Introduction
"Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny." - Harry S Truman
The year is 2113. The Third War has raged for nearly half a century, and it does not seem to be slowing down. Advances in technology have been slow, as humanity has poured all of its resources into one thing: killing the vampires.
Nearly a century ago, the existence of vampires was revealed to human populations as a whole with an attack on Cross Academy, a school that had been home to both species since its inception. Though the vampires were separated from the humans and took their classes at night, nobody was aware of what they were, at least not until they were exposed by one of their own. When that happened, all hell broke loose, tensions spiking between the Vampire Council, the ruling body of supernatural governance, and the Hunters’ Association, special humans gifted with abilities beyond the norm and special anti-vampire weapons, made of a substance called the One Metal. It was not long before that tension, pushed to a breaking point by an ancestral vampire named Theodor von Nacht, erupted into a full-scale war, with the world being divvied up as both sides fought to claim territory and strategic resources. The Hunters had skill, but even they were not enough.
Masses of vampiric servitors, mad creatures with little will but that to feed and destroy, were brought together into organized units by Lord von Nacht’s extensive mind-control abilities, forged into an army capable of untold destruction. Conventional human weaponry and heavy artillery was effective enough on these weak ones, but it took much more than most were capable of to kill the higher-level, subtle vampires, the Nobles, Pure-bloods, and Commons. For that, humanity turned to the Hunters, and the mass production of One Metal began.
This initial conflict, known as the Second War, was quelled by a group of neutral vampires and Hunters, let by Vincent Kuragari and Jasper von Nacht, the latter Theodor’s own grandson. With the death of Theodor, the world entered a period of peace and repair, but it was not to last. Slowly, deliberately, members of Theodor’s secret organization, called the Pantheon, began to stir trouble once more, releasing data regarding Theodor’s genetic experiments and the horrors he inflicted upon human children in his pursuit of something known only as the Aegis Effect. Of thousands of experiments on human children, only one was successful. The news of what was done to this girl, as well as extensive data on Theodor’s plans for the subjugation of humanity and the support he had from other, still living, still active Council members, one again inflamed humanity’s rage, and what started next was a war of attrition.
The world is once again divided, as the Hunters spread their techniques and weapons to more and more of their kin, and vampires, as ever, remain low in number. This time, the outcome of the war, this Third War, is far from certain. Desperate to crush the humans and assert their dominion once and for all, the Council and the Pantheon have formed an alliance, and seek to do what was once thought impossible. To regain their power, and their mastery, the vampires seek to revert to their former ways of life, ways that call for one supreme ruler of them all, the King. The Council plans to wake the previous King from his slumber, but the Pantheon’s own plans may call for a younger, more impressionable, puppet-King.
As grand plans are set into motion, one family, tightly bonded by blood and fate alike, finds themselves at the very epicenter of the Third War, and their choices will shape the future of the world itself. Destiny is in their hands, the red string woven tightly about them all. Whether it will weave them together into a grand tapestry or strangle and unmake them remains to be seen.
Nearly a century ago, the existence of vampires was revealed to human populations as a whole with an attack on Cross Academy, a school that had been home to both species since its inception. Though the vampires were separated from the humans and took their classes at night, nobody was aware of what they were, at least not until they were exposed by one of their own. When that happened, all hell broke loose, tensions spiking between the Vampire Council, the ruling body of supernatural governance, and the Hunters’ Association, special humans gifted with abilities beyond the norm and special anti-vampire weapons, made of a substance called the One Metal. It was not long before that tension, pushed to a breaking point by an ancestral vampire named Theodor von Nacht, erupted into a full-scale war, with the world being divvied up as both sides fought to claim territory and strategic resources. The Hunters had skill, but even they were not enough.
Masses of vampiric servitors, mad creatures with little will but that to feed and destroy, were brought together into organized units by Lord von Nacht’s extensive mind-control abilities, forged into an army capable of untold destruction. Conventional human weaponry and heavy artillery was effective enough on these weak ones, but it took much more than most were capable of to kill the higher-level, subtle vampires, the Nobles, Pure-bloods, and Commons. For that, humanity turned to the Hunters, and the mass production of One Metal began.
This initial conflict, known as the Second War, was quelled by a group of neutral vampires and Hunters, let by Vincent Kuragari and Jasper von Nacht, the latter Theodor’s own grandson. With the death of Theodor, the world entered a period of peace and repair, but it was not to last. Slowly, deliberately, members of Theodor’s secret organization, called the Pantheon, began to stir trouble once more, releasing data regarding Theodor’s genetic experiments and the horrors he inflicted upon human children in his pursuit of something known only as the Aegis Effect. Of thousands of experiments on human children, only one was successful. The news of what was done to this girl, as well as extensive data on Theodor’s plans for the subjugation of humanity and the support he had from other, still living, still active Council members, one again inflamed humanity’s rage, and what started next was a war of attrition.
The world is once again divided, as the Hunters spread their techniques and weapons to more and more of their kin, and vampires, as ever, remain low in number. This time, the outcome of the war, this Third War, is far from certain. Desperate to crush the humans and assert their dominion once and for all, the Council and the Pantheon have formed an alliance, and seek to do what was once thought impossible. To regain their power, and their mastery, the vampires seek to revert to their former ways of life, ways that call for one supreme ruler of them all, the King. The Council plans to wake the previous King from his slumber, but the Pantheon’s own plans may call for a younger, more impressionable, puppet-King.
As grand plans are set into motion, one family, tightly bonded by blood and fate alike, finds themselves at the very epicenter of the Third War, and their choices will shape the future of the world itself. Destiny is in their hands, the red string woven tightly about them all. Whether it will weave them together into a grand tapestry or strangle and unmake them remains to be seen.
Alarica Alistair | Dhampir | Played by | Nephilim
Leora Kuragari | Vampire; Pure-Blood | Played by | Dynamite
Yuki Alistair-von Nacht | Vampire; Artificial Pure-blood/Noble | Played by | Naga's Shadow
Helen Trist | Vampire; Pure-blood; Experiment | Played by | Dynamite
Emrys Alistair | Dhampir | Played by | Naga's Shadow
Balthasar von Nacht | Vampire; Pure-blood | Played by | Dynamite
Keir Alistair | Dhampir | Played by | Naga's Shadow
Zero Kuragari | Vampire; Pure-blood | Played by | Nephilim
Aryan von Nacht | Vampire; Pure-blood | Played by | Naga's Shadow
Alden Kuragari | Vampire; Pure-Blood | Played by | Dynamite
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The Story
A hundred years.
A whole century has passed since the incident. An incident that had forever changed the lives of everyone involved, directly or indirectly. A new day arose, the sun peeking gently over the horizon, glancing through the leaves of the trees. The breeze blew by softly, carrying cherry blossoms as it went by. The day in question was Monday, the beginning of the week, and the echoes of Cross Academy's bell resonated through the area. Slowly, it came to life, students passing each other, greeting each other, and conversing with one another as if they hadn't seen each other in years. This day was no different for one Alarica Alistair. She opened the door to her room, blinking owlishly at the basket of apples laid in front of her door. She frowned, Mihkail landing softly on her shoulder as she glanced towards the white owl.
"Every Monday there is a new batch. I wonder, do you have a secret admirer?" Mihkail stated, mischief laced in his tone. Alarica merely rolled her eyes at her familiar, picking the basket up and setting it on the table to her room before leaving. She had to find Keir. He said there was something that he had discovered and he wanted to show her what it was. She glanced back at the apples on the table, a vague scent of something familiar lingering about, before shrugging her shoulders and continuing on her way. Zero, on the other hand, the son of one Vincent and Ava Kuragari, lounged lazily in a tree, his arm dangling as he glanced up.
It was his place, where he spent most of his time during the school hours. There wasn't much for him to learn anyways, and the only reason he was attending was at the behest of his mother and father. The things they were learning were already covered in the books and information Vincent had drilled into him as a child, and more so as he grew. Sighing softly through his nose, he pushed himself away from the tree, landing gracefully and elegantly as a cat, upon the ground. He turned his attention towards the school, shoving one of his hands into his pocket and bringing out the book that had occupied his attention moments ago.
As he neared the school building, a smile formed on his lips as something ruptured through the air. "And it seems Keir and Alarica have started their fun without me," he stated, the rumbling of the earth signaling a strong explosion just took place. Zero glanced about, stepping to the side to avoid a javelin that fell from the sky. He spotted a few basketballs, volleyballs, and even the shinai the kendo club used flew from the sky. "Of all the things...it had to be the storage building."
A cackle of mad laughter split the air, Keir practically doubling over as supplies rained down from the sky over half the campus. He grinned at his twin, ice-blue orbs meeting pale-pink. "I told you this was an awesome idea!" A white wolf stood not far off, shaking his head. Keir stuck his tongue out at his familiar. "Oh, buzz off, Lulu."
On the other side of campus, one of the only other students with hair as white as snow sighed, exasperated. The Twins just never knew when to quit, did they? But, then again, considering who their father was...
Yuki Alistair-von Nacht stood up from her chair, intending to go assess the damage. She could only imagine what Keir and Alarica had done this time. She loved them, of course, and sometimes even joined them, but...sometimes she just wanted a peaceful day. She glanced over at her younger brother, Aryan, who was asleep at the desk he'd been sitting at all night. She smiled fondly. Not even an explosion could wake him up when he was tired enough. She wasn't surprised, he hadn't slept in three days.
She shook her head, pulling one of the blankets over him, and let him be. He needed the rest. She left the library, heading towards the source of the explosion. Kiba met her at the door. She pet him lightly, and then continued on her way. A few more thigs were still raining from the sky, mainly sporting equipment, and without even thinking about it, Yuki threw up a wall of telekinetic energy above her head. She rounded the corner, running almost smack into Zero. She blinked once, and then smiled slightly. She pulled the javelin from the ground that he'd side-stepped. "Really? They blew up the storage shed? Honestly..." She shook her head, a small smile on her face nonetheless.
The explosion was enough to rattle the windows of the school building proper, and Leora glanced out of the nearest one in the music room, shaking her head with a secretive grin when she noted a deflated basketball falling through the air. She was actually a bit disappointed she hadn’t been let in on the fun this time. Ah well—there was always tomorrow, after all. Smoothing her face out, she regained the cool impassivity she was known for displaying and turned back to what she was doing, drawing the bow back over the strings of her violin and releasing the first note once again. She needed to stop by the library later, to pick up a few books—mostly to write Zero’s next English assignment. She did it for the experience, really; unlike him, she wasn’t almost a century old, and having been home-schooled all her life, actual homework was something of a novelty for her. Plus her brother’s grades were now immaculate, despite the fact that he never went to class.
In that selfsame library, Helen Trist did not even glance up from the book she was reading, at least not until Yuki moved. She was always very aware of what her friend was doing, but she was not overprotective to the point that she felt the need to follow. Instead, she glanced back down at the novel she was reading and turned the page. She wanted to see how it would end… A slight stirring made her look up again, and she noted that Aryan had a piece of paper stuck to his face. She debated removing it, but decided that was probably something he should do himself. It wasn’t like she was going to laugh at him for it. In fact, she dismissed the thought from her mind and went back to reading thereafter.
Balthasar, on the other hand, was perhaps not ten meters from the storage shed when it blew up, and he yelped with surprise as various pieces of debris flew around the area. His reaction was instantaneous even so—in the area of his immediate proximity, the grass flattened, and any chunks of wood or sports equipment that entered the field smashed immediately to the ground as though magnetized. The double-tailed fox-kit on his head giggled, resettling herself in his dark locks and blinking over at the ruins from which his cousins emerged. Sighing through his nose, he picked his way through the remaining splintered two-by-fours and ducked under the partially-collapsed roof, placing the orange cones in the usual spot. It looked a little absurd, given that they were the only things currently in the right spot, and the building was basically gone.
This was no easy repair, either, though he did use his fields to move a few things back into order, and bolstered the missing half of the ceiling for a moment while he recycled another piece of wood to support it in the meantime. At least what was left wouldn’t injure anyone coming to survey the damage now. “Those two…” he murmured, more to himself than anything, though Ilyana, being her helpful self, did not hesitate to reply.
“But you love them!” she sing-songed in a lilting soprano. Balthasar only sighed again.
“Of course I do. That doesn’t mean I approve of wanton destruction of school property.” Even if it was a bit funny, and even if he was smiling, just slightly.
"Better the shed than the actual Academy. I don't think they'll go that far...yet," Zero replied, a smirk pulling at his face as he turned his attention towards Yuki. "Besides, they were planning on remodeling the building anyway. They just did the construction workers a favor, really," he added with a light shrug of his shoulders. His eyes traveled to the javelin in Yuki's hands and took the weapon from her, spinning it in his hand in the process. "And it's been awhile since they last blew something up. The gardening shed was the last victim if I do remember correctly. Luckily, Hel had Sven and he was able to help restore some things," he added as an after thought.
His smirk turned into a smile at that thought before shaking his head. School was about to start for them, and they should be returning to the classroom. The smirk returned to his face as he stared at Yuki, tapping his chin thoughtfully before slipping behind Yuki. "I think this will be easier and more convenient," he stated, slipping his arms around her waist and hoisting her over his shoulder, laughing all the same in the process.
Alarica stood, smudges of dirt covering her face as a large grin was painted across her face. "Have I ever doubted you before, dear brother?" she stated as she turned to grin at him. Her face, however, pulled into that of a frown as Mihkail followed her line of sight. If he could smirk, he would have. Immediately, the air went a little chiller than usual and Alarica abruptly turned to walk away, Mihkail letting a light laughter in the process. He turned to his brother, glaring lightly with a strange tint to his blue eyes before following after his master. "Not a word Mihk" she stated towards the white owl.
"My, you wound me so, Lala," he spoke, the last word coming out with a bit more emphasis that he barely dodged an icicle headed his way. Laughter rang out merrily as he perched himself upon Balthasar's shoulder, glancing up towards Ilyana. "Master seems upset with me, shall we share yours?" he stated as he turned his blue eyes towards Balthasar, a strange glint of mirth shining behind his eyes.
Yuki laughed, the sound like bell chimes. "Yes, it was the garden shed. Oh my. I'd forgotten about that." She shook her head, but stiffened when Zero stepped up behind her. And when he threw her over his shoulder, she blushed redder than the apples on the trees. "Z-Zero! Put me down!" Kiba, on the other hand, simply chuckled, slipping off to find a quiet spot. Yuki would be fine, he felt no need to be glued to her side when she was with any of the family, especially Zero.
Aryan had woken when Yuki left, picking his head up and looking blearily around, as if he was lost. Indeed, it took him a few seconds to realize he was still in the library. He yawned, feeling something stretch his skin, and looked sideways to find a piece of paper stuck to the side of his face. He frowned, pulling it of slowly. With the paper gone, he could see Helen in his peripheral vision. He looked at her, his voice soft. "How long was I asleep?"
Keir had finally seemed to recover from his laughing spell, looking over at his cousin, a manic grin on his face. "Bally! Aww, Lala, don't run away." He pouted slightly, shaking his head. His sister was so thick-headed sometimes. He shrugged it off. If she didn't want to face her feelings, whatever, it was her loss.
Helen looked back up, tilting her head faintly to the side and running a mental calculation. “Two hours and thirty-seven minutes,” she replied promptly, though her voice was flat, and slightly husky, as though she did not often use it. This was, in fact, the case. “Yuki left sixteen minutes ago.” She blinked, nodding slightly, then returned her eyes to her reading. It wasn’t that it captured her overmuch—it would be nice to know the ending, but it wasn’t particularly arresting. She just didn’t know what else to say or do. Hel was not skilled in the arts of small talk and socialization, and even if she were, she might feel uncomfortable exercising them here.
She just didn’t see why anyone like him, like any of them, would want to talk to someone like her. She was a discarded tool belonging to an evil man, and part of her still belonged to him. The part she could do nothing about. They allowed her to remain, and for that she was grateful, but she could not and did not respond to the overtures of friendliness from them. Yuki was an exception, but even that was… strange, for Helen. It was easier to see herself as a vassal, for they should always love the ones they served, and that made things less complicated.
Balthasar, meanwhile, smiled over at Keir as he emerged from the wreckage, squinting slightly against the light of day, though it faltered slightly upon noting that Alarica was already walking away. He just didn’t understand why she despised him so. He was trying to give her the space she seemed to want, but… they were part of the same very close-knit family, and it was difficult to do.
He was a bit surprised, then when her familiar landed on his shoulder, but he reached up to stroke the owl’s feathers all the same, the smile returned to his face, if only a slight one. It was a fairly commonplace expression for him, actually. “Hello Mikhail,” he greeted warmly, then turned a raised eyebrow on Keir. “You just couldn’t help yourselves, could you?”
A whole century has passed since the incident. An incident that had forever changed the lives of everyone involved, directly or indirectly. A new day arose, the sun peeking gently over the horizon, glancing through the leaves of the trees. The breeze blew by softly, carrying cherry blossoms as it went by. The day in question was Monday, the beginning of the week, and the echoes of Cross Academy's bell resonated through the area. Slowly, it came to life, students passing each other, greeting each other, and conversing with one another as if they hadn't seen each other in years. This day was no different for one Alarica Alistair. She opened the door to her room, blinking owlishly at the basket of apples laid in front of her door. She frowned, Mihkail landing softly on her shoulder as she glanced towards the white owl.
"Every Monday there is a new batch. I wonder, do you have a secret admirer?" Mihkail stated, mischief laced in his tone. Alarica merely rolled her eyes at her familiar, picking the basket up and setting it on the table to her room before leaving. She had to find Keir. He said there was something that he had discovered and he wanted to show her what it was. She glanced back at the apples on the table, a vague scent of something familiar lingering about, before shrugging her shoulders and continuing on her way. Zero, on the other hand, the son of one Vincent and Ava Kuragari, lounged lazily in a tree, his arm dangling as he glanced up.
It was his place, where he spent most of his time during the school hours. There wasn't much for him to learn anyways, and the only reason he was attending was at the behest of his mother and father. The things they were learning were already covered in the books and information Vincent had drilled into him as a child, and more so as he grew. Sighing softly through his nose, he pushed himself away from the tree, landing gracefully and elegantly as a cat, upon the ground. He turned his attention towards the school, shoving one of his hands into his pocket and bringing out the book that had occupied his attention moments ago.
As he neared the school building, a smile formed on his lips as something ruptured through the air. "And it seems Keir and Alarica have started their fun without me," he stated, the rumbling of the earth signaling a strong explosion just took place. Zero glanced about, stepping to the side to avoid a javelin that fell from the sky. He spotted a few basketballs, volleyballs, and even the shinai the kendo club used flew from the sky. "Of all the things...it had to be the storage building."
A cackle of mad laughter split the air, Keir practically doubling over as supplies rained down from the sky over half the campus. He grinned at his twin, ice-blue orbs meeting pale-pink. "I told you this was an awesome idea!" A white wolf stood not far off, shaking his head. Keir stuck his tongue out at his familiar. "Oh, buzz off, Lulu."
On the other side of campus, one of the only other students with hair as white as snow sighed, exasperated. The Twins just never knew when to quit, did they? But, then again, considering who their father was...
Yuki Alistair-von Nacht stood up from her chair, intending to go assess the damage. She could only imagine what Keir and Alarica had done this time. She loved them, of course, and sometimes even joined them, but...sometimes she just wanted a peaceful day. She glanced over at her younger brother, Aryan, who was asleep at the desk he'd been sitting at all night. She smiled fondly. Not even an explosion could wake him up when he was tired enough. She wasn't surprised, he hadn't slept in three days.
She shook her head, pulling one of the blankets over him, and let him be. He needed the rest. She left the library, heading towards the source of the explosion. Kiba met her at the door. She pet him lightly, and then continued on her way. A few more thigs were still raining from the sky, mainly sporting equipment, and without even thinking about it, Yuki threw up a wall of telekinetic energy above her head. She rounded the corner, running almost smack into Zero. She blinked once, and then smiled slightly. She pulled the javelin from the ground that he'd side-stepped. "Really? They blew up the storage shed? Honestly..." She shook her head, a small smile on her face nonetheless.
The explosion was enough to rattle the windows of the school building proper, and Leora glanced out of the nearest one in the music room, shaking her head with a secretive grin when she noted a deflated basketball falling through the air. She was actually a bit disappointed she hadn’t been let in on the fun this time. Ah well—there was always tomorrow, after all. Smoothing her face out, she regained the cool impassivity she was known for displaying and turned back to what she was doing, drawing the bow back over the strings of her violin and releasing the first note once again. She needed to stop by the library later, to pick up a few books—mostly to write Zero’s next English assignment. She did it for the experience, really; unlike him, she wasn’t almost a century old, and having been home-schooled all her life, actual homework was something of a novelty for her. Plus her brother’s grades were now immaculate, despite the fact that he never went to class.
In that selfsame library, Helen Trist did not even glance up from the book she was reading, at least not until Yuki moved. She was always very aware of what her friend was doing, but she was not overprotective to the point that she felt the need to follow. Instead, she glanced back down at the novel she was reading and turned the page. She wanted to see how it would end… A slight stirring made her look up again, and she noted that Aryan had a piece of paper stuck to his face. She debated removing it, but decided that was probably something he should do himself. It wasn’t like she was going to laugh at him for it. In fact, she dismissed the thought from her mind and went back to reading thereafter.
Balthasar, on the other hand, was perhaps not ten meters from the storage shed when it blew up, and he yelped with surprise as various pieces of debris flew around the area. His reaction was instantaneous even so—in the area of his immediate proximity, the grass flattened, and any chunks of wood or sports equipment that entered the field smashed immediately to the ground as though magnetized. The double-tailed fox-kit on his head giggled, resettling herself in his dark locks and blinking over at the ruins from which his cousins emerged. Sighing through his nose, he picked his way through the remaining splintered two-by-fours and ducked under the partially-collapsed roof, placing the orange cones in the usual spot. It looked a little absurd, given that they were the only things currently in the right spot, and the building was basically gone.
This was no easy repair, either, though he did use his fields to move a few things back into order, and bolstered the missing half of the ceiling for a moment while he recycled another piece of wood to support it in the meantime. At least what was left wouldn’t injure anyone coming to survey the damage now. “Those two…” he murmured, more to himself than anything, though Ilyana, being her helpful self, did not hesitate to reply.
“But you love them!” she sing-songed in a lilting soprano. Balthasar only sighed again.
“Of course I do. That doesn’t mean I approve of wanton destruction of school property.” Even if it was a bit funny, and even if he was smiling, just slightly.
"Better the shed than the actual Academy. I don't think they'll go that far...yet," Zero replied, a smirk pulling at his face as he turned his attention towards Yuki. "Besides, they were planning on remodeling the building anyway. They just did the construction workers a favor, really," he added with a light shrug of his shoulders. His eyes traveled to the javelin in Yuki's hands and took the weapon from her, spinning it in his hand in the process. "And it's been awhile since they last blew something up. The gardening shed was the last victim if I do remember correctly. Luckily, Hel had Sven and he was able to help restore some things," he added as an after thought.
His smirk turned into a smile at that thought before shaking his head. School was about to start for them, and they should be returning to the classroom. The smirk returned to his face as he stared at Yuki, tapping his chin thoughtfully before slipping behind Yuki. "I think this will be easier and more convenient," he stated, slipping his arms around her waist and hoisting her over his shoulder, laughing all the same in the process.
Alarica stood, smudges of dirt covering her face as a large grin was painted across her face. "Have I ever doubted you before, dear brother?" she stated as she turned to grin at him. Her face, however, pulled into that of a frown as Mihkail followed her line of sight. If he could smirk, he would have. Immediately, the air went a little chiller than usual and Alarica abruptly turned to walk away, Mihkail letting a light laughter in the process. He turned to his brother, glaring lightly with a strange tint to his blue eyes before following after his master. "Not a word Mihk" she stated towards the white owl.
"My, you wound me so, Lala," he spoke, the last word coming out with a bit more emphasis that he barely dodged an icicle headed his way. Laughter rang out merrily as he perched himself upon Balthasar's shoulder, glancing up towards Ilyana. "Master seems upset with me, shall we share yours?" he stated as he turned his blue eyes towards Balthasar, a strange glint of mirth shining behind his eyes.
Yuki laughed, the sound like bell chimes. "Yes, it was the garden shed. Oh my. I'd forgotten about that." She shook her head, but stiffened when Zero stepped up behind her. And when he threw her over his shoulder, she blushed redder than the apples on the trees. "Z-Zero! Put me down!" Kiba, on the other hand, simply chuckled, slipping off to find a quiet spot. Yuki would be fine, he felt no need to be glued to her side when she was with any of the family, especially Zero.
Aryan had woken when Yuki left, picking his head up and looking blearily around, as if he was lost. Indeed, it took him a few seconds to realize he was still in the library. He yawned, feeling something stretch his skin, and looked sideways to find a piece of paper stuck to the side of his face. He frowned, pulling it of slowly. With the paper gone, he could see Helen in his peripheral vision. He looked at her, his voice soft. "How long was I asleep?"
Keir had finally seemed to recover from his laughing spell, looking over at his cousin, a manic grin on his face. "Bally! Aww, Lala, don't run away." He pouted slightly, shaking his head. His sister was so thick-headed sometimes. He shrugged it off. If she didn't want to face her feelings, whatever, it was her loss.
Helen looked back up, tilting her head faintly to the side and running a mental calculation. “Two hours and thirty-seven minutes,” she replied promptly, though her voice was flat, and slightly husky, as though she did not often use it. This was, in fact, the case. “Yuki left sixteen minutes ago.” She blinked, nodding slightly, then returned her eyes to her reading. It wasn’t that it captured her overmuch—it would be nice to know the ending, but it wasn’t particularly arresting. She just didn’t know what else to say or do. Hel was not skilled in the arts of small talk and socialization, and even if she were, she might feel uncomfortable exercising them here.
She just didn’t see why anyone like him, like any of them, would want to talk to someone like her. She was a discarded tool belonging to an evil man, and part of her still belonged to him. The part she could do nothing about. They allowed her to remain, and for that she was grateful, but she could not and did not respond to the overtures of friendliness from them. Yuki was an exception, but even that was… strange, for Helen. It was easier to see herself as a vassal, for they should always love the ones they served, and that made things less complicated.
Balthasar, meanwhile, smiled over at Keir as he emerged from the wreckage, squinting slightly against the light of day, though it faltered slightly upon noting that Alarica was already walking away. He just didn’t understand why she despised him so. He was trying to give her the space she seemed to want, but… they were part of the same very close-knit family, and it was difficult to do.
He was a bit surprised, then when her familiar landed on his shoulder, but he reached up to stroke the owl’s feathers all the same, the smile returned to his face, if only a slight one. It was a fairly commonplace expression for him, actually. “Hello Mikhail,” he greeted warmly, then turned a raised eyebrow on Keir. “You just couldn’t help yourselves, could you?”
Aryan had to stiffle another yawn as he stretched. No wonder he felt so lousy. Two and a half hours asleep on a desk was not good. He rubbed at the side of his face where the paper had stuck to it, turning his head away from Helen as a scent entered the premesis. It was his cousin. Well, one of his cousins. Keir, to be exact.
Aryan looked up at him tiredly. "And what brings you here, Cousin? You're not here for a rematch, are you? I'm afraid I'm not in the best state of mind for that."
Keir snorted indecently, causing a few of the other students around to glance at them. He ignored them, sitting down in the chair that Yuki had previously occupied. "Actually, no. Got this, figured you would want to see it first. Our cousins seem to have dug up something interesting, and not in a good way."
Aryan frowned, taking the envelope that Keir handed to him. It was not addressed to anyone, simply to Cross, but it was undoubtedly Alden Kuragari's handwriting. Aryan should know, he was in contact with his cousin the most. He slid the envelope into his bag. Better such things were done in private.
Keir's ice blue eyes held Aryan's purple ones. "Just a warning, you're not going to like it."
Aryan sighed through his nose, looking more tired than ever. "Of late, I have liked little of Alden's news. I am not surprised to find this will be no better."
Her music practice finished, Leora stowed her violin, a gift from her father since Zero had inherited their mother’s Stradivarius, stretching her arms over her head and lacing her fingers together, rocking back a bit on her heels until she bent to touch her toes. She loved playing, she really did, but it was maybe time for something a little more active. At least after she retrieved those books for her brother’s history essay. Flitting upstairs to the library, she could tell by scent that Keir, Ary, and Helen were already inside.
She let the tiniest of smiles tilt her lips as she sauntered inside, since they were her family and she was allowed to be a little more expressive around them, and she entered just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation. Sitting herself on one of the desks (rather than in the chair, Leo crossed her legs and leaned back on her palms. “News from the superspy in the family, hm?’ she inquired, raising a brow slightly. Her tone was not as flat as Hel’s, but it was certainly unreadable, beyond carrying that same vague touch of coyness that everything she did naturally seemed to have. “Who wants to kill us this time, I wonder?” She rolled her eyes a bit, not really expecting an answer.
“Would you like the list of current contracts on your life alphabetically by last name of contractor or chronologically by date put out on the market?” Helen replied, not even glancing up from what she was reading.
Leo’s smile grew, though she didn’t quite show teeth. “Why am I not surprised you would know that, Lena?” she asked with a minute shake of her head. Then, an idea came to her, and she flashed a brief look at Keir, the nature of her expression morphing into something considerably more edged than it had been before. One might wonder where the wickedness of the smile came from—neither of her parents was known to possess such an expression. “Whose list is longer, mine or Keir’s?”
Helen tabulated it for a second, at last looking up and glancing between the three of them. “That depends. The number of straightforward assassination orders is higher for Keir, as far as my data goes. But, if the kidnapping contracts are added, yours grows significantly longer.” It was not unknown to the vampiric community that Leora had inherited the Aegis Effect from her mother, and Ava was too well-protected, with someone like Vincent Kuragari practically glued to her side for a century. Those who wanted to obtain it would have better luck with the daughter… or so they thought, anyway. Hel thought they were all stupid for even thinking it.
Leo sighed theatrically. “Tied again.”
Keir snorted. "How the hell do you call that a tie? I have more killing orders, I totally win. And yes, the Super Spy has contacted us."
Aryan could only roll his eyes. Leora and Keir and their contest had gotten so old to them all by now...
The von Nacht's eyes lit up suddenly, a glint in them that belied his Alistair blood. One would know, it was the same look Keir wore on a daily basis. "You know, we could figure out who was better once and for all..."
Keir looked boredly at his cousin. "Oh? And what exactly do you propose? We've done everything we could possibly think of, even Rock-Paper-Scissors."
Aryan's eyes sparkled. "You've never seen who's better at mind games, right? And you're both skilled in espionage. Not as good as your truly, of course, but still...why not compete over that?"
Keir perked up a bit, clearly interested. "Okay, say we do this. How would we know when someone wins? The number of people we can screw over?"
“Well, then there’s a separate category for most kidnapping orders, and I win that one,” Leora replied, but she sat up a little straighter at this proposal of Aryan’s, pushing off her hands and bringing them around to grip the edge of the desk where her legs were. Her eyes narrowed just slightly. She was pretty sure she smelled a rat here, and Ary was considerably more experienced in the methods of manipulation than either herself or Keir. He wouldn’t have brought this up without a reason.
But then her cousin, big dummy that he was, went ahead and agreed without hearing the terms. She could have smacked herself in the forehead, but she didn’t. It was go along or refuse and wind up essentially forfeiting the lifelong rivalry, and there was no way she could do that. Not least because what it would leave was a confused mixture of feelings that would make her more awkward and vulnerable around him than she was willing to be around anyone. She played games because serious was beyond her, and she didn’t want to be the only serious one.
Pursing her lips, she appeared to consider it for a moment, then shrugged one shoulder in a careless manner. “All right, once and for all. What’s the challenge, Aryan?” If it was a trap of some kind, she was going to kill him.
If Leora smelled a rat, Helen was looking right at him, and she knew it. That look in his eye meant trouble; she’d seen it often enough during his childhood. They both orbited Yuki like satellites, after all—she’d have been remiss if she’d not learned some things of this nature. Still, she didn’t say anything. They were his relatives, after all—it was probably going to be benign, even if she was not likely to understand the point of it.
Aryan's grin only got wider. As he'd suspected, Keir had gone ahead and agreed. Leora was nothing if not head-strong and prideful. She'd never walk away, not knowing it meant forefit. And if secretly he was also playing matchmaker, well...
That was just a bonus. "Well, no, not exactly, Keir. Normal people don't really stand much of a chance. So, in order to see who is truly the best...you have to see who can manipulate the other. In other words, it will be between ourselves. The first rule is that no one, aside from the four of us, will know about it. I can act as referee, to make sure no lines are crossed, of course."
Keir almost scowled. What was his cousin playing at? "Okay..." he said slowly. "What exactly do we have to manipulate the other into doing?"
Aryan paused for a moment. He was enjoying this far too much, really. "One of the best and by far the most successful tricks in espionage is seduction, as I'm sure your father can attest to, Keir. The first one of you to willingly kiss the other will lose. Now, this is seduction. Nothing physical, and nothing beyond mind games. Powers are out, too, and because no one else will know, you cannot enlist the help of anyone else. And just to make it interesting, the challenge will officially start at midnight tonight, and you each have a year."
The man leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms with a rather pleased grin on his face. "Do you find the terms acceptable?"
Keir was staring wide-eyed at his cousin. He looked over at Leora, masking the turmoil in his head with his usual snarky grin. "Sounds like fun. I'm game. What about you, Leo?"
It was official. Screw Bathasar’s powers or Rica’s complete mercilessness. Aryan was the most dangerous of all of them, no damn contest. It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it might be—it was worse. He could have picked literally anything else, and she would have been more confident that she’d win. Not without a good fight of course, because it was well within the realm of possibility for her cousin to challenge her; he always did. It was why they were thus far tied. But this… she was going to lose, she was pretty sure of that much.
Of course, she was a very bad player if she’d ever let it show on her face. Maybe there was still a chance. She knew how to seduce someone for information; she was Alden’s sister, too, after all. So, all she had to do was accomplish this before anything got out of hand… whatever that meant. Leo tipped her chin up a little, something mischievous dancing in her eyes, her mouth tilted into a smirk to match her cousin’s own. “Challenge accepted. I look forward to your loss, Keir.” Standing smoothly, she tossed all three of them a wave, picking up the books she’d come for and striding out of the library.
Oh. Oh shit. Just what had she gotten herself into this time?
Aryan looked up at him tiredly. "And what brings you here, Cousin? You're not here for a rematch, are you? I'm afraid I'm not in the best state of mind for that."
Keir snorted indecently, causing a few of the other students around to glance at them. He ignored them, sitting down in the chair that Yuki had previously occupied. "Actually, no. Got this, figured you would want to see it first. Our cousins seem to have dug up something interesting, and not in a good way."
Aryan frowned, taking the envelope that Keir handed to him. It was not addressed to anyone, simply to Cross, but it was undoubtedly Alden Kuragari's handwriting. Aryan should know, he was in contact with his cousin the most. He slid the envelope into his bag. Better such things were done in private.
Keir's ice blue eyes held Aryan's purple ones. "Just a warning, you're not going to like it."
Aryan sighed through his nose, looking more tired than ever. "Of late, I have liked little of Alden's news. I am not surprised to find this will be no better."
Her music practice finished, Leora stowed her violin, a gift from her father since Zero had inherited their mother’s Stradivarius, stretching her arms over her head and lacing her fingers together, rocking back a bit on her heels until she bent to touch her toes. She loved playing, she really did, but it was maybe time for something a little more active. At least after she retrieved those books for her brother’s history essay. Flitting upstairs to the library, she could tell by scent that Keir, Ary, and Helen were already inside.
She let the tiniest of smiles tilt her lips as she sauntered inside, since they were her family and she was allowed to be a little more expressive around them, and she entered just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation. Sitting herself on one of the desks (rather than in the chair, Leo crossed her legs and leaned back on her palms. “News from the superspy in the family, hm?’ she inquired, raising a brow slightly. Her tone was not as flat as Hel’s, but it was certainly unreadable, beyond carrying that same vague touch of coyness that everything she did naturally seemed to have. “Who wants to kill us this time, I wonder?” She rolled her eyes a bit, not really expecting an answer.
“Would you like the list of current contracts on your life alphabetically by last name of contractor or chronologically by date put out on the market?” Helen replied, not even glancing up from what she was reading.
Leo’s smile grew, though she didn’t quite show teeth. “Why am I not surprised you would know that, Lena?” she asked with a minute shake of her head. Then, an idea came to her, and she flashed a brief look at Keir, the nature of her expression morphing into something considerably more edged than it had been before. One might wonder where the wickedness of the smile came from—neither of her parents was known to possess such an expression. “Whose list is longer, mine or Keir’s?”
Helen tabulated it for a second, at last looking up and glancing between the three of them. “That depends. The number of straightforward assassination orders is higher for Keir, as far as my data goes. But, if the kidnapping contracts are added, yours grows significantly longer.” It was not unknown to the vampiric community that Leora had inherited the Aegis Effect from her mother, and Ava was too well-protected, with someone like Vincent Kuragari practically glued to her side for a century. Those who wanted to obtain it would have better luck with the daughter… or so they thought, anyway. Hel thought they were all stupid for even thinking it.
Leo sighed theatrically. “Tied again.”
Keir snorted. "How the hell do you call that a tie? I have more killing orders, I totally win. And yes, the Super Spy has contacted us."
Aryan could only roll his eyes. Leora and Keir and their contest had gotten so old to them all by now...
The von Nacht's eyes lit up suddenly, a glint in them that belied his Alistair blood. One would know, it was the same look Keir wore on a daily basis. "You know, we could figure out who was better once and for all..."
Keir looked boredly at his cousin. "Oh? And what exactly do you propose? We've done everything we could possibly think of, even Rock-Paper-Scissors."
Aryan's eyes sparkled. "You've never seen who's better at mind games, right? And you're both skilled in espionage. Not as good as your truly, of course, but still...why not compete over that?"
Keir perked up a bit, clearly interested. "Okay, say we do this. How would we know when someone wins? The number of people we can screw over?"
“Well, then there’s a separate category for most kidnapping orders, and I win that one,” Leora replied, but she sat up a little straighter at this proposal of Aryan’s, pushing off her hands and bringing them around to grip the edge of the desk where her legs were. Her eyes narrowed just slightly. She was pretty sure she smelled a rat here, and Ary was considerably more experienced in the methods of manipulation than either herself or Keir. He wouldn’t have brought this up without a reason.
But then her cousin, big dummy that he was, went ahead and agreed without hearing the terms. She could have smacked herself in the forehead, but she didn’t. It was go along or refuse and wind up essentially forfeiting the lifelong rivalry, and there was no way she could do that. Not least because what it would leave was a confused mixture of feelings that would make her more awkward and vulnerable around him than she was willing to be around anyone. She played games because serious was beyond her, and she didn’t want to be the only serious one.
Pursing her lips, she appeared to consider it for a moment, then shrugged one shoulder in a careless manner. “All right, once and for all. What’s the challenge, Aryan?” If it was a trap of some kind, she was going to kill him.
If Leora smelled a rat, Helen was looking right at him, and she knew it. That look in his eye meant trouble; she’d seen it often enough during his childhood. They both orbited Yuki like satellites, after all—she’d have been remiss if she’d not learned some things of this nature. Still, she didn’t say anything. They were his relatives, after all—it was probably going to be benign, even if she was not likely to understand the point of it.
Aryan's grin only got wider. As he'd suspected, Keir had gone ahead and agreed. Leora was nothing if not head-strong and prideful. She'd never walk away, not knowing it meant forefit. And if secretly he was also playing matchmaker, well...
That was just a bonus. "Well, no, not exactly, Keir. Normal people don't really stand much of a chance. So, in order to see who is truly the best...you have to see who can manipulate the other. In other words, it will be between ourselves. The first rule is that no one, aside from the four of us, will know about it. I can act as referee, to make sure no lines are crossed, of course."
Keir almost scowled. What was his cousin playing at? "Okay..." he said slowly. "What exactly do we have to manipulate the other into doing?"
Aryan paused for a moment. He was enjoying this far too much, really. "One of the best and by far the most successful tricks in espionage is seduction, as I'm sure your father can attest to, Keir. The first one of you to willingly kiss the other will lose. Now, this is seduction. Nothing physical, and nothing beyond mind games. Powers are out, too, and because no one else will know, you cannot enlist the help of anyone else. And just to make it interesting, the challenge will officially start at midnight tonight, and you each have a year."
The man leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms with a rather pleased grin on his face. "Do you find the terms acceptable?"
Keir was staring wide-eyed at his cousin. He looked over at Leora, masking the turmoil in his head with his usual snarky grin. "Sounds like fun. I'm game. What about you, Leo?"
It was official. Screw Bathasar’s powers or Rica’s complete mercilessness. Aryan was the most dangerous of all of them, no damn contest. It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it might be—it was worse. He could have picked literally anything else, and she would have been more confident that she’d win. Not without a good fight of course, because it was well within the realm of possibility for her cousin to challenge her; he always did. It was why they were thus far tied. But this… she was going to lose, she was pretty sure of that much.
Of course, she was a very bad player if she’d ever let it show on her face. Maybe there was still a chance. She knew how to seduce someone for information; she was Alden’s sister, too, after all. So, all she had to do was accomplish this before anything got out of hand… whatever that meant. Leo tipped her chin up a little, something mischievous dancing in her eyes, her mouth tilted into a smirk to match her cousin’s own. “Challenge accepted. I look forward to your loss, Keir.” Standing smoothly, she tossed all three of them a wave, picking up the books she’d come for and striding out of the library.
Oh. Oh shit. Just what had she gotten herself into this time?
Aryan smiled, rather pleased with himself as Leora and the Keir both left. They had both walked into that one, and they had both taken the bait. He did love it when plans went correctly. He then returned to what he had been doing before, shuffling through the papers in front of him.
"Helen, has Roran Edyta gotten back to us about the Council's treaty with the Pantheon? I was execting to hear back from him last week. I have a meeting with the Council next week, and I would not want to show up without the right information."
Of course, if Roran failed in his end of the bargin, Aryan had many other contacts to draw upon, though Roran had been his closest one to the source of the matter. "Also, if you do not mind, I would like both you and Yuki to accompany me. I trust no one in that Council, not even Edyta, and I would feel better if I had the two of you there, as it were."
It was fortunate that he’d brought it up, because she was about to do so herself. Finishing the last paragraph of the book, she closed it and reshelved it before returning to the table at which Aryan sat and assuming the place across from him, folging her hands together on the smooth wood of the table. Something flickered behind her eyes for a moment; she could have almost sworn she heard the sound of familiar, malicious laughter. But it wasn’t there. It was never there, at least not in any way that anyone else could hear it. That didn’t make it unreal—on the contrary, to her, these phantoms were sometimes more real than anything in the physical world had ever been.
But the shadow passed, and she met his eyes, though even seated, she had to tip her head up to do so. Pale blue-violet looked into amethyst, and she tilted her head vaguely to one side, shaking her head just minutely. “Roran Edyta was found dead this morning,” she replied quietly. “His throat was slit, from the amount of blood left behind. I can only suppose someone discovered who he worked for.” He’d probably slipped up, trusted the wrong person somewhere along the line. It was known to happen.
As for the request, she only nodded. She did not ever do any speaking at Council functions, but she wasn’t going to talk—that was something Aryan could do quite well on his own. She would go in case things got hostile. And if the measures they were willing to take against a simple informant were that extreme… then things may very well become hostile. Helen frowned slightly, her lips thinning for a moment, but the expression returned to simple neutrality within a few seconds.
Aryan sighed, setting down the paper he had been holding and rubbed at his temples. Edyta was dead...fantastic. The fool had not covered his tracks. It was a good thing Aryan covered his. There was no way that they could trace his path to him, Aryan had made sure of that. Still, that did not mean that the man did not talk. That was the risk in every transaction, every deal.
The von Nacht passed a hand over his eyes, collecting his thoughts. "That is troubling news. Would that I were not called to appear, I would not go in front of the Council at all. This smells of Pantheon, I do not like it." The last thing he wanted was to put Yuki and Helen in danger, but it was tantamount to suicide if he went alone. It was not his wish to put any of his family in danger, but perhaps he would be better served putting up with Zero's company. Even the Council would be hard-pressed for answers attacking the Kuraguri Heir.
"What of the Hunter Association? Has anyone contacted us from their ranks?" Despite the escalating war, there were still some who desired peace, though they were getting thinner by the year.
“No,” she replied without hesitation. “Not since the overture from the Dissidents last month. I expect they are still laying low—they are not yet strong enough to be of any real help.” The Dissidents were a small group of Hunters who wanted above all else to end the war. They had taken the Hunter’s mandate to preserve human life to mean that a war that killed this many humans was unacceptable. But they were small, and many of them were still afraid of going too public. It was entirely reasonable—Helen understood strategy very well. Theodor was a master of the craft, and not everything he’d left behind in her was malevolent. At least, she chose to believe it wasn’t.
That her aptitude for such matters might be her own and not his wasn’t something she’d ever even thought to consider. She was what she had been made, and anything extra had simply been allowed. She blinked slowly, watching him think. He was very adroit, Aryan was—if his deft manipulation of his cousins was not sufficient evidence for this, the fact that he was the one who handled the Council was probably proof. His father was broadly in charge of coordinating the family’s effort in the war, where they chose to intervene. Vincent Kuragari was also involved there, and Morgan Alistair ran the larger-scale spy network that included the middle five Kuragari brothers. Ava Kuragari kept all the moving parts working in sync, and Erys Alistair and Nikki von Nacht were frequent leaders of the larger-scale ground operations. But Aryan was younger than they were, and sometimes his jobs were the most insidious of them all.
“Do not think it,” she said simply, though it had more the feel of a request to it than an order. She didn’t presume to tell any of them what to do, after all. He was contemplating leaving her behind, she could tell. “My name may not carry much weight, but my sword speaks at sufficient volume.” She was ruthless in a way that those like Balthasar and Zero were not, but more judicious in the application of such force than either of the Alistair twins. She was also disposable, unlike any of them. They were important, she was not. It made her the ideal choice, though she would not protest if he chose not to take Yuki.
Aryan nodded, that was not very surprising. The Dissidents were formidable, but small. He sighed through his nose, his eyes closing. This was getting worse and worse, yet he had little choice but to comply. He opened his eyes, returning his gaze to Helen when she told him not to think it. The girl was so perceptive, enough so that it scared him at times.
He offered her a wan smile. "I have never doubted your prowess with a blade, nor will I ever, and I rue those that do. However, you misjudge your station. As far as I am concerned you are family as much as Balthasar is my brother, and I will not allow for needless harm to those in my family." He could see her point though, and that was why he cose her and Yuki in the first place. They both had underlying tendancies to not hold back, and their sheer ruthlessness rivaled that of his Aunt Erys, if not outran it completely. His brother was far more inclined to peaceful approaches, as was Zero. Though it may not be such a bad idea to bring the Twins along.
No, no, in the end, it was not a good idea. As deadly as they could be, they were also far too high on the watch list, being what they were. In the end, his only real soultion was the original plan. He stood, taking the papers and stowing them in his bag once more. "I'm expected at midnight on the 17th, a week from tomorrow. The three of us will leave the day before." He had turned to leave when he turned back to her, a small smile on his face. "Thank you, Helen. I appreciate you coming along."
"Helen, has Roran Edyta gotten back to us about the Council's treaty with the Pantheon? I was execting to hear back from him last week. I have a meeting with the Council next week, and I would not want to show up without the right information."
Of course, if Roran failed in his end of the bargin, Aryan had many other contacts to draw upon, though Roran had been his closest one to the source of the matter. "Also, if you do not mind, I would like both you and Yuki to accompany me. I trust no one in that Council, not even Edyta, and I would feel better if I had the two of you there, as it were."
It was fortunate that he’d brought it up, because she was about to do so herself. Finishing the last paragraph of the book, she closed it and reshelved it before returning to the table at which Aryan sat and assuming the place across from him, folging her hands together on the smooth wood of the table. Something flickered behind her eyes for a moment; she could have almost sworn she heard the sound of familiar, malicious laughter. But it wasn’t there. It was never there, at least not in any way that anyone else could hear it. That didn’t make it unreal—on the contrary, to her, these phantoms were sometimes more real than anything in the physical world had ever been.
But the shadow passed, and she met his eyes, though even seated, she had to tip her head up to do so. Pale blue-violet looked into amethyst, and she tilted her head vaguely to one side, shaking her head just minutely. “Roran Edyta was found dead this morning,” she replied quietly. “His throat was slit, from the amount of blood left behind. I can only suppose someone discovered who he worked for.” He’d probably slipped up, trusted the wrong person somewhere along the line. It was known to happen.
As for the request, she only nodded. She did not ever do any speaking at Council functions, but she wasn’t going to talk—that was something Aryan could do quite well on his own. She would go in case things got hostile. And if the measures they were willing to take against a simple informant were that extreme… then things may very well become hostile. Helen frowned slightly, her lips thinning for a moment, but the expression returned to simple neutrality within a few seconds.
Aryan sighed, setting down the paper he had been holding and rubbed at his temples. Edyta was dead...fantastic. The fool had not covered his tracks. It was a good thing Aryan covered his. There was no way that they could trace his path to him, Aryan had made sure of that. Still, that did not mean that the man did not talk. That was the risk in every transaction, every deal.
The von Nacht passed a hand over his eyes, collecting his thoughts. "That is troubling news. Would that I were not called to appear, I would not go in front of the Council at all. This smells of Pantheon, I do not like it." The last thing he wanted was to put Yuki and Helen in danger, but it was tantamount to suicide if he went alone. It was not his wish to put any of his family in danger, but perhaps he would be better served putting up with Zero's company. Even the Council would be hard-pressed for answers attacking the Kuraguri Heir.
"What of the Hunter Association? Has anyone contacted us from their ranks?" Despite the escalating war, there were still some who desired peace, though they were getting thinner by the year.
“No,” she replied without hesitation. “Not since the overture from the Dissidents last month. I expect they are still laying low—they are not yet strong enough to be of any real help.” The Dissidents were a small group of Hunters who wanted above all else to end the war. They had taken the Hunter’s mandate to preserve human life to mean that a war that killed this many humans was unacceptable. But they were small, and many of them were still afraid of going too public. It was entirely reasonable—Helen understood strategy very well. Theodor was a master of the craft, and not everything he’d left behind in her was malevolent. At least, she chose to believe it wasn’t.
That her aptitude for such matters might be her own and not his wasn’t something she’d ever even thought to consider. She was what she had been made, and anything extra had simply been allowed. She blinked slowly, watching him think. He was very adroit, Aryan was—if his deft manipulation of his cousins was not sufficient evidence for this, the fact that he was the one who handled the Council was probably proof. His father was broadly in charge of coordinating the family’s effort in the war, where they chose to intervene. Vincent Kuragari was also involved there, and Morgan Alistair ran the larger-scale spy network that included the middle five Kuragari brothers. Ava Kuragari kept all the moving parts working in sync, and Erys Alistair and Nikki von Nacht were frequent leaders of the larger-scale ground operations. But Aryan was younger than they were, and sometimes his jobs were the most insidious of them all.
“Do not think it,” she said simply, though it had more the feel of a request to it than an order. She didn’t presume to tell any of them what to do, after all. He was contemplating leaving her behind, she could tell. “My name may not carry much weight, but my sword speaks at sufficient volume.” She was ruthless in a way that those like Balthasar and Zero were not, but more judicious in the application of such force than either of the Alistair twins. She was also disposable, unlike any of them. They were important, she was not. It made her the ideal choice, though she would not protest if he chose not to take Yuki.
Aryan nodded, that was not very surprising. The Dissidents were formidable, but small. He sighed through his nose, his eyes closing. This was getting worse and worse, yet he had little choice but to comply. He opened his eyes, returning his gaze to Helen when she told him not to think it. The girl was so perceptive, enough so that it scared him at times.
He offered her a wan smile. "I have never doubted your prowess with a blade, nor will I ever, and I rue those that do. However, you misjudge your station. As far as I am concerned you are family as much as Balthasar is my brother, and I will not allow for needless harm to those in my family." He could see her point though, and that was why he cose her and Yuki in the first place. They both had underlying tendancies to not hold back, and their sheer ruthlessness rivaled that of his Aunt Erys, if not outran it completely. His brother was far more inclined to peaceful approaches, as was Zero. Though it may not be such a bad idea to bring the Twins along.
No, no, in the end, it was not a good idea. As deadly as they could be, they were also far too high on the watch list, being what they were. In the end, his only real soultion was the original plan. He stood, taking the papers and stowing them in his bag once more. "I'm expected at midnight on the 17th, a week from tomorrow. The three of us will leave the day before." He had turned to leave when he turned back to her, a small smile on his face. "Thank you, Helen. I appreciate you coming along."
The smirk that had been plastered upon Zero's face, only broadened when Yuki began to protest. She told him to put her down, however; he did not oblige his cousin, instead, choosing to keep her over his shoulder. "And tell me why, dear cousin, I would wish to do that?" he stated, glancing over his shoulder to stare at Yuki. He will admit, he loved teasing her to no end. Her reactions to his actions were simply something he couldn't resist, and it didn't help matters much that he found his half-cousin distracting.
"Besides, class is boring. You can only learn the same thing so many times before it gets boring. And I hear that the roof of the school is exquisite this time of day," he stated, his smirk still brightening upon his lips. Though he wouldn't truly take her away from her studies. He knew, without a doubt, that Yuki enjoyed taking the classes. Whether it was because it was something normal, or if there was another reasoning behind it, he didn't know. And pretty much didn't care. If she liked it, then she had every right to be there. It was just something he did not favor, hence why Leora was the one who did most of his school work. She wasn't as aged as he was, and really, it was more-so for her benefit than his.
Oh, why did he have to be so difficult? She could practically feel her heart thumping against her rib cage. She had no idea why it would chose to do so, but there it was all the same. When he turned back to look at her, she hid her face in her hands. The roof? They were going to the roof? It wasn't so much that she minded, she loved being outside, even more if it was somewhere high.
It was more or less the fact that she was going to be alone with Zero. Though why that should bother her so much, she did not understand. She didn't understand anything about her reactions to him. They made no sense, and she was too terrified to ask anyone about them, or she probably would have gone to her mother by now. She let out a shaky sigh as her cousin continued to carry her. She couldn't form coherent thoughts at the moment, and she found herself tongue-tied.
Though, in all honesty, she didn't mind missing this particular class. It was English, which was something she had no aptitude for, at all. She was better with history and science, and math. Give her grammar, and she was absolutely lost. Maybe she should ask Leora for help. Oh, and now her mind was wandering, as she was startled suddenly when Zero set her back on her feet. She looked around, and then promptly turned away from her cousin, trying to get her face to cool down. "Oh, why do you have to be so stubborn?" She muttered, though it was more to herself than to Zero.
"Stubborn? Oh you must give me more credit than that my dear cousin," Zero replied, a hint of feigned hurt lacing in his tone. "Stubborn would be me actually taking you to the roof. I am not so heartless that I would make you miss your classes," he continued as he tilted his head to the side. He sighed softly though and placed Yuki down, though his hand laced with hers and he held her hand. He could never truly describe the sensation he felt, the passing of chills through his skin at the mere contact.
It was something akin to what he felt when he was with his mother, though this was something completely different. He would not lie and say he didn't know what it was, because he certainly did, he just wasn't sure if he was exactly ready to say something like that. Especially to Yuki. His mother and father had told them of their history, of the war that had transpired, of what had happened to his Aunt Nikki and his cousin Yuki. Of what his Uncle Jasper did to Theodor, and what had happened to his mother.
He sighed through his nose a little harshly before running a hand through his ginger locks. "You know, if you need help, you could always ask Bal or myself. Rica and Leo both said that you are having trouble in English," he stated, stopping momentarily from his walk to glance over his shoulder at Yuki.
A small tremor ran through Yuki at the contact of their hands. If only she understood why he made her feel like this. Still, when he looked at her like that...
She found herself glancing between him and the door, which was still closed. She glanced back at Zero, and then, without giving herself time to think, she walked toward him, looping her arm through his and dragging him with her.
"Well, I guess I'm the one being stubborn." She said softly, and dragged her cousin exactly where he had originally said, the roof. Still, the time would not be entirely wasted. She had her English books with her.
Zero chuckled at Yuki's response, and allowed her to drag him towards their previous destination. He couldn't lie, the view from up here had its pros, and he certainly didn't mind viewing it up here with her. He didn't mind that their arms were still looped together, and it was he who initiated the releasing of said arms, though with a bit of reluctance. He sighed, taking a seat down upon the concrete roof and patted at a seat next to him, pulling out one of her English books in the process.
"Although you didn't officially ask, I am taking this as a sign that you do need help," he stated, flipping through her books in the process. "Hm, okay I see your problem," he stated as he began shuffling through the problems with her, writing a few words out and sentences so she could practice on her own. He barely missed the bell signaling it was time for lunch.
For once in her life, some of it began to make sense. She also could not remember the last time she'd actually enjoyed English, in any sense of the word. Still, the time passed all too quickly, the bell ringing, signaling that it was time for lunch. She glanced up, a little surprised. Was it that late already?
With a small shake of her head, she packed up her things, and stood up. She stretched languidly, and then glanced back down at her cousin, a coy smile on her face. She didn't even really think about it, it was more natural to her than breathing as she reached out, touching his mind with her own. She didn't dig, she never did, it was the connection that she was after.
"Besides, class is boring. You can only learn the same thing so many times before it gets boring. And I hear that the roof of the school is exquisite this time of day," he stated, his smirk still brightening upon his lips. Though he wouldn't truly take her away from her studies. He knew, without a doubt, that Yuki enjoyed taking the classes. Whether it was because it was something normal, or if there was another reasoning behind it, he didn't know. And pretty much didn't care. If she liked it, then she had every right to be there. It was just something he did not favor, hence why Leora was the one who did most of his school work. She wasn't as aged as he was, and really, it was more-so for her benefit than his.
Oh, why did he have to be so difficult? She could practically feel her heart thumping against her rib cage. She had no idea why it would chose to do so, but there it was all the same. When he turned back to look at her, she hid her face in her hands. The roof? They were going to the roof? It wasn't so much that she minded, she loved being outside, even more if it was somewhere high.
It was more or less the fact that she was going to be alone with Zero. Though why that should bother her so much, she did not understand. She didn't understand anything about her reactions to him. They made no sense, and she was too terrified to ask anyone about them, or she probably would have gone to her mother by now. She let out a shaky sigh as her cousin continued to carry her. She couldn't form coherent thoughts at the moment, and she found herself tongue-tied.
Though, in all honesty, she didn't mind missing this particular class. It was English, which was something she had no aptitude for, at all. She was better with history and science, and math. Give her grammar, and she was absolutely lost. Maybe she should ask Leora for help. Oh, and now her mind was wandering, as she was startled suddenly when Zero set her back on her feet. She looked around, and then promptly turned away from her cousin, trying to get her face to cool down. "Oh, why do you have to be so stubborn?" She muttered, though it was more to herself than to Zero.
"Stubborn? Oh you must give me more credit than that my dear cousin," Zero replied, a hint of feigned hurt lacing in his tone. "Stubborn would be me actually taking you to the roof. I am not so heartless that I would make you miss your classes," he continued as he tilted his head to the side. He sighed softly though and placed Yuki down, though his hand laced with hers and he held her hand. He could never truly describe the sensation he felt, the passing of chills through his skin at the mere contact.
It was something akin to what he felt when he was with his mother, though this was something completely different. He would not lie and say he didn't know what it was, because he certainly did, he just wasn't sure if he was exactly ready to say something like that. Especially to Yuki. His mother and father had told them of their history, of the war that had transpired, of what had happened to his Aunt Nikki and his cousin Yuki. Of what his Uncle Jasper did to Theodor, and what had happened to his mother.
He sighed through his nose a little harshly before running a hand through his ginger locks. "You know, if you need help, you could always ask Bal or myself. Rica and Leo both said that you are having trouble in English," he stated, stopping momentarily from his walk to glance over his shoulder at Yuki.
A small tremor ran through Yuki at the contact of their hands. If only she understood why he made her feel like this. Still, when he looked at her like that...
She found herself glancing between him and the door, which was still closed. She glanced back at Zero, and then, without giving herself time to think, she walked toward him, looping her arm through his and dragging him with her.
"Well, I guess I'm the one being stubborn." She said softly, and dragged her cousin exactly where he had originally said, the roof. Still, the time would not be entirely wasted. She had her English books with her.
Zero chuckled at Yuki's response, and allowed her to drag him towards their previous destination. He couldn't lie, the view from up here had its pros, and he certainly didn't mind viewing it up here with her. He didn't mind that their arms were still looped together, and it was he who initiated the releasing of said arms, though with a bit of reluctance. He sighed, taking a seat down upon the concrete roof and patted at a seat next to him, pulling out one of her English books in the process.
"Although you didn't officially ask, I am taking this as a sign that you do need help," he stated, flipping through her books in the process. "Hm, okay I see your problem," he stated as he began shuffling through the problems with her, writing a few words out and sentences so she could practice on her own. He barely missed the bell signaling it was time for lunch.
For once in her life, some of it began to make sense. She also could not remember the last time she'd actually enjoyed English, in any sense of the word. Still, the time passed all too quickly, the bell ringing, signaling that it was time for lunch. She glanced up, a little surprised. Was it that late already?
With a small shake of her head, she packed up her things, and stood up. She stretched languidly, and then glanced back down at her cousin, a coy smile on her face. She didn't even really think about it, it was more natural to her than breathing as she reached out, touching his mind with her own. She didn't dig, she never did, it was the connection that she was after.
Thank you, Zero.
You're welcome, Yuki.
You're welcome, Yuki.
Keir snorted, Alucard nudging him slightly as the Dhampir sat up. He shook his head at his cousin, quirking an eyebrow at Mimi. "Lala is always upset with you, Mimi. You do it to yourself, really."
He shrugged as he stood up, his grin matching that of his father's. He surveyed the damage, rather pleased with himself. "By now, you shouldn't even have to ask that question, Bally. It's not a matter of being able to help ourselves, more or less a matter of knowing when not to." His logic was utterly flawed, but it wasn't like he cared. The blue scales on his upper arm and exposed chest glimmered in the sunlight. Keir had long since abandoned the uniform of Cross Academy, and anyone who tried to get him in one did not end up a happy person.
"Besides, they were renovating the shed anyway, I just helped them out a little."
Balthasar sighed. The question had been largely rhetorical. He knew there was little point in arguing with his cousins about any of this, and really, he didn’t even want to. He was one of those people who chose to let others be as they were for the most part, and he wasn’t inclined to try and change either of them. Well… admittedly, he’d like it if he could change the fact that Rica refused to be in his presence for more than five seconds at a time, but he was pretty sure that was something he needed to do differently, not a problem with her. Why would it be?
“Yes, well… remind me of this if I ever ask you to help me with anything,” he said, glancing back at the shed and shaking his head. He didn’t really understand the necessity of this, but then, they obviously didn’t do it because it was necessary. Though the enjoyment was also a bit lost on him, really. Nevertheless, he was content to let the matter drop. Though the Headmaster of Cross was not the same one his parents had known, the man was clearly related, and had a similar practical streak—there were specific provisions in the budget for damage caused by “Alistairs and Coconspirators.”
Keir shrugged, a smirk on his face. "Hey, at least I don't run around breaking beds. This is much more fun." He rolled out his shoulders, turning when someone called out to him, and handed him an envelope. Keir looked at it, and sighed. "Well...looks like I have a date with your brother. It seems Alden dug something up."
He turned from his cousin, raising his hand in a wave as he did so. "Just tell old man Cross I did him a favor. He understands."
Alden had dug up something else, had he? That rarely boded well, and even Balthasar knew this. He wasn’t too deep into the informational sides of this whole thing, at least not any further than his father bid him be, but he wasn’t out of the loop, either. Mostly, he saved catching up for the briefings Ary arranged before all their operations, so that he knew everything that was necessary about where they were going, what they were doing, and why it was important. He trusted his brother and his cousins to know what they were doing and not send him into a fight he could not win or one that wasn’t for the right reasons.
“Very well,” he said, entirely defeated and well-aware of it. He didn’t put up much of a fight against his relatives. It was a miracle they hadn’t somehow killed him by now. He’d chased after the majority of them when they were still children, trying to keep them from hurting themselves or breaking things. The twins had been particularly challenging, but then, he was a fairly experienced babysitter by that point. Still, he didn’t know how their parents dealt with them the rest of the time. Probably with heavy bribery.
He watched Kier head off and returned his attention to the owl now on his shoulder. “Did Rica get the apples I left her this morning, Mikhail?” He was sort of asking because he wanted to know if she’d liked them, but mostly just to make sure. Sometimes, when the Alistairs had a plan, they forgot to notice other things going on around them. Like the time Uncle Vincent had watched them try to ice the floor of his foyer. There was no blaming that one on him. He wondered if Keir was still afraid of their uncle after that. He wouldn’t be surprised… Vincent was kind of terrifying.
Mikhail only leaned into Balthasar's fingers that rubbed against his white feathers as a soft humming noise escaped his throat. He frowned, or at least would have, when Balthasar turned his attention to Keir and they began their own conversation, leaving him to close his eyes. It was then a question fluttered into his ears and he cracked one eye open. He studied Balthasar's face, reading it for anything he could possibly use later to tease Rica with, however; he found nothing and only sighed, softly though as to himself.
"So...you're her secret admirer. She doesn't know who keeps leaving those apples at her door, and though she loves apples, she doesn't know who they're from. She throws them away," though that was a lie. Those apples lasted her the whole week if they were lucky enough. "She said something about poisoning, or something of that sort," and that was a lie too. Given their vampiric blood, human poisons wouldn't work on them, but Mikhail was having the light of his life at the moment, glancing up towards Ilyana in the process.
"Though, I'm sure if you at least left her a note, she'd love you even more," he stated the last part a little faster than usual, and could perhaps be heard more of a jumble of words together than a complete sentence. Mikhail was well aware of his masters feelings for this boy, however; that didn't mean he couldn't have a bit of fun with it, even if she could hear what he was saying and was currently sending him a colorful array of words.
Oh, he hadn’t thought about that. It had never occurred to Balthasar that his dhampir cousins might be susceptible to poisoning—he’d simply assumed that, like vampires, they had no need to worry about such things. If he was wrong, he could certainly understand her caution, and he nodded sagely to Mikhail’s advice. “I see. I wasn’t aware of that. I should make sure to write one…” He was busy enough trying to think of what to say in such a note that he entirely missed the last part of the sentence, garbled as it was, but Ilyana was not so distracted, and her tails lashed with amusement.
Balthasar, silly man that he was, had no idea what Mikhail was playing at here, but Ilyana was smarter than that, even at four years of age. Perhaps that said something elegantly enough on its own, but even so, she really couldn’t resist. “Hey Bally?”
The nickname drew his attention, and he rolled his eyes as high as they would go, as if to look at the creature still perched atop his head. “Yes, Illy?” he asked politely, removing a pen from his pocket and a small notebook from inside his uniform jacket. He gave it a few more seconds’ thought, then, in small, precise masculine handwriting, penned the following. Rica, The apples are from me. Please don’t let that stop you from eating them. I just thought, Mondays are kind of the worst, and it would be nice if they were better. Balthasar. He folded the note over once and held it up to Mikhail, silently asking the familiar if he would take it. It was unlikely to ever be read if it came from him directly, after all-- if she let him get that close, he’d have just told her.
Ilyana sighed. “You’re kind of stupid, aren’t you?”
Mikhail stared dumbfoundedly at Balthasar, blinking in succession, very slowly. He glanced at Ilyana before shaking his head, taking the letter from Balthasar's hand, but not before responding to Ilyana. "I don't think stupid defines it," he replied before taking the letter and flying off to find his master. Though he knew she was aware of whom the apples came from. She wouldn't have eaten them so slowly otherwise.
He shrugged as he stood up, his grin matching that of his father's. He surveyed the damage, rather pleased with himself. "By now, you shouldn't even have to ask that question, Bally. It's not a matter of being able to help ourselves, more or less a matter of knowing when not to." His logic was utterly flawed, but it wasn't like he cared. The blue scales on his upper arm and exposed chest glimmered in the sunlight. Keir had long since abandoned the uniform of Cross Academy, and anyone who tried to get him in one did not end up a happy person.
"Besides, they were renovating the shed anyway, I just helped them out a little."
Balthasar sighed. The question had been largely rhetorical. He knew there was little point in arguing with his cousins about any of this, and really, he didn’t even want to. He was one of those people who chose to let others be as they were for the most part, and he wasn’t inclined to try and change either of them. Well… admittedly, he’d like it if he could change the fact that Rica refused to be in his presence for more than five seconds at a time, but he was pretty sure that was something he needed to do differently, not a problem with her. Why would it be?
“Yes, well… remind me of this if I ever ask you to help me with anything,” he said, glancing back at the shed and shaking his head. He didn’t really understand the necessity of this, but then, they obviously didn’t do it because it was necessary. Though the enjoyment was also a bit lost on him, really. Nevertheless, he was content to let the matter drop. Though the Headmaster of Cross was not the same one his parents had known, the man was clearly related, and had a similar practical streak—there were specific provisions in the budget for damage caused by “Alistairs and Coconspirators.”
Keir shrugged, a smirk on his face. "Hey, at least I don't run around breaking beds. This is much more fun." He rolled out his shoulders, turning when someone called out to him, and handed him an envelope. Keir looked at it, and sighed. "Well...looks like I have a date with your brother. It seems Alden dug something up."
He turned from his cousin, raising his hand in a wave as he did so. "Just tell old man Cross I did him a favor. He understands."
Alden had dug up something else, had he? That rarely boded well, and even Balthasar knew this. He wasn’t too deep into the informational sides of this whole thing, at least not any further than his father bid him be, but he wasn’t out of the loop, either. Mostly, he saved catching up for the briefings Ary arranged before all their operations, so that he knew everything that was necessary about where they were going, what they were doing, and why it was important. He trusted his brother and his cousins to know what they were doing and not send him into a fight he could not win or one that wasn’t for the right reasons.
“Very well,” he said, entirely defeated and well-aware of it. He didn’t put up much of a fight against his relatives. It was a miracle they hadn’t somehow killed him by now. He’d chased after the majority of them when they were still children, trying to keep them from hurting themselves or breaking things. The twins had been particularly challenging, but then, he was a fairly experienced babysitter by that point. Still, he didn’t know how their parents dealt with them the rest of the time. Probably with heavy bribery.
He watched Kier head off and returned his attention to the owl now on his shoulder. “Did Rica get the apples I left her this morning, Mikhail?” He was sort of asking because he wanted to know if she’d liked them, but mostly just to make sure. Sometimes, when the Alistairs had a plan, they forgot to notice other things going on around them. Like the time Uncle Vincent had watched them try to ice the floor of his foyer. There was no blaming that one on him. He wondered if Keir was still afraid of their uncle after that. He wouldn’t be surprised… Vincent was kind of terrifying.
Mikhail only leaned into Balthasar's fingers that rubbed against his white feathers as a soft humming noise escaped his throat. He frowned, or at least would have, when Balthasar turned his attention to Keir and they began their own conversation, leaving him to close his eyes. It was then a question fluttered into his ears and he cracked one eye open. He studied Balthasar's face, reading it for anything he could possibly use later to tease Rica with, however; he found nothing and only sighed, softly though as to himself.
"So...you're her secret admirer. She doesn't know who keeps leaving those apples at her door, and though she loves apples, she doesn't know who they're from. She throws them away," though that was a lie. Those apples lasted her the whole week if they were lucky enough. "She said something about poisoning, or something of that sort," and that was a lie too. Given their vampiric blood, human poisons wouldn't work on them, but Mikhail was having the light of his life at the moment, glancing up towards Ilyana in the process.
"Though, I'm sure if you at least left her a note, she'd love you even more," he stated the last part a little faster than usual, and could perhaps be heard more of a jumble of words together than a complete sentence. Mikhail was well aware of his masters feelings for this boy, however; that didn't mean he couldn't have a bit of fun with it, even if she could hear what he was saying and was currently sending him a colorful array of words.
Oh, he hadn’t thought about that. It had never occurred to Balthasar that his dhampir cousins might be susceptible to poisoning—he’d simply assumed that, like vampires, they had no need to worry about such things. If he was wrong, he could certainly understand her caution, and he nodded sagely to Mikhail’s advice. “I see. I wasn’t aware of that. I should make sure to write one…” He was busy enough trying to think of what to say in such a note that he entirely missed the last part of the sentence, garbled as it was, but Ilyana was not so distracted, and her tails lashed with amusement.
Balthasar, silly man that he was, had no idea what Mikhail was playing at here, but Ilyana was smarter than that, even at four years of age. Perhaps that said something elegantly enough on its own, but even so, she really couldn’t resist. “Hey Bally?”
The nickname drew his attention, and he rolled his eyes as high as they would go, as if to look at the creature still perched atop his head. “Yes, Illy?” he asked politely, removing a pen from his pocket and a small notebook from inside his uniform jacket. He gave it a few more seconds’ thought, then, in small, precise masculine handwriting, penned the following. Rica, The apples are from me. Please don’t let that stop you from eating them. I just thought, Mondays are kind of the worst, and it would be nice if they were better. Balthasar. He folded the note over once and held it up to Mikhail, silently asking the familiar if he would take it. It was unlikely to ever be read if it came from him directly, after all-- if she let him get that close, he’d have just told her.
Ilyana sighed. “You’re kind of stupid, aren’t you?”
Mikhail stared dumbfoundedly at Balthasar, blinking in succession, very slowly. He glanced at Ilyana before shaking his head, taking the letter from Balthasar's hand, but not before responding to Ilyana. "I don't think stupid defines it," he replied before taking the letter and flying off to find his master. Though he knew she was aware of whom the apples came from. She wouldn't have eaten them so slowly otherwise.
Hel had not been in school as long as the rest of them—this was only the start of her very first year at Cross Academy. Regardless, however, if it could be said that anyone knew far too much about what was being taught, it was probably her. Half the time, she couldn’t remember learning the information, she just knew things. She didn’t even realize what she knew until the situation came up that she needed to either. It was, on some level, disturbing, and probably would have shaken someone else greatly, but it was so far from the worst of her problems that she didn’t even spare it much thought. Someone else might worry that another had been “messing with their head” as the expression went. Hel knew that was what had happened, and there weren’t many people less merciful about it than Theodor had been, if any at all.
She’d had another episode, in class, but she’d been quiet about, folding her arms on the desk and leaning her forehead down into them, as though tired, It had hidden her face from view, and she’d clamped her mouth shut to keep from saying anything, the tense line of her shoulders and the way her back muscles went rigid the only sign that anything was wrong. It was mild, as far as such things went—sometimes, she could not help the screaming, but that was usually only in the ones that came to her in sleep, when she was less able to regulate her own thoughts and her unconscious ran wild.
It had been mostly jumbled fragments of things, and as usual, she was having difficulty making any of it out in a sensible way. Shaking her head faintly, she pulled at the cuff of her uniform shirt—she wore the boys' one rather than the girls’, and nobody bothered to protest. At least she wore one, even if the green argyle sweater-vest over the shirt and under the jacket was not standard. It was an odd piece of personality for a girl who seemed as rigid as Hel did, but it had been a present—her very first Christmas present, from Ava Kuragari, of course. She’d only ever been given one other object before, and that was the black velvet ribbon that only left her hair when she slept. It could be said, perhaps, that when she accepted something, it became dear to her in a very rare way.
A noise from the copse of trees near where she was walking drew her attention, but it was only Sven. The great silver-white stag didn’t say anything, just fell into step beside her, and she reached up to rest a hand on his shoulder. Even her familiar was a bit too tall for her, honestly. The whole world was always a bit too… something. Large, bright, vibrant, cruel, tall, open… it varied depending on the situation, but left her with the lingering impression that she simply wasn’t enough, and never would be.
The scent carried to her on the breeze was familiar, and without bothering to ask herself why, Hel changed directions a bit, a few more minutes of walking taking her to Yuki, who was sitting under a tree. The leaves were falling this time of year, but they were a bright explosion of flamelike colors in the meantime. Her familiar was also there, which meant that Helen herself was not strictly necessary, but… she moved to sit down all the same, crossing her legs underneath her and draping her arms over her knees to hang loosely in front of her. There were slightly-darkened circles under her eyes that had not been there that morning, but then… Helen usually looked like that by the end of the day. Being around so many people wore on her after a while. Not that there was anything wrong with most of them. But still…
You were not in English class, the girl remarked, as flat-toned mentally as she was when she actually spoke. From the way Yuki smelled, Hel knew she had been in close physical proximity with Zero Kuragari recently—touching, most likely. That was not so unusual, really, and she said nothing about it.
Yuki absentmindedly stroked Kiba's fur, smiling as the only person in the world that she considered to be her best friend sat down next to her. The telepathic link between them was open, and really, in some sense, it was never really closed between them. Helen's statement, however, sent a jolt of surprise through Yuki. She couldn't help the heat that rose to her cheeks, and she forced herself to focus on breathing before she answered Helen.
No, I was not. Zero was helping me with the work.
She looked at Helen out of the corner of her eye. She remembered a time when she had been about the same height as her, but in the last one hundred years, Yuki had grown. Then again, when they had first met, Yuki had only been twenty-two, and Helen had already spent almost two centuries alive. Yuki would never call what Helen's life had been living, any more so she would call her own first twenty one years living.
She could also almost always tell when Helen had had an episode. They were utterly at random, though there were certain things that triggered them. Are you okay?
Hel sent Yuki the mental equivalent of a raised eyebrow, but she did not comment further. There were many things in life that she did not understand, that Theodor had removed her ability to ever truly comprehend, but she could still observe, and it was rather obvious to her where that relationship was going. One had only to see the two together to know. Actually, knowing Zero alone could provide a pretty decent guess. Yuki, however, was oblivious to the fact that her feelings were what most people would call love, and that they were shared. Helen might have almost found it funny, if she understood humor. That was something else he’d taken away.
But it was not her place to push, and it probably wouldn’t help anything anyway. Better to leave things be, so she did, not pursuing the topic any further. Not that the one they ended up with was any better—in fact, it was considerably worse. Helen’s mind was a dangerous place, and for this reason, she kept the majority of it shielded, even from Yuki. There was a chance someone could go in and never make it back out—as Helen often found herself tempted to do. But she shared more of what she saw with Yuki than anyone else. I am fine. It was nothing new. The eyes again, mostly. Many of Helen’s visions centered around a very specific image- a pair of eyes opening. That in itself was nothing so bad, but… the eyes were entirely white, but even without discernible iris or pupil, she knew she was seen, and the look they gave was full of such revulsion it actually frightened her.
There was also the persistent desire to submit to whatever owned them, and she usually felt herself on the cusp of helpless capitulation before the vision moved on or she woke up. It was a feeling of being rendered utterly useless, nothing more than a puppet on a string for the person’s use… and that was a feeling she knew well. Every time she saw them, it was for a moment like she’d never broken free of Theodor at all—only… the owner of the eyes was much, much more horrifying than Theodor could ever have been. There wasn’t even any effort on the person’s part, just a dominance so complete that submission was the only option. She was afraid of what that might mean for the people she had come to protect.
Needing to talk about something else instead, she switched topics. One of Aryan’s contacts is dead. He wants you and I to attend the next Council meeting with him.
Yuki let out the mental equivalent of a sigh, banishing Zero from her mind, at least for now. She'd told no one, but her cousin had been occupying her dreams of late, that in and of itself unusual, as Yuki rarely dreamed, unless it was nightmares of when her father was still alive.
Helen's news was...unsettling, at best. She hated it that her brother refused to not go, so, she did the next best thing. I was planning on going whether he wanted me to or not. Someone has to keep an eye on him, and it's always better to have two pairs than only one. Yuki hated going to the Council, but she'd rather have people stare at her than let her brother go alone.
For all they could do, her mother and step-father had not been able to keep certain things about Yuki silent, and there had been...offers. This usually did not end well. There were plenty of sadistic vampires that would love to pick her apart, and see just what had been done to her, even if she was a failed experiment. Like her cousin Leora, she, too, had a list of kidnapping contracts that was just as long. Sometimes it only made her wish she had not killed Kisuke all those years ago, if only so she could kill him now.
Helen blinked, having expected something along the lines of that answer. There was a lot the both of them didn’t say, but unlike with other people, it never damaged their relationship, because they didn’t need to say things, sometimes. They simply understood one another. Much about what they had endured was different, not least among these things duration, but… the most important things were shared. Without saying anything else, Hel picked up Yuki’s free hand in one of her own, lacing their fingers together, and leaned sideways until her head contacted her friend’s shoulder. Inhaling deeply, she released the breath quietly and slowly.
As a rule, she didn’t touch people. But rules didn’t apply with friends. She could sense the discomfort behind the mental communication, and so she did what little could be done to ease it. Sometimes, it was enough that someone else was there. And, whatever else may come, Helen would always be there for her friend, until the day she died.
Yuki smiled slightly. She, like Helen, was for the most part against physical contact, at least with those outside of her immediate family. Even then, it was rarely outside of the casual touch. Indeed, being slung over Zero's shoulder this morning had been the most physical she'd been in a week.
As it were, between the two of them, little more need be said, at least until Medusa came slithering up to them, the golden python looking annoyed. Probably because Aryan had managed to get the familiar to actually do something other than sleep.
"Aryan requessssts your prescensssssse. He needs to sssssspeak to the two of you and your brother. I suggessst you call him, Yuki."
Yuki shook her head lightly, a smile forming as she picked up the snake, draping her around her shoulders. Without any effort, she formed a mental link with Balthasar, telling him that Aryan was looking for them. With that, she, Helen, and Kiba made their way back to the school. Yuki wasn't sure if she wanted to know what Alden had found.
She’d had another episode, in class, but she’d been quiet about, folding her arms on the desk and leaning her forehead down into them, as though tired, It had hidden her face from view, and she’d clamped her mouth shut to keep from saying anything, the tense line of her shoulders and the way her back muscles went rigid the only sign that anything was wrong. It was mild, as far as such things went—sometimes, she could not help the screaming, but that was usually only in the ones that came to her in sleep, when she was less able to regulate her own thoughts and her unconscious ran wild.
It had been mostly jumbled fragments of things, and as usual, she was having difficulty making any of it out in a sensible way. Shaking her head faintly, she pulled at the cuff of her uniform shirt—she wore the boys' one rather than the girls’, and nobody bothered to protest. At least she wore one, even if the green argyle sweater-vest over the shirt and under the jacket was not standard. It was an odd piece of personality for a girl who seemed as rigid as Hel did, but it had been a present—her very first Christmas present, from Ava Kuragari, of course. She’d only ever been given one other object before, and that was the black velvet ribbon that only left her hair when she slept. It could be said, perhaps, that when she accepted something, it became dear to her in a very rare way.
A noise from the copse of trees near where she was walking drew her attention, but it was only Sven. The great silver-white stag didn’t say anything, just fell into step beside her, and she reached up to rest a hand on his shoulder. Even her familiar was a bit too tall for her, honestly. The whole world was always a bit too… something. Large, bright, vibrant, cruel, tall, open… it varied depending on the situation, but left her with the lingering impression that she simply wasn’t enough, and never would be.
The scent carried to her on the breeze was familiar, and without bothering to ask herself why, Hel changed directions a bit, a few more minutes of walking taking her to Yuki, who was sitting under a tree. The leaves were falling this time of year, but they were a bright explosion of flamelike colors in the meantime. Her familiar was also there, which meant that Helen herself was not strictly necessary, but… she moved to sit down all the same, crossing her legs underneath her and draping her arms over her knees to hang loosely in front of her. There were slightly-darkened circles under her eyes that had not been there that morning, but then… Helen usually looked like that by the end of the day. Being around so many people wore on her after a while. Not that there was anything wrong with most of them. But still…
You were not in English class, the girl remarked, as flat-toned mentally as she was when she actually spoke. From the way Yuki smelled, Hel knew she had been in close physical proximity with Zero Kuragari recently—touching, most likely. That was not so unusual, really, and she said nothing about it.
Yuki absentmindedly stroked Kiba's fur, smiling as the only person in the world that she considered to be her best friend sat down next to her. The telepathic link between them was open, and really, in some sense, it was never really closed between them. Helen's statement, however, sent a jolt of surprise through Yuki. She couldn't help the heat that rose to her cheeks, and she forced herself to focus on breathing before she answered Helen.
No, I was not. Zero was helping me with the work.
She looked at Helen out of the corner of her eye. She remembered a time when she had been about the same height as her, but in the last one hundred years, Yuki had grown. Then again, when they had first met, Yuki had only been twenty-two, and Helen had already spent almost two centuries alive. Yuki would never call what Helen's life had been living, any more so she would call her own first twenty one years living.
She could also almost always tell when Helen had had an episode. They were utterly at random, though there were certain things that triggered them. Are you okay?
Hel sent Yuki the mental equivalent of a raised eyebrow, but she did not comment further. There were many things in life that she did not understand, that Theodor had removed her ability to ever truly comprehend, but she could still observe, and it was rather obvious to her where that relationship was going. One had only to see the two together to know. Actually, knowing Zero alone could provide a pretty decent guess. Yuki, however, was oblivious to the fact that her feelings were what most people would call love, and that they were shared. Helen might have almost found it funny, if she understood humor. That was something else he’d taken away.
But it was not her place to push, and it probably wouldn’t help anything anyway. Better to leave things be, so she did, not pursuing the topic any further. Not that the one they ended up with was any better—in fact, it was considerably worse. Helen’s mind was a dangerous place, and for this reason, she kept the majority of it shielded, even from Yuki. There was a chance someone could go in and never make it back out—as Helen often found herself tempted to do. But she shared more of what she saw with Yuki than anyone else. I am fine. It was nothing new. The eyes again, mostly. Many of Helen’s visions centered around a very specific image- a pair of eyes opening. That in itself was nothing so bad, but… the eyes were entirely white, but even without discernible iris or pupil, she knew she was seen, and the look they gave was full of such revulsion it actually frightened her.
There was also the persistent desire to submit to whatever owned them, and she usually felt herself on the cusp of helpless capitulation before the vision moved on or she woke up. It was a feeling of being rendered utterly useless, nothing more than a puppet on a string for the person’s use… and that was a feeling she knew well. Every time she saw them, it was for a moment like she’d never broken free of Theodor at all—only… the owner of the eyes was much, much more horrifying than Theodor could ever have been. There wasn’t even any effort on the person’s part, just a dominance so complete that submission was the only option. She was afraid of what that might mean for the people she had come to protect.
Needing to talk about something else instead, she switched topics. One of Aryan’s contacts is dead. He wants you and I to attend the next Council meeting with him.
Yuki let out the mental equivalent of a sigh, banishing Zero from her mind, at least for now. She'd told no one, but her cousin had been occupying her dreams of late, that in and of itself unusual, as Yuki rarely dreamed, unless it was nightmares of when her father was still alive.
Helen's news was...unsettling, at best. She hated it that her brother refused to not go, so, she did the next best thing. I was planning on going whether he wanted me to or not. Someone has to keep an eye on him, and it's always better to have two pairs than only one. Yuki hated going to the Council, but she'd rather have people stare at her than let her brother go alone.
For all they could do, her mother and step-father had not been able to keep certain things about Yuki silent, and there had been...offers. This usually did not end well. There were plenty of sadistic vampires that would love to pick her apart, and see just what had been done to her, even if she was a failed experiment. Like her cousin Leora, she, too, had a list of kidnapping contracts that was just as long. Sometimes it only made her wish she had not killed Kisuke all those years ago, if only so she could kill him now.
Helen blinked, having expected something along the lines of that answer. There was a lot the both of them didn’t say, but unlike with other people, it never damaged their relationship, because they didn’t need to say things, sometimes. They simply understood one another. Much about what they had endured was different, not least among these things duration, but… the most important things were shared. Without saying anything else, Hel picked up Yuki’s free hand in one of her own, lacing their fingers together, and leaned sideways until her head contacted her friend’s shoulder. Inhaling deeply, she released the breath quietly and slowly.
As a rule, she didn’t touch people. But rules didn’t apply with friends. She could sense the discomfort behind the mental communication, and so she did what little could be done to ease it. Sometimes, it was enough that someone else was there. And, whatever else may come, Helen would always be there for her friend, until the day she died.
Yuki smiled slightly. She, like Helen, was for the most part against physical contact, at least with those outside of her immediate family. Even then, it was rarely outside of the casual touch. Indeed, being slung over Zero's shoulder this morning had been the most physical she'd been in a week.
As it were, between the two of them, little more need be said, at least until Medusa came slithering up to them, the golden python looking annoyed. Probably because Aryan had managed to get the familiar to actually do something other than sleep.
"Aryan requessssts your prescensssssse. He needs to sssssspeak to the two of you and your brother. I suggessst you call him, Yuki."
Yuki shook her head lightly, a smile forming as she picked up the snake, draping her around her shoulders. Without any effort, she formed a mental link with Balthasar, telling him that Aryan was looking for them. With that, she, Helen, and Kiba made their way back to the school. Yuki wasn't sure if she wanted to know what Alden had found.
Aryan did not glance up when he smelled the approach of his siblings and Hel. He was still looking down at the map in front of him. The town that Alden had mentioned was indeed, the one right outside of Cross Academy's borders. His brows furrowed slightly. It was a bold attack, so near neutral territory. He glanced over at the two profiles, the people in them well-known for being hitmen. Indeed, Yuki had come across them a time or two.
His brother sat down across from him, along with Hel, while Yuki leaned against the table next to Aryan. The three of them waited patiently, they'd all learned a long time ago that Aryan was not to be rushed.
Finally, he looked up. "Alden has uncovered what appears to be a very large attack plan against this town." He pointed to the map as Medusa slithered off of Yuki and onto his shoulders, resting her head on top of his. "There will also be two rather well known hitmen present, I'm sure you'll recognize them, Yuki."
The snow-haired girl glanced down at the sheets. Indeed, she did recognize them. She didn't know their names, but she'd run across them before. "So, is it just an attack, or an assassination attempt?"
Aryan leaned his head against his hand. "We're not sure, it could be either, or it could be both. We also have another problem. The date of the attack is the same day that myself, Yuki, and Helen will be at the Council."
Yuki raised an eyebrow. "Divide and conquer. Smart, efficient. So, what exactly is the plan?"
It was hard to focus past her discomfort. Helen had nothing against Balthasar, but she was especially sensitive to his presence. It was hard not to be, given all that power she could feel under there. But it wasn’t that—she had known plenty of powerful people before and now. It was the fact that this man, before he’d even been conceived, had been the focus of so much of Theodor’s attention that traces of him were all over her mind. Aryan actually caused something similar, but not as badly. Mostly because she’d been able (or forced, it was hard to tell) to get to know him more, since he spent so much time with Yuki. Balthasar, on the other hand, knew he made her uncomfortable, and let her have her space because of that. Even now, he sat several chairs down from her, which gave her just enough room to feel like she wasn’t suffocating.
She glanced at the map and then the files with deadened eyes—she knew the faces as well. Her brows furrowed together slightly, and she blinked. “They haven’t been hired against any of you before—I could not provide you with any information as to who the target or targets is or are.”
Balthasar sighed through his nose. “Does it matter?” he asked quietly. “Every time they target one of us, they target us all, and it’s us all they have to deal with.” Still… he knew that he was not infrequently the person in question, and it made him feel guilty that he put his family in danger that way. He’d been fending off assassins since he was a boy. Once, when it had been only himself and his mother, traveling ahead of his father and sister to the family’s home in Ireland, a team of them had almost killed her. His powers had manifested on that day. Balthasar had been seven years old, and he'd killed them all. He still couldn’t let go of that one.
“Be careful at that meeting, you three. Just because the rest of us are the ones dealing with the known assassins doesn't mean we’re the real targets…” They all knew that, of course, but… he felt he should say it anyway. It rankled him that they were always at so much risk. They were family, even Hel, and he couldn’t bear to lose them. But he could not be in two places at once, and much as he might try, he could not protect everyone himself at all times.
Aryan nodded, a placid look on his face. "Frankly, I think that's what they're banking on. With the rest of you occupied here, it puts the three of us at a disadvantage, if one or all of us are the intended targets."
His eyes swiveled to his sister, who scowled at him. "If you even think it, I'm going to beat you bloody. Let them try, they'll be hard pressed getting through Hel and I, even if I'm a target. I've been a target all my life, for varying reasons. One more day isn't going to change anything."
Aryan smiled wanly at his sister. As headstrong and brash as ever, it would seem. "Dear sister of mine, I would never dream of it." He leveled his gaze with his brother. As often as the assassination attempts were on Balthasar, they all had their own hit lists, as Helen kept ample record of. As guilty as he was, it was not entirely his fault, and Aryan hated to see his brother like this. "The same goes for five of you here. Don't be a hero, Bal. And if you do, make sure you let me know first so that I can steer clear of mother."
There was a glimmer of a smile on his face. Nikki von Nacht was well known for her temper, especially when it came to the welfare of her children. She may have been only a Noble, but she was not to be tested. The woman would do anything to protect her children, and she had proven so more than once. Aryan could still remember the time when he had been about ten years old. He himself had been attacked, and he'd stood there and watched as Nikki tore the Pure Blood assassin limb from limb. It wasn't as if he'd ever disrespected either of his parents, but after that, he'd certainly seen his mother in a new light.
They’d all been targets all their lives. Hel would know; she’d been there for most of that. All of them had been watched like specimens in a petri dish, vultures circling always outside the protected safety of their family homes. She doubted it would ever change. Balthasar and Aryan were Jasper von Nacht’s sons—that would never go unremarked upon. That family was the closest thing vampires had to royalty, anymore, even if there wasn’t one of them who wanted anything to do with it. The twins were, well, twins, which was unusual in and of itself, the genetic manipulation their father had undergone and their mother’s unique nature notwithstanding. And the Kuragaris were what happened when you mixed an experimental pureblood with a trueborn one. That the youngest had inherited the Aegis was only the icing on the proverbial cake.
She hated that idiom—cake was nice. This was not.
Bathasar returned his brother’s subtle smile, and Helen thought for a moment that they weren’t as different as everyone took them to be. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel, but her feelings were irrelevant here. “And leave no one to stand between she and I, with her temper in full swing? I think not, Ary.” His father had told him once that people most often attacked either of the children when they were with their mother because they perceived her as weaker somehow. Then he’d chuckled and shaken his head. Al had asked if this didn’t concern him, how he could bring himself to ever leave her side, and his sire had regarded him for a moment with uncanny eyes and raised a brow.
Of course I don’t like leaving her, he’d said simply, but anyone who thinks she is weaker than I am has the wrong understanding of strength. Balthasar had learned a very important lesson that day about the difference between power and strength, and between power and danger. It was one he carried with him always… especially when his mother was upset with him.
Aryan's subtle smile widened slightly. If anything, their mother was scarier than their father ever could be. Though, considering what she'd been through, it was not overly surprising that she would be so protective. Aryan raised an eyebrow.
"So, instead of facing her wrath, you would hide behind your younger brother?"
Yuki rolled her eyes, but was smiling all the same. "You're both knuckleheads and I love you, but up against mother, I'd throw you both to the wolves."
Aryan feigned being hurt. "Ouch, Yuki."
Yuki smirked. "Come on. You should let the others know about the attack, and I have a blade that needs whetting. Coming, Hel?"
His brother sat down across from him, along with Hel, while Yuki leaned against the table next to Aryan. The three of them waited patiently, they'd all learned a long time ago that Aryan was not to be rushed.
Finally, he looked up. "Alden has uncovered what appears to be a very large attack plan against this town." He pointed to the map as Medusa slithered off of Yuki and onto his shoulders, resting her head on top of his. "There will also be two rather well known hitmen present, I'm sure you'll recognize them, Yuki."
The snow-haired girl glanced down at the sheets. Indeed, she did recognize them. She didn't know their names, but she'd run across them before. "So, is it just an attack, or an assassination attempt?"
Aryan leaned his head against his hand. "We're not sure, it could be either, or it could be both. We also have another problem. The date of the attack is the same day that myself, Yuki, and Helen will be at the Council."
Yuki raised an eyebrow. "Divide and conquer. Smart, efficient. So, what exactly is the plan?"
It was hard to focus past her discomfort. Helen had nothing against Balthasar, but she was especially sensitive to his presence. It was hard not to be, given all that power she could feel under there. But it wasn’t that—she had known plenty of powerful people before and now. It was the fact that this man, before he’d even been conceived, had been the focus of so much of Theodor’s attention that traces of him were all over her mind. Aryan actually caused something similar, but not as badly. Mostly because she’d been able (or forced, it was hard to tell) to get to know him more, since he spent so much time with Yuki. Balthasar, on the other hand, knew he made her uncomfortable, and let her have her space because of that. Even now, he sat several chairs down from her, which gave her just enough room to feel like she wasn’t suffocating.
