving into her survival instinct, the woman began to express her fear with those terrified eyes of hers as she moved in earnest to free herself.

As Lavender thought, she wasn’t someone that was able to maintain their mental condition.

Lavender bore her eyes through her assailant in indifference and decided to end things quickly. With a hint of laziness and dissatisfaction, she sighed as she thought of how her long awaited battle ended so shortly. To have attacked her blind in grief and rage, before falling shortly after her companion. It wasn't anything that could alleviate Lavender's boredom.

She raised her staff and stepped forward to end the foolish woman once and for all. But she wasn't able to move. Widening her eyes in surprise, Lavender looked down and realized she was bound to the forest floor by a growth of twisted bark that entrapped her leg.

After her gaze quickly returned to the location where she believed her assailant stood, she realized the green haired woman was gone.

“Oh?!”

With a hint of excitement Lavender eyed the forest all around her but found herself unable to detect her presence. A variety of possibilities ran through her head. Did she run away? Did she utilize her power in manipulating nature to hide herself? Yet all she was met with was silence. After a brief moment of struggle, Lavender broke out of the wood with her sheer brute strength. Despite her delicate frame, her physical prowess was far beyond a humans and most beast specters as a pure blooded vampire.

She kept an eye out for attacks but her caution was returned with silence.

She heard the sound of wind that indicated the presence of a projectile. Lavender decide to reassess her opponent.

"Not bad. Not bad at all!"

Turning her head around, she saw several wooden staves aimed at her face. Time seemed to stop for Lavender just as she began to form a look of astonishment. A drop of rain slid from her eyebrow into her vibrant purple eye, spreading across her lovely pupil and creating a glossy sheen. The light reflected off her eye created a mirror for the wooden projectile, before it was deformed at once by the nearing force of wind surrounding the stave.

The first piece of wood made contact with her body.

First, it was a tickle against her ear. Then simultaneously all at once the pieces embedded themselves into her flesh.

“Ahhh!”

The pain came quickly. Like a voodoo doll, Lavender was punctured helplessly as her dark red blood spilled from her body.

She took her injured vitals into account. There was a painful sensation at the left side of her neck, directly above her chest, and an injury below her ribcage she worried about.

But that was of little importance in comparison to the threat before her eyes.

The woman had appeared once more. With those ghastly green eyes of hers that were cold as ice, she lifted her left hand and shot out several more wooden barks as Lavender could only helplessly let her body get punctured. Weakness attacked her delicate frame, and the vampire stumbled around the forest clearing. She was barely able to stop herself from slipping onto the floor drenched in rain water.

“Fool. You shouldn’t have let your guard down.”

She had a nonchalant tone now. It was far from the superficial image of vulnerability and instability that Lavender had just realized was a trick.

“G-ga he…”

Lavender made a small noise in agreement.

This was the first time in a while that she was injured by an opponent. Her heart was pumping blood quickly, and her survival instincts screamed at her to act quickly. At this critical juncture in which failure to win would result in her death, she found herself reveling in the sensation of being alive. She allowed the excitement to fizzle inside her body. The sensation started from her chest before it spread to her limbs, and then shortly after to her head. She felt her face flush and redden in response.

Despite the dire circumstances she was trapped in, she was overjoyed at the life that vibrated throughout her body.

Her eyes narrowed in happiness, and her mouth widened into a broad smile. The beautiful vampire soaked in rain, looked at her attacker with a gaze of twisted affection.

“...tha-ank you!~”

She was reminded once more of the strength that brimmed through her body, the power that she possessed and gained despite her young age. She was reminded of what she was capable of, and what she deserved.

Her life would also become Lavender's.

The woman stepped back, taken aback by Lavender’s response. Within her scrunched expression Lavender detected a hint of disgust that incited a chuckle from her.

Raising her staff up, Lavender lightly chanted a spell even as another round of wooden staves made their way to her.

“Disolufia.”

A beam of light shot from the sky and hurdled straight to the assailant.

With the speed of the assault in combination with Lavender’s response, the woman was unable to react in time before it was too late. With those ghostly green eyes of hers, all she could do was watch in shock as her inevitable death neared.