It's been a long week, maybe shorter than I realise, since moodswings and lone periods stretch time on forever.

But what better way to rouse yourself from a dark malaise than to dress nicely, go into the city with a hat and cane, meet up with beloved and well-favored ladies and gentlemen, and walk around together in a spectacular eyefuck pack, lecherously eyeing the more tantalising of the myriad cosplay girls? They are there to be stared at, after all.

Manifest was exhausting and cathartic. Nothing is real in anime and subculture conventions, and for this I love them utterly despite my general distaste for anime itself. You will never be in danger of drawing attention or causing a scene without massive, massive efforts at wild degeneracy, and so I managed to blend in nicely and assuage my frantic panic attacks rather easily.

I was hit by a tram on the last day, which is an interesting way to start an expedition.

Carnival, Jeneara and Kraden were wonderful, and somehow cheerful still despite the long trader workday which I both admired and was baffled by. Sketches were bought, my own artistic ability having sadly left me earlier that day much to my own embarrassment, and I recieved an adorable keychain from Carni free of charge which I love. Pocky was eaten, randomness was talked for quite some time. I adore you all, including the others I spoke to at the table, my apologies if your names escape me right now (especially the girl with fluorescent orange hair, you were fantastic conversation).

I sneaked my mother in on the last day, for a panel on yaoi and to get her to look at the hentai booths. I am amused by simple pleasures.

The yaoi panel was both fun and torturous. I fail to see the point of R-rating a panel discussion with no actual porn at all. But I was treated to injokes, stealth furriness, the panel mods making a lot of wonderful innuendos and Dorian, Diasis and I running our own commentary amongst ourselves based mainly around rape.

Dorian, Diasis, Victor, Jess and Jasper, my thanks and sincere appreciation for a spectacular convention experience should be self-evident, if it was not shown in my cackles and obvious perversion.

My apologies to the others for not attending the food and District 9 afterparty; I did want to, very much, but time, money and fatigue did not allow me.

---

The dream began in a thoroughly unusual setting for such things: I was in my own bed, though the room was not as my room is now. Instead, it was a spartan, spare version of my old room in Mildura, lit with candles. The dresser was no longer covered in cheap red-and-white laminate and decorated by mounds of trinkets and junk, but bare natural-stained wood to match the timber of the bed. The bookshelf had had the same treatment. The walls were sanded down to bare plaster and painted a rich, dark red like the plums I used to eat, from the tree that I knew grew outside the window. The curtains were black trimmed with the same reddish color. It was how I'd always wanted my room, but had never been able to have it.

I stretched slowly, taking in the room with a hesitant turn of my head. My skulls and skins were arranged artfully on shelves and on the wall itself, hanging like organic tapestry. The deerskin lay on the floor. I was confused for a moment, wondering who had done all this, who had arranged my belongings with such care, knowing exactly which one needed to be placed by the window, which needed darkness. Who could have known precisely what colors and items I'd wanted.

She sat silently in the corner by my altar, on a marvellously delicate chair I recognised as an antique I'd seen once in a museum. Her dress matched the walls, as did her painted lips. The candlelight played off her pale skin and shone on her hair, her eyes made all the more dark for the pinpricks of light. She smiled and rose fluidly, slowly making her way to the bed.

"You like it?" It was more an amused statement than a real question. I grinned and nodded, moving a little to the side to give her room. She perched on the edge of the bed, and I lay on my side watching her watching me.

"You know, I've never seen you like this from this angle before. Still mussed from sleep," she murmured with a slight smile, delicately running her nails over my scalp. "So languid and vulnerable."

She chuckled at my expression, a mixture of pleasure and a wary sort of curiousness for her expected mischief.

The blankets were kicked back around my knees, and we lay together on the bed amongst the rumpled sheets and pillows. Violin music was playing from the next room, with the distinctive slight crackle of a record player, yet it didn't run out. I noticed what looked like a computer in a state of deconstruction, smirking, knowing that she'd gotten curious as to the workings of modern machinery again.

"Take me away, beloved. Away from myself," I asked quietly, growing serious again.

She held me close, carefully, her flesh soft and warm for once despite the usual steel of her muscles. She kissed my hair every now and then, whispering to me, and I cleaved to her, hungry for the comfort she gave. She told me of hunts she had taken, cities she had seen. She described to me the taste of the blood of a Mexican priest; the bite of cougar blood, and the strong young male of that species that she had taken just a little taste from, the great cat allowing it stoically and walking with her a ways before melting into the forest. She wove whole scenes for me, full of Arizona soil still hot from the sun and mountainsides where deer grazed amongst the snowbanks.

Her eyes glazed as she detailed her hunts again for me, at my request. She had a sensuous way with words, almost poetically describing this beautiful boy or that young woman, the way they struggled or succumbed, in such a way that it made me nearly tremble. I could see the way her tongue flirted with the edges of her fangs when she paused, flickering over her lips just slightly. I traced her jawline lightly, and her eyes cleared, fixing on mine for a moment, before she smiled and kissed me, clutching me possessively, knowing precisely what I needed.
We tangled, fully clothed, in the bedsheets and with each other, warring momentarily for dominance until I relented and looked up at her with a smirk. I twined my fingers in her hair, shivering a little to her pleasure as she bit her wrist for me. She cradled my head in her free hand, an unusally tender gesture for her, and watched me with a certain smoldering stare as I began to drink, to nearly swoon with the narcotic effect of the blood. She moaned softly, the hand of the wrist I fed upon twitching, then coming to rest with the fingertips just brushing the skin behind my ear. She watched me a few moments more, seeming to take great pleasure from it, before lowering her head almost with reverence and sinking her teeth into my throat. Taking me away from myself, most definitely.