She glanced at the map and then the files with deadened eyes—she knew the faces as well. Her brows furrowed together slightly, and she blinked. “They haven’t been hired against any of you before—I could not provide you with any information as to who the target or targets is or are.”
Balthasar sighed through his nose. “Does it matter?” he asked quietly. “Every time they target one of us, they target us all, and it’s us all they have to deal with.” Still… he knew that he was not infrequently the person in question, and it made him feel guilty that he put his family in danger that way. He’d been fending off assassins since he was a boy. Once, when it had been only himself and his mother, traveling ahead of his father and sister to the family’s home in Ireland, a team of them had almost killed her. His powers had manifested on that day. Balthasar had been seven years old, and he'd killed them all. He still couldn’t let go of that one.
“Be careful at that meeting, you three. Just because the rest of us are the ones dealing with the known assassins doesn't mean we’re the real targets…” They all knew that, of course, but… he felt he should say it anyway. It rankled him that they were always at so much risk. They were family, even Hel, and he couldn’t bear to lose them. But he could not be in two places at once, and much as he might try, he could not protect everyone himself at all times.
Aryan nodded, a placid look on his face. "Frankly, I think that's what they're banking on. With the rest of you occupied here, it puts the three of us at a disadvantage, if one or all of us are the intended targets."
His eyes swiveled to his sister, who scowled at him. "If you even think it, I'm going to beat you bloody. Let them try, they'll be hard pressed getting through Hel and I, even if I'm a target. I've been a target all my life, for varying reasons. One more day isn't going to change anything."
Aryan smiled wanly at his sister. As headstrong and brash as ever, it would seem. "Dear sister of mine, I would never dream of it." He leveled his gaze with his brother. As often as the assassination attempts were on Balthasar, they all had their own hit lists, as Helen kept ample record of. As guilty as he was, it was not entirely his fault, and Aryan hated to see his brother like this. "The same goes for five of you here. Don't be a hero, Bal. And if you do, make sure you let me know first so that I can steer clear of mother."
There was a glimmer of a smile on his face. Nikki von Nacht was well known for her temper, especially when it came to the welfare of her children. She may have been only a Noble, but she was not to be tested. The woman would do anything to protect her children, and she had proven so more than once. Aryan could still remember the time when he had been about ten years old. He himself had been attacked, and he'd stood there and watched as Nikki tore the Pure Blood assassin limb from limb. It wasn't as if he'd ever disrespected either of his parents, but after that, he'd certainly seen his mother in a new light.
They’d all been targets all their lives. Hel would know; she’d been there for most of that. All of them had been watched like specimens in a petri dish, vultures circling always outside the protected safety of their family homes. She doubted it would ever change. Balthasar and Aryan were Jasper von Nacht’s sons—that would never go unremarked upon. That family was the closest thing vampires had to royalty, anymore, even if there wasn’t one of them who wanted anything to do with it. The twins were, well, twins, which was unusual in and of itself, the genetic manipulation their father had undergone and their mother’s unique nature notwithstanding. And the Kuragaris were what happened when you mixed an experimental pureblood with a trueborn one. That the youngest had inherited the Aegis was only the icing on the proverbial cake.
She hated that idiom—cake was nice. This was not.
Bathasar returned his brother’s subtle smile, and Helen thought for a moment that they weren’t as different as everyone took them to be. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel, but her feelings were irrelevant here. “And leave no one to stand between she and I, with her temper in full swing? I think not, Ary.” His father had told him once that people most often attacked either of the children when they were with their mother because they perceived her as weaker somehow. Then he’d chuckled and shaken his head. Al had asked if this didn’t concern him, how he could bring himself to ever leave her side, and his sire had regarded him for a moment with uncanny eyes and raised a brow.
Of course I don’t like leaving her, he’d said simply, but anyone who thinks she is weaker than I am has the wrong understanding of strength. Balthasar had learned a very important lesson that day about the difference between power and strength, and between power and danger. It was one he carried with him always… especially when his mother was upset with him.
Aryan's subtle smile widened slightly. If anything, their mother was scarier than their father ever could be. Though, considering what she'd been through, it was not overly surprising that she would be so protective. Aryan raised an eyebrow.
"So, instead of facing her wrath, you would hide behind your younger brother?"
Yuki rolled her eyes, but was smiling all the same. "You're both knuckleheads and I love you, but up against mother, I'd throw you both to the wolves."
Aryan feigned being hurt. "Ouch, Yuki."
Yuki smirked. "Come on. You should let the others know about the attack, and I have a blade that needs whetting. Coming, Hel?"
Aryan sighed through his nose, allowing his sense of smell to guide him to where his least favorite cousin was. He had no wish to go to him, but at the moment, he was avoiding Leora. While Keir was a bit dense when it came seeing that he'd been manipulated, Leora was a bit sharper, and as such, Aryan was going to avoid her wrath, for now at least.
So, in order to relay the news of the attack coming, he had to tell one of the Kuragari's, and then the Twins. He found his cousin on the roof, a place that did not surprise him at all. His temper flared almost immediately, but he quashed it. There was no time for such petty matters, and besides, it was not as if anything had been done to Yuki. As it were, Zero had actually helped her with her English, and that was a good thing, even if it did rankle Aryan that they were spending time alone together.
His cousin, as it were, was laying on his back, his hands laced together behind his head, staring up at the sky. Aryan stopped about five feet from him, his hands in his pockets. His face was placid, as was his tone.
"The town on the outskirts of Cross Academy's borders is going to be attacked in a week's time. Yuki, Helen, and I will be at the Council, leaving my brother, you and your sister, and the twins here to defend it. There are also going to be two rather highly skilled hitmen present. We are unsure of the intended target or targets, so just be on your gaurd."
Zero sighed softly, the gentle breeze caressing his skin as he closed his eyes to the world. He had opted to skip his classes again, spending the rest of the day upon the school roof. Even when the bell chimed to return to the dorms, he remained where he was, arms laced behind his head. His eyes, though closed, displayed a sense of boredom, and his mind wandered to what the twins were currently doing. Usually, at this time of day, they were either beating each other senseless, or blowing something up. He had to say it wasn't the latter since there had yet to be another explosion. He sighed through his nose, a familiar scent laced with the breeze.
"Always the dutiful cousin, Ar," he replied as he cracked one eye open to stare up at his cousin. A frown laced his face before he sat up, stretching his arms until he heard the satisfied popping of his shoulders, and turned to fully face Aryan. "Is that what Alden has sent? Information of an attack? You should know fully well who the intended targets are. If it's not Leora, it's one of the twins, your sister, or your brother. They are not fully interested in either you or I," he stated with a casual shrug of his shoulders. Which was partially untrue. Being he son of Ava and Vincent Kuragari had had him on plenty of hit lists, and Aryan himself would perhaps rival that number as well simply by just being Jasper's son.
Aryan raised a delicate eyebrow. If anything could be said of Balthasar being the mirror image of their father, Aryan was definately the male version of their mother. Really, the only trait he had that was not really either of his parents were his eyes. A deep violet hue, they matched none of the family, at least, insofar as Aryan could tell.
He sighed through his nose. "Actually, one of my contacts was found dead the other day, one of the members of the Council. It would seem someone found out that he'd been leaking information. There is a very real chance that this attack and my summons to the Council is a planned effort on my life, though nothing is certain. And people are more interested in kidnapping your sister, not killing her. I think they would have better chances at convincing a rabbit it is a dog."
Zero sighed a bit more harshly through his nose than he intended. He rubbed the side of his temples at Aryan's response. "You know what I meant about my sister. The same goes for the twins and your sister. A genetic experimentation is all that they are to those bastards. Leora because of mom's ability being passed onto her, the twins thanks to Erys and Morgan's altered DNA making them what they are, and your sister being the sick, twisted experiment of Kisuke. They are all valuable in that way. We are just liabilities in the way of preventing either of them from being taken," he responded as he laid back down on his back.
He closed his eyes briefly again before re-opening. "And didn't you know? They already have rabbits believing they're dogs. The beauty of hypnosis, it's a wonderful thing really," he stated in a nonchalant gesture. He was mostly kidding about the latter part of the sentence, but Aryan would perhaps miss the humor in that.
The stone beneath Aryan's feet cracked in response to the violent flare in his temper. His purple eyes narrowed to slits, and he had to reign in his shadows, realizing that the tendrils had suddenly sprung up around him. His mouth was a hard line, and he hissed through his teeth, "If anyone was sick and twited, it was that pathetic excuse of a man who all but tortured his own daughter." He forced himself to stop. That hadn't been what Zero had meant, and he knew it.
He turned on his heel, leaving his cousin. "Just make sure my brother doesn't do anything stupid."
So, in order to relay the news of the attack coming, he had to tell one of the Kuragari's, and then the Twins. He found his cousin on the roof, a place that did not surprise him at all. His temper flared almost immediately, but he quashed it. There was no time for such petty matters, and besides, it was not as if anything had been done to Yuki. As it were, Zero had actually helped her with her English, and that was a good thing, even if it did rankle Aryan that they were spending time alone together.
His cousin, as it were, was laying on his back, his hands laced together behind his head, staring up at the sky. Aryan stopped about five feet from him, his hands in his pockets. His face was placid, as was his tone.
"The town on the outskirts of Cross Academy's borders is going to be attacked in a week's time. Yuki, Helen, and I will be at the Council, leaving my brother, you and your sister, and the twins here to defend it. There are also going to be two rather highly skilled hitmen present. We are unsure of the intended target or targets, so just be on your gaurd."
Zero sighed softly, the gentle breeze caressing his skin as he closed his eyes to the world. He had opted to skip his classes again, spending the rest of the day upon the school roof. Even when the bell chimed to return to the dorms, he remained where he was, arms laced behind his head. His eyes, though closed, displayed a sense of boredom, and his mind wandered to what the twins were currently doing. Usually, at this time of day, they were either beating each other senseless, or blowing something up. He had to say it wasn't the latter since there had yet to be another explosion. He sighed through his nose, a familiar scent laced with the breeze.
"Always the dutiful cousin, Ar," he replied as he cracked one eye open to stare up at his cousin. A frown laced his face before he sat up, stretching his arms until he heard the satisfied popping of his shoulders, and turned to fully face Aryan. "Is that what Alden has sent? Information of an attack? You should know fully well who the intended targets are. If it's not Leora, it's one of the twins, your sister, or your brother. They are not fully interested in either you or I," he stated with a casual shrug of his shoulders. Which was partially untrue. Being he son of Ava and Vincent Kuragari had had him on plenty of hit lists, and Aryan himself would perhaps rival that number as well simply by just being Jasper's son.
Aryan raised a delicate eyebrow. If anything could be said of Balthasar being the mirror image of their father, Aryan was definately the male version of their mother. Really, the only trait he had that was not really either of his parents were his eyes. A deep violet hue, they matched none of the family, at least, insofar as Aryan could tell.
He sighed through his nose. "Actually, one of my contacts was found dead the other day, one of the members of the Council. It would seem someone found out that he'd been leaking information. There is a very real chance that this attack and my summons to the Council is a planned effort on my life, though nothing is certain. And people are more interested in kidnapping your sister, not killing her. I think they would have better chances at convincing a rabbit it is a dog."
Zero sighed a bit more harshly through his nose than he intended. He rubbed the side of his temples at Aryan's response. "You know what I meant about my sister. The same goes for the twins and your sister. A genetic experimentation is all that they are to those bastards. Leora because of mom's ability being passed onto her, the twins thanks to Erys and Morgan's altered DNA making them what they are, and your sister being the sick, twisted experiment of Kisuke. They are all valuable in that way. We are just liabilities in the way of preventing either of them from being taken," he responded as he laid back down on his back.
He closed his eyes briefly again before re-opening. "And didn't you know? They already have rabbits believing they're dogs. The beauty of hypnosis, it's a wonderful thing really," he stated in a nonchalant gesture. He was mostly kidding about the latter part of the sentence, but Aryan would perhaps miss the humor in that.
The stone beneath Aryan's feet cracked in response to the violent flare in his temper. His purple eyes narrowed to slits, and he had to reign in his shadows, realizing that the tendrils had suddenly sprung up around him. His mouth was a hard line, and he hissed through his teeth, "If anyone was sick and twited, it was that pathetic excuse of a man who all but tortured his own daughter." He forced himself to stop. That hadn't been what Zero had meant, and he knew it.
He turned on his heel, leaving his cousin. "Just make sure my brother doesn't do anything stupid."
Leo stretched her free arm over her head, relishing the way her back popped into place and letting out a satisfied sigh. She wasn’t much of a clothes shopping girl, but everyone needed to go sometimes, and it was infinitely more fun with her female relatives. There was something about being totally anonymous—nobody in town knew their family names or about her blood or Yuki’s dad or Rica’s status as a twin… actually, Leo was trying pretty hard to forget that Rica had a twin, too. The challenge had begun last night, but she’d been a complete chicken and tried not to see Keir at all today. Maybe he was trying to avoid her as well, because she’d succeeded.
“Well, ladies?” she said with the subtle lift of an eyebrow. “Where to next?” This little excursion had proceeded under the term reconnaissance, as it was in the town slated to be attacked in a few days, but actually they were just enjoying themselves. It was tradition for the three of them to try and get away from the boys and the school at least once a month, and they always found different ways to do it. They’d been to the arcade, a beach a few hours away, the nearest large city… once, Rica had even dragged them along to try something humans called “cow-tipping.” It was a very strange thing, and Leo almost felt sorry for the poor cows, but it had been new to her.
Some humans walked by them on the sidewalk, and Leo could feel the eyes on them from behind her. Okay, so maybe they weren’t totally anonymous—vampires were still a bit… noticeable for their looks, and three of them clustered in one spot was not going to go without notice. Leo rolled her eyes and turned around, catching the eyes of one such ogler and smiled—maliciously. That seemed to render the person confused, but he was at least aware of what he was doing now, and cast his eyes away. She sighed through her nose. She was aware that they had evolved this way because it made feeding easier, but it really got annoying when you didn’t want to feed on humans anyway.
Yuki shot a slight glare at one of the younger men who she felt staring at her, the ice in her gaze enough to make him blush and quickly move on. She knew she often didn't help matters by wearing what she wore, her stomach exposed, but she wore what she did because she liked it. She glanced at her cousins. "Well, we could always get something to eat."
Like her twin cousins, Yuki had a more human-like digestive system, though the reasons for this were largely speculated. Yuki didn't want to know, either. There was a lot about herself she was more comfortable not knowing about, and she knew exatly how Helen felt in that regard. She still had nightmares sometimes, memories she thought she'd buried cropping up every now and again. She'd learned some more darker things about herself that she didn't like, but tried her best to ignore.
Alarica sighed softly through her nose, her eyes roaming about as she tilted her head to the side, popping and stretching her neck in the process. Somehow, she managed to be dragged into town with her cousins, Leora and Yuki, to go shopping, something the three of them were not particularly fond of, but necessary nonetheless. She glanced towards Leora through the corner of her eyes as she asked for their next destination. She thought about it for a minute before Yuki suggested a place. Something to eat? Now that she thought about it, it was getting roughly close to lunch time and she hadn't really eaten anything (besides an apple) that morning.
"Sounds acceptable. We can go to the restaurant that just opened up a few blocks from here," she stated, choosing to ignore the looks they were being sent. She was aware of their genetic make-up, and that alone made them appealing to humans, however; it was something that irritated her to no end. She wanted to maim the nearest human that was still glancing at them, something dark flashing behind their eyes. She sent them a glare, void of everything, but that did not seem to deter the group. She rolled her eyes in the process.
"Humans are lucky enough we are not allowed to harm them, otherwise a few of them might be missing eyes," she stated in a low enough voice so that only Leora and Yuki could hear. She wasn't in a particularly good mood at the moment and she wasn't feeling very reserved, however; she knew her place and it wouldn't be good to draw unnecessary attention to her family...no matter how much she wanted to punch someone.
Leo shrugged—eating sounded fine. It wasn’t necessary for her to do so, but her mom had never been able to give up cooking, and especially not baking, so her system was a little more used to food than that of most vampires. She even enjoyed it, in small quantities. Spotting something new across the street, she gestured to it. “Italian?” There seemed to be a consensus that it was at least worth a try, and so the three made their way over to it, and they were just sitting down when something fluttered to the ground—a folded piece of paper, it looked like.
“Oh hey Rica, I think something fell out of your…” Leo bent to retrieve the object, but had trailed off upon recognizing the handwriting. “Pocket,” she finished, her tone rather more gleeful than before as she scanned the words. Her smile, which had been slight, morphed into a foxlike thing, the mischievous twinkle in her eye making her cousin quite aware that she’d read the whole note. As soon as they sat down and the waiter had taken their order for drinks, she read it again, and couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up from her diaphragm.
“Oh my god, he’s so hopeless. And you, Rica, you’re worse!” she exclaimed, trailing off in another fit of giggles.
Yuki had sat down, Leora between her and Alarica, and had been sipping her water when Leora suddenly dissolved into giggles. Yuki raised a slight eyebrow, leaning over to read the note in her cousin's hand. Her brows furrowed as she recognized Balthasar's handwriting.
She then looked at Leora. "I don't get it, what's so funny? And why are they...hopeless?" She knew very well that her brother sometimes had difficulty with others, but then, it was the same way she herself was, and their father, too.
Alarica shrugged her shoulders at Leora's suggestion, and the three of them made their way towards the restaurant. She had failed to notice the note that Balthasar had given her, peeking out of her coat pocket before it fell out completely. Alarica stopped in her spot as Leora stated something, and as she turned with a raised brow, her face immediately drained from its color. Leora held the note in her hands, her lips quirking up into a mischievous grin. Immediately, Alarica's face was a light pink color. When they sat down, their orders taken, she immediately snatched the note from Yuki's grasp as it found its way to Yuki.
"That is none of your business Leo! And I am not worse," she stated, unable to stare her cousin in the eye as her bottom lip puckered out a bit,the equivalent of a pout forming on her face. She could hear the whispers around her and immediately she sent the nearby customers a glare. It wasn't their fault really, but Leora was touching a subject that was extremely sensitive to Alarica. "Besides, it's just a letter about the damn apples that were outside my room that morning. There's nothing wrong with that," she added, folding her arms against her chest.
Her eyes traveled to Yuki when the snow-haired girl popped the question about what was funny. "It's nothing Yuki, Leo's just having a bit of fun," she stated, shooting Leora a look in the process. So help her, she loved her cousin, she really did, but if she told Yuki about Balthasar...the restaurant might have a bit of an accident, so to speak. Leora was the only person who knew of Alarica's feelings for Balthasar, and it would only make things more awkward if his sister knew as well. She would have told Yuki herself, but there was a light fear that she would tell Balthasar, though she knew Yuki would never do that.
Oh, she was a horrible person, but she was having just as much fun as Rica was accusing her of. And at least she was going to spread it around. “Well, Yuki… you know how you kinda feel funny flutters in here when my brother’s around, or get embarrassed when he’s just a little too close to you?” The smile was still there, and she raised a hand to place over her heart, to indicate the here she was talking about. Nodding with false seriousness, she found she couldn’t keep it up for long and smiled again anyway. “It’s a little bit like that.” Seriously, though, she was doing them a favor by pushing like this. Sure, Zero might take care of the pushing on his own, but he was kind of stupid, and if Yuki didn’t know how she felt by then, things could go poorly.
Rica’s problem was the opposite: Balthasar would never guess how she felt about him, and even if he did, he wouldn't do anything about it as long as she continued to act like she hated his guts. For someone who was so direct about everything else, Alarica was so obtuse about Al, and Leo knew exactly why that was. The reason was even dumber than Balthasar himself. Somehow, Rica had developed a single-target inferiority complex. Leo didn’t get it—her cousin was amazing, but sometimes amazing people needed to be reminded. Far be it from Leo to do this in the normal way—oh no, she’d prod and tease until they got it themselves. That was much more her style.
Yuki looked absent-mindedly at Rica when she snatched the note back; Yuki had barely read the first line. Her face remained quite placid as Leora began to speak, however; the longer her cousin spoke, the more horrified her face became. Soon, Yuki was almost as red as the cherry, gloss-finished wood of the table they sat at.
"I-i...I don't...it's n-not like....oh..." She wasn't able to do much more than stutter a bit before burying her face in her hands, trying to hide. Why did Leora have to bring up Zero? It had been bad enough when Aryan had actually left the room earlier when she'd entered after her English session with the aforementioned male. Her brother's behavior was also something she did not understand. She really was not good with emotions, she'd never been. Even now, after one hundred years, she sometimes had difficulty expressing just how much she loved her step-father. That, at least, was easily delt with, she knew that Jasper understood, so it was unnecessary for her to say so.
Still rather unable to speak, Yuki did the next best thing as she blushed furiously behind her hands. Please stop, Leora...
If it were possible, Alarica would have found away to dissolve into a puddle of water and just disappeared. Her face, once a light pink in color, had turned a darker shade. Though her face was one of embarrassment, her lips were tilted down in a frown. "Leo, don't," she started to protest, but it was far too late. Her cousin began explaining it to Yuki, and for once, Alarica tilted her head with a raised brow. Yuki liked Zero? She covered her mouth with her hand slightly, stifling the laugh that was threatening to escape her. It seems she wasn't the only one who was having difficulty with that.
"Well, at least you don't have anything to worry about then Leo," she retorted to her cousin. She didn't know if Leora had anyone in mind, and if she did, Leora hid it well. She sighed softly, her face cooling down in the process as she played with the straw to her drink. "Maybe it'd be best if I just...," she started but shook her head. How could she pretend that she didn't like (was that even the right word?) Balthasar? At least with Yuki, though the girl might not realize it, Zero's feelings were reciprocated. That much she knew. Her cousin had confided in her once about it, and she had returned the gesture.
Leora sighed. It wasn’t fun anymore when Yuki said it like that. Honestly, was her entire family emotionally stunted? It seemed like she was the only one who saw clearly the threads connecting them all… the red strings, if one wanted to use such a metaphor. It was a good thing, too—with how completely incompetent all of them were with their own emotions, they were going to need the help. Still, she shook her head and smiled.
“Fine, fine, I’ll stop. Just don’t blame me when your silliness doesn’t work out for you. Both of them are rather popular with women, you know.” She doubted it was a legitimate concern—Zero wasn’t interested in anyone but Yuki, though his mouth might occasionally make someone think otherwise, the way he teased. And Balthasar… it would take a very forward woman for him to even register that someone was interested in the first place. Though she did worry about that a little. As far as she could tell… he was not actually in love with Rica, and she couldn’t blame him for not falling when the girl avoided him like it was her religion.
Still… red string, right? It would all work out in the end. She glanced over at her cousins, blinking speculatively. …Maybe.
“Well, ladies?” she said with the subtle lift of an eyebrow. “Where to next?” This little excursion had proceeded under the term reconnaissance, as it was in the town slated to be attacked in a few days, but actually they were just enjoying themselves. It was tradition for the three of them to try and get away from the boys and the school at least once a month, and they always found different ways to do it. They’d been to the arcade, a beach a few hours away, the nearest large city… once, Rica had even dragged them along to try something humans called “cow-tipping.” It was a very strange thing, and Leo almost felt sorry for the poor cows, but it had been new to her.
Some humans walked by them on the sidewalk, and Leo could feel the eyes on them from behind her. Okay, so maybe they weren’t totally anonymous—vampires were still a bit… noticeable for their looks, and three of them clustered in one spot was not going to go without notice. Leo rolled her eyes and turned around, catching the eyes of one such ogler and smiled—maliciously. That seemed to render the person confused, but he was at least aware of what he was doing now, and cast his eyes away. She sighed through her nose. She was aware that they had evolved this way because it made feeding easier, but it really got annoying when you didn’t want to feed on humans anyway.
Yuki shot a slight glare at one of the younger men who she felt staring at her, the ice in her gaze enough to make him blush and quickly move on. She knew she often didn't help matters by wearing what she wore, her stomach exposed, but she wore what she did because she liked it. She glanced at her cousins. "Well, we could always get something to eat."
Like her twin cousins, Yuki had a more human-like digestive system, though the reasons for this were largely speculated. Yuki didn't want to know, either. There was a lot about herself she was more comfortable not knowing about, and she knew exatly how Helen felt in that regard. She still had nightmares sometimes, memories she thought she'd buried cropping up every now and again. She'd learned some more darker things about herself that she didn't like, but tried her best to ignore.
Alarica sighed softly through her nose, her eyes roaming about as she tilted her head to the side, popping and stretching her neck in the process. Somehow, she managed to be dragged into town with her cousins, Leora and Yuki, to go shopping, something the three of them were not particularly fond of, but necessary nonetheless. She glanced towards Leora through the corner of her eyes as she asked for their next destination. She thought about it for a minute before Yuki suggested a place. Something to eat? Now that she thought about it, it was getting roughly close to lunch time and she hadn't really eaten anything (besides an apple) that morning.
"Sounds acceptable. We can go to the restaurant that just opened up a few blocks from here," she stated, choosing to ignore the looks they were being sent. She was aware of their genetic make-up, and that alone made them appealing to humans, however; it was something that irritated her to no end. She wanted to maim the nearest human that was still glancing at them, something dark flashing behind their eyes. She sent them a glare, void of everything, but that did not seem to deter the group. She rolled her eyes in the process.
"Humans are lucky enough we are not allowed to harm them, otherwise a few of them might be missing eyes," she stated in a low enough voice so that only Leora and Yuki could hear. She wasn't in a particularly good mood at the moment and she wasn't feeling very reserved, however; she knew her place and it wouldn't be good to draw unnecessary attention to her family...no matter how much she wanted to punch someone.
Leo shrugged—eating sounded fine. It wasn’t necessary for her to do so, but her mom had never been able to give up cooking, and especially not baking, so her system was a little more used to food than that of most vampires. She even enjoyed it, in small quantities. Spotting something new across the street, she gestured to it. “Italian?” There seemed to be a consensus that it was at least worth a try, and so the three made their way over to it, and they were just sitting down when something fluttered to the ground—a folded piece of paper, it looked like.
“Oh hey Rica, I think something fell out of your…” Leo bent to retrieve the object, but had trailed off upon recognizing the handwriting. “Pocket,” she finished, her tone rather more gleeful than before as she scanned the words. Her smile, which had been slight, morphed into a foxlike thing, the mischievous twinkle in her eye making her cousin quite aware that she’d read the whole note. As soon as they sat down and the waiter had taken their order for drinks, she read it again, and couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up from her diaphragm.
“Oh my god, he’s so hopeless. And you, Rica, you’re worse!” she exclaimed, trailing off in another fit of giggles.
Yuki had sat down, Leora between her and Alarica, and had been sipping her water when Leora suddenly dissolved into giggles. Yuki raised a slight eyebrow, leaning over to read the note in her cousin's hand. Her brows furrowed as she recognized Balthasar's handwriting.
She then looked at Leora. "I don't get it, what's so funny? And why are they...hopeless?" She knew very well that her brother sometimes had difficulty with others, but then, it was the same way she herself was, and their father, too.
Alarica shrugged her shoulders at Leora's suggestion, and the three of them made their way towards the restaurant. She had failed to notice the note that Balthasar had given her, peeking out of her coat pocket before it fell out completely. Alarica stopped in her spot as Leora stated something, and as she turned with a raised brow, her face immediately drained from its color. Leora held the note in her hands, her lips quirking up into a mischievous grin. Immediately, Alarica's face was a light pink color. When they sat down, their orders taken, she immediately snatched the note from Yuki's grasp as it found its way to Yuki.
"That is none of your business Leo! And I am not worse," she stated, unable to stare her cousin in the eye as her bottom lip puckered out a bit,the equivalent of a pout forming on her face. She could hear the whispers around her and immediately she sent the nearby customers a glare. It wasn't their fault really, but Leora was touching a subject that was extremely sensitive to Alarica. "Besides, it's just a letter about the damn apples that were outside my room that morning. There's nothing wrong with that," she added, folding her arms against her chest.
Her eyes traveled to Yuki when the snow-haired girl popped the question about what was funny. "It's nothing Yuki, Leo's just having a bit of fun," she stated, shooting Leora a look in the process. So help her, she loved her cousin, she really did, but if she told Yuki about Balthasar...the restaurant might have a bit of an accident, so to speak. Leora was the only person who knew of Alarica's feelings for Balthasar, and it would only make things more awkward if his sister knew as well. She would have told Yuki herself, but there was a light fear that she would tell Balthasar, though she knew Yuki would never do that.
Oh, she was a horrible person, but she was having just as much fun as Rica was accusing her of. And at least she was going to spread it around. “Well, Yuki… you know how you kinda feel funny flutters in here when my brother’s around, or get embarrassed when he’s just a little too close to you?” The smile was still there, and she raised a hand to place over her heart, to indicate the here she was talking about. Nodding with false seriousness, she found she couldn’t keep it up for long and smiled again anyway. “It’s a little bit like that.” Seriously, though, she was doing them a favor by pushing like this. Sure, Zero might take care of the pushing on his own, but he was kind of stupid, and if Yuki didn’t know how she felt by then, things could go poorly.
Rica’s problem was the opposite: Balthasar would never guess how she felt about him, and even if he did, he wouldn't do anything about it as long as she continued to act like she hated his guts. For someone who was so direct about everything else, Alarica was so obtuse about Al, and Leo knew exactly why that was. The reason was even dumber than Balthasar himself. Somehow, Rica had developed a single-target inferiority complex. Leo didn’t get it—her cousin was amazing, but sometimes amazing people needed to be reminded. Far be it from Leo to do this in the normal way—oh no, she’d prod and tease until they got it themselves. That was much more her style.
Yuki looked absent-mindedly at Rica when she snatched the note back; Yuki had barely read the first line. Her face remained quite placid as Leora began to speak, however; the longer her cousin spoke, the more horrified her face became. Soon, Yuki was almost as red as the cherry, gloss-finished wood of the table they sat at.
"I-i...I don't...it's n-not like....oh..." She wasn't able to do much more than stutter a bit before burying her face in her hands, trying to hide. Why did Leora have to bring up Zero? It had been bad enough when Aryan had actually left the room earlier when she'd entered after her English session with the aforementioned male. Her brother's behavior was also something she did not understand. She really was not good with emotions, she'd never been. Even now, after one hundred years, she sometimes had difficulty expressing just how much she loved her step-father. That, at least, was easily delt with, she knew that Jasper understood, so it was unnecessary for her to say so.
Still rather unable to speak, Yuki did the next best thing as she blushed furiously behind her hands. Please stop, Leora...
If it were possible, Alarica would have found away to dissolve into a puddle of water and just disappeared. Her face, once a light pink in color, had turned a darker shade. Though her face was one of embarrassment, her lips were tilted down in a frown. "Leo, don't," she started to protest, but it was far too late. Her cousin began explaining it to Yuki, and for once, Alarica tilted her head with a raised brow. Yuki liked Zero? She covered her mouth with her hand slightly, stifling the laugh that was threatening to escape her. It seems she wasn't the only one who was having difficulty with that.
"Well, at least you don't have anything to worry about then Leo," she retorted to her cousin. She didn't know if Leora had anyone in mind, and if she did, Leora hid it well. She sighed softly, her face cooling down in the process as she played with the straw to her drink. "Maybe it'd be best if I just...," she started but shook her head. How could she pretend that she didn't like (was that even the right word?) Balthasar? At least with Yuki, though the girl might not realize it, Zero's feelings were reciprocated. That much she knew. Her cousin had confided in her once about it, and she had returned the gesture.
Leora sighed. It wasn’t fun anymore when Yuki said it like that. Honestly, was her entire family emotionally stunted? It seemed like she was the only one who saw clearly the threads connecting them all… the red strings, if one wanted to use such a metaphor. It was a good thing, too—with how completely incompetent all of them were with their own emotions, they were going to need the help. Still, she shook her head and smiled.
“Fine, fine, I’ll stop. Just don’t blame me when your silliness doesn’t work out for you. Both of them are rather popular with women, you know.” She doubted it was a legitimate concern—Zero wasn’t interested in anyone but Yuki, though his mouth might occasionally make someone think otherwise, the way he teased. And Balthasar… it would take a very forward woman for him to even register that someone was interested in the first place. Though she did worry about that a little. As far as she could tell… he was not actually in love with Rica, and she couldn’t blame him for not falling when the girl avoided him like it was her religion.
Still… red string, right? It would all work out in the end. She glanced over at her cousins, blinking speculatively. …Maybe.
Zero combed through the empty court yard of the Academy, his hands laced behind his head as he watched the clouds roll by. He didn't pay much attention to where he was going, only to the sky, and it's not that it mattered. No one was around at the moment. He had the place almost all to himself really, though it was getting a bit boring. The twins were off on their own again, doing only what they do best, and Balthasar was tending to something with his brother, Aryan. His face pulled into a frown at the thought of Aryan and their little conversation. It was obvious enough that Aryan had taken what Zero said out of context, and really he couldn't blame him.
But still, he didn't have to react the way he did. He sighed softly, slumping his shoulders lightly as the sound of something connecting with something caught his ears. A light sniff of the air, and he smirked. Slowly, he made his way towards the source, finding his sister sparring with a punching bag. He leaned against the door frame of the gym, watching as her hands connected with the bag in flawless succession. Shaking his head softly, he pushed his way off and made towards her, clapping all the same.
"So, who's the unlucky bastard to be plaguing your thoughts? There has to be someone bothering you, otherwise you wouldn't be hitting that back so hard. Poor bag, didn't do anything to you and you're just pounding away on it," he stated, smirking lightly as he crossed his arms against his chest.
Leora smirked at her brother’s entrance, landing one last hit on the bag that tore it from its hook on the ceiling and sent it flying across the room. Opening and closing a few times the hand that had delivered the blow, she observed that she’d actually cracked a knuckle, though it was healing even as she examined it. Shrugging, she glanced up and back at Zero, the smile still tilting her lips. Leo was not a grinner—in fact, her smiles rarely if ever even flashed her teeth. But there was a lot that could be conveyed more subtly. “Oh, nobody,” she replied casually, which was not exactly true. She was definitely frustrated, but she couldn’t decide if the person she was displacing her anger for was Aryan, for putting her in this stupid predicament in the first place, or Keir—for being confusing enough that the challenge even bothered her at all. It wouldn’t have bugged her if it was Ary or one of the girls the challenge had been against. If it was Al, she might have ceded just to be merciful, and if it was Zero, they both probably would have laughed and picked a different challenge.
So… it was literally the worst-case scenario, somehow. But she was far too headstrong to give it up. Maybe it was just the stakes—she’d gotten a lot of mileage and amusement out of her little rivalry with her cousin over the years. She didn’t really want this to be the end of the game. And yes, she was quite attracted to him, so there was definitely a chance she would lose. That was probably it. Such reasons were enough to feel as much dread as she did about this, right? Leo definitely hated losing, so probably.
Padding across the gym to pick up the bag, she slung it over a shoulder, and carried it back to the supply closet. “Bored already, dear brother? You know, maybe attending class would give you something to do. You wrote your English essay on Whitman, by the way—you were very deeply moved by some of his works, and traced his influence through American literature all the way up to the twentieth century.” They were in the twenty-second now, of course, but literature and poetry didn’t really expire.
"If you say so, but know I do not believe you," he replied casually, smirking at her in the process. He reached a hand over, ruffling her hair a bit before placing his hand against his own head and rubbed a bit. "Was I? I can't recall anymore," he said simply, allowing his hand to fall back to his side. Attend class? Perhaps he should, but then again, he'd just perhaps end up lecturing his teachers rather than being the one lectured. He'd lived long enough to learn most things, and there was hardly anything new that needed to be learned. Really, both he and Leora benefited from their mutual relationship. While she did his homework, she could catch up on history and the likes, whereas he would be able to keep up his grades.
Granted his grades would still be pristine should he ever desire to attend class, but that was a thought to entertain for another time. "If I ever attended class, it was because something interesting and worth learning would be happening. As it is now, there is nothing quite like that yet," he added. "So, are you going to tell me what's on your mind, or should I go find Keir and Alarica to drill it out of you?" he stated, the light smirk returning to his features. He wouldn't actually go to the twins for help with things such as this. He might actually go to Balthasar if he needed help with his sister, but at the moment, he just wanted to know what was bothering her.
"You can't wear a straight face in my presence and you know it. So, kido, are you going to tell me?" he continued, waiting patiently for her reply as he took a seat on one of the bleachers, folding his hands across and laid his chin upon them.
Leo rolled her eyes when her brother mussed up her hair, setting about straightening it with her fingers. Not for the sake of appearance, as she hardly cared for that most of the time, but because her reputation was for a person who walked around without a single hair out of place. Her neatness, like her mother’s, was actually a kind of shield. Rumpled meant vulnerable, and that was something she was not allowed to be, not in front of anyone. Except maybe her brother or Al sometimes. Taking the seat beside him, she sighed theatrically. “Dammit, Zee, mess up your own hair. Oh wait, you already did.” she said, looking at his wind-tossed auburn strands. Reaching over a ways, she tugged on his forelock, but not hard enough to hurt, of course.
It was hard to keep things from him, but in this case, she had to. The rules of the challenge stated that nobody was allowed to know about it, and she didn't intend to lose on a technicality. She didn’t intend to lose at all which was why she was here. She let her aggravation and confusion out on the equipment, and then she was in a much more solid place to deal with it later in a more controlled way. She supposed this much at least she could convey without breaking any rules. “There’s just some stuff I have to handle later, and I wanted to be at my best. I’m always at my best after I’ve punched a few things.” As if to prove the point, she socked him lightly in the arm. “Though hitting a poor defenseless bag isn’t quite as fun as hitting my poor defenseless brother. How about it, huh? Spar?”
Zero, being much older, was a better fighter than Leo was, but he wasn’t a specialist in hand-to-hand like she was, which made it so that, while he still usually beat her, it wasn’t so unbalanced that it was useless. They could go at it for days, probably, and they actually had once, until their mother had their dad interfere because she wasn’t sure how much more structural damage the house could handle. They tended to keep it a little tamer than that, now, but she still learned something every time she fought him. And he didn’t hold back on her like her dad did.
"My own hair?" he stated, glancing up as if he could see the state of his hair, only to wince when Leora pulled a strand. He chuckled softly, rubbing his hair line in the process. "I wear the messy look better than you do anyways," he stated, running a hand through his hair in the process, messing it up again. He rose an eyebrow at her next statement. Poor, defenseless brother? He was anything but, and they both knew it. His lips tilted into a light smirk as he stared at Leora, leaning a bit closer to her face than necessary.
"Loser has to go streaking Friday night," he stated, the smirk growing into a grin. "And you've got yourself a deal, dear sister of mine," he stated. He wouldn't mind a bit of practice anyhow, given that they were going to be defending the town and Academy in a few days time. They could both use the practice, and they usually did. Though they always did it in the confines of the forest. The last time the two sparred, their father had to step in and their house had nearly been destroyed. He would never go full out on his sister, however; the both of them still managed a heap of damage to the Kuragari estate.
“Across the whole grounds, at a speed the humans can see you if they look,” she added, cracking the knuckles still under the boxing tape she wrapped them with. She gave him a moment to do the same—though the extra protection wasn’t a lot, it would at least soak up any blood from split knuckles and so on. When the Kuragari siblings went at it, they really went at it. Broken bones and all. The gym was a little small for this, but it had been built with the vampiric students in mind, so at was about as reinforced as anywhere would be. Last time they’d done this, more than a few trees had been collateral damage, and she honestly felt a bit bad about this.
Settling down into her stance, Leo smiled, holding out one of her hands and beckoning her big brother forward with two fingers.
“You know, this is really much less punishment for you than it would be for me,” she said about an hour later, removing her knee from his back to let him stand. She’d fought damn hard not to be the loser of this particular match, because hell if she was going to run across the grounds with no clothes on. She actually had some sense of modesty, though she was far from a prude about it. She’d probably be there when he made his run of not-so-much-shame-for-Zero shame, laughing at him all the while.
“I probably should have made you eat an entire cake instead, but I guess it’ll do.”
But still, he didn't have to react the way he did. He sighed softly, slumping his shoulders lightly as the sound of something connecting with something caught his ears. A light sniff of the air, and he smirked. Slowly, he made his way towards the source, finding his sister sparring with a punching bag. He leaned against the door frame of the gym, watching as her hands connected with the bag in flawless succession. Shaking his head softly, he pushed his way off and made towards her, clapping all the same.
"So, who's the unlucky bastard to be plaguing your thoughts? There has to be someone bothering you, otherwise you wouldn't be hitting that back so hard. Poor bag, didn't do anything to you and you're just pounding away on it," he stated, smirking lightly as he crossed his arms against his chest.
Leora smirked at her brother’s entrance, landing one last hit on the bag that tore it from its hook on the ceiling and sent it flying across the room. Opening and closing a few times the hand that had delivered the blow, she observed that she’d actually cracked a knuckle, though it was healing even as she examined it. Shrugging, she glanced up and back at Zero, the smile still tilting her lips. Leo was not a grinner—in fact, her smiles rarely if ever even flashed her teeth. But there was a lot that could be conveyed more subtly. “Oh, nobody,” she replied casually, which was not exactly true. She was definitely frustrated, but she couldn’t decide if the person she was displacing her anger for was Aryan, for putting her in this stupid predicament in the first place, or Keir—for being confusing enough that the challenge even bothered her at all. It wouldn’t have bugged her if it was Ary or one of the girls the challenge had been against. If it was Al, she might have ceded just to be merciful, and if it was Zero, they both probably would have laughed and picked a different challenge.
So… it was literally the worst-case scenario, somehow. But she was far too headstrong to give it up. Maybe it was just the stakes—she’d gotten a lot of mileage and amusement out of her little rivalry with her cousin over the years. She didn’t really want this to be the end of the game. And yes, she was quite attracted to him, so there was definitely a chance she would lose. That was probably it. Such reasons were enough to feel as much dread as she did about this, right? Leo definitely hated losing, so probably.
Padding across the gym to pick up the bag, she slung it over a shoulder, and carried it back to the supply closet. “Bored already, dear brother? You know, maybe attending class would give you something to do. You wrote your English essay on Whitman, by the way—you were very deeply moved by some of his works, and traced his influence through American literature all the way up to the twentieth century.” They were in the twenty-second now, of course, but literature and poetry didn’t really expire.
"If you say so, but know I do not believe you," he replied casually, smirking at her in the process. He reached a hand over, ruffling her hair a bit before placing his hand against his own head and rubbed a bit. "Was I? I can't recall anymore," he said simply, allowing his hand to fall back to his side. Attend class? Perhaps he should, but then again, he'd just perhaps end up lecturing his teachers rather than being the one lectured. He'd lived long enough to learn most things, and there was hardly anything new that needed to be learned. Really, both he and Leora benefited from their mutual relationship. While she did his homework, she could catch up on history and the likes, whereas he would be able to keep up his grades.
Granted his grades would still be pristine should he ever desire to attend class, but that was a thought to entertain for another time. "If I ever attended class, it was because something interesting and worth learning would be happening. As it is now, there is nothing quite like that yet," he added. "So, are you going to tell me what's on your mind, or should I go find Keir and Alarica to drill it out of you?" he stated, the light smirk returning to his features. He wouldn't actually go to the twins for help with things such as this. He might actually go to Balthasar if he needed help with his sister, but at the moment, he just wanted to know what was bothering her.
"You can't wear a straight face in my presence and you know it. So, kido, are you going to tell me?" he continued, waiting patiently for her reply as he took a seat on one of the bleachers, folding his hands across and laid his chin upon them.
Leo rolled her eyes when her brother mussed up her hair, setting about straightening it with her fingers. Not for the sake of appearance, as she hardly cared for that most of the time, but because her reputation was for a person who walked around without a single hair out of place. Her neatness, like her mother’s, was actually a kind of shield. Rumpled meant vulnerable, and that was something she was not allowed to be, not in front of anyone. Except maybe her brother or Al sometimes. Taking the seat beside him, she sighed theatrically. “Dammit, Zee, mess up your own hair. Oh wait, you already did.” she said, looking at his wind-tossed auburn strands. Reaching over a ways, she tugged on his forelock, but not hard enough to hurt, of course.
It was hard to keep things from him, but in this case, she had to. The rules of the challenge stated that nobody was allowed to know about it, and she didn't intend to lose on a technicality. She didn’t intend to lose at all which was why she was here. She let her aggravation and confusion out on the equipment, and then she was in a much more solid place to deal with it later in a more controlled way. She supposed this much at least she could convey without breaking any rules. “There’s just some stuff I have to handle later, and I wanted to be at my best. I’m always at my best after I’ve punched a few things.” As if to prove the point, she socked him lightly in the arm. “Though hitting a poor defenseless bag isn’t quite as fun as hitting my poor defenseless brother. How about it, huh? Spar?”
Zero, being much older, was a better fighter than Leo was, but he wasn’t a specialist in hand-to-hand like she was, which made it so that, while he still usually beat her, it wasn’t so unbalanced that it was useless. They could go at it for days, probably, and they actually had once, until their mother had their dad interfere because she wasn’t sure how much more structural damage the house could handle. They tended to keep it a little tamer than that, now, but she still learned something every time she fought him. And he didn’t hold back on her like her dad did.
"My own hair?" he stated, glancing up as if he could see the state of his hair, only to wince when Leora pulled a strand. He chuckled softly, rubbing his hair line in the process. "I wear the messy look better than you do anyways," he stated, running a hand through his hair in the process, messing it up again. He rose an eyebrow at her next statement. Poor, defenseless brother? He was anything but, and they both knew it. His lips tilted into a light smirk as he stared at Leora, leaning a bit closer to her face than necessary.
"Loser has to go streaking Friday night," he stated, the smirk growing into a grin. "And you've got yourself a deal, dear sister of mine," he stated. He wouldn't mind a bit of practice anyhow, given that they were going to be defending the town and Academy in a few days time. They could both use the practice, and they usually did. Though they always did it in the confines of the forest. The last time the two sparred, their father had to step in and their house had nearly been destroyed. He would never go full out on his sister, however; the both of them still managed a heap of damage to the Kuragari estate.
“Across the whole grounds, at a speed the humans can see you if they look,” she added, cracking the knuckles still under the boxing tape she wrapped them with. She gave him a moment to do the same—though the extra protection wasn’t a lot, it would at least soak up any blood from split knuckles and so on. When the Kuragari siblings went at it, they really went at it. Broken bones and all. The gym was a little small for this, but it had been built with the vampiric students in mind, so at was about as reinforced as anywhere would be. Last time they’d done this, more than a few trees had been collateral damage, and she honestly felt a bit bad about this.
Settling down into her stance, Leo smiled, holding out one of her hands and beckoning her big brother forward with two fingers.
“You know, this is really much less punishment for you than it would be for me,” she said about an hour later, removing her knee from his back to let him stand. She’d fought damn hard not to be the loser of this particular match, because hell if she was going to run across the grounds with no clothes on. She actually had some sense of modesty, though she was far from a prude about it. She’d probably be there when he made his run of not-so-much-shame-for-Zero shame, laughing at him all the while.
“I probably should have made you eat an entire cake instead, but I guess it’ll do.”
Keir's mouth pulled into a slight frown. His cousin was avoiding him, it seemed. The challenge had officially started two days ago, and they had yet to cross paths. That in and of itself was very...odd. It was not an overly large school, and they were cousins. Was it possible that...no. Keir shook his head, banishing the thought.
He knelt like a gargoyle on top of one of the spires of Cross Academy, scanning the grounds. Suddenly, ice blue eyes zeroed in on a shock of dark hair, and he grinned. There you are. He stood up, stepping forward into open air, allowing gravity to do its work. He latched onto the side of the building to slow his fall, using his claws, and landed lightly on the ground near the courtyard, where his quarry was. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he walked up behind Leora, knowing full well she probably smelled his coming.
"So...any particular reason you're avoiding me? You're not thinking of forfeiting, now are you? I mean, I know I'm going to win in the end, but...still, at least give me some sort of challenge."
Fresh from her workout, Leo had showered and changed, and was planning on taking a walk around the grounds for a while. Much as she loved her family, she liked her moments to herself as well. The youngest Kuragari was headed to the forest when his scent hit her like a wall, a bit too late for her to do anything about it. Well, that was all right—she was in a better place to deal with it, now that she’d mostly sorted through what was going on. So when she turned, it was with the same coy half-smile as ever, and she simply raised an eyebrow, tipping her chin up a little to meet his eyes. She was quite tall, but he was taller still, if only by a pair of inches.
“You know I don’t understand the word ‘forfeit,’ Keir. I was just giving you a chance to contemplate your own surrender, since it would spare you the inevitability of your loss.” She winked, falling naturally into the playful banter that so often characterized them. She’d have to step up the game, so to speak, if she had a shot at winning this thing, but she was trying to get a read on the situation first. She did her best work when rebounding off the reactions of others, after all, and she was curious as to what his strategy would be here.
Keir raised a snow-white eyebrow. "Oh? That would mean that my loss truly was inevitable, if my choices are lose or forfeit. But, you forget...I, too, have no idea of the meaning of that word, dear cousin of mine."
His smile was there, but only barely. He could smell the faint traces of soap and shampoo on her, and he would be hard pressed to lie to himself that it did not affect him. Luckily, he was not so inclined to let it show.
He gazed into her eyes for a second, before turning away from her, taking a seat on the bench, draping his arms across the back of it, languidly relaxing, looking very feline-esque. He leaned his head back, looking up at the sky.
"So, why do you think Aryan chose this particular challenge?" He himself had a pretty good idea, but he was inclined to hear her answer. Keir often acted like an idiot, if only to hide just how sharp he actually was. He was not Morgan Alistair's son for nothing.
Part of Leora, thankfully a very small part that was well under her control by this point, was seized by the sudden desire to crawl into his lap and see just how far their stubbornness would carry them both. But, though there was always a physical element to seduction, this was first and foremost a mind game, and no touching was definitely a rule. Probably fortunate. So she shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she replied nonchalantly, taking a seat next to him, so that they were just barely not touching. There was an inch of space there, maximum, and she could feel the heat radiating off his body. Maybe not the smartest decision she’d ever made, but sometimes to win, you had to take risks.
She rolled her eyes at the question. “Because he’s horribly sexually frustrated and completely unaware that we all know it? And he wants to see if he can possibly make anyone else as miserable as he is?”Leo shrugged diffidently. She had not admitted her attraction with the statement, she was very careful about that. But she wouldn’t be surprised if Aryan had figured her out and done it just to torment her, the little bastard.
Keir smirked, looking at Leo from the corner of his eye. "Possibly, but Aryan is not really the type to make others miserable. He fancies that no one else knows of his little problem." He shifted his position, standing so that he was standing in front of her, one hand on either side of her.
He was leaning forward, so that there was perhaps half an inch between their noses. "Aryan isn't the only one with a little problem, though. And my guess is, he saw right through someone. He's not a von Nacht for nothing. But, just who did he see through, I wonder?" There was a smirk on his face, his eyes turning to pools of molten ice, an odd combination of blue and silver.
And then, as quick as he'd leaned in, he stepped away from her, straightening to his full height. It had taken a surprisingly large amount of his self control to not give in right then and there, but the game had only just begun, and he was looking forward to playing it through to the end.
Gods above, his eyes. They sent a chill right down her spine, and she had to fight not to shudder. Fortunately, she succeeded, and her face remained carefully impassive, her breathing steady. If his were ice, hers were fire itself, gold-ringed red, and when he straightened, she followed, not at all inclined to let him get comfortable in his personal space again. Leo had taken a half-step, so that they were barely a hairsbreadth apart, and smiled wickedly. Now this was the part of the game that she knew how to play, and she could make herself forget that fact that part of her kind of wanted to lose. Everything in time—the chase was fun on its own.
Since things had clicked into a paradigm she understood, she showed absolutely no hesitation, peering up at him through her thick lashes, the smile still in place. “You think so?” she asked, drawing out the words a little so that there was the faintest hint of a purr behind the tone. Rising onto her toes, she leaned forward just enough to whisper into his ear. “I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” When she pulled away, it was slow, as if inviting him to follow. But of course, they were both only just getting started, so instead she winked at him and turned away, tossing a casual wave over her shoulder.
“Until round two, cousin.” And if she put a little extra sway in her step, well… who could blame her, really?
Keir raised his eyebrows slightly, and he had to fight not to shudder when he felt her breath on his neck. He did not move, indeed, he didn't speak as she walked away, but as soon as she rounded the corner, he let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair. He grinned, staring up at the sky.
No wonder he loved her. This, this was going to be so much fun, really.
He knelt like a gargoyle on top of one of the spires of Cross Academy, scanning the grounds. Suddenly, ice blue eyes zeroed in on a shock of dark hair, and he grinned. There you are. He stood up, stepping forward into open air, allowing gravity to do its work. He latched onto the side of the building to slow his fall, using his claws, and landed lightly on the ground near the courtyard, where his quarry was. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he walked up behind Leora, knowing full well she probably smelled his coming.
"So...any particular reason you're avoiding me? You're not thinking of forfeiting, now are you? I mean, I know I'm going to win in the end, but...still, at least give me some sort of challenge."
Fresh from her workout, Leo had showered and changed, and was planning on taking a walk around the grounds for a while. Much as she loved her family, she liked her moments to herself as well. The youngest Kuragari was headed to the forest when his scent hit her like a wall, a bit too late for her to do anything about it. Well, that was all right—she was in a better place to deal with it, now that she’d mostly sorted through what was going on. So when she turned, it was with the same coy half-smile as ever, and she simply raised an eyebrow, tipping her chin up a little to meet his eyes. She was quite tall, but he was taller still, if only by a pair of inches.
“You know I don’t understand the word ‘forfeit,’ Keir. I was just giving you a chance to contemplate your own surrender, since it would spare you the inevitability of your loss.” She winked, falling naturally into the playful banter that so often characterized them. She’d have to step up the game, so to speak, if she had a shot at winning this thing, but she was trying to get a read on the situation first. She did her best work when rebounding off the reactions of others, after all, and she was curious as to what his strategy would be here.
Keir raised a snow-white eyebrow. "Oh? That would mean that my loss truly was inevitable, if my choices are lose or forfeit. But, you forget...I, too, have no idea of the meaning of that word, dear cousin of mine."
His smile was there, but only barely. He could smell the faint traces of soap and shampoo on her, and he would be hard pressed to lie to himself that it did not affect him. Luckily, he was not so inclined to let it show.
He gazed into her eyes for a second, before turning away from her, taking a seat on the bench, draping his arms across the back of it, languidly relaxing, looking very feline-esque. He leaned his head back, looking up at the sky.
"So, why do you think Aryan chose this particular challenge?" He himself had a pretty good idea, but he was inclined to hear her answer. Keir often acted like an idiot, if only to hide just how sharp he actually was. He was not Morgan Alistair's son for nothing.
Part of Leora, thankfully a very small part that was well under her control by this point, was seized by the sudden desire to crawl into his lap and see just how far their stubbornness would carry them both. But, though there was always a physical element to seduction, this was first and foremost a mind game, and no touching was definitely a rule. Probably fortunate. So she shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she replied nonchalantly, taking a seat next to him, so that they were just barely not touching. There was an inch of space there, maximum, and she could feel the heat radiating off his body. Maybe not the smartest decision she’d ever made, but sometimes to win, you had to take risks.
She rolled her eyes at the question. “Because he’s horribly sexually frustrated and completely unaware that we all know it? And he wants to see if he can possibly make anyone else as miserable as he is?”Leo shrugged diffidently. She had not admitted her attraction with the statement, she was very careful about that. But she wouldn’t be surprised if Aryan had figured her out and done it just to torment her, the little bastard.
Keir smirked, looking at Leo from the corner of his eye. "Possibly, but Aryan is not really the type to make others miserable. He fancies that no one else knows of his little problem." He shifted his position, standing so that he was standing in front of her, one hand on either side of her.
He was leaning forward, so that there was perhaps half an inch between their noses. "Aryan isn't the only one with a little problem, though. And my guess is, he saw right through someone. He's not a von Nacht for nothing. But, just who did he see through, I wonder?" There was a smirk on his face, his eyes turning to pools of molten ice, an odd combination of blue and silver.
And then, as quick as he'd leaned in, he stepped away from her, straightening to his full height. It had taken a surprisingly large amount of his self control to not give in right then and there, but the game had only just begun, and he was looking forward to playing it through to the end.
Gods above, his eyes. They sent a chill right down her spine, and she had to fight not to shudder. Fortunately, she succeeded, and her face remained carefully impassive, her breathing steady. If his were ice, hers were fire itself, gold-ringed red, and when he straightened, she followed, not at all inclined to let him get comfortable in his personal space again. Leo had taken a half-step, so that they were barely a hairsbreadth apart, and smiled wickedly. Now this was the part of the game that she knew how to play, and she could make herself forget that fact that part of her kind of wanted to lose. Everything in time—the chase was fun on its own.
Since things had clicked into a paradigm she understood, she showed absolutely no hesitation, peering up at him through her thick lashes, the smile still in place. “You think so?” she asked, drawing out the words a little so that there was the faintest hint of a purr behind the tone. Rising onto her toes, she leaned forward just enough to whisper into his ear. “I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” When she pulled away, it was slow, as if inviting him to follow. But of course, they were both only just getting started, so instead she winked at him and turned away, tossing a casual wave over her shoulder.
“Until round two, cousin.” And if she put a little extra sway in her step, well… who could blame her, really?
Keir raised his eyebrows slightly, and he had to fight not to shudder when he felt her breath on his neck. He did not move, indeed, he didn't speak as she walked away, but as soon as she rounded the corner, he let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair. He grinned, staring up at the sky.
No wonder he loved her. This, this was going to be so much fun, really.
Keir yawned, sitting across the table from Aryan, moving the pawn two spaces forward, and watching as Aryan took his knight. He was, in a word, bored. His eyes roamed, Aryan looking at him with an amused smirk.
"You seem distracted, cousin. Something bothering you?"
Keir raised his eyebrows. "I'm not sure I like this whole attack business with you, Hel, and Yuki being gone. The eight of us should be together."
Aryan's grin only widened. "My dear cousin, have you lost faith in us? Yuki and Helen are good at what they do. Besides, even the Council will be hard-pressed to attack us so openly. And if they do...well. There is a reason I'm taking the two of them."
Alarica sighed, rubbing Mikhail's feathers as she trudged along, ignoring the people around her as she wandered about. The day of the restaurant incident still had Alarica fussy with Leora, but she'd get over it eventually. Besides, she shouldn't have taken that letter with her in the first place. She should have thrown it away like she had originally planned but...she sighed softly, releasing her familiar and watched as he flew ahead of her. She didn't need to be thinking of such things at the moment, and needed a way to just forget about it.
"Where are you Kiki," she mused to herself. She should find her brother, and the two of them could perhaps do something to get her mind off of things. She wasn't really counting on it, however; it would be a start. Soon enough, she found his scent and smiled slightly, following it until she found him playing chess with Aryan. She tilted her head gently to the side before setting it right again and walked up to them, sitting in the middle as she watched on. She had caught the last tail of their conversation and gave them a quizzical look.
"Arty's leaving? Huh, who ever is going to be my dance partner now," she stated, feigning a mock hurt look in the process. She rolled her eyes at the notion though and sighed a bit softly. "I take it there is a planned attack, and no one cared to inform me? I feel left out of the family guys," she stated, though in all honesty, she could care less about it. If there was something truly important, then she would have found out either way. She, too, was Morgan's daughter, and a bit resourceful when it came to information.
Aryan's violet eyes swiveled to Alarica. "Actually, I only just told Keir, he was to relay the information, but since you are here...yes, there is an attack, on the town here in three days time. In two days, Yuki, Helen, and I are going to the Council, I've been summoned. There is, without a doubt, no mere coincidence that we're separated like that. There are also two hit-men coming to the attack, so stay on your guard. Two hit-men generally mean two targets, and what better way to take out twins?"
The warning was unnecessary, of course, but Aryan would still say it. The twins were some of the youngest in the family, aside from Leora, but that did not mean they were to be taken lightly. Indeed, the twins, while together, were probably some of the most frightening forces the family had at their disposal.
Keir rolled his eyes. He'd been watching over his shoulder since he was five years old, when he'd watched his father tear through an entire five man team of hit-men, along with an army of Level E's. He'd been a little surprised, honestly, that someone would want him dead, but then, at five, he hadn't really understood just how...odd he and his sister were.
"Now I feel as though you lost faith in us, Ary." He glanced at his twin. "Tell me you have an idea, I'm bored as hell over here."
She sighed, slumping her shoulders in the process. Of course there would be hit-men, there were always hit-men sent to either kill, or attempt to kidnap, someone of the family. Leora perhaps had a higher count of kidnap attempts than all of them put together, but still, it was nothing new. Alarica waved a hand in front of her, dismissing the notion in the process. She and Keir had always lived as such, watching their backs and waiting for someone who was foolish enough to try and attack them. Their father was a bit scary when it came to his family, but their mother...now if there was anyone Alarica was afraid of, it would be her mother.
She shivered at the thought before banishing it. "Well dear brother mine, I do not. I was hoping you had an idea," she replied in an equally bored tone. She wasn't necessarily bored, but she did need something to vent on. And if that required blowing something up again, or terrorizing one of the pure-bloods of the Academy, then so be it, however; her eyes wandered towards her cousin and she smirked. "When was the last time we did something, Arty?" she stated more than questioned. There was a hint of something playful behind her eyes when she stated those words.
Aryan blinked owlishly at his cousin. "Well, that would be entirely dependent on what exactly you mean by something. If you mean the last time we destroyed something, it certainly has been a long time. If you mean more domestic matters, it's probably been even longer."
Keir cocked an eyebrow at his cousin. The guy had such a weird way of speaking. Though, he supposed that was why he handled the paper side of the war. He was good at what he did.
Alarica rose an eyebrow at his statement and frowned just slightly. He was right, the last time they did something destructive, it was about a few months ago. His next sentence sent a smirk across her features as she stood from her spot, walking so that she was next to Aryan and abruptly placed herself in his lap, not before pulling the chair out a bit so that they both could fit. Her grin only grew as she wrapped both of her arms around his neck and held him at an arms distance. His statement could be taken in so many ways, and they were both well aware of it. Smirk still plastered on her face, she leaned in close, so that their noses were just a hairbreadth apart from each other.
"Well, Arty," she began, drawing small circles across his chest in the process. "If it's something more domestic, I'm sure we could find something to occupy ourselves with," she finished. She was merely teasing, she did not think of Aryan that way. As a matter of fact, there was no one she ever thought of that way besides him, and that thought alone caused her frown to replace her grin. As it faltered, she removed herself from Aryan's lap and grasped his hand, pulling him up in the process.
"A dance will have to do. Kiki, you can join too," she stated, grabbing her brother's arm in the process and pulled the two of them along.
Aryan smirked at his cousin when she crawled into his lap. He looked at her in amusement, even more so when her smile suddenly faltered. Ah, he knew that look. Still, for the moment, he kept his mouth shut.
When she dragged him and Keir out of the room, he chuckled softly. "Now, wouldn't you rather dance with my brother, Lala? I know he's not quite as adept as it as I am, but still...we are both Jasper's sons."
Keir let out a bark of laughter. "She doesn't have the guts to say anything, she has to make do with us. Though, three-way dancing tends to get kind of awkward." At that, he spun away from his sister, avoiding her fist. He waggled a finger at her. "Ah, ah, ah. You just enjoy your little dance, Lala."
"You seem distracted, cousin. Something bothering you?"
Keir raised his eyebrows. "I'm not sure I like this whole attack business with you, Hel, and Yuki being gone. The eight of us should be together."
Aryan's grin only widened. "My dear cousin, have you lost faith in us? Yuki and Helen are good at what they do. Besides, even the Council will be hard-pressed to attack us so openly. And if they do...well. There is a reason I'm taking the two of them."
Alarica sighed, rubbing Mikhail's feathers as she trudged along, ignoring the people around her as she wandered about. The day of the restaurant incident still had Alarica fussy with Leora, but she'd get over it eventually. Besides, she shouldn't have taken that letter with her in the first place. She should have thrown it away like she had originally planned but...she sighed softly, releasing her familiar and watched as he flew ahead of her. She didn't need to be thinking of such things at the moment, and needed a way to just forget about it.
"Where are you Kiki," she mused to herself. She should find her brother, and the two of them could perhaps do something to get her mind off of things. She wasn't really counting on it, however; it would be a start. Soon enough, she found his scent and smiled slightly, following it until she found him playing chess with Aryan. She tilted her head gently to the side before setting it right again and walked up to them, sitting in the middle as she watched on. She had caught the last tail of their conversation and gave them a quizzical look.
"Arty's leaving? Huh, who ever is going to be my dance partner now," she stated, feigning a mock hurt look in the process. She rolled her eyes at the notion though and sighed a bit softly. "I take it there is a planned attack, and no one cared to inform me? I feel left out of the family guys," she stated, though in all honesty, she could care less about it. If there was something truly important, then she would have found out either way. She, too, was Morgan's daughter, and a bit resourceful when it came to information.
Aryan's violet eyes swiveled to Alarica. "Actually, I only just told Keir, he was to relay the information, but since you are here...yes, there is an attack, on the town here in three days time. In two days, Yuki, Helen, and I are going to the Council, I've been summoned. There is, without a doubt, no mere coincidence that we're separated like that. There are also two hit-men coming to the attack, so stay on your guard. Two hit-men generally mean two targets, and what better way to take out twins?"
The warning was unnecessary, of course, but Aryan would still say it. The twins were some of the youngest in the family, aside from Leora, but that did not mean they were to be taken lightly. Indeed, the twins, while together, were probably some of the most frightening forces the family had at their disposal.
Keir rolled his eyes. He'd been watching over his shoulder since he was five years old, when he'd watched his father tear through an entire five man team of hit-men, along with an army of Level E's. He'd been a little surprised, honestly, that someone would want him dead, but then, at five, he hadn't really understood just how...odd he and his sister were.
"Now I feel as though you lost faith in us, Ary." He glanced at his twin. "Tell me you have an idea, I'm bored as hell over here."
She sighed, slumping her shoulders in the process. Of course there would be hit-men, there were always hit-men sent to either kill, or attempt to kidnap, someone of the family. Leora perhaps had a higher count of kidnap attempts than all of them put together, but still, it was nothing new. Alarica waved a hand in front of her, dismissing the notion in the process. She and Keir had always lived as such, watching their backs and waiting for someone who was foolish enough to try and attack them. Their father was a bit scary when it came to his family, but their mother...now if there was anyone Alarica was afraid of, it would be her mother.
She shivered at the thought before banishing it. "Well dear brother mine, I do not. I was hoping you had an idea," she replied in an equally bored tone. She wasn't necessarily bored, but she did need something to vent on. And if that required blowing something up again, or terrorizing one of the pure-bloods of the Academy, then so be it, however; her eyes wandered towards her cousin and she smirked. "When was the last time we did something, Arty?" she stated more than questioned. There was a hint of something playful behind her eyes when she stated those words.
Aryan blinked owlishly at his cousin. "Well, that would be entirely dependent on what exactly you mean by something. If you mean the last time we destroyed something, it certainly has been a long time. If you mean more domestic matters, it's probably been even longer."
Keir cocked an eyebrow at his cousin. The guy had such a weird way of speaking. Though, he supposed that was why he handled the paper side of the war. He was good at what he did.
Alarica rose an eyebrow at his statement and frowned just slightly. He was right, the last time they did something destructive, it was about a few months ago. His next sentence sent a smirk across her features as she stood from her spot, walking so that she was next to Aryan and abruptly placed herself in his lap, not before pulling the chair out a bit so that they both could fit. Her grin only grew as she wrapped both of her arms around his neck and held him at an arms distance. His statement could be taken in so many ways, and they were both well aware of it. Smirk still plastered on her face, she leaned in close, so that their noses were just a hairbreadth apart from each other.
"Well, Arty," she began, drawing small circles across his chest in the process. "If it's something more domestic, I'm sure we could find something to occupy ourselves with," she finished. She was merely teasing, she did not think of Aryan that way. As a matter of fact, there was no one she ever thought of that way besides him, and that thought alone caused her frown to replace her grin. As it faltered, she removed herself from Aryan's lap and grasped his hand, pulling him up in the process.
"A dance will have to do. Kiki, you can join too," she stated, grabbing her brother's arm in the process and pulled the two of them along.
Aryan smirked at his cousin when she crawled into his lap. He looked at her in amusement, even more so when her smile suddenly faltered. Ah, he knew that look. Still, for the moment, he kept his mouth shut.
When she dragged him and Keir out of the room, he chuckled softly. "Now, wouldn't you rather dance with my brother, Lala? I know he's not quite as adept as it as I am, but still...we are both Jasper's sons."
Keir let out a bark of laughter. "She doesn't have the guts to say anything, she has to make do with us. Though, three-way dancing tends to get kind of awkward." At that, he spun away from his sister, avoiding her fist. He waggled a finger at her. "Ah, ah, ah. You just enjoy your little dance, Lala."
Aryan von Nacht sighed through his nose. He stood with his arms crossed, Helen on his right, Yuki on his left, both slightly behind him. Currently the three of them stood in front of a large, heavily solid oak door, intricate symbols and various patterns carved into the ancient wood. They were waiting to be let in, and finally, a young woman, a high-ranking Noble, from what Aryan could tell, came over, opening the door for them after saying, "The Council will see you now, my Lord."
Aryan had to fight not to flinch. He hated that title, given to him simply because he'd been born. Still, as the door opened slowly, his face became a solid mask, his mouth nothing more than a line, his eyes dark, unreadable. He walked forward, the room inside dark and circular. There was a single chair in the center of the room, in which Aryan sat. Directly in front of him was the Head of the Council, Balron Baelor, one of the eldest Pure Bloods alive at the moment. There had been rumors that he was an Ancient, but Aryan knew better. He was not, and was actually an off-shoot of the von Nacht line, if distantly at best. Flanking him were the Minamoto sons, brothers born about a year apart, also Pure Bloods. Trevor and Tyler, if Aryan had his information right. The remaining six were mostly pawns of the others, some Nobles, one or two also Pure Bloods. Two of them were members from back when his own father was on the Council.
Balron looked down his nose at the von Nacht. "Aryan von Nacht. Thank you for coming, however; we did not expect you to come with others."
Aryan kept his face the same stoic mask. He inclined his head slightly. "One can never be too careful in such times. I can ask them to step out, if you would so prefer, though...I would feel so inclined to ask that you do the same." The Pure Blood reffered to the men who were lurking in the shadows. They were well hidden, but Aryan himself was the shadows; they would brook no hiding place from him. Balron's eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, but then returned to a stoic mask similiar to Aryan's.
He waved his hand, resuming his seat. "No, no, of course not. They may stay. Now, let us begin, shall we?"
Helen kept one of her hands on the hilt of her wakizashi, which she wore at her waist. Her odachi was so long (and she so small) that there was no other way to wear it save at her back. She was dressed, as usual, in the fashion of a male, in this case in a suit, as were most of the Council members. The women, of course, wore gowns for the most part, but she unlike Yuki found no preference for articles in any way feminine or skin-baring. Even this was not ideal, but at least it was easier to move in than the alternative. Had it not been for the very delicate structure of her face, she might have even been mistaken for a boy, if a child.
Her eyes were the only part of her that was not perfectly still. She watched the shadows occasionally shift, and located the people inside them, but most of her time was spent observing the Council proper. The soldiers would not move without some kind of signal from one of them, after all. Of all those present, only two were not outright hostile to the von Nachts and the rest of their extended family—Deirdre Florina was an old friend and ally of Jasper’s, and she was showing some signs of strain under her neutral expression. With Edyta’s death, she knew her own life was in danger as well, but she would not leave the Council. The other was Edmund Snowe, a noble of high rank, who curiously had yet to express any opinion at all on war-related matters, as though he were still making up his mind. He was a wild card, but unlike most of these people, he had a child at Cross, a very young one named Elizabeth.
He probably disapproved of the fact that there was to be an attack so close to the place, if indeed he even knew. Mostly, she watched Baelor and the Minamotos, as they were by far the most dangerous of the lot, and the most likely to hire mercenaries to do something like this. Her face betrayed nothing, blank as an empty canvas. Few of these people knew who she was—the Pantheon did not advertise its failures, not even to its allies.
Baelor’s glance did flicker to her, though, and then to Yuki, though he seemed fundamentally disinterested in both of them. Why should he be? They were weapons, really, and he had plenty of those already. Instead, his wine-red eyes settled on Aryan, and he tilted his head faintly to one side, smiling just faintly, though it was hard to say what was behind the gesture, save that it was nothing kind. “I’ll not mince words, Lord von Nacht. What we want is simple, and what we have always wanted: the cessation of your extended family’s involvement in the war effort with the Hunters. The Council was elected for a reason, and that reason was to handle the affairs of our species as a whole. Our will represents the will of our kind, and though we do not wish further hostility with such as your family, we cannot and will not abide their efforts to thwart us.”
He raised one shoulder in a lofty shrug. “I realize, of course, that this decision is not wholly yours to make, but I do understand that you can be convincing when the occasion calls for it, and I don’t think I need to waste the breath expressing upon you just how beneficial to your family it will be if you turn that talent to this purpose.” Helen tensed, easing her sword just a little out of its sheath with her thumb, too subtly for anyone who wasn’t directly watching her to notice. That was a threat—if Aryan refused (and she had no doubt that he would refuse), this was not going to end well.
Yuki tensed just as Helen did. Aryan had hit the nail on the head with this one. She kept her eyes on Baelor as her brother spoke. His posture was relaxed, his head resting on his hand, propped up by his elbow on the arm of the chair. He listened placidly, his eyes just barely narrowing.
This was not the first time that they had made this request, however; the was the first time with such an open threat. He allowed a small smile to grace his face before he banished it. "Councilman Baelor, I believe my father made it more than clear that we, as a whole, would not remove ourselves the first time you asked him of this, nigh on a century ago." He was acutely aware of the spark in Balron's crimson eyes, however; Aryan continued. "One might wonder just what exactly is the reasoning we have to acknowledge your request? Surely there must be something else you would be willing to offer other than cooperation."
It had not been said, of course, but by saying it himself, he'd put Baelor in the position that he would look rather foolish -if not outright making a declaration of war against the von Nacht family- if he denied any form of cooperation. Yuki's eyes flickered to her brother, wondering exactly what he was getting at. She then glanced to her direct left, at the vacant seat. Edyta's seat. He couldn't possibly...
Helen imagined that if the devil smiled, it would look something like Baelor’s did in that moment. It was actually reminiscent of Theodor’s, and she did not like it at all. Her jaw tightened, the only evidence of her discomfort with this. She could tell what was going on—Balon and Aryan had just simultaneously sprung their traps, each believing that the arrangement would end up being more beneficial for himself than the other. It was hard to tell which of them was a mastermind and which a fool—perhaps both were each. She didn’t like where it was going, but it was not her decision to make, nor was it hers to question.
“As a matter of fact, there is. Councilwoman Florina proposed something quite interesting at our last emergency session, though I admit I did not think it would appeal. Your father did insist that the von Nachts do not seek power, after all, but perhaps if his son is more reasonable, then the Councilwoman will have been correct after all. Deirdre?” The slight on the family was not unnoticed, but then there wasn’t really anything they could do about it.
Lady Florina looked slightly uncomfortable, and certainly not pleased to be addressed by her first name, but she knew the steps in this dance as well as anyone. Indeed, better than most. “As you may be aware, Lord von Nacht, one of the seats of the esteemed Council was recently most tragically vacated. I have suggested that, if indeed the von Nacths and their family wish to have a greater amount of influence over the way that the governance of their people is run, then one of them should assume the empty chair. I do believe it would be most to your talents than those of your relatives, and to this end, I formally nominated you for the position yesterday. The Council is in agreement for the posting, should you want it.” She honestly wasn’t sure if she’d done the young man a favor or condemned him, but it was all she could do for them.
Aryan's eyes flickered over to the councilwoman. So, she had put his name forward. She'd been a family friend since his father was a boy, though she'd been hard-pressed to help them of late. That was nothing Aryan held against her, she had her own family to look after. Silently, Aryan considered his options. To refuse was almost tantamount to a declaration of war, but to accept was almost tantamount to suicide. Silently, he counted no less than thirty men lurking about the shadows. His eyes narrowed, a bare flicker of movement.
Neither of them had the upper hand, and Aryan was not fool enough to think that he did, but also, neither did Baelor, though he did have a slight advantage. Still, much could be gained if this was handled carefully, and Aryan von Nacht was nothing if not cautious.
Aryan leaned forward, placing the tips of his fingers together as he brought his hands in front of his face. "Perhaps then I should reiterate what my father said before. The von Nacht line, as it stands now, does not desire such power. I cannot, however, speak for those before my father." He paused, knowing that he danced a dangerous waltz, but he was not yet finished. "As for you suggestion and offer, I believe that much can be gained by such an arrangement, and as such, I accept your offer, if it stands true that no one holds any objections."
He chose his words carefully. Let Baelor believe he had the advantage, that he was walking in blindly. It would make his task all the easier when the time came, and also make him less likely to be watched. Still, it was not overly concerning if he was watched. Aryan had plenty of methods at his disposal. "As for our withdrawal, if you truly wish, I can try to speak to my father on behalf of the Council. Was there anything else, Councilman?"
Yuki's mouth tightened. She didn't like this, not at all, but she had to trust that Aryan knew what he was doing. She had to, and besides, he would never be alone. If she was not with him, the Helen would be. Of that, she was positive.
“Nothing, Councilman von Nacht,” Baelor replied simply, still smiling, though the glint in his eyes was hard. “Welcome to the Council of Ten.”
Aryan had to fight not to flinch. He hated that title, given to him simply because he'd been born. Still, as the door opened slowly, his face became a solid mask, his mouth nothing more than a line, his eyes dark, unreadable. He walked forward, the room inside dark and circular. There was a single chair in the center of the room, in which Aryan sat. Directly in front of him was the Head of the Council, Balron Baelor, one of the eldest Pure Bloods alive at the moment. There had been rumors that he was an Ancient, but Aryan knew better. He was not, and was actually an off-shoot of the von Nacht line, if distantly at best. Flanking him were the Minamoto sons, brothers born about a year apart, also Pure Bloods. Trevor and Tyler, if Aryan had his information right. The remaining six were mostly pawns of the others, some Nobles, one or two also Pure Bloods. Two of them were members from back when his own father was on the Council.
Balron looked down his nose at the von Nacht. "Aryan von Nacht. Thank you for coming, however; we did not expect you to come with others."
Aryan kept his face the same stoic mask. He inclined his head slightly. "One can never be too careful in such times. I can ask them to step out, if you would so prefer, though...I would feel so inclined to ask that you do the same." The Pure Blood reffered to the men who were lurking in the shadows. They were well hidden, but Aryan himself was the shadows; they would brook no hiding place from him. Balron's eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, but then returned to a stoic mask similiar to Aryan's.
He waved his hand, resuming his seat. "No, no, of course not. They may stay. Now, let us begin, shall we?"
Helen kept one of her hands on the hilt of her wakizashi, which she wore at her waist. Her odachi was so long (and she so small) that there was no other way to wear it save at her back. She was dressed, as usual, in the fashion of a male, in this case in a suit, as were most of the Council members. The women, of course, wore gowns for the most part, but she unlike Yuki found no preference for articles in any way feminine or skin-baring. Even this was not ideal, but at least it was easier to move in than the alternative. Had it not been for the very delicate structure of her face, she might have even been mistaken for a boy, if a child.
Her eyes were the only part of her that was not perfectly still. She watched the shadows occasionally shift, and located the people inside them, but most of her time was spent observing the Council proper. The soldiers would not move without some kind of signal from one of them, after all. Of all those present, only two were not outright hostile to the von Nachts and the rest of their extended family—Deirdre Florina was an old friend and ally of Jasper’s, and she was showing some signs of strain under her neutral expression. With Edyta’s death, she knew her own life was in danger as well, but she would not leave the Council. The other was Edmund Snowe, a noble of high rank, who curiously had yet to express any opinion at all on war-related matters, as though he were still making up his mind. He was a wild card, but unlike most of these people, he had a child at Cross, a very young one named Elizabeth.
He probably disapproved of the fact that there was to be an attack so close to the place, if indeed he even knew. Mostly, she watched Baelor and the Minamotos, as they were by far the most dangerous of the lot, and the most likely to hire mercenaries to do something like this. Her face betrayed nothing, blank as an empty canvas. Few of these people knew who she was—the Pantheon did not advertise its failures, not even to its allies.
Baelor’s glance did flicker to her, though, and then to Yuki, though he seemed fundamentally disinterested in both of them. Why should he be? They were weapons, really, and he had plenty of those already. Instead, his wine-red eyes settled on Aryan, and he tilted his head faintly to one side, smiling just faintly, though it was hard to say what was behind the gesture, save that it was nothing kind. “I’ll not mince words, Lord von Nacht. What we want is simple, and what we have always wanted: the cessation of your extended family’s involvement in the war effort with the Hunters. The Council was elected for a reason, and that reason was to handle the affairs of our species as a whole. Our will represents the will of our kind, and though we do not wish further hostility with such as your family, we cannot and will not abide their efforts to thwart us.”
He raised one shoulder in a lofty shrug. “I realize, of course, that this decision is not wholly yours to make, but I do understand that you can be convincing when the occasion calls for it, and I don’t think I need to waste the breath expressing upon you just how beneficial to your family it will be if you turn that talent to this purpose.” Helen tensed, easing her sword just a little out of its sheath with her thumb, too subtly for anyone who wasn’t directly watching her to notice. That was a threat—if Aryan refused (and she had no doubt that he would refuse), this was not going to end well.
Yuki tensed just as Helen did. Aryan had hit the nail on the head with this one. She kept her eyes on Baelor as her brother spoke. His posture was relaxed, his head resting on his hand, propped up by his elbow on the arm of the chair. He listened placidly, his eyes just barely narrowing.
This was not the first time that they had made this request, however; the was the first time with such an open threat. He allowed a small smile to grace his face before he banished it. "Councilman Baelor, I believe my father made it more than clear that we, as a whole, would not remove ourselves the first time you asked him of this, nigh on a century ago." He was acutely aware of the spark in Balron's crimson eyes, however; Aryan continued. "One might wonder just what exactly is the reasoning we have to acknowledge your request? Surely there must be something else you would be willing to offer other than cooperation."
It had not been said, of course, but by saying it himself, he'd put Baelor in the position that he would look rather foolish -if not outright making a declaration of war against the von Nacht family- if he denied any form of cooperation. Yuki's eyes flickered to her brother, wondering exactly what he was getting at. She then glanced to her direct left, at the vacant seat. Edyta's seat. He couldn't possibly...
Helen imagined that if the devil smiled, it would look something like Baelor’s did in that moment. It was actually reminiscent of Theodor’s, and she did not like it at all. Her jaw tightened, the only evidence of her discomfort with this. She could tell what was going on—Balon and Aryan had just simultaneously sprung their traps, each believing that the arrangement would end up being more beneficial for himself than the other. It was hard to tell which of them was a mastermind and which a fool—perhaps both were each. She didn’t like where it was going, but it was not her decision to make, nor was it hers to question.
“As a matter of fact, there is. Councilwoman Florina proposed something quite interesting at our last emergency session, though I admit I did not think it would appeal. Your father did insist that the von Nachts do not seek power, after all, but perhaps if his son is more reasonable, then the Councilwoman will have been correct after all. Deirdre?” The slight on the family was not unnoticed, but then there wasn’t really anything they could do about it.
Lady Florina looked slightly uncomfortable, and certainly not pleased to be addressed by her first name, but she knew the steps in this dance as well as anyone. Indeed, better than most. “As you may be aware, Lord von Nacht, one of the seats of the esteemed Council was recently most tragically vacated. I have suggested that, if indeed the von Nacths and their family wish to have a greater amount of influence over the way that the governance of their people is run, then one of them should assume the empty chair. I do believe it would be most to your talents than those of your relatives, and to this end, I formally nominated you for the position yesterday. The Council is in agreement for the posting, should you want it.” She honestly wasn’t sure if she’d done the young man a favor or condemned him, but it was all she could do for them.
Aryan's eyes flickered over to the councilwoman. So, she had put his name forward. She'd been a family friend since his father was a boy, though she'd been hard-pressed to help them of late. That was nothing Aryan held against her, she had her own family to look after. Silently, Aryan considered his options. To refuse was almost tantamount to a declaration of war, but to accept was almost tantamount to suicide. Silently, he counted no less than thirty men lurking about the shadows. His eyes narrowed, a bare flicker of movement.
Neither of them had the upper hand, and Aryan was not fool enough to think that he did, but also, neither did Baelor, though he did have a slight advantage. Still, much could be gained if this was handled carefully, and Aryan von Nacht was nothing if not cautious.
Aryan leaned forward, placing the tips of his fingers together as he brought his hands in front of his face. "Perhaps then I should reiterate what my father said before. The von Nacht line, as it stands now, does not desire such power. I cannot, however, speak for those before my father." He paused, knowing that he danced a dangerous waltz, but he was not yet finished. "As for you suggestion and offer, I believe that much can be gained by such an arrangement, and as such, I accept your offer, if it stands true that no one holds any objections."
He chose his words carefully. Let Baelor believe he had the advantage, that he was walking in blindly. It would make his task all the easier when the time came, and also make him less likely to be watched. Still, it was not overly concerning if he was watched. Aryan had plenty of methods at his disposal. "As for our withdrawal, if you truly wish, I can try to speak to my father on behalf of the Council. Was there anything else, Councilman?"
Yuki's mouth tightened. She didn't like this, not at all, but she had to trust that Aryan knew what he was doing. She had to, and besides, he would never be alone. If she was not with him, the Helen would be. Of that, she was positive.
“Nothing, Councilman von Nacht,” Baelor replied simply, still smiling, though the glint in his eyes was hard. “Welcome to the Council of Ten.”
The day had been relatively peaceful, Zero was out sitting underneath the tree with his head resting against Alarica's lap. She had went to find her cousin for a conversation that lead to one thing and they had sat in silence for the remainder of the time. She combed her fingers through his hair, and if one were not part of their family, it would seem as if the two were quite intimate. This was far from it actually. The two just had a common interest, or rather common interest in the same von Nacht children. He sighed softly through his nose, his seafoam blue eyes opening in a half-lidded gaze as Alarica kept her Amaranthe colored optics closed.
"We're hopeless are we not?" he stated, chuckling lightly in the process as he sat up, removing himself from his comfort and rolled so that he was sitting next to her. Mikhail sat in the tree branch above them, glancing down at his master and her cousin, humming softly to himself as he puffed out his feathers a bit. This form was growing weary on him, but he couldn't shift into his true form. Not because he would expose a secret, because by now most humans knew of the vampiric world, but more-so because Alarica had told him not to unless absolutely necessary. And right now, there was no reason to do so.
"Possibly," Alarica replied, finally cracking one eye open before opening the other one. "At least you don't have much of a problem. Yuki, she..." she paused stopping herself in her sentence and shaking her head. It wasn't her place to say anything about Yuki's feelings; that was for the snow-white haired girl to do at her own leisure. "Zero," she was about to say something else when a scent hit her nose, both she and Zero's face turning towards the source. There was a large cloud of smoke rising from the area of the town not too far from where they were, and the town she and her female cousins had just visited.
"Mikhail," was the only word spoken as the snow white owl descended from the tree, his form twisting and contorting until he was about half the size of the Academy. Alarica glanced towards Zero, he nodding in understanding as they both jumped upon Mikhail's neck. The dragon flapped his wings, sending a gust of air coursing through the grounds as he took off. It was only a matter of minutes before they reached the town, people screaming and running wildly amongst each other. Alarica frowned at the scene. There were vampires, Level E's to be exact, attacking humans, draining some of them while other vampires, like Noble's were also attacking.
"Well, if I didn't say this looked like a banquet, I'd say it looks like a feast. Shall we indulge, dear cousin?" he stated, pulling out Ragnarok in the process. He knew with the rumbling of the explosion, and the black smoke littering the air, the others wouldn't be far behind. Alarica merely smirked, pulling her mother's trademark weapon from her back, and pointed Ulrik at the first vampire that came their way. Mikhail by this time was crunching away on Level E's, trying to keep a majority away from the humans.
Alucard raised his head as he watched Mikhail fly towards the direction of the town. He looked up at his master, who gave the barest flicker of a nod. With almost something akin to glee, the wolf shifted, matching a form of the snow white dragon, but with scales the color of topaz and sapphires.
Keir himself turned to his cousins before going to stand on Alucard's head, his arms crossed. "Looks like it's showtime." Alucard gave them enough time to climb on if they so wished before taking to the sky himself. The dragon let out a roar as he descended upon the town, taking out a few level E's as he stepped on them when landing. Keir let out a mad cackle, leaping from his familiar's head. When he hit the ground, he rolled, coming up with a clawed hand in the face of a Noble.
Keir squeezed, the man's windpipe bursting. Blood splattered into his snow-white hair, his eyes gleaming silver. His grin grew wider still as he licked his hand clean, taking off to take out more Level E's.
When the smell of smoke hit Leora and Balthasar, they were both outside, in a tree, actually, playing cards of all things on one of the branches. They were usually doing something else while they talked, and Leo had gone through a bit of a card-shark phase as a child, when she was still trying to find her niche in such a big family. He’d indulged every one of these weird new hobbies with a rare patience, and this one at least had stuck. She’d just beaten him again at a modified two-person poker, because he was hopeless at lying, and she was very, very good at it.
She swooped the cards up and stowed them in a pocket just as Keir arrived, standing on Alucard’s head, and she smirked when he gave them the opportunity to ride. She actually would have enjoyed it, but she enjoyed doing the unexpected more, and so she shook her head. “Thanks, but I travel by human bullet. Balthasar?” She glanced at her cousin, who shook his head and sighed slightly, but nevertheless, when she ran to the edge of the branch and jumped off, he followed immediately after, catching her in midair and warping several gravity fields around them so that they did, indeed, take off like a shot.
The feeling of flight was utterly euphoric, but sadly it was not to last long, and as they approached the town, they adjusted positions so that she hung beneath him vertically, held in place by a mutual grip on one another’s forearms. “There!” she told him, and he swept in low, dropping her right on top of a knot of level E’s about to tear into some frightened humans. The fall didn’t even halt her, and she broke into a smooth run, throwing her hand forward and smirking when the ambient static in the air coalesced into a bolt of lightning, hitting several level E’s and making them extra crispy. The fire would have to be dealt with though, and even as she was thinking it, the storm clouds started to gather and roll in over head. She loved being able to decide the weather.
Balthasar, on the other hand, swept himself into the middle of the largest knot of vampires he could find, his mouth set in a grim line as twin bursts of flames erupted from his arms. The flames, unlike the more conventional kinds of pyrokinesis, were perfectly white, and it didn’t take them long to eat through anything that wasn’t him, even considering the soft rainfall that was now pouring down over the town—Leo’s work, no doubt.
Zero had just managed to snap a Level E's neck in half when the cavalry arrived, a smirk adorning his features as the rain began to fall. Mikhail smiled a bit, using the opportunity to freeze a few vampires in place as Alarica swung her blade in a wild like manner, though it was with precision that she wielded the blade. Zero cracked his neck before twisting his body away from a pair of clawed hands, glancing into the eyes of a Noble vampire. Something like a scoff escaped his lips as he grabbed hold of the arm, twisting it until he heard a satisfied pop, and dislocated the vampire's elbow before ripping the arm from its socket.
He then swung the arm at the vampire, smacking the noble in the face with his own hand before kicking him to the side and attacking another vampire. Alarica managed a downward swing, cleaving a Level E in half in the process. A spark filtered through her eyes as she watched the others arrive, momentarily forgetting her inferiority complex and smirked in their direction. She executed a roundhouse kick towards a vampire that lunged from behind her, breaking their jaw in the process. The vampiress hissed as she clawed at her broken jaw, trying to place it back, however; Alarica did not give her the time nor pleasure of being able to do so.
"Come now, and here I was expecting more of a challenge," she stated, a hint of malicious glee coating her words. Mikhail merely sighed at his master's enthusiasm for the battle, and tried to keep the humans he coralled safely tucked behind him. He managed to create a barrier between them and the vampires, allowing the surviving humans to retreat and escape with their lives. The humans unfortunate enough to lose their lives were being burned and mangled due to the overwhelming number of vampires ascending the field.
"Don't jinx yourself there, cousin," Zero stated as he fired a shot at a vampire that had managed to come up behind Alarica. She merely smirked before taking off towards another vampire. Zero shook his head, jumping so that he was beside his sister now and helping her clear out some of the vampires. "It's a good thing we sparred," he chided alongside Leora as he twisted his body, bringing his leg behind him and kicking a vampire away from Leora. "Ah, I don't think so. My sister is not on the menu," he stated as he ran after the vampire.
Across the battlefield from his twin, Keir was a veritable demon, tearing through his enemies with his bare hands. The boy had never taken to weapons, much prefering hand-to-hand combat. The blue patches of scales on his body had shifted, covering his entire upper torso and arms, stopping at his neck. It gave him a very lizard-like appearance, and his maniacal grin only made it worse.
Keir spun, his enemies dropping around him like flies, the Alistair laughing madly all the while. Alucard, on the other hand, had been keeping an eye out. He was still munching on quite a few level E's of course, but there were hitmen on the prowl, and Aryan had surmised that they were after the Twins. Too late, he saw something go after Alarica. The blue dragon lifted his head and roared, mentally connecting to Keir, Alarica, and Mikhail.
Keir spun, his ice blue eyes immeditely zoning in on his sister, his lips pulling back in a vehement snarl. He made to go to her, however, his path was cut off by the second assassin. Keir had dropped to all fours, a hiss escaping him. This vampire was preventing him from going to his twin, and he did not like that, not one bit.
"We're hopeless are we not?" he stated, chuckling lightly in the process as he sat up, removing himself from his comfort and rolled so that he was sitting next to her. Mikhail sat in the tree branch above them, glancing down at his master and her cousin, humming softly to himself as he puffed out his feathers a bit. This form was growing weary on him, but he couldn't shift into his true form. Not because he would expose a secret, because by now most humans knew of the vampiric world, but more-so because Alarica had told him not to unless absolutely necessary. And right now, there was no reason to do so.
"Possibly," Alarica replied, finally cracking one eye open before opening the other one. "At least you don't have much of a problem. Yuki, she..." she paused stopping herself in her sentence and shaking her head. It wasn't her place to say anything about Yuki's feelings; that was for the snow-white haired girl to do at her own leisure. "Zero," she was about to say something else when a scent hit her nose, both she and Zero's face turning towards the source. There was a large cloud of smoke rising from the area of the town not too far from where they were, and the town she and her female cousins had just visited.
"Mikhail," was the only word spoken as the snow white owl descended from the tree, his form twisting and contorting until he was about half the size of the Academy. Alarica glanced towards Zero, he nodding in understanding as they both jumped upon Mikhail's neck. The dragon flapped his wings, sending a gust of air coursing through the grounds as he took off. It was only a matter of minutes before they reached the town, people screaming and running wildly amongst each other. Alarica frowned at the scene. There were vampires, Level E's to be exact, attacking humans, draining some of them while other vampires, like Noble's were also attacking.
"Well, if I didn't say this looked like a banquet, I'd say it looks like a feast. Shall we indulge, dear cousin?" he stated, pulling out Ragnarok in the process. He knew with the rumbling of the explosion, and the black smoke littering the air, the others wouldn't be far behind. Alarica merely smirked, pulling her mother's trademark weapon from her back, and pointed Ulrik at the first vampire that came their way. Mikhail by this time was crunching away on Level E's, trying to keep a majority away from the humans.
Alucard raised his head as he watched Mikhail fly towards the direction of the town. He looked up at his master, who gave the barest flicker of a nod. With almost something akin to glee, the wolf shifted, matching a form of the snow white dragon, but with scales the color of topaz and sapphires.
Keir himself turned to his cousins before going to stand on Alucard's head, his arms crossed. "Looks like it's showtime." Alucard gave them enough time to climb on if they so wished before taking to the sky himself. The dragon let out a roar as he descended upon the town, taking out a few level E's as he stepped on them when landing. Keir let out a mad cackle, leaping from his familiar's head. When he hit the ground, he rolled, coming up with a clawed hand in the face of a Noble.
Keir squeezed, the man's windpipe bursting. Blood splattered into his snow-white hair, his eyes gleaming silver. His grin grew wider still as he licked his hand clean, taking off to take out more Level E's.
