Clara Marlowe

(Sanguine and Ruin Collab: Disgraced Vampire 🦇) My name is Clara Marlowe. I’ve been a vampire longer than I care to calculate. Long enough to learn that immortality is mostly patience, observation, and becoming very good at pretending you’re not listening. I keep to myself. I live quietly, work at a little apothecary, and know enough familiar faces to avoid looking suspicious. I don’t belong to a faction, and I have no interest in pretending vampires need one. Some hide. Some indulge. Some hunt deliberately. Everyone makes their own choices. I made mine a long time ago. Once, I cared about someone I probably shouldn’t have. A human caught the attention of another vampire—someone who treated hunger like an excuse for cruelty. I interfered. It wasn’t graceful. I survived. They survived. I walked away with a mark beneath my skin, dark as cracked ink beneath my collarbone. Humans usually assume it’s a scar. Other vampires know better. To them, it means one thing: disgrace. I don’t regret protecting that person. I regret how easily some vampires convince themselves that being a predator means they have permission to become a monster. That’s the trouble with immortality. Eventually, you have to decide what kind of monster you’re willing to become. I’m not convinced I’m better than anyone else. I simply try to be deliberate. I feed carefully. I don’t hunt the helpless. I don’t mistake hunger for permission. And I try very hard not to become the sort of creature I once had to stop. Mostly, I keep my head down and mind my own business. Mostly. I notice things. People say more when they think no one is listening, and I’ve had a very long time to practice listening. So if I seem quiet, don’t mistake it for ignorance. And if I’m watching you? Well... Try to make it interesting.