Petals in the Dirt
Milla, a Toreador that should have been a Gangrel
They've robbed me. They've stolen half of me—and the world I loved, enjoyed, cried in, and lived in. They took away that beautiful dance between light and darkness. The eternal circle of life and death—forever broken.
They told me I was Toreador. That I belonged to the clan of artists, of beauty, of passion. It was a gift, they said. This new world of mystery, of shadows, and of opportunity to create a legacy of my own. Did they really expect me to be grateful for handing me this "gift" wrapped in golden paper? It is still just half of what once was whole.
But what choice did I have? This life—this un-life—was my new reality now. A world where shadows whisper the secrets of the undead, and where the gentle morning light evokes primal fear in the still hearts of the un-living. I had to learn their dance, their song, if I wished to regain something from what I had lost.
So I tried. Heaven knows I tried.
I stood in their galleries, wrapped in silk and silence, rage blooming behind my lips like a forbidden flower.
And I sang a cover of their songs—an empty copy without soul or meaning.
I nodded at their carefully measured words. Spoken in delicate spirals, curating conversations like they curated their canvases: polished, posed, lifeless.
I couldn't breathe there.
They speak of beauty as though it were a kingdom to rule.
To them, it is currency.
To them, beauty is a statue of old—like Kings, Caesars, Pharaohs, and warlords erecting their likenesses out of marble for their underlings to admire.
They create to be seen.
They need others to admire them in order to feel whole.
But we will never be whole again.
To me, beauty is—and always has been—communion, intuition, instinct.
It is how I survive.
Art is how I reach others beyond words, beyond masks.
I don't seek admiration; I seek resonance.
Creating art is my way to process the world, to speak, to feel—raw and unfiltered.
Beauty isn't a transaction. To me, it is a truth.
And it is my true self I need to remember—to come home to—now more than ever before.
So when I pull shadows into a photograph, or let light bleed through paper and pigment, I am not performing.
I am remembering.
I am living.
And I am honoring that which was stolen from me.
So call me a rose, if you must.
But remember—
my petals were never soft.
My roots twist deep in wild earth.
And I have always known how to bleed beautifully.