When the smell of smoke hit Leora and Balthasar, they were both outside, in a tree, actually, playing cards of all things on one of the branches. They were usually doing something else while they talked, and Leo had gone through a bit of a card-shark phase as a child, when she was still trying to find her niche in such a big family. He’d indulged every one of these weird new hobbies with a rare patience, and this one at least had stuck. She’d just beaten him again at a modified two-person poker, because he was hopeless at lying, and she was very, very good at it.
She swooped the cards up and stowed them in a pocket just as Keir arrived, standing on Alucard’s head, and she smirked when he gave them the opportunity to ride. She actually would have enjoyed it, but she enjoyed doing the unexpected more, and so she shook her head. “Thanks, but I travel by human bullet. Balthasar?” She glanced at her cousin, who shook his head and sighed slightly, but nevertheless, when she ran to the edge of the branch and jumped off, he followed immediately after, catching her in midair and warping several gravity fields around them so that they did, indeed, take off like a shot.
The feeling of flight was utterly euphoric, but sadly it was not to last long, and as they approached the town, they adjusted positions so that she hung beneath him vertically, held in place by a mutual grip on one another’s forearms. “There!” she told him, and he swept in low, dropping her right on top of a knot of level E’s about to tear into some frightened humans. The fall didn’t even halt her, and she broke into a smooth run, throwing her hand forward and smirking when the ambient static in the air coalesced into a bolt of lightning, hitting several level E’s and making them extra crispy. The fire would have to be dealt with though, and even as she was thinking it, the storm clouds started to gather and roll in over head. She loved being able to decide the weather.
Balthasar, on the other hand, swept himself into the middle of the largest knot of vampires he could find, his mouth set in a grim line as twin bursts of flames erupted from his arms. The flames, unlike the more conventional kinds of pyrokinesis, were perfectly white, and it didn’t take them long to eat through anything that wasn’t him, even considering the soft rainfall that was now pouring down over the town—Leo’s work, no doubt.
Zero had just managed to snap a Level E's neck in half when the cavalry arrived, a smirk adorning his features as the rain began to fall. Mikhail smiled a bit, using the opportunity to freeze a few vampires in place as Alarica swung her blade in a wild like manner, though it was with precision that she wielded the blade. Zero cracked his neck before twisting his body away from a pair of clawed hands, glancing into the eyes of a Noble vampire. Something like a scoff escaped his lips as he grabbed hold of the arm, twisting it until he heard a satisfied pop, and dislocated the vampire's elbow before ripping the arm from its socket.
He then swung the arm at the vampire, smacking the noble in the face with his own hand before kicking him to the side and attacking another vampire. Alarica managed a downward swing, cleaving a Level E in half in the process. A spark filtered through her eyes as she watched the others arrive, momentarily forgetting her inferiority complex and smirked in their direction. She executed a roundhouse kick towards a vampire that lunged from behind her, breaking their jaw in the process. The vampiress hissed as she clawed at her broken jaw, trying to place it back, however; Alarica did not give her the time nor pleasure of being able to do so.
"Come now, and here I was expecting more of a challenge," she stated, a hint of malicious glee coating her words. Mikhail merely sighed at his master's enthusiasm for the battle, and tried to keep the humans he coralled safely tucked behind him. He managed to create a barrier between them and the vampires, allowing the surviving humans to retreat and escape with their lives. The humans unfortunate enough to lose their lives were being burned and mangled due to the overwhelming number of vampires ascending the field.
"Don't jinx yourself there, cousin," Zero stated as he fired a shot at a vampire that had managed to come up behind Alarica. She merely smirked before taking off towards another vampire. Zero shook his head, jumping so that he was beside his sister now and helping her clear out some of the vampires. "It's a good thing we sparred," he chided alongside Leora as he twisted his body, bringing his leg behind him and kicking a vampire away from Leora. "Ah, I don't think so. My sister is not on the menu," he stated as he ran after the vampire.
Across the battlefield from his twin, Keir was a veritable demon, tearing through his enemies with his bare hands. The boy had never taken to weapons, much prefering hand-to-hand combat. The blue patches of scales on his body had shifted, covering his entire upper torso and arms, stopping at his neck. It gave him a very lizard-like appearance, and his maniacal grin only made it worse.
Keir spun, his enemies dropping around him like flies, the Alistair laughing madly all the while. Alucard, on the other hand, had been keeping an eye out. He was still munching on quite a few level E's of course, but there were hitmen on the prowl, and Aryan had surmised that they were after the Twins. Too late, he saw something go after Alarica. The blue dragon lifted his head and roared, mentally connecting to Keir, Alarica, and Mikhail.
Alarica! Behind you!
Keir spun, his ice blue eyes immeditely zoning in on his sister, his lips pulling back in a vehement snarl. He made to go to her, however, his path was cut off by the second assassin. Keir had dropped to all fours, a hiss escaping him. This vampire was preventing him from going to his twin, and he did not like that, not one bit.
Mikhail was satisfied once a majority of the humans were safe, turning his attention then towards a pack of Level E vampires with a Noble leading them. With a swing of his tail, managed to knock them back, sending the group into another in the process, however; Alucard's voice fluttered through his mind, his blue eyes zoning in on his master. She was too far, and he was too large to move quickly enough to reach her. He did the only thing he could. His body shifted, contorting and twisting until he was but a small white owl once more. He shot off like a bullet train, his mind desparately trying to reach Alarica in time.
Alarica had been busy fending off a Noble vampire. He was a bit stronger than the rest, and if one were not able to distinguish between them, would have mistaken the Noble to be a pure-blood. She twisted Ulrik so that the flat of the blade had blocked his claws, however; she was startled slightly when he jumped back and ran. She made to follow him, however; she found herself paralyzed, glued to the spot she was in as Alucard's voice echoed through her mind. She turned, slowly, gazing into a pair of vermillion eyes. The vampire raised his Kusarigama. Her eyes widened, anger fluttering across her eyes as he brought his weapon down.
Blood splattered across her face, a wall of ice forming between her and the vampire that had attacked her. It was warm against her face, and the scent was somehow familiar. There was a sharp pain in her shoulder, climbing all the way down towards her chest, and blood pooled in the fashion of the mark. She fell to her knee's, clutching at the white creature in her hands as tears pooled into her eyes. The pain was unbearable, however; she chose not to focus on it right now; chose not to focus on the blearing of her vision nor the shouts and screams that came after it.
"Mikhail...Mikhail," she whispered, his blue eyes gleaming with happiness into her own amaranthe colored eyes. "Mikhail...what have you done? You stupid fool," she choked out, burrying her face into the plumage of his feathers. Mikhail smiled softly up at his master. He had no regrets, none if it meant he at least saved his master. He loved his master, he truly did, as he did the rest of her family. And dying for her was, and would be, his greatest honor. Nothing she could do now would be able to help him. His body was mangled, his blood, their blood, was pouring from his wounds.
"You wound me so," he joked, the light never leaving his eyes. "But, Alarica, I do not regret it. My life is but a mere flicker of a flame. Your's is much brighter than mine and will always be so. Do not grieve for me, I will be with you always," he spoke, reaching out with his good wing and placed it upon her face, wiping away the tears that were falling from her eyes. "Take care of the others for me will you? I love you my master. You are my master, my companion...my...friend," he spoke, his voice fading as his body glittered, bursting into a ball of golden light.
Alarica held onto him as tightly as she could, feeling his life fading as was hers. She was growing weaker every passing second, and the blood that poured from their shared wound continued to flow from her. She was shaking, her body trembling as she pulled Mikhail closer to her. "Don't leave me Mikhail, please don't leave me," she chanted. "I'm sorry Mikhail, please, don't go," she continued, rocking her body back as she stopped at his final words. Her eyes wide, tears falling freely of their own accord, she watched as his body disappeared from sight. He was gone. Mikhail was gone. Her familiar, her friend, was gone.
There was an ache in her chest, not from the wound, but from the fact that he was gone. She wouldn't be able to create him again. She wouldn't be able to see him again, argue with him, play with him, love him. He was gone. Mikhail was dead, and she would never see him again. "MIKHAIL!" she shouted, her anger, her sorrow, laced in every syllable of his name as her eyes rolled back, her body lurching forward as she fell to the ground. Her tears never stopped falling.
To say that twins had some sort of physical link between them that allowed them to feel each other's pain was simply absurd. Keir could not feel it when someone pinched his sister, but he always knew when something was wrong.
And something was certainly wrong. He heard her cry, her shout, the pain and sorrow laced through her tone, and he snarled. His vision blurred red, and he didn't bother to focus his sight on his oncoming attacker, instead allowing instinct to guide him, his claws swiping across the other vampire's eyes, sending him howling backwards. With a leap, the Alistair was on him, and he tore out his throat with a soft squelch.
Keir's silver orbs once again found his sister, this time, to see her lurch forward. While he had no major physical wounds himself, Keir could feel himself being drained. The dhampir took off, taking out any level E's that got in his way, finally making it to his twin. Mikhail was already gone, Alarica's wound healing, but slowly. Keir shut his eyes, his vision blurring. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you both." He whispered, a sharp pain in his chest as he, too, slumped over, the fingers of his hand on his twin's cheek.
Alucard's massive head swiveled over to his master and twin, the pain from both of them fiercely burning through him. However, he had little time to mourn. They were both unconscious, and there were still many vampires about. Alucard let out a snarl that turned into a howl as he, too shifted, and took out two level E's that had made for the twins. His lips pulled back in a bloody snarl, his wolf form standing protectively over his fallen master and twin.
For a second, the familiar bowed his head. Goodbye, my brother. I'll look after her, I promise.
Leora was honestly glad for her brother’s help. This was her first official battle, and it was no mere skirmish, either. Once the initial high of it had worn off, she felt herself faced with a very grim reality: she was ending lives. That, and the lives of those she loved most were in danger. These things alone would have been more than enough to curb her enthusiasm, but the fact that she was elbow-deep down a Level E’s throat didn't help matters any, and even when she tore out his windpipe through his mouth, she wondered if it was not perhaps the wrong thing to be doing.
But honestly, there was precious little time for contemplating. She had to survive, and so did they. So Leora jumped, scissor-kicking a Level C trying to make stealthily for Zero’s back. “And my brother is nobody’s victim,” she said, by way of reply to Zero’s comment to one of them that had been after her. She actually managed a wan smile, but it disappeared immediately afterwards when she heard Rica’s scream. Her eyes widening, and her expression shifting to one of horror, Leora snapped her head in the direction of the cry, just in time to see her cousin collapse, followed rather quickly by her brother.
The vampire that had nearly killed Rica was still nearby, and just about through the ice wall that Mikhail had generated in his last moments. She could see that Shiranui was there, but there were a lot of Level E’s around in addition to that mercenary. There was just no way she was going to let that go. Without really thinking about it much, Leora took off like a shot, leaving Balthasar to fill in her spot next to Zero, still focusing on keeping the main line of invaders at bay, though their ranks were thinning fast. He, too, was worried, but he trusted his little cousin to handle it. If she needed help, Leo was smart enough to ask for it, and they needed to cut off the flow of vampires.
Leo’s stride carried her right into the mercenary with the kusarigama, and she lowered her shoulder to hit him square in the chest as he made to swipe for Alucard, carrying him off his feet. Her teeth gritted together, she jumped back as he regained his feet, and they circled each other warily. He was pureblood, that was clear, and much older than she was, probably. Most of them were, after all. He was also considerably larger than her, but that wasn’t an advantage unless she let it be. He sniffed the air for a moment, then locked eyes with her and smiled hungrily. Damn, that got old fast. She was a person, not food, dammit! She sometimes wondered how her mother had ever gotten used to this.
He swung the chain part of the weapon, which she ducked, but the follow-up strike with the sickle was expert, and he was able to anticipate where she would be. It laid open a deep gash in her arm, which started to bleed immediately, the crimson liquid dripping to the ground in thick rivulets even as she healed. Even the short duration for which she bled was enough to kick the Level E’s into a frenzy, and she hoped Alucard had her back, because this was going to take all the focus she had. Overhead, her anger thickened the clouds, darkening them to a color almost black as pitch and darkening the town completely, but the lightning was in her eyes, and the red color of them was luminous even as it flashed above them, followed by a deep rumble of thunder.
The chain came at her again, but this time, she raised her hand, letting it thud into her palm. Hoping that she wasn’t about to kill herself, Leo did something perhaps best classed as reckless and possibly even stupid: she called the raw lightning to herself. It struck her, and set her nerve endings on fire. She screamed, but the chain she was holding was made of conductive metal, so she wasn’t the end point of the current, only a channel. Her foe was not nearly so lucky, and with nowhere else to go, the electricity discharged inside his body, effectively roasting his insides beyond the sort of repairs her own body was now putting her through. He burst into lights and floated away on the breeze.
Swaying but still standing, Leo tried to shake the black spots from in front of her eyes as her nervous system repaired itself. Eventually, the twitching died down, and she could see that the battle was doing the same. Her legs gave out, and she ended up on her rear end in front of her unconscious cousins. Sleep sounded like a really good idea right now, but she wasn’t about to let herself lose it until they made it back to Cross.
Alarica had been busy fending off a Noble vampire. He was a bit stronger than the rest, and if one were not able to distinguish between them, would have mistaken the Noble to be a pure-blood. She twisted Ulrik so that the flat of the blade had blocked his claws, however; she was startled slightly when he jumped back and ran. She made to follow him, however; she found herself paralyzed, glued to the spot she was in as Alucard's voice echoed through her mind. She turned, slowly, gazing into a pair of vermillion eyes. The vampire raised his Kusarigama. Her eyes widened, anger fluttering across her eyes as he brought his weapon down.
Blood splattered across her face, a wall of ice forming between her and the vampire that had attacked her. It was warm against her face, and the scent was somehow familiar. There was a sharp pain in her shoulder, climbing all the way down towards her chest, and blood pooled in the fashion of the mark. She fell to her knee's, clutching at the white creature in her hands as tears pooled into her eyes. The pain was unbearable, however; she chose not to focus on it right now; chose not to focus on the blearing of her vision nor the shouts and screams that came after it.
"Mikhail...Mikhail," she whispered, his blue eyes gleaming with happiness into her own amaranthe colored eyes. "Mikhail...what have you done? You stupid fool," she choked out, burrying her face into the plumage of his feathers. Mikhail smiled softly up at his master. He had no regrets, none if it meant he at least saved his master. He loved his master, he truly did, as he did the rest of her family. And dying for her was, and would be, his greatest honor. Nothing she could do now would be able to help him. His body was mangled, his blood, their blood, was pouring from his wounds.
"You wound me so," he joked, the light never leaving his eyes. "But, Alarica, I do not regret it. My life is but a mere flicker of a flame. Your's is much brighter than mine and will always be so. Do not grieve for me, I will be with you always," he spoke, reaching out with his good wing and placed it upon her face, wiping away the tears that were falling from her eyes. "Take care of the others for me will you? I love you my master. You are my master, my companion...my...friend," he spoke, his voice fading as his body glittered, bursting into a ball of golden light.
Alarica held onto him as tightly as she could, feeling his life fading as was hers. She was growing weaker every passing second, and the blood that poured from their shared wound continued to flow from her. She was shaking, her body trembling as she pulled Mikhail closer to her. "Don't leave me Mikhail, please don't leave me," she chanted. "I'm sorry Mikhail, please, don't go," she continued, rocking her body back as she stopped at his final words. Her eyes wide, tears falling freely of their own accord, she watched as his body disappeared from sight. He was gone. Mikhail was gone. Her familiar, her friend, was gone.
There was an ache in her chest, not from the wound, but from the fact that he was gone. She wouldn't be able to create him again. She wouldn't be able to see him again, argue with him, play with him, love him. He was gone. Mikhail was dead, and she would never see him again. "MIKHAIL!" she shouted, her anger, her sorrow, laced in every syllable of his name as her eyes rolled back, her body lurching forward as she fell to the ground. Her tears never stopped falling.
I'm sorry I couldn't get to you quick enough, Lala
To say that twins had some sort of physical link between them that allowed them to feel each other's pain was simply absurd. Keir could not feel it when someone pinched his sister, but he always knew when something was wrong.
And something was certainly wrong. He heard her cry, her shout, the pain and sorrow laced through her tone, and he snarled. His vision blurred red, and he didn't bother to focus his sight on his oncoming attacker, instead allowing instinct to guide him, his claws swiping across the other vampire's eyes, sending him howling backwards. With a leap, the Alistair was on him, and he tore out his throat with a soft squelch.
Keir's silver orbs once again found his sister, this time, to see her lurch forward. While he had no major physical wounds himself, Keir could feel himself being drained. The dhampir took off, taking out any level E's that got in his way, finally making it to his twin. Mikhail was already gone, Alarica's wound healing, but slowly. Keir shut his eyes, his vision blurring. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you both." He whispered, a sharp pain in his chest as he, too, slumped over, the fingers of his hand on his twin's cheek.
Alucard's massive head swiveled over to his master and twin, the pain from both of them fiercely burning through him. However, he had little time to mourn. They were both unconscious, and there were still many vampires about. Alucard let out a snarl that turned into a howl as he, too shifted, and took out two level E's that had made for the twins. His lips pulled back in a bloody snarl, his wolf form standing protectively over his fallen master and twin.
For a second, the familiar bowed his head. Goodbye, my brother. I'll look after her, I promise.
Leora was honestly glad for her brother’s help. This was her first official battle, and it was no mere skirmish, either. Once the initial high of it had worn off, she felt herself faced with a very grim reality: she was ending lives. That, and the lives of those she loved most were in danger. These things alone would have been more than enough to curb her enthusiasm, but the fact that she was elbow-deep down a Level E’s throat didn't help matters any, and even when she tore out his windpipe through his mouth, she wondered if it was not perhaps the wrong thing to be doing.
But honestly, there was precious little time for contemplating. She had to survive, and so did they. So Leora jumped, scissor-kicking a Level C trying to make stealthily for Zero’s back. “And my brother is nobody’s victim,” she said, by way of reply to Zero’s comment to one of them that had been after her. She actually managed a wan smile, but it disappeared immediately afterwards when she heard Rica’s scream. Her eyes widening, and her expression shifting to one of horror, Leora snapped her head in the direction of the cry, just in time to see her cousin collapse, followed rather quickly by her brother.
The vampire that had nearly killed Rica was still nearby, and just about through the ice wall that Mikhail had generated in his last moments. She could see that Shiranui was there, but there were a lot of Level E’s around in addition to that mercenary. There was just no way she was going to let that go. Without really thinking about it much, Leora took off like a shot, leaving Balthasar to fill in her spot next to Zero, still focusing on keeping the main line of invaders at bay, though their ranks were thinning fast. He, too, was worried, but he trusted his little cousin to handle it. If she needed help, Leo was smart enough to ask for it, and they needed to cut off the flow of vampires.
Leo’s stride carried her right into the mercenary with the kusarigama, and she lowered her shoulder to hit him square in the chest as he made to swipe for Alucard, carrying him off his feet. Her teeth gritted together, she jumped back as he regained his feet, and they circled each other warily. He was pureblood, that was clear, and much older than she was, probably. Most of them were, after all. He was also considerably larger than her, but that wasn’t an advantage unless she let it be. He sniffed the air for a moment, then locked eyes with her and smiled hungrily. Damn, that got old fast. She was a person, not food, dammit! She sometimes wondered how her mother had ever gotten used to this.
He swung the chain part of the weapon, which she ducked, but the follow-up strike with the sickle was expert, and he was able to anticipate where she would be. It laid open a deep gash in her arm, which started to bleed immediately, the crimson liquid dripping to the ground in thick rivulets even as she healed. Even the short duration for which she bled was enough to kick the Level E’s into a frenzy, and she hoped Alucard had her back, because this was going to take all the focus she had. Overhead, her anger thickened the clouds, darkening them to a color almost black as pitch and darkening the town completely, but the lightning was in her eyes, and the red color of them was luminous even as it flashed above them, followed by a deep rumble of thunder.
The chain came at her again, but this time, she raised her hand, letting it thud into her palm. Hoping that she wasn’t about to kill herself, Leo did something perhaps best classed as reckless and possibly even stupid: she called the raw lightning to herself. It struck her, and set her nerve endings on fire. She screamed, but the chain she was holding was made of conductive metal, so she wasn’t the end point of the current, only a channel. Her foe was not nearly so lucky, and with nowhere else to go, the electricity discharged inside his body, effectively roasting his insides beyond the sort of repairs her own body was now putting her through. He burst into lights and floated away on the breeze.
Swaying but still standing, Leo tried to shake the black spots from in front of her eyes as her nervous system repaired itself. Eventually, the twitching died down, and she could see that the battle was doing the same. Her legs gave out, and she ended up on her rear end in front of her unconscious cousins. Sleep sounded like a really good idea right now, but she wasn’t about to let herself lose it until they made it back to Cross.
Balthasar sat in one of the chairs just outside the infirmary, his elbows on the arms of it and his fingers steepled together in front of him. The expression on his face was caught somewhere between concern and pensiveness: his brows were drawn together, and he frowned slightly, but his eyes were out-of-focus, their color unusually pale and vague. He was staring into the middle distance, but he wasn’t really seeing anything.
It went without saying that he was worried about his family. Ary had filled him in on what happened at the meeting via message already, and while Balthasar could not say he was particularly fond of the idea of his brother joining the Council, he could at least understand what the advantage was. If any of them could pull that off, it was Ary. He himself was a terrible liar, Zero was too impulsive and mischievous, and Yuki too direct, when she spoke at all. Leora might be able to do it, but she was young, yet, and it might do her more harm than most of them to be thrown to the wolves like that. The twins…
He sighed as his thoughts were redirected to their current state. While it appeared to be mostly mental strain from Mikhail’s untimely death that had knocked both of them out, it did not seem to have released them yet. If Al had to guess, he would say that perhaps the odd circumstances of their genetics and their birth had given them a psychological link that went beyond the common case with twins, and that this bond had caused Keir to experience the death of a familiar in a very similar way to Alarica. He supposed there might be a more precise explanation, but without access to all the medical results Yuki was running on the both of them, he wouldn’t know what it was, and he trusted his sister to do the work. She was the expert, after all, trained for nearly a century by Freya.
So he gave them their space, and he worried. Leo hadn’t left the infirmary itself since they all got back, and he could understand that. She and the twins had grown up together, after all—it was natural that she didn't wish to leave their sides. He honestly didn’t, either, but he had no wish to crowd anyone, and so out here he remained. He wasn’t even sure if he should go in when they woke up, but… no, he would. They were his family. Whether she liked him or not, he had to make sure they were okay. He’d just… leave quickly.
He realized dimly that something in his field of vision was moving, and for a moment, he thought it might be Yuki, with news. But as soon as he blinked and cleared his vision, he realized that it wasn’t her at all, but a classmate of his, laden down with what appeared to be a basket of items. It took him a second, but he placed her name almost immediately. “Miss Snowe?” he asked, clearly confused by her presence here. She was a relatively new classmate, and he knew her father was on the Council, but…
She glanced up from what she was carrying, blinking a bit owlishly for a moment and then smiling wanly. She appeared to be under a bit of strain, though it was hard for him to tell why, exactly. “Oh, Lord von Nacht. I, um…” she seemed to be casting around for the right words, and her smile dimmed into a thoughtful frown. “I heard about what happened to your cousins… I’m sorry.” She looked down at the floor, but raised her eyes when he spoke again.
“Thank you, but there’s no need to apologize. What happened wasn’t your fault, after all.” She seemed to relax a bit, and shifted the basket so that it was balanced on a hip. That drew his attention back to it, and he raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Is there something I can help you with?”
She looked slightly surprised to hear it, and then looked down at the basket. “I was… actually, I was thinking I should be asking you that question. You and your family protected Cross and the town, and… some of you got hurt because of that. I know some of us aren’t very good at expressing it, but the other students know that you’re helping them, I think. Even the humans. I guess… I guess I just wanted to do what I could to help, too. I’m not much of a fighter or anything, but… my father runs a pharmaceuticals company, and I thought maybe you might have a use for some medical supplies, now or in the future.” She drew a couple of steps closer, stopping about five feet from him and holding out the basket, which did indeed seem to contain a wide array of clean and sterile medical supplies, of the kind that were useful for particularly bad vampiric injury.
He smiled; there was even what appeared to be a thank-you card on top, and he could see that she’d collected several signatures from other students to go on it. It was a small thing, but thoughtful, and he was sure Yuki could find a use for the supplies. “Thank you,” he said warmly, closing the rest of the distance by standing and moving towards her, accepting the basket from her outstretched hands and placing it under one arm. “I’m afraid the kind of injuries my cousins have isn’t really treatable in the usual way, but I’ll pass these along to my sister—I’m sure we’ll be able to make good use of them. Tell the other students we said thank you, as well. I know it’s not always easy to show support when one’s parents might want something different, so it means a lot. You have my gratitude, Miss Snowe.”
She smiled, shaking her head slightly. “It’s the least any of us can do, really, given all your family does for us. If it’s all right though… call me Elizabeth? I’d like to be your friend, Lord von Nacht, if you’d let me. Regardless of what my father decides.”
That was… direct. But Balthasar didn’t mind—he wasn’t always that good with the subtlety, anyway, and she didn't seem like one of those people that wanted to be around him for the power or position. Her father was already a Councilman, and besides that, she seemed honestly concerned about his family. It was hard not to respond positively to that. So he nodded, and stuck out his free hand for her to shake. “All right then; Elizabeth it is. But if we’re going to be friends, you have to call me Balthasar, not ‘Lord von Nacht.’” He pulled a face, and her nose crinkled in amusement.
“It’s a deal, Balthasar,” she agreed, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake. “Please, if you find the time, let me know if your cousins wake up. I’d like to thank them, too, if I have the opportunity. And if not… it would be nice to know they’d recovered at the very least.” Her smile faded, and she released his hand. He found that it had been strangely warm, and now he felt a little… cold? How odd. Shaking his head, he resumed his seat, laying the basket next to him so he could give it to Yuki when things slowed down a bit. In the meantime, he supposed there was little to do but wait.
It went without saying that he was worried about his family. Ary had filled him in on what happened at the meeting via message already, and while Balthasar could not say he was particularly fond of the idea of his brother joining the Council, he could at least understand what the advantage was. If any of them could pull that off, it was Ary. He himself was a terrible liar, Zero was too impulsive and mischievous, and Yuki too direct, when she spoke at all. Leora might be able to do it, but she was young, yet, and it might do her more harm than most of them to be thrown to the wolves like that. The twins…
He sighed as his thoughts were redirected to their current state. While it appeared to be mostly mental strain from Mikhail’s untimely death that had knocked both of them out, it did not seem to have released them yet. If Al had to guess, he would say that perhaps the odd circumstances of their genetics and their birth had given them a psychological link that went beyond the common case with twins, and that this bond had caused Keir to experience the death of a familiar in a very similar way to Alarica. He supposed there might be a more precise explanation, but without access to all the medical results Yuki was running on the both of them, he wouldn’t know what it was, and he trusted his sister to do the work. She was the expert, after all, trained for nearly a century by Freya.
So he gave them their space, and he worried. Leo hadn’t left the infirmary itself since they all got back, and he could understand that. She and the twins had grown up together, after all—it was natural that she didn't wish to leave their sides. He honestly didn’t, either, but he had no wish to crowd anyone, and so out here he remained. He wasn’t even sure if he should go in when they woke up, but… no, he would. They were his family. Whether she liked him or not, he had to make sure they were okay. He’d just… leave quickly.
He realized dimly that something in his field of vision was moving, and for a moment, he thought it might be Yuki, with news. But as soon as he blinked and cleared his vision, he realized that it wasn’t her at all, but a classmate of his, laden down with what appeared to be a basket of items. It took him a second, but he placed her name almost immediately. “Miss Snowe?” he asked, clearly confused by her presence here. She was a relatively new classmate, and he knew her father was on the Council, but…
She glanced up from what she was carrying, blinking a bit owlishly for a moment and then smiling wanly. She appeared to be under a bit of strain, though it was hard for him to tell why, exactly. “Oh, Lord von Nacht. I, um…” she seemed to be casting around for the right words, and her smile dimmed into a thoughtful frown. “I heard about what happened to your cousins… I’m sorry.” She looked down at the floor, but raised her eyes when he spoke again.
“Thank you, but there’s no need to apologize. What happened wasn’t your fault, after all.” She seemed to relax a bit, and shifted the basket so that it was balanced on a hip. That drew his attention back to it, and he raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Is there something I can help you with?”
She looked slightly surprised to hear it, and then looked down at the basket. “I was… actually, I was thinking I should be asking you that question. You and your family protected Cross and the town, and… some of you got hurt because of that. I know some of us aren’t very good at expressing it, but the other students know that you’re helping them, I think. Even the humans. I guess… I guess I just wanted to do what I could to help, too. I’m not much of a fighter or anything, but… my father runs a pharmaceuticals company, and I thought maybe you might have a use for some medical supplies, now or in the future.” She drew a couple of steps closer, stopping about five feet from him and holding out the basket, which did indeed seem to contain a wide array of clean and sterile medical supplies, of the kind that were useful for particularly bad vampiric injury.
He smiled; there was even what appeared to be a thank-you card on top, and he could see that she’d collected several signatures from other students to go on it. It was a small thing, but thoughtful, and he was sure Yuki could find a use for the supplies. “Thank you,” he said warmly, closing the rest of the distance by standing and moving towards her, accepting the basket from her outstretched hands and placing it under one arm. “I’m afraid the kind of injuries my cousins have isn’t really treatable in the usual way, but I’ll pass these along to my sister—I’m sure we’ll be able to make good use of them. Tell the other students we said thank you, as well. I know it’s not always easy to show support when one’s parents might want something different, so it means a lot. You have my gratitude, Miss Snowe.”
She smiled, shaking her head slightly. “It’s the least any of us can do, really, given all your family does for us. If it’s all right though… call me Elizabeth? I’d like to be your friend, Lord von Nacht, if you’d let me. Regardless of what my father decides.”
That was… direct. But Balthasar didn’t mind—he wasn’t always that good with the subtlety, anyway, and she didn't seem like one of those people that wanted to be around him for the power or position. Her father was already a Councilman, and besides that, she seemed honestly concerned about his family. It was hard not to respond positively to that. So he nodded, and stuck out his free hand for her to shake. “All right then; Elizabeth it is. But if we’re going to be friends, you have to call me Balthasar, not ‘Lord von Nacht.’” He pulled a face, and her nose crinkled in amusement.
“It’s a deal, Balthasar,” she agreed, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake. “Please, if you find the time, let me know if your cousins wake up. I’d like to thank them, too, if I have the opportunity. And if not… it would be nice to know they’d recovered at the very least.” Her smile faded, and she released his hand. He found that it had been strangely warm, and now he felt a little… cold? How odd. Shaking his head, he resumed his seat, laying the basket next to him so he could give it to Yuki when things slowed down a bit. In the meantime, he supposed there was little to do but wait.
Aryan had a finger to his temple, his elbow resting on the arm of the car door. Yuki sat in the middle, with Hel on the far right. There was a frown marring his features, but his eyes were out of focus. He'd already sent word ahead, informing his brother of what had transpired, along with his inclusion into the Council of Ten. He was certain that one of the others, if not Baelor himself, would inform his parents. He would be expecting to hear from his mother, he was quite certain that Nikki von Nacht would not be pleased finding out that her youngest child was now on the council. He wasn't entirely sure how his father would react, but he would deal with that later.
He was more worried about what Yuki had told him. Over the last century, she's perfected her telepathic abilities to the point where she could always detect even the smallest flicker of all of the others in the family, no matter how far apart they were.
She'd lost contact with the Twins. That bothered him to no end, and to that extent, they had left immediately, with no stops. With that, they arrived back at Cross Academy eight hours ahead of schedule, and Yuki wasted no time in getting to the infirmary. It was worse than she expected. Even with everything that her family had done, there were still quite a few wounded. Yuki quickly pulled her hair back and set to work.
She'd been working for nigh on an hour and a half before she finally made it to her cousins, and she busied herself in checking them over. Their vitals were good, healing had checked, and for the most part, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before they woke up. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell when that would be. Yuki sighed, sitting in a chair at the foot of Alarica's bed. Before she even realized it, the girl had fallen asleep sitting up.
Aryan, on the other hand, had joined his brother in the hall. "You got the message?"
Inside the infirmary, Helen worked as Yuki’s assistant, more or less. She knew quite a bit about injury and medicine, being Freya’s sister, however, she had not learned in the same way Yuki had, and her primary methods of accomplishing things like helping the injured were not available to her. She would not use that power, the one he had savored about her. She would not be the thing he wanted her to be. Not ever. Even if she sometimes felt she already was.
Yuki had fallen asleep, and Leora was curled into an armchair between her cousins’ beds, but Hel continued to work quietly around them both. It was obvious that the other girls needed the rest, and Yuki had already done what little work Helen could not complete. Most of the injuries required nothing more than standard triage and emergency care, and that at least, she was fully capable of. She found a few minutes to peel out of her suit and into mint-green scrubs, but other than that, she kept up a constant working pace.
Outside, Balthasar glanced up at his brother’s approach, nodding wearily when Aryan sat in another of the chairs. “Yes,” he replied simply, but then he sighed though his nose and shook his head a bit. “Mother isn’t going to like it, but… for what it’s worth, I think it was a smart thing to do, and if anyone can manage it, it’s you.” His smile was wan, but genuine. Reaching up with a hand, he rubbed at the back of his neck for a moment.
“Rica and Keir should be fine. Mikhail… fell, on the field. My guess is it rebounded through their connection. Physically, they’re both fine. Just… be careful with her for a bit when she wakes up, I guess.” Not that he’d really need to take his own advice, since he doubted she’d even talk to him… but he let the thought go. It was an unhappy one, and right now all he wanted was for them to wake up.
Aryan sighed through his nose, wondering how his brother could be so blind. Still, it was not his place to interfere on that one, he was already playing matchmaker for his cousins. He returned his brother's wan smile all the same. "I have the underlying feeling that I'm going to be regretting this decision when it comes to mother. But, as it were, Baelor thinks he has me in his pocket, and I intend to keep it that way."
The news of Mikhail was not good. As much as he and Medusa bickered, Aryan wasn't sure just how he would handle losing her, if he could at all. he nodded in response to his brother. "Well, they do still have each other. Though, I'm not sure if that's a compliment in Keir's case."
Balthasar managed a chuckle in reply to that, shaking his head. “Come now, brother. Keir’s not such a bad person to have at one’s side. Certainly better than having him against you.” He was already apparently ‘in the doghouse,’ as the expression went, with one of the Alistairs; he’d fear for his sanity if they both disliked him. Well, he feared for his sanity already, but that was for different reasons. Al pushed the lingering pressure to the back of his mind, as his father had taught him to do, and sighed through his nose.
“Well… I guess just make sure he continues to think so, then. We’re playing with fire here, Ary, and while I trust you not to get burned, there are a lot of other people he could try to hurt if he gets suspicious.” Baelor was a dangerous man, and while the Council may not be as straightforwardly powerful as the Pantheon, there were still a few people on it that even he would hesitate before confronting directly. And their rumored alliance with the Pantheon was just dangerous, from any angle.
Aryan scoffed softly. "Why is it everyone seems to be losing their faith in me? You wound me, dear brother, and deeply so." Aryan had tried keeping a straight face, and had failed rather miserably. However, his face became placid again. He stood up, a sigh escaping him. "As much as I would prefer being here when they awoke, I'm afraid that I find myself with much more paperwork than I am used to. Keep me posted on their condition. I already have to contact Father, I'm sure Uncle Morgan will want to be told as well." While Aryan was not particularly for telling his uncle that his son and daughter were currently comatose, he was more or less terrified that Morgan would disembowel him if he did not at least mention it.
He was more worried about what Yuki had told him. Over the last century, she's perfected her telepathic abilities to the point where she could always detect even the smallest flicker of all of the others in the family, no matter how far apart they were.
She'd lost contact with the Twins. That bothered him to no end, and to that extent, they had left immediately, with no stops. With that, they arrived back at Cross Academy eight hours ahead of schedule, and Yuki wasted no time in getting to the infirmary. It was worse than she expected. Even with everything that her family had done, there were still quite a few wounded. Yuki quickly pulled her hair back and set to work.
She'd been working for nigh on an hour and a half before she finally made it to her cousins, and she busied herself in checking them over. Their vitals were good, healing had checked, and for the most part, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before they woke up. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell when that would be. Yuki sighed, sitting in a chair at the foot of Alarica's bed. Before she even realized it, the girl had fallen asleep sitting up.
Aryan, on the other hand, had joined his brother in the hall. "You got the message?"
Inside the infirmary, Helen worked as Yuki’s assistant, more or less. She knew quite a bit about injury and medicine, being Freya’s sister, however, she had not learned in the same way Yuki had, and her primary methods of accomplishing things like helping the injured were not available to her. She would not use that power, the one he had savored about her. She would not be the thing he wanted her to be. Not ever. Even if she sometimes felt she already was.
Yuki had fallen asleep, and Leora was curled into an armchair between her cousins’ beds, but Hel continued to work quietly around them both. It was obvious that the other girls needed the rest, and Yuki had already done what little work Helen could not complete. Most of the injuries required nothing more than standard triage and emergency care, and that at least, she was fully capable of. She found a few minutes to peel out of her suit and into mint-green scrubs, but other than that, she kept up a constant working pace.
Outside, Balthasar glanced up at his brother’s approach, nodding wearily when Aryan sat in another of the chairs. “Yes,” he replied simply, but then he sighed though his nose and shook his head a bit. “Mother isn’t going to like it, but… for what it’s worth, I think it was a smart thing to do, and if anyone can manage it, it’s you.” His smile was wan, but genuine. Reaching up with a hand, he rubbed at the back of his neck for a moment.
“Rica and Keir should be fine. Mikhail… fell, on the field. My guess is it rebounded through their connection. Physically, they’re both fine. Just… be careful with her for a bit when she wakes up, I guess.” Not that he’d really need to take his own advice, since he doubted she’d even talk to him… but he let the thought go. It was an unhappy one, and right now all he wanted was for them to wake up.
Aryan sighed through his nose, wondering how his brother could be so blind. Still, it was not his place to interfere on that one, he was already playing matchmaker for his cousins. He returned his brother's wan smile all the same. "I have the underlying feeling that I'm going to be regretting this decision when it comes to mother. But, as it were, Baelor thinks he has me in his pocket, and I intend to keep it that way."
The news of Mikhail was not good. As much as he and Medusa bickered, Aryan wasn't sure just how he would handle losing her, if he could at all. he nodded in response to his brother. "Well, they do still have each other. Though, I'm not sure if that's a compliment in Keir's case."
Balthasar managed a chuckle in reply to that, shaking his head. “Come now, brother. Keir’s not such a bad person to have at one’s side. Certainly better than having him against you.” He was already apparently ‘in the doghouse,’ as the expression went, with one of the Alistairs; he’d fear for his sanity if they both disliked him. Well, he feared for his sanity already, but that was for different reasons. Al pushed the lingering pressure to the back of his mind, as his father had taught him to do, and sighed through his nose.
“Well… I guess just make sure he continues to think so, then. We’re playing with fire here, Ary, and while I trust you not to get burned, there are a lot of other people he could try to hurt if he gets suspicious.” Baelor was a dangerous man, and while the Council may not be as straightforwardly powerful as the Pantheon, there were still a few people on it that even he would hesitate before confronting directly. And their rumored alliance with the Pantheon was just dangerous, from any angle.
Aryan scoffed softly. "Why is it everyone seems to be losing their faith in me? You wound me, dear brother, and deeply so." Aryan had tried keeping a straight face, and had failed rather miserably. However, his face became placid again. He stood up, a sigh escaping him. "As much as I would prefer being here when they awoke, I'm afraid that I find myself with much more paperwork than I am used to. Keep me posted on their condition. I already have to contact Father, I'm sure Uncle Morgan will want to be told as well." While Aryan was not particularly for telling his uncle that his son and daughter were currently comatose, he was more or less terrified that Morgan would disembowel him if he did not at least mention it.
Leora sighed quietly, bending in the chair so that her elbows hit her knees, glancing sideways first at Keir, then at Rica. A whole week, and there’d been no change. She knew that things like this happened sometimes, especially in the middle of a war, but… it was the first time it had hit so close to her heart. She hadn’t been alive the last time one of her family members was gravely injured, and she'd not realized until a week ago just how lucky that made her. With another sigh (she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately), she sat up, pulling her knees to her chest in the chair and winding her arms around them.
“Please wake up, you guys. I miss you.” Propping her chin on her knees, she let her mind drift back to their shared childhood, and all the insanity they’d gotten into. She was no expert at the craft of havoc like they were, but it had always been fun to tag along and watch the masters at work. She’d admired them so much, and that indefatigable spirit they shared, and perhaps it was her envy of that quality that had initially sparked her bizarre rivalry with Keir. With Rica, it had always been more of a partnership, for some reason. Her lips tilted into a small smile as her eyes closed.
One day, she had to believe. One day, life would be that easy, that effortless, again. For now… she just wanted her cousins back.
Alarica felt empty; she felt cold. A part of her felt like it was missing, and she couldn't understand what it was. All she could see was a blank void, darkness, and then a searing amount of pain in her shoulder that rendered her still unconscious. She could see blue eyes glancing at her, the joy, the happiness radiating from them and at first, she was confused as to who owned such eyes. There were only two possibilities, and the first one was practically impossible. He would never look at her with such eyes, and it left only one conclusion. Mikhail, her mind whispered in the darkness as the large dragon appeared before her.
Where, did you go Mikhail? she tried to question, but he merely shook his head, fading into the black veil behind him. She reached out for him, trying to call for him but her voice would not come out. She could feel something burning at the back of her eyes, and as she raised a hand to wipe at them, she saw red. Her hands were coated in red. She furrowed her brows, confused as to why that was, and she glanced to her side. They widened in horror as she reached out towards Mikhail. He had been cleaved in half, almost. From where his neck connected with his shoulder, he had been cleaved down to his chest, and it was the same area that she felt that familiar pulsing from.
The vision faded, her amaranth eyes snapping open to the world and immediately she shot up. She was immediately assaulted by lights, and scents fluttering about. Her mind went dizzy and hazed as she fell back into her bed. Her breathing was labored, as if she'd been running for days, and she could feel the familiar sting at the back of her eyes as she glanced up at the ceiling. "Mikhail," she whispered so softly that it could barely be registered as said at all. He was gone, and there was no getting him back. She tilted her head to the side, a frown etched upon her face as she spotted Keir in the bed next to hers, and she reached out for him, only to stop when Leora's scent hit her strongly.
"How long, Leo," she asked, turning to face her cousin through a half-lidded gaze. She wanted to know how long it has been since she's been out, how long he's been dead. The pain still caused her heart to ache, and she wanted nothing more than to cry, however; she couldn't. The dried crust around her eyes that she managed to rub off had only told her that she had been crying while she was unconscious, and the tears would not fall any longer. "What happened to Keir?" she threw in. She knew that she and her brother shared a sort of bond, but for him to be knocked out as well, she could only assume it had something to do with her as well.
Leora snapped right out of her doze as soon as Alarica jolted upright, the violent awakening not entirely unexpected from her cousin. Then again, she hadn’t given any sign of a change in condition before then. Her heart broke for the fractured whisper she could barely hear—Leo couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a familiar, and she didn’t want to. Even if she called hers a useless lump and he never did anything helpful, she still loved him dearly.
But Rica was addressing her, and so, Leo, trying very hard not to convey just how worried she’d been, reached down and took her hand, lacing their fingers. “Just about a week,” she said quietly. “Keir, he… we think it was part of the connection. He passed out a little while after you did.” She paused, searching for something she could say that might make her cousin feel better, and in the end, she could think of only one thing, but it was cold comfort, and not nearly enough. With a sigh, she reached her free hand down and brushed Rica’s tousled white fringe back from her eyes. It was a gesture she’d picked up from her mother, who sometimes did it to her brother, especially when he was feeling down about something.
“I got him, just so you know. I got the bastard that hurt him.” How was it that all she could offer in reassurance was news of another death? It felt horrible, but she needed to say it anyway. Rica needed to know that he wasn’t still out there. That he’d not hurt anyone else in her family ever again.
There was a part of Keir that recognized his twin, his sister, had woken up. That part of him wanted to wake up, too. The rest of him did not, still torn between utter sorrow at the loss of Mikhail, and the guilt he felt at not being able to protect his sister. But staying in the dark would not help matters any, and he knew that. He needed to face that reality. He knew that Alarica wouldn't blame him for what happened, but there was still that little part of him that was afraid she would. Keir was closer to Alarica than he was to anyone else, feelings for Leora aside. He wasn't sure what he'd do if she hated him. He wasn't sure he could handle that.
Slowly, his eyes opened. Scents mingled in the air, those of his family, and Alucard as well, but the two that were most prominent were Alarica and Leora. The latter surprised him somewhat, yet, the more he thought it over, the more realistic it seemed. Leora had grown up with them, the three of them were practically best friends. Keir initially thought of some snarky comment, but swallowed it as he sat up. At the moment, he didn't have the heart to say it. He glanced at the two females, but said nothing. There was nothing to say. Saying he was sorry did no one any good, not now. His eyes, normally such a bright crystalline blue, were dark, clouded almost.
Alarica frowned at Leora's comment. Keir passed out after she had, and that thought alone caused the frown to deepen. There were times she hated being his twin, not because it was him, but because of this twisted bond they shared. If it wasn't for her, he would at least be awake, and she would be the only one comatose. They had been out about a week, that means...she quickly banished the thought. Mikhail, she knew he would not want her to grieve for him, but that did not make the pain in her chest cease from growing. He was her familiar, her friend. She let out a slow sigh, closing her eyes momentarily and enjoying the strange warmth Leora's hand was providing at their laced fingers.
"Thank you, Leo," she managed to choke out. Though she would have preferred to have torn the vampire apart herself, the fact that he was dead, and by the youngest of the family, brought a soft smile to her face. "Mikhail would have laughed at you," she joked, sitting up slowly this time as to not overwhelm herself again. That was the least she could do. She could joke for him, be happy that his death did not go unavenged. She turned her head towards Keir, her eyes brightening as she saw him stir. She immediately released Leora's hand and removed herself from her bed. She collapsed on the floor, but forced herself up and climbed into Keir's bed with him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she burried her face into his chest.
"I'm sorry Kiki," she whispered against him. "It's my fault you were hurt, and it's my fault Mikhail's dead," she stated. She knew it wouldn't do any good to blame herself, but that was how she felt. If she had paid more attention to her surroundings, to the battle ground, that vampire wouldn't have caught her off guard. He wouldn't have slashed at Mikhail, and Mikhail would still be alive today. Survivor's guilt. That was what she had, and what she felt. "I'm just glad you're okay now," she spoke removing herself from him and crawled so that she was now beside him. Granted it was a tight fit, but they squeezed through tighter situations before.
A slight look of surprise flashed across his face when Rica threw her arms around his neck. What was she apologizing for? It just...didn't make any sense to him. If anything, he should be the one apologizing. He'd failed to protect her, to be there for her, to watch her back. That was what siblings were supposed to do, that was what older brothers were supposed to do, and he'd failed.
That caused an almost bitter smile to cross his face. Like father like son, he supposed. How poetic. He glanced at Leora again, but drew his eyes away when they made contact with hers. He sighed softly. "I wasn't hurt, Rica...and I'm the one who is sorry." he murmured softly.
Leora grimaced; it made her heart hurt to see them both like this, and she knew without asking that they both blamed themselves for everything that happened. Well… that was stupid. It wasn’t either of their faults, and it wasn’t any of the rest of her family’s fault, either. It was those jerks’ fault—the Pantheon or the Council or whomever else had been behind this latest attack. It was always one of them. Breathing a sigh through her nose, she sat herself at the foot of the mattress, crossing her legs underneath her and regarding them both for a moment.
“Hey. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but the people who attacked us. And I don’t want to hear otherwise from either of you.” Her words were gentle, because she knew they were both in a vulnerable state right now, but they were still firm. “I learned a long time ago that blaming myself for the bad things that other people do only makes it worse. And… it hurts the people I care about, the ones that have to watch me do it.” Growing up with the Aegis had been hard. She’d lost track of the number of times people had tried to hurt her family for the fact that she was just unlucky enough to be born with the Effect, and for a long time, she’d thought that every injury, every near death experience, every hardship that came about because of that, was her fault.
But it wasn’t. She could only ever do her best, and what other people chose to do was on them. She kept her defenses high because she rarely ever liked it, but all the same, she could not continue to take the blame for what others did. And she never, ever wanted them to feel like they had to, either. Because she knew exactly how miserable it was, and that hurt her, too.
Leora was right, there was no point in blaming themselves for something that they had no control over. She was also right that the fault lay with the ones who attacked them, and the hairs along the back of Alarica's neck stood. Even though the one responsible for Mikhail's death was dead, the ones responsible for the order, the ones who held that hit-man's leash, needed to be executed. And Alarica was not feeling merciful at the moment. Her eyes hardened a bit as she turned to face Leora and nodded her head in understanding. Zero had spoken of the attempts at Leora, so perhaps she understood more than any of them did, really.
"I wonder what we'd do without you Leo," she stated, her lips tilting into a grin in the process as she grabbed her cousin's arm. "Now come lay with us," she stated, pulling Leora with her as she shifted so that the three of them were truly squeezed tightly upon the small mattress. It was truly a sight to behold for anyone who walked in on them, but Alarica didn't care at the moment. The only thing that mattered was that her family was okay, at the expense of her familiar whom she would miss terribly.
Keir raised his eyebrows at his sister, but in the end, a small flicker of a smile flashed across his face. They were right, of course. But that didn't mean he was going to stop feeling guilty about it. But that also did not mean that he was going to openly say that, either. He sighed through his nose as Rica pulled Leo onto the bed with them. "You know, these beds were only made for so much..." Nonetheless, he wrapped one arm around either of the girls, laying down again. Rica was, for the most part, on his right, with her head on his chest, while Leora was on his left, her head on his shoulder. It was also taking a very large amount of effort to not start tracing patterns on Leora's arm. Silently, he thanked whatever gods there may be that Aryan was not present. He glanced down when he felt something furry lay over his legs, meeting a pair of silver eyes.
"Now, I'm not normally one to complain, but how did I end up on the bottom?" He had a girl on either side, and a wolf over his legs. This had to be the strangest set-up, ever.
“Please wake up, you guys. I miss you.” Propping her chin on her knees, she let her mind drift back to their shared childhood, and all the insanity they’d gotten into. She was no expert at the craft of havoc like they were, but it had always been fun to tag along and watch the masters at work. She’d admired them so much, and that indefatigable spirit they shared, and perhaps it was her envy of that quality that had initially sparked her bizarre rivalry with Keir. With Rica, it had always been more of a partnership, for some reason. Her lips tilted into a small smile as her eyes closed.
One day, she had to believe. One day, life would be that easy, that effortless, again. For now… she just wanted her cousins back.
Alarica felt empty; she felt cold. A part of her felt like it was missing, and she couldn't understand what it was. All she could see was a blank void, darkness, and then a searing amount of pain in her shoulder that rendered her still unconscious. She could see blue eyes glancing at her, the joy, the happiness radiating from them and at first, she was confused as to who owned such eyes. There were only two possibilities, and the first one was practically impossible. He would never look at her with such eyes, and it left only one conclusion. Mikhail, her mind whispered in the darkness as the large dragon appeared before her.
Where, did you go Mikhail? she tried to question, but he merely shook his head, fading into the black veil behind him. She reached out for him, trying to call for him but her voice would not come out. She could feel something burning at the back of her eyes, and as she raised a hand to wipe at them, she saw red. Her hands were coated in red. She furrowed her brows, confused as to why that was, and she glanced to her side. They widened in horror as she reached out towards Mikhail. He had been cleaved in half, almost. From where his neck connected with his shoulder, he had been cleaved down to his chest, and it was the same area that she felt that familiar pulsing from.
The vision faded, her amaranth eyes snapping open to the world and immediately she shot up. She was immediately assaulted by lights, and scents fluttering about. Her mind went dizzy and hazed as she fell back into her bed. Her breathing was labored, as if she'd been running for days, and she could feel the familiar sting at the back of her eyes as she glanced up at the ceiling. "Mikhail," she whispered so softly that it could barely be registered as said at all. He was gone, and there was no getting him back. She tilted her head to the side, a frown etched upon her face as she spotted Keir in the bed next to hers, and she reached out for him, only to stop when Leora's scent hit her strongly.
"How long, Leo," she asked, turning to face her cousin through a half-lidded gaze. She wanted to know how long it has been since she's been out, how long he's been dead. The pain still caused her heart to ache, and she wanted nothing more than to cry, however; she couldn't. The dried crust around her eyes that she managed to rub off had only told her that she had been crying while she was unconscious, and the tears would not fall any longer. "What happened to Keir?" she threw in. She knew that she and her brother shared a sort of bond, but for him to be knocked out as well, she could only assume it had something to do with her as well.
Leora snapped right out of her doze as soon as Alarica jolted upright, the violent awakening not entirely unexpected from her cousin. Then again, she hadn’t given any sign of a change in condition before then. Her heart broke for the fractured whisper she could barely hear—Leo couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a familiar, and she didn’t want to. Even if she called hers a useless lump and he never did anything helpful, she still loved him dearly.
But Rica was addressing her, and so, Leo, trying very hard not to convey just how worried she’d been, reached down and took her hand, lacing their fingers. “Just about a week,” she said quietly. “Keir, he… we think it was part of the connection. He passed out a little while after you did.” She paused, searching for something she could say that might make her cousin feel better, and in the end, she could think of only one thing, but it was cold comfort, and not nearly enough. With a sigh, she reached her free hand down and brushed Rica’s tousled white fringe back from her eyes. It was a gesture she’d picked up from her mother, who sometimes did it to her brother, especially when he was feeling down about something.
“I got him, just so you know. I got the bastard that hurt him.” How was it that all she could offer in reassurance was news of another death? It felt horrible, but she needed to say it anyway. Rica needed to know that he wasn’t still out there. That he’d not hurt anyone else in her family ever again.
There was a part of Keir that recognized his twin, his sister, had woken up. That part of him wanted to wake up, too. The rest of him did not, still torn between utter sorrow at the loss of Mikhail, and the guilt he felt at not being able to protect his sister. But staying in the dark would not help matters any, and he knew that. He needed to face that reality. He knew that Alarica wouldn't blame him for what happened, but there was still that little part of him that was afraid she would. Keir was closer to Alarica than he was to anyone else, feelings for Leora aside. He wasn't sure what he'd do if she hated him. He wasn't sure he could handle that.
Slowly, his eyes opened. Scents mingled in the air, those of his family, and Alucard as well, but the two that were most prominent were Alarica and Leora. The latter surprised him somewhat, yet, the more he thought it over, the more realistic it seemed. Leora had grown up with them, the three of them were practically best friends. Keir initially thought of some snarky comment, but swallowed it as he sat up. At the moment, he didn't have the heart to say it. He glanced at the two females, but said nothing. There was nothing to say. Saying he was sorry did no one any good, not now. His eyes, normally such a bright crystalline blue, were dark, clouded almost.
Alarica frowned at Leora's comment. Keir passed out after she had, and that thought alone caused the frown to deepen. There were times she hated being his twin, not because it was him, but because of this twisted bond they shared. If it wasn't for her, he would at least be awake, and she would be the only one comatose. They had been out about a week, that means...she quickly banished the thought. Mikhail, she knew he would not want her to grieve for him, but that did not make the pain in her chest cease from growing. He was her familiar, her friend. She let out a slow sigh, closing her eyes momentarily and enjoying the strange warmth Leora's hand was providing at their laced fingers.
"Thank you, Leo," she managed to choke out. Though she would have preferred to have torn the vampire apart herself, the fact that he was dead, and by the youngest of the family, brought a soft smile to her face. "Mikhail would have laughed at you," she joked, sitting up slowly this time as to not overwhelm herself again. That was the least she could do. She could joke for him, be happy that his death did not go unavenged. She turned her head towards Keir, her eyes brightening as she saw him stir. She immediately released Leora's hand and removed herself from her bed. She collapsed on the floor, but forced herself up and climbed into Keir's bed with him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she burried her face into his chest.
"I'm sorry Kiki," she whispered against him. "It's my fault you were hurt, and it's my fault Mikhail's dead," she stated. She knew it wouldn't do any good to blame herself, but that was how she felt. If she had paid more attention to her surroundings, to the battle ground, that vampire wouldn't have caught her off guard. He wouldn't have slashed at Mikhail, and Mikhail would still be alive today. Survivor's guilt. That was what she had, and what she felt. "I'm just glad you're okay now," she spoke removing herself from him and crawled so that she was now beside him. Granted it was a tight fit, but they squeezed through tighter situations before.
A slight look of surprise flashed across his face when Rica threw her arms around his neck. What was she apologizing for? It just...didn't make any sense to him. If anything, he should be the one apologizing. He'd failed to protect her, to be there for her, to watch her back. That was what siblings were supposed to do, that was what older brothers were supposed to do, and he'd failed.
That caused an almost bitter smile to cross his face. Like father like son, he supposed. How poetic. He glanced at Leora again, but drew his eyes away when they made contact with hers. He sighed softly. "I wasn't hurt, Rica...and I'm the one who is sorry." he murmured softly.
Leora grimaced; it made her heart hurt to see them both like this, and she knew without asking that they both blamed themselves for everything that happened. Well… that was stupid. It wasn’t either of their faults, and it wasn’t any of the rest of her family’s fault, either. It was those jerks’ fault—the Pantheon or the Council or whomever else had been behind this latest attack. It was always one of them. Breathing a sigh through her nose, she sat herself at the foot of the mattress, crossing her legs underneath her and regarding them both for a moment.
“Hey. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but the people who attacked us. And I don’t want to hear otherwise from either of you.” Her words were gentle, because she knew they were both in a vulnerable state right now, but they were still firm. “I learned a long time ago that blaming myself for the bad things that other people do only makes it worse. And… it hurts the people I care about, the ones that have to watch me do it.” Growing up with the Aegis had been hard. She’d lost track of the number of times people had tried to hurt her family for the fact that she was just unlucky enough to be born with the Effect, and for a long time, she’d thought that every injury, every near death experience, every hardship that came about because of that, was her fault.
But it wasn’t. She could only ever do her best, and what other people chose to do was on them. She kept her defenses high because she rarely ever liked it, but all the same, she could not continue to take the blame for what others did. And she never, ever wanted them to feel like they had to, either. Because she knew exactly how miserable it was, and that hurt her, too.
Leora was right, there was no point in blaming themselves for something that they had no control over. She was also right that the fault lay with the ones who attacked them, and the hairs along the back of Alarica's neck stood. Even though the one responsible for Mikhail's death was dead, the ones responsible for the order, the ones who held that hit-man's leash, needed to be executed. And Alarica was not feeling merciful at the moment. Her eyes hardened a bit as she turned to face Leora and nodded her head in understanding. Zero had spoken of the attempts at Leora, so perhaps she understood more than any of them did, really.
"I wonder what we'd do without you Leo," she stated, her lips tilting into a grin in the process as she grabbed her cousin's arm. "Now come lay with us," she stated, pulling Leora with her as she shifted so that the three of them were truly squeezed tightly upon the small mattress. It was truly a sight to behold for anyone who walked in on them, but Alarica didn't care at the moment. The only thing that mattered was that her family was okay, at the expense of her familiar whom she would miss terribly.
Keir raised his eyebrows at his sister, but in the end, a small flicker of a smile flashed across his face. They were right, of course. But that didn't mean he was going to stop feeling guilty about it. But that also did not mean that he was going to openly say that, either. He sighed through his nose as Rica pulled Leo onto the bed with them. "You know, these beds were only made for so much..." Nonetheless, he wrapped one arm around either of the girls, laying down again. Rica was, for the most part, on his right, with her head on his chest, while Leora was on his left, her head on his shoulder. It was also taking a very large amount of effort to not start tracing patterns on Leora's arm. Silently, he thanked whatever gods there may be that Aryan was not present. He glanced down when he felt something furry lay over his legs, meeting a pair of silver eyes.
"Now, I'm not normally one to complain, but how did I end up on the bottom?" He had a girl on either side, and a wolf over his legs. This had to be the strangest set-up, ever.
Alarica shifted in her spot in one of the trees on the school ground. It was a weekend and a majority of the students had left to the city. The city had been repaired somewhat, at least most of the damage had been. The last few months had been tiring and a bit boring for Alarica, though her mind still managed to roam to Mikhail. She released a strong sigh, something she found she was doing more often than most. Not even the antics her brother and herself caused seemed amusing any longer, and she felt herself withdrawing a bit more. Whether it had to do with Mikhail's death or not, she didn't truly know. The only thing she did know was that there was something bothering her.
Rolling, she fell from the tree gracefully, landing on both feet as she took off slowly in a paced walk. She allowed the wind to play with her hair, tugging at the hem of her dress as she fixed her appearance a bit. Not that there was anyone around who would notice anyways, and not that she was trying to be presentable for someone, which she wasn't. Everyone was off doing their own thing, however; a familiar scent caught her attention as she smirked. It seems Keir was still on the school grounds, and with that in mind, she followed the trail to where he was. In the back woods of the Academy, she found her brother and Alucard, Keir training with Alucard laying not more than a few feet in front of him.
"Don't you ever get bored of watching him train?" she spoke towards the familiar, situating herself so that she sat a few feet away from him, legs tucked neatly beneath her as she leaned back with her arms. "And don't you ever tire of training? Isn't there something we could blow up?" she stated towards her brother. The amusement never reached her eyes though, but her voice conveyed it all. Though the fun had all been drained from her lately, she could still appreciate a well-thought out plan, and Keir seemed to be the mastermind behind them as of late.
With a loud crash, the tree fell, the scales covering most of Keir's body glimmering in the sunlight as he turned to his sister. "Not really, it tends to keep me out of trouble."
Alucard snorted, rolling his eyes. "I shudder to think of the trouble you'd cause if you didn't train, then." The wolf looked over at Alarica, slightly skittish, it seemed. Alucard had not really known how to act around her the last few months. Whereas the two of them used to bicker, now it was mainly the familiar avoiding his master's twin. He had no wish to make her uncomfortable, and was painfully aware that in some ways, he did.
Keir rolled out his shoudlers, ignoring the wolf. He shrugged in response to his sister. "Well, they did just order the remodeling of the boathouse," [why Cross Academy had a boathouse, but no boats, was beyond Keir] "Or, we could gift wrap the headmaster's office. He's out for the next two days, it would give us plenty of time."
While it was true, over the last few months it had been difficult to be in Alucard's presence, Alarica had found it a bit more tolerable now. The second day after awakening from their week long coma, Alarica had burst into tears at the mere sight of Alucard, startling not only herself, but the familiar as well. Now, it was easier to look at him, and she reached over and scratched the wolf behind his ears. She did not wish for him to avoid her any longer, and though they would probably still bicker, she was no longer afraid to be in his company. She sighed softly at Keir's response.
"The boathouse? That's not fun. Why remodel it if it doesn't get used? Do they actually plan on giving us a reason to have one?" she bantered softly, sitting up straight and crossing her arms across her chest in the process. "And trouble follows you every where you go dear brother, training or not," she chided before giving into another sigh. She turned towards Alucard and then towards Keir, the feeling of loneliness creeping up her spine again. She hated that feeling really, and she pulled her knee's to her chest in the process, laying her head against her arms.
"I miss him Kiki," she muttered out, pulling her arms tighter around her.
Keir let out a sigh, mirroring his sister. He sat next to her, leaning so his head was resting on hers. "I know, we all do." Even Alucard moved, placing his head on her shoulder. It had not been easy, for any of them. Mihkail had been just as much Keir's familiar as Alucard was, even if he was not the one who'd created him. He'd still felt it, when the dragon had died. Keir could only assume that it was because of the bond he shared with Alarica.
"I know, but...it doesn't hurt any less," she stated, rolling her head so that it was comfortable against her brothers. Her mind began to churn, thinking of something that had at one time appalled her. "It wouldn't be the same, but...what...what if I could create another?" she stated. It was certainly a thought she had entertained for quite some time already, and it was something that was weighing heavily upon her mind. Mikhail had been with her for fifteen years, basically since the day she was born almost, but if she created another, it wouldn't be quite the same. Plus, Alucard would probably be objective to it, however; this was for her, not for him.
And with that in mind, she removed herself from both her brother and his familiar. She took a deep breath, biting into her wrist enough so that she drew a large amount of blood from it. She knew her blood was perhaps not as potent as Leora's or her Aunt's, but it might as well have been just the same, however; she was not bleeding for the intent of drawing attention. It was far from the fact. Instead, she spoke something, drawing the blood from her hand and setting it down upon the grass, molding it into a shape and watched as the blood-ball solidified.
She watched in mild awe as the ball began to glow, shifting so that it began taking on the form of something, and watched as two long tails were produced. The awe was beginning to fade from her face as she watched the ball unfold itself, producing a small, twin-tailed white fox, and Alarica felt her mouth press harshly into a thin line. "Is...is this a joke?" she stated, poking the fox-like familiar as it mewled up at her, bright blue eyes. She continued poking its cheek until it swatted at her hand with a single paw. "Tell me this is a joke," she stated, turning her attention towards Keir and Alucard.
Keir cocked his head at his twin. Honestly, he'd thought the same thing, but he'd been hesitant to say anything. Alucard, on the other hand, flattened his ears but said nothing, instead choosing to look away as the deed was done. But once it was...
Keir blinked once. Twice. Three times. And then, the white-haired vampire buckled at the waist, practically howling with laughter. "Oh you have got to be kidding me. This is just too perfect!" He had to it down, he was laughing so hard.
Alucard, on the other hand, looked at the creature, and then sniffed at it, jerking his head back when it swiped a paw at his nose. He looked at Alarica, an almost sour look on his face. "What the hell is that thing? It looks like lunch, to me."
Alarica frowned at her brother's laughter. Apparently this was funny to him, that her familiar would so happen to look almost the replica of his, and she pursed her lips together. "You look like Yuri," she spoke, referring to her mother's familiar, avoiding the fact that she almost spoke his familiar's name. Her lips, however, pulled into a light smile as she picked the white fox up, watching with amusement as the creature swatted at Alucard's nose. The fox familiar stared up at Alarica, for a moment, both holding each other's gaze before Alarica turned towards her brother and his familiar.
"I am not on the menu, you twat! You even think about trying to eat me, and I will see to it that you suffer from third degree burns," the fox stated towards the wolf, hissing at him in the process and producing a small amount of flames from her mouth. Alarica smirked at her familiar, however; the sadness was still lingering behind it. It was obvious enough that the little spitfire of a familiar would be nothing like Mikhail, but perhaps it was for the best. After all, no two things should ever be the same.
"Welcome to the family, Angelus."
Rolling, she fell from the tree gracefully, landing on both feet as she took off slowly in a paced walk. She allowed the wind to play with her hair, tugging at the hem of her dress as she fixed her appearance a bit. Not that there was anyone around who would notice anyways, and not that she was trying to be presentable for someone, which she wasn't. Everyone was off doing their own thing, however; a familiar scent caught her attention as she smirked. It seems Keir was still on the school grounds, and with that in mind, she followed the trail to where he was. In the back woods of the Academy, she found her brother and Alucard, Keir training with Alucard laying not more than a few feet in front of him.
"Don't you ever get bored of watching him train?" she spoke towards the familiar, situating herself so that she sat a few feet away from him, legs tucked neatly beneath her as she leaned back with her arms. "And don't you ever tire of training? Isn't there something we could blow up?" she stated towards her brother. The amusement never reached her eyes though, but her voice conveyed it all. Though the fun had all been drained from her lately, she could still appreciate a well-thought out plan, and Keir seemed to be the mastermind behind them as of late.
With a loud crash, the tree fell, the scales covering most of Keir's body glimmering in the sunlight as he turned to his sister. "Not really, it tends to keep me out of trouble."
Alucard snorted, rolling his eyes. "I shudder to think of the trouble you'd cause if you didn't train, then." The wolf looked over at Alarica, slightly skittish, it seemed. Alucard had not really known how to act around her the last few months. Whereas the two of them used to bicker, now it was mainly the familiar avoiding his master's twin. He had no wish to make her uncomfortable, and was painfully aware that in some ways, he did.
Keir rolled out his shoudlers, ignoring the wolf. He shrugged in response to his sister. "Well, they did just order the remodeling of the boathouse," [why Cross Academy had a boathouse, but no boats, was beyond Keir] "Or, we could gift wrap the headmaster's office. He's out for the next two days, it would give us plenty of time."
While it was true, over the last few months it had been difficult to be in Alucard's presence, Alarica had found it a bit more tolerable now. The second day after awakening from their week long coma, Alarica had burst into tears at the mere sight of Alucard, startling not only herself, but the familiar as well. Now, it was easier to look at him, and she reached over and scratched the wolf behind his ears. She did not wish for him to avoid her any longer, and though they would probably still bicker, she was no longer afraid to be in his company. She sighed softly at Keir's response.
"The boathouse? That's not fun. Why remodel it if it doesn't get used? Do they actually plan on giving us a reason to have one?" she bantered softly, sitting up straight and crossing her arms across her chest in the process. "And trouble follows you every where you go dear brother, training or not," she chided before giving into another sigh. She turned towards Alucard and then towards Keir, the feeling of loneliness creeping up her spine again. She hated that feeling really, and she pulled her knee's to her chest in the process, laying her head against her arms.
"I miss him Kiki," she muttered out, pulling her arms tighter around her.
Keir let out a sigh, mirroring his sister. He sat next to her, leaning so his head was resting on hers. "I know, we all do." Even Alucard moved, placing his head on her shoulder. It had not been easy, for any of them. Mihkail had been just as much Keir's familiar as Alucard was, even if he was not the one who'd created him. He'd still felt it, when the dragon had died. Keir could only assume that it was because of the bond he shared with Alarica.
"I know, but...it doesn't hurt any less," she stated, rolling her head so that it was comfortable against her brothers. Her mind began to churn, thinking of something that had at one time appalled her. "It wouldn't be the same, but...what...what if I could create another?" she stated. It was certainly a thought she had entertained for quite some time already, and it was something that was weighing heavily upon her mind. Mikhail had been with her for fifteen years, basically since the day she was born almost, but if she created another, it wouldn't be quite the same. Plus, Alucard would probably be objective to it, however; this was for her, not for him.
And with that in mind, she removed herself from both her brother and his familiar. She took a deep breath, biting into her wrist enough so that she drew a large amount of blood from it. She knew her blood was perhaps not as potent as Leora's or her Aunt's, but it might as well have been just the same, however; she was not bleeding for the intent of drawing attention. It was far from the fact. Instead, she spoke something, drawing the blood from her hand and setting it down upon the grass, molding it into a shape and watched as the blood-ball solidified.
She watched in mild awe as the ball began to glow, shifting so that it began taking on the form of something, and watched as two long tails were produced. The awe was beginning to fade from her face as she watched the ball unfold itself, producing a small, twin-tailed white fox, and Alarica felt her mouth press harshly into a thin line. "Is...is this a joke?" she stated, poking the fox-like familiar as it mewled up at her, bright blue eyes. She continued poking its cheek until it swatted at her hand with a single paw. "Tell me this is a joke," she stated, turning her attention towards Keir and Alucard.
Keir cocked his head at his twin. Honestly, he'd thought the same thing, but he'd been hesitant to say anything. Alucard, on the other hand, flattened his ears but said nothing, instead choosing to look away as the deed was done. But once it was...
Keir blinked once. Twice. Three times. And then, the white-haired vampire buckled at the waist, practically howling with laughter. "Oh you have got to be kidding me. This is just too perfect!" He had to it down, he was laughing so hard.
Alucard, on the other hand, looked at the creature, and then sniffed at it, jerking his head back when it swiped a paw at his nose. He looked at Alarica, an almost sour look on his face. "What the hell is that thing? It looks like lunch, to me."
Alarica frowned at her brother's laughter. Apparently this was funny to him, that her familiar would so happen to look almost the replica of his, and she pursed her lips together. "You look like Yuri," she spoke, referring to her mother's familiar, avoiding the fact that she almost spoke his familiar's name. Her lips, however, pulled into a light smile as she picked the white fox up, watching with amusement as the creature swatted at Alucard's nose. The fox familiar stared up at Alarica, for a moment, both holding each other's gaze before Alarica turned towards her brother and his familiar.
"I am not on the menu, you twat! You even think about trying to eat me, and I will see to it that you suffer from third degree burns," the fox stated towards the wolf, hissing at him in the process and producing a small amount of flames from her mouth. Alarica smirked at her familiar, however; the sadness was still lingering behind it. It was obvious enough that the little spitfire of a familiar would be nothing like Mikhail, but perhaps it was for the best. After all, no two things should ever be the same.
"Welcome to the family, Angelus."
Balthasar stretched his arms over his head, looking up at the sun and squinting against the brightness. Things had been relatively quiet for the past two months—apparently for now Ary had the Council convinced that he was under their thumb, and the Pantheon had been unusually quiet. It was almost like they’d been waiting for something, though honestly, he couldn’t say what. That was the worst part, the fact that a slight cloud of foreboding hung over them even now. But… it was better than the war being right at their doorsteps. According to his dad, things were mostly quiet on the fronts, too, as though everyone had just taken September and October to be some kind of unofficial rest period.
Well, he wasn’t going to complain. The fewer people that died, the better, and they were honestly no closer to ending this thing than they had been when it started. The resources on all sides seemed limitless. In a way, that ate at Balthasar, with a guilt he could not fully explain. He’d always known, on some level, that Theodor had intended certain things for him, and that he’d been willing to start this war in the first place to achieve these things. His father had told him as much, because there was always a chance that the Pantheon would try again. But his whole life, they’d seemed more interested in killing his family than anything in particular to do with him. Yet… something just told him that it was all related.
But that felt kind of arrogant to think, so most of the time, he just didn’t let himself think it. Settling down at the base of a tree, he let out a breath and leaned his head back against the trunk, closing his eyes and letting his mind wander. Ilyana was in the forest with Sven—though he could sense that Keir and Rica were not far away, either. Hel was off on some kind of business for Freya somewhere, and last he’d known, Yuki was still working in the infirmary, though admittedly he hadn’t checked since yesterday. He hoped she wouldn’t overwork herself, but there was precious little that could stop her once she’d decided to do something.
An increasingly-familiar scent entered his awareness, and his mouth ticked up into a smile. Not two minutes later, she was there, a parasol in one hand to shield her from the bright sunlight, and in the other, another basket, similar to the one he’d first seen her carry. From the smell of it, though, this one held cookies. He wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did—he had something of a weakness for sweets. “Hello, Balthasar,” his friend said, smiling softly down at him. “May I share your shade?”
He huffed half a laugh and nodded. “I’d never say no to a friend with cookies,” he replied honestly, and she laughed, a light sound that carried across the field before fading, settling down beside him and placing the basket on one of his legs and one of hers.
“Well… all right. But you have to share with me. These are oatmeal chocolate chip—my favorite.”
Honestly, Balthasar didn’t see the need to discriminate when it came to cookies, but that might just be because his Aunt Ava was a masterful hand with them all. These were almost as good, though he doubted anyone would ever truly match his father’s former assistant. The addiction was inherited, he was almost certain. For a while, the two of them sat in silence. Elizabeth didn’t seem particularly inclined to force him to talk, or anything really. They spoke when it came naturally, and were quiet when that did. This, an almost daily meeting of around an hour, had quickly become routine for him, and he’d learned a lot about her in the process.
She was, among other things, an accomplished singer, and had hopes to be part of the Italian opera circuit one day. Like so many other things, though, those dreams were put on hold, waiting for a world without war. She’d been raised primarily by her father—her mother was an early casualty of a Hunter raid. She was herself quite young, for one of their kind, but there was a brightness to her that he appreciated. She didn’t seem to let much of anything get her down, and despite what had happened to her mother, many of her friends were humans. He thought it was an enriching experience, having a friend like her. He didn’t often get the opportunity to know anyone outside his family, and though he loved them all more dearly than his own life, sometimes, he wondered if they only put up with him because he was their brother or their cousin or whatnot.
Though he might ordinarily not have thought so, sometimes, the way Rica acted made him wonder. She’d always been more direct than most, and if she was the one that didn’t like him, was it possible that the others might feel a little similar, and just be too polite to say? He felt like a bit of an outsider sometimes, among the closer-than-blood bonds that many of them had created. He’d never lose his love for them, but… what if their suffering really was his fault? What if they knew it too? Maybe it was better not to interfere anymore than he had to, as he’d taken to doing with his cousin. They loved him, he would not doubt that, but did they really like him at all? He was so… dull, compared to most of them.
In a sense, this was why he enjoyed his time with Elizabeth. She didn’t have to act like she was his friend unless she really wanted to. He hadn’t just already been there when she was born, to become part of her life whether she wanted it or not. She chose to be around him every time she was, and that was… comforting, he supposed. He’d found himself telling her just as much as she told him, and she always seemed to have something funny or insightful to say. It was easy, their rapport. Was this how it was always supposed to be? It was a little like his rapport with Leora, or maybe Keir or his brother, but also different somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain.
Her voice broke him from his thoughts. “You’re doing it again,” she remarked. “Overthinking it.” Red-brown eyes bored into his blue ones with some mixture of her usual friendly concern and something else, something that showed up sometimes but left him entirely unable to identify it.
He smiled uneasily—his thought had not been the most pleasant, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to share them. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to zone out on you; sometimes I can’t help it, I guess.”
She sighed with obviously-false exasperation, but then donned a smile with a hint of mischief, not unlike the one Leo wore a lot of the time. “Let me do that for you,” she said, rising onto her knees. She leaned forward so that they were almost nose-to-nose, but her eyes were quite intently focused on his hair, which she ran her fingers through, setting it to rights. Balthasar was not a person particularly averse to touch—one could not be so and survive in his family. Indeed, sometimes he forgot that others were not as tactile as his relatives and invaded their personal space on accident, but he had not been the subject of such ministrations before, and wasn’t quite sure how to react.
“Uh, Elizabeth?” he asked, hoping perhaps that some kind of explanation was forthcoming. Instead, she only shifted her eyes so that they looked right into his, and he was suddenly very conscious of the soft fanning of her breath on his cheek. Balthasar swallowed, and his face started to heat up a bit, especially when her smile changed to one he didn’t quite recognize anymore. Nobody had ever shown him such an expression before, that he was aware of.
“Hey Balthasar,” she asked lowly, voice quiet, so much so that he could barely hear it, even with his kind’s senses. “Has anyone ever told you how clueless you are?”
He frowned a little, and would have pulled back slightly, except he was pressed to the tree, so that wasn’t an option. Still, it was a little hurtful—that was all anyone ever seemed to tell him. “Only every day,” he replied, and made to move aside, but her hand around the tie of his uniform stopped him. He turned back, a bit confused still, and she smiled a little wider.
“I think it’s cute,” she told him bluntly, and before he could even adequately process the statement, she’d closed the remaining distance between them and pressed her lips to his, the motion surprisingly tender for all its suddenness. Her mouth was warm, and soft, and he was rather unsure what to do with himself, but she didn’t seem to mind, coaxing patiently until he responded, placing his hands tentatively at her waist and returning the kiss. Elizabeth smiled against his mouth, pulling back and giggling when she noted just how red his face had become. “Yep. Adorable.” A shadow seemed to pass over her eyes then, deepening them to an almost maroon color, and she reached up to place the tips of her fingers over his lips. “This is mine now, right? That doesn’t bother you, does it, Balthasar?” She tilted her head to the side, and a lock of her hair fell in front of her shoulder.
He hesitated for just a moment. He felt very… strange about this. Elizabeth was his friend, and he obviously cared about her, but… he wasn’t sure if it was that kind of feeling. He wasn’t even sure what that was supposed to feel like. But, she was looking at him expectantly, and he couldn’t think of a reason to tell her no, just a general unease. She was nice, and easy to talk to, and seemed to understand him as he was, not as he needed to be for anyone else. As little as it mattered to him, she was also beautiful, and he couldn’t deny any of these things, so… what was holding him back?
Surely nothing sensible. So he swallowed thickly and nodded slightly. Her expression lost all but the faintest trace of mischief, and lit up with obvious happiness. “Good,” she said with a grin, and then she laughed at herself a bit, standing and offering her hand to him. He took it, and she laced their fingers, picking her parasol up with the other hand. He carried the empty basket, and they made their way back to the school hand-in-hand. Though he smiled, he could not seem to shake the weight that settled in his chest.
Elsewhere, Ilyana shook her head, glancing up at Sven. “That big dope,” She said with a sigh. “This is going to make things complicated…”
Well, he wasn’t going to complain. The fewer people that died, the better, and they were honestly no closer to ending this thing than they had been when it started. The resources on all sides seemed limitless. In a way, that ate at Balthasar, with a guilt he could not fully explain. He’d always known, on some level, that Theodor had intended certain things for him, and that he’d been willing to start this war in the first place to achieve these things. His father had told him as much, because there was always a chance that the Pantheon would try again. But his whole life, they’d seemed more interested in killing his family than anything in particular to do with him. Yet… something just told him that it was all related.
But that felt kind of arrogant to think, so most of the time, he just didn’t let himself think it. Settling down at the base of a tree, he let out a breath and leaned his head back against the trunk, closing his eyes and letting his mind wander. Ilyana was in the forest with Sven—though he could sense that Keir and Rica were not far away, either. Hel was off on some kind of business for Freya somewhere, and last he’d known, Yuki was still working in the infirmary, though admittedly he hadn’t checked since yesterday. He hoped she wouldn’t overwork herself, but there was precious little that could stop her once she’d decided to do something.
An increasingly-familiar scent entered his awareness, and his mouth ticked up into a smile. Not two minutes later, she was there, a parasol in one hand to shield her from the bright sunlight, and in the other, another basket, similar to the one he’d first seen her carry. From the smell of it, though, this one held cookies. He wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did—he had something of a weakness for sweets. “Hello, Balthasar,” his friend said, smiling softly down at him. “May I share your shade?”
He huffed half a laugh and nodded. “I’d never say no to a friend with cookies,” he replied honestly, and she laughed, a light sound that carried across the field before fading, settling down beside him and placing the basket on one of his legs and one of hers.
“Well… all right. But you have to share with me. These are oatmeal chocolate chip—my favorite.”
Honestly, Balthasar didn’t see the need to discriminate when it came to cookies, but that might just be because his Aunt Ava was a masterful hand with them all. These were almost as good, though he doubted anyone would ever truly match his father’s former assistant. The addiction was inherited, he was almost certain. For a while, the two of them sat in silence. Elizabeth didn’t seem particularly inclined to force him to talk, or anything really. They spoke when it came naturally, and were quiet when that did. This, an almost daily meeting of around an hour, had quickly become routine for him, and he’d learned a lot about her in the process.
She was, among other things, an accomplished singer, and had hopes to be part of the Italian opera circuit one day. Like so many other things, though, those dreams were put on hold, waiting for a world without war. She’d been raised primarily by her father—her mother was an early casualty of a Hunter raid. She was herself quite young, for one of their kind, but there was a brightness to her that he appreciated. She didn’t seem to let much of anything get her down, and despite what had happened to her mother, many of her friends were humans. He thought it was an enriching experience, having a friend like her. He didn’t often get the opportunity to know anyone outside his family, and though he loved them all more dearly than his own life, sometimes, he wondered if they only put up with him because he was their brother or their cousin or whatnot.
Though he might ordinarily not have thought so, sometimes, the way Rica acted made him wonder. She’d always been more direct than most, and if she was the one that didn’t like him, was it possible that the others might feel a little similar, and just be too polite to say? He felt like a bit of an outsider sometimes, among the closer-than-blood bonds that many of them had created. He’d never lose his love for them, but… what if their suffering really was his fault? What if they knew it too? Maybe it was better not to interfere anymore than he had to, as he’d taken to doing with his cousin. They loved him, he would not doubt that, but did they really like him at all? He was so… dull, compared to most of them.
In a sense, this was why he enjoyed his time with Elizabeth. She didn’t have to act like she was his friend unless she really wanted to. He hadn’t just already been there when she was born, to become part of her life whether she wanted it or not. She chose to be around him every time she was, and that was… comforting, he supposed. He’d found himself telling her just as much as she told him, and she always seemed to have something funny or insightful to say. It was easy, their rapport. Was this how it was always supposed to be? It was a little like his rapport with Leora, or maybe Keir or his brother, but also different somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain.
Her voice broke him from his thoughts. “You’re doing it again,” she remarked. “Overthinking it.” Red-brown eyes bored into his blue ones with some mixture of her usual friendly concern and something else, something that showed up sometimes but left him entirely unable to identify it.
He smiled uneasily—his thought had not been the most pleasant, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to share them. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to zone out on you; sometimes I can’t help it, I guess.”
She sighed with obviously-false exasperation, but then donned a smile with a hint of mischief, not unlike the one Leo wore a lot of the time. “Let me do that for you,” she said, rising onto her knees. She leaned forward so that they were almost nose-to-nose, but her eyes were quite intently focused on his hair, which she ran her fingers through, setting it to rights. Balthasar was not a person particularly averse to touch—one could not be so and survive in his family. Indeed, sometimes he forgot that others were not as tactile as his relatives and invaded their personal space on accident, but he had not been the subject of such ministrations before, and wasn’t quite sure how to react.
“Uh, Elizabeth?” he asked, hoping perhaps that some kind of explanation was forthcoming. Instead, she only shifted her eyes so that they looked right into his, and he was suddenly very conscious of the soft fanning of her breath on his cheek. Balthasar swallowed, and his face started to heat up a bit, especially when her smile changed to one he didn’t quite recognize anymore. Nobody had ever shown him such an expression before, that he was aware of.
“Hey Balthasar,” she asked lowly, voice quiet, so much so that he could barely hear it, even with his kind’s senses. “Has anyone ever told you how clueless you are?”
He frowned a little, and would have pulled back slightly, except he was pressed to the tree, so that wasn’t an option. Still, it was a little hurtful—that was all anyone ever seemed to tell him. “Only every day,” he replied, and made to move aside, but her hand around the tie of his uniform stopped him. He turned back, a bit confused still, and she smiled a little wider.
“I think it’s cute,” she told him bluntly, and before he could even adequately process the statement, she’d closed the remaining distance between them and pressed her lips to his, the motion surprisingly tender for all its suddenness. Her mouth was warm, and soft, and he was rather unsure what to do with himself, but she didn’t seem to mind, coaxing patiently until he responded, placing his hands tentatively at her waist and returning the kiss. Elizabeth smiled against his mouth, pulling back and giggling when she noted just how red his face had become. “Yep. Adorable.” A shadow seemed to pass over her eyes then, deepening them to an almost maroon color, and she reached up to place the tips of her fingers over his lips. “This is mine now, right? That doesn’t bother you, does it, Balthasar?” She tilted her head to the side, and a lock of her hair fell in front of her shoulder.
He hesitated for just a moment. He felt very… strange about this. Elizabeth was his friend, and he obviously cared about her, but… he wasn’t sure if it was that kind of feeling. He wasn’t even sure what that was supposed to feel like. But, she was looking at him expectantly, and he couldn’t think of a reason to tell her no, just a general unease. She was nice, and easy to talk to, and seemed to understand him as he was, not as he needed to be for anyone else. As little as it mattered to him, she was also beautiful, and he couldn’t deny any of these things, so… what was holding him back?
Surely nothing sensible. So he swallowed thickly and nodded slightly. Her expression lost all but the faintest trace of mischief, and lit up with obvious happiness. “Good,” she said with a grin, and then she laughed at herself a bit, standing and offering her hand to him. He took it, and she laced their fingers, picking her parasol up with the other hand. He carried the empty basket, and they made their way back to the school hand-in-hand. Though he smiled, he could not seem to shake the weight that settled in his chest.
Elsewhere, Ilyana shook her head, glancing up at Sven. “That big dope,” She said with a sigh. “This is going to make things complicated…”
Yuki sighed, dropping the pencil back on top of the stack of medical charts. If there was one thing that Freya had always gotten right about her, it was that she really didn't know when to stop. It was one of her biggest problems. She saw work that needed to be done, and she just dove into it head-first. She ran a hand over her face, checking her watch, and flinched. She'd been sitting there for over thirty-six hours.
She stretched, rather satisfied when muscle and bone snapped back into place. The back of her throat burned slightly. She'd gone too long without feeding again. She smiled slightly. Her mother was always hounding her about that. Yet another side effect, she could not take blood tablets, and she had to feed more often than other vampires. It was a hassle, really, but she put up with it.
At the moment, the thirst was not overly unbearable, and she didn't feel like feeding at the moment anyhow. So instead, she went to her favorite place at night: the roof.
Zero lay with his arms behind his head, his eyes focused up at the thick sky that had once been colored a bright blue. It was now a dark, midnight blue, for the night time had descended upon the Academy. He had felt no need to go back to his dormitory, and instead stayed upon the rooftop, a place he enjoyed being because no one ever seemed to like it up here. Perhaps they were afraid of heights, or perhaps it was something else. Not that he minded either way, it just meant more privacy for him. He released a content sigh, closing his eyes momentarily until he heard the shifting of the door and tilted his head to glance at who would be disturbing his peace. A smirk fluttered across his face when he saw who it was.
"Late night studying I take it?" he stated, chuckling a bit before sitting up right and turning so that he faced Yuki. "Or is it that you enjoy my company so much you had to seek me out for it? Personally either is fine for me," he stated, the smirk never leaving his face as he shrugged his shoulder in a nonchalant manner.
Yuki frowned slightly. In retrospect, she probably should have known he would be up here. He liked it just as much as she did. She sighed, pointedly breathing through her mouth. In this state, being around someone so alluring was not the best of situations, at least not for her. Control was something she sorely lacked at times, no matter how much she tried to exercise.
"You flatter yourself, cousin." She walked over to the edge of the roof, leaning against the railing. "Do you just stay up here all day?" She'd wondered at times. She knew he was not one for going to class, and that Leora did his homework. His scent assaulted her, and she gripped her arms slightly. She shouldn't be here.
"Oh, but it is you who does all the flattering, cousin," Zero countered, standing from his spot and walking over so that he too was leaning over the railing of the roof. He glanced out a head of him, his eyes piercing through the darkness in the process. Perhaps it was a good thing they were vampires, their sight was that much better than a humans, and he could see a nest of a family of crows, something he found rather ironic. "Do you know what they call a flock of crows?" he stated, tilting his head to the side as he noticed her clench her arms slightly. A frown pulled at his face as he moved closer to her, moving the back of his hand against her forehead.
"Are you feeling well Yuki?" he questioned, absolute concern lacing his tone. She didn't feel warm, and he highly doubted vampires of their nature could become ill, so perhaps it was something else. He took a deep breath before releasing it. "If you are not feeling well, you shouldn't be out here," he spoke, slumping his shoulders in the process. He allowed the wind to blow behind him, pushing his hair slightly forward in the process. His eyes still shone with concern. He may have been who he was, but he always knew when to be serious and when to take precaution. And right now, he was being serious for the welfare of his cousin.
Yuki found herself staring at Zero, his hand on her forehead, wide-eyed. At first, her mind couldn't discern why he was touching her, and for some reason, all she could hear in her head was his first question. "A murder." she whispered softly.
And then, his scent hit her again. That dark, twisted, ugly thing she kept buried deep inside of her, the part of her that wanted only to destroy, burned fiercely in the back of her mind, her throat. It was the part of her that would take what it wanted, without fear of the consequences, without care for who it harmed. Her eyes shimmered a deep red, and she hadn't even realized she'd moved until her fangs had slid down, her hands at Zero's shoulders. He was backed up against the railing, her body pressed into his. She was so close, she could hear the blood running through his veins, just beneath the pale skin. She opened her mouth...
...and shoved away from him, gripping her arms tightly across her chest. If it wasn't for the agonizing effort she was exuding to keep herself from attacking him, she would have run away. She lowered her gaze to the ground, fear laced into her features. What had she done? What had she almost done? She gripped her arms tighter, whispering, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry."
Had the situation been a bit different, Zero would have smirked at his cousin, however; it was fairly obvious now to him that she was not quite alright. He did nothing as he found himself pushed back into the railing, her lips so close to his neck that he had to contain the small shudder that wracked through his body. "Yuki," he spoke, his seafoam colored eyes flashing a hint of vermilion in the process. They returned to their normal coloring when Yuki pulled away, the heat still lingering where she once was. He sighed softly, grabbing her wrist in the process and leaned a little further towards her, exposing his neck to her.
"Aunt Nikki is not around, and it is apparent you need to feed. I will tell no one of this incident if that is what you wish, but I am not letting you leave until you feed," he spoke, his hands tightening a little around her wrists to emphasize his point. "But do not apologize for something that is in your nature, something that makes you, you," he continued, releasing her wrists somewhat so that he wasn't hurting her. That was the last thing on his mind, and he would never intentionally hurt his cousin.
Yuki couldn't think straight, but she knew she didn't want to do this. At least, not like this. But she knew, if anything, that Zero meant what he said, she was going nowhere. Hating herself all the more for wanting this, she found herself leaning into him again. Fang pierced skin, warm sweet liquid rolling over her tongue. It made her think of summer and oranges. Her fingers curled reflexively into his shirt.
When she released him, she did not step away, but instead rested her forehead on his shoulder. "You really are your father's son, Zero. That's one of the things I love most about you." She said softly.
Zero allowed a small smile cross his lips as she succumbed to her desire to feed. He relaxed his muscles a bit, shifting so that the intake would be easier for her and their height differences not hindering anything either. When she finished, his eyes softened a bit, however; a smirk crossed his face at her words when she stated them. That could be taken in many different ways, but he would allow his silly notion that his cousin did not love him that way, and instead feigned a mock hurt look.
"Are you saying you'd prefer my father? Oh how you wound me so dear cousin," he spoke, chuckling darkly before he slid his lips across her forehead in a friendly manner. There was nothing sensual about it, just from one friend to another. "Though I am afraid you'd have a very angry Aunt Ava after you if you ever tried taking him from her," he joked lightly, shuddering slightly at the thought of his mother being angry. He had only seen her upset once, and it was enough to cause him to fear her just a bit.
"But then again, you did say I am my father's son," he stated, tilting his brows up at her in a playful gesture before laughing at the redness of her cheeks. He truly enjoyed teasing his cousin...even if it was just that.
She stretched, rather satisfied when muscle and bone snapped back into place. The back of her throat burned slightly. She'd gone too long without feeding again. She smiled slightly. Her mother was always hounding her about that. Yet another side effect, she could not take blood tablets, and she had to feed more often than other vampires. It was a hassle, really, but she put up with it.
At the moment, the thirst was not overly unbearable, and she didn't feel like feeding at the moment anyhow. So instead, she went to her favorite place at night: the roof.
Zero lay with his arms behind his head, his eyes focused up at the thick sky that had once been colored a bright blue. It was now a dark, midnight blue, for the night time had descended upon the Academy. He had felt no need to go back to his dormitory, and instead stayed upon the rooftop, a place he enjoyed being because no one ever seemed to like it up here. Perhaps they were afraid of heights, or perhaps it was something else. Not that he minded either way, it just meant more privacy for him. He released a content sigh, closing his eyes momentarily until he heard the shifting of the door and tilted his head to glance at who would be disturbing his peace. A smirk fluttered across his face when he saw who it was.
"Late night studying I take it?" he stated, chuckling a bit before sitting up right and turning so that he faced Yuki. "Or is it that you enjoy my company so much you had to seek me out for it? Personally either is fine for me," he stated, the smirk never leaving his face as he shrugged his shoulder in a nonchalant manner.
Yuki frowned slightly. In retrospect, she probably should have known he would be up here. He liked it just as much as she did. She sighed, pointedly breathing through her mouth. In this state, being around someone so alluring was not the best of situations, at least not for her. Control was something she sorely lacked at times, no matter how much she tried to exercise.
"You flatter yourself, cousin." She walked over to the edge of the roof, leaning against the railing. "Do you just stay up here all day?" She'd wondered at times. She knew he was not one for going to class, and that Leora did his homework. His scent assaulted her, and she gripped her arms slightly. She shouldn't be here.
"Oh, but it is you who does all the flattering, cousin," Zero countered, standing from his spot and walking over so that he too was leaning over the railing of the roof. He glanced out a head of him, his eyes piercing through the darkness in the process. Perhaps it was a good thing they were vampires, their sight was that much better than a humans, and he could see a nest of a family of crows, something he found rather ironic. "Do you know what they call a flock of crows?" he stated, tilting his head to the side as he noticed her clench her arms slightly. A frown pulled at his face as he moved closer to her, moving the back of his hand against her forehead.
"Are you feeling well Yuki?" he questioned, absolute concern lacing his tone. She didn't feel warm, and he highly doubted vampires of their nature could become ill, so perhaps it was something else. He took a deep breath before releasing it. "If you are not feeling well, you shouldn't be out here," he spoke, slumping his shoulders in the process. He allowed the wind to blow behind him, pushing his hair slightly forward in the process. His eyes still shone with concern. He may have been who he was, but he always knew when to be serious and when to take precaution. And right now, he was being serious for the welfare of his cousin.
Yuki found herself staring at Zero, his hand on her forehead, wide-eyed. At first, her mind couldn't discern why he was touching her, and for some reason, all she could hear in her head was his first question. "A murder." she whispered softly.
And then, his scent hit her again. That dark, twisted, ugly thing she kept buried deep inside of her, the part of her that wanted only to destroy, burned fiercely in the back of her mind, her throat. It was the part of her that would take what it wanted, without fear of the consequences, without care for who it harmed. Her eyes shimmered a deep red, and she hadn't even realized she'd moved until her fangs had slid down, her hands at Zero's shoulders. He was backed up against the railing, her body pressed into his. She was so close, she could hear the blood running through his veins, just beneath the pale skin. She opened her mouth...
...and shoved away from him, gripping her arms tightly across her chest. If it wasn't for the agonizing effort she was exuding to keep herself from attacking him, she would have run away. She lowered her gaze to the ground, fear laced into her features. What had she done? What had she almost done? She gripped her arms tighter, whispering, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry."
Had the situation been a bit different, Zero would have smirked at his cousin, however; it was fairly obvious now to him that she was not quite alright. He did nothing as he found himself pushed back into the railing, her lips so close to his neck that he had to contain the small shudder that wracked through his body. "Yuki," he spoke, his seafoam colored eyes flashing a hint of vermilion in the process. They returned to their normal coloring when Yuki pulled away, the heat still lingering where she once was. He sighed softly, grabbing her wrist in the process and leaned a little further towards her, exposing his neck to her.
"Aunt Nikki is not around, and it is apparent you need to feed. I will tell no one of this incident if that is what you wish, but I am not letting you leave until you feed," he spoke, his hands tightening a little around her wrists to emphasize his point. "But do not apologize for something that is in your nature, something that makes you, you," he continued, releasing her wrists somewhat so that he wasn't hurting her. That was the last thing on his mind, and he would never intentionally hurt his cousin.
Yuki couldn't think straight, but she knew she didn't want to do this. At least, not like this. But she knew, if anything, that Zero meant what he said, she was going nowhere. Hating herself all the more for wanting this, she found herself leaning into him again. Fang pierced skin, warm sweet liquid rolling over her tongue. It made her think of summer and oranges. Her fingers curled reflexively into his shirt.
When she released him, she did not step away, but instead rested her forehead on his shoulder. "You really are your father's son, Zero. That's one of the things I love most about you." She said softly.
Zero allowed a small smile cross his lips as she succumbed to her desire to feed. He relaxed his muscles a bit, shifting so that the intake would be easier for her and their height differences not hindering anything either. When she finished, his eyes softened a bit, however; a smirk crossed his face at her words when she stated them. That could be taken in many different ways, but he would allow his silly notion that his cousin did not love him that way, and instead feigned a mock hurt look.
"Are you saying you'd prefer my father? Oh how you wound me so dear cousin," he spoke, chuckling darkly before he slid his lips across her forehead in a friendly manner. There was nothing sensual about it, just from one friend to another. "Though I am afraid you'd have a very angry Aunt Ava after you if you ever tried taking him from her," he joked lightly, shuddering slightly at the thought of his mother being angry. He had only seen her upset once, and it was enough to cause him to fear her just a bit.
"But then again, you did say I am my father's son," he stated, tilting his brows up at her in a playful gesture before laughing at the redness of her cheeks. He truly enjoyed teasing his cousin...even if it was just that.
The first day she found out about it, Alarica felt something akin to rage burn beneath her skin. It felt like fire had replaced itself in her veins, and it took every ounce of control for her to not destroy the object that had him. She wanted nothing more than to shred the woman who held...she paused in that thought, blinking as she focused on a tree that had been uprooted thanks to her, and she sighed. She shouldn't feel so angry about it. She shouldn't. This was what she had wanted, wasn't it? That he would find someone who wasn't her and be happy with them? She couldn't explain the feeling that fluttered in her chest, the feeling of not being able to breathe, and she hated it. Besides, it's been a little over two weeks.
"What troubles you, master?" Angelus stated, her tails swishing back and forth. Alarica turned to her familiar, blinking down at her in the process. She sighed, shifting so that she lay in the grass next to her familiar. "If it bothers you so much, why have you not told him? The worse he can do is reject you, Alarica, and would that be so bad?" Angelus stated, jumping upon Alarica's abdomen and peered down upon her with those same blue eyes. Alarica sighed harshly, closing her eyes as she laid one hand behind her head, and used the other one to softly stroke Angelus' fur.
"You don't understand. It's not the rejection I fear. I don't fear his rejection," she started, Angelus just giving her a dull look. "I am not the one who can make him happy, and he deserves that much. Look at his family's history, what they have been through. I cannot be the one who can make him forget all of that. If this vampire can, this Elizabeth, then let her have him. As long as he is happy, I will not interfere," she spoke truthfully to her familiar, listening to the sharp exhale of air Angelus released. She frowned as she felt her familiar shift in her spot until she was sitting upon Alarica's chest.
"And are you certain of this? Are you certain that you couldn't make him happy? How can you be so sure if you've never tried?" Angelus spoke. "It doesn't hurt to just at least talk to him, tell him, and if he does not feel the same, then you can move on in your life without ever being held back," she continued, watching for a reaction from Alarica. Her master merely closed her eyes, sighing heavily through her nose. In a way, Angelus was right, but that still did not stop that little bout of fear from creeping up inside of her.
"I won't tell him, but...I can at least stop avoiding him now," she replied, sitting up from her spot and placed Angelus so that she was curled along her neck. "I will go talk to him, but do not say a word or so help me I will make you disappear, familiar or not," she stated, her eyes fixed on Angelus who merely smiled a mischievous smile. Alarica merely rolled her eyes at her familiar as she set out to find Balthasar. She picked up his scent, it was always easy for her to find. But her face twisted into a frown. There were faint traces of her mixed in with it as well, and she wasn't sure if she could handle that right now.
Well, she wouldn't back out of it now. It was far too late for that. She followed his scent and found him out in the court yard, sitting at one of the tables. Taking a deep breath, she forced her legs to walk over towards him and sat in the chair opposite of him. "I never told you thank you, for the apples I mean. Mikhail, he...gave me your letter. I...I appreciate it," she stated, pulling the letter from her pocket and handing it back to him. It's not like she needed it any longer. She wouldn't.
Balthasar sighed slightly, looking down at the sheaf of papers laid out on the table before him. Actually, they were covered with blank music bars. He held a pencil in one hand, and tapped the eraser of it against the pages with a faintly-troubled air. He’d been trying to compose, but wherever his muse had gone, it wasn’t with him at the moment. Elizabeth had been by, but he’d been kind of… bad at talking today, even more than usual. She’d seemed to understand though, and had left him to his own devices. Not that he was accomplishing much of anything. He scrubbed a hand up and down his face, running it back through the thick mass of his hair before he recalled something and blushed slightly, clearing his throat and dropping the arm, trying to refocus on his presently nonexistent composition.
He’d caught his cousin’s distinctive scent on the passing breeze, but he’d simply assumed that she would detect his nearness and adjust her trajectory away from him, like she always did. Leaning forward, he propped his chin, placing his elbow in the table and staring at the blank spaces between the lines, as if they had the answers to all his problems. As though they would explain to him why he’d felt so…odd lately, like something wasn’t right in his life. Sure, it wasn’t perfect—there was a war on, and his family was always in danger from that. But it had been that way for most of his life, and the conflict was actually quieter than usual. Add to this the recent circumstances in his personal life, and he should probably be in a state of permanent euphoria.
But he wasn’t. Maybe that was just the reality of relationships—he had no experience with which to gauge things. Should he talk to Leo about it? His father, maybe? Was he just overthinking again? Somehow, he’d pictured such relationships as the kind of thing his parents had, where they were just so instinctively in-tune with one another that they could communicate a world of meaning with a single look. It was like they were magnetized to each other, and every time one of them came into a room, the other knew it first, and they’d already made eye contact and smiled before anyone else realized anything at all, be it by sight or scent or sound. The way they just fit. But… his parents had been together for basically a century, and they’d known each other long before that. He was expecting too much. There was no magic there, no so-called red string binding them together—it was familiarity, and love learned. He shouldn’t expect it… and somehow, he wasn’t sure he wanted it.
“Maybe I am as stupid as everyone says,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. He was just about to give up for the day and go train or something when someone sat down across from him. Balthasar looked up with startled bluesilver eyes, blinking dumbly at his cousin when she spoke to him. She was… speaking to him now?
Yeah, he was definitely stupid, because he didn’t get it at all. Alarica wasn’t a frivolous or shallow person—it shouldn’t have been that simply leaving a bushel of apples at her door every Monday forgave him whatever transgression he’d committed against her. That hadn’t been the point… he’d really just wanted to make her day better was all. It took him a few tries, and he was sure he looked a bit like a fish, the way his mouth opened and closed as he searched for his voice, but at last, he shook his head and offered a warm smile, holding up a hand as if to decline the proffered sheet of paper.
“Keep it. Well, uh, I don’t mean you have to keep the note—you can get rid of that or whatever you wish. Just… they were the right kind, weren’t they? Learning to tell one apple tree apart from another was kind of hard, and I might have messed it up a bit.” He’d once stared at a tree for half an hour, trying to decide if it was fuji or gala. One was apparently vastly preferable to the other, after all. He’d picked them all himself, of course, every Monday morning, but… he blinked again. Part of him wanted to ask if this conversation meant they were okay again, but he wasn’t sure how to put it to words without sounding stupid or desperate or possibly both.
Alarica blinked a bit slowly at his reaction. Trying her hardest not to laugh at him. She really did want to though, and she sighed softly, folding the paper a bit smaller than it originally was and placed it back into her pocket. She'll put it somewhere else for now, but she would never throw it away. His question brought her out of her thoughts as she tilted her head to the side slightly, raising a brow. Honestly, she hadn't cared what the apples were that he had given her, even though they were her favorites. She smiled a half smile, something caught between a choked smirk.
"They were fine," was the only response she gave him. She tried to keep the frown from appearing on her lips as she folded her hands in front of her. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and released the held breath slowly. "I'm sorry I ignored you," she finally stated, opening her eyes slowly in the process. "I didn't mean to, it's just..." she paused. She was usually a direct person, never beating around the bush, and yet; here she was doing what she hated most. She allowed her gaze to meet his, and she pursed her lips into a thin line.
"I was just trying to sort through a few things, and I'm sorry that it meant ignoring you," she stated truthfully. While she was trying to sort through a few things, she wasn't exactly telling a lie about it. Angelus rolled her eyes at her master, but kept quiet as she was instructed to. "So, Balthasar has a vampiress at his side now? You don't have to answer, and you don't have to tell me, but," she began, pausing as she thought the statement over. It wasn't her business to know, but she wanted to know. She wanted to know if she made the right choice in never telling him.
"Does she make you happy?" she finally stated, pulling her hands together as they rested against the table. She wasn't expecting him to answer, and she wouldn't hold it against him either. She wasn't exactly the easiest person to talk to, that much she knew. But that never stopped her before from trying. This, however, was personal.
“Oh,” was his articulate reply to the apology, and the explanation. What was she sorting through that she’d had to ignore him specifically? He wanted to ask, but he didn’t. It was probably rude, and if she wanted him to know, she would tell him. Somewhere in his head, he felt Illy shake her head in something like frustration, but for the moment, he ignored her. She was always too nosy anyway, insinuating herself into other people’s business where she didn’t belong. “Oh,” he repeated, but then he shook himself a bit, and grinned. “Well then, I’m glad you were able to work it out. Though, uh… if it’s not too much to ask, next time you need to ignore me for something like that… could you maybe get one of the others to tell me at least? I was really afraid I’d done something to hurt you…” Not that he’d had any idea what that might be, of course.
He blinked owlishly at the change in topic, but he supposed this must be her way of trying to regain something like the rapport they’d had, one that had been completely derailed three years ago, when she’d just stopped talking to him. “Who… Elizabeth? Oh, uh… yeah. I guess you could put it that way. I mean… it’s a bit… different, knowing someone who’s not really part of this, you know? I wasn’t really expecting it or anything, but… she’s really nice.” He raised a hand to rub at the back of his neck. Was he happy? It should be an easy question, but it wasn’t. He liked talking to her, and he’d admit, having someone interested in him was flattering and quite new. Most people looked at him and saw the von Nacht heir. She at least seemed to see Balthasar, and actually liked him. It was honestly strange.
“I guess? I don’t really know how it’s supposed to work…” The thing was, aside from the flattering part, being her boyfriend wasn’t really much different from being her friend, for him. Sure, they kissed sometimes, but he felt no real impulse to do so. It was maybe a little weird, but he just didn't have a frame of reference for it.
She smiled softly at his first response. "I can't make any promises, but I'll do my best if it comes to that again. I hope it does not, it..." she was about to say something that she would have regretted, and she did not want to do that. It hurt that she had ignored him on purpose, because of her own insecurity about him. He was Balthasar von Nacht, heir to the von Nacht family and she was merely Alarica. That was all she would ever be, and she was fine with that now. Elizabeth, she seemed like a nice person from what Alarica could see from the distance. She never approached the girl for fear of doing something stupid. And she knew she would.
"You could never hurt me Bally, I love you too much for that," she stated, a frown marring her face before she realized what she said. Her eyes widened slightly but she passed it off as nothing. They were family after all, and it was natural that family said such things. Besides, he wouldn't get the underlying meaning to that. She shook her head, the smile returning to her face as he spoke of Elizabeth. "I guess it's different for everyone. Not everyone can be as lucky as our parents I suppose," she replied, sinking a bit in her chair. It was true, not everyone could have what their parents had, and at times, Alarica believed it was merely a fairy tale.
"But, then again I suppose you are fairly new to it as well. Just...just give it some time and I'm sure it'll fall into place. People adjust to things differently," she stated, reaching over and fixed a loose lock of his hair, tucking it so that it was out of his face as he had liked it usually. Angelus just shook her head. Her master was hopeless. "And like you said, someone who isn't part of whatever this is, whatever you could call it, might be a good thing. Not everyone knows how it works the first time you know," she stated, removing her hand from his hair in the process.
He smiled gently, slightly startled when her fingers in his hair produced an irregular thump in his chest. What was that about? Mentally rolling his eyes at his own strangeness, he nodded thoughtfully. “You have a point,” he said with a touch of relief. Maybe he wasn’t doing this wrong after all. Maybe, like she’d said, he just needed to give things time. Like she’d needed time to work out whatever she had to think about, perhaps it was best if he gave himself that time as well, to decide just how he felt about things.
“Thanks, Rica,” he said, catching her hand as it pulled back. With a smile, he flattened his palm so that it rested a mirror to hers, something he’d done often when she was a child. She’d been adorably upset when her own hardly seemed to gain size compared to his, and though she was no longer a child, her hand was still small next to Balthasar's, and her fingers slender compared to his long ones, the insides roughened from nearly a century with a sword in his hands.
“I love you too.”
"What troubles you, master?" Angelus stated, her tails swishing back and forth. Alarica turned to her familiar, blinking down at her in the process. She sighed, shifting so that she lay in the grass next to her familiar. "If it bothers you so much, why have you not told him? The worse he can do is reject you, Alarica, and would that be so bad?" Angelus stated, jumping upon Alarica's abdomen and peered down upon her with those same blue eyes. Alarica sighed harshly, closing her eyes as she laid one hand behind her head, and used the other one to softly stroke Angelus' fur.
"You don't understand. It's not the rejection I fear. I don't fear his rejection," she started, Angelus just giving her a dull look. "I am not the one who can make him happy, and he deserves that much. Look at his family's history, what they have been through. I cannot be the one who can make him forget all of that. If this vampire can, this Elizabeth, then let her have him. As long as he is happy, I will not interfere," she spoke truthfully to her familiar, listening to the sharp exhale of air Angelus released. She frowned as she felt her familiar shift in her spot until she was sitting upon Alarica's chest.
"And are you certain of this? Are you certain that you couldn't make him happy? How can you be so sure if you've never tried?" Angelus spoke. "It doesn't hurt to just at least talk to him, tell him, and if he does not feel the same, then you can move on in your life without ever being held back," she continued, watching for a reaction from Alarica. Her master merely closed her eyes, sighing heavily through her nose. In a way, Angelus was right, but that still did not stop that little bout of fear from creeping up inside of her.
"I won't tell him, but...I can at least stop avoiding him now," she replied, sitting up from her spot and placed Angelus so that she was curled along her neck. "I will go talk to him, but do not say a word or so help me I will make you disappear, familiar or not," she stated, her eyes fixed on Angelus who merely smiled a mischievous smile. Alarica merely rolled her eyes at her familiar as she set out to find Balthasar. She picked up his scent, it was always easy for her to find. But her face twisted into a frown. There were faint traces of her mixed in with it as well, and she wasn't sure if she could handle that right now.
Well, she wouldn't back out of it now. It was far too late for that. She followed his scent and found him out in the court yard, sitting at one of the tables. Taking a deep breath, she forced her legs to walk over towards him and sat in the chair opposite of him. "I never told you thank you, for the apples I mean. Mikhail, he...gave me your letter. I...I appreciate it," she stated, pulling the letter from her pocket and handing it back to him. It's not like she needed it any longer. She wouldn't.
Balthasar sighed slightly, looking down at the sheaf of papers laid out on the table before him. Actually, they were covered with blank music bars. He held a pencil in one hand, and tapped the eraser of it against the pages with a faintly-troubled air. He’d been trying to compose, but wherever his muse had gone, it wasn’t with him at the moment. Elizabeth had been by, but he’d been kind of… bad at talking today, even more than usual. She’d seemed to understand though, and had left him to his own devices. Not that he was accomplishing much of anything. He scrubbed a hand up and down his face, running it back through the thick mass of his hair before he recalled something and blushed slightly, clearing his throat and dropping the arm, trying to refocus on his presently nonexistent composition.
He’d caught his cousin’s distinctive scent on the passing breeze, but he’d simply assumed that she would detect his nearness and adjust her trajectory away from him, like she always did. Leaning forward, he propped his chin, placing his elbow in the table and staring at the blank spaces between the lines, as if they had the answers to all his problems. As though they would explain to him why he’d felt so…odd lately, like something wasn’t right in his life. Sure, it wasn’t perfect—there was a war on, and his family was always in danger from that. But it had been that way for most of his life, and the conflict was actually quieter than usual. Add to this the recent circumstances in his personal life, and he should probably be in a state of permanent euphoria.
But he wasn’t. Maybe that was just the reality of relationships—he had no experience with which to gauge things. Should he talk to Leo about it? His father, maybe? Was he just overthinking again? Somehow, he’d pictured such relationships as the kind of thing his parents had, where they were just so instinctively in-tune with one another that they could communicate a world of meaning with a single look. It was like they were magnetized to each other, and every time one of them came into a room, the other knew it first, and they’d already made eye contact and smiled before anyone else realized anything at all, be it by sight or scent or sound. The way they just fit. But… his parents had been together for basically a century, and they’d known each other long before that. He was expecting too much. There was no magic there, no so-called red string binding them together—it was familiarity, and love learned. He shouldn’t expect it… and somehow, he wasn’t sure he wanted it.
“Maybe I am as stupid as everyone says,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. He was just about to give up for the day and go train or something when someone sat down across from him. Balthasar looked up with startled bluesilver eyes, blinking dumbly at his cousin when she spoke to him. She was… speaking to him now?
Yeah, he was definitely stupid, because he didn’t get it at all. Alarica wasn’t a frivolous or shallow person—it shouldn’t have been that simply leaving a bushel of apples at her door every Monday forgave him whatever transgression he’d committed against her. That hadn’t been the point… he’d really just wanted to make her day better was all. It took him a few tries, and he was sure he looked a bit like a fish, the way his mouth opened and closed as he searched for his voice, but at last, he shook his head and offered a warm smile, holding up a hand as if to decline the proffered sheet of paper.
“Keep it. Well, uh, I don’t mean you have to keep the note—you can get rid of that or whatever you wish. Just… they were the right kind, weren’t they? Learning to tell one apple tree apart from another was kind of hard, and I might have messed it up a bit.” He’d once stared at a tree for half an hour, trying to decide if it was fuji or gala. One was apparently vastly preferable to the other, after all. He’d picked them all himself, of course, every Monday morning, but… he blinked again. Part of him wanted to ask if this conversation meant they were okay again, but he wasn’t sure how to put it to words without sounding stupid or desperate or possibly both.
Alarica blinked a bit slowly at his reaction. Trying her hardest not to laugh at him. She really did want to though, and she sighed softly, folding the paper a bit smaller than it originally was and placed it back into her pocket. She'll put it somewhere else for now, but she would never throw it away. His question brought her out of her thoughts as she tilted her head to the side slightly, raising a brow. Honestly, she hadn't cared what the apples were that he had given her, even though they were her favorites. She smiled a half smile, something caught between a choked smirk.
"They were fine," was the only response she gave him. She tried to keep the frown from appearing on her lips as she folded her hands in front of her. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and released the held breath slowly. "I'm sorry I ignored you," she finally stated, opening her eyes slowly in the process. "I didn't mean to, it's just..." she paused. She was usually a direct person, never beating around the bush, and yet; here she was doing what she hated most. She allowed her gaze to meet his, and she pursed her lips into a thin line.
"I was just trying to sort through a few things, and I'm sorry that it meant ignoring you," she stated truthfully. While she was trying to sort through a few things, she wasn't exactly telling a lie about it. Angelus rolled her eyes at her master, but kept quiet as she was instructed to. "So, Balthasar has a vampiress at his side now? You don't have to answer, and you don't have to tell me, but," she began, pausing as she thought the statement over. It wasn't her business to know, but she wanted to know. She wanted to know if she made the right choice in never telling him.
"Does she make you happy?" she finally stated, pulling her hands together as they rested against the table. She wasn't expecting him to answer, and she wouldn't hold it against him either. She wasn't exactly the easiest person to talk to, that much she knew. But that never stopped her before from trying. This, however, was personal.
“Oh,” was his articulate reply to the apology, and the explanation. What was she sorting through that she’d had to ignore him specifically? He wanted to ask, but he didn’t. It was probably rude, and if she wanted him to know, she would tell him. Somewhere in his head, he felt Illy shake her head in something like frustration, but for the moment, he ignored her. She was always too nosy anyway, insinuating herself into other people’s business where she didn’t belong. “Oh,” he repeated, but then he shook himself a bit, and grinned. “Well then, I’m glad you were able to work it out. Though, uh… if it’s not too much to ask, next time you need to ignore me for something like that… could you maybe get one of the others to tell me at least? I was really afraid I’d done something to hurt you…” Not that he’d had any idea what that might be, of course.
He blinked owlishly at the change in topic, but he supposed this must be her way of trying to regain something like the rapport they’d had, one that had been completely derailed three years ago, when she’d just stopped talking to him. “Who… Elizabeth? Oh, uh… yeah. I guess you could put it that way. I mean… it’s a bit… different, knowing someone who’s not really part of this, you know? I wasn’t really expecting it or anything, but… she’s really nice.” He raised a hand to rub at the back of his neck. Was he happy? It should be an easy question, but it wasn’t. He liked talking to her, and he’d admit, having someone interested in him was flattering and quite new. Most people looked at him and saw the von Nacht heir. She at least seemed to see Balthasar, and actually liked him. It was honestly strange.
“I guess? I don’t really know how it’s supposed to work…” The thing was, aside from the flattering part, being her boyfriend wasn’t really much different from being her friend, for him. Sure, they kissed sometimes, but he felt no real impulse to do so. It was maybe a little weird, but he just didn't have a frame of reference for it.
She smiled softly at his first response. "I can't make any promises, but I'll do my best if it comes to that again. I hope it does not, it..." she was about to say something that she would have regretted, and she did not want to do that. It hurt that she had ignored him on purpose, because of her own insecurity about him. He was Balthasar von Nacht, heir to the von Nacht family and she was merely Alarica. That was all she would ever be, and she was fine with that now. Elizabeth, she seemed like a nice person from what Alarica could see from the distance. She never approached the girl for fear of doing something stupid. And she knew she would.
"You could never hurt me Bally, I love you too much for that," she stated, a frown marring her face before she realized what she said. Her eyes widened slightly but she passed it off as nothing. They were family after all, and it was natural that family said such things. Besides, he wouldn't get the underlying meaning to that. She shook her head, the smile returning to her face as he spoke of Elizabeth. "I guess it's different for everyone. Not everyone can be as lucky as our parents I suppose," she replied, sinking a bit in her chair. It was true, not everyone could have what their parents had, and at times, Alarica believed it was merely a fairy tale.
"But, then again I suppose you are fairly new to it as well. Just...just give it some time and I'm sure it'll fall into place. People adjust to things differently," she stated, reaching over and fixed a loose lock of his hair, tucking it so that it was out of his face as he had liked it usually. Angelus just shook her head. Her master was hopeless. "And like you said, someone who isn't part of whatever this is, whatever you could call it, might be a good thing. Not everyone knows how it works the first time you know," she stated, removing her hand from his hair in the process.
He smiled gently, slightly startled when her fingers in his hair produced an irregular thump in his chest. What was that about? Mentally rolling his eyes at his own strangeness, he nodded thoughtfully. “You have a point,” he said with a touch of relief. Maybe he wasn’t doing this wrong after all. Maybe, like she’d said, he just needed to give things time. Like she’d needed time to work out whatever she had to think about, perhaps it was best if he gave himself that time as well, to decide just how he felt about things.
“Thanks, Rica,” he said, catching her hand as it pulled back. With a smile, he flattened his palm so that it rested a mirror to hers, something he’d done often when she was a child. She’d been adorably upset when her own hardly seemed to gain size compared to his, and though she was no longer a child, her hand was still small next to Balthasar's, and her fingers slender compared to his long ones, the insides roughened from nearly a century with a sword in his hands.
“I love you too.”
Aryan let out an irritated sigh. It had been a month and a half since he'd joined the council. There had been some interesting changes as well. Alarica had a new familiar, and his brother had, of all things, a girlfriend. Even better, she was Councilman Snowe's daughter. That in and of itself made Aryan tired. His brother was inexplicably oblivious. Then again, he was also undoubtedly Jasper von Nacht's son.
He glanced back down at the paper in front of him. It was a threat, addressed not specifically to him, though he did get his share of those, now more than ever since becoming a council member, but rather, to his family in general. He was not the only one, they'd all been receiving these threats. As much digging as he and Hel did, they couldn't figure out who was sending them. Everything came up to dead ends, and no path led to the same one, either. Whoever was behind this was undoubtedly a mastermind, and Aryan did not enjoy being beaten in such games.
And then, there was the matter of Yuki. Aryan sat back in his chair, a frown marring his features. He'd been wondering about that lately. He'd long thought his feelings for his sister to be akin to love, however; of late, he'd realized that they were in fact something quite different. He'd often gotten angry at Zero, but it wasn't because he wanted Yuki for his own, it was often just out of a sheer necessity to protect. That was as far as it went. You didn't grow up around parents like Jasper and Nikki von Nacht and not understand a concept like love, at least not when you were as perceptive as Aryan was. And what he felt for Yuki was not love, that much, he was quite certain of now.
That still did not mean he was overly pleased with the object of his sister's affections being Zero. It wasn't that he didn't trust his cousin, but Yuki was...not someone to be taken harshly. One hundred years had opened her up quite a bit, but she was still not at what one might consider a normal level of social interaction. She still hadn't even realized what her feelings toward Zero meant. Aryan found himself sighing again. Gods, he was turning into his father.
Though, that may not be the worst thing in the world.
"You know, one of these days, you're going to run out of sighing and then what will you do?" Zero stated as he leaned up against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest as he stared at Aryan. He rose an eyebrow at Aryan, wondering what the von Nacht was thinking, however; he let it slide off of his features as he glanced at the paper in Aryan's hands. So it seems that everyone was getting those letters. Alarica had said the other day that she felt like someone was watching her and the others when she was with Leora and Helen, and Zero himself had received a very interesting letter. He, of course, had crumpled the letter and had Angelus burn it.
"Any idea who could be behind these letters?" he finally stated as he removed himself from the door frame and took a seat across Aryan. He folded his hands in front of his face as he leaned on his knees. These letters were becoming more and more abundant, some of them being recieved almost every other day. Sure, he was used to the assassins, the death threats, but threats from letters? Someone wasn't trying to be creative enough about how to go about these things. Alden hadn't sent any news as of late either, so either this person, or people, who were sending the letters were not a apart of the Pantheon, or they were a part of the Pantheon or council they did not know of.
Aryan rose his eyebrows slightly. Speak of the Devil... His face remained quite placid as his cousin questioned him. "Not a one. No matter how far we dig, everything comes up empty. Uncle Morgan has reached the same conclusions. Whoever is sending these..." He almost sighed before remembering Zero's statement. "Is incredibly skilled at covering their tracks."
Aryan's eyes narrowed slightly, catching Zero's scent. He smelled like Yuki. He supposed it was none of his business, but he'd also noticed that she'd been acting...odd since the previous night. "One can never run out of sighs. Is there something going on between you and Yuki?"
Zero himself sighed this time, releasing it slowly as he processed the information. If Morgan couldn't even find out who was behind the letters, then perhaps this person was extremely talented at keeping their trail hidden. Morgan wasn't the best in his field for nothing, and if he couldn't find information, then there was little they could do about it. They would just have to be more careful, and try not to travel alone. They would be easy targets for just about anyone if they were alone. Aryan's next statement, however, caused Zero to tilt a brow upwards, and a small smirk appeared on his face.
"What concern of it is yours if there is?" he spoke, a hint of mischief behind his tone, however; he paused and sighed, running a hand through his chestnut locks. "I assure you, Ary, that there is nothing going on between Yuki and I. She had a bit of an incident the other night, and since your mother was not around," he paused in that sentence. It wasn't exactly a secret to the family that Yuki's body rejected the blood pills. It was why she was often supplied blood by one of her family members, particularly her mother.
"I just helped her out is all," he spoke as he ran a hand across his face and released another sigh. It seems that sighs were contagious.
It was Aryan's turn to smirk. It would seem that everyone in his family was oblivious. "Right, and the fact that she's been avoiding you all day means nothing, of course." Yuki had only ever fed off of her immediate family, and even that had only been limited to their mother, and a handful of times from Aryan and Balthasar. As far as he knew, she'd fed off of their father only once. She was...rather conservative when it came to such things.
"And it is my concern because she's my sister, and I intend to look out for her. I'm sure you can relate, with Leora, no?" He leaned his head on his hand.
"Well, she did drink my blood, Ary. I'm sure she's just trying to recover from that. She's only fed off of her immediate family, which is basically you, Balthasar, and your mother. I am not sure if Jasper's ever let her feed from him seeing as Aunt Nikki takes care of it," he replied, raising a brow at the statement he gave. Sure he could relate to that, but Zero wasn't exactly inclined to butt into Leora's life like that. She would always be his little sister, and he would do anything to protect her. But she was capable of taking care of herself as well, and she was capable of choosing whomever she wanted to spend the rest of her time with.
"Sure you could say that, but Leora's a big girl now. She can take care of herself and she is more than capable of choosing whomever she wants for a partner. I will not interfere with that as long as he, or she, makes Leora happy. Though I can't say the same for my father. I would feel bad for the unlucky soul she falls in love with," he replied in a nonchalant manner, waving his hand in front of his face to dismiss the thought. He knew his father wouldn't be exactly...pleasant with the unlucky person. He sighed softly.
"Do not misread me Aryan, Yuki is far older than the both of us, though her emotional state is perhaps still relatively new. I will not do anything that would jeopardize that for her. She means as much to me as she means to you," he replied, his voice losing all playfulness and was replaced with something unbecoming of him: seriousness. He meant every word he said. He would never put Yuki in a situation that would harm her physically, emotionally, or at all. He wasn't that type of vampire.
If he was any other vampire, Aryan might have laughed. He was who he was, and there was no changing that. What Zero said had a ring of truth, to be sure, but he was lying, and to himself more than anyone.
"She fed off our father once, out of necessity. Even so, that is not quite the reason she's avoiding you. Taking someone's blood, whether she wants to or not, would not be enough to cause this sort of behavior in my sister, I know her far too well for that."
He stood up, his hands resting on the tabletop as he regarded his cousin. "I would also suggest you stop lying to yourself, and figure out what you want. How you feel about her far exceeds what I feel, even I can see that. And I expect you to protect her, her heart is not something to be taken lightly." Aryan left his cousin with that cryptic comment. He was actually a bit curious to see what Zero did with the information. Everyone needed a push in the right direction, it seemed.
He glanced back down at the paper in front of him. It was a threat, addressed not specifically to him, though he did get his share of those, now more than ever since becoming a council member, but rather, to his family in general. He was not the only one, they'd all been receiving these threats. As much digging as he and Hel did, they couldn't figure out who was sending them. Everything came up to dead ends, and no path led to the same one, either. Whoever was behind this was undoubtedly a mastermind, and Aryan did not enjoy being beaten in such games.
And then, there was the matter of Yuki. Aryan sat back in his chair, a frown marring his features. He'd been wondering about that lately. He'd long thought his feelings for his sister to be akin to love, however; of late, he'd realized that they were in fact something quite different. He'd often gotten angry at Zero, but it wasn't because he wanted Yuki for his own, it was often just out of a sheer necessity to protect. That was as far as it went. You didn't grow up around parents like Jasper and Nikki von Nacht and not understand a concept like love, at least not when you were as perceptive as Aryan was. And what he felt for Yuki was not love, that much, he was quite certain of now.
That still did not mean he was overly pleased with the object of his sister's affections being Zero. It wasn't that he didn't trust his cousin, but Yuki was...not someone to be taken harshly. One hundred years had opened her up quite a bit, but she was still not at what one might consider a normal level of social interaction. She still hadn't even realized what her feelings toward Zero meant. Aryan found himself sighing again. Gods, he was turning into his father.
Though, that may not be the worst thing in the world.
"You know, one of these days, you're going to run out of sighing and then what will you do?" Zero stated as he leaned up against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest as he stared at Aryan. He rose an eyebrow at Aryan, wondering what the von Nacht was thinking, however; he let it slide off of his features as he glanced at the paper in Aryan's hands. So it seems that everyone was getting those letters. Alarica had said the other day that she felt like someone was watching her and the others when she was with Leora and Helen, and Zero himself had received a very interesting letter. He, of course, had crumpled the letter and had Angelus burn it.
"Any idea who could be behind these letters?" he finally stated as he removed himself from the door frame and took a seat across Aryan. He folded his hands in front of his face as he leaned on his knees. These letters were becoming more and more abundant, some of them being recieved almost every other day. Sure, he was used to the assassins, the death threats, but threats from letters? Someone wasn't trying to be creative enough about how to go about these things. Alden hadn't sent any news as of late either, so either this person, or people, who were sending the letters were not a apart of the Pantheon, or they were a part of the Pantheon or council they did not know of.
Aryan rose his eyebrows slightly. Speak of the Devil... His face remained quite placid as his cousin questioned him. "Not a one. No matter how far we dig, everything comes up empty. Uncle Morgan has reached the same conclusions. Whoever is sending these..." He almost sighed before remembering Zero's statement. "Is incredibly skilled at covering their tracks."
Aryan's eyes narrowed slightly, catching Zero's scent. He smelled like Yuki. He supposed it was none of his business, but he'd also noticed that she'd been acting...odd since the previous night. "One can never run out of sighs. Is there something going on between you and Yuki?"
Zero himself sighed this time, releasing it slowly as he processed the information. If Morgan couldn't even find out who was behind the letters, then perhaps this person was extremely talented at keeping their trail hidden. Morgan wasn't the best in his field for nothing, and if he couldn't find information, then there was little they could do about it. They would just have to be more careful, and try not to travel alone. They would be easy targets for just about anyone if they were alone. Aryan's next statement, however, caused Zero to tilt a brow upwards, and a small smirk appeared on his face.
"What concern of it is yours if there is?" he spoke, a hint of mischief behind his tone, however; he paused and sighed, running a hand through his chestnut locks. "I assure you, Ary, that there is nothing going on between Yuki and I. She had a bit of an incident the other night, and since your mother was not around," he paused in that sentence. It wasn't exactly a secret to the family that Yuki's body rejected the blood pills. It was why she was often supplied blood by one of her family members, particularly her mother.
"I just helped her out is all," he spoke as he ran a hand across his face and released another sigh. It seems that sighs were contagious.
It was Aryan's turn to smirk. It would seem that everyone in his family was oblivious. "Right, and the fact that she's been avoiding you all day means nothing, of course." Yuki had only ever fed off of her immediate family, and even that had only been limited to their mother, and a handful of times from Aryan and Balthasar. As far as he knew, she'd fed off of their father only once. She was...rather conservative when it came to such things.
"And it is my concern because she's my sister, and I intend to look out for her. I'm sure you can relate, with Leora, no?" He leaned his head on his hand.
"Well, she did drink my blood, Ary. I'm sure she's just trying to recover from that. She's only fed off of her immediate family, which is basically you, Balthasar, and your mother. I am not sure if Jasper's ever let her feed from him seeing as Aunt Nikki takes care of it," he replied, raising a brow at the statement he gave. Sure he could relate to that, but Zero wasn't exactly inclined to butt into Leora's life like that. She would always be his little sister, and he would do anything to protect her. But she was capable of taking care of herself as well, and she was capable of choosing whomever she wanted to spend the rest of her time with.
"Sure you could say that, but Leora's a big girl now. She can take care of herself and she is more than capable of choosing whomever she wants for a partner. I will not interfere with that as long as he, or she, makes Leora happy. Though I can't say the same for my father. I would feel bad for the unlucky soul she falls in love with," he replied in a nonchalant manner, waving his hand in front of his face to dismiss the thought. He knew his father wouldn't be exactly...pleasant with the unlucky person. He sighed softly.
"Do not misread me Aryan, Yuki is far older than the both of us, though her emotional state is perhaps still relatively new. I will not do anything that would jeopardize that for her. She means as much to me as she means to you," he replied, his voice losing all playfulness and was replaced with something unbecoming of him: seriousness. He meant every word he said. He would never put Yuki in a situation that would harm her physically, emotionally, or at all. He wasn't that type of vampire.
If he was any other vampire, Aryan might have laughed. He was who he was, and there was no changing that. What Zero said had a ring of truth, to be sure, but he was lying, and to himself more than anyone.
"She fed off our father once, out of necessity. Even so, that is not quite the reason she's avoiding you. Taking someone's blood, whether she wants to or not, would not be enough to cause this sort of behavior in my sister, I know her far too well for that."
He stood up, his hands resting on the tabletop as he regarded his cousin. "I would also suggest you stop lying to yourself, and figure out what you want. How you feel about her far exceeds what I feel, even I can see that. And I expect you to protect her, her heart is not something to be taken lightly." Aryan left his cousin with that cryptic comment. He was actually a bit curious to see what Zero did with the information. Everyone needed a push in the right direction, it seemed.
Zero stared up at the open sky, his hand in front of his face as he stared at it. Aryan's words echoed through his mind as he played them over, a smile covering his face in the process. He knew exactly what Aryan was referring to, however; was he actually lying to himself? Aryan was a perceptive person, that much he had known, however; Zero was not lying to himself. Yuki meant a great deal to him, so much to the point that he could say he loved her. He released a content sigh as he closed his fist.
"Now if only," he paused mid-sentence. Only what? If only he could tell her, could show her? He couldn't do either of those. If he did, it might have negative results on her mind, and as she was, she was already very fragile. She was avoiding him, and he was inclined to leave her be. He was, after all, a patient man when he wanted to be. And they had a very long time for things to be sorted through. He could wait. He was brought from his thoughts as a familiar scent entered the area.
"Bored?" he stated, addressing Keir as he came into sight.
Keir had been wandering, Alucard at his heels. He'd smelled his cousin, but really hadn't made it a point to go over to him, though he wasn't really avoiding him either. It was just a matter of where he ended up. He shrugged at his cousin's question. "Not really. I think the correct word is angry. Perhaps frustrated."
He sat down on the grass. "You look like you're is a deep well of thought. I thought only Aryan could look like that."
"Well you do know that we are related," he replied, chuckling softly before siting up. "It wouldn't surprise me if we all had similar traits, but then again, it probably would," he added as he rolled his shoulders, listening and waiting for each one to pop before closing his eyes. The morning breeze tousled his burnt locks, caressing his face as he sat in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the company of his cousin and the morning breeze. Finally, he cracked his eyes open and rolled his head so that he was facing Keir, a smirk tugging at his features.
"So," he began, propping his elbow upon his knee and rested propped his chin upon his hand. "When is Em supposed to be back? I miss the tyke," he questioned, referring to the eldest Alistair child. The two were born roughly the same month with Emrys being the oldest by a few days. Not that he cared much about age, he actually missed his cousin. He and Emrys were a handful as children, and even so when they grew older, however; Emrys had taken off like Alden had, opting to stay out on the field. It's been a few years since he last saw Emrys, and he had spent a majority of his time following the twins around because of the absence.
Keir's eyebrows rose slightly, a smirk crossing his face. "Where do you get off calling Emrys a tyke?" Em was anything but: a veritable demon on the battlefield, more so than even Keir himself, and more skilled with guns than their mother was, Em was a force to be reckoned with, especially with his ability.
They didn't call him the Ghost for nothing, after all. In response to his cousin's question, he shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. Em comes and goes as he pleases, really. Though, he'll probably pop back up here soon. It has been a few years now." That was more than true, the last time Keir had seen his older brother, he'd been nineteen.
"The last I heard he was up north with Mom and Uncle Vincent."
"Perhaps because he acts more of a child than I did? And still does?" Zero responded with a light shrug of his shoulders. "Ah, dad said Em was headed back towards Russia, I thought he would have at least informed you of that. I mean, you and Lala are his baby siblings," he spoke, the smirk widening in the process. He was well aware of his older cousins ability and why he was called Ghost for a reason, however; that was where a majority of their fun came from.
Keir opened his mouth to respond when Alucard picked his head up, the wolf's ears pricking forward. Keir looked at the familiar, and then looked around. He saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing...and then a voice reached his ears. A very familiar voice.
"Wow, Z, if you're only just getting that information now, then Uncle Vincent's getting out of touch. And since when are you any less childish than I am? You wound me, Coz."
Keir glanced up at the tree looming above him, an expectant smile on his face. Sure enough, his older brother materialized out of thin air, blonde hair and crimson eyes. While using his ability, Emrys could not be touched, and with more focus, he couldn't be smelled. The matter of staying out of sight and not being heard were just tricks he'd picked up over the years. "Emrys, you bastard, why didn't you tell us you were coming back?"
Emrys shrugged slightly. "Well, Z had it half right. I had been on my way back to Russia, but I stopped when I got wind of what happened here. I was worried about my baby brother and sister." He stuck his tongue out, teasing the other Alistair, but he was completely serious about being worried. When he'd heard the Twins were comatose, he'd changed course immediately, and that was what brought him here. He was a few months late, of course, but well, traffic in a war zone did not make for the best travel time.
Zero's eyes snapped up to the tree, his smirk turning into a large grin as he spotted his long time partner-in-crime. "Well you know dad, there are other pressing matters at hand," he stated, watching as Emrys "Since, I don't know, forever? Face it, you're more of a child than I am. I think you got that from your mom," he responded, the smirk still lingering on his face. He stood from his spot and walked closer towards the tree Emrys had perched himself on and tilted his head so that he was staring at both of his cousins for a few minutes.
"Well then, how about we show the school the combined efforts of the Kuragari and Alistair family?" he stated, the smirk growing into a wicked grin. It's been awhile since he and the older Alistair did something productive, and he wasn't going to leave Keir out of the fun. If Alarica was around, it'd be just as entertaining, but from the wind, she was apparently with Balthasar, something that caused his grin to spread into that of a Cheshire cat's.
Keir cocked an eyebrow, and Emrys grinned. "Now, if I know that grin, you've got an idea." He pushed himself off of the tree branch, landing lightly in front of Zero. He stood up straight, his grin matching his cousins'.
"What do you have in mind?"
"Now if only," he paused mid-sentence. Only what? If only he could tell her, could show her? He couldn't do either of those. If he did, it might have negative results on her mind, and as she was, she was already very fragile. She was avoiding him, and he was inclined to leave her be. He was, after all, a patient man when he wanted to be. And they had a very long time for things to be sorted through. He could wait. He was brought from his thoughts as a familiar scent entered the area.
"Bored?" he stated, addressing Keir as he came into sight.
Keir had been wandering, Alucard at his heels. He'd smelled his cousin, but really hadn't made it a point to go over to him, though he wasn't really avoiding him either. It was just a matter of where he ended up. He shrugged at his cousin's question. "Not really. I think the correct word is angry. Perhaps frustrated."
He sat down on the grass. "You look like you're is a deep well of thought. I thought only Aryan could look like that."
"Well you do know that we are related," he replied, chuckling softly before siting up. "It wouldn't surprise me if we all had similar traits, but then again, it probably would," he added as he rolled his shoulders, listening and waiting for each one to pop before closing his eyes. The morning breeze tousled his burnt locks, caressing his face as he sat in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the company of his cousin and the morning breeze. Finally, he cracked his eyes open and rolled his head so that he was facing Keir, a smirk tugging at his features.
"So," he began, propping his elbow upon his knee and rested propped his chin upon his hand. "When is Em supposed to be back? I miss the tyke," he questioned, referring to the eldest Alistair child. The two were born roughly the same month with Emrys being the oldest by a few days. Not that he cared much about age, he actually missed his cousin. He and Emrys were a handful as children, and even so when they grew older, however; Emrys had taken off like Alden had, opting to stay out on the field. It's been a few years since he last saw Emrys, and he had spent a majority of his time following the twins around because of the absence.
Keir's eyebrows rose slightly, a smirk crossing his face. "Where do you get off calling Emrys a tyke?" Em was anything but: a veritable demon on the battlefield, more so than even Keir himself, and more skilled with guns than their mother was, Em was a force to be reckoned with, especially with his ability.
They didn't call him the Ghost for nothing, after all. In response to his cousin's question, he shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. Em comes and goes as he pleases, really. Though, he'll probably pop back up here soon. It has been a few years now." That was more than true, the last time Keir had seen his older brother, he'd been nineteen.
"The last I heard he was up north with Mom and Uncle Vincent."
"Perhaps because he acts more of a child than I did? And still does?" Zero responded with a light shrug of his shoulders. "Ah, dad said Em was headed back towards Russia, I thought he would have at least informed you of that. I mean, you and Lala are his baby siblings," he spoke, the smirk widening in the process. He was well aware of his older cousins ability and why he was called Ghost for a reason, however; that was where a majority of their fun came from.
Keir opened his mouth to respond when Alucard picked his head up, the wolf's ears pricking forward. Keir looked at the familiar, and then looked around. He saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing...and then a voice reached his ears. A very familiar voice.
"Wow, Z, if you're only just getting that information now, then Uncle Vincent's getting out of touch. And since when are you any less childish than I am? You wound me, Coz."
Keir glanced up at the tree looming above him, an expectant smile on his face. Sure enough, his older brother materialized out of thin air, blonde hair and crimson eyes. While using his ability, Emrys could not be touched, and with more focus, he couldn't be smelled. The matter of staying out of sight and not being heard were just tricks he'd picked up over the years. "Emrys, you bastard, why didn't you tell us you were coming back?"
Emrys shrugged slightly. "Well, Z had it half right. I had been on my way back to Russia, but I stopped when I got wind of what happened here. I was worried about my baby brother and sister." He stuck his tongue out, teasing the other Alistair, but he was completely serious about being worried. When he'd heard the Twins were comatose, he'd changed course immediately, and that was what brought him here. He was a few months late, of course, but well, traffic in a war zone did not make for the best travel time.
Zero's eyes snapped up to the tree, his smirk turning into a large grin as he spotted his long time partner-in-crime. "Well you know dad, there are other pressing matters at hand," he stated, watching as Emrys "Since, I don't know, forever? Face it, you're more of a child than I am. I think you got that from your mom," he responded, the smirk still lingering on his face. He stood from his spot and walked closer towards the tree Emrys had perched himself on and tilted his head so that he was staring at both of his cousins for a few minutes.
"Well then, how about we show the school the combined efforts of the Kuragari and Alistair family?" he stated, the smirk growing into a wicked grin. It's been awhile since he and the older Alistair did something productive, and he wasn't going to leave Keir out of the fun. If Alarica was around, it'd be just as entertaining, but from the wind, she was apparently with Balthasar, something that caused his grin to spread into that of a Cheshire cat's.
Keir cocked an eyebrow, and Emrys grinned. "Now, if I know that grin, you've got an idea." He pushed himself off of the tree branch, landing lightly in front of Zero. He stood up straight, his grin matching his cousins'.
"What do you have in mind?"
A few days passed since Alarica reconciled with Balthasar. She had spoken to him at least once every other day when she'd seen him, and when he wasn't around her. Part of her was glad that he was willing to take her advice and approach his new situation delicately and with more patience. The other part of her was disgusted with how she let those words escape her mouth and instead tried to focus on something else. He was happy, that was all that mattered. Angelus blinked owlishly at her master, flickering her tails back and forth as she laid on top of the piano. Alarica pushed a key, listening to the sound it elicited before she sighed.
She had not touched the piano in quite some time, perhaps she should? It was long overdue to begin with, and she didn't want to get rusty. "Are you going to play something?" Angelus spoke as Alarica turned to her familiar. "Or are you just going to sit there and mope? I'd prefer it if you'd play something to distract your mind. Though, I'd probably be easier if you just went out and found someone to distract you for a while. You made your decision, it was clear," Angelus continued as she closed her eyes. She would say nothing more of the matter to her master. It was evident that she had made her decision, and Angelus was not going to press the issue further.
"There is no other. There will never be another, but you are correct," Alarica finally spoke, gliding her fingers over the piano, producing an atrocious sound. Angelus flinched at the noise before glancing back at her master. "I made that decision and I plan on standing by it. There is no room for me. Now stop being so nosy and leave the subject alone," she snapped, perhaps a little unintentionally, but nonetheless. She sighed slowly, releasing the breath as if she had been holding it for a period of minutes. "I'll play something if that's what you want," she finally stated. She pulled her hands in front of her, popping her knuckles in the process before she went to work on the keys of the piano.
She honestly couldn’t believe it. Part of Leo wanted to punch Balthasar, and the other part wanted to force the two of them in a room, and just lay everything out for the both of them, freaking idiots. The problem was… while she knew what Rica’s feelings were… she couldn’t actually say how Balthasar felt. Looking at it from the surface, it should have been obvious—people didn’t just get up at stupid-early in the morning to go picking apples for people they didn't like. Except… except Balthasar. He would have done it for all of them, if he’d thought it would have a significant impact on their happiness. He’d do anything for any of them, and not just the big things. Al was a little things kind of guy, too, and honestly? It would have been so damn perfect if she was just sure he had feelings for Rica.
She’d seen him a few times, with Elizabeth. Honestly, if the girl didn’t insist on holding his hand and walking close to him, she’d have never been able to tell that they were even dating. It seemed that her cousin’s ineptitude with his own feelings might well be deep. She might not be able to tell what Balthasar felt because Balthasar didn’t know, and that was just… well, if it had been literally anyone but him, she’d not have believed it possible.
So changing things from his end was going to be damn impossible. Especially if Alarica just gave up, which appeared to be the case, from what Ilyana had relayed of the last conversation between the two. Presently, her older cousin’s fox familiar was hitching a ride on Leo’s shoulder, intent on being part of this conversation as well, and Leora was pretty sure she was going to need the help. Because it wasn’t just him that was dense—Rica might actually be worse in some ways.
She tracked her cousin to the music room, and smiled a little when she heard the piano music coming from underneath the door. Still, she didn’t stand on formality, and pushed it open, taking a seat on the empty end of the piano bench, facing the opposite way from Rica. She waited until her cousin finished the piece, and Ilyana jumped from her shoulder to go sit next to Angel. It was honestly a little sickening, how adorable the two of them were, sitting next to each other like little siblings or something. Leo couldn’t say she was surprised that this was the form Rica’s new familiar had taken—they tended to reflect something about the deepest part of the one who’d made them. Bad news for her, because Elliot was freaking lazy and useless. She hoped that was just a reflection of her reluctance to create him in the first place. At least he gave good advise, when he could be arsed to put in the effort. She’d need that skill herself, right now.
“So,” she said when the music had died to a stop. “On a scale of one to 'burning compulsion,' how badly do you want to punch Elizabeth right now?” It wasn’t that Leo had anything against the girl specifically—it was just that she didn’t want anyone who wasn’t Rica dating Balthasar. And she totally got to have an opinion on that; he was practically her brother, after all. Gods, why couldn’t everyone be as obviously adorable and right for each other and making progress as her brother and Yuki?
Alarica had been blinded by her intent on playing the piano and ignoring the way something tugged at her. She knew the feeling, knew it all too well and she hated it. Envy, jealousy, these were all present, and it was conveyed through her music. She took a deep breath as the last note echoed through the air, sighing heavily when Leora appeared and popped the question. She turned so that she was facing her cousin, reading her face for a moment's time and pursed her lips together in a fine line. Why was everyone so adamant about this? Why could they not leave well enough alone? But, she would not take it out on her cousin, and instead, decided to answer the question.
"Truthfully? Do you wish to know the answer to that cousin?" she stated, her jaw tightening just a bit before relaxing. "On a scale from one to 'burning compulsion', I'd say," she paused, thinking it over for a minute before giving her answer. "It's a reflex. When I see her, I have to restrain myself from doing the actual deed of destroying that face of hers. Is that what you wanted to hear?" she continued her eyes losing a bit of luster in the process. She took a sharp intake of breath and held it for a few seconds, releasing it as slowly as she possibly could.
"I am not going to lie, I am very irritated by the fact that Elizabeth has him, but I am not going to interfere with that. If she is making him happy as he says, then what right have I to take it away from him? He deserves to be happy with someone who isn't me," she declared almost a bit angrily. Why couldn't they see what she saw? That she wasn't the one to be at his side. He deserved to have someone like Elizabeth at his side. She was beautiful, smart, and though she was only a noble vampire, she was still more of a vampire than Alarica was. Alarica was neither of those things, though beautiful was in her genetics, she didn't feel like it.
"I am fine with that, really I am. It might take me a while, but...I'll get over it. He's my cousin, just as you are, and I love all of you. Maybe mine is just an admiration that I am confusing for love for him," she spoke, her voice losing it's resolve, as if she were trying to convince herself that that was what she truly felt. That she didn't love her cousin like that, and it was just something she thought since she grew up by his side. "Why can't anyone see that?" she finally released the last statement before glancing at Ilyana and Angelus. She pursed her lips together as she saw the two, mirroring each other almost perfectly save for the different shades of color and eyes.
Leo listened without interruption as her cousin flung out all the excuses she could think of, but she didn’t grow up around her for nothing. Rica was deeply upset by this, and her talk of mere admiration was probably even less convincing to Leora than it was to Alarica herself. Sometimes, being the observer allowed you to see things that the actors did not, and Leo had seen the effects of how Rica felt about Al. It was plain as day. She wondered if this was how Ary felt all the damn time, but no, he had his blind spots as well. They all did—it was why they had each other.
“Silly Rica,” Leo said, smiling sadly and sighing through her nose. Her cousin may have said whatever words she chose, but what Leora heard was heartache and sorrow. Did she think Rica would be able to get over him? Maybe, with lots of time and practice, but she doubted that the girl would ever be able to love someone else like that. Alarica was… intense, in pretty much everything she did. People like that didn’t attach to others for no reason, and once those bonds were formed, it was hard to relinquish them, and no two were ever really quite the same. Even if she could love someone else, the would not love them like this.
Maybe that was for the better. But, stubborn as she was, Leo didn’t think so. Leaning sideways on the bench, she wrapped her arms around her cousin’s shoulders and squeezed, hugging her tightly. “You deserve to be happy, too, you know. And you don’t want to be happy with someone else, you want to be happy with him.” Leo couldn’t say she fully understood the feeling—honestly, to her, relationships were dubious at best, and most of them were more like games of manipulation than anything else. But Rica wasn’t like that, and Balthasar definitely wasn’t, so…
“You’re allowed to be sad, you’re allowed to be angry, and you’re allowed to be jealous, you know. It’s not something you have to push away. You’re allowed to feel, just like everyone else is.” She’d come here to scold her cousin, honestly, to tell her she was being stupid, that she couldn’t just roll over and sacrifice her chance at happiness for something that might not even be right for the one she loved, but… she just felt so miserable, like maybe what Rica was feeling was rubbing off on her.
She smiled softly at her cousin's words. She did want to be happy, with him, but it wouldn't be the case. He had her now. She was with him making him happy, not Alarica. As much as she wanted to be in Elizabeth's shoes, she just couldn't be. And that was the lie Alarica would keep telling herself. Perhaps it was silly of her to think that way, perhaps even a bit dense. The smile faded a bit when Leora hugged her, telling her that it was okay to feel the way she did, and Alarica couldn't help but scoff softly at the notion. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. The only thing Alarica knew for certain was that her future was bleak and would continue to remain so without him.
"Yeah, well I'm also allowed to do this," she spoke, the amusement returning to her tone as she leaned to the side a bit, pushing Leora softly as to not cause her to fall off the bench, but with enough force to push her a little off of it. "Thanks Leo, I needed that," she spoke with a softness that she wasn't quite used to. It only appeared around her younger cousin, who for some reason, always seemed wiser than them all. "How about we play something together? We haven't had the time for that in a long time and I miss it. Besides, Keir isn't around and I can't poke his mind when he's not around," she stated, the mischievous smile returning to her face.
Leo blinked when she was moved about half way off the bench, and if her balance had not been so good, she probably would have tipped right over. “Hey!” she protested, but not in any serious way. Rolling her eyes, she stood, thinking it over for a moment before nodding and moving to retrieve her violin from one of the lockers. Zero had the one that used to be their mother’s, but Leora’s was almost as good. Didn’t mean she wasn’t sometimes jealous of her brother, but that was all in good fun. Besides, he was a total mama’s boy and everyone knew it.
While Leo was over at the lockers, Ilyana hopped up onto the top of the piano, regarding Alarica with a steady red gaze. She blinked slowly, tilting her head to one side, unsure if she should say it. But then, in the end, her primary concern was the same one Rica seemed to have: her master’s happiness. “He’s going to fall down, one day,” the familiar said matter-of-factly. Her master was so used to standing on his own, to bearing all of the weight by himself, but sometimes, he got things wrong. Like he was getting his own feelings wrong, right now. Ilyana hadn’t told him this directly, because she knew that wouldn’t do any good, but she could sense it all the same. Something was going to give eventually, and while Balthasar’s body and mind and spirit were strong, his heart was surprisingly delicate. She now feared that it would break first.
It had never been a worry, before he’d let anyone near it. But if he offered it to Elizabeth… Ilyana didn't know why, but the prospect made her uneasy. “I hope that you will be there, to help him stand up again.” Love was not the pretty words. It wasn’t even the feelings. It was the things you did, the things you were willing to give, and the things you would let yourself accept. She had learned this, from watching her master’s parents, and the others of their generation, who seemed to understand what none of their children quite yet grasped. Well… they had time. At least, she hoped so.
Alarica smirked at Leora's response as she watched her go to retrieve her instrument. Her attention was taken, however, when Ilyana appeared on top of the piano, both of them holding each other's gaze as the familiar tilted her head. If Alarica was inclined to speak out loud, she would have noted it was rather cute in a way, but she kept her mouth closed when Ilyana opened hers to speak, giving the familiar her full attention in the process. She frowned at the familiar's words. He would fall down? Balthasar did not seem the type to fall down so easily, however; perhaps that was just her one-sided affection for him. To her, there could be nothing in the world Balthasar couldn't do. She did, however, nod her head.
"Should that day ever come for him, I will be there. This, I promise," she spoke, her voice firm and unwavering. She would be there for him if he ever fell, and part of her felt a creeping fear that he just might. How soon, she couldn't say, but it did not stop that fact escape her. If, and when it came, she would deal with it accordingly. "I...do have a favor to ask of you Ily," she spoke, her voice somewhat hesitant as she tried to form the words. "Will...will you let me know if something happens to him. If she does anything to jeopardize him?" she spoke. Though that would be up to Ilyana, and she would bear no grudge against the familiar if she decided not to. The rest of the day passed, the sound of a violin accompanying a piano, filled the empty air.
She had not touched the piano in quite some time, perhaps she should? It was long overdue to begin with, and she didn't want to get rusty. "Are you going to play something?" Angelus spoke as Alarica turned to her familiar. "Or are you just going to sit there and mope? I'd prefer it if you'd play something to distract your mind. Though, I'd probably be easier if you just went out and found someone to distract you for a while. You made your decision, it was clear," Angelus continued as she closed her eyes. She would say nothing more of the matter to her master. It was evident that she had made her decision, and Angelus was not going to press the issue further.
"There is no other. There will never be another, but you are correct," Alarica finally spoke, gliding her fingers over the piano, producing an atrocious sound. Angelus flinched at the noise before glancing back at her master. "I made that decision and I plan on standing by it. There is no room for me. Now stop being so nosy and leave the subject alone," she snapped, perhaps a little unintentionally, but nonetheless. She sighed slowly, releasing the breath as if she had been holding it for a period of minutes. "I'll play something if that's what you want," she finally stated. She pulled her hands in front of her, popping her knuckles in the process before she went to work on the keys of the piano.
She honestly couldn’t believe it. Part of Leo wanted to punch Balthasar, and the other part wanted to force the two of them in a room, and just lay everything out for the both of them, freaking idiots. The problem was… while she knew what Rica’s feelings were… she couldn’t actually say how Balthasar felt. Looking at it from the surface, it should have been obvious—people didn’t just get up at stupid-early in the morning to go picking apples for people they didn't like. Except… except Balthasar. He would have done it for all of them, if he’d thought it would have a significant impact on their happiness. He’d do anything for any of them, and not just the big things. Al was a little things kind of guy, too, and honestly? It would have been so damn perfect if she was just sure he had feelings for Rica.
She’d seen him a few times, with Elizabeth. Honestly, if the girl didn’t insist on holding his hand and walking close to him, she’d have never been able to tell that they were even dating. It seemed that her cousin’s ineptitude with his own feelings might well be deep. She might not be able to tell what Balthasar felt because Balthasar didn’t know, and that was just… well, if it had been literally anyone but him, she’d not have believed it possible.
So changing things from his end was going to be damn impossible. Especially if Alarica just gave up, which appeared to be the case, from what Ilyana had relayed of the last conversation between the two. Presently, her older cousin’s fox familiar was hitching a ride on Leo’s shoulder, intent on being part of this conversation as well, and Leora was pretty sure she was going to need the help. Because it wasn’t just him that was dense—Rica might actually be worse in some ways.
She tracked her cousin to the music room, and smiled a little when she heard the piano music coming from underneath the door. Still, she didn’t stand on formality, and pushed it open, taking a seat on the empty end of the piano bench, facing the opposite way from Rica. She waited until her cousin finished the piece, and Ilyana jumped from her shoulder to go sit next to Angel. It was honestly a little sickening, how adorable the two of them were, sitting next to each other like little siblings or something. Leo couldn’t say she was surprised that this was the form Rica’s new familiar had taken—they tended to reflect something about the deepest part of the one who’d made them. Bad news for her, because Elliot was freaking lazy and useless. She hoped that was just a reflection of her reluctance to create him in the first place. At least he gave good advise, when he could be arsed to put in the effort. She’d need that skill herself, right now.
“So,” she said when the music had died to a stop. “On a scale of one to 'burning compulsion,' how badly do you want to punch Elizabeth right now?” It wasn’t that Leo had anything against the girl specifically—it was just that she didn’t want anyone who wasn’t Rica dating Balthasar. And she totally got to have an opinion on that; he was practically her brother, after all. Gods, why couldn’t everyone be as obviously adorable and right for each other and making progress as her brother and Yuki?
Alarica had been blinded by her intent on playing the piano and ignoring the way something tugged at her. She knew the feeling, knew it all too well and she hated it. Envy, jealousy, these were all present, and it was conveyed through her music. She took a deep breath as the last note echoed through the air, sighing heavily when Leora appeared and popped the question. She turned so that she was facing her cousin, reading her face for a moment's time and pursed her lips together in a fine line. Why was everyone so adamant about this? Why could they not leave well enough alone? But, she would not take it out on her cousin, and instead, decided to answer the question.
"Truthfully? Do you wish to know the answer to that cousin?" she stated, her jaw tightening just a bit before relaxing. "On a scale from one to 'burning compulsion', I'd say," she paused, thinking it over for a minute before giving her answer. "It's a reflex. When I see her, I have to restrain myself from doing the actual deed of destroying that face of hers. Is that what you wanted to hear?" she continued her eyes losing a bit of luster in the process. She took a sharp intake of breath and held it for a few seconds, releasing it as slowly as she possibly could.
"I am not going to lie, I am very irritated by the fact that Elizabeth has him, but I am not going to interfere with that. If she is making him happy as he says, then what right have I to take it away from him? He deserves to be happy with someone who isn't me," she declared almost a bit angrily. Why couldn't they see what she saw? That she wasn't the one to be at his side. He deserved to have someone like Elizabeth at his side. She was beautiful, smart, and though she was only a noble vampire, she was still more of a vampire than Alarica was. Alarica was neither of those things, though beautiful was in her genetics, she didn't feel like it.
"I am fine with that, really I am. It might take me a while, but...I'll get over it. He's my cousin, just as you are, and I love all of you. Maybe mine is just an admiration that I am confusing for love for him," she spoke, her voice losing it's resolve, as if she were trying to convince herself that that was what she truly felt. That she didn't love her cousin like that, and it was just something she thought since she grew up by his side. "Why can't anyone see that?" she finally released the last statement before glancing at Ilyana and Angelus. She pursed her lips together as she saw the two, mirroring each other almost perfectly save for the different shades of color and eyes.
Leo listened without interruption as her cousin flung out all the excuses she could think of, but she didn’t grow up around her for nothing. Rica was deeply upset by this, and her talk of mere admiration was probably even less convincing to Leora than it was to Alarica herself. Sometimes, being the observer allowed you to see things that the actors did not, and Leo had seen the effects of how Rica felt about Al. It was plain as day. She wondered if this was how Ary felt all the damn time, but no, he had his blind spots as well. They all did—it was why they had each other.
“Silly Rica,” Leo said, smiling sadly and sighing through her nose. Her cousin may have said whatever words she chose, but what Leora heard was heartache and sorrow. Did she think Rica would be able to get over him? Maybe, with lots of time and practice, but she doubted that the girl would ever be able to love someone else like that. Alarica was… intense, in pretty much everything she did. People like that didn’t attach to others for no reason, and once those bonds were formed, it was hard to relinquish them, and no two were ever really quite the same. Even if she could love someone else, the would not love them like this.
Maybe that was for the better. But, stubborn as she was, Leo didn’t think so. Leaning sideways on the bench, she wrapped her arms around her cousin’s shoulders and squeezed, hugging her tightly. “You deserve to be happy, too, you know. And you don’t want to be happy with someone else, you want to be happy with him.” Leo couldn’t say she fully understood the feeling—honestly, to her, relationships were dubious at best, and most of them were more like games of manipulation than anything else. But Rica wasn’t like that, and Balthasar definitely wasn’t, so…
“You’re allowed to be sad, you’re allowed to be angry, and you’re allowed to be jealous, you know. It’s not something you have to push away. You’re allowed to feel, just like everyone else is.” She’d come here to scold her cousin, honestly, to tell her she was being stupid, that she couldn’t just roll over and sacrifice her chance at happiness for something that might not even be right for the one she loved, but… she just felt so miserable, like maybe what Rica was feeling was rubbing off on her.
She smiled softly at her cousin's words. She did want to be happy, with him, but it wouldn't be the case. He had her now. She was with him making him happy, not Alarica. As much as she wanted to be in Elizabeth's shoes, she just couldn't be. And that was the lie Alarica would keep telling herself. Perhaps it was silly of her to think that way, perhaps even a bit dense. The smile faded a bit when Leora hugged her, telling her that it was okay to feel the way she did, and Alarica couldn't help but scoff softly at the notion. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. The only thing Alarica knew for certain was that her future was bleak and would continue to remain so without him.
"Yeah, well I'm also allowed to do this," she spoke, the amusement returning to her tone as she leaned to the side a bit, pushing Leora softly as to not cause her to fall off the bench, but with enough force to push her a little off of it. "Thanks Leo, I needed that," she spoke with a softness that she wasn't quite used to. It only appeared around her younger cousin, who for some reason, always seemed wiser than them all. "How about we play something together? We haven't had the time for that in a long time and I miss it. Besides, Keir isn't around and I can't poke his mind when he's not around," she stated, the mischievous smile returning to her face.
Leo blinked when she was moved about half way off the bench, and if her balance had not been so good, she probably would have tipped right over. “Hey!” she protested, but not in any serious way. Rolling her eyes, she stood, thinking it over for a moment before nodding and moving to retrieve her violin from one of the lockers. Zero had the one that used to be their mother’s, but Leora’s was almost as good. Didn’t mean she wasn’t sometimes jealous of her brother, but that was all in good fun. Besides, he was a total mama’s boy and everyone knew it.
While Leo was over at the lockers, Ilyana hopped up onto the top of the piano, regarding Alarica with a steady red gaze. She blinked slowly, tilting her head to one side, unsure if she should say it. But then, in the end, her primary concern was the same one Rica seemed to have: her master’s happiness. “He’s going to fall down, one day,” the familiar said matter-of-factly. Her master was so used to standing on his own, to bearing all of the weight by himself, but sometimes, he got things wrong. Like he was getting his own feelings wrong, right now. Ilyana hadn’t told him this directly, because she knew that wouldn’t do any good, but she could sense it all the same. Something was going to give eventually, and while Balthasar’s body and mind and spirit were strong, his heart was surprisingly delicate. She now feared that it would break first.
It had never been a worry, before he’d let anyone near it. But if he offered it to Elizabeth… Ilyana didn't know why, but the prospect made her uneasy. “I hope that you will be there, to help him stand up again.” Love was not the pretty words. It wasn’t even the feelings. It was the things you did, the things you were willing to give, and the things you would let yourself accept. She had learned this, from watching her master’s parents, and the others of their generation, who seemed to understand what none of their children quite yet grasped. Well… they had time. At least, she hoped so.
Alarica smirked at Leora's response as she watched her go to retrieve her instrument. Her attention was taken, however, when Ilyana appeared on top of the piano, both of them holding each other's gaze as the familiar tilted her head. If Alarica was inclined to speak out loud, she would have noted it was rather cute in a way, but she kept her mouth closed when Ilyana opened hers to speak, giving the familiar her full attention in the process. She frowned at the familiar's words. He would fall down? Balthasar did not seem the type to fall down so easily, however; perhaps that was just her one-sided affection for him. To her, there could be nothing in the world Balthasar couldn't do. She did, however, nod her head.
"Should that day ever come for him, I will be there. This, I promise," she spoke, her voice firm and unwavering. She would be there for him if he ever fell, and part of her felt a creeping fear that he just might. How soon, she couldn't say, but it did not stop that fact escape her. If, and when it came, she would deal with it accordingly. "I...do have a favor to ask of you Ily," she spoke, her voice somewhat hesitant as she tried to form the words. "Will...will you let me know if something happens to him. If she does anything to jeopardize him?" she spoke. Though that would be up to Ilyana, and she would bear no grudge against the familiar if she decided not to. The rest of the day passed, the sound of a violin accompanying a piano, filled the empty air.
Keir Alistair was decidedly not in a good mood. He did not take well to people threatening his family, and they had all been targeted in the last month, by the form of letters. On top of that, Keir had felt...odd, like someone was watching him, but he could never sense anyone's presence or smell anyone, just empty air. It rankled him that no matter what they did, no one was found. Aryan had come to nothing but dead ends as well, when the man had time to look at all, the Council was wearing him thin.
Aryan von Nacht was a hell of a good liar, but even he had his limits. Keir let out a frustrated growl, the late October breeze mussing his hair slightly as he lay on the grass, leaves the color of fire raining down around him. One such leaf landed on his forehead, but he made no effort to remove it. Absentmindedly, his thoughts drifted to Leora. That brought at least a ghost of a smile to his lips. Their last encounter had been rather interesting, he'd had to admit. It made him wonder what she was planning next.
This had to stop. She felt it constantly, this prickle on the back of her neck like she was being watched. She was sensitive to the sensation—she had been watched for most of her life, and her father had impressed upon her at great length the importance of being aware of one’s surroundings. As such, she’d learned to distinguish this particular unease from all others. A few times, she’d been almost certain she’d seen or heard or smelled something, but every time she had attempted to follow that fleeting sensation, she’d turned up entirely nothing. Not even the traces of a presence. If the others hadn’t been experiencing something similar, she’d have thought she was crazy. Balthasar described it as almost constant. When she’d tried to talk to Hel about it, the girl had seemed the slightest bit surprised it wasn’t simply a conjuration of her own mind, but then she’d narrowed her eyes slightly, and shook her head. In the end, she’d said nothing further.
If it wasn’t that, it was the letters. Leo thought she understood the real reason the were sent. The threats were vague, and rarely anything she hadn’t seen or heard before, but the point was that no matter how hard they looked, it was impossible to figure out where they came from. Someone was taunting them, not with the threats themselves, but with the fact that they were so ignorant of where the letters even came from. She knew Ary and Uncle Morgan had both been working diligently to find the source, but nothing, and her brothers hadn’t turned up anything either. It was like the person they were dealing with was just… a ghost.
It had quickly become the reason for her rather harsh treatment of the gym equipment, and the last time he’d seen her, the Headmaster had joked he’d need a new budget line just for her pretty soon, could she please just go back to helping her cousins destroy school property? That had wrung a small smile from her, but she was finding it honestly difficult to be cheerful these days. Well… she knew something that would take her mind off of her foreboding feelings, and she lifted her chin, catching his scent on the air and smiling secretively to herself. Time for another round in the ring—but this one was very different from the boxing one.
He had to have smelled her by now—hers was not the kind of scent one could hide, which worked at times to her disadvantage. Nevertheless, he allowed her to approach without comment, perhaps to see what she would do. She sat just beside his shoulder, legs folded underneath her, and plucked the leaf from his head with evident amusement, tilting an eyebrow. She moved though, leaning forward so that her hair curtained their faces from outside view, a smirk tugging at her lips, which were perhaps eight inches at most from his. “Trying to become one with nature, Keir?” she asked, light amusement clear in her tone.
Keir looked up at Leora through half-lidded eyes. He reached up and touched the leaf she'd plucked from his forehead, the thing instantly becoming frosted. "Are you kidding? I'm already one with nature, in some sense."
He'd smelled her approach, but had said nothing, waiting to see what she'd do on her own. "This is a bit backwards. Normally I have to seek you out. That desperate for my company? You could have just asked, you know. How could I ever say no to my favorite cousin?" He smiled coyly at her, looking like a coyote.
“Well, the game wouldn’t be much fun if the players were always predictable, would it?” Leora asked by way of reply, cutting a mischief-laden glance at her cousin. She turned the leaf about in her fingers, twirling it by the stem, then shrugged and tucked it behind an ear, as though it were now some kind of strange hair accessory. Given that the colors of it were similar to her eyes, it contrasted sharply with the darkness of her locks. She chuckled softly, almost under her breath, at his assertion that he was one with nature, after a fashion.
“Oh? Shall I make it snow? Then you’d really be in your element, so to speak. I wouldn’t want you to feel too thrown off by my sudden change in tactics.” It was odd, but sometimes, it was easy to forget that she was trying to seduce him and just fall back into the way they’d always treated each other, like everything was a competition. But some part of her would never forget, and that despite the fact that she was close enough to feel his heat she did not touch him was evidence enough of this. The last time she had was quite not of her own intending, a couple months ago when Alarica had pulled her into a strange, extended three-way hug session. She’d not been oblivious to their proximity, and she’d rather enjoyed it.
Perhaps it had only made things worse. But if it was worse for her… she supposed she could only hope that it had made things a little more difficult for him as well.
Keir raised his eyebrows slightly. "Change of tactics? Hmm, it sounds interesting. But what would you do If I told you I didn't really care if I lost or not?"
That in and of itself was true, he really didn't care if he won or lost; either way, in his mind, he won, whether he had her in the end or not. If he did, well, that was just a bonus. And she didn't have to know that what he said was completely true. She could take it however she wanted, really. He rolled over, propping his chin up with his elbows. His ice blue eyes bored into hers, just watching, waiting, like some wolf watching its prey.
That predatory stare was almost enough to shorten her breath, but she feigned indifference to it, though she could almost feel it, even when she wasn’t seeing it. “I’d say you have a very strange way of acting like it,” Leo replied without missing a beat. Inwardly, she was a little more confused than she let on, however, because she detected that the statement was more or less honest. Surely she must be imagining that, because there were very few things that statement could possibly mean if true. It could express a painful level of indifference to her presence, or… it could express something almost the opposite—that he didn’t care, because the important part of the end result was the same either way. But the only thing a win and a loss had in common was a kiss…
So, detected honesty or not, she was going to treat the statement like it was false, and another maneuver in the game they were playing. Because she wasn’t too sure she wanted to contemplate either of those two possibilities at length, for what they would reveal about her. Leo had very clear personal boundaries when it came to things like this, and one of those boundaries was that emotions, real, powerful emotions, didn’t get involved. Because if anything ever went wrong, a break with her would never be clean. Her mother had told her about Fenrir—their shared blood created addicts. She would not do that. Not to anyone. And the best way to avoid it was to avoid entanglements of the sort that made the offer an option.
It was ironic, that she disliked shallow attachments, but they were all she’d ever let herself have. “And maybe I’d be a bit disappointed. We’ve been rivals for how long now? I rather count on a challenge from you, Keir. Unless you think I should take my efforts elsewhere…”
Keir feigned a hurt look. "And leave me all alone? Now you're just making me sad, Leo. I never said I wouldn't give you a challenge. I just said I don't care what the end outcome is. I mean, the bragging rights would be a nice thing to have, of course."
He stood up, crouching next to her as he whispered, "Come now, when have I not given you a challenge? Besides, the game is only half the fun, in the end." He stood up, leaving her. The game had taken a few different turns, and Keir, for one, was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Aryan von Nacht was a hell of a good liar, but even he had his limits. Keir let out a frustrated growl, the late October breeze mussing his hair slightly as he lay on the grass, leaves the color of fire raining down around him. One such leaf landed on his forehead, but he made no effort to remove it. Absentmindedly, his thoughts drifted to Leora. That brought at least a ghost of a smile to his lips. Their last encounter had been rather interesting, he'd had to admit. It made him wonder what she was planning next.
This had to stop. She felt it constantly, this prickle on the back of her neck like she was being watched. She was sensitive to the sensation—she had been watched for most of her life, and her father had impressed upon her at great length the importance of being aware of one’s surroundings. As such, she’d learned to distinguish this particular unease from all others. A few times, she’d been almost certain she’d seen or heard or smelled something, but every time she had attempted to follow that fleeting sensation, she’d turned up entirely nothing. Not even the traces of a presence. If the others hadn’t been experiencing something similar, she’d have thought she was crazy. Balthasar described it as almost constant. When she’d tried to talk to Hel about it, the girl had seemed the slightest bit surprised it wasn’t simply a conjuration of her own mind, but then she’d narrowed her eyes slightly, and shook her head. In the end, she’d said nothing further.
If it wasn’t that, it was the letters. Leo thought she understood the real reason the were sent. The threats were vague, and rarely anything she hadn’t seen or heard before, but the point was that no matter how hard they looked, it was impossible to figure out where they came from. Someone was taunting them, not with the threats themselves, but with the fact that they were so ignorant of where the letters even came from. She knew Ary and Uncle Morgan had both been working diligently to find the source, but nothing, and her brothers hadn’t turned up anything either. It was like the person they were dealing with was just… a ghost.
It had quickly become the reason for her rather harsh treatment of the gym equipment, and the last time he’d seen her, the Headmaster had joked he’d need a new budget line just for her pretty soon, could she please just go back to helping her cousins destroy school property? That had wrung a small smile from her, but she was finding it honestly difficult to be cheerful these days. Well… she knew something that would take her mind off of her foreboding feelings, and she lifted her chin, catching his scent on the air and smiling secretively to herself. Time for another round in the ring—but this one was very different from the boxing one.
He had to have smelled her by now—hers was not the kind of scent one could hide, which worked at times to her disadvantage. Nevertheless, he allowed her to approach without comment, perhaps to see what she would do. She sat just beside his shoulder, legs folded underneath her, and plucked the leaf from his head with evident amusement, tilting an eyebrow. She moved though, leaning forward so that her hair curtained their faces from outside view, a smirk tugging at her lips, which were perhaps eight inches at most from his. “Trying to become one with nature, Keir?” she asked, light amusement clear in her tone.
Keir looked up at Leora through half-lidded eyes. He reached up and touched the leaf she'd plucked from his forehead, the thing instantly becoming frosted. "Are you kidding? I'm already one with nature, in some sense."
He'd smelled her approach, but had said nothing, waiting to see what she'd do on her own. "This is a bit backwards. Normally I have to seek you out. That desperate for my company? You could have just asked, you know. How could I ever say no to my favorite cousin?" He smiled coyly at her, looking like a coyote.
“Well, the game wouldn’t be much fun if the players were always predictable, would it?” Leora asked by way of reply, cutting a mischief-laden glance at her cousin. She turned the leaf about in her fingers, twirling it by the stem, then shrugged and tucked it behind an ear, as though it were now some kind of strange hair accessory. Given that the colors of it were similar to her eyes, it contrasted sharply with the darkness of her locks. She chuckled softly, almost under her breath, at his assertion that he was one with nature, after a fashion.
“Oh? Shall I make it snow? Then you’d really be in your element, so to speak. I wouldn’t want you to feel too thrown off by my sudden change in tactics.” It was odd, but sometimes, it was easy to forget that she was trying to seduce him and just fall back into the way they’d always treated each other, like everything was a competition. But some part of her would never forget, and that despite the fact that she was close enough to feel his heat she did not touch him was evidence enough of this. The last time she had was quite not of her own intending, a couple months ago when Alarica had pulled her into a strange, extended three-way hug session. She’d not been oblivious to their proximity, and she’d rather enjoyed it.
Perhaps it had only made things worse. But if it was worse for her… she supposed she could only hope that it had made things a little more difficult for him as well.
Keir raised his eyebrows slightly. "Change of tactics? Hmm, it sounds interesting. But what would you do If I told you I didn't really care if I lost or not?"
That in and of itself was true, he really didn't care if he won or lost; either way, in his mind, he won, whether he had her in the end or not. If he did, well, that was just a bonus. And she didn't have to know that what he said was completely true. She could take it however she wanted, really. He rolled over, propping his chin up with his elbows. His ice blue eyes bored into hers, just watching, waiting, like some wolf watching its prey.
That predatory stare was almost enough to shorten her breath, but she feigned indifference to it, though she could almost feel it, even when she wasn’t seeing it. “I’d say you have a very strange way of acting like it,” Leo replied without missing a beat. Inwardly, she was a little more confused than she let on, however, because she detected that the statement was more or less honest. Surely she must be imagining that, because there were very few things that statement could possibly mean if true. It could express a painful level of indifference to her presence, or… it could express something almost the opposite—that he didn’t care, because the important part of the end result was the same either way. But the only thing a win and a loss had in common was a kiss…
So, detected honesty or not, she was going to treat the statement like it was false, and another maneuver in the game they were playing. Because she wasn’t too sure she wanted to contemplate either of those two possibilities at length, for what they would reveal about her. Leo had very clear personal boundaries when it came to things like this, and one of those boundaries was that emotions, real, powerful emotions, didn’t get involved. Because if anything ever went wrong, a break with her would never be clean. Her mother had told her about Fenrir—their shared blood created addicts. She would not do that. Not to anyone. And the best way to avoid it was to avoid entanglements of the sort that made the offer an option.
It was ironic, that she disliked shallow attachments, but they were all she’d ever let herself have. “And maybe I’d be a bit disappointed. We’ve been rivals for how long now? I rather count on a challenge from you, Keir. Unless you think I should take my efforts elsewhere…”
Keir feigned a hurt look. "And leave me all alone? Now you're just making me sad, Leo. I never said I wouldn't give you a challenge. I just said I don't care what the end outcome is. I mean, the bragging rights would be a nice thing to have, of course."
He stood up, crouching next to her as he whispered, "Come now, when have I not given you a challenge? Besides, the game is only half the fun, in the end." He stood up, leaving her. The game had taken a few different turns, and Keir, for one, was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Emrys stretched slowly, the punching bag in front of him leaking sand at the hole he'd punched through the canvas. It really hadn't been his intention to bust it, but that was what ended up happening none the less. He shrugged, winding his way back through the Academy, finding his way back to where he was staying.
He busied himself by taking apart his guns, one by one, piece by piece. He was half-way through cleaning his second one when he felt his second eldest cousin approach. "Hey, Balthasar. Long time no see, yeah?"
Balthasar had left his own greetings until Emrys had at least been back long enough to make himself comfortable. There was no mistaking that he was one of the more popular relatives, and for good reason, perhaps. But everyone needed a bit of a break now and then, so he’d simply staved off his own approach. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of things for him to do in the meantime. Slow period in the war or not, Balthasar never ran out of things to do. Much like most of the rest of them. But in the end, he did want to speak to his cousin—though the were not as close as Emrys was with, say, Zero, they were certainly friends, being a bit closer in age than most.
“It has been a while,” he agreed amicably, taking a seat across from Emrys but far enough back from the table that he wasn’t taking up any of the space his cousin was using to clean his weapons. His usual slight half-smile adorned his face, not for any particular reason, but just because it was usually there. “How have you been? I understand things are slowing down a bit on the front.” Though he wouldn’t admit it aloud, Balthasar knew that Emrys knew that he often desired to be there himself, at the forefront of the battle rather than here. The fighting was the part he was good at—the strategy he could help with, but the espionage and politics, he was entirely useless with. Ary had inherited all of their father’s talents in those regards, and Balthasar, oddly enough, had wound up with their mother’s disinclination to play mind games.
But he’d been specifically asked to stay here and do this, for whatever reason, and though he sometimes wondered if it hadn’t been done just to keep him out of the way, he still took his task very seriously. He was to defend them, and nothing he could think of was more important than that.
Emrys grinned wider. "Slower than a turtle, really. You still got your pants bunched about being stuck here? Someone had to stay behind with Z, and let's face it. You're a bit more important than I am. Besides, be grateful. Good at fighting or not, it takes its toll on you, being on the front lines, and it ain't easy to pay." Emrys would certainly know about that. He'd killed more than his fair share, and frankly, no matter how much he loved battle, it was wearing him down. Fighting was one thing, killing was another.
Losing Ryvrn really had been the last straw. During the last two years, Em had pulled out of the fighting for the most part, helping behind the scenes and only taking part in the minor battles. It was also partially the reason he was here at the Academy now, the Twins being comatose only gave him an excuse to come.
He snapped the top back on the gun, the weapon making a mechanical click as he did so, and he set it to the side, picking up the third one. "And, you won't be completely alone anymore. It seems I'll be sticking around for a while. Apparently I'm getting put on protection detail for Aryan. Bet he'll just love that."
“And that toll is precisely why we should all be taking a turn at it, not leaving half of the ones our age to languish around here,” Balthasar pointed out, his eyes narrowing slightly. He didn’t like it when he was called more important than any of his relatives, because he wasn’t. They were just as important as he was, every last one of them, and to him, they were moreso. It wasn’t right that Emrys had to be out there all the time, dealing with the killing, paying the toll, while he just sat on his hands and did absolutely nothing. It was against his nature to be indolent while other people were in danger. It was true that not all of them were fighters, but the ones who were should be doing more of it, to take the pressure off everyone else.
He caught himself, though, and sighed through his nose, letting his eyes fall closed for a moment. He was still, of course, painfully aware of everything that was going on around him—he never ceased to be, not in this sense. He might not understand everything, but he noticed basically all of it. A muscle in his jaw jumped before he eased it, and he shook his head. “I’m sure he won’t, but if he’s dealing with the Council on a frequent basis, he needs the help, regardless of what he might think.” Sometimes, it was hard to tell that Balthasar was the oldest brother among the lot of them, but other times, like now, it was perfectly evident. He hated that he was stuck in a situation where he was useless, and no amount of levity or teasing was going to change that.
He managed to find the smile again, though, even if it was edged in melancholy this time. “I’m sorry about Ryvrn,” he said sincerely. It was a guess, actually, but a very good guess. He hadn’t smelled or sensed the familiar at all since Emrys arrived, and that was so far from normal it could really only mean one thing. He wasn’t one to push the topic any further than that, however, and would let the matter drop without a question if that’s what Emrys wanted.
It was Emrys's turn to sigh through his nose. "It's been two years, I'm fine." His tone was a bit harsher than he intended, but he'd already spoken about Ryvrn once today, he was not in the mood for more.
"When it comes to asking for help, Aryan's worse than anyone else. It'll be fun, I haven't gotten to mess with the kid for a while." Speaking of the council...
A rather knowing grin etched its way onto the eldest Alistair's face, and he cocked an eyebrow at Bal. "So...what's this I hear about you and Snowe?"
He obviously wasn’t fine if he was that waspish about it, but Balthasar, as he did with many things, simply let it go. He managed some amusement at his cousin’s assessment of his brother, as it was more or less true. The both of them were pretty bad about asking for help, actually. Perhaps it, like so much of what they were, was a family trait. Regardless, he gave a little shrug, at least until the conversation turned to Elizabeth. Then he frowned slightly.
“I suppose I should expect by now that people would talk,” he murmured. Eventually, he’d get used to living under a microscope, but not quite yet, perhaps. “It’s probably what you’ve heard, really. She, uh… we’re… dating? It seems so strange, to say it that way.” He wasn’t really sure what his cousin wanted him to say here. This was almost as confusing as yesterday, when Leora had walked right up to him for no reason at all and punched him square in the jaw. It had cracked, actually, though the healing was almost immediate. She hadn’t even explained, either, just huffed at him and walked away.
Honestly… he was getting a little tired of having no idea what the hell he’d done wrong, but nobody seemed inclined to tell him, either.
Emrys was amused at his cousin. Perhaps he should be a bit more angry, like Keir, but then, these things had a way of fixing themselves, Em wasn't really one to meddle much. Still, Balthasar's utter lack of what was going on in the situation perhaps required a bit of counsel. In that regard, he set the last gun to the side. He propped his head against his fist, an odd mirror image of his father.
"So, is it that you are dating, or is that simply what you're telling everybody because you have no idea what's actually going on? Rumors fly, each one crazier than the last, and you know me, Balthasar, I don't follow rumors. I go to the source, and right now, that's you. Do you like her?"
“Of course I do,” Balthasar responded, perhaps a little too quickly. Realizing his own error, he shook his head ruefully. “Look, I… I don’t really get it in about ninety-nine percent of cases, as everyone seems perfectly happy to remind me. But stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen overnight, right? She’s a good person, and a great friend. I’m just… giving things a chance.” That had been basically what Rica advised him to do—to let things be as they would be for a while and see what happened from there. Plus… Elizabeth seemed to be really happy, and he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed seeing her like that. It even brought him a little bit of strange satisfaction to know that he was the person responsible for that happiness.
“She makes me feel like I’m doing something right for once, like I don’t need to be anybody but me.” And when he was acutely able to feel the ways in which he was never enough, that was really a gift. Did he love her for it? He didn’t know, because he didn’t know how love was supposed to feel. Sure, he knew things from watching his parents and relatives, but… seeing his mother happy made his father happy. It wasn’t all there was to it, but it was part of it, right?
Emrys chuckled slightly. Jasper's son, indeed. Still, he wasn't going to push the subject any farther than he already had. It really wasn't any of his business. "Just remember, Coz, there is a big difference between giving something a chance and leading someone on. Just make sure you know what you want. I don't want to see you get hurt, is all." And that was utterly true, because he knew for a fact if something got screwed up, Alarica and Leora would probably pulverize him. Leora had already gotten a head start on that, as well.
He busied himself by taking apart his guns, one by one, piece by piece. He was half-way through cleaning his second one when he felt his second eldest cousin approach. "Hey, Balthasar. Long time no see, yeah?"
Balthasar had left his own greetings until Emrys had at least been back long enough to make himself comfortable. There was no mistaking that he was one of the more popular relatives, and for good reason, perhaps. But everyone needed a bit of a break now and then, so he’d simply staved off his own approach. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of things for him to do in the meantime. Slow period in the war or not, Balthasar never ran out of things to do. Much like most of the rest of them. But in the end, he did want to speak to his cousin—though the were not as close as Emrys was with, say, Zero, they were certainly friends, being a bit closer in age than most.
“It has been a while,” he agreed amicably, taking a seat across from Emrys but far enough back from the table that he wasn’t taking up any of the space his cousin was using to clean his weapons. His usual slight half-smile adorned his face, not for any particular reason, but just because it was usually there. “How have you been? I understand things are slowing down a bit on the front.” Though he wouldn’t admit it aloud, Balthasar knew that Emrys knew that he often desired to be there himself, at the forefront of the battle rather than here. The fighting was the part he was good at—the strategy he could help with, but the espionage and politics, he was entirely useless with. Ary had inherited all of their father’s talents in those regards, and Balthasar, oddly enough, had wound up with their mother’s disinclination to play mind games.
But he’d been specifically asked to stay here and do this, for whatever reason, and though he sometimes wondered if it hadn’t been done just to keep him out of the way, he still took his task very seriously. He was to defend them, and nothing he could think of was more important than that.
Emrys grinned wider. "Slower than a turtle, really. You still got your pants bunched about being stuck here? Someone had to stay behind with Z, and let's face it. You're a bit more important than I am. Besides, be grateful. Good at fighting or not, it takes its toll on you, being on the front lines, and it ain't easy to pay." Emrys would certainly know about that. He'd killed more than his fair share, and frankly, no matter how much he loved battle, it was wearing him down. Fighting was one thing, killing was another.
Losing Ryvrn really had been the last straw. During the last two years, Em had pulled out of the fighting for the most part, helping behind the scenes and only taking part in the minor battles. It was also partially the reason he was here at the Academy now, the Twins being comatose only gave him an excuse to come.
He snapped the top back on the gun, the weapon making a mechanical click as he did so, and he set it to the side, picking up the third one. "And, you won't be completely alone anymore. It seems I'll be sticking around for a while. Apparently I'm getting put on protection detail for Aryan. Bet he'll just love that."
“And that toll is precisely why we should all be taking a turn at it, not leaving half of the ones our age to languish around here,” Balthasar pointed out, his eyes narrowing slightly. He didn’t like it when he was called more important than any of his relatives, because he wasn’t. They were just as important as he was, every last one of them, and to him, they were moreso. It wasn’t right that Emrys had to be out there all the time, dealing with the killing, paying the toll, while he just sat on his hands and did absolutely nothing. It was against his nature to be indolent while other people were in danger. It was true that not all of them were fighters, but the ones who were should be doing more of it, to take the pressure off everyone else.
He caught himself, though, and sighed through his nose, letting his eyes fall closed for a moment. He was still, of course, painfully aware of everything that was going on around him—he never ceased to be, not in this sense. He might not understand everything, but he noticed basically all of it. A muscle in his jaw jumped before he eased it, and he shook his head. “I’m sure he won’t, but if he’s dealing with the Council on a frequent basis, he needs the help, regardless of what he might think.” Sometimes, it was hard to tell that Balthasar was the oldest brother among the lot of them, but other times, like now, it was perfectly evident. He hated that he was stuck in a situation where he was useless, and no amount of levity or teasing was going to change that.
He managed to find the smile again, though, even if it was edged in melancholy this time. “I’m sorry about Ryvrn,” he said sincerely. It was a guess, actually, but a very good guess. He hadn’t smelled or sensed the familiar at all since Emrys arrived, and that was so far from normal it could really only mean one thing. He wasn’t one to push the topic any further than that, however, and would let the matter drop without a question if that’s what Emrys wanted.
It was Emrys's turn to sigh through his nose. "It's been two years, I'm fine." His tone was a bit harsher than he intended, but he'd already spoken about Ryvrn once today, he was not in the mood for more.
"When it comes to asking for help, Aryan's worse than anyone else. It'll be fun, I haven't gotten to mess with the kid for a while." Speaking of the council...
A rather knowing grin etched its way onto the eldest Alistair's face, and he cocked an eyebrow at Bal. "So...what's this I hear about you and Snowe?"
He obviously wasn’t fine if he was that waspish about it, but Balthasar, as he did with many things, simply let it go. He managed some amusement at his cousin’s assessment of his brother, as it was more or less true. The both of them were pretty bad about asking for help, actually. Perhaps it, like so much of what they were, was a family trait. Regardless, he gave a little shrug, at least until the conversation turned to Elizabeth. Then he frowned slightly.
“I suppose I should expect by now that people would talk,” he murmured. Eventually, he’d get used to living under a microscope, but not quite yet, perhaps. “It’s probably what you’ve heard, really. She, uh… we’re… dating? It seems so strange, to say it that way.” He wasn’t really sure what his cousin wanted him to say here. This was almost as confusing as yesterday, when Leora had walked right up to him for no reason at all and punched him square in the jaw. It had cracked, actually, though the healing was almost immediate. She hadn’t even explained, either, just huffed at him and walked away.
Honestly… he was getting a little tired of having no idea what the hell he’d done wrong, but nobody seemed inclined to tell him, either.
Emrys was amused at his cousin. Perhaps he should be a bit more angry, like Keir, but then, these things had a way of fixing themselves, Em wasn't really one to meddle much. Still, Balthasar's utter lack of what was going on in the situation perhaps required a bit of counsel. In that regard, he set the last gun to the side. He propped his head against his fist, an odd mirror image of his father.
"So, is it that you are dating, or is that simply what you're telling everybody because you have no idea what's actually going on? Rumors fly, each one crazier than the last, and you know me, Balthasar, I don't follow rumors. I go to the source, and right now, that's you. Do you like her?"
“Of course I do,” Balthasar responded, perhaps a little too quickly. Realizing his own error, he shook his head ruefully. “Look, I… I don’t really get it in about ninety-nine percent of cases, as everyone seems perfectly happy to remind me. But stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen overnight, right? She’s a good person, and a great friend. I’m just… giving things a chance.” That had been basically what Rica advised him to do—to let things be as they would be for a while and see what happened from there. Plus… Elizabeth seemed to be really happy, and he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed seeing her like that. It even brought him a little bit of strange satisfaction to know that he was the person responsible for that happiness.
“She makes me feel like I’m doing something right for once, like I don’t need to be anybody but me.” And when he was acutely able to feel the ways in which he was never enough, that was really a gift. Did he love her for it? He didn’t know, because he didn’t know how love was supposed to feel. Sure, he knew things from watching his parents and relatives, but… seeing his mother happy made his father happy. It wasn’t all there was to it, but it was part of it, right?
Emrys chuckled slightly. Jasper's son, indeed. Still, he wasn't going to push the subject any farther than he already had. It really wasn't any of his business. "Just remember, Coz, there is a big difference between giving something a chance and leading someone on. Just make sure you know what you want. I don't want to see you get hurt, is all." And that was utterly true, because he knew for a fact if something got screwed up, Alarica and Leora would probably pulverize him. Leora had already gotten a head start on that, as well.
Alarica pursed her lips together, staring straight at the bright blue eyes of her familiar. Angelus merely swayed his tails back and forth, amusement crossing his features as Alarica blinked slowly. This staring contest had been going on for ten minutes, something Angelus found very amusing. She placed the black disc across the red one, taking the red one in the process. If he could have, Angelus would have smiled wickedly, instead, settling for the small little smirk his lips could make. This was perhaps the reason why Alarica was not the strategist of the family. Or perhaps she just wasn't good at playing Checkers. Whichever it was, it was still very amusing.
"Perhaps you should have chosen another game?" he stated as he used the last of his red checkers and claimed a spot. "King me," he spoke as Alarica rolled her eyes. Before she could retort to his statement, something in the air caught her attention. She knew that scent. Oh she knew that scent. Abruptly, she stood from her chair, almost knocking it over in the process. Angelus jumped from the table, trailing behind her as she walked, perhaps with a bit more fervor than most usually walked. He tilted his head slightly as he watched her face, studying it for any sign of discomfort or perhaps a feeling of danger, but there was none.
"Why didn't you tell us you were back?" Alarica stated, staring up at a tree that seemed apparently empty. Angelus tilted his head slightly, staring at the tree for a moment, and was about to ask if his master was going insane. "Uncle Vincent said you were supposed to be in Romania right now," she spoke, her lips pulling into a frown as she crossed her arms over her chest. She knew he was there. She'd always known where her brothers were. She was as intune with them as they were any of her other family members.
A laugh answered her, a loud, ringing tone, one that was both calm and jolly all at the same time. As the laughter sounded, Emrys shimmered into view, losing the ghost-like quality to his appearance. The bracelets on his wrists jingled as he lept out of the tree, landing lightly in front of his sister. "Now how is it I can hide from Keir and everyone else, but not you?" There was an easy smile on his face, something reminiscent of their father, but not quite as...cold.
His red eyes lighted on Angelus, and he bent down, offering his index finger to the little familiar. "So this is the little guy who's been driving Luke up the wall, huh?" He smiled, but the look softened when he glanced back up at his sister. "I heard what happened to Mikhail. I'm so sorry, Rica. That's why I came back, I heard you and Keir were comatose. I'm late, as always, but, you know how traffic can be. There wasn't time to send word ahead of me, really, and I didn't let anyone know where I was going till I got here. Mom'll be pissed, I'm sure, but I'll deal with that later."
"Because you are my brother? And they aren't as perceptive?" she replied with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "And you forget that I inherited mom's ability. I always know where you're at," she replied, the smirk returning to her face. It was perhaps the reason why when they played hide-and-seek, Emrys could not hide from her. He could hide from the others, but never from her. She'd just nullify it a bit so that she could sense where he was, and over the years, it just came to her. Angelus, however, leaned into Emrys' hand as he purred softly. Alarica then frowned at the next statement.
"Mikhail," she began, pausing to release a deep sigh. "Mikhail died protecting us. He died protecting me," she began, pursing her lips together as she remembered her familiar's words. She banished them from her thoughts as she turned towards Angelus, scooping him up in her arms in the process. "And yes, Angie here has been terrorizing Lulu ever since she was born," she replied, a small smile returning to her face. Angelus merely smirked when Alarica referred to him as she but said nothing about it. He'll tell her one day, but for now, he was biding his time.
"Speaking of which," she paused, glancing around, half expecting something to materialize out of thin air, but nothing happened. "Where is Ryvrn?" she questioned, half expecting the familiar to pop out with the mentioning of his name. Ryvrn and Emrys were as close as Mikhail was to Alarica and Alucard was to Keir. For him to not be by Emrys' side, it was a little startling, and Alarica could not stop the hairs along her neck to stand, nor the chill that ran down her spine at the silence.
Familiars had an uncanny way of protecting their masters, and they were all fiercely loyal, without a doubt. Emrys, and now Rica, knew that all too well. He'd been petting Angelus when his hand stilled at her question. There was a dark shadow across his eyes, hiding them from his sister, but the familiar could see them. Two years, and it hadn't gotten any easier. It had only been a couple of months for Alarica, and she'd created a new familiar. She had more guts than her older brother, he should be ashamed.
There was a sad little smirk on his face when he spoke, though it was not a direct answer. "You're a lot braver than me, Rica. You were able to create this little guy, even after losing Mik. But I can't. It's been two years since I lost Ryvrn, and half the time I can't even speak his name, let alone think of creating a new familiar."
Alarica frowned at the first choice words that Emrys spoke, and it wasn't until his full statement crossed her, that she realized exactly what had happened. Ryvrn was gone, just like Mikhail was. Her brows knotted, furrowing before she reached out, placing a hand on her brother's shoulder in the process. Mikhail's death still affected her, she still cried when no one else was watching, and to have just lost him a few months prior, she couldn't possibly fathom how it would have felt losing him two years ago. Angelus merely glanced up at the darkened eyes of Emrys and jumped upon his shoulder, rubbing his face against Emrys' in an attempt to soothe.
"I'm sorry, Em," she stated, finally slipping her arms around his torso and leaning against his chest. She felt her breath still, her eyes burning as she tried to keep herself from crying. "At least...at least he has Mikhail to keep him company. Those two were just about as inseparable as our family," she stated, trying to convince herself that her familiar was somewhere in the afterlife humans were so fond of speaking. Did familiars even get an afterlife? In a way, they were merely carbon copies of their master, something created from them. They were not born, they were not given life, only by the blood of their master.
"I know you won't do it, so I'll do it for you," she replied solemnly. With that, the tears that she held back finally loosened themselves upon her face, cascading like the autumn rain, hellbent on falling no matter the restraint on it.
Emrys smiled sadly at Angelus and Alarica, his arms wrapping around his sister. He wiped away some of her tears with his thumb. She knew him all too well. He never had been one to cry, he couldn't even remember if he actually cried when Ryvrn died, he was pretty sure he'd just sort of stared in some dumbfounded shock.
"Thank you, Rica." He whispered softly.
"Perhaps you should have chosen another game?" he stated as he used the last of his red checkers and claimed a spot. "King me," he spoke as Alarica rolled her eyes. Before she could retort to his statement, something in the air caught her attention. She knew that scent. Oh she knew that scent. Abruptly, she stood from her chair, almost knocking it over in the process. Angelus jumped from the table, trailing behind her as she walked, perhaps with a bit more fervor than most usually walked. He tilted his head slightly as he watched her face, studying it for any sign of discomfort or perhaps a feeling of danger, but there was none.
"Why didn't you tell us you were back?" Alarica stated, staring up at a tree that seemed apparently empty. Angelus tilted his head slightly, staring at the tree for a moment, and was about to ask if his master was going insane. "Uncle Vincent said you were supposed to be in Romania right now," she spoke, her lips pulling into a frown as she crossed her arms over her chest. She knew he was there. She'd always known where her brothers were. She was as intune with them as they were any of her other family members.
A laugh answered her, a loud, ringing tone, one that was both calm and jolly all at the same time. As the laughter sounded, Emrys shimmered into view, losing the ghost-like quality to his appearance. The bracelets on his wrists jingled as he lept out of the tree, landing lightly in front of his sister. "Now how is it I can hide from Keir and everyone else, but not you?" There was an easy smile on his face, something reminiscent of their father, but not quite as...cold.
His red eyes lighted on Angelus, and he bent down, offering his index finger to the little familiar. "So this is the little guy who's been driving Luke up the wall, huh?" He smiled, but the look softened when he glanced back up at his sister. "I heard what happened to Mikhail. I'm so sorry, Rica. That's why I came back, I heard you and Keir were comatose. I'm late, as always, but, you know how traffic can be. There wasn't time to send word ahead of me, really, and I didn't let anyone know where I was going till I got here. Mom'll be pissed, I'm sure, but I'll deal with that later."
"Because you are my brother? And they aren't as perceptive?" she replied with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "And you forget that I inherited mom's ability. I always know where you're at," she replied, the smirk returning to her face. It was perhaps the reason why when they played hide-and-seek, Emrys could not hide from her. He could hide from the others, but never from her. She'd just nullify it a bit so that she could sense where he was, and over the years, it just came to her. Angelus, however, leaned into Emrys' hand as he purred softly. Alarica then frowned at the next statement.
"Mikhail," she began, pausing to release a deep sigh. "Mikhail died protecting us. He died protecting me," she began, pursing her lips together as she remembered her familiar's words. She banished them from her thoughts as she turned towards Angelus, scooping him up in her arms in the process. "And yes, Angie here has been terrorizing Lulu ever since she was born," she replied, a small smile returning to her face. Angelus merely smirked when Alarica referred to him as she but said nothing about it. He'll tell her one day, but for now, he was biding his time.
"Speaking of which," she paused, glancing around, half expecting something to materialize out of thin air, but nothing happened. "Where is Ryvrn?" she questioned, half expecting the familiar to pop out with the mentioning of his name. Ryvrn and Emrys were as close as Mikhail was to Alarica and Alucard was to Keir. For him to not be by Emrys' side, it was a little startling, and Alarica could not stop the hairs along her neck to stand, nor the chill that ran down her spine at the silence.
Familiars had an uncanny way of protecting their masters, and they were all fiercely loyal, without a doubt. Emrys, and now Rica, knew that all too well. He'd been petting Angelus when his hand stilled at her question. There was a dark shadow across his eyes, hiding them from his sister, but the familiar could see them. Two years, and it hadn't gotten any easier. It had only been a couple of months for Alarica, and she'd created a new familiar. She had more guts than her older brother, he should be ashamed.
There was a sad little smirk on his face when he spoke, though it was not a direct answer. "You're a lot braver than me, Rica. You were able to create this little guy, even after losing Mik. But I can't. It's been two years since I lost Ryvrn, and half the time I can't even speak his name, let alone think of creating a new familiar."
Alarica frowned at the first choice words that Emrys spoke, and it wasn't until his full statement crossed her, that she realized exactly what had happened. Ryvrn was gone, just like Mikhail was. Her brows knotted, furrowing before she reached out, placing a hand on her brother's shoulder in the process. Mikhail's death still affected her, she still cried when no one else was watching, and to have just lost him a few months prior, she couldn't possibly fathom how it would have felt losing him two years ago. Angelus merely glanced up at the darkened eyes of Emrys and jumped upon his shoulder, rubbing his face against Emrys' in an attempt to soothe.
"I'm sorry, Em," she stated, finally slipping her arms around his torso and leaning against his chest. She felt her breath still, her eyes burning as she tried to keep herself from crying. "At least...at least he has Mikhail to keep him company. Those two were just about as inseparable as our family," she stated, trying to convince herself that her familiar was somewhere in the afterlife humans were so fond of speaking. Did familiars even get an afterlife? In a way, they were merely carbon copies of their master, something created from them. They were not born, they were not given life, only by the blood of their master.
"I know you won't do it, so I'll do it for you," she replied solemnly. With that, the tears that she held back finally loosened themselves upon her face, cascading like the autumn rain, hellbent on falling no matter the restraint on it.
Emrys smiled sadly at Angelus and Alarica, his arms wrapping around his sister. He wiped away some of her tears with his thumb. She knew him all too well. He never had been one to cry, he couldn't even remember if he actually cried when Ryvrn died, he was pretty sure he'd just sort of stared in some dumbfounded shock.
"Thank you, Rica." He whispered softly.
Yuki sighed through her nose. For once, the roof was her own. She found herself in a position much like the one Zero usually occupied when he was here. She was lying on her back with her fingers laced behind her head. Her feet were propped up on the bench, and her hair, for once free of the black and purple ribbon she kept it pulled back with, was fanned out around her. The breeze ruffled the ends of her hair every so often, sending a lock or two shimmering over the flat expanse of her exposed stomach.
It had been about a week now, since she'd fed off of Zero on this roof. It wasn't that it had been bothering her, because it wasn't. What was bothering her was the fact that, ever since she had, she'd become increasingly aware of his presence. She knew when he entered a room, when he left, and was always able to tell how far or close he was. It....unnerved her, and she didn't know what to do about it. She was quite sure she understood what it meant, as you didn't spend a hundred years around two people like Nikki and Jasper and not understand at least something about love.
She was also well aware of her cousins' tendencies, but familial love and unrequited love were two very different things, and she was fairly certain that Zero Kuragari felt nothing other than familial love for her. Besides, she couldn't be that way with anyone, especially a Pure Blood. She closed her yellow eyes. She shouldn't be thinking about this. What was the point? There was no way to stop it, she'd known that for years.
Zero had laughed, the look upon Alarica's face had been priceless and it was well worth the bruise he currently sported on his left bicep. He sighed softly, mussing his hair as he tried to get the sticks and leaves from it. He'd fallen out of the tree laughing so hard and had hit a few branches along the way down. He chuckled still as he wandered the halls of the Academy, adamant about skipping his classes and not attending them as per usual. It wasn't at all odd, and it wasn't like his grades were dropping anyway. It was an understanding between him, Leora, and the Headmaster. The Headmaster was aware of Zero's absence from the classes, but as long as his grades didn't slip, he was usually left alone.
A familiar scent on the wind caused Zero to stop momentarily in his tracks, and glanced up at towards the roof of the Academy. She was up there. A smirk crossed his face as he thought for a moment. It was night time anyways, and no one would have a problem with what he was about to do. So, without further hesitance, Zero jumped, landing with a soft thud upon the roof. His eyes zoned in on her and he made his way quietly towards her, though she would be able to sense him or smell him at least.
"So, care to tell me why you've been avoiding me as of late?" he stated, plopping down beside her, assuming the same position she was in with his hands resting behind his head as he stared at the sky. The stars were shining brightly above them, and he was inclined to turn his head to face her. "Was it because of something you saw?" he spoke, a hint of concern lacing his voice before disappearing.
She'd been well aware when he was walking across the courtyard, and even more so when he jumped. She didn't move as he positioned himself next to her, and at first, she didn't answer, she simply stared upwards. When she finally did speak, it was in that flat tone she'd used back when she'd first met her mother. It was one she didn't use very often anymore, but it did crop up every now and again, especially in situations that she really didn't want to deal with.
"No, Zero. Frankly your memories are not that different from Balthasar's or Aryan's, save for a few instances. Though I will be having a few choice words with my little brother at some point."
She sighed through her nose. No, it was not his memories that bothered her. It was the fact that she could not ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to believe with every fiber of her being that by not addressing her feelings, she was protecting him. But what if she wasn't? But telling him, and being rejected, or worse, having those feelings reciprocated, was not something she was willing to risk. She wouldn't do that to him.
"I wouldn't say I've been avoiding you. Our paths simply have not crossed." That was a blatent lie. She had been avoiding him. She knew it, and he knew it. She sat up, her hair curtaining around her head. Her eyes were almost golden in the moonlight. "Why do you ask, anyway? Does it bother you, what I did?"
Zero quirked an eyebrow at her first response. A few choice words with her brother? About what? He didn't say anything that would have offended her, did he? Zero searched through his own memories, the most recent one of Aryan's and his conversation. "If it is anything to do with what I said, I meant every word of it Yuki," he spoke, watching as she sat up and continued speaking. At that, he merely smirked. She was lying; they both knew she was lying. She had been avoiding him, though he did not know the reason why. He too sat up from his spot, turning to look at Yuki in the process.
"And if I said yes? If I said that it did bother me that my cousin was avoiding me?" he spoke, the smirk merely remaining as he stared, golden eyes captivating him as they usually did. There was something about them, the molten color mixing with the light of the moon. He sighed softly through his nose before reaching a hand out towards her, grabbing her arm gently as he pulled her towards him, placing her so that his arms were wrapped around her torso and his head resting in the crook of her neck.
"Yes Yuki, it does bother me because you are family. If I did something to upset you, I want you to tell me so that I can make it up to you. I do not need my family avoiding me, especially you," he spoke, his tone low, his breath warm against her neck. He truly didn't like it, her avoiding him. There was an ache in his heart when she did, and he would rather her not avoid him for something that couldn't be helped. He wasn't his cousin, Balthasar. He would not sit back and let his family avoid him, not if he could do something about it. Though Alarica seemed to have returned to speaking with him, he'd rather not have Yuki avoid him like Alarica had avoided Balthasar.
Yuki blinked at Zero slightly, not entirely sure what to do when he wrapped his arms around her. The teasing, the jesting, she could all take, but...this, she didn't know what to do with this. Still, she did what she always did. She sorted through the statements, and she answered them. If her pulse was racing slightly at their close proximity, well...she would just have to ignore that.
"It has naught to do with what you said, it has to do with Aryan sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong." That, was true, at least. Her brother needed to mind his own business, and not try and shove them together when--
She forced herself to stop thinking about it. She had been dwelling on it far too much lately. At this rate, she was liable to tell someone. So, she switched topics, instead addressing his last statements. "I was not referring to my avoidance of you. I was referring to my feeding from you." She admitted it then, though she didn't want to think of the reason behind his not liking it when she avoided him. He'd said it was because they were family, but there was a subtle undertone, one that she was not at all comfortable with. Or rather, she was too comfortable with. There could be nothing between them, not of that nature. She couldn't do that to him. She wouldn't do that to him.
"It's a brother's job to stick their nose where it doesn't belong, especially in regards to their sister, older or not," he responded, though the frown that marred his face twisted into a light smile. At least she wouldn't avoid him, that was all that mattered, however, she had avoided him because she fed from him? Why did that seem...wrong? It was as if that was what she was trying to convince herself of, that the reason she wouldn't speak to him this week was because she fed from him. He shook his head softly, releasing a held breath as he closed his eyes.
"There is nothing wrong with you feeding from me. You were in need of blood and I was the only one who could provide it. It did not bother me at all that I could do that for you Yuki. I would do anything for you," he stopped himself there at that sentence. He was about to say something he wasn't quite ready to, not yet. He smiled once more, however; it faltered shortly there after. "Is something bothering you, Yuki? You do know that you can come to me for something, I've told you this once before," he spoke, his tone reverting to something a little more serious.
Yuki looked at him, something flashing through her eyes, something caught between hesitance and sorrow. She shouldn't tell him. She shouldn't tell anyone. But she wanted to tell him. Even if he never found out how she felt about him, this, at least, was something he should know about. They all should know about it.
But she didn't want them all treating her differently, knowing that she was going to die. She didn't want them wasting their time trying to figure out how to save her when they couldn't. She'd been searching for a way for almost a century now, there was no way. Yuki was going to die, and that was the end of it.
She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "It's one thing to bring a problem, it's quite another to..." She sighed. Perhaps she should explain a little. "Kisuke tried to turn me into a Pure Blood, and in the end, he did the exact opposite. I'm more or less human, and because of that, my body can't stand up to the strain of being a vampire. As such, the experimentation severely shortened my life span. Most Nobles live for at least five hundred years, if not longer." She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
"I've got fifty years left to live, at best."
Zero blinked, confusion evident upon his features. He knew Kisuke experimented on Yuki, but he did not think it was to that extent. He was trying to create a pure-blood, by the means of experimenting on his own daughter. He felt his jaw clench, tightening, constricting before it locked in place. He had not known what rage felt like, to feel the pulsing anger that burned through his blood at just the mere thought of Kisuke. If he wasn't already dead, Zero would have tortured him, denied him death for as long as he possibly could until Zero was finished with him. Then, a bout of fear crept upon him. Fifty years? She only had fifty years to live?
That...didn't seem fair. Why had she never told him? Any of them? If she had...his eyes glazed over as he stared at her. His cousin, this woman, who he grew so fond of over the years, was going to die. Fifty years time, that was a blink of an eye for a pure-blood. But for humans, it was relatively normal. Fifty years of life was plenty for most humans, while some of them were able to reach the delicate age of one hundred. But Yuki wasn't a human. She had been correct, Nobles only live for so long, the oldest ones living to be a little over a thousand. He knew one such Noble, but he hadn't spoken to him in years. His arms shot out to Yuki, grasping her so that she was turned to face him.
"Why?" were the only words that seemed to leave his lips. Nothing seemed to make sense to him and he was confused. "Why didn't you tell me?" he spoke, his voice laced with anger, sorrow, regret? He didn't bother to hide the fact that he left out the whole family, that he had addressed himself, and none of the others. The others didn't matter. He wanted to know why she didn't tell him. With one fluid movement, he pulled her to him, his lips descending upon hers.
Yuki wasn't really sure what she'd been expecting. Anger, perhaps, or sorrow, but not...not this. This shouldn't be happening. He couldn't love her. There was no future with her, and Zero deserved so much better than that. He deserved better than her.
Even so, she made no effort to fight him as he kissed her, her arms entwining themselves around his shoulders. When they parted, she answered him, but she couldn't meet his eyes. She was afraid of what she would see, of what he would see. "What would be the point? Nothing can be done about it, and if you didn't know then...I could have gone off and died in some attack, no one had to know. You could move on, forget about me. You deserve better than me."
She hadn't realized she was crying until she stopped speaking. "I have no life to offer you, what right do I have to tell you how I feel?" She whispered.
Zero unintentionally coiled his fingers tightly around Yuki's shoulder, the anger still shining behind his eyes. She...thought that of him? That he could possibly forget about her? That he could move on without her? He couldn't do either of those. He loved her. He had loved her for as long as he could remember. He couldn't deny that fact. To simply forget the first woman he's ever loved, was not something he could do. He couldn't do.
"Because we can still make a life out of it. That is why. How could you possibly ever think that I could forget about you? What I deserve is for me to decide, no one else, not even you. And what I deserve is to know that the woman I love, loves me as well. If she does not, that will mean nothing to me, because I cannot love another. I will not. Dying in an attack is not the same as dying regardless. If you died in an attack, I could avenge you, but this...I cannot avenge you for this."
Each word he spoke, felt like he was ripping himself apart. How could she think so lowly of him? Perhaps it was partially, if not all, of his fault. But he had never known. She had never told anyone. What...what were her parents going to say when they found out? He sighed softly, running a hand through her snow-white locks. "I love you, Yuki. I really do, more than I can even understand myself. My life would have no meaning without you in it," he spoke, releasing himself from her and standing behind her. He glanced at her, giving her one final look before he fell from the top of the Academy, landing with all the grace granted to his kind, and made his way to his dormitory.
Yuki shut her eyes. He loved her. He loved her. It didn't seem to matter whether she loved him or not, she'd already stolen that from him. And for that, she hated herself. The tears streamed silently down her face as he left, leaving her unable to speak. She clutched at her chest as she fell to her knees, her shoulders shaking in an effort to keep the sobs from tearing themselves from her throat. She wanted desperately to run after him, to tell him, but she didn't. She stayed where she was.
He would forget her. He would forget because he had to.
It had been about a week now, since she'd fed off of Zero on this roof. It wasn't that it had been bothering her, because it wasn't. What was bothering her was the fact that, ever since she had, she'd become increasingly aware of his presence. She knew when he entered a room, when he left, and was always able to tell how far or close he was. It....unnerved her, and she didn't know what to do about it. She was quite sure she understood what it meant, as you didn't spend a hundred years around two people like Nikki and Jasper and not understand at least something about love.
She was also well aware of her cousins' tendencies, but familial love and unrequited love were two very different things, and she was fairly certain that Zero Kuragari felt nothing other than familial love for her. Besides, she couldn't be that way with anyone, especially a Pure Blood. She closed her yellow eyes. She shouldn't be thinking about this. What was the point? There was no way to stop it, she'd known that for years.
Zero had laughed, the look upon Alarica's face had been priceless and it was well worth the bruise he currently sported on his left bicep. He sighed softly, mussing his hair as he tried to get the sticks and leaves from it. He'd fallen out of the tree laughing so hard and had hit a few branches along the way down. He chuckled still as he wandered the halls of the Academy, adamant about skipping his classes and not attending them as per usual. It wasn't at all odd, and it wasn't like his grades were dropping anyway. It was an understanding between him, Leora, and the Headmaster. The Headmaster was aware of Zero's absence from the classes, but as long as his grades didn't slip, he was usually left alone.
A familiar scent on the wind caused Zero to stop momentarily in his tracks, and glanced up at towards the roof of the Academy. She was up there. A smirk crossed his face as he thought for a moment. It was night time anyways, and no one would have a problem with what he was about to do. So, without further hesitance, Zero jumped, landing with a soft thud upon the roof. His eyes zoned in on her and he made his way quietly towards her, though she would be able to sense him or smell him at least.
"So, care to tell me why you've been avoiding me as of late?" he stated, plopping down beside her, assuming the same position she was in with his hands resting behind his head as he stared at the sky. The stars were shining brightly above them, and he was inclined to turn his head to face her. "Was it because of something you saw?" he spoke, a hint of concern lacing his voice before disappearing.
She'd been well aware when he was walking across the courtyard, and even more so when he jumped. She didn't move as he positioned himself next to her, and at first, she didn't answer, she simply stared upwards. When she finally did speak, it was in that flat tone she'd used back when she'd first met her mother. It was one she didn't use very often anymore, but it did crop up every now and again, especially in situations that she really didn't want to deal with.
"No, Zero. Frankly your memories are not that different from Balthasar's or Aryan's, save for a few instances. Though I will be having a few choice words with my little brother at some point."
She sighed through her nose. No, it was not his memories that bothered her. It was the fact that she could not ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to believe with every fiber of her being that by not addressing her feelings, she was protecting him. But what if she wasn't? But telling him, and being rejected, or worse, having those feelings reciprocated, was not something she was willing to risk. She wouldn't do that to him.
"I wouldn't say I've been avoiding you. Our paths simply have not crossed." That was a blatent lie. She had been avoiding him. She knew it, and he knew it. She sat up, her hair curtaining around her head. Her eyes were almost golden in the moonlight. "Why do you ask, anyway? Does it bother you, what I did?"
Zero quirked an eyebrow at her first response. A few choice words with her brother? About what? He didn't say anything that would have offended her, did he? Zero searched through his own memories, the most recent one of Aryan's and his conversation. "If it is anything to do with what I said, I meant every word of it Yuki," he spoke, watching as she sat up and continued speaking. At that, he merely smirked. She was lying; they both knew she was lying. She had been avoiding him, though he did not know the reason why. He too sat up from his spot, turning to look at Yuki in the process.
"And if I said yes? If I said that it did bother me that my cousin was avoiding me?" he spoke, the smirk merely remaining as he stared, golden eyes captivating him as they usually did. There was something about them, the molten color mixing with the light of the moon. He sighed softly through his nose before reaching a hand out towards her, grabbing her arm gently as he pulled her towards him, placing her so that his arms were wrapped around her torso and his head resting in the crook of her neck.
"Yes Yuki, it does bother me because you are family. If I did something to upset you, I want you to tell me so that I can make it up to you. I do not need my family avoiding me, especially you," he spoke, his tone low, his breath warm against her neck. He truly didn't like it, her avoiding him. There was an ache in his heart when she did, and he would rather her not avoid him for something that couldn't be helped. He wasn't his cousin, Balthasar. He would not sit back and let his family avoid him, not if he could do something about it. Though Alarica seemed to have returned to speaking with him, he'd rather not have Yuki avoid him like Alarica had avoided Balthasar.
Yuki blinked at Zero slightly, not entirely sure what to do when he wrapped his arms around her. The teasing, the jesting, she could all take, but...this, she didn't know what to do with this. Still, she did what she always did. She sorted through the statements, and she answered them. If her pulse was racing slightly at their close proximity, well...she would just have to ignore that.
"It has naught to do with what you said, it has to do with Aryan sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong." That, was true, at least. Her brother needed to mind his own business, and not try and shove them together when--
She forced herself to stop thinking about it. She had been dwelling on it far too much lately. At this rate, she was liable to tell someone. So, she switched topics, instead addressing his last statements. "I was not referring to my avoidance of you. I was referring to my feeding from you." She admitted it then, though she didn't want to think of the reason behind his not liking it when she avoided him. He'd said it was because they were family, but there was a subtle undertone, one that she was not at all comfortable with. Or rather, she was too comfortable with. There could be nothing between them, not of that nature. She couldn't do that to him. She wouldn't do that to him.
"It's a brother's job to stick their nose where it doesn't belong, especially in regards to their sister, older or not," he responded, though the frown that marred his face twisted into a light smile. At least she wouldn't avoid him, that was all that mattered, however, she had avoided him because she fed from him? Why did that seem...wrong? It was as if that was what she was trying to convince herself of, that the reason she wouldn't speak to him this week was because she fed from him. He shook his head softly, releasing a held breath as he closed his eyes.
"There is nothing wrong with you feeding from me. You were in need of blood and I was the only one who could provide it. It did not bother me at all that I could do that for you Yuki. I would do anything for you," he stopped himself there at that sentence. He was about to say something he wasn't quite ready to, not yet. He smiled once more, however; it faltered shortly there after. "Is something bothering you, Yuki? You do know that you can come to me for something, I've told you this once before," he spoke, his tone reverting to something a little more serious.
Yuki looked at him, something flashing through her eyes, something caught between hesitance and sorrow. She shouldn't tell him. She shouldn't tell anyone. But she wanted to tell him. Even if he never found out how she felt about him, this, at least, was something he should know about. They all should know about it.
But she didn't want them all treating her differently, knowing that she was going to die. She didn't want them wasting their time trying to figure out how to save her when they couldn't. She'd been searching for a way for almost a century now, there was no way. Yuki was going to die, and that was the end of it.
She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "It's one thing to bring a problem, it's quite another to..." She sighed. Perhaps she should explain a little. "Kisuke tried to turn me into a Pure Blood, and in the end, he did the exact opposite. I'm more or less human, and because of that, my body can't stand up to the strain of being a vampire. As such, the experimentation severely shortened my life span. Most Nobles live for at least five hundred years, if not longer." She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
"I've got fifty years left to live, at best."
Zero blinked, confusion evident upon his features. He knew Kisuke experimented on Yuki, but he did not think it was to that extent. He was trying to create a pure-blood, by the means of experimenting on his own daughter. He felt his jaw clench, tightening, constricting before it locked in place. He had not known what rage felt like, to feel the pulsing anger that burned through his blood at just the mere thought of Kisuke. If he wasn't already dead, Zero would have tortured him, denied him death for as long as he possibly could until Zero was finished with him. Then, a bout of fear crept upon him. Fifty years? She only had fifty years to live?
That...didn't seem fair. Why had she never told him? Any of them? If she had...his eyes glazed over as he stared at her. His cousin, this woman, who he grew so fond of over the years, was going to die. Fifty years time, that was a blink of an eye for a pure-blood. But for humans, it was relatively normal. Fifty years of life was plenty for most humans, while some of them were able to reach the delicate age of one hundred. But Yuki wasn't a human. She had been correct, Nobles only live for so long, the oldest ones living to be a little over a thousand. He knew one such Noble, but he hadn't spoken to him in years. His arms shot out to Yuki, grasping her so that she was turned to face him.
"Why?" were the only words that seemed to leave his lips. Nothing seemed to make sense to him and he was confused. "Why didn't you tell me?" he spoke, his voice laced with anger, sorrow, regret? He didn't bother to hide the fact that he left out the whole family, that he had addressed himself, and none of the others. The others didn't matter. He wanted to know why she didn't tell him. With one fluid movement, he pulled her to him, his lips descending upon hers.
Yuki wasn't really sure what she'd been expecting. Anger, perhaps, or sorrow, but not...not this. This shouldn't be happening. He couldn't love her. There was no future with her, and Zero deserved so much better than that. He deserved better than her.
Even so, she made no effort to fight him as he kissed her, her arms entwining themselves around his shoulders. When they parted, she answered him, but she couldn't meet his eyes. She was afraid of what she would see, of what he would see. "What would be the point? Nothing can be done about it, and if you didn't know then...I could have gone off and died in some attack, no one had to know. You could move on, forget about me. You deserve better than me."
She hadn't realized she was crying until she stopped speaking. "I have no life to offer you, what right do I have to tell you how I feel?" She whispered.
Zero unintentionally coiled his fingers tightly around Yuki's shoulder, the anger still shining behind his eyes. She...thought that of him? That he could possibly forget about her? That he could move on without her? He couldn't do either of those. He loved her. He had loved her for as long as he could remember. He couldn't deny that fact. To simply forget the first woman he's ever loved, was not something he could do. He couldn't do.
"Because we can still make a life out of it. That is why. How could you possibly ever think that I could forget about you? What I deserve is for me to decide, no one else, not even you. And what I deserve is to know that the woman I love, loves me as well. If she does not, that will mean nothing to me, because I cannot love another. I will not. Dying in an attack is not the same as dying regardless. If you died in an attack, I could avenge you, but this...I cannot avenge you for this."
Each word he spoke, felt like he was ripping himself apart. How could she think so lowly of him? Perhaps it was partially, if not all, of his fault. But he had never known. She had never told anyone. What...what were her parents going to say when they found out? He sighed softly, running a hand through her snow-white locks. "I love you, Yuki. I really do, more than I can even understand myself. My life would have no meaning without you in it," he spoke, releasing himself from her and standing behind her. He glanced at her, giving her one final look before he fell from the top of the Academy, landing with all the grace granted to his kind, and made his way to his dormitory.
Yuki shut her eyes. He loved her. He loved her. It didn't seem to matter whether she loved him or not, she'd already stolen that from him. And for that, she hated herself. The tears streamed silently down her face as he left, leaving her unable to speak. She clutched at her chest as she fell to her knees, her shoulders shaking in an effort to keep the sobs from tearing themselves from her throat. She wanted desperately to run after him, to tell him, but she didn't. She stayed where she was.
He would forget her. He would forget because he had to.
Balthasar exhaled in some degree of wry frustration, the general upward motion of the air current he produced propelling his stubborn forelock almost horizontal for a moment, before it flopped back down in front of his nose like always. Shaking his head, he stood smoothly from his lotus position, rolling his shoulders and pressing the tips of his fingers into his left deltoid. It wasn’t sore—he had to undergo a lot more physical exertion than was usually possible to start experiencing muscle ache, but it was a bit stiff, probably because he’d been sitting like this for four hours.
Meditation was a practice his parents had encouraged in him, to help him with his control, which could often be… dubious, at best. There was something always there, in the back of his mind, that whispered to him in a voice that was not his, attempting to lure him with the promises of his own blood. For all that anyone knew, Balthasar was a somewhat-dense, but well-meaning fellow, who was perhaps a little too beholden to the whims of other people. But somewhere, deep down underneath that, was something else, something dark and quite possibly wicked. He didn’t understand it, but it was like all his desires and his temptations were bound up with his power, and he kept it contained in the smallest ball of untouchable things possible and tried to lock it in the furthest possible corner of his mind.
The metaphor was a little too spatial, but it was close enough. There was a part of him that needed constant restraint, and he didn’t like it. But he couldn’t indulge his own whims like other people could, because there was always a chance that something would go horribly wrong. He had no idea what he’d become, if he allowed that power to overtake him, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it. Pursing his lips, he sighed softly and decided to go do something productive. That usually helped when meditation did not.
He found himself walking towards the infirmary, and he could smell that Yuki was there, probably working as always. There hadn’t been nearly as many patients lately, but there was always something to do. He found her sorting through paperwork, perhaps test results or patient files, and took a seat across from her, smiling kindly. With a look, it was easy enough to figure out how she was sorting things, and he took to doing the same. Many hands made light work after all. “Hey sis. How are you?”
It had been three days since her encounter with Zero on the roof, and she'd not spoken to him since. She wasn't sure of what to say, anyhow. What right did she have to tell him she loved him when she'd caused him such obvious pain? As far as she could tell, he hadn't said a word to anyone, either, and for that, she was grateful.
As it were, she was so absorbed in what she was doing, for once in her life, she had no idea that Balthasar was even there until he spoke. It actually made her jump, and for a second, all she could do was stare at him. She blinked, her eyes falling back down to the papers and charts strewn across the table, and she sighed. There were dark circles under her eyes.
"Hey, Bal...sorry. I'm...not my best, at the moment." It wasn't an outright lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. She quickly scooped up the charts that had been in front of her, specifically, her charts. For some unknown reason, she had the sudden desire to go over them again, and see if she'd missed anything. Whether it had anything to do with Zero or not, she didn't care. At least, that was what she told herself.
He glanced down in time to see what she was holding, and wondered what she was doing with her own medical files. But this, like everything else, was something she would tell him if she felt so inclined, and he wasn’t going to bring it up. Instead, he helped her sort them, mostly by what kind of data they contained, and he noted she’d been doing a lot of bloodwork on herself over the years. Curious, but he stilled his tongue even so, stacking the papers neatly and straightening the corners with his thumb until they were precisely in alignment. He had a few weird tics like this, but he just couldn’t help himself.
In the end, though, he did feel the need to make a more general inquiry. It was not like Yuki to be so… skittish, especially not around him. They’d known each other for a long time, after all, and their relationship had always been deep in its simplicity. He was her brother, and she his sister. It was purely that, and that lack of complication allowed for much to be spoken freely between them. “Do you need to talk about it?” he asked softly, folding his hands onto the table in front of him and tilting his head slightly to one side, meeting her eyes with his own. He didn’t ask if she wanted to, because he was pretty sure that she didn’t. But there was a difference between wanting to discuss what was bothering her and needing someone to hear it.
Yuki sighed softly, looking at her brother with a half-hearted smile. "Is it that obvious?" She looked down at the files in front of her, the most recent on top. It showed various data, but the most important was the fact that it showed that her body was breaking down, and rapidly at that, to anyone who could read them. At first, she wasn't sure she should tell him.
And then the words tumbled out of her without her consent. "You're aware of what Kisuke did to me. He wanted to make me a Pure Blood by accessing our Grandmother's blood line through me. But, he failed. The problem is, he made me..." She paused, unsure of exactly how to explain it.
She set her mouth in a grim line. "You remember the story of what happened to Uncle Morgan? How he basically fell to Level E status and then came back? Essentially, the same thing is happening to me. But, it's a lot slower. And...there's no coming back from it. Not for me, at least." She looked down at her hands. "Give or take, I've got about fifty years left."
For a long moment, Balthasar did not say anything. He simply processed. And then, he took one of the medical charts off the top of the stack and read it over properly, still in silence. He was no expert, but he knew enough to understand what the data meant, and he realize with a heavy hit of dread that she was right. A deep breath expanded his chest, and when he let it out again, he seemed to deflate a little. Fifty years… that was almost nothing at all, and yet… any of them could die, on any day. The difference was that this was a hard deadline, not merely indeterminacy.
Some small thing, a fragment of the light inside his heart, flickered out, and his eyes seemed to dull in their color, just a little. When he looked at her, it was with open sadness, as one who has just endured something unspeakable. He swallowed, setting down the little piece of the chart, and for a moment, he considered making her an offer—humanity was not the same as being a vampire, but… He shook his head then, mostly to himself. That would give her, at most, ten more years than she had. And even if it did, they would be ten years in which she was no longer the same person she had been. He knew he would never want that, and he knew enough of her to understand that she would not, either. Besides, it would demand another life in exchange, and while he knew that the list of people who would willingly give theirs for that if she wanted it was quite long, it was also full of people she would not allow to die for her.
Bracing his hands on the desk, Balthasar pushed himself into a stand, moving around the table to be beside her, then he took her hand and tugged her up as well, mostly so he could wrap his arms around his sister’s back and hug her tightly. She had difficulty expressing her feelings, he knew this very well, but that did not mean that she was without them. “I love you, sister,” he said quietly, “and when you are gone, I will miss you every day. But I have had eighty-five years by your side, and every one of them has been a gift. In this, the next fifty will be no different. It is like Aunt Ava has always told us: it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years. And you have lived well, Yuki. So… all I can ask is that you keep doing that. Live until you can’t live anymore—and put as much into those years as you can handle. If you can do that…” he trailed off, his voice cracking faintly with the emotion he was holding behind his words.
“Then you’ll have defeated him, once and for all.” It would seem that killing Kisuke Sou had not quite managed to erase him from their lives, but this, if Yuki could do this… then she would have won, in the end, and all he wanted was for her to be as happy as she possibly could.
For the first time in three days, Yuki actually smiled. Granted, her face was currently buried in her brother's chest, but still. His words had been exactly what she'd needed to hear. He was right, of course, she needed to make the most of what she had left. And she intended to do just that, starting off with an apology to a certain Kuragari.
"Thank you, Big Brother." She whispered, wrapping her arms around him.
Meditation was a practice his parents had encouraged in him, to help him with his control, which could often be… dubious, at best. There was something always there, in the back of his mind, that whispered to him in a voice that was not his, attempting to lure him with the promises of his own blood. For all that anyone knew, Balthasar was a somewhat-dense, but well-meaning fellow, who was perhaps a little too beholden to the whims of other people. But somewhere, deep down underneath that, was something else, something dark and quite possibly wicked. He didn’t understand it, but it was like all his desires and his temptations were bound up with his power, and he kept it contained in the smallest ball of untouchable things possible and tried to lock it in the furthest possible corner of his mind.
The metaphor was a little too spatial, but it was close enough. There was a part of him that needed constant restraint, and he didn’t like it. But he couldn’t indulge his own whims like other people could, because there was always a chance that something would go horribly wrong. He had no idea what he’d become, if he allowed that power to overtake him, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it. Pursing his lips, he sighed softly and decided to go do something productive. That usually helped when meditation did not.
He found himself walking towards the infirmary, and he could smell that Yuki was there, probably working as always. There hadn’t been nearly as many patients lately, but there was always something to do. He found her sorting through paperwork, perhaps test results or patient files, and took a seat across from her, smiling kindly. With a look, it was easy enough to figure out how she was sorting things, and he took to doing the same. Many hands made light work after all. “Hey sis. How are you?”
It had been three days since her encounter with Zero on the roof, and she'd not spoken to him since. She wasn't sure of what to say, anyhow. What right did she have to tell him she loved him when she'd caused him such obvious pain? As far as she could tell, he hadn't said a word to anyone, either, and for that, she was grateful.
As it were, she was so absorbed in what she was doing, for once in her life, she had no idea that Balthasar was even there until he spoke. It actually made her jump, and for a second, all she could do was stare at him. She blinked, her eyes falling back down to the papers and charts strewn across the table, and she sighed. There were dark circles under her eyes.
"Hey, Bal...sorry. I'm...not my best, at the moment." It wasn't an outright lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. She quickly scooped up the charts that had been in front of her, specifically, her charts. For some unknown reason, she had the sudden desire to go over them again, and see if she'd missed anything. Whether it had anything to do with Zero or not, she didn't care. At least, that was what she told herself.
He glanced down in time to see what she was holding, and wondered what she was doing with her own medical files. But this, like everything else, was something she would tell him if she felt so inclined, and he wasn’t going to bring it up. Instead, he helped her sort them, mostly by what kind of data they contained, and he noted she’d been doing a lot of bloodwork on herself over the years. Curious, but he stilled his tongue even so, stacking the papers neatly and straightening the corners with his thumb until they were precisely in alignment. He had a few weird tics like this, but he just couldn’t help himself.
In the end, though, he did feel the need to make a more general inquiry. It was not like Yuki to be so… skittish, especially not around him. They’d known each other for a long time, after all, and their relationship had always been deep in its simplicity. He was her brother, and she his sister. It was purely that, and that lack of complication allowed for much to be spoken freely between them. “Do you need to talk about it?” he asked softly, folding his hands onto the table in front of him and tilting his head slightly to one side, meeting her eyes with his own. He didn’t ask if she wanted to, because he was pretty sure that she didn’t. But there was a difference between wanting to discuss what was bothering her and needing someone to hear it.
Yuki sighed softly, looking at her brother with a half-hearted smile. "Is it that obvious?" She looked down at the files in front of her, the most recent on top. It showed various data, but the most important was the fact that it showed that her body was breaking down, and rapidly at that, to anyone who could read them. At first, she wasn't sure she should tell him.
And then the words tumbled out of her without her consent. "You're aware of what Kisuke did to me. He wanted to make me a Pure Blood by accessing our Grandmother's blood line through me. But, he failed. The problem is, he made me..." She paused, unsure of exactly how to explain it.
She set her mouth in a grim line. "You remember the story of what happened to Uncle Morgan? How he basically fell to Level E status and then came back? Essentially, the same thing is happening to me. But, it's a lot slower. And...there's no coming back from it. Not for me, at least." She looked down at her hands. "Give or take, I've got about fifty years left."
For a long moment, Balthasar did not say anything. He simply processed. And then, he took one of the medical charts off the top of the stack and read it over properly, still in silence. He was no expert, but he knew enough to understand what the data meant, and he realize with a heavy hit of dread that she was right. A deep breath expanded his chest, and when he let it out again, he seemed to deflate a little. Fifty years… that was almost nothing at all, and yet… any of them could die, on any day. The difference was that this was a hard deadline, not merely indeterminacy.
Some small thing, a fragment of the light inside his heart, flickered out, and his eyes seemed to dull in their color, just a little. When he looked at her, it was with open sadness, as one who has just endured something unspeakable. He swallowed, setting down the little piece of the chart, and for a moment, he considered making her an offer—humanity was not the same as being a vampire, but… He shook his head then, mostly to himself. That would give her, at most, ten more years than she had. And even if it did, they would be ten years in which she was no longer the same person she had been. He knew he would never want that, and he knew enough of her to understand that she would not, either. Besides, it would demand another life in exchange, and while he knew that the list of people who would willingly give theirs for that if she wanted it was quite long, it was also full of people she would not allow to die for her.
Bracing his hands on the desk, Balthasar pushed himself into a stand, moving around the table to be beside her, then he took her hand and tugged her up as well, mostly so he could wrap his arms around his sister’s back and hug her tightly. She had difficulty expressing her feelings, he knew this very well, but that did not mean that she was without them. “I love you, sister,” he said quietly, “and when you are gone, I will miss you every day. But I have had eighty-five years by your side, and every one of them has been a gift. In this, the next fifty will be no different. It is like Aunt Ava has always told us: it is not the years in your life, but the life in your years. And you have lived well, Yuki. So… all I can ask is that you keep doing that. Live until you can’t live anymore—and put as much into those years as you can handle. If you can do that…” he trailed off, his voice cracking faintly with the emotion he was holding behind his words.
“Then you’ll have defeated him, once and for all.” It would seem that killing Kisuke Sou had not quite managed to erase him from their lives, but this, if Yuki could do this… then she would have won, in the end, and all he wanted was for her to be as happy as she possibly could.
For the first time in three days, Yuki actually smiled. Granted, her face was currently buried in her brother's chest, but still. His words had been exactly what she'd needed to hear. He was right, of course, she needed to make the most of what she had left. And she intended to do just that, starting off with an apology to a certain Kuragari.
"Thank you, Big Brother." She whispered, wrapping her arms around him.
Again.
She was avoiding him again. For three days, she had ceased to talk to him, to come to him, to interact with him. And he hated it. Was this how Balthasar felt when Alarica was avoiding him? He couldn't fathom the feeling if Yuki avoided him for three years as Alarica had, and that was a thought he did not want to entertain. He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he released a rather harsh sigh. Had he done the right thing by telling her? Or did he just make things worse for her by telling her? H couldn't discern the difference, and as he was lost in thought, failed to notice a presence trailing behind him.
"If I had been an assassin, I would have killed you already," Alarica stated, the cold sensation of metal being pressed upon Zero's neck. He glanced at her through the side of his eyes, noting the smirk that littered her features, but he couldn't bring himself to return it. She rose an eyebrow at this. "So, Zero would have preferred to die?" she spoke, the question being stated carefully as she kept her brow raised. Zero visibly flinched at the word, causing Alarica to purse her lips together. She removed Ulrik from his neck, shifting the blade so that it retained its smaller form. "Something is bothering you," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
"I'm just tired, Lala," he stated, the tone of his voice stating otherwise. Alarica rose an eyebrow, placing Ulrik away before crossing her arms across her chest, tapping her foot. "Really, I've had a lot on my mind," he spoke honestly. He did have a lot on his mind. If Yuki's sudden declaration was considered a lot. Alarica merely sighed, keeping up with his long strides until they found themselves underneath a cherry blossom tree. She sat, cross-legged and motioned for him to do the same. He lay, his head in her lap as she ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily through his nose. "How do you do it? How do you stay the way you do seeing him with another?"
Alarica paused in running her fingers through his hair before resuming the gesture. She sighed at the question, musing it over a few times before forming the right words. "Because I cannot be selfish. His happiness is the only thing that I want, and if he is happy with another, then I too am happy. It doesn't matter how I feel about it Zero. If he chooses to love her...then what right do I have to take it away? He deserves--" she was cut off by the harsh glare he sent her, amaranth meeting sea-foam green. There was that word again, deserve. What made them think they knew what he and Balthasar deserved? The only people who could ever know that was themselves.
"What makes you so sure of what he deserves? You don't know what he deserves because you are not him, Alarica. You cannot presume to know what other people deserve," he snapped, sitting up abruptly to turn and face her, however; he was stopped when Alarica's hand pushed him back down. "I'm sorry Lala," he stated softly as she continued running her hand through his hair. She had matched his glare with one of her own, but she knew her cousin meant nothing by it. It was obvious enough that whatever was bothering him was making him extremely volatile. And she could only guess that it might have something to do with Yuki. He always reacted this way when it involved her.
"You are right, I cannot assume to know what other people deserve, but I do know that I do not deserve him. And if I do not deserve him, someone else does. I cannot say I know how Yuki feels. I do not know how she feels about you, but I do know how you feel about her. You have to understand, Zero, it's not easy. Telling someone that you love them, is not an easy task," she stated softly. Zero sighed softer this time, closing his eyes again. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. But then again, Alarica didn't know what he did. She didn't know that Yuki was going to die. For a moment, he contemplated telling her, but shook the thought from his head. He couldn't tell his cousin that, not unless Yuki wanted to first.
"Sing something for me Lala," he spoke, dropping the subject and leaving it where it stood. Alarica smiled softly, shaking her head before humming a soft tune. She began to sing, allowing the melody to soothe him as Zero lay still, his mind flooded with thoughts of her. Zero had a chance, or so Alarica thought. He had a chance to tell Yuki how he felt about her, and to see how she felt about him, but Alarica did not. She didn't have that chance simply because she was too late. And they both knew it, but the others refused to accept it. Was it really all that bad?
She was avoiding him again. For three days, she had ceased to talk to him, to come to him, to interact with him. And he hated it. Was this how Balthasar felt when Alarica was avoiding him? He couldn't fathom the feeling if Yuki avoided him for three years as Alarica had, and that was a thought he did not want to entertain. He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he released a rather harsh sigh. Had he done the right thing by telling her? Or did he just make things worse for her by telling her? H couldn't discern the difference, and as he was lost in thought, failed to notice a presence trailing behind him.
"If I had been an assassin, I would have killed you already," Alarica stated, the cold sensation of metal being pressed upon Zero's neck. He glanced at her through the side of his eyes, noting the smirk that littered her features, but he couldn't bring himself to return it. She rose an eyebrow at this. "So, Zero would have preferred to die?" she spoke, the question being stated carefully as she kept her brow raised. Zero visibly flinched at the word, causing Alarica to purse her lips together. She removed Ulrik from his neck, shifting the blade so that it retained its smaller form. "Something is bothering you," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
"I'm just tired, Lala," he stated, the tone of his voice stating otherwise. Alarica rose an eyebrow, placing Ulrik away before crossing her arms across her chest, tapping her foot. "Really, I've had a lot on my mind," he spoke honestly. He did have a lot on his mind. If Yuki's sudden declaration was considered a lot. Alarica merely sighed, keeping up with his long strides until they found themselves underneath a cherry blossom tree. She sat, cross-legged and motioned for him to do the same. He lay, his head in her lap as she ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily through his nose. "How do you do it? How do you stay the way you do seeing him with another?"
Alarica paused in running her fingers through his hair before resuming the gesture. She sighed at the question, musing it over a few times before forming the right words. "Because I cannot be selfish. His happiness is the only thing that I want, and if he is happy with another, then I too am happy. It doesn't matter how I feel about it Zero. If he chooses to love her...then what right do I have to take it away? He deserves--" she was cut off by the harsh glare he sent her, amaranth meeting sea-foam green. There was that word again, deserve. What made them think they knew what he and Balthasar deserved? The only people who could ever know that was themselves.
"What makes you so sure of what he deserves? You don't know what he deserves because you are not him, Alarica. You cannot presume to know what other people deserve," he snapped, sitting up abruptly to turn and face her, however; he was stopped when Alarica's hand pushed him back down. "I'm sorry Lala," he stated softly as she continued running her hand through his hair. She had matched his glare with one of her own, but she knew her cousin meant nothing by it. It was obvious enough that whatever was bothering him was making him extremely volatile. And she could only guess that it might have something to do with Yuki. He always reacted this way when it involved her.
"You are right, I cannot assume to know what other people deserve, but I do know that I do not deserve him. And if I do not deserve him, someone else does. I cannot say I know how Yuki feels. I do not know how she feels about you, but I do know how you feel about her. You have to understand, Zero, it's not easy. Telling someone that you love them, is not an easy task," she stated softly. Zero sighed softer this time, closing his eyes again. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. But then again, Alarica didn't know what he did. She didn't know that Yuki was going to die. For a moment, he contemplated telling her, but shook the thought from his head. He couldn't tell his cousin that, not unless Yuki wanted to first.
"Sing something for me Lala," he spoke, dropping the subject and leaving it where it stood. Alarica smiled softly, shaking her head before humming a soft tune. She began to sing, allowing the melody to soothe him as Zero lay still, his mind flooded with thoughts of her. Zero had a chance, or so Alarica thought. He had a chance to tell Yuki how he felt about her, and to see how she felt about him, but Alarica did not. She didn't have that chance simply because she was too late. And they both knew it, but the others refused to accept it. Was it really all that bad?
Aryan frowned. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. There was a lot going on, and none of it he was very fond of. Something had happened between Yuki and Zero, and the way they were avoiding each other like the plague over the last few days, whatever it was, it wasn't good. On top of that, Emrys had just left him, informing him that, as of now, the eldest Alistair was to be joining him whenever he was on Council business.
Aryan was not stupid, he could see the pros of having Emrys around, however...the man was not very tactful, and Aryan was not sure he could keep his mouth shut. Aryan sighed through his nose. This was going to be interesting, to say the least.
Medusa repositioned herself on his shoulders. "You are troubled, no, massster?" The golden snake hissed in his ear. He glanced at her with purple eyes. "That is one way of putting it, Dusa, yes...I'm worried about Yuki."
"Ssshe doesss seem a little...ssstresssed of late..."
Balthasar sighed, cracking his neck first in one direction and then the other and rolling his shoulders. Elizabeth had just been over to his dorm, something that he occasionally managed to find a bit… awkward, but then, knowing him, it was bound to be. He was in the rather unfavorable position of someone quite obviously wanting more of him than he was willing to give, at least at this stage of thing. Flattering, but… very uncomfortable. He might have upset her, actually, and that made him feel bad. Shaking his head at himself, he moved the thoughts aside for the moment and left the premises. He had a couple of books to return to the Library.
Upon reaching it, he discovered that his brother was already within, wearing a troubled expression that was rare, at least publicly. His familiar was draped over his shoulders, which was usually the only time Balthasar ever saw her. He managed a bit of a smile, sighing inwardly. It seemed like nobody was having a good time of things lately, even compared to the way things usually were. Emrys and Leora had basically torn apart the gym between them, Yuki was… well, he hoped she was doing a bit better, but it was hard to see the positives in a situation like that. The twins seemed most all right, but then, they usually weathered the storms with that indefatigable spirit of theirs, even if Rica was still mourning for Mikhail.
Turning a wooden chair backwards, Balthasar sat in it, facing his brother with his arms folded over the back of it and his chin resting atop them. He didn’t say anything, really, rather waiting in expectant silence for Ary to do that first.
Aryan raised a slight eyebrow as his brother sat down. He always did seem to know when to show up. Sometimes it was a bit unnerving really. Aryan was absent-mindedly stroking Medusa's head, the familiar's deep green eyes dropping closed. There were actually a great many questions that he would have asked, but over half of them he expected his brother to be incapable of answering.
"Do you know what is going on with our sister? Yuki has been...avoiding me." That was true, and that troubled him to no end. It didn't help matters that he was fairly certian the reason she was avoiding him was because there was something she wasn't telling him, telling them, and she knew he would be able to get it out of her.
It hurt because that meant she didn't trust him, and Aryan wasn't sure what to do with that.
To the heart of the matter as always. Some people might find this tendency of his brother’s irritating or at the very least unnerving, but Balthasar was just proud of him. Ary was sharp as a knife, and he had a way of seeing through deception that, while not as literal as what their cousin Alden could do, was nevertheless impressive. Naturally, it would be useless to attempt a lie, and even if he could have succeeded, Balthasar would not have tried. So his answer was a straightforward and genuine as they always were.
“Yes,” he said simply. He did know what was wrong. “But it’s not something I can talk about. She… it’s something she has to do on her own. Just give her time, Ary; she has a lot to sort through, but I’m sure that, when she’s ready, she’ll tell you.” It was right there on the tip of his tongue to tell his brother, and part of him desperately wanted to. But stronger than that was Balthasar’s honor, and his need to protect Yuki. Not from Ary, because he knew his brother would never hurt her, but from having to deal with too much at once. She’d trusted him with this painful secret, and he would not betray that trust.
While he wouldn't lie to himself and say that it didn't hurt somewhat that Yuki would tell Balthasar and not him as well about something that was a problem, Aryan could also understand it. His brother just had a way about him, people usually felt rather inclined to speak about things that they otherwise would keep to themselves. Half of the time, Bal didn't even ask. And if Bal said that she would tell him in time, then she would.
So, he left that at that, instead switching to a different topic, this one albeit lighter, though still just as annoying. "Were you also aware that Father has assigned Emrys as my bodygaurd?" Aryan did not try and hide his annoyance at this; he loved his cousin like all the rest, but...he just was not sold at the idea of having two people with him at the Council meetings. So far, Helen had been all that he needed, and he was rather inclined to keep it just so.
Balthasar was relieved that Ary wasn’t inclined to press, though he hadn’t expected him to. His brother was perceptive, yes, but he was also more sensitive than most people assumed, and had a lot of tact when he wanted to. The change in topic produced a small smile from him, and he shook his head. “Not until Emrys told me himself, no. Though… he did mention something about Helen. I’ll let you ask her yourself, though, because I’m not sure if she ended up agreeing or not.” He shrugged.
“I know it’s probably inconvenient, but it’s a nest of vipers in there, Ary, you know that better than I do. Er... no offense, Medusa. And father knows it better than either of us.” For as clever as his brother was, their father was nearly a thousand years old, far and away more experienced with this sort of thing than Balthasar could even really conceptualize properly. It was hard not to trust his judgement, considering. “And… you never know. It might have been mother’s idea. You know how she feels about you and the Council.”
If pythons could smile, Medusa would have at her master's brother. "None taken, Balthasssar. I am a python, not a viper. We do not asssssosiate with our lesssser cousins." For a second, Aryan cocked an eyebrow at his familiar, shaking his head slightly. He had to smile though, Bal was probably right, it may very well have been their mother's idea. He'd recieved a very strongly worded letter from her about a week after he'd joined the Council. He'd expected no less.
"Inconveince is not the right word. Unless Emrys learns to keep his mouth shut, this is going to be a fiasco, one that I doubt even father would be able to fix." The problem with Emrys was that he, like his father, was compulsive, and he tended to speak without thinking. "Still, if he can keep quiet, having the heir to the Alistair line around would not be such a bad thing." Especially not with his ability...
Balthasar smiled a little wider, shaking his head. “You know, if you’re really worried about him running his mouth, I bet you could get Helen to talk to him.” She didn’t speak often, but there was a certain undeniable force about what Hel did bother to say… and there was no mistaking that if she put her mind to it, she could keep someone in line. Actually, being on the wrong end of that sword would be pretty frightening, for anyone. But he could see the wheels turning in Ary’s mind already, and so he left his brother to the scheming, tossing both he and the familiar a wave before he stood and departed.
Aryan was not stupid, he could see the pros of having Emrys around, however...the man was not very tactful, and Aryan was not sure he could keep his mouth shut. Aryan sighed through his nose. This was going to be interesting, to say the least.
Medusa repositioned herself on his shoulders. "You are troubled, no, massster?" The golden snake hissed in his ear. He glanced at her with purple eyes. "That is one way of putting it, Dusa, yes...I'm worried about Yuki."
"Ssshe doesss seem a little...ssstresssed of late..."
Balthasar sighed, cracking his neck first in one direction and then the other and rolling his shoulders. Elizabeth had just been over to his dorm, something that he occasionally managed to find a bit… awkward, but then, knowing him, it was bound to be. He was in the rather unfavorable position of someone quite obviously wanting more of him than he was willing to give, at least at this stage of thing. Flattering, but… very uncomfortable. He might have upset her, actually, and that made him feel bad. Shaking his head at himself, he moved the thoughts aside for the moment and left the premises. He had a couple of books to return to the Library.
Upon reaching it, he discovered that his brother was already within, wearing a troubled expression that was rare, at least publicly. His familiar was draped over his shoulders, which was usually the only time Balthasar ever saw her. He managed a bit of a smile, sighing inwardly. It seemed like nobody was having a good time of things lately, even compared to the way things usually were. Emrys and Leora had basically torn apart the gym between them, Yuki was… well, he hoped she was doing a bit better, but it was hard to see the positives in a situation like that. The twins seemed most all right, but then, they usually weathered the storms with that indefatigable spirit of theirs, even if Rica was still mourning for Mikhail.
Turning a wooden chair backwards, Balthasar sat in it, facing his brother with his arms folded over the back of it and his chin resting atop them. He didn’t say anything, really, rather waiting in expectant silence for Ary to do that first.
Aryan raised a slight eyebrow as his brother sat down. He always did seem to know when to show up. Sometimes it was a bit unnerving really. Aryan was absent-mindedly stroking Medusa's head, the familiar's deep green eyes dropping closed. There were actually a great many questions that he would have asked, but over half of them he expected his brother to be incapable of answering.
"Do you know what is going on with our sister? Yuki has been...avoiding me." That was true, and that troubled him to no end. It didn't help matters that he was fairly certian the reason she was avoiding him was because there was something she wasn't telling him, telling them, and she knew he would be able to get it out of her.
It hurt because that meant she didn't trust him, and Aryan wasn't sure what to do with that.
To the heart of the matter as always. Some people might find this tendency of his brother’s irritating or at the very least unnerving, but Balthasar was just proud of him. Ary was sharp as a knife, and he had a way of seeing through deception that, while not as literal as what their cousin Alden could do, was nevertheless impressive. Naturally, it would be useless to attempt a lie, and even if he could have succeeded, Balthasar would not have tried. So his answer was a straightforward and genuine as they always were.
“Yes,” he said simply. He did know what was wrong. “But it’s not something I can talk about. She… it’s something she has to do on her own. Just give her time, Ary; she has a lot to sort through, but I’m sure that, when she’s ready, she’ll tell you.” It was right there on the tip of his tongue to tell his brother, and part of him desperately wanted to. But stronger than that was Balthasar’s honor, and his need to protect Yuki. Not from Ary, because he knew his brother would never hurt her, but from having to deal with too much at once. She’d trusted him with this painful secret, and he would not betray that trust.
While he wouldn't lie to himself and say that it didn't hurt somewhat that Yuki would tell Balthasar and not him as well about something that was a problem, Aryan could also understand it. His brother just had a way about him, people usually felt rather inclined to speak about things that they otherwise would keep to themselves. Half of the time, Bal didn't even ask. And if Bal said that she would tell him in time, then she would.
So, he left that at that, instead switching to a different topic, this one albeit lighter, though still just as annoying. "Were you also aware that Father has assigned Emrys as my bodygaurd?" Aryan did not try and hide his annoyance at this; he loved his cousin like all the rest, but...he just was not sold at the idea of having two people with him at the Council meetings. So far, Helen had been all that he needed, and he was rather inclined to keep it just so.
Balthasar was relieved that Ary wasn’t inclined to press, though he hadn’t expected him to. His brother was perceptive, yes, but he was also more sensitive than most people assumed, and had a lot of tact when he wanted to. The change in topic produced a small smile from him, and he shook his head. “Not until Emrys told me himself, no. Though… he did mention something about Helen. I’ll let you ask her yourself, though, because I’m not sure if she ended up agreeing or not.” He shrugged.
“I know it’s probably inconvenient, but it’s a nest of vipers in there, Ary, you know that better than I do. Er... no offense, Medusa. And father knows it better than either of us.” For as clever as his brother was, their father was nearly a thousand years old, far and away more experienced with this sort of thing than Balthasar could even really conceptualize properly. It was hard not to trust his judgement, considering. “And… you never know. It might have been mother’s idea. You know how she feels about you and the Council.”
If pythons could smile, Medusa would have at her master's brother. "None taken, Balthasssar. I am a python, not a viper. We do not asssssosiate with our lesssser cousins." For a second, Aryan cocked an eyebrow at his familiar, shaking his head slightly. He had to smile though, Bal was probably right, it may very well have been their mother's idea. He'd recieved a very strongly worded letter from her about a week after he'd joined the Council. He'd expected no less.
"Inconveince is not the right word. Unless Emrys learns to keep his mouth shut, this is going to be a fiasco, one that I doubt even father would be able to fix." The problem with Emrys was that he, like his father, was compulsive, and he tended to speak without thinking. "Still, if he can keep quiet, having the heir to the Alistair line around would not be such a bad thing." Especially not with his ability...
Balthasar smiled a little wider, shaking his head. “You know, if you’re really worried about him running his mouth, I bet you could get Helen to talk to him.” She didn’t speak often, but there was a certain undeniable force about what Hel did bother to say… and there was no mistaking that if she put her mind to it, she could keep someone in line. Actually, being on the wrong end of that sword would be pretty frightening, for anyone. But he could see the wheels turning in Ary’s mind already, and so he left his brother to the scheming, tossing both he and the familiar a wave before he stood and departed.
Helen stared into the mirror for a moment, blinking slowly. It was strange, how she changed not at all, not even with a century between then and now. Would she always be like this? The thought was… uncomfortable, and tugging at the bandage tape that bound her chest, she tied them off and sighed, turning from the glass and sliding into the sleeves of her shirt, buttoning all of them save the last two, then pulling the sweater-vest over her head. This one was blue, actually, and if she’d have bothered to look back at the mirror, she would have noted but not cared that it made the slight hint of that color in her eyes more prominent, so that they seemed to hang suspended in hue between it and purple.
The white jacket of the Night Class was last, and she smoothed the trousers down as well, tying the black ribbon off in her hair and picking up her blades, sliding the shorter one into her belt. For now, however, she left the longer one in her room—the Headmaster was not especially fond of students carrying weapons on the premises, but he’d made her this concession, at least. Her hand on the hilt, she folded the letter into her inside jacket pocket, observing once again that the male uniform for Cross was honestly much more convenient than the girls’ one. Inside jacket pocket and pants. Considerably better than the alternative.
Proceeding to the other side of the dorm, she knocked twice on Aryan von Nacht’s door. The contents of the letter, and the subsequent video communication, did pertain to him, in a sense, and she wanted his consent before she proceeded with the necessary arrangements. Stepping back a pace so as not to be right there when it opened, Hel let her free hand hang at her side, her right palm still braced on the end of the wakizashi’s handle. It was a gesture of wariness, to an extent, but more than anything, it comforted her, centered her. She was made to be a weapon and to wield them, and whether she liked it or not, she was still most comfortable in this capacity. What Jasper von Nacht had asked her to do would be in some sense stepping outside of this limited comfort zone, but she could see the necessity, and she had the required skills.
Aryan was stirred from his musings [or his drifting sleep, though he'd not admit to it] by a soft knock on his door. Medusa slithered from his lap onto the floor as he stood, stretching slightly and running his fingers through his hair before he went to answer it. He could already tell who it was, Helen had a certain aura about her.
Appearance-wise, Aryan was not what he normally looked like. He had on the white uniform pants, but he only had the white button-down shirt on, and it was untucked. He hadn't really been expecting anyone, so he'd been caught a little off-guard. Still, he was no less than curt as he answered the door.
"Good evening, Helen. Did you need something?" He asked her softly as he offered for her to come in.
She had been expecting to accompany him out, rather than going inside, as such, but her face did not change—she simply inclined her head and stepped inside, picking a wall to lean on, because she wasn’t sure if she was comfortable sitting, and she’d not been told to do so besides. Placing one foot back against the wall, she crossed her arms. To most people, it was a rather defensive position, and perhaps it was still so for Hel—but it was less defensive than walking around with a hand on her sword, so perhaps it was a sign of something different. She did not bother to contemplate it.
“I do not, at present,” she said, “but your father believes that you do. He has made a request of me, as I understand your mother has made one of your cousin. He asked if I would not mind handling some of the more mundane organizational aspects of your affairs.” The way she said it, the comparison was obvious—Lord von Nacht had essentially asked her to fill the same roles for Aryan as Lady Kuragari had once filled for him. He’d filled her in on what those were, and while some of them were a little outside her experience and her known practices, he’d assured her that they would be easy enough to learn, were she so inclined to take on the task. Assistant, shadow, valet—whatever one wanted to call it, it was the same idea.
“I… see the logic in it, but we agreed that it was ultimately your decision to make.” She stopped, her brows drawing together faintly. She felt like she should have said something else there, but she did not know what, so she simply ceased to speak. She wasn’t one to say anything that didn’t have a purpose, after all.
Aryan's eyebrows rose, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He, too, could see the logic behind it, and Helen was probably the best choice, but...Helen was family to him as much as Yuki was, and as such, he was well aware of her "episodes", and just how sporadic they could be. That wasn't to say he was ashamed or he was afraid of what the Council might think, more so he was worried about the effect the Council would have on her.
He did not want her to do anything that she was not comfortable with, and he would not make her. Still, in certain areas, Helen was worse than Yuki when it came to things, so he chose his next words carefully. "While I agree there is a certain logic behind it and it would be highly beneficial, I would have your take, Helen. Frankly, would you be comfortable, in such a position? I do not care whether you think that you must simply because my father or I ask it of you, because you don't. What I want to know is, will you be alright, in doing this?"
She blinked slowly, a flicker of something unreadable passing over her face for just a moment. He was quite a lot like his father, actually—the Lord had also made sure to impress upon her that this was not something she should do out of obligation. But just because they said she was free of it did not mean she was. Even so… “I hope you never understand what it is like,” she said solemnly, locking eyes with Aryan, “to be something like me. But if you ever did, you would know that the worst part is the dread. The not knowing when something will hit you, and having to hope that it does not come at an inopportune time.”
Something in her eyes hardened, and her chin lifted. Pride was not something Helen felt for herself, but she did have a certain amount of it for the work she did. “I cannot say that I will never have one in a Council meeting, but I can say that I will not allow it to affect anything you do. I will not allow it to get in the way.” She was so tired of being afraid of her own mind. She wanted, for once, to be able to do something that would serve a use, would help those that had helped her most. “I will be… all right.” Her pale lips pursed, and she might have said something else, except, at that moment, an eerie, low chuckle filled the room, and it was not issuing from either of its occupants.
“And that, dear girl, is where you are so very wrong.” The voice was moderate in timbre, but uncannily smooth, like honey. She recognized it, somewhere deep in her memory, and Hel’s hand flew immediately to her wakizashi, because there was no way she could be hearing that voice.
It was halfway from the sheath when he materialized, appearing as if from nowhere. And when he did, his scent came with him, hitting her with familiarity she was not prepared for—the sword clattered to the ground. He smiled, the gesture not at all mirthful or pleased like she remembered it, but the facial features were a perfect match for her memory. He looked like a male version of Freya, in a lot of respects, though where her hair was tawny, his was silvery. Their eyes were the same olive green, save that his were lit in malicious red as well, as he deactivated his cloaking ability. “B-brother?” The word was choked rather than spoken, and his smile widened a bit.
“None other. Please forgive the interruption, Lord von Nacht, but I am afraid this little diversion is entirely necessary.” he shrugged slightly, but under his light demeanor, there was something ponderous and dark. Hel swallowed thickly. She didn’t like it, and part of her was screaming at her to grab the sword on the floor and run him through. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, not to him.
“I have to say, Hel. I’ve been watching you for a while now, and I’m a little disappointed. You’ve gone soft, sweet sister, but we both know that means you’re lying to yourself.” She tried to say something—what, she had no idea—but he cut her off with a shake of his head. “I’m afraid there’s no time to argue the point. I need exactly one thing from you, Hel, and that is for you to remember.” Her eyes went wide as he disappeared, appearing again mere inches from her face, and he raised a hand to either of her temples, digging in painfully hard with the first two fingers of each.
That pain was easily dwarfed by the way her head lanced, as if a bolt of lightning were rebounding around in there, and even as her brother vanished, Helen fell to her knees, her field of vision swimming, She didn’t even notice that her hand landed on her fallen sword, slicing deeply into her palm. Things swam in front of her eyes at a speed she could not fully comprehend, but certain things stuck more than others, and she was slowly piecing together what he wanted her to understand.
“No… Yuki…” she slurred, but then the sensations became too much, and she collapsed, losing consciousness and still bleeding on Aryan’s floor.
Aryan smiled slightly. He wasn't overly pleased by the strong sense she had to serve, but he could also sense that she truly did want to help, and that was something he would never take from her. He opened his mouth to say as much, but he was interrupted by a voice, someone he could not see or hear, not until he materialized. If he hadn't known any better, Aryan would have sworn it was Emrys, but no, it was not his cousin.
His violet eyes snapped to Helen as she spoke a word, calling him 'brother'. That made his eyes narrow. She had a brother? This so called brother spoke a few things, and in the confusion that followed, one thing stuck clearly in Aryan's mind, though the sheer absurdity of it made him cringe. The man called him Lord von Nacht. He hated that title.
The man then vanished, and Aryan was up and at Helen's side in an instant. There was little he could do, and he felt powerless. He hated it. But her words rang in his head like a siren. Yuki? What about Yuki? He could only guess that Yuki was who Helen's 'brother' was after, but he was also loath to leave Helen alone, not like this.
He couldn't send Medusa after Yuki, she'd never make it in time. But he could do the next best thing. "Medusa! Go find Balthasar! Tell him what's happened, and tell him to find Yuki!" The python shot off faster than most people would think a snake could, winding her way to where she smelled the eldest von Nacht. Once the familiar was gone, Aryan gently picked Helen up, laying her on the sofa. And so, he waited, pacing, his eyebrows knit together. He wasn't sure this could get any worse.
Oh, how wrong he was.
The white jacket of the Night Class was last, and she smoothed the trousers down as well, tying the black ribbon off in her hair and picking up her blades, sliding the shorter one into her belt. For now, however, she left the longer one in her room—the Headmaster was not especially fond of students carrying weapons on the premises, but he’d made her this concession, at least. Her hand on the hilt, she folded the letter into her inside jacket pocket, observing once again that the male uniform for Cross was honestly much more convenient than the girls’ one. Inside jacket pocket and pants. Considerably better than the alternative.
Proceeding to the other side of the dorm, she knocked twice on Aryan von Nacht’s door. The contents of the letter, and the subsequent video communication, did pertain to him, in a sense, and she wanted his consent before she proceeded with the necessary arrangements. Stepping back a pace so as not to be right there when it opened, Hel let her free hand hang at her side, her right palm still braced on the end of the wakizashi’s handle. It was a gesture of wariness, to an extent, but more than anything, it comforted her, centered her. She was made to be a weapon and to wield them, and whether she liked it or not, she was still most comfortable in this capacity. What Jasper von Nacht had asked her to do would be in some sense stepping outside of this limited comfort zone, but she could see the necessity, and she had the required skills.
Aryan was stirred from his musings [or his drifting sleep, though he'd not admit to it] by a soft knock on his door. Medusa slithered from his lap onto the floor as he stood, stretching slightly and running his fingers through his hair before he went to answer it. He could already tell who it was, Helen had a certain aura about her.
Appearance-wise, Aryan was not what he normally looked like. He had on the white uniform pants, but he only had the white button-down shirt on, and it was untucked. He hadn't really been expecting anyone, so he'd been caught a little off-guard. Still, he was no less than curt as he answered the door.
"Good evening, Helen. Did you need something?" He asked her softly as he offered for her to come in.
She had been expecting to accompany him out, rather than going inside, as such, but her face did not change—she simply inclined her head and stepped inside, picking a wall to lean on, because she wasn’t sure if she was comfortable sitting, and she’d not been told to do so besides. Placing one foot back against the wall, she crossed her arms. To most people, it was a rather defensive position, and perhaps it was still so for Hel—but it was less defensive than walking around with a hand on her sword, so perhaps it was a sign of something different. She did not bother to contemplate it.
“I do not, at present,” she said, “but your father believes that you do. He has made a request of me, as I understand your mother has made one of your cousin. He asked if I would not mind handling some of the more mundane organizational aspects of your affairs.” The way she said it, the comparison was obvious—Lord von Nacht had essentially asked her to fill the same roles for Aryan as Lady Kuragari had once filled for him. He’d filled her in on what those were, and while some of them were a little outside her experience and her known practices, he’d assured her that they would be easy enough to learn, were she so inclined to take on the task. Assistant, shadow, valet—whatever one wanted to call it, it was the same idea.
“I… see the logic in it, but we agreed that it was ultimately your decision to make.” She stopped, her brows drawing together faintly. She felt like she should have said something else there, but she did not know what, so she simply ceased to speak. She wasn’t one to say anything that didn’t have a purpose, after all.
Aryan's eyebrows rose, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He, too, could see the logic behind it, and Helen was probably the best choice, but...Helen was family to him as much as Yuki was, and as such, he was well aware of her "episodes", and just how sporadic they could be. That wasn't to say he was ashamed or he was afraid of what the Council might think, more so he was worried about the effect the Council would have on her.
He did not want her to do anything that she was not comfortable with, and he would not make her. Still, in certain areas, Helen was worse than Yuki when it came to things, so he chose his next words carefully. "While I agree there is a certain logic behind it and it would be highly beneficial, I would have your take, Helen. Frankly, would you be comfortable, in such a position? I do not care whether you think that you must simply because my father or I ask it of you, because you don't. What I want to know is, will you be alright, in doing this?"
She blinked slowly, a flicker of something unreadable passing over her face for just a moment. He was quite a lot like his father, actually—the Lord had also made sure to impress upon her that this was not something she should do out of obligation. But just because they said she was free of it did not mean she was. Even so… “I hope you never understand what it is like,” she said solemnly, locking eyes with Aryan, “to be something like me. But if you ever did, you would know that the worst part is the dread. The not knowing when something will hit you, and having to hope that it does not come at an inopportune time.”
Something in her eyes hardened, and her chin lifted. Pride was not something Helen felt for herself, but she did have a certain amount of it for the work she did. “I cannot say that I will never have one in a Council meeting, but I can say that I will not allow it to affect anything you do. I will not allow it to get in the way.” She was so tired of being afraid of her own mind. She wanted, for once, to be able to do something that would serve a use, would help those that had helped her most. “I will be… all right.” Her pale lips pursed, and she might have said something else, except, at that moment, an eerie, low chuckle filled the room, and it was not issuing from either of its occupants.
“And that, dear girl, is where you are so very wrong.” The voice was moderate in timbre, but uncannily smooth, like honey. She recognized it, somewhere deep in her memory, and Hel’s hand flew immediately to her wakizashi, because there was no way she could be hearing that voice.
It was halfway from the sheath when he materialized, appearing as if from nowhere. And when he did, his scent came with him, hitting her with familiarity she was not prepared for—the sword clattered to the ground. He smiled, the gesture not at all mirthful or pleased like she remembered it, but the facial features were a perfect match for her memory. He looked like a male version of Freya, in a lot of respects, though where her hair was tawny, his was silvery. Their eyes were the same olive green, save that his were lit in malicious red as well, as he deactivated his cloaking ability. “B-brother?” The word was choked rather than spoken, and his smile widened a bit.
“None other. Please forgive the interruption, Lord von Nacht, but I am afraid this little diversion is entirely necessary.” he shrugged slightly, but under his light demeanor, there was something ponderous and dark. Hel swallowed thickly. She didn’t like it, and part of her was screaming at her to grab the sword on the floor and run him through. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, not to him.
“I have to say, Hel. I’ve been watching you for a while now, and I’m a little disappointed. You’ve gone soft, sweet sister, but we both know that means you’re lying to yourself.” She tried to say something—what, she had no idea—but he cut her off with a shake of his head. “I’m afraid there’s no time to argue the point. I need exactly one thing from you, Hel, and that is for you to remember.” Her eyes went wide as he disappeared, appearing again mere inches from her face, and he raised a hand to either of her temples, digging in painfully hard with the first two fingers of each.
That pain was easily dwarfed by the way her head lanced, as if a bolt of lightning were rebounding around in there, and even as her brother vanished, Helen fell to her knees, her field of vision swimming, She didn’t even notice that her hand landed on her fallen sword, slicing deeply into her palm. Things swam in front of her eyes at a speed she could not fully comprehend, but certain things stuck more than others, and she was slowly piecing together what he wanted her to understand.
“No… Yuki…” she slurred, but then the sensations became too much, and she collapsed, losing consciousness and still bleeding on Aryan’s floor.
Aryan smiled slightly. He wasn't overly pleased by the strong sense she had to serve, but he could also sense that she truly did want to help, and that was something he would never take from her. He opened his mouth to say as much, but he was interrupted by a voice, someone he could not see or hear, not until he materialized. If he hadn't known any better, Aryan would have sworn it was Emrys, but no, it was not his cousin.
His violet eyes snapped to Helen as she spoke a word, calling him 'brother'. That made his eyes narrow. She had a brother? This so called brother spoke a few things, and in the confusion that followed, one thing stuck clearly in Aryan's mind, though the sheer absurdity of it made him cringe. The man called him Lord von Nacht. He hated that title.
The man then vanished, and Aryan was up and at Helen's side in an instant. There was little he could do, and he felt powerless. He hated it. But her words rang in his head like a siren. Yuki? What about Yuki? He could only guess that Yuki was who Helen's 'brother' was after, but he was also loath to leave Helen alone, not like this.
He couldn't send Medusa after Yuki, she'd never make it in time. But he could do the next best thing. "Medusa! Go find Balthasar! Tell him what's happened, and tell him to find Yuki!" The python shot off faster than most people would think a snake could, winding her way to where she smelled the eldest von Nacht. Once the familiar was gone, Aryan gently picked Helen up, laying her on the sofa. And so, he waited, pacing, his eyebrows knit together. He wasn't sure this could get any worse.
Oh, how wrong he was.
Yuki sighed, once again questioning if she really wanted to do this. She shook her head. This wasn't a question of want. It was a need. She needed to tell Zero how she felt, and apologize for hurting him. It didn't matter if he rejected her or not. He at least deserved to know. And Balthasar had been right. She deserved to live whatever life she could in the years remaining.
The breeze carried his scent to her, along with Rica's, though the latter had since left him. Kiba trailed along at her heels as she approached him, finding him sitting under a tree. For a second, she watched him, standing off a ways, a hand held up to her chest. When she spoke, it was almost hesitant.
"Zero?" She almost flinched, her voice sounded terribly small. Why was she so afraid?
Alarica had left about half an hour ago, leaving Zero by himself underneath the cherry blossom tree they had both occupied. He had kept his eyes closed, his mind working overtime as he tried to sort everything out. There had to be a way to save her, to undo the mess that Kisuke did, however; if she couldn't find something...he banished that thought from his mind. He couldn't think like that. He just couldn't. Even if it took them the rest of the fifty years to find a cure for her, he would find it. He was startled out of his thoughts by the whisper of his name, and he tilted his head to spot Yuki standing a few feet away from him, clutching at her chest.
"Yuki," he greeted, sitting up and allowing the cherry blossom petals to fall from his person. He dusted the remaining petals off as he stood from his spot. For a second, he contemplated leaving her, however; the look in her eyes compelled him to stay. So, instead of walking away, he walked so that he was standing a few feet away from her, hands kept to his side. "I'm sorry...about the other day," he began, trying to apologize for his actions, his words. Part of him felt as if he'd just made things worse by telling her that he loved her, and part of him didn't care. He wanted to know if she loved him or if she didn't. And that if she didn't love him, it wasn't because of the reason of her dying. He would take any reason other than that for her not loving him.
Suddenly, everything that her mother ever did when she was around her father made sense. For once, Yuki understood. The gestures, the glances, the words, the touches. It made sense because, she wanted that. What her mother had with Jasper, Yuki wanted with Zero. And she had been a fool to think otherwise. So when he apologized, she shook her head.
"No...I'm the one who's sorry, Zero. I shouldn't have said that, about forgetting me. I...I know that hurt you, and a part of me wanted to, because if maybe...if maybe you didn't love me, if you hated me, then I could pretend like I didn't love you. But..."
She met his eyes then, yellow meeting seafoam. "It was wrong and I'm sorry and I do love you. I've loved you for so long, even though I never really understood it...I still don't, really..."
She loved him. She loved him. He was tempted to believe that he was dreaming, that she had not said those words, and that his feelings were not being reciprocated by her. But they were, and he wasn't dreaming. She spoke to him, the words a little hesitant, but understandable. She loved him, and that was all he needed to hear. He closed the distance between them with a speed only possessed by his kind, his right arm hooking behind her neck and his left hand pressing against the small of her back. His lips descended upon hers, tipping her slightly back in the process.
"I could never hate you, Yuki. To hate you would be like hating the life that was granted to me, to hate the air I breathe. It is a necessity that I need, because I wouldn't be alive without it," he spoke when he pulled away from her. "Nothing you do or say could ever cause me to hate you, or forget about you. I would rather cease to exist than to ever hate the woman I love," he continued, the smirk returning to his features as a hint of playfulness flashed behind his eyes.
Yuki was not hesitant in returning the kiss, and when he pulled away and looked at her like that, it sent shivers down her spine. She loved him, this ridiculous, insufferable man, God help her, she loved him. She wondered how she couldn't have seen it before.
"I'm sorry it took so long for me to realize it." She said softly, her arms looping around his neck. A part of her just wanted to stay like this forever. "Believe it or not, it took Balthasar to talk sense into me."
Zero blinked owlishly a few times. "The dope? He talked sense into you?"" he stated, almost tempted to believe he truly was dreaming. "The world is coming to an end if that is true," he added with a light chuckle. How was it that the dope could talk to someone...he paused in that train of thought. This was Balthasar he was thinking about. The man, granted had a gift for listening and offering advice, but was just as dense and stupid about his own feelings. Though Zero really couldn't say where the von Nacht heir stood with those feelings. But those thoughts were for another time. Placing one last kiss upon her, Zero let her up and released her, however; his fingers were still laced with hers.
"Well, I suppose Bal's always had a way with words," he added.
His years as a ghost had given him a certain flair for recognizing just where to enter and what to say to cause maximal pain. And the entire point of this particular exercise was pain. He’d caused quite a lot to his dear sister already, but that was merely the beginning, a little reminder. This was designed to shatter them a little more. Slowly, exquisitely. And he’d start by crushing the fledgling blooms of happiness here. That was always especially interesting, in the end.
For just a moment, Freyr wondered when he’d begun to derive pleasure from the pain of others. But of course, like everything else, it had begun with Theodor, and would survive well past the man’s demise. This was just a part of his conditioning, as Hel’s subservience was part of hers. He was actually standing no more than three feet from the happy couple, having just arrived, but he was utterly undetectable even at that distance, unless he chose to make himself otherwise.
In this case, it was a capacity he exercised only on the girl, speaking directly into her mind, as he knew she would hear. Yuki Alistair-von Nacht, he said, his mental voice laced with something equal parts malice and amusement. You cannot see me, hear me, smell me or even touch me, but I am closer than you think. I think it goes without saying that I could wipe the smile from that boy’s face right now if I chose, perhaps by slitting his throat. You will leave him, and you will head west for seventeen miles. You will allow neither he nor anyone else to follow you. Am I understood?
If Yuki truly did hear the voice inside her head, there was no outward sign. She didn't recognize the voice, but she did recognize the malice -and truth- behind it. Whoever this was, whatever they wanted, they would kill for it, and then were threatening Zero.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it. You could not engage an enemy you could not sense, to attempt so would be suicide, and both she and Zero would be dead. She would not allow Zero to die. Getting off campus undetected would be easy. Getting Zero not to follow her would be the harder part. She quickly ran through her options. None of them were very good, most of them were dangerous, but she had little choice. She went for the least risky plan.
She centered herself with a breath, sending a telekinetic wave through Zero's mind, pressing down on his frontal and orbital lobes. It would hurt, but the pressure would cause him to black out; he wouldn't be able to follow her. She saw the confusion flash through his eyes, and there was a sadness in hers. Before he blacked out completely, she did say one last thing.
She did the same thing to Kiba, the wolf whimpering slightly before collapsing onto his side. After that, Yuki shielded herself with her telekinetic energy, and just began walking. Whether or not she would get out of this alive, she still didn't know. She also did not try to contact whoever had touched her mind. There were very few people who could break through her barriers so easily, and she was not looking forward to meeting this person.
The breeze carried his scent to her, along with Rica's, though the latter had since left him. Kiba trailed along at her heels as she approached him, finding him sitting under a tree. For a second, she watched him, standing off a ways, a hand held up to her chest. When she spoke, it was almost hesitant.
"Zero?" She almost flinched, her voice sounded terribly small. Why was she so afraid?
Alarica had left about half an hour ago, leaving Zero by himself underneath the cherry blossom tree they had both occupied. He had kept his eyes closed, his mind working overtime as he tried to sort everything out. There had to be a way to save her, to undo the mess that Kisuke did, however; if she couldn't find something...he banished that thought from his mind. He couldn't think like that. He just couldn't. Even if it took them the rest of the fifty years to find a cure for her, he would find it. He was startled out of his thoughts by the whisper of his name, and he tilted his head to spot Yuki standing a few feet away from him, clutching at her chest.
"Yuki," he greeted, sitting up and allowing the cherry blossom petals to fall from his person. He dusted the remaining petals off as he stood from his spot. For a second, he contemplated leaving her, however; the look in her eyes compelled him to stay. So, instead of walking away, he walked so that he was standing a few feet away from her, hands kept to his side. "I'm sorry...about the other day," he began, trying to apologize for his actions, his words. Part of him felt as if he'd just made things worse by telling her that he loved her, and part of him didn't care. He wanted to know if she loved him or if she didn't. And that if she didn't love him, it wasn't because of the reason of her dying. He would take any reason other than that for her not loving him.
Suddenly, everything that her mother ever did when she was around her father made sense. For once, Yuki understood. The gestures, the glances, the words, the touches. It made sense because, she wanted that. What her mother had with Jasper, Yuki wanted with Zero. And she had been a fool to think otherwise. So when he apologized, she shook her head.
"No...I'm the one who's sorry, Zero. I shouldn't have said that, about forgetting me. I...I know that hurt you, and a part of me wanted to, because if maybe...if maybe you didn't love me, if you hated me, then I could pretend like I didn't love you. But..."
She met his eyes then, yellow meeting seafoam. "It was wrong and I'm sorry and I do love you. I've loved you for so long, even though I never really understood it...I still don't, really..."
She loved him. She loved him. He was tempted to believe that he was dreaming, that she had not said those words, and that his feelings were not being reciprocated by her. But they were, and he wasn't dreaming. She spoke to him, the words a little hesitant, but understandable. She loved him, and that was all he needed to hear. He closed the distance between them with a speed only possessed by his kind, his right arm hooking behind her neck and his left hand pressing against the small of her back. His lips descended upon hers, tipping her slightly back in the process.
"I could never hate you, Yuki. To hate you would be like hating the life that was granted to me, to hate the air I breathe. It is a necessity that I need, because I wouldn't be alive without it," he spoke when he pulled away from her. "Nothing you do or say could ever cause me to hate you, or forget about you. I would rather cease to exist than to ever hate the woman I love," he continued, the smirk returning to his features as a hint of playfulness flashed behind his eyes.
Yuki was not hesitant in returning the kiss, and when he pulled away and looked at her like that, it sent shivers down her spine. She loved him, this ridiculous, insufferable man, God help her, she loved him. She wondered how she couldn't have seen it before.
"I'm sorry it took so long for me to realize it." She said softly, her arms looping around his neck. A part of her just wanted to stay like this forever. "Believe it or not, it took Balthasar to talk sense into me."
Zero blinked owlishly a few times. "The dope? He talked sense into you?"" he stated, almost tempted to believe he truly was dreaming. "The world is coming to an end if that is true," he added with a light chuckle. How was it that the dope could talk to someone...he paused in that train of thought. This was Balthasar he was thinking about. The man, granted had a gift for listening and offering advice, but was just as dense and stupid about his own feelings. Though Zero really couldn't say where the von Nacht heir stood with those feelings. But those thoughts were for another time. Placing one last kiss upon her, Zero let her up and released her, however; his fingers were still laced with hers.
"Well, I suppose Bal's always had a way with words," he added.
His years as a ghost had given him a certain flair for recognizing just where to enter and what to say to cause maximal pain. And the entire point of this particular exercise was pain. He’d caused quite a lot to his dear sister already, but that was merely the beginning, a little reminder. This was designed to shatter them a little more. Slowly, exquisitely. And he’d start by crushing the fledgling blooms of happiness here. That was always especially interesting, in the end.
For just a moment, Freyr wondered when he’d begun to derive pleasure from the pain of others. But of course, like everything else, it had begun with Theodor, and would survive well past the man’s demise. This was just a part of his conditioning, as Hel’s subservience was part of hers. He was actually standing no more than three feet from the happy couple, having just arrived, but he was utterly undetectable even at that distance, unless he chose to make himself otherwise.
In this case, it was a capacity he exercised only on the girl, speaking directly into her mind, as he knew she would hear. Yuki Alistair-von Nacht, he said, his mental voice laced with something equal parts malice and amusement. You cannot see me, hear me, smell me or even touch me, but I am closer than you think. I think it goes without saying that I could wipe the smile from that boy’s face right now if I chose, perhaps by slitting his throat. You will leave him, and you will head west for seventeen miles. You will allow neither he nor anyone else to follow you. Am I understood?
If Yuki truly did hear the voice inside her head, there was no outward sign. She didn't recognize the voice, but she did recognize the malice -and truth- behind it. Whoever this was, whatever they wanted, they would kill for it, and then were threatening Zero.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it. You could not engage an enemy you could not sense, to attempt so would be suicide, and both she and Zero would be dead. She would not allow Zero to die. Getting off campus undetected would be easy. Getting Zero not to follow her would be the harder part. She quickly ran through her options. None of them were very good, most of them were dangerous, but she had little choice. She went for the least risky plan.
She centered herself with a breath, sending a telekinetic wave through Zero's mind, pressing down on his frontal and orbital lobes. It would hurt, but the pressure would cause him to black out; he wouldn't be able to follow her. She saw the confusion flash through his eyes, and there was a sadness in hers. Before he blacked out completely, she did say one last thing.
I'm so sorry, Zero...I love you.
She did the same thing to Kiba, the wolf whimpering slightly before collapsing onto his side. After that, Yuki shielded herself with her telekinetic energy, and just began walking. Whether or not she would get out of this alive, she still didn't know. She also did not try to contact whoever had touched her mind. There were very few people who could break through her barriers so easily, and she was not looking forward to meeting this person.
Elizabeth was not at all uncertain of her abilities when it came to manipulating people, especially men, and in some respects, Balthasar von Nacht had been the easiest of targets. He was still so painfully naïve in some ways that she’d almost believed it must be an act. But it wasn’t—he was just that oblivious. She’d never had to be so forward with a target before, but she really rather enjoyed it, in a way. He tasted like the best kind of sin—the defiling of something pristine. And she would know, as her tongue was currently in his mouth.
She’d always been assertive when she needed to be, so while he repeatedly seemed vaguely surprised when she came onto him, she wasn’t at all shocked to be astride his lap, her fingers in his hair, smiling against his mouth. It was really strange, actually—how were people not doing this to him all the time? His locks were soft and thick and entirely touchable, and his kisses, well… he was certainly a quick learner. If only he could lose the hesitance. Perhaps it was for the best, she thought, disentangling her digits from his hair and running her hands down his chest, parting the sides of his jacket and encouraging him to shrug out of it. If he were as forward with her as she was with him, she might have been able to forget who was supposed to be seducing whom here, and that was a very dangerous proposition.
Sigyn might not have Freya’s abilities, but if father and son were anything alike, she could understand how the traitor had fallen for Jasper, all those years ago. There was something about Balthasar that made her feel incredibly important, like she was delicate and entirely in control all at once. There was power here, underneath his skin and in his aura, and it was heady, especially in combination with the nearly-gossamer gentleness of his touch. Maybe it was just because she could feel it, in a way that surpassed what most of her kind could do, but spending too long in his company was a bit like being drunk. She might actually miss this, when it was done.
But his hands were creeping up her ribcage, and it amused her to realize that he was getting a little adventurous; he’d been nothing if not reserved before. It meant that her methods, straightforward as they were, were working. It would appear that direct, honest people responded best to a direct, obvious approach. The smile on her face grew a little wicked. Maybe a piece of parting advice for that cousin of his, since the girl couldn’t seem to spit it out. Sigyn had been worried about that one, at first, because it was blatantly obvious to everyone but Balthasar how the little dhampir chit felt about him, but when it became clear that the girl wasn’t going to say anything, the rest had been easy enough that she almost felt bad.
But then… being bad had never felt quite so good before, and for her, that was rather saying something. It was almost a pity it had to end, but she wanted to see just how far she could push him first. Walking out of here having slept with him would be the icing on the cake, after all, but he was proving a tough nut to crack, and seemed to have arbitrary boundaries that baffled her. “Balthasar…” she murmured into his ear, and felt him shudder just a bit, his body naturally responding to hers. It should—she was playing him like a finely-tuned instrument, and it was a skill she’d worked for.
It entirely mystified her, therefore, when she went for the hem of his shirt, only to feel his hands, large and warm, on hers, pulling them away. He pulled back as far as their positioning on the sofa would allow, and she read a mixture of things quite easily from his expression—that ever-present hesitance, a faint hint of desire (too faint; she just didn’t understand it), and guilt. The last was perhaps the most confusing of all.
“Balthasar,” she repeated, and this time, she injected a little hurt into the tone, letting her face shift into a pout. If he already felt guilty about something, she might as well use it to her advantage. Honestly, why couldn’t he just act like a normal man? She was practically throwing herself at him—she was. Sigyn was not falsely modest, and she was well aware of how well-off she was in the looks department. And it seemed to move him not. Or at least, no further than the base physical responses of biology demanded. He blushed, he shuddered, and occasionally, he sighed, but he did not want her the way he should. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have suspected that he preferred men and was in denial about it.
He swallowed, the guilt increased, and she waited with more patience than she really had for his capitulation. “I’m sorry Elizabeth, I just…” he shook his head, and she watched the uncertainty starting to dominate his expression. Internally, she was screaming in frustration and tearing her hair out, but outwardly, she forced her expression into one of understanding.
“I had hoped it wouldn’t bother you, that I… know a bit more about this than you do,” she said, laying the wounded eyes on a bit too thickly for most people. But Balthasar, silly, sweet, innocent as a puppy Balthasar, soaked it in like a sponge.
“No! I mean… it’s not that. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s just that I don’t…” He was apparently unsure of what he wanted to say, but she knew, and if she hadn’t felt so much like weeping (from some combination of frustration, disbelief and a tiny flicker of actual hurt that she would never acknowledge), she might have laughed. He was trying to find a way to tell her that she was just his friend. That he wasn’t into her, to put it colloquially. She could have died, though she wasn’t sure in which sense she meant the phrase.
Elizabeth, stop playing with your toy and do what you were instructed to do, Freyr’s voice was entirely in her head, of course, but she just barely avoided rolling her eyes, anyway. Stupid bastard. Well, at least she got to go see Baldr soon. He never said no. The thought didn’t bring her the reassurance it would have normally, and she may have found it… distasteful, even? She really needed to leave.
She sighed, using both of her hands on Balthasar’s chest to push herself arms’ length from him. “It really is a pity,” she sighed. Well, for now she would deal with it. When the time came, one of the Pantheon would be Queen, though which one, and who the King would be, was as yet undecided. If she had her choices, it would be she and him, but… to be honest, she’d take anyone, to be Queen.
“Elizabeth?” he looked adorably confused again, and she smiled a little. It didn’t look like any of the ones ‘Elizabeth’ had worn in his company—this one was entirely her own.
“I’m afraid not, loverboy,” she said wryly, reaching into her pocket and extracting a clean syringe. Balthasar tensed, but he was too confused to react quickly enough, and she plunged it into his arm, the paralytic agent within starting to work immediately. It was formulated for use on vampires, which basically meant it was enough to kill an elephant, but even so, she could feel him fighting it, and she knew her time was limited. “My friends call me Sigyn. Or they would, if I had any friends.” She withdrew another syringe, and this one, she used more carefully, extracting a full pint of his blood into a hospital bag she’d stashed under her bed. Having a pharmaceutical company owner for a fake father really was convenient at times.
He was still motionless by the time she was done, though he was already starting to regain movement in his fingers. “Extraordinary,” she murmured, shaking her head. “All the best science in the world, and none of us is even close to you. If you weren’t so softhearted, you really might just be perfect. A word of advice, Balthasar: don’t expose yourself like this. Not to anyone. It just makes you vulnerable, and there are more people like me in the world than there are people like you.” She frowned, something with a touch of melancholy entering the expression.
Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to his, one last time. She’d have told him not to forget her, but she knew he never would, and that brought her some satisfaction as she headed out the door, letting Freyr touch her shoulder to render her as insensible as he was. No point in giving away their direction after all—he’d had the Yuki girl go to a meaningless spot from which the same would be done to her.
Medusa found him just as the last of the paralytic was wearing off, and Balthasar immediately set out in search of his sister—only to find Zero unconscious and a trail that suddenly stopped nearly twenty miles from the school. Yuki was gone, Elizabeth was Pantheon, and Balthasar was pretty sure this was officially the worst day of his life.
She’d always been assertive when she needed to be, so while he repeatedly seemed vaguely surprised when she came onto him, she wasn’t at all shocked to be astride his lap, her fingers in his hair, smiling against his mouth. It was really strange, actually—how were people not doing this to him all the time? His locks were soft and thick and entirely touchable, and his kisses, well… he was certainly a quick learner. If only he could lose the hesitance. Perhaps it was for the best, she thought, disentangling her digits from his hair and running her hands down his chest, parting the sides of his jacket and encouraging him to shrug out of it. If he were as forward with her as she was with him, she might have been able to forget who was supposed to be seducing whom here, and that was a very dangerous proposition.
Sigyn might not have Freya’s abilities, but if father and son were anything alike, she could understand how the traitor had fallen for Jasper, all those years ago. There was something about Balthasar that made her feel incredibly important, like she was delicate and entirely in control all at once. There was power here, underneath his skin and in his aura, and it was heady, especially in combination with the nearly-gossamer gentleness of his touch. Maybe it was just because she could feel it, in a way that surpassed what most of her kind could do, but spending too long in his company was a bit like being drunk. She might actually miss this, when it was done.
But his hands were creeping up her ribcage, and it amused her to realize that he was getting a little adventurous; he’d been nothing if not reserved before. It meant that her methods, straightforward as they were, were working. It would appear that direct, honest people responded best to a direct, obvious approach. The smile on her face grew a little wicked. Maybe a piece of parting advice for that cousin of his, since the girl couldn’t seem to spit it out. Sigyn had been worried about that one, at first, because it was blatantly obvious to everyone but Balthasar how the little dhampir chit felt about him, but when it became clear that the girl wasn’t going to say anything, the rest had been easy enough that she almost felt bad.
But then… being bad had never felt quite so good before, and for her, that was rather saying something. It was almost a pity it had to end, but she wanted to see just how far she could push him first. Walking out of here having slept with him would be the icing on the cake, after all, but he was proving a tough nut to crack, and seemed to have arbitrary boundaries that baffled her. “Balthasar…” she murmured into his ear, and felt him shudder just a bit, his body naturally responding to hers. It should—she was playing him like a finely-tuned instrument, and it was a skill she’d worked for.
It entirely mystified her, therefore, when she went for the hem of his shirt, only to feel his hands, large and warm, on hers, pulling them away. He pulled back as far as their positioning on the sofa would allow, and she read a mixture of things quite easily from his expression—that ever-present hesitance, a faint hint of desire (too faint; she just didn’t understand it), and guilt. The last was perhaps the most confusing of all.
“Balthasar,” she repeated, and this time, she injected a little hurt into the tone, letting her face shift into a pout. If he already felt guilty about something, she might as well use it to her advantage. Honestly, why couldn’t he just act like a normal man? She was practically throwing herself at him—she was. Sigyn was not falsely modest, and she was well aware of how well-off she was in the looks department. And it seemed to move him not. Or at least, no further than the base physical responses of biology demanded. He blushed, he shuddered, and occasionally, he sighed, but he did not want her the way he should. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have suspected that he preferred men and was in denial about it.
He swallowed, the guilt increased, and she waited with more patience than she really had for his capitulation. “I’m sorry Elizabeth, I just…” he shook his head, and she watched the uncertainty starting to dominate his expression. Internally, she was screaming in frustration and tearing her hair out, but outwardly, she forced her expression into one of understanding.
“I had hoped it wouldn’t bother you, that I… know a bit more about this than you do,” she said, laying the wounded eyes on a bit too thickly for most people. But Balthasar, silly, sweet, innocent as a puppy Balthasar, soaked it in like a sponge.
“No! I mean… it’s not that. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s just that I don’t…” He was apparently unsure of what he wanted to say, but she knew, and if she hadn’t felt so much like weeping (from some combination of frustration, disbelief and a tiny flicker of actual hurt that she would never acknowledge), she might have laughed. He was trying to find a way to tell her that she was just his friend. That he wasn’t into her, to put it colloquially. She could have died, though she wasn’t sure in which sense she meant the phrase.
Elizabeth, stop playing with your toy and do what you were instructed to do, Freyr’s voice was entirely in her head, of course, but she just barely avoided rolling her eyes, anyway. Stupid bastard. Well, at least she got to go see Baldr soon. He never said no. The thought didn’t bring her the reassurance it would have normally, and she may have found it… distasteful, even? She really needed to leave.
She sighed, using both of her hands on Balthasar’s chest to push herself arms’ length from him. “It really is a pity,” she sighed. Well, for now she would deal with it. When the time came, one of the Pantheon would be Queen, though which one, and who the King would be, was as yet undecided. If she had her choices, it would be she and him, but… to be honest, she’d take anyone, to be Queen.
“Elizabeth?” he looked adorably confused again, and she smiled a little. It didn’t look like any of the ones ‘Elizabeth’ had worn in his company—this one was entirely her own.
“I’m afraid not, loverboy,” she said wryly, reaching into her pocket and extracting a clean syringe. Balthasar tensed, but he was too confused to react quickly enough, and she plunged it into his arm, the paralytic agent within starting to work immediately. It was formulated for use on vampires, which basically meant it was enough to kill an elephant, but even so, she could feel him fighting it, and she knew her time was limited. “My friends call me Sigyn. Or they would, if I had any friends.” She withdrew another syringe, and this one, she used more carefully, extracting a full pint of his blood into a hospital bag she’d stashed under her bed. Having a pharmaceutical company owner for a fake father really was convenient at times.
He was still motionless by the time she was done, though he was already starting to regain movement in his fingers. “Extraordinary,” she murmured, shaking her head. “All the best science in the world, and none of us is even close to you. If you weren’t so softhearted, you really might just be perfect. A word of advice, Balthasar: don’t expose yourself like this. Not to anyone. It just makes you vulnerable, and there are more people like me in the world than there are people like you.” She frowned, something with a touch of melancholy entering the expression.
Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to his, one last time. She’d have told him not to forget her, but she knew he never would, and that brought her some satisfaction as she headed out the door, letting Freyr touch her shoulder to render her as insensible as he was. No point in giving away their direction after all—he’d had the Yuki girl go to a meaningless spot from which the same would be done to her.
Medusa found him just as the last of the paralytic was wearing off, and Balthasar immediately set out in search of his sister—only to find Zero unconscious and a trail that suddenly stopped nearly twenty miles from the school. Yuki was gone, Elizabeth was Pantheon, and Balthasar was pretty sure this was officially the worst day of his life.
Aryan was, by his very nature, a patient man. He could wait as long as he needed to for something to happen. It didn't matter how long it took, just so long as the end results were what he expected.
But not for this. He was currently pacing, back and forth across the library floor. He continued to do so until finally, Emrys grabbed him by the back of the shirt and all but slung him into a chair, saying, "Sit down, kid, that won't help anyone. Even your mind can only move so fast. We need everyone here, and we're still waiting on Rica and Z."
Aryan glared at his cousin, but in the end, he said nothing, and stayed in the chair. Balthasar sat across from him, looking worse than Aryan could ever remember. It wasn't like he could blame him. So much had happened within the last twelve hours...
Helen sat the farthest away from everyone, over in a corner. If Aryan had to guess, it looked as if the girl were about to be sick, though considering what she went through, he wouldn't be surprised. But he also knew better, and knew her state of mind was a fragile thing, at best. The appearance of her brother, along with the disappearance of Yuki, had probably done a great deal of damage, and Aryan was a bit surprised she was functioning, let alone awake.
Emrys was leaning against the wall, messing with one of his guns. There was almost a bored expression on his face, which would have pissed Aryan off if he didn't know his cousin better. Anyone who knew him knew when he had a gun in his hand and he wasn't cleaning it knew that he was, indeed, a very angry man. And indeed he was. Emrys was not happy, and for the man who usually took everything in stride, that was saying something.
Em glanced over at his little brother, who was sitting next to Aryan. His hands were folded across his chest, his face placid. The only thing that let on that he felt anything at all was the fact that his eyes had gone from ice blue to a pale, moonlit silver. Yeah, Keir was definitely pissed, and with good reason. Leora sat across from Keir, her face...far from what one would consider happy. It made Emrys wonder, was she angry for Yuki, or at the girl...? Knowing Leo, it was probably both.
Yuki was gone, and what was worse...it seemed she had left willingly.
Angelus had been wandering the grounds, his tails swishing as he strolled about. His master was somewhere on the grounds, patrolling on her own accord. She wouldn't say, but something had felt off, and she wanted to make sure that the school was safe. Angelus had taken one side of the Academy and Alarica the other. He was quite sure his side of the grounds was completely safe, until he came across the fallen form of Zero and Balthasar. He immediately sent word to Alarica, who was immediately there in a few seconds, gazing upon Zero and Kiba's unconscious forms. Without a word, she took Zero and Kiba to the infirmary, letting Balthasar take care of whatever had happened.
And hence where their current location was. Zero had a pained expression upon his facial features, and Alarica couldn't discern where it came from. The slow rising of his chest signaled he was still at least physically okay. But she could see that he wasn't mentally. That pained her to see her cousin in such a way, and she ran her fingers through his hair as she always did, in a comforting manner. It wasn't more than five minutes later that Zero's eyes opened, his senses being flooded by a dim light and the faded scent of Yuki. His eyes met Alarica's as she tried to coax him back down, however; he pushed her arm out of the way and rolled his feet over the side of the bed.
"She's gone Zero," she spoke, her voice soft and laced with concern for her cousin. Zero's fists clenched tightly together. He knew she was gone. He was there when she rendered him unconscious. Though he knew not the reason why she did so. The only thing that rang through his head was the parting words she left. "The others are waiting on us, we need to go," she continued as she saw his body tense. She sighed, standing from her spot and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry Zero, we'll get her back. But first, we are needed by the others," she finished as she removed her hand.
"Alright," was his only response before following his cousin out of the infirmary. Angelus situated himself on Alarica's shoulder as Zero glanced to his side, spotting Kiba there, and a frown marred his face. It wasn't long before they reached the area where the family was, and Zero allowed the frown on his face to deepen. Yuki's departure took a toll on everyone, and they did not bother to hide it. He took a seat, watching and waiting for someone to address the situation. He could not, for he couldn't find his voice. Alarica took a seat by Leora and allowed her eyes to drift around the room. Everyone was accounted for.
With the arrival of Zero and Alarica, the meeting contained everyone that should be there, and though his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, Balthasar broke the silence first. He hadn’t told anyone about Elizabeth—no, Sigyn—yet, but right now, they needed to sort out what had happened to his sister. Everything else, even the appearance of a new member of the Pantheon, was secondary to that. He watched for a moment as Leo, her expression thunderous enough to match the storm brewing outside (probably her doing anyway), took Rica’s hand, a gesture of mutual comfort, and as Helen’s eyes flickered momentarily from their spot on the floor to those assembled, stopping only briefly on Aryan before they returned to where they had been.
“By now, we all know at least the basics of what happened last night, but there are missing pieces, and perhaps things that only some of us can tell in full. In order to figure out where to go from here, we all need to know everything. From what I can tell, it starts with the run-in Aryan and Helen had.” He wasn’t really sure how to ask someone to recount something like that, and he was hoping that maybe what Ary knew would be adequate, considering the drawn, sickly-pale state of Helen’s face. The girl always looked a bit delicate, but at the moment, it seemed as if any of them breathing too hard would accidentally shatter her.
As if she knew what he was thinking though, she raised her eyes again, and addressed the room without further prompting. “We were confronted by a member of the Pantheon. His name is Freyr, and he was once my brother. Not by blood, though he is Freya’s genetic twin. We both believed that he was dead—but it seems not. I… do not know the full extent of his capabilities or his conditioning, but what I do know is that he is capable of rendering himself completely undetectable to any of the ordinary senses, and he’s a more powerful telepath than anyone I’ve ever met. He could have killed any of us, and we would never have even known he was coming.” That was why he’d always been Theodor’s shadow hand—because there was no skill set more suited to assassination than his.
Leora understood almost immediately. “But even if we couldn’t know where he is, he could have spoken telepathically? Perhaps to Yuki?” There was a loud crack of thunder overhead—Hel almost flinched, but managed to hold her musculature steady. It reminded Leo, however, that her anger was getting away from her, and she contained the storm as well as she could.
“Yes,.” Hel replied flatly. She’d seen, among the other things that he’d brought to the fore of her consciousness, his intention to take Yuki specifically, though as far as she could tell, the only purpose for it had been to hurt. It was so at odds with the man she’d thought him to be that she was having trouble reconciling the two. Was this really what his conditioning had made of him? If so, how much longer did she have before she broke as well?
Aryan's hands clenched themselves together, the shadows in the far corners of the room flickering in response to his anger. He allowed Helen and Leora to finish speaking, before voicing his own question. "But why take Yuki?"
It was Emrys who answered his question, by dropping a stack of medical files in front of him. Aryan leafed through them, raising an eyebrow. Emrys explained, "One of the things Kisuke did to your sister was create a special type of serum that, in the event that he was unable to brainwash her, he could control her. She'll be aware, but unable to decide her own movements outside of the orders that she's given. Ultimately, she's the perfect soldier."
Aryan's jaw clenched, but Keir spoke before he could. "Then if they send her into battle, she's not going to hesitate to kill us." Emrys shook his head. "She won't be able to."
Kiba's ears flattened against his head as he sat next to Zero, his mood dropping with every word. He'd been as confused as Zero was when he woke up, and what he was hearing was not making things any better. He also could not feel her, at all. Her mind was completely closed off from him, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pinpoint her location, or speak to her, or anything. It made the familiar very uncomfortable.
Zero listened to the words being thrown around. Each word that passed, he could feel the anger boiling inside of him. Why did she knock him unconscious though? He could have helped, he could have done something, and Zero tightened his fists. She said she loved him, but did she not believe in him? Did she truly think that leaving would be best for everyone? He could feel his heart breaking a little, and for a moment, he wondered if this was how his father felt when his mother was taken. Perhaps it was, and the words she had spoken before rang through his ears. He truly was his father's son, and if there was any truth in that, then he would not hesitate to rip apart the one responsible for Yuki's departure.
Alarica rubbed her thumb in a comforting manner against Leora's hand, which was currently in her own for comfort. She was angry, more-so than she had ever been before, or at least that is what she thought. Though not by blood, it mattered not to Alarica; Yuki was her sister. Her sister had left willingly to protect them from Freyr, a member of the Pantheon who seemed as dangerous as they came. If his ability was like Emrys' in a way, then it was even more so that he was to be feared. Alarica could sense her brother because of her own ability, but if she couldn't even use it to sense Freyr...she banished the thought from her mind.
"And they will send her against us, knowing that we will not fight her. That is what they are planning, and banking on. They will assume that we will not harm her because she is our sister," Alarica finally spoke, her voice laced in a dark tone, one that she was not often used to using. Her hand coiled a bit tightly around Leora's and she released it once she had realized her grip was tightening against the other's hand. That is perhaps where they were wrong. Alarica loved her family, but that meant nothing when it came to their lives. She would do anything to protect them, even if it meant hurting them. And if she had to hurt Yuki to save her, she would not hesitate on it, however; her eyes shifted towards Zero.
He wouldn't be able to. She knew that he wouldn't be able to, no matter how hard he would try. He just couldn't. "What are our options?" he spoke, the words almost too quiet to hear. It was taking a lot of restraint for him to not leave his family here and now to go searching for her, however; he also knew it would be a foolish thing to do. Searching with no leads would only render him lost, and he couldn't allow himself to be lost. He needed to find Yuki. That was the only thing that mattered at the moment.
Leora didn’t mind Alarica’s grip on her hand—it was keeping her grounded, even when it became a bit painful. She sighed softly when it was released, her eyes flickering to her brother. She was having practically the same train of thought that Rica was, though she didn’t know it, and she also knew just how tempted he was to do something stupid, like go out looking for her when he had no idea where to even start. She couldn't blame him for that impulse, but all the same it would exhaust him, and do no good.
“If you want to know the vibrations in the web, you ask the spider,” she said simply. “We’ve got the best information networks in the world. I’m sure Uncle Morgan will be on it as soon as he knows, and that means Alden will be, too. If anyone can figure out where she is, it’ll be them.” She had faith in her brother’s ability to track down any thread of information, however small, and she could only assume that since he was the best, Uncle Morgan would put him on the task instead of someone else.
“There will likely be no need,” Helen said from behind her, and Leora adjusted in her seat to more properly see the girl. She shook her head, disheveling the lank hair there, which, normally a shining silver, was presently dull grey at best. The usual ribbon was also missing, and so it obscured her eyes and the sides of her face. “The Pantheon is not in need of more weapons. He did not take her because he had any real use for her capabilities. He just wants to hurt you. And to do that, he will make you confront her… probably more than once.” She would not let this end the way she saw Freyr wanted to end it. She would change that foretold future, the vision he’d left in her head. She would save her friend. Even if it cost her her life.
With that announcement, it seemed they had come to an impasse, and Balthasar knew what he had to say now. “Not to make matters worse, but I'm afraid I have to. Last night… the Pantheon took my blood. I don’t know why, but it seems to have been coordinated with what they did to Yuki. You should all know… Elizabeth is one of them. Sigyn.” He warned them because they needed to know, but no part of that came easily. Leo’s eyes went wide, and he saw the barest start of a snarl forming on her face, but he dropped his eyes to the table.
“I’m going to inform father of everything that has happened.” So saying, he pushed himself into a stand and departed, the hollowness in his tone translating into a slump to his broad shoulders.
Something in Alarica's jaw tightened. She didn't know what it was, but there was the sensation of mutilating something building up in her system. Elizabeth, Sigyn, was a Pantheon member. Something burned beneath Alarica's skin, something that felt akin to fire peeling away at her flesh. Her face remained void, her breathing even and stilled all at the same time. She almost appeared doll-like, just sitting without even blinking an eyelash. In honesty, she was trying to contain the rage that boiled inside of her. How could...she paused in her thoughts. It was partially her fault that it happened. But then again how could she have known?
She was so intent on keeping him happy, making sure that Elizabeth was the one for him, had she been blinded by that? Her fists tightened, the popping of her knuckles indicating just how tightly they were being closed before she bit the bottom of her lip, trying to keep from snarling aloud. Two in one day. That was all she could think of. This Sigyn, she was going to pay. She was going to pay for betraying Balthasar, for deceiving him, for hurting him. Alarica would see to it herself that this woman paid for it with her life. She would demand blood, and only that woman's blood would be required. Zero glanced upon his cousin at the mention.
He could see the anger seething from her, though she made no face of it. He knew because he was currently feeling the same thing, though this might have been a bit different for her. At least he knew Yuki loved him, but this...part of his heart went out to his cousin, sending her a private glance as he returned it to the others. He glanced towards Emrys, who looked like he was about to jump out and head straight for Morgan to inform him. He wanted to go with Emrys, however; he remained in his spot, instead, choosing to close his eyes momentarily as the information still rolled around in his head. Leora was right, their brother and their Uncle were the best at what they did. If anyone could find a lead, it was either of them.
"Keep me posted Emrys," were the only words Zero spoke, using his cousin's full name for once to convey just how serious he was. Alarica, almost immediately as Balthasar had, stood and stared out into nothing. She said nothing, instead, grabbing the hilt of Ulrik and abruptly turned. Something, anything would do right now as a replacement. She felt the strong urge to maim something, and she would do so where she could. Without a word, she turned on her heel and left, speaking not a single word to the others. She was pissed, and nothing was going to stop her from venting it out.
But not for this. He was currently pacing, back and forth across the library floor. He continued to do so until finally, Emrys grabbed him by the back of the shirt and all but slung him into a chair, saying, "Sit down, kid, that won't help anyone. Even your mind can only move so fast. We need everyone here, and we're still waiting on Rica and Z."
Aryan glared at his cousin, but in the end, he said nothing, and stayed in the chair. Balthasar sat across from him, looking worse than Aryan could ever remember. It wasn't like he could blame him. So much had happened within the last twelve hours...
Helen sat the farthest away from everyone, over in a corner. If Aryan had to guess, it looked as if the girl were about to be sick, though considering what she went through, he wouldn't be surprised. But he also knew better, and knew her state of mind was a fragile thing, at best. The appearance of her brother, along with the disappearance of Yuki, had probably done a great deal of damage, and Aryan was a bit surprised she was functioning, let alone awake.
Emrys was leaning against the wall, messing with one of his guns. There was almost a bored expression on his face, which would have pissed Aryan off if he didn't know his cousin better. Anyone who knew him knew when he had a gun in his hand and he wasn't cleaning it knew that he was, indeed, a very angry man. And indeed he was. Emrys was not happy, and for the man who usually took everything in stride, that was saying something.
Em glanced over at his little brother, who was sitting next to Aryan. His hands were folded across his chest, his face placid. The only thing that let on that he felt anything at all was the fact that his eyes had gone from ice blue to a pale, moonlit silver. Yeah, Keir was definitely pissed, and with good reason. Leora sat across from Keir, her face...far from what one would consider happy. It made Emrys wonder, was she angry for Yuki, or at the girl...? Knowing Leo, it was probably both.
Yuki was gone, and what was worse...it seemed she had left willingly.
Angelus had been wandering the grounds, his tails swishing as he strolled about. His master was somewhere on the grounds, patrolling on her own accord. She wouldn't say, but something had felt off, and she wanted to make sure that the school was safe. Angelus had taken one side of the Academy and Alarica the other. He was quite sure his side of the grounds was completely safe, until he came across the fallen form of Zero and Balthasar. He immediately sent word to Alarica, who was immediately there in a few seconds, gazing upon Zero and Kiba's unconscious forms. Without a word, she took Zero and Kiba to the infirmary, letting Balthasar take care of whatever had happened.
And hence where their current location was. Zero had a pained expression upon his facial features, and Alarica couldn't discern where it came from. The slow rising of his chest signaled he was still at least physically okay. But she could see that he wasn't mentally. That pained her to see her cousin in such a way, and she ran her fingers through his hair as she always did, in a comforting manner. It wasn't more than five minutes later that Zero's eyes opened, his senses being flooded by a dim light and the faded scent of Yuki. His eyes met Alarica's as she tried to coax him back down, however; he pushed her arm out of the way and rolled his feet over the side of the bed.
"She's gone Zero," she spoke, her voice soft and laced with concern for her cousin. Zero's fists clenched tightly together. He knew she was gone. He was there when she rendered him unconscious. Though he knew not the reason why she did so. The only thing that rang through his head was the parting words she left. "The others are waiting on us, we need to go," she continued as she saw his body tense. She sighed, standing from her spot and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry Zero, we'll get her back. But first, we are needed by the others," she finished as she removed her hand.
"Alright," was his only response before following his cousin out of the infirmary. Angelus situated himself on Alarica's shoulder as Zero glanced to his side, spotting Kiba there, and a frown marred his face. It wasn't long before they reached the area where the family was, and Zero allowed the frown on his face to deepen. Yuki's departure took a toll on everyone, and they did not bother to hide it. He took a seat, watching and waiting for someone to address the situation. He could not, for he couldn't find his voice. Alarica took a seat by Leora and allowed her eyes to drift around the room. Everyone was accounted for.
With the arrival of Zero and Alarica, the meeting contained everyone that should be there, and though his tongue felt heavy in his mouth, Balthasar broke the silence first. He hadn’t told anyone about Elizabeth—no, Sigyn—yet, but right now, they needed to sort out what had happened to his sister. Everything else, even the appearance of a new member of the Pantheon, was secondary to that. He watched for a moment as Leo, her expression thunderous enough to match the storm brewing outside (probably her doing anyway), took Rica’s hand, a gesture of mutual comfort, and as Helen’s eyes flickered momentarily from their spot on the floor to those assembled, stopping only briefly on Aryan before they returned to where they had been.
“By now, we all know at least the basics of what happened last night, but there are missing pieces, and perhaps things that only some of us can tell in full. In order to figure out where to go from here, we all need to know everything. From what I can tell, it starts with the run-in Aryan and Helen had.” He wasn’t really sure how to ask someone to recount something like that, and he was hoping that maybe what Ary knew would be adequate, considering the drawn, sickly-pale state of Helen’s face. The girl always looked a bit delicate, but at the moment, it seemed as if any of them breathing too hard would accidentally shatter her.
As if she knew what he was thinking though, she raised her eyes again, and addressed the room without further prompting. “We were confronted by a member of the Pantheon. His name is Freyr, and he was once my brother. Not by blood, though he is Freya’s genetic twin. We both believed that he was dead—but it seems not. I… do not know the full extent of his capabilities or his conditioning, but what I do know is that he is capable of rendering himself completely undetectable to any of the ordinary senses, and he’s a more powerful telepath than anyone I’ve ever met. He could have killed any of us, and we would never have even known he was coming.” That was why he’d always been Theodor’s shadow hand—because there was no skill set more suited to assassination than his.
Leora understood almost immediately. “But even if we couldn’t know where he is, he could have spoken telepathically? Perhaps to Yuki?” There was a loud crack of thunder overhead—Hel almost flinched, but managed to hold her musculature steady. It reminded Leo, however, that her anger was getting away from her, and she contained the storm as well as she could.
“Yes,.” Hel replied flatly. She’d seen, among the other things that he’d brought to the fore of her consciousness, his intention to take Yuki specifically, though as far as she could tell, the only purpose for it had been to hurt. It was so at odds with the man she’d thought him to be that she was having trouble reconciling the two. Was this really what his conditioning had made of him? If so, how much longer did she have before she broke as well?
Aryan's hands clenched themselves together, the shadows in the far corners of the room flickering in response to his anger. He allowed Helen and Leora to finish speaking, before voicing his own question. "But why take Yuki?"
It was Emrys who answered his question, by dropping a stack of medical files in front of him. Aryan leafed through them, raising an eyebrow. Emrys explained, "One of the things Kisuke did to your sister was create a special type of serum that, in the event that he was unable to brainwash her, he could control her. She'll be aware, but unable to decide her own movements outside of the orders that she's given. Ultimately, she's the perfect soldier."
Aryan's jaw clenched, but Keir spoke before he could. "Then if they send her into battle, she's not going to hesitate to kill us." Emrys shook his head. "She won't be able to."
Kiba's ears flattened against his head as he sat next to Zero, his mood dropping with every word. He'd been as confused as Zero was when he woke up, and what he was hearing was not making things any better. He also could not feel her, at all. Her mind was completely closed off from him, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pinpoint her location, or speak to her, or anything. It made the familiar very uncomfortable.
Zero listened to the words being thrown around. Each word that passed, he could feel the anger boiling inside of him. Why did she knock him unconscious though? He could have helped, he could have done something, and Zero tightened his fists. She said she loved him, but did she not believe in him? Did she truly think that leaving would be best for everyone? He could feel his heart breaking a little, and for a moment, he wondered if this was how his father felt when his mother was taken. Perhaps it was, and the words she had spoken before rang through his ears. He truly was his father's son, and if there was any truth in that, then he would not hesitate to rip apart the one responsible for Yuki's departure.
Alarica rubbed her thumb in a comforting manner against Leora's hand, which was currently in her own for comfort. She was angry, more-so than she had ever been before, or at least that is what she thought. Though not by blood, it mattered not to Alarica; Yuki was her sister. Her sister had left willingly to protect them from Freyr, a member of the Pantheon who seemed as dangerous as they came. If his ability was like Emrys' in a way, then it was even more so that he was to be feared. Alarica could sense her brother because of her own ability, but if she couldn't even use it to sense Freyr...she banished the thought from her mind.
"And they will send her against us, knowing that we will not fight her. That is what they are planning, and banking on. They will assume that we will not harm her because she is our sister," Alarica finally spoke, her voice laced in a dark tone, one that she was not often used to using. Her hand coiled a bit tightly around Leora's and she released it once she had realized her grip was tightening against the other's hand. That is perhaps where they were wrong. Alarica loved her family, but that meant nothing when it came to their lives. She would do anything to protect them, even if it meant hurting them. And if she had to hurt Yuki to save her, she would not hesitate on it, however; her eyes shifted towards Zero.
He wouldn't be able to. She knew that he wouldn't be able to, no matter how hard he would try. He just couldn't. "What are our options?" he spoke, the words almost too quiet to hear. It was taking a lot of restraint for him to not leave his family here and now to go searching for her, however; he also knew it would be a foolish thing to do. Searching with no leads would only render him lost, and he couldn't allow himself to be lost. He needed to find Yuki. That was the only thing that mattered at the moment.
Leora didn’t mind Alarica’s grip on her hand—it was keeping her grounded, even when it became a bit painful. She sighed softly when it was released, her eyes flickering to her brother. She was having practically the same train of thought that Rica was, though she didn’t know it, and she also knew just how tempted he was to do something stupid, like go out looking for her when he had no idea where to even start. She couldn't blame him for that impulse, but all the same it would exhaust him, and do no good.
“If you want to know the vibrations in the web, you ask the spider,” she said simply. “We’ve got the best information networks in the world. I’m sure Uncle Morgan will be on it as soon as he knows, and that means Alden will be, too. If anyone can figure out where she is, it’ll be them.” She had faith in her brother’s ability to track down any thread of information, however small, and she could only assume that since he was the best, Uncle Morgan would put him on the task instead of someone else.
“There will likely be no need,” Helen said from behind her, and Leora adjusted in her seat to more properly see the girl. She shook her head, disheveling the lank hair there, which, normally a shining silver, was presently dull grey at best. The usual ribbon was also missing, and so it obscured her eyes and the sides of her face. “The Pantheon is not in need of more weapons. He did not take her because he had any real use for her capabilities. He just wants to hurt you. And to do that, he will make you confront her… probably more than once.” She would not let this end the way she saw Freyr wanted to end it. She would change that foretold future, the vision he’d left in her head. She would save her friend. Even if it cost her her life.
With that announcement, it seemed they had come to an impasse, and Balthasar knew what he had to say now. “Not to make matters worse, but I'm afraid I have to. Last night… the Pantheon took my blood. I don’t know why, but it seems to have been coordinated with what they did to Yuki. You should all know… Elizabeth is one of them. Sigyn.” He warned them because they needed to know, but no part of that came easily. Leo’s eyes went wide, and he saw the barest start of a snarl forming on her face, but he dropped his eyes to the table.
“I’m going to inform father of everything that has happened.” So saying, he pushed himself into a stand and departed, the hollowness in his tone translating into a slump to his broad shoulders.
Something in Alarica's jaw tightened. She didn't know what it was, but there was the sensation of mutilating something building up in her system. Elizabeth, Sigyn, was a Pantheon member. Something burned beneath Alarica's skin, something that felt akin to fire peeling away at her flesh. Her face remained void, her breathing even and stilled all at the same time. She almost appeared doll-like, just sitting without even blinking an eyelash. In honesty, she was trying to contain the rage that boiled inside of her. How could...she paused in her thoughts. It was partially her fault that it happened. But then again how could she have known?
She was so intent on keeping him happy, making sure that Elizabeth was the one for him, had she been blinded by that? Her fists tightened, the popping of her knuckles indicating just how tightly they were being closed before she bit the bottom of her lip, trying to keep from snarling aloud. Two in one day. That was all she could think of. This Sigyn, she was going to pay. She was going to pay for betraying Balthasar, for deceiving him, for hurting him. Alarica would see to it herself that this woman paid for it with her life. She would demand blood, and only that woman's blood would be required. Zero glanced upon his cousin at the mention.
He could see the anger seething from her, though she made no face of it. He knew because he was currently feeling the same thing, though this might have been a bit different for her. At least he knew Yuki loved him, but this...part of his heart went out to his cousin, sending her a private glance as he returned it to the others. He glanced towards Emrys, who looked like he was about to jump out and head straight for Morgan to inform him. He wanted to go with Emrys, however; he remained in his spot, instead, choosing to close his eyes momentarily as the information still rolled around in his head. Leora was right, their brother and their Uncle were the best at what they did. If anyone could find a lead, it was either of them.
"Keep me posted Emrys," were the only words Zero spoke, using his cousin's full name for once to convey just how serious he was. Alarica, almost immediately as Balthasar had, stood and stared out into nothing. She said nothing, instead, grabbing the hilt of Ulrik and abruptly turned. Something, anything would do right now as a replacement. She felt the strong urge to maim something, and she would do so where she could. Without a word, she turned on her heel and left, speaking not a single word to the others. She was pissed, and nothing was going to stop her from venting it out.
“Thank you, Balthasar,” Jasper said quietly. His son nodded, and the video screen flicked off until he was staring at his own reflection on the blackened surface. Physically, he’d changed scarcely at all from the man he’d been a hundred years ago, but the events had effected him, and it was evident in his eyes alone. There was a light there, one that came from his family and the wonder that was having children of his own, but more even than that, there was weight. A ponderous, heavy weight that he could see already reflected in the gaze of his oldest son. Sometimes, looking at Balthasar was a little too much like looking into a mirror. Not only were they physically almost identical in some ways, but…the war had shaped them similarly as well, no matter how he’d tried to shield all three of them from the worst of it.
And he had, but… the worst of it was beginning to shift center towards them, and if his son’s news was anything to go by, it would not be long before they were right in the thick of things, whether he wanted them to be or not. Some of them already were, and his thoughts flickered for the briefest moment to his nephews Emrys and Alden especially, but he moved the thoughts aside. There were too many pressing matters to spend much time thinking in such an abstract fashion.
He sent a quick message to Ava, in case she had not already heard through her own children, and then another to Morgan. Between the two of them, they would inform anyone that needed to be informed. Save one. The task of informing his wife that their daughter was missing would be his alone. He did not relish it, but he would never let anyone else take it on, either. Whatever he and Nikki did, they did as one—that was the promise he had made her, the day he married her, and between them there were no secrets.
The two of them and their household were currently stationed in their home in Ireland, because recently, the conflict over the British Isles was the worst in what was otherwise a lull period in the battles, and someone always needed to be close enough to deal with things if they became too grave on the front lines. By this point, he and Nikki could sweep and entire battlefield by themselves, but it was better when they didn’t. The goal was to prevent death, not dole more of it out, but sometimes, there was no other choice, like when the armies moved too close to civilian settlements. His sharp ears picked out the lilting notes of a piano, though he would not need it to find her. He always knew where she was, with a consciousness of her presence that could only come from a bond as deep as the one they shared with one another.
When he found her at the instrument, he bent at the waist, sliding his arms around her own and resting his chin on the crown of her head. “Nikki,” he said softly, drawing her from the music, which was something he almost never did if he could avoid it. But this needed to be said right now, as the undertone of concern in his tone would well suggest. “There is something I must tell you.”
The piano had always been the one thing that was able to keep Nikki grounded, other than Jasper. Almost a century of war and death, and killing, it took its toll on everyone, her included. But, she did what she did so that her children didn't have to. She could already see that look in her son's eyes that she saw in her husband, and a part of her heart broke. She didn't want to see Balthasar like that.
She was well aware of Jasper's presence as he approached, sliding his arms around her waist, a small smile lighting her face, however; her fingers stilled abruptly at his tone. The last note she played still hung in the air, but the hairs on her neck were raising. There was only so much that would make Jasper stop her before she finished playing, and the first and foremost was their children. She twisted halfway around in order to look her husband in the eye.
"What happened, Jasper?"
He sighed. The alarm in her tone was not unwarranted, but that didn’t mean he liked hearing it from her. If he’d had his way—when he had his way—she would never need to use it again. None of them would. But now was not that time, and there was still much work to be done before it would come. He moved to sit down on the bench beside her, taking both of her hands in his and looking her in the eye. She’d be able to see the concern in his, he knew, but he didn’t mind that much, at least.
“I just received a call from Balthasar,” he said softly, moving the pads of his thumbs in soothing circles over the backs of her hands. “Last night, Yuki went missing. It’s believed that the person responsible was Helen and Freya’s brother, a member of the Pantheon, and that she went willingly. Based on what is known of his abilities, it is likely that she went to prevent harm from coming to the others.” There was the faintest hint of irony at the edges of his tone—it was not so unlike what he had done, a hundred years ago, when he believed it was the only way to save the ones he loved most.
That did not, of course, mean that he thought it had been the best action to take, but he could clearly see Yuki’s reasoning, and the way Balthasar had explained what Freyr was capable of, that she had gone willingly seemed the most likely conclusion, especially given the way she’d rendered both Zero and her own familiar unconscious.
To her credit, Nikki's composure was held, even if the color did drain from her face. Her eyes darkened the longer that Jasper spoke, but her face remained rather neutral. While she feared for her daughter, the muscle in her jaw twitched as she clenched it. More than anything, she was angry. She was angry that her children were being manipulated, she was angry that Yuki thought she'd had to go to protect the others.
She could certainly see the parallels in what Jasper had done all those years ago. She let out the breath she'd been holding, staying quiet for a few seconds. She knew how her daughter's disappearance was going to affect her sons. Within seconds, her decision was made.
"I'm going, Jasper. Balthasar and Aryan are going to need one of us, and they need you here more than me."
He watched the progressive lengthening of the shadow in her eyes, and it broke his heart. But fortunately, even when things got bad like this, she was always there to put it back again, as well, and he had trust in their family. They would conquer this problem as they had conquered the rest. They were never alone, after all. He could understand her desire to be with their sons, and he nodded silently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Though it pains me as much as it always does to have you other than beside me, I understand, and I agree that they will need you.” His fingers moved gently to trace the line of her jaw, and he leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. “Go to them, my love, but do not forget that if any of you need me, this can wait. You need only ask, and I will come.” It was true that what he did here was important, and it would be damaging to their efforts for him to spend an extended period of time away from the field of battle, or the strategy room. But even such momentous concerns as these were secondary to his concern for his family, including the extended one.
He closed the distance between them and kissed her softly, holding her to him with one hand to the space between her shoulderblades and the other at her waist, drawing strength from the contact. He was serious regarding his hatred of her absence, but sometimes, this war demanded things of them all that they did not want, and he knew that she was right to go.
Nikki smiled, returning the kiss. She remained in his embrace, her arms entwined about his neck before speaking, "I'll be back as soon as I am able, love." That was true, she would return as soon as she was able, but she didn't plan on being able until they recovered Yuki. Still, she would not prolong it. As much as her children needed her, Jasper needed her, and she him. It hurt physically to be away from him.
But her first priority was Yuki.
And he had, but… the worst of it was beginning to shift center towards them, and if his son’s news was anything to go by, it would not be long before they were right in the thick of things, whether he wanted them to be or not. Some of them already were, and his thoughts flickered for the briefest moment to his nephews Emrys and Alden especially, but he moved the thoughts aside. There were too many pressing matters to spend much time thinking in such an abstract fashion.
He sent a quick message to Ava, in case she had not already heard through her own children, and then another to Morgan. Between the two of them, they would inform anyone that needed to be informed. Save one. The task of informing his wife that their daughter was missing would be his alone. He did not relish it, but he would never let anyone else take it on, either. Whatever he and Nikki did, they did as one—that was the promise he had made her, the day he married her, and between them there were no secrets.
The two of them and their household were currently stationed in their home in Ireland, because recently, the conflict over the British Isles was the worst in what was otherwise a lull period in the battles, and someone always needed to be close enough to deal with things if they became too grave on the front lines. By this point, he and Nikki could sweep and entire battlefield by themselves, but it was better when they didn’t. The goal was to prevent death, not dole more of it out, but sometimes, there was no other choice, like when the armies moved too close to civilian settlements. His sharp ears picked out the lilting notes of a piano, though he would not need it to find her. He always knew where she was, with a consciousness of her presence that could only come from a bond as deep as the one they shared with one another.
When he found her at the instrument, he bent at the waist, sliding his arms around her own and resting his chin on the crown of her head. “Nikki,” he said softly, drawing her from the music, which was something he almost never did if he could avoid it. But this needed to be said right now, as the undertone of concern in his tone would well suggest. “There is something I must tell you.”
The piano had always been the one thing that was able to keep Nikki grounded, other than Jasper. Almost a century of war and death, and killing, it took its toll on everyone, her included. But, she did what she did so that her children didn't have to. She could already see that look in her son's eyes that she saw in her husband, and a part of her heart broke. She didn't want to see Balthasar like that.
She was well aware of Jasper's presence as he approached, sliding his arms around her waist, a small smile lighting her face, however; her fingers stilled abruptly at his tone. The last note she played still hung in the air, but the hairs on her neck were raising. There was only so much that would make Jasper stop her before she finished playing, and the first and foremost was their children. She twisted halfway around in order to look her husband in the eye.
"What happened, Jasper?"
He sighed. The alarm in her tone was not unwarranted, but that didn’t mean he liked hearing it from her. If he’d had his way—when he had his way—she would never need to use it again. None of them would. But now was not that time, and there was still much work to be done before it would come. He moved to sit down on the bench beside her, taking both of her hands in his and looking her in the eye. She’d be able to see the concern in his, he knew, but he didn’t mind that much, at least.
“I just received a call from Balthasar,” he said softly, moving the pads of his thumbs in soothing circles over the backs of her hands. “Last night, Yuki went missing. It’s believed that the person responsible was Helen and Freya’s brother, a member of the Pantheon, and that she went willingly. Based on what is known of his abilities, it is likely that she went to prevent harm from coming to the others.” There was the faintest hint of irony at the edges of his tone—it was not so unlike what he had done, a hundred years ago, when he believed it was the only way to save the ones he loved most.
That did not, of course, mean that he thought it had been the best action to take, but he could clearly see Yuki’s reasoning, and the way Balthasar had explained what Freyr was capable of, that she had gone willingly seemed the most likely conclusion, especially given the way she’d rendered both Zero and her own familiar unconscious.
To her credit, Nikki's composure was held, even if the color did drain from her face. Her eyes darkened the longer that Jasper spoke, but her face remained rather neutral. While she feared for her daughter, the muscle in her jaw twitched as she clenched it. More than anything, she was angry. She was angry that her children were being manipulated, she was angry that Yuki thought she'd had to go to protect the others.
She could certainly see the parallels in what Jasper had done all those years ago. She let out the breath she'd been holding, staying quiet for a few seconds. She knew how her daughter's disappearance was going to affect her sons. Within seconds, her decision was made.
"I'm going, Jasper. Balthasar and Aryan are going to need one of us, and they need you here more than me."
He watched the progressive lengthening of the shadow in her eyes, and it broke his heart. But fortunately, even when things got bad like this, she was always there to put it back again, as well, and he had trust in their family. They would conquer this problem as they had conquered the rest. They were never alone, after all. He could understand her desire to be with their sons, and he nodded silently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Though it pains me as much as it always does to have you other than beside me, I understand, and I agree that they will need you.” His fingers moved gently to trace the line of her jaw, and he leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. “Go to them, my love, but do not forget that if any of you need me, this can wait. You need only ask, and I will come.” It was true that what he did here was important, and it would be damaging to their efforts for him to spend an extended period of time away from the field of battle, or the strategy room. But even such momentous concerns as these were secondary to his concern for his family, including the extended one.
He closed the distance between them and kissed her softly, holding her to him with one hand to the space between her shoulderblades and the other at her waist, drawing strength from the contact. He was serious regarding his hatred of her absence, but sometimes, this war demanded things of them all that they did not want, and he knew that she was right to go.
Nikki smiled, returning the kiss. She remained in his embrace, her arms entwined about his neck before speaking, "I'll be back as soon as I am able, love." That was true, she would return as soon as she was able, but she didn't plan on being able until they recovered Yuki. Still, she would not prolong it. As much as her children needed her, Jasper needed her, and she him. It hurt physically to be away from him.
But her first priority was Yuki.
The long, sleek black car pulled up to the front gates of Cross Academy, carrying with it a woman who had not been there for many years. The valet opened the door for her, and Nikki von Nacht stepped out. The man offered to get her bag for her, which she ultimately refused. One hundred years, and she still wasn't used to the treatment that came with her surname. She took a deep breath, and then started walking. This was not the time to be nostalgic.
She easily found her way to the dorms, and she smiled at the young Noble who answered the door. The boy's eyes went rather wide when he saw who it was, and he could only nod slowly when she asked for her eldest son. She was slightly amused at how little the setup had changed over the years, glancing around as the boy went straight to Balthasar's room to inform him of his visitor.
Balthasar was an honest man, even with himself, and he knew that his behavior for the past two days had been somewhat unbecoming of him. He was… the word for it was moping, honestly, but there was little else to do. As always, the others had the information side of things well handled without him, and there was nothing to go fight at the moment, so he was about as useful as a sack of stones. It gave him too much time to stew in his own thoughts. How could he have been so easily fooled? He knew he wasn’t the sort of person who saw deception wherever he looked. He knew he tended to want to see the best in people, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Just as he knew that he was forgiving enough that it was sometimes a problem.
He was forgiving her now, little by little. He believed that she thought she had to do what she did, or that it was for the best, because he had to. If he didn’t, the world simply ceased to make any sense at all. That she was mistaken about the right thing wasn’t so great a crime… he was sure most of them had been, at one time or another. It didn’t make things hurt any less, mostly because he still felt burdened with his own intense guilt. Balthasar had learned a long time ago how to forgive other people. But he’d never quite learned how to forgive himself. He could still name every one of his failures, large and small, and at times like this, he was inclined to dwell on them.
The knock at his door stirred him from his ruminations, and he ran his hands through his hair a few times so that he looked presentable at least, and when he opened it to see the head of the residence hall, he managed a wan smile, at least until the man explained that his mother was here to see him. Part of Balthasar was happy about this, and the other part… just wasn’t sure he could handle any more right now. So it was with reservation in his tread that he made his way out to see her. “Er… hi, mom.” he stood there a bit awkwardly, unsure of how to handle this, because he knew she was here for Yuki, and probably really upset, as she had every right to be. He’d never been good at dealing with that sort of thing, though.
Nikki's eyebrows rose slightly, and despite the situation, she found herself trying to hold back a smile. She only somewhat failed, causing a slight smile to creep over her face as she regarded her son silently for a second. Her hands were on her hips as she stated, "Now, really, Balthasar, is that any way to greet your mother?"
She walked over to her son, pulling him into a hug. It had been too long since she'd seen him last, and she found herself wondering [yet again] where her little boy had gone. He'd been forced to grow up far too fast in this world, and she didn't like it. Still, she had other matters to attend to. She stepped back from her son, running a hand through his hair.
"Oh Bal, you look like Hell. Do you need to talk about it?"
Nikki was well aware of her son's tendency to let others use him as a venting outlet, someone to listen to them, but he never did it himself, at least, not to his siblings or cousins. She smiled slightly. Of course, that was what mothers were for.
He swallowed thickly, returning his mother’s embrace gently. It wasn’t exactly that he was afraid of breaking her, only… he kind of was. Everything was delicate to someone like him, at least on the days like today, when the dark part of him simmered so near the surface, the part of him that called for the submission of all else and the free exercise of his power. He’d never been like that—his parents had raised him to be kind and tolerant and understanding, to respect others and life itself. But sometimes, it felt like there was another him, living somewhere deep in his bones, that didn’t care about any of that. It was harder to keep away when his usual self felt so weak. That part that wanted to destroy, to possess… to rule. It scared him half to death.
He smiled tightly, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and they both knew it. “There are more important things to talk about than my state of mind, mother.” He didn’t have any right to think of or do anything else until she was back with them. His sister… and her secret, one which weighed heavily on his heart. How hard would she fight Freyr’s control, knowing what she knew about the duration of the rest of her life? He thought he’d been able to get through to her a little, when they spoke, but how long could that really stand up against whatever this serum was supposed to be able to do to her?
Balthasar wanted to tell his mother, just like he’d practically needed to tell his father during their conversation two days ago, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Yuki. She should not have to come back only to be confronted about it—and she would come back. Gods above, if it cost him everything he had, she would come back. He sighed softly through his nose, leading his mother to the guest quarters that had been prepared for her. “Alden thinks he has a lead, but it’s more likely that she’ll come here before we can find her wherever they have her,” he said quietly, pushing upon the door to the suite of rooms.
Nikki sighed through her nose. Ever Jasper's son...Still, she'd learned a long time ago not to push him. When he needed to talk, he would. So instead, she nodded to his final comment. "I know. What Kisuke did to my daughter has not gone unnoticed to me. We also had contemplated the use of the serum against her, that's why we kept her here. Sadly, it would seem that we underestimated the Pantheon, and it wouldn't be the first time we've done so."
She sighed again, looking tired. "Yuki will return, and not by her own volition. She won't have a choice. There is always a chance that someone could break through to her, but..." The end of her statement hung unspoken in the air. It was the last thing she wanted to suggest was that her daughter die, but at the same time, she knew how Yuki was. Yuki would not want others to die for her, or by her own hand.
"If it comes down to it, there can be no hesitance, Balthasar, by any of you."
“It wasn’t only the two of you that underestimated them,” Balthasar said sadly, but he went no further into the topic. He’d given even his father only the most basic details on Elizabeth, including who she claimed to be her father, but other than that, he had spoken of it to nobody. Everyone knew enough. Besides, there really wasn’t any reason to do so, not when more important matters still needed to be resolved.
His mother’s words were not the most reassuring, but he knew they were honest, and he sighed, the look on his face switching to a deep, open woundedness. “I know, but… I wouldn’t be able to do it, mother. Zero wouldn’t either, and I’d be surprised if Ary or Leo could.” It wasn’t the best news, but it was the truth, certainly. It was, as it so often seemed to be, all he could really give.
It did not surprise her one bit to hear the Kuragaris' names thrown in there. Leora was still inexperienced in the ways of war, and Zero...well, that was quite a different matter altogether, and Nikki certainly understood it. Nikki reached across the expanse between them, taking her son's hand in hers. She looked at it for a second silently, remembering a time when it had been smaller than hers. That was true no longer.
"Your brother has never been made for battle, he simply doesn't have it in him to physically wound another person, even when faced with a life or death situation. Raising a blade against someone is never an easy thing, even less so if it is someone close to you. But think of it this way. If she is not stopped, and she ends up hurting, or even killing, one of you, and then is able to regain control, how do you think she would feel? Yuki would not be able to handle that, regardless of whether or not it was her fault."
She stopped then. It was a discussion for another time, perhaps. She smiled at her son ruefully, adding as an afterthought, "If you ever need to talk about her, you can come to me. I understand that well enough to know what you're going through. And do me a favor, Bal. Stop blaming yourself. And tell Zero that I would like to speak with him."
She easily found her way to the dorms, and she smiled at the young Noble who answered the door. The boy's eyes went rather wide when he saw who it was, and he could only nod slowly when she asked for her eldest son. She was slightly amused at how little the setup had changed over the years, glancing around as the boy went straight to Balthasar's room to inform him of his visitor.
Balthasar was an honest man, even with himself, and he knew that his behavior for the past two days had been somewhat unbecoming of him. He was… the word for it was moping, honestly, but there was little else to do. As always, the others had the information side of things well handled without him, and there was nothing to go fight at the moment, so he was about as useful as a sack of stones. It gave him too much time to stew in his own thoughts. How could he have been so easily fooled? He knew he wasn’t the sort of person who saw deception wherever he looked. He knew he tended to want to see the best in people, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Just as he knew that he was forgiving enough that it was sometimes a problem.
He was forgiving her now, little by little. He believed that she thought she had to do what she did, or that it was for the best, because he had to. If he didn’t, the world simply ceased to make any sense at all. That she was mistaken about the right thing wasn’t so great a crime… he was sure most of them had been, at one time or another. It didn’t make things hurt any less, mostly because he still felt burdened with his own intense guilt. Balthasar had learned a long time ago how to forgive other people. But he’d never quite learned how to forgive himself. He could still name every one of his failures, large and small, and at times like this, he was inclined to dwell on them.
The knock at his door stirred him from his ruminations, and he ran his hands through his hair a few times so that he looked presentable at least, and when he opened it to see the head of the residence hall, he managed a wan smile, at least until the man explained that his mother was here to see him. Part of Balthasar was happy about this, and the other part… just wasn’t sure he could handle any more right now. So it was with reservation in his tread that he made his way out to see her. “Er… hi, mom.” he stood there a bit awkwardly, unsure of how to handle this, because he knew she was here for Yuki, and probably really upset, as she had every right to be. He’d never been good at dealing with that sort of thing, though.
Nikki's eyebrows rose slightly, and despite the situation, she found herself trying to hold back a smile. She only somewhat failed, causing a slight smile to creep over her face as she regarded her son silently for a second. Her hands were on her hips as she stated, "Now, really, Balthasar, is that any way to greet your mother?"
She walked over to her son, pulling him into a hug. It had been too long since she'd seen him last, and she found herself wondering [yet again] where her little boy had gone. He'd been forced to grow up far too fast in this world, and she didn't like it. Still, she had other matters to attend to. She stepped back from her son, running a hand through his hair.
"Oh Bal, you look like Hell. Do you need to talk about it?"
Nikki was well aware of her son's tendency to let others use him as a venting outlet, someone to listen to them, but he never did it himself, at least, not to his siblings or cousins. She smiled slightly. Of course, that was what mothers were for.
He swallowed thickly, returning his mother’s embrace gently. It wasn’t exactly that he was afraid of breaking her, only… he kind of was. Everything was delicate to someone like him, at least on the days like today, when the dark part of him simmered so near the surface, the part of him that called for the submission of all else and the free exercise of his power. He’d never been like that—his parents had raised him to be kind and tolerant and understanding, to respect others and life itself. But sometimes, it felt like there was another him, living somewhere deep in his bones, that didn’t care about any of that. It was harder to keep away when his usual self felt so weak. That part that wanted to destroy, to possess… to rule. It scared him half to death.
He smiled tightly, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and they both knew it. “There are more important things to talk about than my state of mind, mother.” He didn’t have any right to think of or do anything else until she was back with them. His sister… and her secret, one which weighed heavily on his heart. How hard would she fight Freyr’s control, knowing what she knew about the duration of the rest of her life? He thought he’d been able to get through to her a little, when they spoke, but how long could that really stand up against whatever this serum was supposed to be able to do to her?
Balthasar wanted to tell his mother, just like he’d practically needed to tell his father during their conversation two days ago, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Yuki. She should not have to come back only to be confronted about it—and she would come back. Gods above, if it cost him everything he had, she would come back. He sighed softly through his nose, leading his mother to the guest quarters that had been prepared for her. “Alden thinks he has a lead, but it’s more likely that she’ll come here before we can find her wherever they have her,” he said quietly, pushing upon the door to the suite of rooms.
Nikki sighed through her nose. Ever Jasper's son...Still, she'd learned a long time ago not to push him. When he needed to talk, he would. So instead, she nodded to his final comment. "I know. What Kisuke did to my daughter has not gone unnoticed to me. We also had contemplated the use of the serum against her, that's why we kept her here. Sadly, it would seem that we underestimated the Pantheon, and it wouldn't be the first time we've done so."
She sighed again, looking tired. "Yuki will return, and not by her own volition. She won't have a choice. There is always a chance that someone could break through to her, but..." The end of her statement hung unspoken in the air. It was the last thing she wanted to suggest was that her daughter die, but at the same time, she knew how Yuki was. Yuki would not want others to die for her, or by her own hand.
"If it comes down to it, there can be no hesitance, Balthasar, by any of you."
“It wasn’t only the two of you that underestimated them,” Balthasar said sadly, but he went no further into the topic. He’d given even his father only the most basic details on Elizabeth, including who she claimed to be her father, but other than that, he had spoken of it to nobody. Everyone knew enough. Besides, there really wasn’t any reason to do so, not when more important matters still needed to be resolved.
His mother’s words were not the most reassuring, but he knew they were honest, and he sighed, the look on his face switching to a deep, open woundedness. “I know, but… I wouldn’t be able to do it, mother. Zero wouldn’t either, and I’d be surprised if Ary or Leo could.” It wasn’t the best news, but it was the truth, certainly. It was, as it so often seemed to be, all he could really give.
It did not surprise her one bit to hear the Kuragaris' names thrown in there. Leora was still inexperienced in the ways of war, and Zero...well, that was quite a different matter altogether, and Nikki certainly understood it. Nikki reached across the expanse between them, taking her son's hand in hers. She looked at it for a second silently, remembering a time when it had been smaller than hers. That was true no longer.
"Your brother has never been made for battle, he simply doesn't have it in him to physically wound another person, even when faced with a life or death situation. Raising a blade against someone is never an easy thing, even less so if it is someone close to you. But think of it this way. If she is not stopped, and she ends up hurting, or even killing, one of you, and then is able to regain control, how do you think she would feel? Yuki would not be able to handle that, regardless of whether or not it was her fault."
She stopped then. It was a discussion for another time, perhaps. She smiled at her son ruefully, adding as an afterthought, "If you ever need to talk about her, you can come to me. I understand that well enough to know what you're going through. And do me a favor, Bal. Stop blaming yourself. And tell Zero that I would like to speak with him."
There was a great deal of pain, and darkness. That was normal. It was what she lived with, every day of her life, after all. When she opened her eyes, it was dark. It was always dark. Her head ached, and her muscles were sore, but she didn't even notice it. She did not react to pain. There was no crying out, or any sign of discomfort on her face. Pain was easy to deal with, easy to ignore. It was what her father had taught her to do since day one, after all.
His voice came to her out of the darkness, but he did not appear. This also did not surprise her. More often than not, his voice was only in her head. Why should it not be? She was, as he said, a weapon, and weapons did not feel surprise or pain. They did not feel cold or hatred, or love. They were simply tools to be used.
The pain and the darkness were easy to deal with.
It was when she slept, and dreamed, that she did not know what to do. She could not fight phantoms inside her head. She could not kill them, as a weapon was meant to do. So many faces flashed before her eyes, faces of people she did not know and yet...they were all somehow familiar.
A woman with dark hair and eyes the color of steel, and a man, taller than the woman, but with much the same coloration. There were two dark-haired boys with them, and they smiled at her. She felt an urge to go to them.
But why?
A boy and girl with white hair and eyes the color of ice and amaranthine, a man, blonde with blood-red eyes, a dark-haired male with the same eyes, and a woman with hair the color pink sunsets. They were there, and they smiled, and they vanished.
A girl who looked like a child yet was much older, her hair as white as the snow, with a black ribbon. She did not smile, but there was something there in her eyes. Another woman, with fawn-colored hair stood beside her. She was smiling.
A man with dark hair and red eyes, a small woman with light hair, and six children all around them. The woman smiled, the man did not. All of these faces flashed before her eyes, and she felt a sense of familiarity with each one, but she did not know them, she did not know them.
And then she saw him. Eyes the color of sea foam and hair dark, yet with light streaked through it. He always appeared last, and he would smile, and reach for her. The sense to go to him was overwhelming, but she did not reach back for him. He spoke a name. But she had no name. She was a weapon, and weapons had no names. She would wake up then.
She would always wake up with a hollow feeling inside of her chest that she did not understand. She was a weapon, and weapons felt nothing. They could not love or feel pain, or become cold or sad. They could only kill.
Yes, she was a weapon. She was his weapon. She felt nothing, was nothing. She was no one, nameless, faceless. There was no one to become, and no one to be. She had only one task, and that was to kill.
The pain and the darkness were easy to deal with.
The faces were not.
She did not sleep.
You are my weapon, nothing more, nothing less.
His voice came to her out of the darkness, but he did not appear. This also did not surprise her. More often than not, his voice was only in her head. Why should it not be? She was, as he said, a weapon, and weapons did not feel surprise or pain. They did not feel cold or hatred, or love. They were simply tools to be used.
The pain and the darkness were easy to deal with.
It was when she slept, and dreamed, that she did not know what to do. She could not fight phantoms inside her head. She could not kill them, as a weapon was meant to do. So many faces flashed before her eyes, faces of people she did not know and yet...they were all somehow familiar.
A woman with dark hair and eyes the color of steel, and a man, taller than the woman, but with much the same coloration. There were two dark-haired boys with them, and they smiled at her. She felt an urge to go to them.
But why?
A boy and girl with white hair and eyes the color of ice and amaranthine, a man, blonde with blood-red eyes, a dark-haired male with the same eyes, and a woman with hair the color pink sunsets. They were there, and they smiled, and they vanished.
A girl who looked like a child yet was much older, her hair as white as the snow, with a black ribbon. She did not smile, but there was something there in her eyes. Another woman, with fawn-colored hair stood beside her. She was smiling.
A man with dark hair and red eyes, a small woman with light hair, and six children all around them. The woman smiled, the man did not. All of these faces flashed before her eyes, and she felt a sense of familiarity with each one, but she did not know them, she did not know them.
And then she saw him. Eyes the color of sea foam and hair dark, yet with light streaked through it. He always appeared last, and he would smile, and reach for her. The sense to go to him was overwhelming, but she did not reach back for him. He spoke a name. But she had no name. She was a weapon, and weapons had no names. She would wake up then.
She would always wake up with a hollow feeling inside of her chest that she did not understand. She was a weapon, and weapons felt nothing. They could not love or feel pain, or become cold or sad. They could only kill.
You are my weapon, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, she was a weapon. She was his weapon. She felt nothing, was nothing. She was no one, nameless, faceless. There was no one to become, and no one to be. She had only one task, and that was to kill.
The pain and the darkness were easy to deal with.
The faces were not.
She did not sleep.
Zero shifted uncomfortably. He had passed by Balthasar who had informed him that Nikki wanted to see him. He wasn't even aware that his aunt was on campus. She must have came due to the news about Yuki. He released a soft sigh, running his fingers through Kiba's fur before standing from his chair. Though he had no desire to see her, he could not refuse his aunt. When she called, he was obligated to go. A part of him slightly knew the reason she wanted to see him, but another part of him was terrified all the same. The two days that passed after the meeting had been torture. She wasn't around, nor was she near him, and he found himself staying up on the roof often.
"I guess I should go find out what Aunt Nikki has to say," he spoke solemnly to the wolf, moving so that he was out of the door and headed towards where he could smell his aunt. He feared Nikki in the same way he feared his other Aunt, Erys. Both women were frightening, especially when it came to their children. That much was evident when Erys nearly tore up the battle grounds searching for Emrys that one time he went missing. Though Emrys wasn't truly missing, Erys didn't know that and had instilled a fear in Zero which caused him to shiver even now. His Aunt Nikki, though, was perhaps the worst one.
"Bal said you wanted to speak with me?" he spoke, glancing down at the woman that was his aunt. His tone came out rather calm, nothing at all what he was truly feeling, but he didn't need to convey it all at once. Nikki was exceptionally perceptive, this he had learned over the years as well.
Nikki had to fight not to sigh through her nose. They were all so jumpy around her, and she could only guess it was because of Yuki. Did they really all think that she blamed them? Perhaps she wasn't the one acting right. Still, it didn't matter, she supposed. She nodded in response to her nephew's question, motioning for him to sit. As he did so, she noted Kiba sitting next to him, and a wry smile could be seen on her face.
Had she not known already, that would have been proof enough. The wolf apparently was sticking to Zero like glue, and Nikki did not have to guess why. She returned her gaze to Zero.
"I won't ask if you're alright, because I already know the answer to that question. I will, however, ask you if you are willing to do whatever is necessary to save the woman you love."
Zero gave his aunt an unintentional flat look. She knew how he felt? Perhaps she did. He could not say for sure, however; he will not deny that she was right. He wasn't alright. He was far from alright. The woman he loved knocked him unconscious after telling him that she loved him, and then she left. She left because she thought it the only way. He sighed, running a hand through his burnt locks in the process. His aunt was truly too perceptive of things. Her question ran through his mind as he thought of the best way to answer it.
"I am willing to go to any lengths to save her, though if you are referring to if I must kill her to save her," he began as he paused, focusing his full attention back on Nikki. "Then no, I cannot do that to save her. If she died, I might as well be dead. Life would have no meaning without her by my side. Even..." he paused. He knew that his Aunt and Uncle had known about her condition, but did they know the length of life she had? He wasn't willing to take that risk. "Even with her condition," he finally stated before sitting further into his chair.
Nikki pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing slightly. She had not missed the way her nephew hesitated. His final sentence was not what he originally intended it to be. Perhaps it was nothing, but even so...
She put the thought aside. While she was not overly fond of having information withheld from her, she was also not one to begrudge anyone their privacy. If Zero felt inclined not to tell her, then she would not push the matter. Instead, she remained on the original topic.
"Then you would allow her to kill you, knowing that, she would not be able to handle living with that knowledge, knowing that she killed the one she loved? Do not misunderstand me by thinking that I believe this is the only solution, I know it is not. However, it is still a possibility. Yuki did what she did because she saw no other way out. If I had to guess, I would say that Freyr threatened you. While I do not believe that it was the best solution, I think it may have been the only solution where no one died. At least, not yet."
Zero flinched slightly at the tone in Nikki's voice. He hadn't meant it that way, but he could see her logic. Either way, there was no way he could ever bring himself to harm Yuki. If she had to kill him for it, then he would gladly die by her hands. "Freyr threatened all of us, not just me," he spoke, his voice a little firmer than what it once had been. "And you are correct, it wasn't the best solution, but it was the only solution she could see. I just...," What? Had known? Sensed Freyr so that he could have protected the others, warned them? He sighed once more, leaning further into his chair.
"I just don't think I could kill her if it came down to it. I don't think any of us could, perhaps the twins though. They love her, and they would do anything for as would I, but I couldn't kill her. It's not even a thought I can entertain the notion of. I love her. I've always loved her, I just wish it didn't take so long for me to have told her," he spoke, placing a hand over his face as he brought it down his face slowly. "I will do whatever I can to save her though, just not that," he responded slowly.
Nikki nodded slowly. "I can both understand and sympathize with that. It does not surprise me that you couldn't. Your father could not raise a hand against your mother, after all. I apologize for the questions, Zero. You are the man my daughter has chosen, and while we are not in the best of situations, I simply had to make sure she chose wisely."
A light smile touched her lips. "Believe what you will of yourself, blame yourself even, I cannot stop you. But you will get her back. In that...I have faith in all of you."
"I guess I should go find out what Aunt Nikki has to say," he spoke solemnly to the wolf, moving so that he was out of the door and headed towards where he could smell his aunt. He feared Nikki in the same way he feared his other Aunt, Erys. Both women were frightening, especially when it came to their children. That much was evident when Erys nearly tore up the battle grounds searching for Emrys that one time he went missing. Though Emrys wasn't truly missing, Erys didn't know that and had instilled a fear in Zero which caused him to shiver even now. His Aunt Nikki, though, was perhaps the worst one.
"Bal said you wanted to speak with me?" he spoke, glancing down at the woman that was his aunt. His tone came out rather calm, nothing at all what he was truly feeling, but he didn't need to convey it all at once. Nikki was exceptionally perceptive, this he had learned over the years as well.
Nikki had to fight not to sigh through her nose. They were all so jumpy around her, and she could only guess it was because of Yuki. Did they really all think that she blamed them? Perhaps she wasn't the one acting right. Still, it didn't matter, she supposed. She nodded in response to her nephew's question, motioning for him to sit. As he did so, she noted Kiba sitting next to him, and a wry smile could be seen on her face.
Had she not known already, that would have been proof enough. The wolf apparently was sticking to Zero like glue, and Nikki did not have to guess why. She returned her gaze to Zero.
"I won't ask if you're alright, because I already know the answer to that question. I will, however, ask you if you are willing to do whatever is necessary to save the woman you love."
Zero gave his aunt an unintentional flat look. She knew how he felt? Perhaps she did. He could not say for sure, however; he will not deny that she was right. He wasn't alright. He was far from alright. The woman he loved knocked him unconscious after telling him that she loved him, and then she left. She left because she thought it the only way. He sighed, running a hand through his burnt locks in the process. His aunt was truly too perceptive of things. Her question ran through his mind as he thought of the best way to answer it.
"I am willing to go to any lengths to save her, though if you are referring to if I must kill her to save her," he began as he paused, focusing his full attention back on Nikki. "Then no, I cannot do that to save her. If she died, I might as well be dead. Life would have no meaning without her by my side. Even..." he paused. He knew that his Aunt and Uncle had known about her condition, but did they know the length of life she had? He wasn't willing to take that risk. "Even with her condition," he finally stated before sitting further into his chair.
Nikki pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing slightly. She had not missed the way her nephew hesitated. His final sentence was not what he originally intended it to be. Perhaps it was nothing, but even so...
She put the thought aside. While she was not overly fond of having information withheld from her, she was also not one to begrudge anyone their privacy. If Zero felt inclined not to tell her, then she would not push the matter. Instead, she remained on the original topic.
"Then you would allow her to kill you, knowing that, she would not be able to handle living with that knowledge, knowing that she killed the one she loved? Do not misunderstand me by thinking that I believe this is the only solution, I know it is not. However, it is still a possibility. Yuki did what she did because she saw no other way out. If I had to guess, I would say that Freyr threatened you. While I do not believe that it was the best solution, I think it may have been the only solution where no one died. At least, not yet."
Zero flinched slightly at the tone in Nikki's voice. He hadn't meant it that way, but he could see her logic. Either way, there was no way he could ever bring himself to harm Yuki. If she had to kill him for it, then he would gladly die by her hands. "Freyr threatened all of us, not just me," he spoke, his voice a little firmer than what it once had been. "And you are correct, it wasn't the best solution, but it was the only solution she could see. I just...," What? Had known? Sensed Freyr so that he could have protected the others, warned them? He sighed once more, leaning further into his chair.
"I just don't think I could kill her if it came down to it. I don't think any of us could, perhaps the twins though. They love her, and they would do anything for as would I, but I couldn't kill her. It's not even a thought I can entertain the notion of. I love her. I've always loved her, I just wish it didn't take so long for me to have told her," he spoke, placing a hand over his face as he brought it down his face slowly. "I will do whatever I can to save her though, just not that," he responded slowly.
Nikki nodded slowly. "I can both understand and sympathize with that. It does not surprise me that you couldn't. Your father could not raise a hand against your mother, after all. I apologize for the questions, Zero. You are the man my daughter has chosen, and while we are not in the best of situations, I simply had to make sure she chose wisely."
A light smile touched her lips. "Believe what you will of yourself, blame yourself even, I cannot stop you. But you will get her back. In that...I have faith in all of you."
Aryan sighed through his nose. He, unlike everyone else, it seemed, was not at all surprised to learn that his mother was on campus. He'd spoken with her, mainly about Yuki. Now was not the time to bring anything up about Emrys, and frankly, he was perfectly fine with letting the matter drop. He knew that she was only trying to protect him, and he would never begrudge her that.
Even so, a few things weighed quite heavily on his mind, and he was almost startled to find that it was not Yuki, but Helen that he was thinking most of. He could only surmise that it was because Helen was here, and he could perhaps help her, while Yuki was not, and he could only wait until they found her, or a lead.
But even that was half a lie. Even when Yuki was here, he'd found his thoughts drifting more and more towards the other girl, wondering if she was alright, wondering if there was anything he could do to help her. It was a slightly unnerving revelation, as it could mean very few things, and one of them, he did not think was even an option, not for her. He shook his head. He needed to stop thinking about this.
Even so, it still could not hurt, going to see how she was doing. Perhaps then he could set his mind straight. Helen was not hard to find, she was like Yuki in many ways, either in the library or the infirmary, if not her room. This time, it would appear that she was in the infirmary, and Aryan could only guess that she was picking up where Yuki left off, with the other girl not being here at present. Aryan knocked on the door frame softly before speaking. He was well aware she probably already knew he was here, but still.
"How are you holding up, Helen?" There was some slight concern laced through his voice that he could not hide, and a part of him didn't want to. He wanted her to know that they cared, that he cared, and that she was more than just some servant to them. She probably already knew it, but sometimes Aryan wasn't so sure. She was family, especially to himself and Yuki.
This was a situation where most people would use the idiom ‘I do not know how long it has been since I last slept.’ Helen, however, knew exactly how long it had been, down to the hour. Fifteen days and twenty-one hours since she’d had anything more than a short nap, and slightly less than a week since she’d even been able to manage one of those. What Freyr had done to her mind was more than a simple memory trigger—it was like removing the one stone that held back the river. The dam, or at least a large part of it, had burst, and all of the things she’d been holding back inside herself had simply been released. Visions and memories were the worst in her sleep, and so it was that which she’d ceased first, but it was becoming so bad that she was walking around in a waking dream, hearing his voice as though his lips were right at her ear, sending an uncomfortable shudder down her spine.
Sometimes, the things she was seeing in the present overlapped with ones she had seen in the past, or memories that had been implanted in her mind without her knowledge, things that were not even hers. She was beginning to understand the extent of what she had been made. She wasn’t just a tool, because that would have allowed her some chance to recover, to fill her life with people and things that would convince her otherwise. She was a repository, for Theodor’s knowledge and his will and everything he decided he wanted to put in her head for safekeeping. Sometimes, his moods even colored things, and she would find herself feeling a detached, irrational anger upon sight of something that would have upset him. Like humans mingling with vampires, for example.
It was worse when she looked at those who were related to him, however distantly, or to one of his projects. It was hard to make sense of everything she was getting, but that only made it worse, because if she’d at least been able to divine something useful… but no. The repository was not for her use. She thought she might be close to understanding her purpose. But it terrified her, and she could not bear to search too thoroughly. So she occupied herself. She thought of Yuki, her friend, and the need to rescue her, because even the agony of being unable to be with her, to help her, was less than what would happen if her thoughts remained idle. She moved about the infirmary, binding wounds and dispensing medicine like a mechanical doll, and the little light her eyes had ever held leaked from them until there was nothing left, and she was a shadow of herself, who had only ever been the shadow of another to begin with.
Her eyes were a flat, soulless, indistinct lilac, and while clean, her hair was limp and lank, having lost most of its silvery lustre and receded to a straw-textured dull grey. She’d grown even thinner, if possible, especially in her hands and the hollows of her cheeks. She’d never had much to spare in that department, so it hadn’t taken long at all to lose what little kept her healthy. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and to say that she looked like a ghost would not be entirely inaccurate, save that maybe a ghost would have been more energetic. Still, she moved with unerring precision, and that alone kept the infirmary running.
She was just removing an IV from a patient, who was himself readying to leave, when the knock at the doorframe came. She’d been expecting it, in a distant way that had only instinctively and not consciously registered, but even so, when she turned to answer, she froze momentarily, as a startled rabbit might, her dull eyes wide. She saw him, but she also saw something that was not him, the images overlapping until it appeared that Aryan had eyes of the palest white and wore a malicious smile. She knew that look, but from where?
Helen blinked, and the false image disappeared. Along with this came the realization that she was shaking, and she looked down at her own hands with dull surprise. Where had that fear come from, all of a sudden? The man that had just left had been the last patient for now, and so she sank down into a chair with as much control and grace as she could muster, raising a hand to her temple. “I am functional,” she said hollowly, and then she pointed for a moment, towards the smaller of the two infirmary desks, the one she occupied. “There are new reports from Lady Florina. I sorted them by relevance and summarized each. I can resort by date, if you prefer, but I wasn’t sure which to use.”
Aryan had to fight not to flinch when he saw Helen's reaction to him. He hated that look, knowing that, no matter what, a part of him was the cause. It didn't matter what he did, he would always do this to her. It was things like this that made him second-guess seeing her at all. The last thing he wanted was to cause her discomfort.
Watching as she shook, he had the sudden desire to pull her into his arms. Physical contact, however, was not a good idea with her, and Aryan knew this. So he kept his arms at his sides, and kept his distance. He thought of asking if she perhaps would be more comfortable not being his assistant.
He said nothing on the subject though, knowing it would only make things worse. Instead, he turned his attention to the table to which she pointed. "By relevance, if you please. The important matters come first." He said gently.
Helen nodded, rising from the chair and crossing to the desk. “I thought so, too,” she said slowly, picking up the stack and using the edge of the desk to straighten them to a frankly unnecessary degree of neatness. It was why everything that might have even a shred of pertinence to Yuki was on the top of the stack, and everything else was beneath it. In this, at least, she knew that their priorities were the same. Yuki was the important thing, the most important thing, and she—
Hel frowned slightly, setting the papers on the edge of the desk and bringing her hand closer to her face. It would appear that the side of her index digit had just been sliced open by the paper. She would have been entirely incapable of receiving such a small injury, were she healthy. It was a sure sign that she wasn’t, but she figured that was obvious enough already. Absently, she licked the little bead of blood from her finger and watched as the wound closed, if more slowly than it should have. “Thank you,” she said suddenly, and her eyes flickered up to his for a moment. It was quite a distance to travel, considering how tall he was. “For letting me do this. I do not…” she pursed her lips faintly, unsure how to end the thought. She did not what? Like feeling useless? That was part of it assuredly, but she wasn’t sure it was what she meant.
She did not deserve it? That was possible, also, but she knew better than to say such things, even if she felt they were true. Yuki had repeatedly attempted to disabuse her of such notions, as had anyone else who got an inkling of them. Maybe it was just that she didn’t think she could keep functioning, if she didn’t have something to do, and this work gave her that. Either way, she proffered the stack of reports, her summaries attached.
Aryan watched her slowly, frowning slightly when she thanked him. In the end, however, he smiled softly. "It is I who should be thanking you, Helen. I can now say that I completely understand why my father had Ava as his own assistant, because frankly, I could not have gotten this far without you."
He slowly leafed through the papers before giving each one closer inspection. The first was a report, Florina suspected that the Pantheon would be deploying Yuki soon. There was nothing about a location, of course, but then, he didn't expect one. His eyes narrowed sharply at the second paper.
"The council was unaware of Elizabeth's position in the Pantheon? It would seem that the Council and the Pantheon stand on shaky ground. That may be used to our advantage at some point. For now, however..." He trailed off, focusing on the next set. It was of little interest to him, other than there was more talk of unease between the Council and the Pantheon.
His main concern was Yuki's "deployment". If this serum worked the way it was supposed to...it was highly likely that one of them may end up dead. It was only a matter of who. It was an unsettling notion at best.
Hel busied herself cleaning various parts of the infirmary while Aryan went over the reports, pausing only once to nod an acknowledgement of his observation about the Council and the Pantheon. “Someone in the Pantheon has extensive memory modification abilities,” she pointed out, shelving various anitbiotics for the human patients and ignoring the part of her—him—that would rather crush the plastic and leave them to their frailty and weakness. “It is possible that Baldr is responsible, because he could have acquired the ability elsewhere, but it is more likely that someone was created with such capability. I do not think it was Sigyn, else she probably would have demonstrated on Balthasar.”
It wasn’t to her knowledge anyone she had worked with personally, but then she was kept isolated from the others more often than not. Theodor did not desire that she form bonds with any of them, though that had not stopped Tyr from training with her. Nothing stopped Tyr when he really wanted to do something, after all. She wished she was more like that. But she was not, and wishing achieved nothing.
“The Council attempts to restore his memories, from hope that it will give them an edge over the Pantheon, but it does not look likely. For now, other avenues are best pursued…” A pause. What she wished to say next was difficult, and the girl wasn’t honestly sure she had the right to ask, but… some things simply needed to be said. “I know that everyone has very good reason to want to try and get through to Yuki, but it is not something that can simply be forced. If possible, I would request the opportunity to try.” It was preposterous, really, to ask her actual family to step aside so that she, a peripheral side note in their lives at best, could take on such an important task, but Helen had reason to believe that she could succeed. She knew what it felt like, to be a mindless killing machine, and she knew that no such conditioning was ever complete, serum or no serum.
Aryan nodded absentmindedly while listening to her and continuing to go through the files. He put them down, however, when she mentioned Yuki. He gave her his full attention as she spoke, and when she was finished, he laced his hands together. He chose his words carefully.
"I am aware of what transpired between you and my sister all those years ago, and frankly, the only person who even has the mental capabilities to get through to her aside from Alden is, in fact, you, Helen. You do not need to ask permission. I would rather be asking you to do so. You are our family just as much as she is, and you may be the only one to get through to Yuki."
Even so, a few things weighed quite heavily on his mind, and he was almost startled to find that it was not Yuki, but Helen that he was thinking most of. He could only surmise that it was because Helen was here, and he could perhaps help her, while Yuki was not, and he could only wait until they found her, or a lead.
But even that was half a lie. Even when Yuki was here, he'd found his thoughts drifting more and more towards the other girl, wondering if she was alright, wondering if there was anything he could do to help her. It was a slightly unnerving revelation, as it could mean very few things, and one of them, he did not think was even an option, not for her. He shook his head. He needed to stop thinking about this.
Even so, it still could not hurt, going to see how she was doing. Perhaps then he could set his mind straight. Helen was not hard to find, she was like Yuki in many ways, either in the library or the infirmary, if not her room. This time, it would appear that she was in the infirmary, and Aryan could only guess that she was picking up where Yuki left off, with the other girl not being here at present. Aryan knocked on the door frame softly before speaking. He was well aware she probably already knew he was here, but still.
"How are you holding up, Helen?" There was some slight concern laced through his voice that he could not hide, and a part of him didn't want to. He wanted her to know that they cared, that he cared, and that she was more than just some servant to them. She probably already knew it, but sometimes Aryan wasn't so sure. She was family, especially to himself and Yuki.
This was a situation where most people would use the idiom ‘I do not know how long it has been since I last slept.’ Helen, however, knew exactly how long it had been, down to the hour. Fifteen days and twenty-one hours since she’d had anything more than a short nap, and slightly less than a week since she’d even been able to manage one of those. What Freyr had done to her mind was more than a simple memory trigger—it was like removing the one stone that held back the river. The dam, or at least a large part of it, had burst, and all of the things she’d been holding back inside herself had simply been released. Visions and memories were the worst in her sleep, and so it was that which she’d ceased first, but it was becoming so bad that she was walking around in a waking dream, hearing his voice as though his lips were right at her ear, sending an uncomfortable shudder down her spine.
Sometimes, the things she was seeing in the present overlapped with ones she had seen in the past, or memories that had been implanted in her mind without her knowledge, things that were not even hers. She was beginning to understand the extent of what she had been made. She wasn’t just a tool, because that would have allowed her some chance to recover, to fill her life with people and things that would convince her otherwise. She was a repository, for Theodor’s knowledge and his will and everything he decided he wanted to put in her head for safekeeping. Sometimes, his moods even colored things, and she would find herself feeling a detached, irrational anger upon sight of something that would have upset him. Like humans mingling with vampires, for example.
It was worse when she looked at those who were related to him, however distantly, or to one of his projects. It was hard to make sense of everything she was getting, but that only made it worse, because if she’d at least been able to divine something useful… but no. The repository was not for her use. She thought she might be close to understanding her purpose. But it terrified her, and she could not bear to search too thoroughly. So she occupied herself. She thought of Yuki, her friend, and the need to rescue her, because even the agony of being unable to be with her, to help her, was less than what would happen if her thoughts remained idle. She moved about the infirmary, binding wounds and dispensing medicine like a mechanical doll, and the little light her eyes had ever held leaked from them until there was nothing left, and she was a shadow of herself, who had only ever been the shadow of another to begin with.
Her eyes were a flat, soulless, indistinct lilac, and while clean, her hair was limp and lank, having lost most of its silvery lustre and receded to a straw-textured dull grey. She’d grown even thinner, if possible, especially in her hands and the hollows of her cheeks. She’d never had much to spare in that department, so it hadn’t taken long at all to lose what little kept her healthy. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and to say that she looked like a ghost would not be entirely inaccurate, save that maybe a ghost would have been more energetic. Still, she moved with unerring precision, and that alone kept the infirmary running.
She was just removing an IV from a patient, who was himself readying to leave, when the knock at the doorframe came. She’d been expecting it, in a distant way that had only instinctively and not consciously registered, but even so, when she turned to answer, she froze momentarily, as a startled rabbit might, her dull eyes wide. She saw him, but she also saw something that was not him, the images overlapping until it appeared that Aryan had eyes of the palest white and wore a malicious smile. She knew that look, but from where?
Helen blinked, and the false image disappeared. Along with this came the realization that she was shaking, and she looked down at her own hands with dull surprise. Where had that fear come from, all of a sudden? The man that had just left had been the last patient for now, and so she sank down into a chair with as much control and grace as she could muster, raising a hand to her temple. “I am functional,” she said hollowly, and then she pointed for a moment, towards the smaller of the two infirmary desks, the one she occupied. “There are new reports from Lady Florina. I sorted them by relevance and summarized each. I can resort by date, if you prefer, but I wasn’t sure which to use.”
Aryan had to fight not to flinch when he saw Helen's reaction to him. He hated that look, knowing that, no matter what, a part of him was the cause. It didn't matter what he did, he would always do this to her. It was things like this that made him second-guess seeing her at all. The last thing he wanted was to cause her discomfort.
Watching as she shook, he had the sudden desire to pull her into his arms. Physical contact, however, was not a good idea with her, and Aryan knew this. So he kept his arms at his sides, and kept his distance. He thought of asking if she perhaps would be more comfortable not being his assistant.
He said nothing on the subject though, knowing it would only make things worse. Instead, he turned his attention to the table to which she pointed. "By relevance, if you please. The important matters come first." He said gently.
Helen nodded, rising from the chair and crossing to the desk. “I thought so, too,” she said slowly, picking up the stack and using the edge of the desk to straighten them to a frankly unnecessary degree of neatness. It was why everything that might have even a shred of pertinence to Yuki was on the top of the stack, and everything else was beneath it. In this, at least, she knew that their priorities were the same. Yuki was the important thing, the most important thing, and she—
Hel frowned slightly, setting the papers on the edge of the desk and bringing her hand closer to her face. It would appear that the side of her index digit had just been sliced open by the paper. She would have been entirely incapable of receiving such a small injury, were she healthy. It was a sure sign that she wasn’t, but she figured that was obvious enough already. Absently, she licked the little bead of blood from her finger and watched as the wound closed, if more slowly than it should have. “Thank you,” she said suddenly, and her eyes flickered up to his for a moment. It was quite a distance to travel, considering how tall he was. “For letting me do this. I do not…” she pursed her lips faintly, unsure how to end the thought. She did not what? Like feeling useless? That was part of it assuredly, but she wasn’t sure it was what she meant.
She did not deserve it? That was possible, also, but she knew better than to say such things, even if she felt they were true. Yuki had repeatedly attempted to disabuse her of such notions, as had anyone else who got an inkling of them. Maybe it was just that she didn’t think she could keep functioning, if she didn’t have something to do, and this work gave her that. Either way, she proffered the stack of reports, her summaries attached.
Aryan watched her slowly, frowning slightly when she thanked him. In the end, however, he smiled softly. "It is I who should be thanking you, Helen. I can now say that I completely understand why my father had Ava as his own assistant, because frankly, I could not have gotten this far without you."
He slowly leafed through the papers before giving each one closer inspection. The first was a report, Florina suspected that the Pantheon would be deploying Yuki soon. There was nothing about a location, of course, but then, he didn't expect one. His eyes narrowed sharply at the second paper.
"The council was unaware of Elizabeth's position in the Pantheon? It would seem that the Council and the Pantheon stand on shaky ground. That may be used to our advantage at some point. For now, however..." He trailed off, focusing on the next set. It was of little interest to him, other than there was more talk of unease between the Council and the Pantheon.
His main concern was Yuki's "deployment". If this serum worked the way it was supposed to...it was highly likely that one of them may end up dead. It was only a matter of who. It was an unsettling notion at best.
Hel busied herself cleaning various parts of the infirmary while Aryan went over the reports, pausing only once to nod an acknowledgement of his observation about the Council and the Pantheon. “Someone in the Pantheon has extensive memory modification abilities,” she pointed out, shelving various anitbiotics for the human patients and ignoring the part of her—him—that would rather crush the plastic and leave them to their frailty and weakness. “It is possible that Baldr is responsible, because he could have acquired the ability elsewhere, but it is more likely that someone was created with such capability. I do not think it was Sigyn, else she probably would have demonstrated on Balthasar.”
It wasn’t to her knowledge anyone she had worked with personally, but then she was kept isolated from the others more often than not. Theodor did not desire that she form bonds with any of them, though that had not stopped Tyr from training with her. Nothing stopped Tyr when he really wanted to do something, after all. She wished she was more like that. But she was not, and wishing achieved nothing.
“The Council attempts to restore his memories, from hope that it will give them an edge over the Pantheon, but it does not look likely. For now, other avenues are best pursued…” A pause. What she wished to say next was difficult, and the girl wasn’t honestly sure she had the right to ask, but… some things simply needed to be said. “I know that everyone has very good reason to want to try and get through to Yuki, but it is not something that can simply be forced. If possible, I would request the opportunity to try.” It was preposterous, really, to ask her actual family to step aside so that she, a peripheral side note in their lives at best, could take on such an important task, but Helen had reason to believe that she could succeed. She knew what it felt like, to be a mindless killing machine, and she knew that no such conditioning was ever complete, serum or no serum.
Aryan nodded absentmindedly while listening to her and continuing to go through the files. He put them down, however, when she mentioned Yuki. He gave her his full attention as she spoke, and when she was finished, he laced his hands together. He chose his words carefully.
"I am aware of what transpired between you and my sister all those years ago, and frankly, the only person who even has the mental capabilities to get through to her aside from Alden is, in fact, you, Helen. You do not need to ask permission. I would rather be asking you to do so. You are our family just as much as she is, and you may be the only one to get through to Yuki."
"We still have nothing, it's like...she just dropped off of the face of the earth. The Pantheon have been hard to find before, but this....this is something else entirely. Though I can say I'm surprised, with this Freyr's abilities. I'll keep searching, and so is Alden. Let me know if you find anything before we do."
Emrys nodded, his features tight, his eyes molten rubies. The screen went dark, and Emrys stared at his reflection. He looked....worn out. And he was, really. It had been two weeks, and they still had turned up neither hide nor hair of Yuki, not a scent, not a sighting, absolutely nothing.
Two weeks that he'd had to watch his best friend become increasingly more and more depressed and frustrated, and he could do nothing about it. He wanted to say something, to talk to him, but what could he say? There was nothing to say, and the only thing that could help Zero was getting Yuki back, and that was out of their reach right now. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Sitting around thinking about it wasn't helping, either.
Emrys stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, until finally, he found himself out on the grounds, and he hit the closest thing he could find. That turned out to be a tree, and with a resounding crack, the old oak tree fell over. Not that he cared. It was all he could do not to just go on a rampage. He sat down roughly next to the felled tree, touching it with his palm.
The effect was instantaneous, and the whole thing began to wither and turn black as he drained what life it still had within in. Soon, he was looking at nothing more than a large pile of ash, the power thrumming through his body like electricity, his eyes glowing in response to the extra energy. There was a dark look on his face as he sat there, and he was well aware of the presence coming towards him. He knew without looking or smelling that it was Zero and Kiba. Emrys grit his teeth. He didn't like this power, and he'd let his anger get the best of him.
For that, he felt ashamed, and yet a part of him didn't care. What was the point, if he couldn't even find Yuki, and he couldn't help his best friend? Some friend he was. He was useless. Kiba trotted up to him, the wolf pressing his nose to his hand. Emrys looked at him, the power still thrumming underneath his skin, and it would until he released it, and he pet the wolf slightly. "I'm sorry, Z." He said softly.
Two weeks.
Two weeks had passed since the disappearance of Yuki, and Zero could think of nothing else. There was no news of her, no sighting, no nothing, and Zero couldn't help the emptiness that crept upon him like a thief in the night, stabbing him in the back. He couldn't defend himself against it, couldn't prepare for it, and as such, he was at the mercy of this thief that repeatedly stabbed him. He sighed through his nose, running a hand through his hair in the process while closing his eyes. Her disappearance had taken its toll on him. His eyes were bagged, dark circled, and practically almost lifeless. The spark that had once been there was gone, all because she was gone as well.
His eyes flickered to the sound of something breaking and crashing, following the sound until he came upon Emrys. He destroyed the tree, caused it to dissolve before it faded to ash. He frowned merely, glancing down at Kiba at his side before taking a deep breath. He hadn't wanted to speak to anyone, not after he spoke with Nikki, but it seemed that he couldn't avoid his family. With that in mind, he walked, albeit slowly, towards Emrys. His cousin's words echoed through him, causing his frown to deepen. Why was he sorry? It wasn't his fault. Was he apologizing because they couldn't find Yuki? He sighed at that thought and laid a hand on his cousin's shoulder before removing it.
"You shouldn't be, Em," he spoke, his voice cracking just slightly due to fatigue. "I know Uncle and my brother are doing everything they can to find her. It's not easy, and I didn't expect it to be. You shouldn't be apologizing for that, but thanks," he continued before taking a seat next to his cousin, leaning back so that he was resting upon his forearms and staring up at the sky.
Emrys winced at his cousin's words. He looked terrible, not that Emrys could blame him. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him it was only going to get worse before it got better. The question really was, how much worse would it get? He wasn't sure how much more any of them could handle, especially Zero.
He knew it wasn't really his fault, but that didn't stop him from feeling like there was something else he could be doing, something he should be doing. But in the end, there was nothing to do but wait, and Emrys hated that. For a long time, he said nothing, he just allowed the power to continue humming in his head, because it was a distraction from his thoughts. But keeping that power pent up inside of him was dangerous, so with a heavy breath, he let it go. The grass within thirty feet of them turned bright green, returning to its state when it was in summer. It wouldn't last, of course, but for now, it wasn't half-dead and brown.
It did nothing to quell the hollow look in his eyes. It wasn't just Yuki's disappearance causing it, either. Being out on the front lines, the death, the killing, everything he'd done, Ryvrn's death...it had taken a heavy toll on him, and it was finally starting to show. He couldn't just sit back and pretend that it didn't bother him anymore. Not after Yuki, too.
"I don't know how much longer I can do this, Z." He said softly.
Another sigh escaped him. He wanted to feel like a hypocrite. He had told Aryan not that long ago about sighs, and a subtle quirk of his lips tilted upwards. He leaned back so he was fully upon his back and continued to watch the clouds roll by. He could understand, perhaps a bit, where his cousin was coming from. Zero would have been in the same situation as Emrys if Vincent hadn't had other plans. That left one of his brothers, if not all of them, to man the front lines and participate in whatever suited them and their abilities. Like Alden. He was good at what he did for his ability alone.
"You know, it wouldn't be so bad to have another. Alarica managed, and though she still mourns for Mikhail, Angelus has brightened her up a bit. It won't be the same as Ryvrn, but..." he paused, sitting up and dusting the leaves from his person before turning towards Emrys. "At least give it a try. I'll do it with you," Zero spoke, hovering a clawed hand over his wrist in the process. He'd never wanted a familiar before, but he could understand somewhat how Alarica felt. There was an emptiness, and though it wouldn't fill the hole that Yuki left, it would keep him from descending any further than what he'd gone already.
Something painful flashed across Emrys's eyes. Create another familiar? He wasn't sure if he could do that. It had been two years since Ryvrn's death, and it was still hard, but...
There was a ring of truth to what Zero was saying. Maybe it would help, having something there. He was slightly startled at Zero's declaration that he, too, would create one. That...was unexpected, to say the least. Zero had never wanted a familiar, but...he could also understand where he was coming from. Resolve hardened in his eyes, and he nodded once.
"Together, then."
As he spoke, he slid a claw down his wrist, just as Zero did the same. His blood pooled on the ground in front of him, solidifying into a glowing ball. Before long, the blood had turned into a grey and black wolf. What was odd about her were her eyes. One was a bright yellow, and the other was an ice blue. It only took one look to know her name. "Solaris." The wolf cocked her head at him. "Master?"
Zero nodded his head as he slit his wrist, allowing the blood to pool from his wrist before, in the same fashion as his cousin, molded it until it was but a small ball of solidified blood. He watched as it expanded, grew, and contorted. His eyes went fairly wide at how large the ball kept growing, and for a moment, it appeared that it wasn't going to stop. Dread filled Zero as he watched the ball grow until it finally stopped, rolling out and producing a very odd creature indeed. It was shaped and molded like a wolf, though there were some characteristics that suggested it was a tiger, however; it was neither.
The familiar rolled, tumbling as he fell upon his back, and golden eyes met sea-foam green. "Zero!" the familiar stated, rolling till he was on his feet and bounded after Zero. An uncharacteristic scream tore through Zero's throat, running away from the familiar in the process. This was precisely why he did not want to create a familiar. It could crush him if it wanted, and he did not want to be crushed by an over grown dog.
Emrys nodded, his features tight, his eyes molten rubies. The screen went dark, and Emrys stared at his reflection. He looked....worn out. And he was, really. It had been two weeks, and they still had turned up neither hide nor hair of Yuki, not a scent, not a sighting, absolutely nothing.
Two weeks that he'd had to watch his best friend become increasingly more and more depressed and frustrated, and he could do nothing about it. He wanted to say something, to talk to him, but what could he say? There was nothing to say, and the only thing that could help Zero was getting Yuki back, and that was out of their reach right now. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Sitting around thinking about it wasn't helping, either.
Emrys stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, until finally, he found himself out on the grounds, and he hit the closest thing he could find. That turned out to be a tree, and with a resounding crack, the old oak tree fell over. Not that he cared. It was all he could do not to just go on a rampage. He sat down roughly next to the felled tree, touching it with his palm.
The effect was instantaneous, and the whole thing began to wither and turn black as he drained what life it still had within in. Soon, he was looking at nothing more than a large pile of ash, the power thrumming through his body like electricity, his eyes glowing in response to the extra energy. There was a dark look on his face as he sat there, and he was well aware of the presence coming towards him. He knew without looking or smelling that it was Zero and Kiba. Emrys grit his teeth. He didn't like this power, and he'd let his anger get the best of him.
For that, he felt ashamed, and yet a part of him didn't care. What was the point, if he couldn't even find Yuki, and he couldn't help his best friend? Some friend he was. He was useless. Kiba trotted up to him, the wolf pressing his nose to his hand. Emrys looked at him, the power still thrumming underneath his skin, and it would until he released it, and he pet the wolf slightly. "I'm sorry, Z." He said softly.
Two weeks.
Two weeks had passed since the disappearance of Yuki, and Zero could think of nothing else. There was no news of her, no sighting, no nothing, and Zero couldn't help the emptiness that crept upon him like a thief in the night, stabbing him in the back. He couldn't defend himself against it, couldn't prepare for it, and as such, he was at the mercy of this thief that repeatedly stabbed him. He sighed through his nose, running a hand through his hair in the process while closing his eyes. Her disappearance had taken its toll on him. His eyes were bagged, dark circled, and practically almost lifeless. The spark that had once been there was gone, all because she was gone as well.
His eyes flickered to the sound of something breaking and crashing, following the sound until he came upon Emrys. He destroyed the tree, caused it to dissolve before it faded to ash. He frowned merely, glancing down at Kiba at his side before taking a deep breath. He hadn't wanted to speak to anyone, not after he spoke with Nikki, but it seemed that he couldn't avoid his family. With that in mind, he walked, albeit slowly, towards Emrys. His cousin's words echoed through him, causing his frown to deepen. Why was he sorry? It wasn't his fault. Was he apologizing because they couldn't find Yuki? He sighed at that thought and laid a hand on his cousin's shoulder before removing it.
"You shouldn't be, Em," he spoke, his voice cracking just slightly due to fatigue. "I know Uncle and my brother are doing everything they can to find her. It's not easy, and I didn't expect it to be. You shouldn't be apologizing for that, but thanks," he continued before taking a seat next to his cousin, leaning back so that he was resting upon his forearms and staring up at the sky.
Emrys winced at his cousin's words. He looked terrible, not that Emrys could blame him. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him it was only going to get worse before it got better. The question really was, how much worse would it get? He wasn't sure how much more any of them could handle, especially Zero.
He knew it wasn't really his fault, but that didn't stop him from feeling like there was something else he could be doing, something he should be doing. But in the end, there was nothing to do but wait, and Emrys hated that. For a long time, he said nothing, he just allowed the power to continue humming in his head, because it was a distraction from his thoughts. But keeping that power pent up inside of him was dangerous, so with a heavy breath, he let it go. The grass within thirty feet of them turned bright green, returning to its state when it was in summer. It wouldn't last, of course, but for now, it wasn't half-dead and brown.
It did nothing to quell the hollow look in his eyes. It wasn't just Yuki's disappearance causing it, either. Being out on the front lines, the death, the killing, everything he'd done, Ryvrn's death...it had taken a heavy toll on him, and it was finally starting to show. He couldn't just sit back and pretend that it didn't bother him anymore. Not after Yuki, too.
"I don't know how much longer I can do this, Z." He said softly.
Another sigh escaped him. He wanted to feel like a hypocrite. He had told Aryan not that long ago about sighs, and a subtle quirk of his lips tilted upwards. He leaned back so he was fully upon his back and continued to watch the clouds roll by. He could understand, perhaps a bit, where his cousin was coming from. Zero would have been in the same situation as Emrys if Vincent hadn't had other plans. That left one of his brothers, if not all of them, to man the front lines and participate in whatever suited them and their abilities. Like Alden. He was good at what he did for his ability alone.
"You know, it wouldn't be so bad to have another. Alarica managed, and though she still mourns for Mikhail, Angelus has brightened her up a bit. It won't be the same as Ryvrn, but..." he paused, sitting up and dusting the leaves from his person before turning towards Emrys. "At least give it a try. I'll do it with you," Zero spoke, hovering a clawed hand over his wrist in the process. He'd never wanted a familiar before, but he could understand somewhat how Alarica felt. There was an emptiness, and though it wouldn't fill the hole that Yuki left, it would keep him from descending any further than what he'd gone already.
Something painful flashed across Emrys's eyes. Create another familiar? He wasn't sure if he could do that. It had been two years since Ryvrn's death, and it was still hard, but...
There was a ring of truth to what Zero was saying. Maybe it would help, having something there. He was slightly startled at Zero's declaration that he, too, would create one. That...was unexpected, to say the least. Zero had never wanted a familiar, but...he could also understand where he was coming from. Resolve hardened in his eyes, and he nodded once.
"Together, then."
As he spoke, he slid a claw down his wrist, just as Zero did the same. His blood pooled on the ground in front of him, solidifying into a glowing ball. Before long, the blood had turned into a grey and black wolf. What was odd about her were her eyes. One was a bright yellow, and the other was an ice blue. It only took one look to know her name. "Solaris." The wolf cocked her head at him. "Master?"
Zero nodded his head as he slit his wrist, allowing the blood to pool from his wrist before, in the same fashion as his cousin, molded it until it was but a small ball of solidified blood. He watched as it expanded, grew, and contorted. His eyes went fairly wide at how large the ball kept growing, and for a moment, it appeared that it wasn't going to stop. Dread filled Zero as he watched the ball grow until it finally stopped, rolling out and producing a very odd creature indeed. It was shaped and molded like a wolf, though there were some characteristics that suggested it was a tiger, however; it was neither.
The familiar rolled, tumbling as he fell upon his back, and golden eyes met sea-foam green. "Zero!" the familiar stated, rolling till he was on his feet and bounded after Zero. An uncharacteristic scream tore through Zero's throat, running away from the familiar in the process. This was precisely why he did not want to create a familiar. It could crush him if it wanted, and he did not want to be crushed by an over grown dog.
Alarica stared at Angelus, watching as his tails flickered beneath the morning sun as she dangled from a tree limb. The back of her knees were currently tangled in the tree branches as she allowed her snow-white locks to fall towards the ground, barely grazing it in the process. Angelus merely looked up at her, amusement flashing before his eyes as he folded his arms underneath him. She blinked, and if he could have, he would have smirked. They had been having a staring contest, one that had lasted for merely thirty minutes, and Angelus walked up, tangling himself in Alarica's hair.
"I win, master," he spoke as Alarica sighed. She twisted herself so that she swung from the branch, plummeting down and landed on her feet. "What do I win?" he spoke, amusement still laced within his voice as Alarica raised a brow at him. They didn't agree to prizes. She furrowed her brows, choosing to ignore her familiar as he merely feigned a hurt look. "You wound me so, master," he spoke as she continued to walk away from him. She shot a glance towards her brother, Keir, and nodded towards him.
She waited for him to fall in stride with her as they walked in relative silence. There was nothing that could be said between them, and it was an understanding that the both of them had shared. They could spend hours in each other's company, and not say a word. And yet, all that they needed to say was spoken in that silence. Alarica had not paid mind to where her legs were taking her, and found herself staring at the oldest Alistair child. A slight smile tugged at her lips, however; it morphed into something akin to a frown. She walked over to him, peering over his shoulder, not noticing the two-toned eyed wolf laying but a few feet away.
"Still no leads?"
Emrys let out a frustrated sigh, Solaris laying just off to his right, her two-toned eyes watching her master silently. The wolf did not move as two others approached, though she did notice that they smelled of him. Ah, she knew who they were. They were the Twins, master's younger siblings. Her eyes swiveled over to Alucard, the wolves locked in a stare for a second. Alucard trotted over to her, sniffing.
Solaris picked her head up, letting out a low growl in the process. She was not overly fond of being approached so, and Alucard registered that immediatly, backing off slightly. That cause Keir to chuckle. "And here I thought the male was supposed to be the alpha." Alucard glared silently at his master, and it was Solaris's turn to chuckle.
"He is no wolf, he simply dresses like one." Alucard huffed, but otherwise ignored her. It at least earned a slight smile out of the eldest Alistair. "Still nothing, I'm afraid. But, Rica, Keir, this is Solaris. You're what, five hours old now?"
"Four hours, forty-seven minutes, and thirty-eight seconds, actually."
Alarica blinked slowly at the familiar to the side. Angelus tilted his head slightly as Alarica turned towards the familiar. "Solaris," she spoke, allowing the name to roll in her mouth as she tested it. A subtle smile appeared on her face as she glanced back towards her older brother. It appears that Emrys finally created another familiar, though the reason as to why, did not bother her any. "Welcome to the family, Solaris," she stated as she nodded towards the familiar.
She glanced then towards Emrys as he spoke. They had found nothing on a trace of Yuki, and Alarica clenched her fists tightly. She had vented her anger out before, but right now was perhaps not the best time. Instead, she shook her head softly. "I'm sure dad and Alden will find something soon," she spoke, pulling a lock of white to the front and tugged at it.
Emrys smiled wanly. "One can only hope, sister." He watched his younger siblings closely, not missing the way Rica balled her fists. Keir, too, was barely holding back his anger. Emrys glanced back at the files that Alden had sent him. Well, if they really needed to vent...
"So, the two of you feel like coming with me to tear off a few heads?"
Keir cocked his head to the side, something of a malicious grin crawling across his face. "Oh? And whose heads are we tearing off, hm?"
Solaris, too, picked her head up again. She didn't like fighting, but she would go where ever her master went. "You mean the skirmish, right? Isn't it a horde of level E's?" Emrys nodded. "I'm thinking of asking Balthasar and Aunt Nikki along. The more power hitters we have, the better, and between the two of you and Aunt Nikki, we've got a dream team."
Alarica rose a brow at Emrys before Keir spoke. "Well, if tearing off a few heads will make others sleep better at night, I'm game," she spoke, a slow smirk crossing her features. She could do that, tear off a few heads. Besides, it's not like they'd be horribly missed. Level E's causing skirmishes, yeah, she could do that. She placed a hand on the holster of Ulrik, brought it out and glanced towards Angelus. "I have my own ride," she spoke to the others as Angelus nodded his head in understanding. He left the room momentarily as Alarica turned towards her brothers.
"Besides, something needs to die," she added, the smirk transforming into a rather large grin as she took off after Angelus. She'd wait for her brothers outside, and wait for the others to arrive. Besides, it would help to know exactly where it was they were heading towards. She didn't get that information from Emrys.
"I win, master," he spoke as Alarica sighed. She twisted herself so that she swung from the branch, plummeting down and landed on her feet. "What do I win?" he spoke, amusement still laced within his voice as Alarica raised a brow at him. They didn't agree to prizes. She furrowed her brows, choosing to ignore her familiar as he merely feigned a hurt look. "You wound me so, master," he spoke as she continued to walk away from him. She shot a glance towards her brother, Keir, and nodded towards him.
She waited for him to fall in stride with her as they walked in relative silence. There was nothing that could be said between them, and it was an understanding that the both of them had shared. They could spend hours in each other's company, and not say a word. And yet, all that they needed to say was spoken in that silence. Alarica had not paid mind to where her legs were taking her, and found herself staring at the oldest Alistair child. A slight smile tugged at her lips, however; it morphed into something akin to a frown. She walked over to him, peering over his shoulder, not noticing the two-toned eyed wolf laying but a few feet away.
"Still no leads?"
Emrys let out a frustrated sigh, Solaris laying just off to his right, her two-toned eyes watching her master silently. The wolf did not move as two others approached, though she did notice that they smelled of him. Ah, she knew who they were. They were the Twins, master's younger siblings. Her eyes swiveled over to Alucard, the wolves locked in a stare for a second. Alucard trotted over to her, sniffing.
Solaris picked her head up, letting out a low growl in the process. She was not overly fond of being approached so, and Alucard registered that immediatly, backing off slightly. That cause Keir to chuckle. "And here I thought the male was supposed to be the alpha." Alucard glared silently at his master, and it was Solaris's turn to chuckle.
"He is no wolf, he simply dresses like one." Alucard huffed, but otherwise ignored her. It at least earned a slight smile out of the eldest Alistair. "Still nothing, I'm afraid. But, Rica, Keir, this is Solaris. You're what, five hours old now?"
"Four hours, forty-seven minutes, and thirty-eight seconds, actually."
Alarica blinked slowly at the familiar to the side. Angelus tilted his head slightly as Alarica turned towards the familiar. "Solaris," she spoke, allowing the name to roll in her mouth as she tested it. A subtle smile appeared on her face as she glanced back towards her older brother. It appears that Emrys finally created another familiar, though the reason as to why, did not bother her any. "Welcome to the family, Solaris," she stated as she nodded towards the familiar.
She glanced then towards Emrys as he spoke. They had found nothing on a trace of Yuki, and Alarica clenched her fists tightly. She had vented her anger out before, but right now was perhaps not the best time. Instead, she shook her head softly. "I'm sure dad and Alden will find something soon," she spoke, pulling a lock of white to the front and tugged at it.
Emrys smiled wanly. "One can only hope, sister." He watched his younger siblings closely, not missing the way Rica balled her fists. Keir, too, was barely holding back his anger. Emrys glanced back at the files that Alden had sent him. Well, if they really needed to vent...
"So, the two of you feel like coming with me to tear off a few heads?"
Keir cocked his head to the side, something of a malicious grin crawling across his face. "Oh? And whose heads are we tearing off, hm?"
Solaris, too, picked her head up again. She didn't like fighting, but she would go where ever her master went. "You mean the skirmish, right? Isn't it a horde of level E's?" Emrys nodded. "I'm thinking of asking Balthasar and Aunt Nikki along. The more power hitters we have, the better, and between the two of you and Aunt Nikki, we've got a dream team."
Alarica rose a brow at Emrys before Keir spoke. "Well, if tearing off a few heads will make others sleep better at night, I'm game," she spoke, a slow smirk crossing her features. She could do that, tear off a few heads. Besides, it's not like they'd be horribly missed. Level E's causing skirmishes, yeah, she could do that. She placed a hand on the holster of Ulrik, brought it out and glanced towards Angelus. "I have my own ride," she spoke to the others as Angelus nodded his head in understanding. He left the room momentarily as Alarica turned towards her brothers.
"Besides, something needs to die," she added, the smirk transforming into a rather large grin as she took off after Angelus. She'd wait for her brothers outside, and wait for the others to arrive. Besides, it would help to know exactly where it was they were heading towards. She didn't get that information from Emrys.
It still had that certain je ne sais quoi about it, didn’t it? Or so he thought, at least, sweeping red-violet eyes over the grounds, as viewable from the entrance arch. He could feel them all on the grounds (well, save the ones who had left two days prior to deal with a skirmish near the border), exerting next to no effort to pinpoint the few students he was concerned with, even the ones who fancied themselves good at hiding. Well, they were, he was just better at finding what was hidden. It was, after all, his job. Alden sighed, shaking his head faintly and sending a few stray locks of wisteria-colored hair in front of his eyes, something he did not bother to correct. It wasn’t like he was in danger of running into something because he could not see.
He might have allowed the nostalgia to subsume him for a while, but unfortunately, there were more urgent matters to attend to. As it happened, his siblings were together at present, and though perhaps his first instinct might have been to seek out the von Nachts, he knew exactly how involved Zero was in this series of events, and so it was with he that starting made sense. There was very little Alden did not know about any of them—Leora had to have learned her ways from someone, after all, and it certainly had not been their parents.
With a slight sigh, Alden popped a piece of pocky into his mouth, letting half of it stick out haphazardly from between his lips and teeth. It was always a bit hard, hanging around Leo for any length of time, but that didn’t stop him from doing it. Sliding his hands into his pockets, Alden shuffled his way to where they were, which at present happened to be under a tree. They both leaned against it, Leo’s arms both wrapped around one of Zero’s, and she leaning into his side. It was a bit cute, actually, and if he hadn’t known the reason for it, he might have teased them both. He bit off the pocky as a way of announcing his presence, because his scent was still the same one he’d been using for his last assignment, and thus not familiar to either of them.
The noise made Leora glance up, but before she could say anything, Alden spoke. “You have twenty-four hours before Freyr deploys Yuki. Here.” He reached up with one hand, straightening his black-framed glasses on his face. Completely unnecessary, of course, but he liked them.
Kiba's ears pricked forward at the newcomer, a low growl leaving his throat as Yuki was mentioned. As usual for the familiar, he'd not left Zero's side since he'd woken up, even with the birth of Xenos. While his own master was missing, he would stay with the one she had chosen as her own.
Aryan was well aware when Alden arrived, and it was to him he currently found himself headed. While he did not recognize the scent, it was easy enough to sense the presence of someone new on campus. His pace was brisk, and Helen was right behind him, as silent as ever. As it were, they arrived just in time to catch the end of Alden's scentence.
"So we were right, they are sending her after us. But does she have a particular target in mind?"
Zero sighed softly, leaning his head against his sister's as they sat, arms laced together. His breathing was stilled, shallow almost, however; he was completely content at the moment. Though, he wasn't entirely, he was still nonetheless happy. Their efforts in finding Yuki were intensified and they had spent no expense at finding her. He popped an eye open, glanced down at his sister, and ran his free hand through her hair. Her scent filled his senses, and he sighed. He was used to it by now. Being one of the first born, growing up around Ava, it instilled a sense of control in him. Though perhaps he wasn't as controlled as his father was.
His attention, however, was taken by the subtle growl of Kiba. Xenos lifted his large head, glancing at the newcomer, however; his tail wagged happily. "Then we have to prepare," he spoke, moving so that he unhooked himself from Leora's arm and stood. He straightened himself out so that he stood on par with his brother, staring at Alden as he shook some of the dirt from his clothes. "The twins are gone with Emrys, it'll be just a handful of us here," he spoke. If she was going to be here, then he had to prepare himself. He would finally be able to see her, though part of him was terrified.
His eyes drifted to the arrival of Aryan, his eyes narrowing slightly though they held no malice towards the younger von Nacht heir. "The target matters not. The only thing that does is that she will be here after someone. We cannot afford for any of us to stray too far from each other. Though, their intentions will probably be to separate us while she goes after her intended target," he spoke, his voice unusually calm.
Alden returned his brother’s scrutiny with a flat stare. He was a rather straightforward person, when he wasn’t busy being deceptive, and so his eyes flickered for a moment towards Aryan and Hel—he was careful not to do more than break the surface of that one’s mind. Some things could fuck you up just in the seeing, and he’d made the mistake of trying to read a bit deeper into hers once. It had given him a profound respect for the fact that the girl was even still capable of basic function, though she looked a bit worse for the wear now.
“Think about it, Ary. Helen’s informed you all that Freyr’s only intention is to hurt us, so he’ll aim her at what’s going to hurt the most.” His eyes slid back to Zero. “Namely, Rocchan here.” Like many little brothers, Alden exercised the right they all shared to give the older ones rather annoying nicknames. ‘Rocchan’ was derived from ‘Ro-chan,’ something he’d been calling his brother since he was old enough to speak. “There’s also less chance of her being incapacitated against someone who won’t fight back. She won’t be alone, but whomever they send with her will be just a distraction. I wouldn’t be surprised if the schemer himself decided to put in an appearance. Some people like pain.” He shrugged lazily, a gesture that made it seem almost as if he didn’t care much either way, though nothing could be further from the truth.
Over Alden’s shoulder, an enormous pair of eyes set into a fuzzy rodent’s face peered at them, and his familiar scrabbled up onto his shoulder. Alia was presently a bush-baby, though she was just as capable of being anything she wanted as he was. “And don’t forget the diversion,” she squeaked, and he sighed.
“I would have thought it was obvious, but yeah. That Level E attack was intended to draw away the more…ah… combatively-inclined half of the family.”
The pain was still there, in her head. And the voices. But there were no faces, not while she was waking. Her yellow eyes skimmed over the campus. There was a certain person she was looking for. The male with the sea foam eyes. He was her target. If anyone got in her way, she was to kill them. That was what weapons did. They killed. The wind tousled her hair, which was free of any restraints. That alone was enough to cause one to do a double-take.
She never wore her hair down. Oddly, she was also barefoot. Coupled with the light flames that were rising from her body, it gave her a wild, feral look. Suddenly, she picked up on his scent. He was with the younger von Nacht boy. How odd, she'd been told he didn't like fighting. No matter, it would make killing him all the more easier. Her eyes slid to the others with her for just a second, but she otherwise ignored them.
She had a job to do. The Katana at her back slid from its sheath with a metallic sound, and she began walking. At first, one could only see her eyes glowing in the darkness as she stepped out of the shadows, but Aryan had been able to feel her. Nothing hid in the shadows from him, save for perhaps Freyr and Emrys. But not her. Not his sister.
His purple eyes narrowed as she came into view. He'd never quite seen her like this, and his hands clenched at his sides, the shadows responding. He was only further angered by the grin that spread over her face as his shadows flared. It was her voice, but it wasn't her. Her voice was flat, monotone; the blade in her hand gleamed in the moonlight.
"You are not my target, Lord von Nacht. But I will kill you if you get in my way."
It was from the same shadows that Hel darted, her own odachi ringing free with a soft chime. She would not let her friend do this. She would not let her hurt the people she loved. The girl came in fast on Yuki’s left, but she was intercepted in turn, her blade clanging off a three-pointed spear. Freyr. He smiled at her, nothing in it resembling the one he’d used to wear, and his greater strength tossed her backwards. She landed lightly in a three-point crouch, her blade held out to the side, and in a rare display of emotion, her lip curled upward slightly, into the faintest of snarls.
“You will move, brother, or I will not hesitate.” He chuckled, low and dark, and stabbed for her again with the spear, driving her backwards another few steps and clear of the engagement between Yuki and the others.
“All you are is hesitation, Hel,” he said, only to be cut off by a pair of flying daggers. One actually managed to nick him in the cheek. Odd—he should have been gradually becoming imperceptible to anyone but her… ah. “The Spider,” he murmured, running a thumb along his cheekbone and examining the red liquid there as though he’d never seen it before. “And here I thought you never left the center of your web.”
“I don’t,” Alden replied bluntly. “It’s you who’s in the wrong place, pest.” He moved to stand beside Helen, who nodded to him slightly. Freyr was not a run-of-the-mill opponent, and it would take subtlety and power in equal measure to even have a hope against him.
Leora, meanwhile found herself as usual in the middle of a horde of hungry Level E’s. “It never fails,” she muttered dryly, though this time, she’d let her blood intentionally, to distract them from her family. This meant she got to deal with them all herself, but there were only about twenty—she could handle it. Settling back into a pugilist’s stance, she drew her fist back and slammed it into the nearest one, tearing its head from its shoulders with the force of the impact. “Not a snack, assholes,” she growled, launching herself at the next.
The day passed swiftly, and Zero found himself along with his family standing outside. His eyes sweeped the field, noting the Level E's assembling around, their eyes glowing like ravenous starved dogs. His lips pulled into a viscious snarl, revealing white fangs that glistened like the moon does in the middle of a winters night. He watched as the scent of Leora's blood beckoned the lower vampires towards her, and a flash of worry crossed his features. Leora could handle herself, but it was still dangerous to use such a notion to call attention towards herself. He merely kept his eyes glued to the battle field, trusting his sister knew what she was doing and allowed himself to charge into the fray.
He was, however, brought from it when he spotted someone. It was her. She stood a few feet away from Aryan, and he could hear her speaking. He couldn't make out the words over the loud snarls of the others, and his eyes momentarily fled towards Hel and Alden. It appeared that there was another on the field, however; the aura this one produced was different than the level E's, and Zero couldn't help the hairs along the back of his neck from standing. He couldn't understand why, but part of him pulled to attack this man, to harm and maim him for some crime he did not know he committed. Instead, Zero refocused back on her.
"Yuki," he murmured softly, as if her name was a delicate piece of glass already on the cusp of breaking that if he said it any louder, it would shatter completely. He ran towards Aryan, his speed a little slower than what he was trying to exert. It was as if a part of him was afraid to be near her, to go to her, to help her. But that is what he desired most. He wanted to help her, though he knew he wouldn't be able to. He was by Aryan's side in seconds, staring down at the woman he loved. "Yuki."
Aryan's lis pulled back in a silent snarl. He hated that title, even more so that she was the one who said it, however; Zero was at his side, speaking before he could. He said her name, and her yellow eyes swiveled to him. She raised the blade slightly. There was no recognition in her eyes.
"Yuki." He needed a reaction from her, anything. Something so that he knew his sister was still in there. The answer he got was one that gave him chills.
She raised the blade, leveling it with her face. "Do the Lords Kuragari and von Nacht deem fit to name me? I am not yours to name. I am a weapon, and therefore, I have no name. I have only one purpose, and that is to kill."
With the last word she spoke, she moved, nearly as fast as a Pure Blood, her katana leveling with Zero's throat. She had spoken truly, Aryan was not her target. Her target was the man in front of her.
Aryan's eyes widened, realizing that Zero wasn't moving. The idiot was just going to let her kill him. He didn't think, he just moved.
Self-sacrifice was not something Aryan would have ever guessed was in his nature. He had no love of battle, he wasn't good at it like his parents, his brother, his sister. His fight was on paper, in dark rooms. Not this, not out here. So when the blade connected with his forearm as he stood facing Zero, at first, he was confused. Blood ran down his arm, dripping onto the flagstones beneath his feet. Then it made sense, what he'd done. He'd saved his cousin.
While it was not a particularly alluring scent to her, there was something about his blood, something that drew her to it. That, and the fact that she hadn't fed in almost a month. She twined her fingers in his hair, wrenching it so that his neck was exposed to her, and with no ceremony, she sank her fangs into the skin. The von Nacht's eyes went wide, and the fight-or-flight response his body induced only made his blood run faster. If she could have, she would have smiled. The more he struggled, the faster he would be drained.
What little color that was in Aryan's face drained as soon as he felt his sister's mouth on his neck. That had been entirely unexpected, and his fingers were instantly at hers, trying to pry her off of him, however; he couldn't. What little struggle he'd been putting up was ceased when she brought the blade up to his throat, the cold steel bitting into his neck. His vision was already fading, the light leaving his eyes as she drained him.
She wasn't just feeding, she was devouring him. He didn't even realize when she'd released him. His body felt numb, an odd sense of warmth spreading through him, starting at his neck. He felt her lips move against his ear, but he couldn't make out the words, not yet. The blade was drawn across his throat, slicing it open. He didn't feel that either.
"Goodbye, Lord von Nacht." She told him, her tongue removing some of the excess blood on her lips. She watched silently as the man his the flagstones, what little blood he had left in his system leaking from the cut she'd made. Nothing flashed across her face, nor in her eyes, which were now glowing a deep crimson as she set her gaze on Zero once more.
A strange gasping noise came from Aryan. The only thing he could think was, I hate that title.
Even between the two of them, Freyr was not at much of a disadvantage. Really, they were saved by dent of Helen’s superior reflexes and Alden’s foreknowledge within his zone, neither of which got them past the Pantheon member in enough time to do anything to save Aryan from having himself nearly drained. Sometimes, being able to sense intent really fucking sucked. Though apparently not as much as Yuki did in this particular state. …His dark sense of humor was really getting away from him these days—he should probably work on that.
Ducking away from Freyr, he used himself to conceal a lunge by the much smaller Helen, and she succeeded in scoring a gash along her brother’s side, one that would have been a lot deeper had the lack of sleep and recent malnutrition she’d been undergoing not weakened and slowed her considerably. Nevertheless, he seemed to be inclined to leave now, and Alden felt the shift in his intentions and thoughts in time to stop Helen with an index finger to her shoulder. To her credit, it took no more than that. She was ruthless, but consummately rational, and she understood as well as he did that the real priority right now was saving his cousin.
Alden was not capable of that. Nor was Zero. Leora might have been, if she’d allowed him to take her blood, and he could hear the thought cross her mind. But that was far too risky—they didn’t need an addict on their hands. That left one option. He knew the girl did not like this ability of hers, as she had been conditioned to enjoy the taking of life at one point, and this fashion was the way in which she had most often done so. He hoped, or rather knew, that she would be willing to set that aside for the moment, however. If her general willingness to sacrifice anything for this family were not enough, her guilt at not being able to stop Yuki would drive her to it. Not the ideal motivations, but Alden didn’t have the luxury of being choosy. Ary’s life was on the line.
And help him Helen did, kneeling beside him and placing one hand over the slit in his throat—she was doing much better than he would be at exposure to so much blood—the von Nachts were pretty potent, if not in the same way as Leo or his mom, and he would not have had such an easy time of it, which explained why he was standing well back, his arms crossed, and watched Leo dispense with the last of the Level E’s as Freyr and Yuki disappeared. Not from his perception, at least not until they left his zone of influence, but from everyone else, anyway. The girl whispered something, and though he was not close enough to hear it, it did escape into the mental space between them.
All around her, the grass and trees began to drain of life, losing their autumn colors and fading until they were crinkled and brown, the trunks withering as she absorbed all the life that was to be taken from them. It was like watching time-lapse footage of the natural process of decay, until eventually the molecular bonds holding everything together just broke, and they were standing on a wide circle of barren soil. The energy seemed to light her skin from beneath, making her glow like some kind of fantastical spirit, or, thin and small as she was, perhaps a faerie. The wound she held to stem its bleeding closed, the flesh becoming smooth and whole once more, and the color returned in large part to his cousin’s skin, but the primary difficulty was blood loss, and she knew it as well as he did.
From his pocket, Alden removed a cherry-flavored hard candy, laying it against his tongue. It almost wasn’t enough to distract him from the smell that entered the area as she drew her own wakizashi up to her throat, laying it across the paper-thin flesh of her neck and collarbone and drawing it without hesitation, flaying open a portion of her marble-white skin and causing blood to well from the wound. Smart—he’d be far too weak to bite on his own, if he could even think straight enough to do it. She slid an arm underneath his back to help him reach the wound, and cradled his head with the other, so that all Aryan had to do was figure out how to drink.
Zero couldn't concentrate. His mind was drawing a blank at he stared at Yuki. She didn't recognize them, him, and it tore something in his chest. He wanted to go to her, to remind her somehow of who she was. That she was Yuki Alistair-von Nacht, that she wasn't a weapon. He wanted to remind her somehow, but he didn't know how. It wasn't long before he was able to command his body to move, however; by then it was far too late. She was behind him, cold steel pressed against his throat as his body tensed once more. His eyes faltered, the light dimming from them, and his body surrendered.
He couldn't. He told his aunt that he couldn't, wouldn't be able to harm Yuki. He wanted to save her, but he couldn't. Her words, they pierced him in ways that even the blades that could physically do him harm, were but the fleeting illusion, and the illusion itself was the reality. Then, he was there, the scent of his blood piercing the air as Yuki took Aryan. Zero's eyes widened at the display, watching as Yuki drained his cousin, and willing his body to move to help his cousin. But his body refused. It refused to work with him, refused to move, and so he stood, watching with eyes wide at the scene playing before him.
It was like a twisted play, and the scent of blood growing stronger as Aryan bled. His eyes met the vermilion stained irises of Yuki's, and he felt his breath hitch in his throat. This wasn't Yuki, this wasn't his cousin. This wasn't the woman he loved standing before them, and as he watched her disappear, he felt a little part of his heart breaking further. He glanced towards his brother, watching as Alden and Helen appeared. Immediately, she set to work on healing Aryan, and Zero could only ball his fists in anger. He was pathetic. So very pathetic that he couldn't even protect his own cousins. What use was he to the battlefield if he couldn't fight?
He was useless, and he knew it. He was so utterly pathetic and useless. And those were the only thoughts that rang through his mind. He failed to help Yuki, to help Aryan. He failed. He turned on his heel, leaving the area as he walked away. Aryan was close to deaths' door because of him, and Yuki was gone. All because he wasn't strong enough to protect his family. How could he ever face her again? How could he be the older brother, and fail to protect those who meant the most to him? He was pathetic, and everyone would know it.
He might have allowed the nostalgia to subsume him for a while, but unfortunately, there were more urgent matters to attend to. As it happened, his siblings were together at present, and though perhaps his first instinct might have been to seek out the von Nachts, he knew exactly how involved Zero was in this series of events, and so it was with he that starting made sense. There was very little Alden did not know about any of them—Leora had to have learned her ways from someone, after all, and it certainly had not been their parents.
With a slight sigh, Alden popped a piece of pocky into his mouth, letting half of it stick out haphazardly from between his lips and teeth. It was always a bit hard, hanging around Leo for any length of time, but that didn’t stop him from doing it. Sliding his hands into his pockets, Alden shuffled his way to where they were, which at present happened to be under a tree. They both leaned against it, Leo’s arms both wrapped around one of Zero’s, and she leaning into his side. It was a bit cute, actually, and if he hadn’t known the reason for it, he might have teased them both. He bit off the pocky as a way of announcing his presence, because his scent was still the same one he’d been using for his last assignment, and thus not familiar to either of them.
The noise made Leora glance up, but before she could say anything, Alden spoke. “You have twenty-four hours before Freyr deploys Yuki. Here.” He reached up with one hand, straightening his black-framed glasses on his face. Completely unnecessary, of course, but he liked them.
Kiba's ears pricked forward at the newcomer, a low growl leaving his throat as Yuki was mentioned. As usual for the familiar, he'd not left Zero's side since he'd woken up, even with the birth of Xenos. While his own master was missing, he would stay with the one she had chosen as her own.
Aryan was well aware when Alden arrived, and it was to him he currently found himself headed. While he did not recognize the scent, it was easy enough to sense the presence of someone new on campus. His pace was brisk, and Helen was right behind him, as silent as ever. As it were, they arrived just in time to catch the end of Alden's scentence.
"So we were right, they are sending her after us. But does she have a particular target in mind?"
Zero sighed softly, leaning his head against his sister's as they sat, arms laced together. His breathing was stilled, shallow almost, however; he was completely content at the moment. Though, he wasn't entirely, he was still nonetheless happy. Their efforts in finding Yuki were intensified and they had spent no expense at finding her. He popped an eye open, glanced down at his sister, and ran his free hand through her hair. Her scent filled his senses, and he sighed. He was used to it by now. Being one of the first born, growing up around Ava, it instilled a sense of control in him. Though perhaps he wasn't as controlled as his father was.
His attention, however, was taken by the subtle growl of Kiba. Xenos lifted his large head, glancing at the newcomer, however; his tail wagged happily. "Then we have to prepare," he spoke, moving so that he unhooked himself from Leora's arm and stood. He straightened himself out so that he stood on par with his brother, staring at Alden as he shook some of the dirt from his clothes. "The twins are gone with Emrys, it'll be just a handful of us here," he spoke. If she was going to be here, then he had to prepare himself. He would finally be able to see her, though part of him was terrified.
His eyes drifted to the arrival of Aryan, his eyes narrowing slightly though they held no malice towards the younger von Nacht heir. "The target matters not. The only thing that does is that she will be here after someone. We cannot afford for any of us to stray too far from each other. Though, their intentions will probably be to separate us while she goes after her intended target," he spoke, his voice unusually calm.
Alden returned his brother’s scrutiny with a flat stare. He was a rather straightforward person, when he wasn’t busy being deceptive, and so his eyes flickered for a moment towards Aryan and Hel—he was careful not to do more than break the surface of that one’s mind. Some things could fuck you up just in the seeing, and he’d made the mistake of trying to read a bit deeper into hers once. It had given him a profound respect for the fact that the girl was even still capable of basic function, though she looked a bit worse for the wear now.
“Think about it, Ary. Helen’s informed you all that Freyr’s only intention is to hurt us, so he’ll aim her at what’s going to hurt the most.” His eyes slid back to Zero. “Namely, Rocchan here.” Like many little brothers, Alden exercised the right they all shared to give the older ones rather annoying nicknames. ‘Rocchan’ was derived from ‘Ro-chan,’ something he’d been calling his brother since he was old enough to speak. “There’s also less chance of her being incapacitated against someone who won’t fight back. She won’t be alone, but whomever they send with her will be just a distraction. I wouldn’t be surprised if the schemer himself decided to put in an appearance. Some people like pain.” He shrugged lazily, a gesture that made it seem almost as if he didn’t care much either way, though nothing could be further from the truth.
Over Alden’s shoulder, an enormous pair of eyes set into a fuzzy rodent’s face peered at them, and his familiar scrabbled up onto his shoulder. Alia was presently a bush-baby, though she was just as capable of being anything she wanted as he was. “And don’t forget the diversion,” she squeaked, and he sighed.
“I would have thought it was obvious, but yeah. That Level E attack was intended to draw away the more…ah… combatively-inclined half of the family.”
The pain was still there, in her head. And the voices. But there were no faces, not while she was waking. Her yellow eyes skimmed over the campus. There was a certain person she was looking for. The male with the sea foam eyes. He was her target. If anyone got in her way, she was to kill them. That was what weapons did. They killed. The wind tousled her hair, which was free of any restraints. That alone was enough to cause one to do a double-take.
She never wore her hair down. Oddly, she was also barefoot. Coupled with the light flames that were rising from her body, it gave her a wild, feral look. Suddenly, she picked up on his scent. He was with the younger von Nacht boy. How odd, she'd been told he didn't like fighting. No matter, it would make killing him all the more easier. Her eyes slid to the others with her for just a second, but she otherwise ignored them.
She had a job to do. The Katana at her back slid from its sheath with a metallic sound, and she began walking. At first, one could only see her eyes glowing in the darkness as she stepped out of the shadows, but Aryan had been able to feel her. Nothing hid in the shadows from him, save for perhaps Freyr and Emrys. But not her. Not his sister.
His purple eyes narrowed as she came into view. He'd never quite seen her like this, and his hands clenched at his sides, the shadows responding. He was only further angered by the grin that spread over her face as his shadows flared. It was her voice, but it wasn't her. Her voice was flat, monotone; the blade in her hand gleamed in the moonlight.
"You are not my target, Lord von Nacht. But I will kill you if you get in my way."
It was from the same shadows that Hel darted, her own odachi ringing free with a soft chime. She would not let her friend do this. She would not let her hurt the people she loved. The girl came in fast on Yuki’s left, but she was intercepted in turn, her blade clanging off a three-pointed spear. Freyr. He smiled at her, nothing in it resembling the one he’d used to wear, and his greater strength tossed her backwards. She landed lightly in a three-point crouch, her blade held out to the side, and in a rare display of emotion, her lip curled upward slightly, into the faintest of snarls.
“You will move, brother, or I will not hesitate.” He chuckled, low and dark, and stabbed for her again with the spear, driving her backwards another few steps and clear of the engagement between Yuki and the others.
“All you are is hesitation, Hel,” he said, only to be cut off by a pair of flying daggers. One actually managed to nick him in the cheek. Odd—he should have been gradually becoming imperceptible to anyone but her… ah. “The Spider,” he murmured, running a thumb along his cheekbone and examining the red liquid there as though he’d never seen it before. “And here I thought you never left the center of your web.”
“I don’t,” Alden replied bluntly. “It’s you who’s in the wrong place, pest.” He moved to stand beside Helen, who nodded to him slightly. Freyr was not a run-of-the-mill opponent, and it would take subtlety and power in equal measure to even have a hope against him.
Leora, meanwhile found herself as usual in the middle of a horde of hungry Level E’s. “It never fails,” she muttered dryly, though this time, she’d let her blood intentionally, to distract them from her family. This meant she got to deal with them all herself, but there were only about twenty—she could handle it. Settling back into a pugilist’s stance, she drew her fist back and slammed it into the nearest one, tearing its head from its shoulders with the force of the impact. “Not a snack, assholes,” she growled, launching herself at the next.
The day passed swiftly, and Zero found himself along with his family standing outside. His eyes sweeped the field, noting the Level E's assembling around, their eyes glowing like ravenous starved dogs. His lips pulled into a viscious snarl, revealing white fangs that glistened like the moon does in the middle of a winters night. He watched as the scent of Leora's blood beckoned the lower vampires towards her, and a flash of worry crossed his features. Leora could handle herself, but it was still dangerous to use such a notion to call attention towards herself. He merely kept his eyes glued to the battle field, trusting his sister knew what she was doing and allowed himself to charge into the fray.
He was, however, brought from it when he spotted someone. It was her. She stood a few feet away from Aryan, and he could hear her speaking. He couldn't make out the words over the loud snarls of the others, and his eyes momentarily fled towards Hel and Alden. It appeared that there was another on the field, however; the aura this one produced was different than the level E's, and Zero couldn't help the hairs along the back of his neck from standing. He couldn't understand why, but part of him pulled to attack this man, to harm and maim him for some crime he did not know he committed. Instead, Zero refocused back on her.
"Yuki," he murmured softly, as if her name was a delicate piece of glass already on the cusp of breaking that if he said it any louder, it would shatter completely. He ran towards Aryan, his speed a little slower than what he was trying to exert. It was as if a part of him was afraid to be near her, to go to her, to help her. But that is what he desired most. He wanted to help her, though he knew he wouldn't be able to. He was by Aryan's side in seconds, staring down at the woman he loved. "Yuki."
Aryan's lis pulled back in a silent snarl. He hated that title, even more so that she was the one who said it, however; Zero was at his side, speaking before he could. He said her name, and her yellow eyes swiveled to him. She raised the blade slightly. There was no recognition in her eyes.
"Yuki." He needed a reaction from her, anything. Something so that he knew his sister was still in there. The answer he got was one that gave him chills.
She raised the blade, leveling it with her face. "Do the Lords Kuragari and von Nacht deem fit to name me? I am not yours to name. I am a weapon, and therefore, I have no name. I have only one purpose, and that is to kill."
With the last word she spoke, she moved, nearly as fast as a Pure Blood, her katana leveling with Zero's throat. She had spoken truly, Aryan was not her target. Her target was the man in front of her.
Aryan's eyes widened, realizing that Zero wasn't moving. The idiot was just going to let her kill him. He didn't think, he just moved.
Self-sacrifice was not something Aryan would have ever guessed was in his nature. He had no love of battle, he wasn't good at it like his parents, his brother, his sister. His fight was on paper, in dark rooms. Not this, not out here. So when the blade connected with his forearm as he stood facing Zero, at first, he was confused. Blood ran down his arm, dripping onto the flagstones beneath his feet. Then it made sense, what he'd done. He'd saved his cousin.
While it was not a particularly alluring scent to her, there was something about his blood, something that drew her to it. That, and the fact that she hadn't fed in almost a month. She twined her fingers in his hair, wrenching it so that his neck was exposed to her, and with no ceremony, she sank her fangs into the skin. The von Nacht's eyes went wide, and the fight-or-flight response his body induced only made his blood run faster. If she could have, she would have smiled. The more he struggled, the faster he would be drained.
What little color that was in Aryan's face drained as soon as he felt his sister's mouth on his neck. That had been entirely unexpected, and his fingers were instantly at hers, trying to pry her off of him, however; he couldn't. What little struggle he'd been putting up was ceased when she brought the blade up to his throat, the cold steel bitting into his neck. His vision was already fading, the light leaving his eyes as she drained him.
She wasn't just feeding, she was devouring him. He didn't even realize when she'd released him. His body felt numb, an odd sense of warmth spreading through him, starting at his neck. He felt her lips move against his ear, but he couldn't make out the words, not yet. The blade was drawn across his throat, slicing it open. He didn't feel that either.
"Goodbye, Lord von Nacht." She told him, her tongue removing some of the excess blood on her lips. She watched silently as the man his the flagstones, what little blood he had left in his system leaking from the cut she'd made. Nothing flashed across her face, nor in her eyes, which were now glowing a deep crimson as she set her gaze on Zero once more.
A strange gasping noise came from Aryan. The only thing he could think was, I hate that title.
Even between the two of them, Freyr was not at much of a disadvantage. Really, they were saved by dent of Helen’s superior reflexes and Alden’s foreknowledge within his zone, neither of which got them past the Pantheon member in enough time to do anything to save Aryan from having himself nearly drained. Sometimes, being able to sense intent really fucking sucked. Though apparently not as much as Yuki did in this particular state. …His dark sense of humor was really getting away from him these days—he should probably work on that.
Ducking away from Freyr, he used himself to conceal a lunge by the much smaller Helen, and she succeeded in scoring a gash along her brother’s side, one that would have been a lot deeper had the lack of sleep and recent malnutrition she’d been undergoing not weakened and slowed her considerably. Nevertheless, he seemed to be inclined to leave now, and Alden felt the shift in his intentions and thoughts in time to stop Helen with an index finger to her shoulder. To her credit, it took no more than that. She was ruthless, but consummately rational, and she understood as well as he did that the real priority right now was saving his cousin.
Alden was not capable of that. Nor was Zero. Leora might have been, if she’d allowed him to take her blood, and he could hear the thought cross her mind. But that was far too risky—they didn’t need an addict on their hands. That left one option. He knew the girl did not like this ability of hers, as she had been conditioned to enjoy the taking of life at one point, and this fashion was the way in which she had most often done so. He hoped, or rather knew, that she would be willing to set that aside for the moment, however. If her general willingness to sacrifice anything for this family were not enough, her guilt at not being able to stop Yuki would drive her to it. Not the ideal motivations, but Alden didn’t have the luxury of being choosy. Ary’s life was on the line.
And help him Helen did, kneeling beside him and placing one hand over the slit in his throat—she was doing much better than he would be at exposure to so much blood—the von Nachts were pretty potent, if not in the same way as Leo or his mom, and he would not have had such an easy time of it, which explained why he was standing well back, his arms crossed, and watched Leo dispense with the last of the Level E’s as Freyr and Yuki disappeared. Not from his perception, at least not until they left his zone of influence, but from everyone else, anyway. The girl whispered something, and though he was not close enough to hear it, it did escape into the mental space between them.
“I won’t let you die…”
All around her, the grass and trees began to drain of life, losing their autumn colors and fading until they were crinkled and brown, the trunks withering as she absorbed all the life that was to be taken from them. It was like watching time-lapse footage of the natural process of decay, until eventually the molecular bonds holding everything together just broke, and they were standing on a wide circle of barren soil. The energy seemed to light her skin from beneath, making her glow like some kind of fantastical spirit, or, thin and small as she was, perhaps a faerie. The wound she held to stem its bleeding closed, the flesh becoming smooth and whole once more, and the color returned in large part to his cousin’s skin, but the primary difficulty was blood loss, and she knew it as well as he did.
From his pocket, Alden removed a cherry-flavored hard candy, laying it against his tongue. It almost wasn’t enough to distract him from the smell that entered the area as she drew her own wakizashi up to her throat, laying it across the paper-thin flesh of her neck and collarbone and drawing it without hesitation, flaying open a portion of her marble-white skin and causing blood to well from the wound. Smart—he’d be far too weak to bite on his own, if he could even think straight enough to do it. She slid an arm underneath his back to help him reach the wound, and cradled his head with the other, so that all Aryan had to do was figure out how to drink.
Zero couldn't concentrate. His mind was drawing a blank at he stared at Yuki. She didn't recognize them, him, and it tore something in his chest. He wanted to go to her, to remind her somehow of who she was. That she was Yuki Alistair-von Nacht, that she wasn't a weapon. He wanted to remind her somehow, but he didn't know how. It wasn't long before he was able to command his body to move, however; by then it was far too late. She was behind him, cold steel pressed against his throat as his body tensed once more. His eyes faltered, the light dimming from them, and his body surrendered.
He couldn't. He told his aunt that he couldn't, wouldn't be able to harm Yuki. He wanted to save her, but he couldn't. Her words, they pierced him in ways that even the blades that could physically do him harm, were but the fleeting illusion, and the illusion itself was the reality. Then, he was there, the scent of his blood piercing the air as Yuki took Aryan. Zero's eyes widened at the display, watching as Yuki drained his cousin, and willing his body to move to help his cousin. But his body refused. It refused to work with him, refused to move, and so he stood, watching with eyes wide at the scene playing before him.
It was like a twisted play, and the scent of blood growing stronger as Aryan bled. His eyes met the vermilion stained irises of Yuki's, and he felt his breath hitch in his throat. This wasn't Yuki, this wasn't his cousin. This wasn't the woman he loved standing before them, and as he watched her disappear, he felt a little part of his heart breaking further. He glanced towards his brother, watching as Alden and Helen appeared. Immediately, she set to work on healing Aryan, and Zero could only ball his fists in anger. He was pathetic. So very pathetic that he couldn't even protect his own cousins. What use was he to the battlefield if he couldn't fight?
He was useless, and he knew it. He was so utterly pathetic and useless. And those were the only thoughts that rang through his mind. He failed to help Yuki, to help Aryan. He failed. He turned on his heel, leaving the area as he walked away. Aryan was close to deaths' door because of him, and Yuki was gone. All because he wasn't strong enough to protect his family. How could he ever face her again? How could he be the older brother, and fail to protect those who meant the most to him? He was pathetic, and everyone would know it.
It had been a day since the five of them returned from the skirmish, covered in blood but otherwise fine, only to find that the real fight had been the one pitched here. Aryan still had not woken, though Helen assured the rest of them that he simply needed time to recover. She, too, looked worse than they’d left her, and he’d caught her downing no less than four blood pills at once. That hadn’t made a lot of sense until Alden explained what she’d done. He owed her his thanks, but her discomfort around him had only increased in recent weeks and he didn’t want to trouble her unless he had to. He should probably write a note, or tell her through Sven.
For now, he steered clear of the infirmary, where she tended his younger brother. It upset him that he’d been gone when Yuki had reappeared, and unable to help his sister. It seemed, though, that even being on the scene would not have changed much, as perhaps the only ones that would have been capable of attacking Yuki had been waylaid by Freyr—probably quite an intentional move on his part. Still… he should have been there, to protect his brother if nothing else.
It seemed his life was swiftly beginning to compose itself of things he should have done, or should have known, but did not. For someone who was used to succeeding with a fair amount of ease at whatever he put his hand to, it was especially discouraging. Though he did not make it obvious, Balthasar had rarely ever had to struggle with anything. He was simply a natural hand at the things he was taught. In a sense, he’d never learned how to fail, and it was proving to be a problem now. What did one do, when one ran into an obstacle that simply could not be moved? How was he supposed to forgive himself for failing them? Would they forgive him? That mattered more than anything.
He sighed softly, turning his head to look out over the water. Deep within the forest on the grounds of Cross, there was actually a small lake, surrounded by a copse of trees. Hardly anyone ever bothered to come this far out, and he had some time ago designated it as his sanctuary, the place he went when he needed to be away from everything else. To hide, maybe, but at least to slow down for a little while. It was exhausting, sometimes, trying to keep up with the expectations, or his whole family. He felt a bit like an old man before his time, unable to sustain the extended vibrancy and vivacity of the others. He supposed there might be a few who could relate, but though he was very good at listening, Balthasar sometimes had trouble sharing his own burdens. He only really knew how to shoulder them, not share them.
So instead, he took a moment every once in a while to rest, before he picked them back up again, and he did that here, laying on his back in the grass, looking out over the water and smiling to himself at the little microcosm of life that existed here. Fish, insects, birds, frogs, and the occasional lizard. He propped one of his arms on his elbow, holding an index finger crooked for a little hummingbird, which landed without a care on the extended digit. It reminded him a little of Winston, his aunt Ava’s familiar, its jeweled feathers shimmering brightly in the stippled sunlight that the autumn leaves allowed through.
When they returned to the Academy, it was to find Aryan in the infirmary, and Helen reassuring them that he would be fine. They returned to find that another battle had taken place here, and it caused Alarica's blood to boil. She shouldn't have left. She should have let her brothers handle the Level E's, but her anger, her desire to maim something, had over come her sense of judgement. And it was a mistake she didn't want to make again. She had visited Aryan's room perhaps the most out of her family, checking in on him when she could and spending the rest of her time training. Which is what she was currently going to do. Ulrik at her back, Angelus on her shoulder, she had left down an old beaten path.
She had discovered the area by accident really, and had she known who else would have been there, she might have relaxed her tension a bit. But as it were, she was still angry. She was angry at herself for not being there when Yuki returned, angry at herself when she found out who exactly Elizabeth was, and angry at herself because she could have done something to prevent it. Though it was a different story with Yuki, she could have at least prevented Elizabeth from becoming too close to Balthasar, and she still blamed herself for that. She released a frustrated sigh as she shifted slightly, moving so that she ducked underneath a fallen tree branch until she came upon the site of where she did some of her training.
She blinked slowly, her eyes fixed upon the form of Balthasar who was gazing out over the lake. She took a deep breath and walked over towards him, Angelus jumping from her shoulder into the nearby tree, as she placed Ulrik against the trunk of another. "You're just like aunt Ava, always attracting things," she spoke, a light hint of amusement laced in her voice as she took a seat next to him. Though that statement could be taken out of context, a part of her hoped he wouldn't. She meant it out of lightheartedness. Balthasar had experienced too much for her to mean it otherwise. She didn't want to hurt him more than she already had.
"It's nice to see you smiling again," she stated offhandedly. He hadn't smiled since a few weeks ago, and she missed it. Though she would always see it from afar, the last few weeks had wiped it from him.
He’d sensed her approach, because he was unable to do otherwise. Nobody else smelled like apples and cinnamon, at least not to his knowledge. He’d certainly never run into it in another person, and something about it suited her. The hummingbird took off at the sound of another’s footsteps, though not before hovering in front of his nose for a few seconds, then zipping off to wheel a pair of circles around Alarica’s snow-colored crown before leaving the clearing. “I’m not sure why,” he admitted a touch wryly, completely missing any implications but the obvious ones. “I don’t smell half as nice as she does, and I’m a horrible baker, besides.” Well, horrible was a bit of an overstatement. He could make simple things, both sweets and otherwise, but he tended to stay away from the complicated dishes, since there were so many experts in the family. He subsisted mostly on blood tablets, anyway.
He hadn’t noticed he’d been smiling actually, though it widened a little at the observation. “Maybe I shouldn’t be, but… there’s something about this place. It sets me at ease, I suppose. It’s like… for all the troubles we endure, life somewhere goes on, and it’s no so bad.” Not when the birds still sang and the fish still swam, anyway. It was something very simple, but he took great comfort from it. Moving slowly up into a cross-legged seated position, he shook his head, mussing it with his fingers to dislodge any stray bits of grass or leaves.
“That sounds… kind of stupid, now that I say it out loud.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was really doomed to be the one forever without the right words, wasn’t he? Sure, not everyone was Aryan or Alden, but when even Zero was more eloquent than you… you weren’t doing too well, honestly.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her cousin. "There is nothing wrong with that. I'd give anything to feel like that," she stated, plucking a leaf out of his hair as he tried to dislodge the rest. Which was true. She would give anything to have that sense of mind, to find a moment's peace in all the fighting they were doing. But then again, she really wouldn't know what to do with herself if there was nothing to fight. They all grew up in the war, though silently quelled for the time being, and it was something she had only known. To be able to feel peace somewhere in a time of endless death and war, was something she envied about him right now.
"A moment's peace in a time of war is still something you should cherish. It's not often we get to have times like these, and be able to enjoy them. Maybe you're right, maybe we shouldn't be smiling during such a time, but," she paused, a frown marring her face lightly. Perhaps he was right. Smiling, laughing, these were all things best done with the family, however; their family was short a member. "Everyone deserves to smile, even in such times. If we didn't, then that means that they've won. That they managed to take away the only thing we could possibly ever have; our smiles," she continued as she sighed. She was always like this, stumbling over her words as she tried to talk to her cousin.
It probably made little sense to him, but then again, it made little sense to her. She let out a frustrated groan as she fell on her back, eyes staring up at the sky in the process. "I don't think it's ever been that bad. As long as I have you...all," she corrected herself as she realized what she was about to say. "I don't think life could ever be bad. As long as we face the hardships together, then nothing could ever be bad," she continued before releasing a small sigh. "Now I feel stupid saying that out loud," she scoffed a bit, a small smile covering her lips.
“But now you’re smiling, too,” he pointed out, his own reaching his eyes, which seemed somehow bluer in the light. “If it makes you smile, then it’s worth saying, I think.” It was true—she did not often wear a genuine smile. She had a mischievous smirk, certainly, one she usually wore when engaging in shenanigans with her brother (or brothers—all three of them scheming together was rarely good news for anyone else), but that was different. War had made them all harder, flintier people, to an extent, but sometimes, he wondered if it might not have changed her most of all. He still remembered what she’d been like as a child, after all, before it had really reached her the way it did now. He felt a little sad for that, but it was hard for him to resent it, not when the person she was was someone he cared about so much.
“I understand,” he said with a nod, his expression softening. Though her sentences may have been a little jumbled up, he could tell what she was trying to get at with them, and he agreed. They did all deserve to smile, and part of growing up as they had was learning to do so, even when circumstances were averse. He worried for his brother, yes, and his sister even more-so, but Ary would get better, and they would get Yuki back. It was all simply a matter of time. He had faith enough in his family to believe that.
“It’s not so hard, you know,” he said, referring to finding the little moments of peace. “You just have to open your eyes and really look at things. Like…” he trailed off for a moment, then stood, thoughtlessly reaching for her hand and pulling her along with him, until they both stood at the edge of the pond, a short distance away from what was apparently a nest of duck eggs. “In a few weeks, those will be baby ducks. Isn't there something a little bit amazing about that? How something so fragile can become something so alive?” He sighed, not sure if that really translated, but he thought it miraculous all the same.
“And a tiny little seed can become a whole tree! An apple tree, if you like. I guess I just… I have to care about ducks and trees and people because… because there has to be a reason, you know? A reason why everything we do is worth it, but also a reason why, even when I get it wrong… I can still bring myself to try again.” The smile disappeared, replaced with the broken expression it had been trying to repair, and he sighed softly. “And I’ve been getting a lot of it wrong, lately.”
"Well would you look at that, I am smiling," she chided back, though it only caused her smile to turn brighter. It, however, disappeared from her face the moment his hand grabbed hers, and she had to fight the sudden fast paced drum of her heart and the heat rising to her face. She tried to focus on what he was saying, however; the only thing she could focus on was how his hand still held hers. She was able to focus though when he began speaking of the unhatched eggs, how it was miraculous that they could be so fragile, and yet turn into something so alive. Perhaps it was. She just had to see it. The frown appeared once more as she thought about it. She would have to see it. Was she even capable of seeing such things?
"Because there is always a reason. If we didn't keep trying, how can we ever achieve the things we have today? How can we ever hope to protect those we care about if we didn't keep trying? How does a bird learn to fly if it doesn't keep trying to leave the nest? How does a newborn foal not know how to stand, run, walk, minutes after it is born if it doesn't keep on trying? It is a base desire in all of us to just keep trying, reason or not," she finally found her voice, the warmth of his hand slowly becoming a bit cold. She watched as the smile disappeared from his face, replaced with something that pulled at her heart. She didn't like seeing him like this. She really didn't, and it was killing her more-so to see him like this than it did to ignore him.
She placed her free hand upon his cheek, touching it softly as she stared at him. "Not everyone can get it right all the time, Balthasar. We all screw up from time to time, but that just means we have to try harder," she stated, her lips pursed into a thin line. "You can't keep blaming yourself for things that happen. We cannot be in control all of the time, and things will always slip through us, but...like you said. All you can do is keep trying. There will come a day when you finally get it right, and until you do, I'll be here for you," she concluded, truth shining behind her eyes as she spoke those words. She wouldn't avoid him like she had, instead, she'd remain by his side so long as he wanted her to. She would be there for him, to help him along the way until the day came where he finally got it right.
She was right—he knew she was. And yet… forgiving himself had always been the hardest of tasks for Balthasar. Forgiving other people was easy—he could even forgive someone like Elizabeth, even after how badly she’d hurt him. But forgiving himself for being deceived, for letting Yuki be taken right from under his nose, for not being there to protect Aryan when he needed it most… these things rankled him like little else. It was so difficult, because he should have been capable of seeing and doing all of these things. He was capable—he just hadn’t lived up to his capability. And that hurt more than simply trying and failing ever would.
He let his eyes close, leaning for a moment into her hand. Cracking them open again, he gave her a melancholy smile, the best one he had for the moment. “You know, for a long time, I wondered what I’d done wrong to make you so upset with me. Now I wonder what I could possibly have done right to deserve your help.” His cousin had grown into a truly extraordinary person. They all had, but something about Rica was a little different. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but maybe it was just that honesty she had about her, the complete and utter frankness by which she lived. He would have expected someone like that to disdain him, who always searched for the right thing to say and so often came up short.
He moved a step closer, so that he could put his arms around her shoulders and deliver a companionable hug, enveloping her in what warmth he had to offer, which was, temperature-wise, quite a lot. His pyrokinetic talents meant that he ran a bit hotter than the average person, which was somewhat the opposite of the way she was a bit cooler to the touch than most. “Thanks, Rica,” he said, pulling back and laying a hand atop her crown. “I think we should go check on Ary now, how about you?”
She shook her head a bit. She wouldn't tell him why she avoided him. She couldn't. Perhaps one day she would, but for now, she would keep that to herself. She did, however, allow a light smirk to pull at the corner of her lips as he continued to speak. He didn't have to do anything right to have her by his side, for her to be there for him. All he had to do was remain the same. To remain Balthasar, and she would always be there regardless. She was slightly startled though, when his arms enveloped her in an embrace. If he could have, Angelus would have laughed himself out of the tree at the red color his master's face sported. Luckily for her, she was able to contain it when he pulled back.
"You're welcome," she muttered beneath her breath before she turned to face him again. "I think that would be best," she responded, the smile returning to her face, though a light pink still dusted her cheeks as she grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers with his. "Ary might be awake now, it would be nice to see if he's recovered," she spoke, trying to ignore the fluttering beat of her heart as it thrummed a bit faster beneath her rib-cage.
For now, he steered clear of the infirmary, where she tended his younger brother. It upset him that he’d been gone when Yuki had reappeared, and unable to help his sister. It seemed, though, that even being on the scene would not have changed much, as perhaps the only ones that would have been capable of attacking Yuki had been waylaid by Freyr—probably quite an intentional move on his part. Still… he should have been there, to protect his brother if nothing else.
It seemed his life was swiftly beginning to compose itself of things he should have done, or should have known, but did not. For someone who was used to succeeding with a fair amount of ease at whatever he put his hand to, it was especially discouraging. Though he did not make it obvious, Balthasar had rarely ever had to struggle with anything. He was simply a natural hand at the things he was taught. In a sense, he’d never learned how to fail, and it was proving to be a problem now. What did one do, when one ran into an obstacle that simply could not be moved? How was he supposed to forgive himself for failing them? Would they forgive him? That mattered more than anything.
He sighed softly, turning his head to look out over the water. Deep within the forest on the grounds of Cross, there was actually a small lake, surrounded by a copse of trees. Hardly anyone ever bothered to come this far out, and he had some time ago designated it as his sanctuary, the place he went when he needed to be away from everything else. To hide, maybe, but at least to slow down for a little while. It was exhausting, sometimes, trying to keep up with the expectations, or his whole family. He felt a bit like an old man before his time, unable to sustain the extended vibrancy and vivacity of the others. He supposed there might be a few who could relate, but though he was very good at listening, Balthasar sometimes had trouble sharing his own burdens. He only really knew how to shoulder them, not share them.
So instead, he took a moment every once in a while to rest, before he picked them back up again, and he did that here, laying on his back in the grass, looking out over the water and smiling to himself at the little microcosm of life that existed here. Fish, insects, birds, frogs, and the occasional lizard. He propped one of his arms on his elbow, holding an index finger crooked for a little hummingbird, which landed without a care on the extended digit. It reminded him a little of Winston, his aunt Ava’s familiar, its jeweled feathers shimmering brightly in the stippled sunlight that the autumn leaves allowed through.
When they returned to the Academy, it was to find Aryan in the infirmary, and Helen reassuring them that he would be fine. They returned to find that another battle had taken place here, and it caused Alarica's blood to boil. She shouldn't have left. She should have let her brothers handle the Level E's, but her anger, her desire to maim something, had over come her sense of judgement. And it was a mistake she didn't want to make again. She had visited Aryan's room perhaps the most out of her family, checking in on him when she could and spending the rest of her time training. Which is what she was currently going to do. Ulrik at her back, Angelus on her shoulder, she had left down an old beaten path.
She had discovered the area by accident really, and had she known who else would have been there, she might have relaxed her tension a bit. But as it were, she was still angry. She was angry at herself for not being there when Yuki returned, angry at herself when she found out who exactly Elizabeth was, and angry at herself because she could have done something to prevent it. Though it was a different story with Yuki, she could have at least prevented Elizabeth from becoming too close to Balthasar, and she still blamed herself for that. She released a frustrated sigh as she shifted slightly, moving so that she ducked underneath a fallen tree branch until she came upon the site of where she did some of her training.
She blinked slowly, her eyes fixed upon the form of Balthasar who was gazing out over the lake. She took a deep breath and walked over towards him, Angelus jumping from her shoulder into the nearby tree, as she placed Ulrik against the trunk of another. "You're just like aunt Ava, always attracting things," she spoke, a light hint of amusement laced in her voice as she took a seat next to him. Though that statement could be taken out of context, a part of her hoped he wouldn't. She meant it out of lightheartedness. Balthasar had experienced too much for her to mean it otherwise. She didn't want to hurt him more than she already had.
"It's nice to see you smiling again," she stated offhandedly. He hadn't smiled since a few weeks ago, and she missed it. Though she would always see it from afar, the last few weeks had wiped it from him.
He’d sensed her approach, because he was unable to do otherwise. Nobody else smelled like apples and cinnamon, at least not to his knowledge. He’d certainly never run into it in another person, and something about it suited her. The hummingbird took off at the sound of another’s footsteps, though not before hovering in front of his nose for a few seconds, then zipping off to wheel a pair of circles around Alarica’s snow-colored crown before leaving the clearing. “I’m not sure why,” he admitted a touch wryly, completely missing any implications but the obvious ones. “I don’t smell half as nice as she does, and I’m a horrible baker, besides.” Well, horrible was a bit of an overstatement. He could make simple things, both sweets and otherwise, but he tended to stay away from the complicated dishes, since there were so many experts in the family. He subsisted mostly on blood tablets, anyway.
He hadn’t noticed he’d been smiling actually, though it widened a little at the observation. “Maybe I shouldn’t be, but… there’s something about this place. It sets me at ease, I suppose. It’s like… for all the troubles we endure, life somewhere goes on, and it’s no so bad.” Not when the birds still sang and the fish still swam, anyway. It was something very simple, but he took great comfort from it. Moving slowly up into a cross-legged seated position, he shook his head, mussing it with his fingers to dislodge any stray bits of grass or leaves.
“That sounds… kind of stupid, now that I say it out loud.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was really doomed to be the one forever without the right words, wasn’t he? Sure, not everyone was Aryan or Alden, but when even Zero was more eloquent than you… you weren’t doing too well, honestly.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her cousin. "There is nothing wrong with that. I'd give anything to feel like that," she stated, plucking a leaf out of his hair as he tried to dislodge the rest. Which was true. She would give anything to have that sense of mind, to find a moment's peace in all the fighting they were doing. But then again, she really wouldn't know what to do with herself if there was nothing to fight. They all grew up in the war, though silently quelled for the time being, and it was something she had only known. To be able to feel peace somewhere in a time of endless death and war, was something she envied about him right now.
"A moment's peace in a time of war is still something you should cherish. It's not often we get to have times like these, and be able to enjoy them. Maybe you're right, maybe we shouldn't be smiling during such a time, but," she paused, a frown marring her face lightly. Perhaps he was right. Smiling, laughing, these were all things best done with the family, however; their family was short a member. "Everyone deserves to smile, even in such times. If we didn't, then that means that they've won. That they managed to take away the only thing we could possibly ever have; our smiles," she continued as she sighed. She was always like this, stumbling over her words as she tried to talk to her cousin.
It probably made little sense to him, but then again, it made little sense to her. She let out a frustrated groan as she fell on her back, eyes staring up at the sky in the process. "I don't think it's ever been that bad. As long as I have you...all," she corrected herself as she realized what she was about to say. "I don't think life could ever be bad. As long as we face the hardships together, then nothing could ever be bad," she continued before releasing a small sigh. "Now I feel stupid saying that out loud," she scoffed a bit, a small smile covering her lips.
“But now you’re smiling, too,” he pointed out, his own reaching his eyes, which seemed somehow bluer in the light. “If it makes you smile, then it’s worth saying, I think.” It was true—she did not often wear a genuine smile. She had a mischievous smirk, certainly, one she usually wore when engaging in shenanigans with her brother (or brothers—all three of them scheming together was rarely good news for anyone else), but that was different. War had made them all harder, flintier people, to an extent, but sometimes, he wondered if it might not have changed her most of all. He still remembered what she’d been like as a child, after all, before it had really reached her the way it did now. He felt a little sad for that, but it was hard for him to resent it, not when the person she was was someone he cared about so much.
“I understand,” he said with a nod, his expression softening. Though her sentences may have been a little jumbled up, he could tell what she was trying to get at with them, and he agreed. They did all deserve to smile, and part of growing up as they had was learning to do so, even when circumstances were averse. He worried for his brother, yes, and his sister even more-so, but Ary would get better, and they would get Yuki back. It was all simply a matter of time. He had faith enough in his family to believe that.
“It’s not so hard, you know,” he said, referring to finding the little moments of peace. “You just have to open your eyes and really look at things. Like…” he trailed off for a moment, then stood, thoughtlessly reaching for her hand and pulling her along with him, until they both stood at the edge of the pond, a short distance away from what was apparently a nest of duck eggs. “In a few weeks, those will be baby ducks. Isn't there something a little bit amazing about that? How something so fragile can become something so alive?” He sighed, not sure if that really translated, but he thought it miraculous all the same.
“And a tiny little seed can become a whole tree! An apple tree, if you like. I guess I just… I have to care about ducks and trees and people because… because there has to be a reason, you know? A reason why everything we do is worth it, but also a reason why, even when I get it wrong… I can still bring myself to try again.” The smile disappeared, replaced with the broken expression it had been trying to repair, and he sighed softly. “And I’ve been getting a lot of it wrong, lately.”
"Well would you look at that, I am smiling," she chided back, though it only caused her smile to turn brighter. It, however, disappeared from her face the moment his hand grabbed hers, and she had to fight the sudden fast paced drum of her heart and the heat rising to her face. She tried to focus on what he was saying, however; the only thing she could focus on was how his hand still held hers. She was able to focus though when he began speaking of the unhatched eggs, how it was miraculous that they could be so fragile, and yet turn into something so alive. Perhaps it was. She just had to see it. The frown appeared once more as she thought about it. She would have to see it. Was she even capable of seeing such things?
"Because there is always a reason. If we didn't keep trying, how can we ever achieve the things we have today? How can we ever hope to protect those we care about if we didn't keep trying? How does a bird learn to fly if it doesn't keep trying to leave the nest? How does a newborn foal not know how to stand, run, walk, minutes after it is born if it doesn't keep on trying? It is a base desire in all of us to just keep trying, reason or not," she finally found her voice, the warmth of his hand slowly becoming a bit cold. She watched as the smile disappeared from his face, replaced with something that pulled at her heart. She didn't like seeing him like this. She really didn't, and it was killing her more-so to see him like this than it did to ignore him.
She placed her free hand upon his cheek, touching it softly as she stared at him. "Not everyone can get it right all the time, Balthasar. We all screw up from time to time, but that just means we have to try harder," she stated, her lips pursed into a thin line. "You can't keep blaming yourself for things that happen. We cannot be in control all of the time, and things will always slip through us, but...like you said. All you can do is keep trying. There will come a day when you finally get it right, and until you do, I'll be here for you," she concluded, truth shining behind her eyes as she spoke those words. She wouldn't avoid him like she had, instead, she'd remain by his side so long as he wanted her to. She would be there for him, to help him along the way until the day came where he finally got it right.
She was right—he knew she was. And yet… forgiving himself had always been the hardest of tasks for Balthasar. Forgiving other people was easy—he could even forgive someone like Elizabeth, even after how badly she’d hurt him. But forgiving himself for being deceived, for letting Yuki be taken right from under his nose, for not being there to protect Aryan when he needed it most… these things rankled him like little else. It was so difficult, because he should have been capable of seeing and doing all of these things. He was capable—he just hadn’t lived up to his capability. And that hurt more than simply trying and failing ever would.
He let his eyes close, leaning for a moment into her hand. Cracking them open again, he gave her a melancholy smile, the best one he had for the moment. “You know, for a long time, I wondered what I’d done wrong to make you so upset with me. Now I wonder what I could possibly have done right to deserve your help.” His cousin had grown into a truly extraordinary person. They all had, but something about Rica was a little different. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but maybe it was just that honesty she had about her, the complete and utter frankness by which she lived. He would have expected someone like that to disdain him, who always searched for the right thing to say and so often came up short.
He moved a step closer, so that he could put his arms around her shoulders and deliver a companionable hug, enveloping her in what warmth he had to offer, which was, temperature-wise, quite a lot. His pyrokinetic talents meant that he ran a bit hotter than the average person, which was somewhat the opposite of the way she was a bit cooler to the touch than most. “Thanks, Rica,” he said, pulling back and laying a hand atop her crown. “I think we should go check on Ary now, how about you?”
She shook her head a bit. She wouldn't tell him why she avoided him. She couldn't. Perhaps one day she would, but for now, she would keep that to herself. She did, however, allow a light smirk to pull at the corner of her lips as he continued to speak. He didn't have to do anything right to have her by his side, for her to be there for him. All he had to do was remain the same. To remain Balthasar, and she would always be there regardless. She was slightly startled though, when his arms enveloped her in an embrace. If he could have, Angelus would have laughed himself out of the tree at the red color his master's face sported. Luckily for her, she was able to contain it when he pulled back.
"You're welcome," she muttered beneath her breath before she turned to face him again. "I think that would be best," she responded, the smile returning to her face, though a light pink still dusted her cheeks as she grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers with his. "Ary might be awake now, it would be nice to see if he's recovered," she spoke, trying to ignore the fluttering beat of her heart as it thrummed a bit faster beneath her rib-cage.
Over the next few days, Aryan would drift in and out of conciousness, but he was never really there. He would open his eyes, but he didn't respond. His mind was elsewhere, somewhere dark. He was always alone, his neck feeling like it was on fire, and no matter what he did, he could never soothe it, or figure out where he was. There were voices, memories, pain.
There was always one person he could see, but just barely. A woman with long white hair. His sister. She was standing with her back to him, and he would try to go to her, to make sure she was okay. But every time he tried to reach her, she would vanish, reappearing behind him. He would look at her, only to see that it wasn't her. Not Yuki. It didn't matter how much she looked like her, it wasn't Yuki.
Aryan's eyes opened slowly, not comprehending where he was for a second, the ceiling unfamiliar, scents of bleach and steril solution, mixed with the scents of his family flooding his senses. He was in the infirmary. He shifted his eyes downward, something golden on his chest catching his eye. It was Medusa, and the snake lifted her head as she felt her master move, her tongue flicking out silently.
"Massster." She hissed.
Aryan stroked her head lightly, not saying anything. There was little to say, really. He could vaugely remember Yuki devouring him, but he remembered little else. He could only surmise that Helen had saved him, it was the only way he would still be alive, honestly. He shifted his head to right, catching sight of Zero. The Kuragari was asleep.
"He'sss been keeping an eye on you when your mother wasss gone." The familiar said softly.
Zero stirred, his chest rising slowly. His face contorted into one of pain, but there was no physical pain to be had. His dreams, they all drifted to a woman, her hair long, white as snow, and her eyes. It was her eyes that always stilled his breath, caused him to feel as if he couldn't breathe, that he was suffocating. His heart felt that it was pulling from his arteries, trying to burst from his chest and just bleed for her. And it was. It ached every moment she was gone, and when she reappeared...it broke his heart even more. She didn't recognize him, her family. She recognized none of them. What did they do to her?
His eyes opened slowly, the light flooding his senses. There were words being spoken, but it took him a moment to clear his senses, and glanced towards the bed that Aryan occupied, the von Nacht woken from his deep sleep. A sigh of relief escaped Zero as he straightened his posture, popping his back in the process as he stretched. He took a deep breath, releasing it as he turned towards Aryan. "How are you feeling Aryan? You've been out a few days," he spoke, concern genuinely laced in his voice.
Aryan's eyes slid over to Zero again as his cousin spoke. There was certainly more life in them than there had been, but it still was not quite up to his usual standard. He grimaced slightly, moving various parts of his body before rolling his head around and sighing.
"If I knew what it felt like to be crushed by a compactor and then re-inflated, I would think I feel something like that. But I would not know, so I believe I simply hurt." It wasn't really so much physical pain as it was simply being sore from not having moved for three days.
"Was anyone else hurt?"
Zero sighed. That perhaps would be considered normal if that is how Aryan felt. Yuki did take a lot of blood from him, bringing him almost to the brink of death, and Zero clutched the arms of the chair tightly. He should have done something, anything, to at least save Aryan. If he couldn't save Yuki, he should have at least saved his cousin. Aryan's question brought him out of his thoughts as he turned to face him again. He sighed softly through his nose, racking his hand through his hair as he thought about the words to tell him.
"No," he finally stated, the word being drawn out in the process. "Everyone else made it out okay, but you were the one who was hit the worst," he replied. He fell silent after that. What else could he tell him? That he failed to protect Yuki, to protect him, to protect his family? He finally slumped into his chair as he closed his eyes softly.
It was Aryan's turn to sigh, Medusa slithering off of his chest as he sat up. He winced as he did so, though he otherwise made no sign of discomfort. He regarded his cousin silently once more. It was good to know that no one else was hurt, however...
Not everyone was dealing with physical pain. "I suppose it would do little good to tell you that you're being an idiot. What happened to me was not your fault. I was the one who made the decision to save you. Besides, now we know exactly how she's going to act. That gives us more information on how to get her back."
Zero scoffed silently. Perhaps he was being an idiot, but that meant nothing to him. He had failed, that was all there was to it. "You wouldn't have had to make that decision if I had acted, and for that I apologize," he spoke, opening his eyes once more as he silently regarded his cousin. He then cracked a small, broken, smile, one that he could barely muster enough energy for. It was true, they had a bit of more information now as to how Yuki was going to act around them. She wasn't going to recognize them, and that meant that she wasn't going to hold back on hurting them.
"You're right, we do. And we won't fail at getting her back the next time," he continued, his voice laced with resolve. And he wouldn't hesitate to save her this time.
Zero's tone alone produced what could be considered Aryan's normal smirk.
"Good, because I won't be saving you next time."
There was always one person he could see, but just barely. A woman with long white hair. His sister. She was standing with her back to him, and he would try to go to her, to make sure she was okay. But every time he tried to reach her, she would vanish, reappearing behind him. He would look at her, only to see that it wasn't her. Not Yuki. It didn't matter how much she looked like her, it wasn't Yuki.
Aryan's eyes opened slowly, not comprehending where he was for a second, the ceiling unfamiliar, scents of bleach and steril solution, mixed with the scents of his family flooding his senses. He was in the infirmary. He shifted his eyes downward, something golden on his chest catching his eye. It was Medusa, and the snake lifted her head as she felt her master move, her tongue flicking out silently.
"Massster." She hissed.
Aryan stroked her head lightly, not saying anything. There was little to say, really. He could vaugely remember Yuki devouring him, but he remembered little else. He could only surmise that Helen had saved him, it was the only way he would still be alive, honestly. He shifted his head to right, catching sight of Zero. The Kuragari was asleep.
"He'sss been keeping an eye on you when your mother wasss gone." The familiar said softly.
Zero stirred, his chest rising slowly. His face contorted into one of pain, but there was no physical pain to be had. His dreams, they all drifted to a woman, her hair long, white as snow, and her eyes. It was her eyes that always stilled his breath, caused him to feel as if he couldn't breathe, that he was suffocating. His heart felt that it was pulling from his arteries, trying to burst from his chest and just bleed for her. And it was. It ached every moment she was gone, and when she reappeared...it broke his heart even more. She didn't recognize him, her family. She recognized none of them. What did they do to her?
His eyes opened slowly, the light flooding his senses. There were words being spoken, but it took him a moment to clear his senses, and glanced towards the bed that Aryan occupied, the von Nacht woken from his deep sleep. A sigh of relief escaped Zero as he straightened his posture, popping his back in the process as he stretched. He took a deep breath, releasing it as he turned towards Aryan. "How are you feeling Aryan? You've been out a few days," he spoke, concern genuinely laced in his voice.
Aryan's eyes slid over to Zero again as his cousin spoke. There was certainly more life in them than there had been, but it still was not quite up to his usual standard. He grimaced slightly, moving various parts of his body before rolling his head around and sighing.
"If I knew what it felt like to be crushed by a compactor and then re-inflated, I would think I feel something like that. But I would not know, so I believe I simply hurt." It wasn't really so much physical pain as it was simply being sore from not having moved for three days.
"Was anyone else hurt?"
Zero sighed. That perhaps would be considered normal if that is how Aryan felt. Yuki did take a lot of blood from him, bringing him almost to the brink of death, and Zero clutched the arms of the chair tightly. He should have done something, anything, to at least save Aryan. If he couldn't save Yuki, he should have at least saved his cousin. Aryan's question brought him out of his thoughts as he turned to face him again. He sighed softly through his nose, racking his hand through his hair as he thought about the words to tell him.
"No," he finally stated, the word being drawn out in the process. "Everyone else made it out okay, but you were the one who was hit the worst," he replied. He fell silent after that. What else could he tell him? That he failed to protect Yuki, to protect him, to protect his family? He finally slumped into his chair as he closed his eyes softly.
It was Aryan's turn to sigh, Medusa slithering off of his chest as he sat up. He winced as he did so, though he otherwise made no sign of discomfort. He regarded his cousin silently once more. It was good to know that no one else was hurt, however...
Not everyone was dealing with physical pain. "I suppose it would do little good to tell you that you're being an idiot. What happened to me was not your fault. I was the one who made the decision to save you. Besides, now we know exactly how she's going to act. That gives us more information on how to get her back."
Zero scoffed silently. Perhaps he was being an idiot, but that meant nothing to him. He had failed, that was all there was to it. "You wouldn't have had to make that decision if I had acted, and for that I apologize," he spoke, opening his eyes once more as he silently regarded his cousin. He then cracked a small, broken, smile, one that he could barely muster enough energy for. It was true, they had a bit of more information now as to how Yuki was going to act around them. She wasn't going to recognize them, and that meant that she wasn't going to hold back on hurting them.
"You're right, we do. And we won't fail at getting her back the next time," he continued, his voice laced with resolve. And he wouldn't hesitate to save her this time.
Zero's tone alone produced what could be considered Aryan's normal smirk.
"Good, because I won't be saving you next time."
Thwock.
A red rubber ball went flying across the courtyard, three wolves running after it. Keir wasn't entirely sure how he got stuck with Alucard, Kiba, and Solaris all at once, but here he was. He watched as they fought for possession of the round object, only slightly amused when Solaris came out the victor. He was still angry with the turn of events.
There may have been little to do, and they had known that the attack had been a diversion, but still. He couldn't help but think that there could have been something he could have done. Maybe keep Yuki from attacking Aryan...he didn't really know. Maybe it would have been the same outcome, maybe not. He sighed, running a hand through his snow-white locks, throwing the ball again as Solaris brought it back.
These were the times that he wished he were more like Emrys, to be able to act like it didn't bother him. Em was always upbeat, even when everyone around him could see just how much he hurt. Keir couldn't do that. He wore his emotions on his sleeve.
A rather potent scent entered his vicinity, and he corrected the statement in his head. He wore most of his emotions on his sleeve. His anger, anyway.
Leora sighed, running a hand through the silken threads of her dark hair. Aryan had woken the day before, but he still wasn’t at full health, which was perhaps to be expected with what he’d endured. She was just as upset as most of them about what had happened, but she refused to blame herself for it. It was unhealthy, and the person really responsible was Freyr. He was the one who’d stolen their sister-cousin, and he was the one who’d wiped her mind until only a weapon was left. Leo didn’t believe she’d stay that way, however. Yuki was strong, and besides that, she had plenty of evidence that a person could be brought back from something like that. Her mother had, once, and Helen had as well. It was possible, and Yuki would do it too. Of that, she didn’t let herself have doubt.
She wasn’t so sure why everyone else was insistent on thinking that they should have done something different. The way she saw it, nobody was dead—that was already better than most of the possible outcomes. They hadn’t done so badly, really, and it left them more prepared for the next time. They’d get her back.
Leora noted the presence of Keir along with no less than three of the growing brood of familiars, and she allowed a small smile to turn her lips. He was probably moping, too, and for once, she approached him not with their challenge in mind, but something else entirely. Gliding to his side, she watched the three lupine creatures fight over the rubber ball, and chuckled softly when Solaris came out on top—literally, as she appeared to have stood on Alucard in order to pluck the object out of the sky mid-bounce. “Hey,” she said quietly, cutting a glance at him from the corner of her eye. This time, when Solaris brought the rubber ball back, it was Leo who took it, winding back and chucking it in the fashion of a baseball pitcher. They had to run quite a distance to retrieve it, but she was pretty sure Alucard made the jump first.
“You okay, Keir?”
Keir stuck his hands in his pockets as he silently watched Leora chuck the ball, this time Alucard claiming possession of it. Something in his eyes flashed as she asked if he was okay. No, he was not okay. None of them were okay. Okay was not even a word for this situation, and yet...
He also knew that what he was doing wasn't helping anything. It would not change the past, or fix what was broken. All they could do was move forward. But the question was, move forward to what? As far as he saw it, they were no closer to getting Yuki back now than they were two weeks ago. He let out an aggravated sigh, throwing the ball Alucard brought him.
"No." He said simply, and added as an after-thought, "But I will be, as soon as we get Yuki back."
Part of her had been expecting that answer, and part of her had been dreading it, because she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it. Though she displayed it seldom, Leora had somehow wound up with her mother’s persistent, niggling need to help people, to fix things wherever possible, and the predisposition to feel rather awful when she could not. Unfortunately, her demeanor was not even half as bright, and so it was not that her mere existence or presence was sometimes enough. She had to actually do things, and right now, there was simply nothing to be done.
So she sighed, her expression fading into something melancholy and a bit unreadable. “We will, you know. We’ll get her back.” There was absolutely no doubt or hesitation in her tone, though her hands flexed into fists at her side, tightening and loosening with some regularity as she contained her own anger, her own simmering resentment towards that man who found it somehow acceptable to walk in here and try to tear apart her family. “We’re stronger than that bastard would ever guess, all of us. He’s already beaten—he just doesn’t know it yet.” Her eyes hardened, the glint in them steel and fire, but she did manage to resist the urge to throw a fist into something. Now was not the time.
If there was one thing Keir knew about Leora, it was that look in her eyes. For the first time in perhaps three days, his usual smirk wormed it's way across his face. The scales on his arm and chest slowly began to creep over his skin, until he was covered from neck to toe, his body glittering. It truly was quite beautiful in the right light, the scales glittering in blues, greens, and purples. He shot a sideways grin at his cousin.
"You wanna hit something, right?"
It certainly couldn't hurt for the both of them to blow off steam.
“Hell yes I do,” she nearly growled, but her mouth turned up in a dangerous smile at the sight of his armor. It was certainly some serious protection, and so she knew she didn’t need to feel too bad about punching at full force. The no touching rule was about to get temporarily suspended in the least likely of ways. Well, it would have been the least likely if they were anything other than themselves.
Cracking her knuckles in quick succession, Leora prepared herself for the rather likely event that she would break a few, as tended to happen when one punched at speeds extraordinary even for vampire physiology to hit things extremely durable even for that same species. She didn’t mind—pain was just another way of being alive. It was with this thought in mind that she stepped back, smacked her fist into her open palm, and bowed slightly. There was, after all, no need to be rude about the fact that they were about to beat the crap out of each other.
Once the formalities were out of the way, though, she didn’t hesitate, launching a quick, brutal flurry of hits for his midsection, her hands flying too fast to be properly tracked. She wasn’t the strongest by far, but she could pack a lot of force by using momentum, after all.
Keir only smirked as Leora lunged for him, the succession of her blows faster than he could track. He wasn't at all surprised, she was a Pure Blood, he was not. By definition alone, she was faster. But, he was a bit more...durable. The first few blows he didn't even feel.
The two of them went at it for nearly an hour before they both lay on the ground, staring up at the sky. Without any warning, or even really knowing himself, Keir started laughing. It wasn't his normal, manic laughter, either. It was just...laughter. When he finally managed to calm down, he wiped at his eyes.
"Thanks, Leo."
A red rubber ball went flying across the courtyard, three wolves running after it. Keir wasn't entirely sure how he got stuck with Alucard, Kiba, and Solaris all at once, but here he was. He watched as they fought for possession of the round object, only slightly amused when Solaris came out the victor. He was still angry with the turn of events.
There may have been little to do, and they had known that the attack had been a diversion, but still. He couldn't help but think that there could have been something he could have done. Maybe keep Yuki from attacking Aryan...he didn't really know. Maybe it would have been the same outcome, maybe not. He sighed, running a hand through his snow-white locks, throwing the ball again as Solaris brought it back.
These were the times that he wished he were more like Emrys, to be able to act like it didn't bother him. Em was always upbeat, even when everyone around him could see just how much he hurt. Keir couldn't do that. He wore his emotions on his sleeve.
A rather potent scent entered his vicinity, and he corrected the statement in his head. He wore most of his emotions on his sleeve. His anger, anyway.
Leora sighed, running a hand through the silken threads of her dark hair. Aryan had woken the day before, but he still wasn’t at full health, which was perhaps to be expected with what he’d endured. She was just as upset as most of them about what had happened, but she refused to blame herself for it. It was unhealthy, and the person really responsible was Freyr. He was the one who’d stolen their sister-cousin, and he was the one who’d wiped her mind until only a weapon was left. Leo didn’t believe she’d stay that way, however. Yuki was strong, and besides that, she had plenty of evidence that a person could be brought back from something like that. Her mother had, once, and Helen had as well. It was possible, and Yuki would do it too. Of that, she didn’t let herself have doubt.
She wasn’t so sure why everyone else was insistent on thinking that they should have done something different. The way she saw it, nobody was dead—that was already better than most of the possible outcomes. They hadn’t done so badly, really, and it left them more prepared for the next time. They’d get her back.
Leora noted the presence of Keir along with no less than three of the growing brood of familiars, and she allowed a small smile to turn her lips. He was probably moping, too, and for once, she approached him not with their challenge in mind, but something else entirely. Gliding to his side, she watched the three lupine creatures fight over the rubber ball, and chuckled softly when Solaris came out on top—literally, as she appeared to have stood on Alucard in order to pluck the object out of the sky mid-bounce. “Hey,” she said quietly, cutting a glance at him from the corner of her eye. This time, when Solaris brought the rubber ball back, it was Leo who took it, winding back and chucking it in the fashion of a baseball pitcher. They had to run quite a distance to retrieve it, but she was pretty sure Alucard made the jump first.
“You okay, Keir?”
Keir stuck his hands in his pockets as he silently watched Leora chuck the ball, this time Alucard claiming possession of it. Something in his eyes flashed as she asked if he was okay. No, he was not okay. None of them were okay. Okay was not even a word for this situation, and yet...
He also knew that what he was doing wasn't helping anything. It would not change the past, or fix what was broken. All they could do was move forward. But the question was, move forward to what? As far as he saw it, they were no closer to getting Yuki back now than they were two weeks ago. He let out an aggravated sigh, throwing the ball Alucard brought him.
"No." He said simply, and added as an after-thought, "But I will be, as soon as we get Yuki back."
Part of her had been expecting that answer, and part of her had been dreading it, because she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it. Though she displayed it seldom, Leora had somehow wound up with her mother’s persistent, niggling need to help people, to fix things wherever possible, and the predisposition to feel rather awful when she could not. Unfortunately, her demeanor was not even half as bright, and so it was not that her mere existence or presence was sometimes enough. She had to actually do things, and right now, there was simply nothing to be done.
So she sighed, her expression fading into something melancholy and a bit unreadable. “We will, you know. We’ll get her back.” There was absolutely no doubt or hesitation in her tone, though her hands flexed into fists at her side, tightening and loosening with some regularity as she contained her own anger, her own simmering resentment towards that man who found it somehow acceptable to walk in here and try to tear apart her family. “We’re stronger than that bastard would ever guess, all of us. He’s already beaten—he just doesn’t know it yet.” Her eyes hardened, the glint in them steel and fire, but she did manage to resist the urge to throw a fist into something. Now was not the time.
If there was one thing Keir knew about Leora, it was that look in her eyes. For the first time in perhaps three days, his usual smirk wormed it's way across his face. The scales on his arm and chest slowly began to creep over his skin, until he was covered from neck to toe, his body glittering. It truly was quite beautiful in the right light, the scales glittering in blues, greens, and purples. He shot a sideways grin at his cousin.
"You wanna hit something, right?"
It certainly couldn't hurt for the both of them to blow off steam.
“Hell yes I do,” she nearly growled, but her mouth turned up in a dangerous smile at the sight of his armor. It was certainly some serious protection, and so she knew she didn’t need to feel too bad about punching at full force. The no touching rule was about to get temporarily suspended in the least likely of ways. Well, it would have been the least likely if they were anything other than themselves.
Cracking her knuckles in quick succession, Leora prepared herself for the rather likely event that she would break a few, as tended to happen when one punched at speeds extraordinary even for vampire physiology to hit things extremely durable even for that same species. She didn’t mind—pain was just another way of being alive. It was with this thought in mind that she stepped back, smacked her fist into her open palm, and bowed slightly. There was, after all, no need to be rude about the fact that they were about to beat the crap out of each other.
Once the formalities were out of the way, though, she didn’t hesitate, launching a quick, brutal flurry of hits for his midsection, her hands flying too fast to be properly tracked. She wasn’t the strongest by far, but she could pack a lot of force by using momentum, after all.
Keir only smirked as Leora lunged for him, the succession of her blows faster than he could track. He wasn't at all surprised, she was a Pure Blood, he was not. By definition alone, she was faster. But, he was a bit more...durable. The first few blows he didn't even feel.
The two of them went at it for nearly an hour before they both lay on the ground, staring up at the sky. Without any warning, or even really knowing himself, Keir started laughing. It wasn't his normal, manic laughter, either. It was just...laughter. When he finally managed to calm down, he wiped at his eyes.
"Thanks, Leo."
Balthasar stretched—he’d been napping in the sun for a while there, trying to enjoy the last touches of late fall before winter overtook the campus in full. It was hard to enjoy anything at the moment, but he was serious when he’d told Alarica—he needed to remind himself of the good things in the world periodically in order to stay himself. Good things, like naps in the sunshine. His muscles loosened as he moved them around a little, all the aches of the previous day gone. Or well… at least the physical ones.
Yuki had shown up again yesterday. This time with a small army of Level E’s and no Freyr. At least this time, nobody had been injured to the point of near death. Leo had sustained a pretty bad wound from Yuki late in the confrontation, though, and Balthasar had been prevented from stopping his fleeing sister by the need to hold Alden back. Without any warning or preparation and in the heat of battle, the potent smell of his sister’s blood had nearly taken him over the edge of his control, and Balthasar was one of the few that understood the reason for this. Alden was nearly always starving, because of the nature of his abilities. Where most of them could switch things on and off as needed, Alden was just constantly running, and it wasn’t easy for him.
Though… even Helen had been distracted by the smell, and that was probably because she looked about as starved as a junkyard dog, too. She’d upped her consumption of blood pills, but she’d been exhausted and malnourished even before she’d given up so much of her blood to save Ary, and Balthasar knew from experience that there was only so much the pills could replace in such a short time. He was amazed that the girl could still stand and fight, let alone run the infirmary by herself and function as Aryan’s assistant.
They were slowly falling apart, and when not from the physical wounds, from the motional ones. Freyr was an adroit strategist, Balthasar had to give him that. He’d set out to hurt them, and hurting them he was, but perhaps none quite so badly as Zero. Which was perhaps why the eldest von Nacht son found himself heading to where the eldest Kuragari was—in this case, the music room. It seemed to be a common thread in their family, to take solace from such things. He found his friend plucking idly at the strings of what had once been his mother’s violin, gifted to her ironically enough by Balthasar’s own father. They were always connected, these people he loved so dearly.
“I suppose you know, don’t you?” he said by way of introduction, taking a seat facing the wrong way on the piano bench, and crossing his arms over his chest. He referred, of course, to Yuki’s secret. He could see it—though Zero was unmistakably in love with his sister, and part of that sadness was because of her current state, there was something else there. Balthasar could only see it because he felt it, too. And unlike anyone else who might observe its presence, he could actually identify it.
For what seemed the umpteenth time that day, Zero sighed, stretching his limbs out as they popped in random places. He began plucking at the violin, the one that once belonged to his mother, and it brought a mournful smile to his face. He missed playing, but most of all, he missed playing with his family. He missed the music they could all produce together, because like their fathers and mothers before them, they were all gifted in some instrument or another. He sighed, pushing those thoughts away as he recalled yesterday. She was there again, attacking her family as a pack of Level E's descended upon the field. She managed to wound his sister, and that was never a good thing.
Alden had to be restrained by Balthasar, something Zero was silently grateful for. He didn't want to have to harm his younger brother to protect his sister. Because he would have. As much as saving Yuki meant to him, he couldn't allow anyone else to be hurt because of her. He had managed to get Leora off of the field, tending to her wound before he allowed anyone else near her. The twins had control of their thirst, thanks to their human sides, but they were still susceptible to the scent. At least he thought they were. They had never shown any interest before in taking blood from anyone else, and he was pretty sure that if there was one source of blood Alarica wanted, it definitely wasn't his sister's.
He sighed once more, plucking the strings still before he went to tune the instrument. Once he set it to the tone he wanted, he pulled the bow across the strings and frowned at the sound it elicited. It wasn't the same note that he used to play, though it was. Perhaps he just needed to practice more often. He hadn't played in the last few months, and he was sure he was getting rusty. The light in his eyes were dimmed still, fading his eyes from the light, sea-foam green to a dull, almost gray color. It was starting to take its toll on him, the battle, her. And he knew most people could see it. He wasn't all too surprised to hear Balthasar's voice, and he turned to spot his cousin. He offered a small smile, but it still did not reach his features.
"It's not fair," he spoke. If one did not know the circumstances, they might have considered his statement a bit childish, and with no room to be spoken, however; he meant it. It wasn't fair that she only had fifty more years of life, that she had had whatever possibility for a longer life, stolen from her by that man. It wasn't fair that he loved her, and he was going to lose her no matter what happened. He was either going to lose her to Freyr, and his twisted mind games, or he was going to lose her to this disease, this whatever it was that Kisuke had did to her.
“No,” Balthasar agreed, leaning up against a wall and crossing his arms over his chest, “it isn’t.” He was well aware of the injustice of it all, and it still rankled him to believe that such a person as Kisuke Sou had had any influence on his sister’s life whatsoever, especially something so profound. How anyone could do such things to anyone else, let alone their own child, eluded him entirely. It was hard for him to even imagine, truly.
“But I’ll tell you what I told her: your mother is right. As long as those fifty years are the best fifty years they can be, they’ll be enough. Even I can see how much the two of you care about each other. Even if… even if your time is limited… hold onto that with everything you’ve got, because we don't all get it, Zero. It’s worth treasuring, without tainting it with thoughts of what might otherwise have been.” They couldn’t spend even a day of those fifty years being sad about how they wouldn’t have more—they just had to seize that time for everything it was worth. Most humans got less time than that, and nobody would deny that humans were capable of living full, worthwhile lives. At least, he didn’t think anyone would. He certainly didn’t think they were incapable. Sometimes, they seemed to grasp things that his own kind couldn’t see.
And whatever happiness Yuki and Zero managed to find for themselves… it would be more than Balthasar had. He couldn’t say he resented them, because he’d never even dream of it. He wanted them to be as happy as possible, and he’d give anything he had for it to be so. But… part of him ached a little, for lack of that same experience. He was still young by the standards of his kind, he supposed, but he was beginning to doubt he’d ever get something like they had. In his youth, nobody had seen anything but his name, and in the end, even Elizabeth had only wanted his blood. At least… at least Yuki got to have better than that. So much better—he’d always be grateful to Zero for that, for giving his sister that chance.
Zero listened quietly as his older cousin spoke, and a small smile tugged upon his lips. "Mom always had a way with words, and it seems that they rub off on you too," he spoke, a light scoff escaping him in the process. It was perhaps the reason why he always sought Balthasar for council when his mother wasn't around. The two were alike in so many ways, that it frightened Zero a bit to know that there was another of his mother out there. But it wasn't such a bad thing, because if he wasn't, Zero wouldn't know how to handle the current situation. Balthasar was right. Whatever time they had together, when they got her back, they should use to make it the best years of their life.
But still, the dread still crept within him. What was he going to do once she was gone? Life without her wasn't a life at all, and he couldn't imagine himself living on, a thousand years even after her death. There was just no meaning for it. He would not tell his cousin that though, and instead, allowed the smile to remain. "See, now that's where you're wrong. We all do get it. There already is someone who loves you for who you are, not your title, not your blood, but just for you. Some of us are just too blind to see that," he spoke. At least Yuki loved him, at least he loved her. That was all that mattered. And he knew with that statement, his older cousin wouldn't understand, and that was how he wanted it to be.
In due time, maybe he'd really see the one who loved him for all that he was, just as he could see Yuki and love her for all that she was. Noble or not, experiment or not, he loved her not because of her status, but because of who she was to him and what she meant to him. That was all that would ever matter. "Thanks, Balthasar. I guess that's all I really needed to hear. When we get her back, not a day will pass by that I will not cherish it, I promise you that," he spoke, determination laced with a promise, covering his voice.
Balthasar was honestly perplexed by part of what his cousin said, for he could think of no such person, at least not in the way he meant the words. Perhaps they referred to different senses in which one could be loved, or perhaps Zero was indicating something about the future. It didn’t really matter, anyway. The important part was that his words seemed to have helped his cousin a bit, and that was what he’d intended. “Well… good. Okay, then. No giving up until she’s back, and after that… still no giving up, and a lot of living. Sounds like a plan to me.” He nodded his satisfaction, and matched his friend’s smile.
“You’re welcome, Zero. Your mother’s a very wise woman—I’m glad to be thought of as like her. And I’ll be holding you to that promise. She is my sister, after all… I’d be a pretty bad brother if I didn’t.” He wasn’t going to threaten him or anything though—that seemed patently unnecessary. It was obvious Zero loved Yuki, and that they could and would be happy together. Besides, Zero was his cousin (distantly) and his friend. He was happy for both of them, and protective of both of them, in his own way.
Yuki had shown up again yesterday. This time with a small army of Level E’s and no Freyr. At least this time, nobody had been injured to the point of near death. Leo had sustained a pretty bad wound from Yuki late in the confrontation, though, and Balthasar had been prevented from stopping his fleeing sister by the need to hold Alden back. Without any warning or preparation and in the heat of battle, the potent smell of his sister’s blood had nearly taken him over the edge of his control, and Balthasar was one of the few that understood the reason for this. Alden was nearly always starving, because of the nature of his abilities. Where most of them could switch things on and off as needed, Alden was just constantly running, and it wasn’t easy for him.
Though… even Helen had been distracted by the smell, and that was probably because she looked about as starved as a junkyard dog, too. She’d upped her consumption of blood pills, but she’d been exhausted and malnourished even before she’d given up so much of her blood to save Ary, and Balthasar knew from experience that there was only so much the pills could replace in such a short time. He was amazed that the girl could still stand and fight, let alone run the infirmary by herself and function as Aryan’s assistant.
They were slowly falling apart, and when not from the physical wounds, from the motional ones. Freyr was an adroit strategist, Balthasar had to give him that. He’d set out to hurt them, and hurting them he was, but perhaps none quite so badly as Zero. Which was perhaps why the eldest von Nacht son found himself heading to where the eldest Kuragari was—in this case, the music room. It seemed to be a common thread in their family, to take solace from such things. He found his friend plucking idly at the strings of what had once been his mother’s violin, gifted to her ironically enough by Balthasar’s own father. They were always connected, these people he loved so dearly.
“I suppose you know, don’t you?” he said by way of introduction, taking a seat facing the wrong way on the piano bench, and crossing his arms over his chest. He referred, of course, to Yuki’s secret. He could see it—though Zero was unmistakably in love with his sister, and part of that sadness was because of her current state, there was something else there. Balthasar could only see it because he felt it, too. And unlike anyone else who might observe its presence, he could actually identify it.
For what seemed the umpteenth time that day, Zero sighed, stretching his limbs out as they popped in random places. He began plucking at the violin, the one that once belonged to his mother, and it brought a mournful smile to his face. He missed playing, but most of all, he missed playing with his family. He missed the music they could all produce together, because like their fathers and mothers before them, they were all gifted in some instrument or another. He sighed, pushing those thoughts away as he recalled yesterday. She was there again, attacking her family as a pack of Level E's descended upon the field. She managed to wound his sister, and that was never a good thing.
Alden had to be restrained by Balthasar, something Zero was silently grateful for. He didn't want to have to harm his younger brother to protect his sister. Because he would have. As much as saving Yuki meant to him, he couldn't allow anyone else to be hurt because of her. He had managed to get Leora off of the field, tending to her wound before he allowed anyone else near her. The twins had control of their thirst, thanks to their human sides, but they were still susceptible to the scent. At least he thought they were. They had never shown any interest before in taking blood from anyone else, and he was pretty sure that if there was one source of blood Alarica wanted, it definitely wasn't his sister's.
He sighed once more, plucking the strings still before he went to tune the instrument. Once he set it to the tone he wanted, he pulled the bow across the strings and frowned at the sound it elicited. It wasn't the same note that he used to play, though it was. Perhaps he just needed to practice more often. He hadn't played in the last few months, and he was sure he was getting rusty. The light in his eyes were dimmed still, fading his eyes from the light, sea-foam green to a dull, almost gray color. It was starting to take its toll on him, the battle, her. And he knew most people could see it. He wasn't all too surprised to hear Balthasar's voice, and he turned to spot his cousin. He offered a small smile, but it still did not reach his features.
"It's not fair," he spoke. If one did not know the circumstances, they might have considered his statement a bit childish, and with no room to be spoken, however; he meant it. It wasn't fair that she only had fifty more years of life, that she had had whatever possibility for a longer life, stolen from her by that man. It wasn't fair that he loved her, and he was going to lose her no matter what happened. He was either going to lose her to Freyr, and his twisted mind games, or he was going to lose her to this disease, this whatever it was that Kisuke had did to her.
“No,” Balthasar agreed, leaning up against a wall and crossing his arms over his chest, “it isn’t.” He was well aware of the injustice of it all, and it still rankled him to believe that such a person as Kisuke Sou had had any influence on his sister’s life whatsoever, especially something so profound. How anyone could do such things to anyone else, let alone their own child, eluded him entirely. It was hard for him to even imagine, truly.
“But I’ll tell you what I told her: your mother is right. As long as those fifty years are the best fifty years they can be, they’ll be enough. Even I can see how much the two of you care about each other. Even if… even if your time is limited… hold onto that with everything you’ve got, because we don't all get it, Zero. It’s worth treasuring, without tainting it with thoughts of what might otherwise have been.” They couldn’t spend even a day of those fifty years being sad about how they wouldn’t have more—they just had to seize that time for everything it was worth. Most humans got less time than that, and nobody would deny that humans were capable of living full, worthwhile lives. At least, he didn’t think anyone would. He certainly didn’t think they were incapable. Sometimes, they seemed to grasp things that his own kind couldn’t see.
And whatever happiness Yuki and Zero managed to find for themselves… it would be more than Balthasar had. He couldn’t say he resented them, because he’d never even dream of it. He wanted them to be as happy as possible, and he’d give anything he had for it to be so. But… part of him ached a little, for lack of that same experience. He was still young by the standards of his kind, he supposed, but he was beginning to doubt he’d ever get something like they had. In his youth, nobody had seen anything but his name, and in the end, even Elizabeth had only wanted his blood. At least… at least Yuki got to have better than that. So much better—he’d always be grateful to Zero for that, for giving his sister that chance.
Zero listened quietly as his older cousin spoke, and a small smile tugged upon his lips. "Mom always had a way with words, and it seems that they rub off on you too," he spoke, a light scoff escaping him in the process. It was perhaps the reason why he always sought Balthasar for council when his mother wasn't around. The two were alike in so many ways, that it frightened Zero a bit to know that there was another of his mother out there. But it wasn't such a bad thing, because if he wasn't, Zero wouldn't know how to handle the current situation. Balthasar was right. Whatever time they had together, when they got her back, they should use to make it the best years of their life.
But still, the dread still crept within him. What was he going to do once she was gone? Life without her wasn't a life at all, and he couldn't imagine himself living on, a thousand years even after her death. There was just no meaning for it. He would not tell his cousin that though, and instead, allowed the smile to remain. "See, now that's where you're wrong. We all do get it. There already is someone who loves you for who you are, not your title, not your blood, but just for you. Some of us are just too blind to see that," he spoke. At least Yuki loved him, at least he loved her. That was all that mattered. And he knew with that statement, his older cousin wouldn't understand, and that was how he wanted it to be.
In due time, maybe he'd really see the one who loved him for all that he was, just as he could see Yuki and love her for all that she was. Noble or not, experiment or not, he loved her not because of her status, but because of who she was to him and what she meant to him. That was all that would ever matter. "Thanks, Balthasar. I guess that's all I really needed to hear. When we get her back, not a day will pass by that I will not cherish it, I promise you that," he spoke, determination laced with a promise, covering his voice.
Balthasar was honestly perplexed by part of what his cousin said, for he could think of no such person, at least not in the way he meant the words. Perhaps they referred to different senses in which one could be loved, or perhaps Zero was indicating something about the future. It didn’t really matter, anyway. The important part was that his words seemed to have helped his cousin a bit, and that was what he’d intended. “Well… good. Okay, then. No giving up until she’s back, and after that… still no giving up, and a lot of living. Sounds like a plan to me.” He nodded his satisfaction, and matched his friend’s smile.
“You’re welcome, Zero. Your mother’s a very wise woman—I’m glad to be thought of as like her. And I’ll be holding you to that promise. She is my sister, after all… I’d be a pretty bad brother if I didn’t.” He wasn’t going to threaten him or anything though—that seemed patently unnecessary. It was obvious Zero loved Yuki, and that they could and would be happy together. Besides, Zero was his cousin (distantly) and his friend. He was happy for both of them, and protective of both of them, in his own way.
Four times she had appeared on the campus of Cross Academy. No one yet was dead, but that was of little consequence. She was doing her job. She could function on the battlefield. But in the darkness...it was getting harder to deal with it.
The pain and the darkness had been easy for her to deal with, but it was getting harder. The faces were beginning to appear to her while she was awake. They began talking, saying a name, reaching for her. It was the younger ones that became the most prominent, but most of all it was him.
The name felt familiar rolling off of her tongue, but she still did not understand why he knew her, why they all knew her. She knew them only through the information that Freyr gave her. So how did they know her? It made little sense. The back of her throat burned.
She started, looking up into the dark. She hadn't expected to hear his voice this time. What was more, she saw him approach out of the darkness. There was a scowl on his face, his eyes a dim blood-red color. Her own eyes, normally so vibrant a yellow, were dull, lifeless.
"Have you forgotten what I taught you?"
"No."
"Then why have you begun to hesitate?"
She didn't know how to answer that. The truth of the matter was, she had hesitated the last time. She'd had a clear shot at taking out the male twin, and yet...she'd hesitated, allowing the female Alistair time to head her off. She didn't understand it, this sense of knowing.
"Yuki." Kisuke said sharply, and she looked at him, a confused look on her face. Yuki? That had been what the others had called her. They all called her that. But she was a weapon. She didn't have a name. A painful white-hot spike lanced through her head, and she grasped at her temples. Images, faces, memories flashed before her eyes, strings of things she neither understood nor wanted to see.
The man before her, his eyes gleaming red as he injected her with something. There was a lot of this, and a lot of pain. Eventually, she became almost immune to the pain. He bled her, starved her, fed her, and starved her again. Patches of memories were missing. The man was in front of her again, in the snow, the woman with the black hair behind her. She killed him. There was a lot of confusion after that, faces of people that seemed to know her yet she could not place them, years and years of faces, and they all said one thing: Yuki.
"Go away." She whispered. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to see this. Nothing made sense and her head hurt. The faces kept coming, his at the foremost. Always his, and those eyes, the color of sea foam, and he would call her by that name.
"You know what you must do, Yuki. You are my weapon. You must kill." Kisuke spoke again, looming over her in the darkness.
"No...I don't want to be here. Go away."
Kisuke's face twisted in a demented smirk. "I am as much apart of you as you are of me. You cannot banish me, I am always with you. I am your anger, your fear. I am what you hate, your thirst, your need to kill. I am not going anywhere."
"No!" She yelled, lunging at him, but hitting empty air. The apparition laughed as he dissovled into nothing, the sound like nails on a chalkboard to her, and she covered her ears as she crouched in the corner. Her eyes were wide, frightened, like a rabbit as she sat there, her hands placed on either side of her head.
"I want to go home." She whispered to the darkness.
The pain and the darkness had been easy for her to deal with, but it was getting harder. The faces were beginning to appear to her while she was awake. They began talking, saying a name, reaching for her. It was the younger ones that became the most prominent, but most of all it was him.
"Zero Kuragari."
The name felt familiar rolling off of her tongue, but she still did not understand why he knew her, why they all knew her. She knew them only through the information that Freyr gave her. So how did they know her? It made little sense. The back of her throat burned.
You are my weapon, nothing more, nothing less.
She started, looking up into the dark. She hadn't expected to hear his voice this time. What was more, she saw him approach out of the darkness. There was a scowl on his face, his eyes a dim blood-red color. Her own eyes, normally so vibrant a yellow, were dull, lifeless.
"Have you forgotten what I taught you?"
"No."
"Then why have you begun to hesitate?"
She didn't know how to answer that. The truth of the matter was, she had hesitated the last time. She'd had a clear shot at taking out the male twin, and yet...she'd hesitated, allowing the female Alistair time to head her off. She didn't understand it, this sense of knowing.
"Yuki." Kisuke said sharply, and she looked at him, a confused look on her face. Yuki? That had been what the others had called her. They all called her that. But she was a weapon. She didn't have a name. A painful white-hot spike lanced through her head, and she grasped at her temples. Images, faces, memories flashed before her eyes, strings of things she neither understood nor wanted to see.
The man before her, his eyes gleaming red as he injected her with something. There was a lot of this, and a lot of pain. Eventually, she became almost immune to the pain. He bled her, starved her, fed her, and starved her again. Patches of memories were missing. The man was in front of her again, in the snow, the woman with the black hair behind her. She killed him. There was a lot of confusion after that, faces of people that seemed to know her yet she could not place them, years and years of faces, and they all said one thing: Yuki.
"Go away." She whispered. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to see this. Nothing made sense and her head hurt. The faces kept coming, his at the foremost. Always his, and those eyes, the color of sea foam, and he would call her by that name.
"You know what you must do, Yuki. You are my weapon. You must kill." Kisuke spoke again, looming over her in the darkness.
"No...I don't want to be here. Go away."
Kisuke's face twisted in a demented smirk. "I am as much apart of you as you are of me. You cannot banish me, I am always with you. I am your anger, your fear. I am what you hate, your thirst, your need to kill. I am not going anywhere."
"No!" She yelled, lunging at him, but hitting empty air. The apparition laughed as he dissovled into nothing, the sound like nails on a chalkboard to her, and she covered her ears as she crouched in the corner. Her eyes were wide, frightened, like a rabbit as she sat there, her hands placed on either side of her head.
"I want to go home." She whispered to the darkness.
Not five hours after he'd awoken, Aryan had been up and around, despite the protests from both Helen [though those were rather soft and not enforced] and the much more willful pushing of his mother. Aryan would hear none of it, and only allowed himself to feed from Nikki, and then went about most of his business as usual, much to his mother's annoyance.
Now, almost a week later, Aryan was making his way across the grounds. For once, there really wasn't something that he should be doing, or needed to catch up on. The actual search for Yuki had been all but abandoned, seeing as Alden thought that they were going to dispose of her soon, meaning they would easily be able to get her back, so he was not needed there. As for the Council, the general lull in the war, as well as the rumblings between them and the Pantheon had then at a deadlock. For now, there was little to do.
An idle mind such as Aryan's was wont to wander, and he did not like it, not one bit. He also found himself in the odd position of feeling almost awkward around Helen, and he wasn't entirely sure what to do about that. Frankly, he wasn't even sure of the cause. Whether it was because she had saved him, or she was uneasy around him because of his lineage and he had no wish to cause her more discomfort, he couldn't tell. And not being able to figure something out did not sit well with the youngest von Nacht.
While all of this was going through his mind, he was not really paying attention to where his feet were taking him, and as such, he had not realized that he'd stumbled upon his brother's little sanctuary, as it were. At least, not until he'd walked [and fallen] straight into the lake. After Aryan managed to drag himself back up on the bank, he simply lay on the ground, soaking wet, staring up at the sky. He was scowling. This was exactly why he hated it when he had nothing to do.
Perhaps, had Balthasar been awake, he would have warned his brother that the particular piece of ground he was walking on dropped off deceptively quickly into the lake, but as it was, the elder of the von Nacht brothers was asleep, recovering from what had been a rather large solo effort on a horde of Level E’s in Italy not a day ago. He’d volunteered to do it himself, because nobody important was going to be there, and they needed as many as possible to remain here in case Yuki showed up. He’d not missed one of his sister’s appearances, but he had run unexpectedly into Frigga, which was a drain on anyone’s endurance, even his. Hence the need for a bit of extra sleep.
The massive splashing sound that broke the usual tranquility of his sanctuary, however, woke him instantaneously, and Balthasar’s eyes snapped open, his body reacting immediately and carrying him to his feet before the smell hit his nose—along with the sight of his rather damp and bedraggled brother. To his credit, Balthasar managed to avoid laughing too much, containing it to a few chuckles, poorly masked with a cough, at which point he made his way over to Aryan, and offered a hand up.
“And here I thought you were the one who inherited all of father’s grace,” he said with a tilted eyebrow, but nevertheless he smiled, quite willing to end his teasing there, even if it was rather amusing that Aryan’s trademark finesse had rather failed him here. “Something I can help you with, Ary?”
Aryan frowned slightly at his brother's comment, though he did have a point. He sighed heavily through his nose as he made an attempt to wring out his hair; really all that did was make it stick up at odd angles. With an almost defeated look, Aryan looked at his older brother, the look on his face somewhere between utter annoyance and a kicked puppy. It was an odd look for Aryan.
"I have nothing to do, and it's driving me insane. I can't just sit around and do nothing, I wasn't made for that. On top of that, I can't be around Helen for more than five minutes without feeling completely awkward like I'm someone else in my own skin."
There was a bit of a shocked expression on his face then, as he hadn't really planned on saying anything about that to anyone, let alone his brother. Though, Balthasar did tend to have that effect on people, once they started venting, it was a bit hard to stop. Still, the realization that he had said that did cause a rather bright blush to creep across his face.
Well, whatever he’d been expecting his brother to say, it was not that. Balthasar blinked slowly, giving both of the matters some thought. The first one was a bit easier, considering that he dealt with it quite often himself. It wasn’t in either of their natures to be idle, to waste what they had on doing nothing. Unfortunately, Balthasar had kind of had to learn to deal with it—because he was not well-positioned to deal with political battles like Aryan, he usually had to wait until there was a physical fight to be had, and it was the waiting, not the battles themselves, that caused the most psychological damage. The periods in between activity were when things like doubt and guilt for the blood on one’s hands and anxiety for the others could emerge.
Balthasar didn’t know if Aryan ever felt guilt for what he did, but the general idea was the same. Activity was a way of being that did not allow for the helplessness of inertia. “I know how you feel, about having nothing to do. The best I can suggest is—and I mean this honestly—picking up a new hobby or trying to learn something you don’t already know. It keeps you busy, and it can occasionally be useful somewhere down the line. I know you prefer to avoid fighting where possible, but it never hurts to try and figure out new stuff with your abilities, for instance.” he shrugged. It was not a commonly-known fact, but Balthasar had actually picked up a few very random skills this way, driven to them by boredom. Lulls between fights were the reason he knew origami, and the names of basically every species of tree one could find on campus. “Or teach someone something; that tends to feel productive.”
The second half of the complaint, though, as well as the most uncharacteristic expression on Aryan’s face, produced a genuine grin from his brother. Even he’d known about his younger sibling’s unrequited attraction for their half-sister—if this admission meant what he thought it meant, the elder brother was happy about it. Because it had also been pretty easy to tell that Yuki had eyes for nobody but Zero, and he hadn’t wanted to see either of them hurt. Whether an attraction to Helen of all people would work out any better was hard to say—she was unreadable in the strictest sense of the word, and she’d undergone a lot of emotional trauma, among other things.
He sighed a bit, running a hand through his hair, and frowned thoughtfully. “Well… that’s a bit troubling, considering she’s your assistant and all. Seems like you should try to get comfortable in her presence again, for the sake of that if nothing else… have you considered that both of your problems might have the same solution?” He cocked his head slightly to the side. “Maybe you should spend a little more time with her, in a setting that isn’t work-related. I haven’t been around her much, but even I know she looks half-starved and like she hasn’t slept in ten years. She’s been overcompensating with blood tablets, but what she really needs is a break. So… go ask her to do something with you. Figure out why you feel the way you do, and see what happens. Not everything can be planned down to the last detail, especially people. Sometimes, you just have to let things occur.”
Zero was right, he'd been sighing far too much, because he found himself doing it again. It wasn't that simple, it never was. Sometimes Aryan wished it was, but the fact remained unchanged that it was not.
"It's not that simple, Bal. I wouldn't even know what to do with her in the first place. She's more of a workaholic than I am, it's the only thing we seem to be any good at. Neither of us are sociable people, and we don't just...talk about things, or do things. We're not like you and Rica and Leo. We're the ones that hide in the shadows, it's where we're most comfortable."
That had not been an easy thing for him to admit, to be honest. Admitting that he couldn't do something was something that wounded his pride, and Aryan did have a good amount of pride, indeed, even if he didn't flaunt it. Even so, he was completely at a loss for what to do. Balthasar was right, he couldn't very well find himself uncomfortable in Helen's presence, and frankly, they probably both needed a break, even if they didn't want to admit it.
Unconciously, Aryan's hand went to his throat. There was no scar, nor any indication of the damage that had been done, yet...it would always be a part of him, of who he was. His memory of that night was still incredibly foggy, and the only thing that really stuck out in his mind was Yuki calling him Lord von Nacht and seeing something bright. The brightness, of course, had been Helen, but Aryan was unaware of that. It concerned him that she was, essentially, starving herself, though he had little idea of what to do about that, either. He highly doubted that she would take any blood offered, regardless of who it came from.
“Are you so sure?” Balthasar pressed, if gently. “I mean, if you’d asked her to do something else, and she’d said no, I might agree with you, but…” It was his turn to sigh. “She’s not very comfortable with us, Ary, and I can understand that. But we’ve all given her so much space that she’s never had the opportunity to become comfortable. Just… ask. Tell her you’re concerned about her, and, I dunno, go on a walk or something. How would you make friends with anyone else? Shadows or not, I’d bet she’s a little bit tired of being treated like she might break at any moment. She might surprise you. You might even surprise yourself.” He shrugged.
It wasn’t like he blamed Ary or anyone else for being careful around Helen—to some degree, it would probably always be necessary. But… sometimes, the people who were the most different got tired of being reminded of it. Just like he got tired of being reminded about his powers and his responsibility every once in a while and had to come here, if only to relax for a bit. He’d have tried to make the friendly overtures himself, but lately every time she even looked at him, she seemed to have an episode. But she’d known Ary better for longer, and if anyone could help her now, it was his brother, especially with Yuki gone.
If it happened to work out even better, and gave Ary some clarity about his feelings, well… that would be even better.
Aryan stayed silent for a few seconds, finally sighing once more. He was growing weary of standing there in wet clothes, so he shoved his hands in his pockets, his demeanor more or less becoming what was usually seen from him. Perhaps later he would give more thought to what his brother had said. But for now...
"I still say that you're more dumb than a sack of potatoes, Bal." He offered as a way of parting.
Now, almost a week later, Aryan was making his way across the grounds. For once, there really wasn't something that he should be doing, or needed to catch up on. The actual search for Yuki had been all but abandoned, seeing as Alden thought that they were going to dispose of her soon, meaning they would easily be able to get her back, so he was not needed there. As for the Council, the general lull in the war, as well as the rumblings between them and the Pantheon had then at a deadlock. For now, there was little to do.
An idle mind such as Aryan's was wont to wander, and he did not like it, not one bit. He also found himself in the odd position of feeling almost awkward around Helen, and he wasn't entirely sure what to do about that. Frankly, he wasn't even sure of the cause. Whether it was because she had saved him, or she was uneasy around him because of his lineage and he had no wish to cause her more discomfort, he couldn't tell. And not being able to figure something out did not sit well with the youngest von Nacht.
While all of this was going through his mind, he was not really paying attention to where his feet were taking him, and as such, he had not realized that he'd stumbled upon his brother's little sanctuary, as it were. At least, not until he'd walked [and fallen] straight into the lake. After Aryan managed to drag himself back up on the bank, he simply lay on the ground, soaking wet, staring up at the sky. He was scowling. This was exactly why he hated it when he had nothing to do.
Perhaps, had Balthasar been awake, he would have warned his brother that the particular piece of ground he was walking on dropped off deceptively quickly into the lake, but as it was, the elder of the von Nacht brothers was asleep, recovering from what had been a rather large solo effort on a horde of Level E’s in Italy not a day ago. He’d volunteered to do it himself, because nobody important was going to be there, and they needed as many as possible to remain here in case Yuki showed up. He’d not missed one of his sister’s appearances, but he had run unexpectedly into Frigga, which was a drain on anyone’s endurance, even his. Hence the need for a bit of extra sleep.
The massive splashing sound that broke the usual tranquility of his sanctuary, however, woke him instantaneously, and Balthasar’s eyes snapped open, his body reacting immediately and carrying him to his feet before the smell hit his nose—along with the sight of his rather damp and bedraggled brother. To his credit, Balthasar managed to avoid laughing too much, containing it to a few chuckles, poorly masked with a cough, at which point he made his way over to Aryan, and offered a hand up.
“And here I thought you were the one who inherited all of father’s grace,” he said with a tilted eyebrow, but nevertheless he smiled, quite willing to end his teasing there, even if it was rather amusing that Aryan’s trademark finesse had rather failed him here. “Something I can help you with, Ary?”
Aryan frowned slightly at his brother's comment, though he did have a point. He sighed heavily through his nose as he made an attempt to wring out his hair; really all that did was make it stick up at odd angles. With an almost defeated look, Aryan looked at his older brother, the look on his face somewhere between utter annoyance and a kicked puppy. It was an odd look for Aryan.
"I have nothing to do, and it's driving me insane. I can't just sit around and do nothing, I wasn't made for that. On top of that, I can't be around Helen for more than five minutes without feeling completely awkward like I'm someone else in my own skin."
There was a bit of a shocked expression on his face then, as he hadn't really planned on saying anything about that to anyone, let alone his brother. Though, Balthasar did tend to have that effect on people, once they started venting, it was a bit hard to stop. Still, the realization that he had said that did cause a rather bright blush to creep across his face.
Well, whatever he’d been expecting his brother to say, it was not that. Balthasar blinked slowly, giving both of the matters some thought. The first one was a bit easier, considering that he dealt with it quite often himself. It wasn’t in either of their natures to be idle, to waste what they had on doing nothing. Unfortunately, Balthasar had kind of had to learn to deal with it—because he was not well-positioned to deal with political battles like Aryan, he usually had to wait until there was a physical fight to be had, and it was the waiting, not the battles themselves, that caused the most psychological damage. The periods in between activity were when things like doubt and guilt for the blood on one’s hands and anxiety for the others could emerge.
Balthasar didn’t know if Aryan ever felt guilt for what he did, but the general idea was the same. Activity was a way of being that did not allow for the helplessness of inertia. “I know how you feel, about having nothing to do. The best I can suggest is—and I mean this honestly—picking up a new hobby or trying to learn something you don’t already know. It keeps you busy, and it can occasionally be useful somewhere down the line. I know you prefer to avoid fighting where possible, but it never hurts to try and figure out new stuff with your abilities, for instance.” he shrugged. It was not a commonly-known fact, but Balthasar had actually picked up a few very random skills this way, driven to them by boredom. Lulls between fights were the reason he knew origami, and the names of basically every species of tree one could find on campus. “Or teach someone something; that tends to feel productive.”
The second half of the complaint, though, as well as the most uncharacteristic expression on Aryan’s face, produced a genuine grin from his brother. Even he’d known about his younger sibling’s unrequited attraction for their half-sister—if this admission meant what he thought it meant, the elder brother was happy about it. Because it had also been pretty easy to tell that Yuki had eyes for nobody but Zero, and he hadn’t wanted to see either of them hurt. Whether an attraction to Helen of all people would work out any better was hard to say—she was unreadable in the strictest sense of the word, and she’d undergone a lot of emotional trauma, among other things.
He sighed a bit, running a hand through his hair, and frowned thoughtfully. “Well… that’s a bit troubling, considering she’s your assistant and all. Seems like you should try to get comfortable in her presence again, for the sake of that if nothing else… have you considered that both of your problems might have the same solution?” He cocked his head slightly to the side. “Maybe you should spend a little more time with her, in a setting that isn’t work-related. I haven’t been around her much, but even I know she looks half-starved and like she hasn’t slept in ten years. She’s been overcompensating with blood tablets, but what she really needs is a break. So… go ask her to do something with you. Figure out why you feel the way you do, and see what happens. Not everything can be planned down to the last detail, especially people. Sometimes, you just have to let things occur.”
Zero was right, he'd been sighing far too much, because he found himself doing it again. It wasn't that simple, it never was. Sometimes Aryan wished it was, but the fact remained unchanged that it was not.
"It's not that simple, Bal. I wouldn't even know what to do with her in the first place. She's more of a workaholic than I am, it's the only thing we seem to be any good at. Neither of us are sociable people, and we don't just...talk about things, or do things. We're not like you and Rica and Leo. We're the ones that hide in the shadows, it's where we're most comfortable."
That had not been an easy thing for him to admit, to be honest. Admitting that he couldn't do something was something that wounded his pride, and Aryan did have a good amount of pride, indeed, even if he didn't flaunt it. Even so, he was completely at a loss for what to do. Balthasar was right, he couldn't very well find himself uncomfortable in Helen's presence, and frankly, they probably both needed a break, even if they didn't want to admit it.
Unconciously, Aryan's hand went to his throat. There was no scar, nor any indication of the damage that had been done, yet...it would always be a part of him, of who he was. His memory of that night was still incredibly foggy, and the only thing that really stuck out in his mind was Yuki calling him Lord von Nacht and seeing something bright. The brightness, of course, had been Helen, but Aryan was unaware of that. It concerned him that she was, essentially, starving herself, though he had little idea of what to do about that, either. He highly doubted that she would take any blood offered, regardless of who it came from.
“Are you so sure?” Balthasar pressed, if gently. “I mean, if you’d asked her to do something else, and she’d said no, I might agree with you, but…” It was his turn to sigh. “She’s not very comfortable with us, Ary, and I can understand that. But we’ve all given her so much space that she’s never had the opportunity to become comfortable. Just… ask. Tell her you’re concerned about her, and, I dunno, go on a walk or something. How would you make friends with anyone else? Shadows or not, I’d bet she’s a little bit tired of being treated like she might break at any moment. She might surprise you. You might even surprise yourself.” He shrugged.
It wasn’t like he blamed Ary or anyone else for being careful around Helen—to some degree, it would probably always be necessary. But… sometimes, the people who were the most different got tired of being reminded of it. Just like he got tired of being reminded about his powers and his responsibility every once in a while and had to come here, if only to relax for a bit. He’d have tried to make the friendly overtures himself, but lately every time she even looked at him, she seemed to have an episode. But she’d known Ary better for longer, and if anyone could help her now, it was his brother, especially with Yuki gone.
If it happened to work out even better, and gave Ary some clarity about his feelings, well… that would be even better.
Aryan stayed silent for a few seconds, finally sighing once more. He was growing weary of standing there in wet clothes, so he shoved his hands in his pockets, his demeanor more or less becoming what was usually seen from him. Perhaps later he would give more thought to what his brother had said. But for now...
"I still say that you're more dumb than a sack of potatoes, Bal." He offered as a way of parting.
Helen paused for a moment, leaning the palm of one hand against her desk in the infirmary as her vision swam. What was wrong with her? The tablets should have replaced enough of what she’d lost by now that the dizzy spells should have passed. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. She’d drawn a few milliliters of her own blood and sent it to Freya for testing, explaining only that she was experiencing abnormal symptoms, but that alone was nothing out of the ordinary for her. She had never been like others of her kind were. That chance, if indeed she’d ever had it, was denied her by Theodor, and this was something that she’d accepted.
Her free hand pinched the bridge of her nose, and she breathed slowly, if abnormally heavily, until the spell passed, at which point she straightened and returned to what she was doing, which at the moment was nothing more strenuous than cleaning the infirmary. She’d never say it, but she was putting it back in order so that everything would be in its proper place when Yuki returned. Regardless of anyone else’s plans, Helen was going to confront her directly next time she appeared, an opportunity she had not yet had. And when she did… she would get her friend back, or she would die trying. This was her resolution.
A breath, almost but not quite a sigh, passed through her nose. Even this, little as it was, constituted more of a life than she’d ever thought to have. She had a very small niche at the periphery of an important group of people, whom she could occasionally assist in doing very important things. It made her feel useful, if not quite needed, and it was enough. She had spent some very pleasant time with them, and they had given her much more than they realized, every one of them. Sorting through a few files, she placed them in the appropriate spots in the cabinets, closing the drawers with a soft click. The dizziness took her eyes a bit out of focus, and, distinctly frustrated if not displaying it, she moved back to her own desk, extracting three more tablets, and dissolving them in a glass of water.
The taste was certainly unfortunate, but her face did not change, consuming the sludgy substance with equanimity. The mixture always became thick like that when more than one was dissolved in a glass, but she simply couldn’t stomach enough water to keep up with her need to slake her other thirst. She was well used to starvation—Theodor was not a kind man. But… it had never burned so before. If she could sleep, she might get better, but she could not do that, no matter how she tried.
What his brother had said would simply not let Aryan be. He was genuinely concerned for Helen and her well-being, but he still was not sure if that gave him the right to intrude. He wanted to help her, but had no idea on how to do so. What he'd told Balthasar was the truth: he had no idea how to interact with people truthfully.
He sighed, running a hand down his face. He was being an idiot. His appearance was a bit...unorthodox for one such as him. The clean-cut suit and uniform had been replaced by a simple black t-shirt and a pair of jeans; he looked very odd, for anyone who knew him, really. Honestly, he hadn't bothered to dress for anything, because he simply didn't feel like it. This, too, was slightly unnatural for him. He wondered, not for the first time that day, what had gotten into him.
Not having a single clue as to why he was letting his feet carry him to the infirmary other than the fact that he wanted to see her, Aryan walked, pausing just outside the door. He was caught between going in and leaving. Why did he have to be so indecisive? He was never this way, unless it had to do with her, and for the life of him, he couldn't understand it. Finally taking a deep breath, he opened the door, not noticing when an easy smile broke over his face when he saw her. Granted, she looked terrible, but that didn't mean he wasn't happy just to see her.
"Helen."
She was sitting at the desk by the time she smelled his approach, and for a moment, she wondered if there was something she had forgotten to do, because nothing immediately relevant came to mind when she cast her thoughts over the Council business or anything else. Other than the fact that another appearance by Yuki was imminent, there had actually been a dearth of things to do lately. It was enough that she was finishing the last of Yuki’s massive backlog of paperwork, affixing her signature to the end of the final document even as he entered.
Helen had never liked her name, really. Not when it had been Hel, because it still suited her a little too much, and not now, because it suited her not at all. But somehow… she’d never known anyone but her sister to smile when saying it, as though they were simply glad to see her. It made the cadence more pleasant, and she wondered for a strange moment if it were really such a horrible name after all. Her brows drew together faintly, perplexed at her own train of thought, and she shook it off, smoothing her face back out, mostly because the easiest expression for her to wear was no expression at all.
“Aryan,” she replied, though she did not smile. She was honestly unsure she knew how. Nevertheless, the word was light, and she was oddly conscious of the way it rolled off her tongue. There was a slight trill between the second and third letters, making it impossible to say completely flatly. She’d not often used it, before. Setting her pen down, she placed the last document on top of the stack of them and stood, moving them over to Yuki’s desk and placing them with the rest. All done—there was literally nothing else she could do here, unless she wanted to reorganize the supply closet for the fourth time. The thought was not as appealing as it had been the first three times, and that was saying something.
“Is there something I can do for you?” He looked… rather healthier than she did, honestly, which seemed to preclude the possibility that he was here because of some lingering side-effect of his near-death experience. She still felt bad about that, actually—it should never have reached the point it did, and she found herself with the oddly-violent desire to kill Freyr for making it so. Perhaps it was simply because she’d tended him in the days afterwards, and had been disturbed by the contrast of his weak and recovering self with his usual demeanor. It was… unsettling, to look at him and not see the familiar cutting intelligence in his eyes, or the self-assured facial expression, and had left her with the uncanny feeling of being… displaced. She knew not what to make of it.
For a second, Aryan felt his heart skip when she said his name. She almost never said his name. So...why on earth did it make him so happy when she did? He also had the unsettling desire to rip to shreds whoever had put her in this state. Sadly, that was not an option for him. That man was dead by way of his own father, and unless he could find some way to banish him from her thoughts, there was simply nothing about that that he could do, and he hated that.
He mentally shook himself. He really needed to get his head on straight. His brother's words echoed through his mind. A walk...did she even take walks? Did he? How odd...he couldn't remember. He had to force himself to swallow before he could speak properly.
"Actually..." He said slowly, "I came to see how you were doing. You spend all your time making sure we're all okay. Someone needs to do the same for you."
She had not expected anything in particular, but she was still somewhat surprised at the answer. Perhaps she should not have been; he was clearly very concerned with the welfare of the people around him. Even her. It was a little mystifying in some respects, but then… he was a good person, raised and surrounded by good people his entire life. She sometimes forgot that such conditions could produce enough concern to be extended even to something like her. She tilted her head faintly to one side, and when she answered, she was honest about it.
“I have not slept in weeks, and because of that, I am beginning to hallucinate in my waking hours. For some reason, probably connected, I am unable to regain the blood I lost when…” She trailed off for a moment. He did not know exactly what she had done to help him, and somehow, she was not sure she wanted him to. Though what she had done had been out of necessity, she had surprised herself with how easy the decision had been. The logical reasoning process that would have carried her to the same actions was not even required—she’d just done what she did, without thinking at all. It was most unlike her, and she was not sure how to feel about it, if indeed the proper response was to feel anything at all.
“We fought Yuki and my brother the first time,” she finished simply. Just as true, and it did not require details she did not understand. It was a rather grim prognosis, but she was counting on all of this being over soon, or rather, Yuki returning soon. Hel’s world wasn’t quite right without her friend there, because they had been a source of stability and support for one another for a very long time. Her intention was not to cause him further concern, quite the opposite, but she realized that not everyone, especially not the good people, as Aryan was, saw things as clinically as she did, so she continued. “But concern for my welfare is not necessary. I have endured worse, and I will endure this.” Her hand dropped from the edge of the desk to hang loosely at her side, and she found herself rather unsure of what to do—with her limbs, her eyes, anything, really. That she did not often talk about herself was quite evident in this moment, she was certain.
Aryan's eyes narrowed as she spoke, and he once again felt that familiar, near-overwhelming sense of desire to pull her to him, to hold her, to comfort her. But he did nothing, simply out of fear of how she would react. He also picked up on the fact that she changed her last statement. Whatever she had done to save him, it had taken a rather large toll on her, specifically. This did not overly surprise him, as he'd seen what she could do, however...
He thought back. He couldn't remember much, but he knew that Yuki had at least fed from him. His lack of memory would lead one to think that he'd blacked out, and the only feasible solution for that was an extraordinary amount of blood loss. Blood loss of that caliber would need to be replaced, and quickly, regardless of the amount of healing. Something flickered in his eyes then at the realization. It didn't take much to figure out what had actually happened, or at least have a rough idea.
Add in the fact of the number of blood tablets that she'd been taking, and it only made more sense. The lack of sleep could be from many different things, the appearance of the brother she'd thought dead and kidnapping of her best friend not the least. Still, despite the revelation, Aryan did not voice it outright. He did, however, smile once more, even if it was slight.
"Just because you have endured it, does not mean that you need to do so alone. I'm here to help you as well, if you need it, Helen. I don't like seeing you this way, and I find myself missing the woman who is my sister's best friend, and my friend, as well. At least, I like to think that she is, anyway. I know I've always thought of her as such." He said gently.
This time, her surprise was great enough that it registered on her face, flitting over her features and manifesting in wider eyes and slightly-parted lips before she regained her composure. “Your…?” she did not finish the sentence, simply blinking slowly, tilting her chin upwards so that she could look him more directly in the face. She read honesty, there, but then she also knew that he was very good at telling falsehoods when he wanted to be. She had watched him lie to and manipulate the Council with the same deft precision she used to cut things with her blades. It was a remarkable skill, and a rare one.
Would it be too much, to let herself believe that he was being truthful about that? Her fingers, so thin now as to have passed delicate and reached fragile, curled against her palm, loosely and out of some reflex she did not fully understand. It was like she wanted to reach out, and touch something. Touch… him? It was a peculiar thought. Helen generally went to great lengths to avoid contact with other people. Freya and Yuki were the only two exceptions, and even then, she was less demonstrative than most people would have been with those they were so close to. She visibly hesitated—even if he was telling the truth, what right did she have to call herself such? She was lucky to still be alive, more fortunate than she’d done anything to deserve to be able to choose how she occupied her time. Having friends… that was far beyond her place in life.
It was all on the tip of her tongue to speak, but when she opened her mouth, what came out was something far different than she’d expected. “I understand you play chess,” she said, halting for a moment when she realized where her own thoughts were going. Her eyes dropped back to the floor, and she folded her hands demurely in front of herself. “I… find that the most helpful thing is to have something to do. I have never played, but… I would not mind learning, if this is acceptable to you.”
If it had not been Helen who was asking, Aryan might have laughed. Had his brother not suggested teaching someone something? How ironic. Still, her answer was actually much better than he'd expected. He chuckled lightly.
"Well, I cannot guarantee that I will be the best teacher, but I can certainly try."
Her free hand pinched the bridge of her nose, and she breathed slowly, if abnormally heavily, until the spell passed, at which point she straightened and returned to what she was doing, which at the moment was nothing more strenuous than cleaning the infirmary. She’d never say it, but she was putting it back in order so that everything would be in its proper place when Yuki returned. Regardless of anyone else’s plans, Helen was going to confront her directly next time she appeared, an opportunity she had not yet had. And when she did… she would get her friend back, or she would die trying. This was her resolution.
A breath, almost but not quite a sigh, passed through her nose. Even this, little as it was, constituted more of a life than she’d ever thought to have. She had a very small niche at the periphery of an important group of people, whom she could occasionally assist in doing very important things. It made her feel useful, if not quite needed, and it was enough. She had spent some very pleasant time with them, and they had given her much more than they realized, every one of them. Sorting through a few files, she placed them in the appropriate spots in the cabinets, closing the drawers with a soft click. The dizziness took her eyes a bit out of focus, and, distinctly frustrated if not displaying it, she moved back to her own desk, extracting three more tablets, and dissolving them in a glass of water.
The taste was certainly unfortunate, but her face did not change, consuming the sludgy substance with equanimity. The mixture always became thick like that when more than one was dissolved in a glass, but she simply couldn’t stomach enough water to keep up with her need to slake her other thirst. She was well used to starvation—Theodor was not a kind man. But… it had never burned so before. If she could sleep, she might get better, but she could not do that, no matter how she tried.
What his brother had said would simply not let Aryan be. He was genuinely concerned for Helen and her well-being, but he still was not sure if that gave him the right to intrude. He wanted to help her, but had no idea on how to do so. What he'd told Balthasar was the truth: he had no idea how to interact with people truthfully.
He sighed, running a hand down his face. He was being an idiot. His appearance was a bit...unorthodox for one such as him. The clean-cut suit and uniform had been replaced by a simple black t-shirt and a pair of jeans; he looked very odd, for anyone who knew him, really. Honestly, he hadn't bothered to dress for anything, because he simply didn't feel like it. This, too, was slightly unnatural for him. He wondered, not for the first time that day, what had gotten into him.
Not having a single clue as to why he was letting his feet carry him to the infirmary other than the fact that he wanted to see her, Aryan walked, pausing just outside the door. He was caught between going in and leaving. Why did he have to be so indecisive? He was never this way, unless it had to do with her, and for the life of him, he couldn't understand it. Finally taking a deep breath, he opened the door, not noticing when an easy smile broke over his face when he saw her. Granted, she looked terrible, but that didn't mean he wasn't happy just to see her.
"Helen."
She was sitting at the desk by the time she smelled his approach, and for a moment, she wondered if there was something she had forgotten to do, because nothing immediately relevant came to mind when she cast her thoughts over the Council business or anything else. Other than the fact that another appearance by Yuki was imminent, there had actually been a dearth of things to do lately. It was enough that she was finishing the last of Yuki’s massive backlog of paperwork, affixing her signature to the end of the final document even as he entered.
Helen had never liked her name, really. Not when it had been Hel, because it still suited her a little too much, and not now, because it suited her not at all. But somehow… she’d never known anyone but her sister to smile when saying it, as though they were simply glad to see her. It made the cadence more pleasant, and she wondered for a strange moment if it were really such a horrible name after all. Her brows drew together faintly, perplexed at her own train of thought, and she shook it off, smoothing her face back out, mostly because the easiest expression for her to wear was no expression at all.
“Aryan,” she replied, though she did not smile. She was honestly unsure she knew how. Nevertheless, the word was light, and she was oddly conscious of the way it rolled off her tongue. There was a slight trill between the second and third letters, making it impossible to say completely flatly. She’d not often used it, before. Setting her pen down, she placed the last document on top of the stack of them and stood, moving them over to Yuki’s desk and placing them with the rest. All done—there was literally nothing else she could do here, unless she wanted to reorganize the supply closet for the fourth time. The thought was not as appealing as it had been the first three times, and that was saying something.
“Is there something I can do for you?” He looked… rather healthier than she did, honestly, which seemed to preclude the possibility that he was here because of some lingering side-effect of his near-death experience. She still felt bad about that, actually—it should never have reached the point it did, and she found herself with the oddly-violent desire to kill Freyr for making it so. Perhaps it was simply because she’d tended him in the days afterwards, and had been disturbed by the contrast of his weak and recovering self with his usual demeanor. It was… unsettling, to look at him and not see the familiar cutting intelligence in his eyes, or the self-assured facial expression, and had left her with the uncanny feeling of being… displaced. She knew not what to make of it.
For a second, Aryan felt his heart skip when she said his name. She almost never said his name. So...why on earth did it make him so happy when she did? He also had the unsettling desire to rip to shreds whoever had put her in this state. Sadly, that was not an option for him. That man was dead by way of his own father, and unless he could find some way to banish him from her thoughts, there was simply nothing about that that he could do, and he hated that.
He mentally shook himself. He really needed to get his head on straight. His brother's words echoed through his mind. A walk...did she even take walks? Did he? How odd...he couldn't remember. He had to force himself to swallow before he could speak properly.
"Actually..." He said slowly, "I came to see how you were doing. You spend all your time making sure we're all okay. Someone needs to do the same for you."
She had not expected anything in particular, but she was still somewhat surprised at the answer. Perhaps she should not have been; he was clearly very concerned with the welfare of the people around him. Even her. It was a little mystifying in some respects, but then… he was a good person, raised and surrounded by good people his entire life. She sometimes forgot that such conditions could produce enough concern to be extended even to something like her. She tilted her head faintly to one side, and when she answered, she was honest about it.
“I have not slept in weeks, and because of that, I am beginning to hallucinate in my waking hours. For some reason, probably connected, I am unable to regain the blood I lost when…” She trailed off for a moment. He did not know exactly what she had done to help him, and somehow, she was not sure she wanted him to. Though what she had done had been out of necessity, she had surprised herself with how easy the decision had been. The logical reasoning process that would have carried her to the same actions was not even required—she’d just done what she did, without thinking at all. It was most unlike her, and she was not sure how to feel about it, if indeed the proper response was to feel anything at all.
“We fought Yuki and my brother the first time,” she finished simply. Just as true, and it did not require details she did not understand. It was a rather grim prognosis, but she was counting on all of this being over soon, or rather, Yuki returning soon. Hel’s world wasn’t quite right without her friend there, because they had been a source of stability and support for one another for a very long time. Her intention was not to cause him further concern, quite the opposite, but she realized that not everyone, especially not the good people, as Aryan was, saw things as clinically as she did, so she continued. “But concern for my welfare is not necessary. I have endured worse, and I will endure this.” Her hand dropped from the edge of the desk to hang loosely at her side, and she found herself rather unsure of what to do—with her limbs, her eyes, anything, really. That she did not often talk about herself was quite evident in this moment, she was certain.
Aryan's eyes narrowed as she spoke, and he once again felt that familiar, near-overwhelming sense of desire to pull her to him, to hold her, to comfort her. But he did nothing, simply out of fear of how she would react. He also picked up on the fact that she changed her last statement. Whatever she had done to save him, it had taken a rather large toll on her, specifically. This did not overly surprise him, as he'd seen what she could do, however...
He thought back. He couldn't remember much, but he knew that Yuki had at least fed from him. His lack of memory would lead one to think that he'd blacked out, and the only feasible solution for that was an extraordinary amount of blood loss. Blood loss of that caliber would need to be replaced, and quickly, regardless of the amount of healing. Something flickered in his eyes then at the realization. It didn't take much to figure out what had actually happened, or at least have a rough idea.
Add in the fact of the number of blood tablets that she'd been taking, and it only made more sense. The lack of sleep could be from many different things, the appearance of the brother she'd thought dead and kidnapping of her best friend not the least. Still, despite the revelation, Aryan did not voice it outright. He did, however, smile once more, even if it was slight.
"Just because you have endured it, does not mean that you need to do so alone. I'm here to help you as well, if you need it, Helen. I don't like seeing you this way, and I find myself missing the woman who is my sister's best friend, and my friend, as well. At least, I like to think that she is, anyway. I know I've always thought of her as such." He said gently.
This time, her surprise was great enough that it registered on her face, flitting over her features and manifesting in wider eyes and slightly-parted lips before she regained her composure. “Your…?” she did not finish the sentence, simply blinking slowly, tilting her chin upwards so that she could look him more directly in the face. She read honesty, there, but then she also knew that he was very good at telling falsehoods when he wanted to be. She had watched him lie to and manipulate the Council with the same deft precision she used to cut things with her blades. It was a remarkable skill, and a rare one.
Would it be too much, to let herself believe that he was being truthful about that? Her fingers, so thin now as to have passed delicate and reached fragile, curled against her palm, loosely and out of some reflex she did not fully understand. It was like she wanted to reach out, and touch something. Touch… him? It was a peculiar thought. Helen generally went to great lengths to avoid contact with other people. Freya and Yuki were the only two exceptions, and even then, she was less demonstrative than most people would have been with those they were so close to. She visibly hesitated—even if he was telling the truth, what right did she have to call herself such? She was lucky to still be alive, more fortunate than she’d done anything to deserve to be able to choose how she occupied her time. Having friends… that was far beyond her place in life.
It was all on the tip of her tongue to speak, but when she opened her mouth, what came out was something far different than she’d expected. “I understand you play chess,” she said, halting for a moment when she realized where her own thoughts were going. Her eyes dropped back to the floor, and she folded her hands demurely in front of herself. “I… find that the most helpful thing is to have something to do. I have never played, but… I would not mind learning, if this is acceptable to you.”
If it had not been Helen who was asking, Aryan might have laughed. Had his brother not suggested teaching someone something? How ironic. Still, her answer was actually much better than he'd expected. He chuckled lightly.
"Well, I cannot guarantee that I will be the best teacher, but I can certainly try."
Alden currently lay—spread-eagled and apparently asleep—on a knot of brownish grass, some distance from the main school building. Winter was upon them in full by this point, and Christmas was not long away, but the temperature bothered him not at all, and in fact, the sunlight today was rather warm on his face. He was not, in fact, asleep, but that would not be immediately obvious to an observer, given his present state of repose. At least this sort of resting position was slowing his bodily functions, including his metabolism. When he could not consume a lot, Alden had learned to sleep a lot, and to simply rest when that was impossible.
He felt them both enter his range, and his mouth curled up in a smile for just a fraction of a second before it disappeared again. He still felt a bit guilty about the time he’d almost attacked Leora, but he was not worried about doing so again if Zero was there. His brother would be strong enough to restrain him for long enough that he could bring himself back to his senses, unless perhaps she started bleeding again. He did not like this—that he posed a constant threat of danger to his mother and his sister, but at least he could cope most of the time. He had enough control that it was only an open wound on either of them that would cause him to lose it, and only if he was within a certain range of it. Anyone else’s blood, or they on a normal, non-injured occasion, and he was fine, for the most part.
He cracked one red-purple eye when they came within visual range, his vision adjusting immediately to the light and taking in the figures of his brother and sister approaching. Leora smiled as she did, taking a seat beside where he lay without hesitation. That was perhaps the thing he loved most about his sister—no matter how often he almost burned her, almost lost himself, she never stopped believing in his ability to conquer his demons. His mother was the same. “Hey Vi,” she said, using his more common nickname—though ‘Al’ seemed more direct, that had been one of Balthasar’s nicknames first, and as such, those closest to him had taken to calling him ‘Violet’ or ‘Vi’ instead, a reference to his trademark hair and iris color.
“Leo, Rocchan,” he returned neutrally, blinking slowly at the both of them. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see them. He just didn’t always do the best job of showing it. They didn’t seem to mind. “There is not much longer now,” he said with a quiet kind of certainty that was rather trademark of him. He was also highly blunt, as now. “Freyr’s network is fairly certain he doesn’t intend much more use for Yuki. We are becoming too good at repelling her attacks, and she is becoming a little more inured to the serum. I estimate that the next confrontation will be the last. Prepare yourselves—I doubt she will be quite herself for a while afterwards.”
Zero had spent most of his days in the music room. Her attacks were becoming constant, and it seemed that everytime they fought her, something always seemed different. He couldn't place it, but there was something different about her. He sighed softly, finishing the tune he was playing before Leora had shown up. He offered his sister a smile as he left the music room with her, walking by her side as they just walked in silence. It was a comforting notion, and he always found comfort from his family, especially Leora and Balthasar. Though Balthasar was more like Ava, Leora could always talk to Zero and make him feel better. And he appreciated that about his sister.
It was perhaps the reason why he was always so protective of her. She was his link to their mother when Ava wasn't around, and he would always need that anchored feeling when something was bothering him. Like now. All she had to do was walk in silence with him, and somehow, everything felt better. He sighed softly, allowing it to carry a sort of melancholy feeling to it. Though it felt better, it didn't mean it was better. He paused in that thought, shaking it free as he dissolved it. He had promised Balthasar that he would live life to the fullest with Yuki, and that meant to stop thinking this way. Sliding a hand through his hair, he caught his younger brother's scent. They were headed towards him.
When they approached, they were greeted by Alden, immediately speaking of the situation at hand. "Blunt and to the point, just like always," he spoke, offering his brother a half broken smirk. "Then we need to prepare. Is there any word of when she'll be attacking. They've been a bit sporadic as of late," he questioned, sitting next to Leora on the other side. He loved his brother, he really did, but he still couldn't take a chance of him accidentally attacking their sister.
“Mmm…” Alden hummed a contemplative syllable, pushing his glasses up his nose for a moment before rolling up into a seated position not unlike the one his siblings were using. His posture was poor, however, something which diminished his height. That and the fact that he was wearing a baggy cardigan and his hair was askew, managed to cement his impression as someone who really didn’t care a whit for how he appeared to others. It was, of course, the opposite of the truth. In his line of work, appearance was everything, just not in the same way that it was in, say, business.
None of this stopped Leo from clucking her tongue at him and immediately setting about righting his disheveled locks, which he turned bright orange in mid-process just because he could. She snorted her amusement, and the corner of his mouth ticked up into that elusive smile again, for just a moment, before it dropped back into place and his hair returned to wisteria. The touch was actually soothing, as their mother’s tended to be. Alden took care not to compare them too often, because Leora was certainly her own person, but this, they did share, and probably always would.
“I’d give it three days, maximum,” he replied blandly. “More likely two. That will be the last chance we have. If she does not return then, I imagine Freyr will dispose of her.” His sources had been quite clear that it would not be the first time the man had ended the use of a so-called tool this way. It wasn’t particularly uncommon for the Pantheon, either—they were creating Level E’s en masse, now, in lab tanks, with the intent to simply send them to die. Yuki was a fair bit more useful than that, but the inherent point was still the same. If he were Freyr—and he’d had to learn to think like these people—then he would have done the same.
“Then we get her back,” Leora said firmly. “No matter what.”
Zero's jaw tightened at the response Alden gave. Freyr would dispose of her. His eyes narrowed out in front of him, glaring at whatever unfortunate soul was unlucky enough to be caught in his sights, taking slow and steady breaths. It shouldn't surprise him that they would do that. It was like that with anyone really. Once you had no purpose for a tool, broken or not, you'd dispose of it. His fists tightened in the grass as he thought about, trying to put his mind on anything other than that. He wouldn't allow Freyr to touch her, not so longs as he breathes. His eyes traveled to Leora when she spoke, bringing a light smile to Zero's face.
"Yes, we will," he spoke, lacing his hand with Leora's and gave it a light squeeze. She was right, they would get Yuki back, no matter what. He released Leora's hand, setting his back on his lap as he continued to stare over the area. He took a soft breath, glancing back over towards his younger siblings, and for a moment, a smile crossed his features. This was nice, having family around. They were supportive, and they were here to help get Yuki back. To have such a close family, part of him wondered what would happen if they were not. Would they still be trying to get Yuki back? Would they even care?
"No matter what," he allowed himself to state after the moment of silence. No matter what, they would get her back. "How's the life treating you, Den?" Zero questioned, changing the subject matter. He had not seen his younger brother in a while, and though they were probably not as close as he and his sister, that did not mean that Zero didn't worry about him. He was the oldest, it was his job to make sure the younger ones were always safe, even if he couldn't physically do it himself.
Alden considered the question. He never told any of the members of his family the full extent of what he did, because they did not deserve to be troubled with it. If there were a more straightforward way to do what he did, he would use it, but as it was, he was uniquely capable of getting at the things that simply could not be retrieved through force or more political maneuvering. Alden’s was the intrigue of backrooms and boudoirs, the secrets he retrieved were the ones exchanged for deaths or package drops, or else whispered in drug-riddles hazes, or into pillows. It was, after all, much easier to worm into thoughts when someone was distracted, and though he could force his way through any barrier if he had to, he had to be more subtle than this, lest everyone start defending against what he could do. One did not become so easily snared in a spider’s web if one knew it was there.
Most of his family was under the impression that what he did was a lot of sneaking into private offices and clandestine meetings with informants in Italian street-corner cafes. His life was better the longer and more fully they continued to believe that. He pulled a hand lazily through the hair Leora had just finished neatening, and he heard her sigh with mock exasperation. The answer to Zero’s question was longer and more complicated than he was looking for. His brother wanted assurance, that there weren’t any bigger problems than the Yuki situation, or at least none big enough to distract from it. He wanted to believe that everything was okay, or at least would be okay, when he had her back.
And because Alden was Alden, and younger brothers were not so different from older brothers, he would lie to him about that. He would let him believe it for as long as it was possible to believe. “Same old, same old,” he replied with a vague sense of boredom, but the side-glance he cut his brother was sharp. “I’m here because my first priority was this situation, so you know I’m being treated better than you are.” Leora’s eyes flickered with something just a bit suspicious, and he’d known they would. He’d taught her to smell a lie. But unlike him, she could not detect them outright, and he was a very good liar. Even that little tinge of suspicion passed, and he heard her decide not to ask him about it. Good. There were some things his baby sister should never know.
“But we don’t have forever. I’m gonna go find something to eat. You two should… do whatever it is you fighting-types do to prepare for stuff like this.” He shrugged, stretching languidly as he flowed into a stand, tossing the pair of his siblings a wink and a small, sardonic smile. Alden was fine. Alden was always fine.
Zero sighed shaking his head softly with a soft smile. "Sure thing, Den," he replied. He was right, they should prepare for when Yuki showed up. He watched his younger brother disappear from sight and glanced towards Leora, a brow raised with a subtle smirk crossing his features. "So, shall we?" he spoke, offering Leora a hand. He was, of course, referring to a sparring match, one that they both could use. It would keep them up to speed and they could use the little time they had to the fullest extent.
He felt them both enter his range, and his mouth curled up in a smile for just a fraction of a second before it disappeared again. He still felt a bit guilty about the time he’d almost attacked Leora, but he was not worried about doing so again if Zero was there. His brother would be strong enough to restrain him for long enough that he could bring himself back to his senses, unless perhaps she started bleeding again. He did not like this—that he posed a constant threat of danger to his mother and his sister, but at least he could cope most of the time. He had enough control that it was only an open wound on either of them that would cause him to lose it, and only if he was within a certain range of it. Anyone else’s blood, or they on a normal, non-injured occasion, and he was fine, for the most part.
He cracked one red-purple eye when they came within visual range, his vision adjusting immediately to the light and taking in the figures of his brother and sister approaching. Leora smiled as she did, taking a seat beside where he lay without hesitation. That was perhaps the thing he loved most about his sister—no matter how often he almost burned her, almost lost himself, she never stopped believing in his ability to conquer his demons. His mother was the same. “Hey Vi,” she said, using his more common nickname—though ‘Al’ seemed more direct, that had been one of Balthasar’s nicknames first, and as such, those closest to him had taken to calling him ‘Violet’ or ‘Vi’ instead, a reference to his trademark hair and iris color.
“Leo, Rocchan,” he returned neutrally, blinking slowly at the both of them. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see them. He just didn’t always do the best job of showing it. They didn’t seem to mind. “There is not much longer now,” he said with a quiet kind of certainty that was rather trademark of him. He was also highly blunt, as now. “Freyr’s network is fairly certain he doesn’t intend much more use for Yuki. We are becoming too good at repelling her attacks, and she is becoming a little more inured to the serum. I estimate that the next confrontation will be the last. Prepare yourselves—I doubt she will be quite herself for a while afterwards.”
Zero had spent most of his days in the music room. Her attacks were becoming constant, and it seemed that everytime they fought her, something always seemed different. He couldn't place it, but there was something different about her. He sighed softly, finishing the tune he was playing before Leora had shown up. He offered his sister a smile as he left the music room with her, walking by her side as they just walked in silence. It was a comforting notion, and he always found comfort from his family, especially Leora and Balthasar. Though Balthasar was more like Ava, Leora could always talk to Zero and make him feel better. And he appreciated that about his sister.
It was perhaps the reason why he was always so protective of her. She was his link to their mother when Ava wasn't around, and he would always need that anchored feeling when something was bothering him. Like now. All she had to do was walk in silence with him, and somehow, everything felt better. He sighed softly, allowing it to carry a sort of melancholy feeling to it. Though it felt better, it didn't mean it was better. He paused in that thought, shaking it free as he dissolved it. He had promised Balthasar that he would live life to the fullest with Yuki, and that meant to stop thinking this way. Sliding a hand through his hair, he caught his younger brother's scent. They were headed towards him.
When they approached, they were greeted by Alden, immediately speaking of the situation at hand. "Blunt and to the point, just like always," he spoke, offering his brother a half broken smirk. "Then we need to prepare. Is there any word of when she'll be attacking. They've been a bit sporadic as of late," he questioned, sitting next to Leora on the other side. He loved his brother, he really did, but he still couldn't take a chance of him accidentally attacking their sister.
“Mmm…” Alden hummed a contemplative syllable, pushing his glasses up his nose for a moment before rolling up into a seated position not unlike the one his siblings were using. His posture was poor, however, something which diminished his height. That and the fact that he was wearing a baggy cardigan and his hair was askew, managed to cement his impression as someone who really didn’t care a whit for how he appeared to others. It was, of course, the opposite of the truth. In his line of work, appearance was everything, just not in the same way that it was in, say, business.
None of this stopped Leo from clucking her tongue at him and immediately setting about righting his disheveled locks, which he turned bright orange in mid-process just because he could. She snorted her amusement, and the corner of his mouth ticked up into that elusive smile again, for just a moment, before it dropped back into place and his hair returned to wisteria. The touch was actually soothing, as their mother’s tended to be. Alden took care not to compare them too often, because Leora was certainly her own person, but this, they did share, and probably always would.
“I’d give it three days, maximum,” he replied blandly. “More likely two. That will be the last chance we have. If she does not return then, I imagine Freyr will dispose of her.” His sources had been quite clear that it would not be the first time the man had ended the use of a so-called tool this way. It wasn’t particularly uncommon for the Pantheon, either—they were creating Level E’s en masse, now, in lab tanks, with the intent to simply send them to die. Yuki was a fair bit more useful than that, but the inherent point was still the same. If he were Freyr—and he’d had to learn to think like these people—then he would have done the same.
“Then we get her back,” Leora said firmly. “No matter what.”
Zero's jaw tightened at the response Alden gave. Freyr would dispose of her. His eyes narrowed out in front of him, glaring at whatever unfortunate soul was unlucky enough to be caught in his sights, taking slow and steady breaths. It shouldn't surprise him that they would do that. It was like that with anyone really. Once you had no purpose for a tool, broken or not, you'd dispose of it. His fists tightened in the grass as he thought about, trying to put his mind on anything other than that. He wouldn't allow Freyr to touch her, not so longs as he breathes. His eyes traveled to Leora when she spoke, bringing a light smile to Zero's face.
"Yes, we will," he spoke, lacing his hand with Leora's and gave it a light squeeze. She was right, they would get Yuki back, no matter what. He released Leora's hand, setting his back on his lap as he continued to stare over the area. He took a soft breath, glancing back over towards his younger siblings, and for a moment, a smile crossed his features. This was nice, having family around. They were supportive, and they were here to help get Yuki back. To have such a close family, part of him wondered what would happen if they were not. Would they still be trying to get Yuki back? Would they even care?
"No matter what," he allowed himself to state after the moment of silence. No matter what, they would get her back. "How's the life treating you, Den?" Zero questioned, changing the subject matter. He had not seen his younger brother in a while, and though they were probably not as close as he and his sister, that did not mean that Zero didn't worry about him. He was the oldest, it was his job to make sure the younger ones were always safe, even if he couldn't physically do it himself.
Alden considered the question. He never told any of the members of his family the full extent of what he did, because they did not deserve to be troubled with it. If there were a more straightforward way to do what he did, he would use it, but as it was, he was uniquely capable of getting at the things that simply could not be retrieved through force or more political maneuvering. Alden’s was the intrigue of backrooms and boudoirs, the secrets he retrieved were the ones exchanged for deaths or package drops, or else whispered in drug-riddles hazes, or into pillows. It was, after all, much easier to worm into thoughts when someone was distracted, and though he could force his way through any barrier if he had to, he had to be more subtle than this, lest everyone start defending against what he could do. One did not become so easily snared in a spider’s web if one knew it was there.
Most of his family was under the impression that what he did was a lot of sneaking into private offices and clandestine meetings with informants in Italian street-corner cafes. His life was better the longer and more fully they continued to believe that. He pulled a hand lazily through the hair Leora had just finished neatening, and he heard her sigh with mock exasperation. The answer to Zero’s question was longer and more complicated than he was looking for. His brother wanted assurance, that there weren’t any bigger problems than the Yuki situation, or at least none big enough to distract from it. He wanted to believe that everything was okay, or at least would be okay, when he had her back.
And because Alden was Alden, and younger brothers were not so different from older brothers, he would lie to him about that. He would let him believe it for as long as it was possible to believe. “Same old, same old,” he replied with a vague sense of boredom, but the side-glance he cut his brother was sharp. “I’m here because my first priority was this situation, so you know I’m being treated better than you are.” Leora’s eyes flickered with something just a bit suspicious, and he’d known they would. He’d taught her to smell a lie. But unlike him, she could not detect them outright, and he was a very good liar. Even that little tinge of suspicion passed, and he heard her decide not to ask him about it. Good. There were some things his baby sister should never know.
“But we don’t have forever. I’m gonna go find something to eat. You two should… do whatever it is you fighting-types do to prepare for stuff like this.” He shrugged, stretching languidly as he flowed into a stand, tossing the pair of his siblings a wink and a small, sardonic smile. Alden was fine. Alden was always fine.
Zero sighed shaking his head softly with a soft smile. "Sure thing, Den," he replied. He was right, they should prepare for when Yuki showed up. He watched his younger brother disappear from sight and glanced towards Leora, a brow raised with a subtle smirk crossing his features. "So, shall we?" he spoke, offering Leora a hand. He was, of course, referring to a sparring match, one that they both could use. It would keep them up to speed and they could use the little time they had to the fullest extent.
There was one day left, by his calculation. This did not move the Spider much in one direction or another—he was not known for becoming overly emotional, not even in the most dire of circumstances. The ability to think logically and objectively under any mount of strain was vital for people in his line of work, and he had cultivated it from an early age, leaving behind the tender sentimentality of his mother and acquiring a demeanor that was actually much closer to the one his father used, if a little more… flexible. He was not Zero, he did not resent the lack of demonstrativeness in his sire. Instead, he’d learned from watching the man with his mother to read even the subtlest cues the way she could, and how to close those cues off, as he could to everyone else. Both were vital lessons, and the number of times they had saved someone’s life was perhaps greater than anyone but Alden would ever know. He was not, after all, in the business of giving away his secrets.
Presently, he was sprawled sideways in an armchair, in the library. Aryan and Helen, its usual occupants, seemed to be elsewhere at the moment, and given the fact that it was the weekend, he was alone, a book held loosely on one hand, his other draped carelessly over the arm of the chair that was currently supporting his back. He appeared for all the world to be paying studious attention to it, and that he was otherwise was perhaps only apparent when he lowered the object slightly, his eyes sliding sideways and coming to rest on a fixed point to his left. It looked to be nothing but empty air, but Alden did not do his seeing with his eyes.
“Emrys,” he said, closing the book with a muted, but decisive snap. “Dare I inquire into what brings you to the library on a Saturday?” He raised an eyebrow, the arch of it lending his face a slightly catlike quality—there was the same sense of subtle knowing about Alden.
Emrys blinked lazily, a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Solaris was trotting next to him, her two-toned eyes regarding the second-born of the Kuragari family. The Spider...it was a bit ironic, really. Alden, himself, and Aryan were perhaps the most formidable three people when it came to information on the face of this planet, and they each had their own specialization. Alden, of course, was the one who used every trick of espionage in the book, Aryan was the one who did everything on paper, dancing around on puppet strings of lies and half-truths and blackmail. And Emrys...well. He prefered to let his fists do that work. An Alistair, von Nacht, and Kuragari, one from each family.
God help whoever got in their way.
Emrys took his time answering. It wasn't like either of them were doing anything overly important. He held up the book in his hand, one on the effects of memory loss, and memory wiping. He switched the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
"Yuki's going to need a lot of help when we get her back tomorrow. You and Helen may be the best suited for that, but that doesn't mean I can't try to be useful, either."
He sat in the chair across from Alden, throwing his legs over the armrest. The library frowned disapprovingly of such harsh treatment of the furniture, but he ignored her. Solaris laid down in front of the chair, Emrys absentmindedly petting her head for a second. "There's been a lot of damage to her mind, Vi. You really think we can get her back?"
Alden read the title with some mild interest, but in the end, breathed a heavy exhale and tossed the book he still held so that it landed with a slight thunk on the nearest table. Sinking further into his armchair, he crossed his legs at the knees, one foot braced on the arm of the chair and the other running perpendicular over it, and folded his arms over his chest. If there was a place for honesty about this, it wasn’t with his brother or Balthasar, it was here. Emrys was attached to the woman—they all were. But he also understood more of the realities their younger (and occasionally older) counterparts had been protected from.
“Should be possible, but nothing’s a guarantee. You know that,” he said after a few moments’ deliberation. “The serum was designed to be a total mind-wipe, but there are those among us who can attest that nothing ever really gets there. I’m sure that book says the same.” He shrugged, which was a bit of an odd-looking gesture with his lanky frame positioned the way it was. Nevertheless, it conveyed what it needed to. “I’ve done memory reconstructions before. Giving her everything back is possible, and I’ll do it. But the rest is entirely up to her.”
Emrys sighed heavily. He'd been expecting as much, really. It didn't make it any easier to hear, though. Really, all they could do was hope that Yuki would be strong enough to handle whatever came after regaining her memories. It wouldn't be easy, but...with Zero, he had faith that she could. Besides that, Yuki was strong, she always had been.
Emrys's eyebrows perked up a bit, remembering something. He laced his fingers behind his head before turning to look at Alden. "Oh, before I forget. It looks like we'll all be seperated for this upcoming fight with Yuki tomorrow. Supposedly the Council's got a hit out for, get this, Aunt Nikki. Seems they got word she's on campus. If you see her and Bal before I do, let them know."
Not that he was overly worried, or anything. They all knew as well as he did that when it came down to defending herself, Aunt Nikki may be the best prepared for that, she'd spent most of her life as an assassin herself, so defending against them was like child's play to her.
Alden blinked. That was interesting—it must have been recent news, or he’d have come across it himself, most likely. He had his best people on personal tracking jobs for any and all information related to each individual member of his family. They intercepted the things that went out, and kept tabs on what his enemies knew about the ones he cared about. Occasionally, he even disseminated false information, though he was careful to make sure it could not be traced to his agents. This was a new thread in the web, and he wove it in with the rest of his knowledge.
“An exchange, then. I was going to tell the twins first, but you might as well do that instead. The Pantheon is apparently more interested in killing Alarica, because they’re sending someone for her. One of mine called it in this morning. It’s definitely Rica, too—not Keir.” That actually troubled him a bit. There was exactly one reason he could see that made such a choice logical, and there should be no way the Pantheon was aware of it. Unless… his lips pursed. It was possible they’d guessed, but he would have thought they’d want to let it lay for a while longer for making the move, for maximum damage. Someone was getting a tad impatient—or they’d selected her randomly. That was unlikely, though. Not with the Pantheon.
“The alliance is definitely fracturing, though. These two targets in concert will reduce the impact of each—if they were smart, they would have picked one to coincide with the sortie by Yuki and sent in a few heavy hitters rather than the mass of low-levels they’re going to use.” He shook his head. They were starting to genetically modify the Level E’s now—it was devastating on a battlefield against hunters, but barely counted as a blip on a pureblood’s radar. Or a particularly-powerful dhampir like any of the Alistairs. At least they weren’t subject to simple compulsion anymore; that had been one of the first things the Pantheon scientists figured out how to remove… though they still fell under the control of Uncle Jasper, as the reports had it. He could only assume that meant the same would be true of Balthasar.
Emrys's jaw clenched slightly. It was not uncommon for assassins to come after his family, however...they had always been more interested in kidnapping his sister, not killing her. Still, with the amount of resources being spent all at once, he wasn't overly worried. He'd be with his sister, anyway. He sighed through his nose.
"Looks like we'll all be split up for this once again. So long as you or Hel are where ever Yuki is, though, I'm not overly worried about it. She's the one who has priority. Anyone going after Aunt Nikki is just stupid, or they have a death wish."
Or they're just a pawn on a much larger board. Was the thought that flickered through his head, but he didn't say it. He turned his gaze to the ceiling, musing softly before speaking again.
"Looks like tomorrow is going to be a busy day."
Presently, he was sprawled sideways in an armchair, in the library. Aryan and Helen, its usual occupants, seemed to be elsewhere at the moment, and given the fact that it was the weekend, he was alone, a book held loosely on one hand, his other draped carelessly over the arm of the chair that was currently supporting his back. He appeared for all the world to be paying studious attention to it, and that he was otherwise was perhaps only apparent when he lowered the object slightly, his eyes sliding sideways and coming to rest on a fixed point to his left. It looked to be nothing but empty air, but Alden did not do his seeing with his eyes.
“Emrys,” he said, closing the book with a muted, but decisive snap. “Dare I inquire into what brings you to the library on a Saturday?” He raised an eyebrow, the arch of it lending his face a slightly catlike quality—there was the same sense of subtle knowing about Alden.
Emrys blinked lazily, a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Solaris was trotting next to him, her two-toned eyes regarding the second-born of the Kuragari family. The Spider...it was a bit ironic, really. Alden, himself, and Aryan were perhaps the most formidable three people when it came to information on the face of this planet, and they each had their own specialization. Alden, of course, was the one who used every trick of espionage in the book, Aryan was the one who did everything on paper, dancing around on puppet strings of lies and half-truths and blackmail. And Emrys...well. He prefered to let his fists do that work. An Alistair, von Nacht, and Kuragari, one from each family.
God help whoever got in their way.
Emrys took his time answering. It wasn't like either of them were doing anything overly important. He held up the book in his hand, one on the effects of memory loss, and memory wiping. He switched the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
"Yuki's going to need a lot of help when we get her back tomorrow. You and Helen may be the best suited for that, but that doesn't mean I can't try to be useful, either."
He sat in the chair across from Alden, throwing his legs over the armrest. The library frowned disapprovingly of such harsh treatment of the furniture, but he ignored her. Solaris laid down in front of the chair, Emrys absentmindedly petting her head for a second. "There's been a lot of damage to her mind, Vi. You really think we can get her back?"
Alden read the title with some mild interest, but in the end, breathed a heavy exhale and tossed the book he still held so that it landed with a slight thunk on the nearest table. Sinking further into his armchair, he crossed his legs at the knees, one foot braced on the arm of the chair and the other running perpendicular over it, and folded his arms over his chest. If there was a place for honesty about this, it wasn’t with his brother or Balthasar, it was here. Emrys was attached to the woman—they all were. But he also understood more of the realities their younger (and occasionally older) counterparts had been protected from.
“Should be possible, but nothing’s a guarantee. You know that,” he said after a few moments’ deliberation. “The serum was designed to be a total mind-wipe, but there are those among us who can attest that nothing ever really gets there. I’m sure that book says the same.” He shrugged, which was a bit of an odd-looking gesture with his lanky frame positioned the way it was. Nevertheless, it conveyed what it needed to. “I’ve done memory reconstructions before. Giving her everything back is possible, and I’ll do it. But the rest is entirely up to her.”
Emrys sighed heavily. He'd been expecting as much, really. It didn't make it any easier to hear, though. Really, all they could do was hope that Yuki would be strong enough to handle whatever came after regaining her memories. It wouldn't be easy, but...with Zero, he had faith that she could. Besides that, Yuki was strong, she always had been.
Emrys's eyebrows perked up a bit, remembering something. He laced his fingers behind his head before turning to look at Alden. "Oh, before I forget. It looks like we'll all be seperated for this upcoming fight with Yuki tomorrow. Supposedly the Council's got a hit out for, get this, Aunt Nikki. Seems they got word she's on campus. If you see her and Bal before I do, let them know."
Not that he was overly worried, or anything. They all knew as well as he did that when it came down to defending herself, Aunt Nikki may be the best prepared for that, she'd spent most of her life as an assassin herself, so defending against them was like child's play to her.
Alden blinked. That was interesting—it must have been recent news, or he’d have come across it himself, most likely. He had his best people on personal tracking jobs for any and all information related to each individual member of his family. They intercepted the things that went out, and kept tabs on what his enemies knew about the ones he cared about. Occasionally, he even disseminated false information, though he was careful to make sure it could not be traced to his agents. This was a new thread in the web, and he wove it in with the rest of his knowledge.
“An exchange, then. I was going to tell the twins first, but you might as well do that instead. The Pantheon is apparently more interested in killing Alarica, because they’re sending someone for her. One of mine called it in this morning. It’s definitely Rica, too—not Keir.” That actually troubled him a bit. There was exactly one reason he could see that made such a choice logical, and there should be no way the Pantheon was aware of it. Unless… his lips pursed. It was possible they’d guessed, but he would have thought they’d want to let it lay for a while longer for making the move, for maximum damage. Someone was getting a tad impatient—or they’d selected her randomly. That was unlikely, though. Not with the Pantheon.
“The alliance is definitely fracturing, though. These two targets in concert will reduce the impact of each—if they were smart, they would have picked one to coincide with the sortie by Yuki and sent in a few heavy hitters rather than the mass of low-levels they’re going to use.” He shook his head. They were starting to genetically modify the Level E’s now—it was devastating on a battlefield against hunters, but barely counted as a blip on a pureblood’s radar. Or a particularly-powerful dhampir like any of the Alistairs. At least they weren’t subject to simple compulsion anymore; that had been one of the first things the Pantheon scientists figured out how to remove… though they still fell under the control of Uncle Jasper, as the reports had it. He could only assume that meant the same would be true of Balthasar.
Emrys's jaw clenched slightly. It was not uncommon for assassins to come after his family, however...they had always been more interested in kidnapping his sister, not killing her. Still, with the amount of resources being spent all at once, he wasn't overly worried. He'd be with his sister, anyway. He sighed through his nose.
"Looks like we'll all be split up for this once again. So long as you or Hel are where ever Yuki is, though, I'm not overly worried about it. She's the one who has priority. Anyone going after Aunt Nikki is just stupid, or they have a death wish."
Or they're just a pawn on a much larger board. Was the thought that flickered through his head, but he didn't say it. He turned his gaze to the ceiling, musing softly before speaking again.
"Looks like tomorrow is going to be a busy day."
As it happened, all three of the attacks came at roughly the same time, converging upon the once-neutral ground of Cross Academy with a vengeance. The group had been at least somewhat prepared for this, and were, roughly, where they were supposed to be when it happened, or at least grouped in a way that would suffice. Leora found herself with the Alistairs, watching warily as someone vaguely familiar approached. The youngest Kuragari was aware that the primary target of this attack was Alarica, and she had immediately volunteered to be here, at her bond-sister’s side. Balthasar and Alden were more than enough reinforcement for Aunt Nikki, who was herself someone not to be trifled with. Leo didn’t stand any particular chance of getting through to Yuki if even her brother could not.
But this, standing here, fighting with them, to protect Rica, this she could do. She was a bit surprised to see that only two figures approached, but less shocked when she recognized both. They were both known members of the Pantheon, from the upper echelon, too, if Vi was right, and he was never wrong when it counted. Both female, one walked with the light steps and bright smile of someone much more childlike than the other. Her shock of vibrantly-red hair and the mismatched color of her eyes—one green, the other gold—gave her away as Frigga, and that alone was a daunting prospect for a fight. The mighty battleaxe that was her trademark rested casually in one hand.
The other figure was more personally known—and perhaps more personally hated. Clad in a yellow dress, dark umber hair trailing behind her in the breeze, and not at all visibly armed, was Sigyn, once known to them all as Elizabeth. If anything, Leora’s guard went up further—she knew that the absence of a weapon was not the absence of danger. She, after all, didn’t carry one, either. The two came to a stop a few hundred feet from where the other four were assembled, three fair-haired and one dark. “Aww,” Frigga trilled in a light soprano. “There’s only four. That’s hardly enough for any fun, even for just me…” She trailed off, though, a scent hitting her on the breeze, and her full, cherry-colored lips turned up in a smile.
“Oh, another Aegis! Hello, Aegis—is that adorable mother of yours still kicking? I want that one!” The last was said obviously without the expectation of a response from Leo, and directly to Sigyn, who simply nodded slightly, her face impassive.
“I honestly don’t care, Frigga,” Her voice, which would have been remembered as sweet, was curiously flat. He wasn’t here. Such a shame. She wanted him to watch his cousin die. He deserved it, for refusing to leave her alone.
Frigga sighed, hefting her axe so that the pole of it rested across her thin shoulders. She wasn’t that much taller than Helen, actually. “You’re really no fun anymore, Sigyn.” Clucking her tongue, she nevertheless launched herself forward, making a beeline for Leora. Sigyn, on the other hand, waited. Her target would come to her, and she well knew it.
Something burned beneath Alarica's skin. She couldn't place the feeling, but there was something there. She couldn't understand why the hairs along the back of her neck were standing, why she felt an insatiable itch in the palm of her hands, or why the wind seemed to be mostly absent. That, perhaps was her doing as the air chilled slightly. She knew it wasn't because they sent assassins after her, and a part of her wondered why they were trying to kill her when they had so fervently tried to kidnap her before. It made little to no sense to her, and she honestly didn't mind. They could try, but they would fail.
She had her brothers, her cousin, by her side, and she herself was adept at battle. Perhaps not as strong as her pure-blood cousins, but enough to not need too much protection. She pulled Ulrik from her back, switching it so that it was in its blade form. She wasn't going to kill her enemies quickly, no she wouldn't allow them that. They had hurt her family too much, and they did not deserve that mercy. They would die slow, painful deaths. They would beg for their lives before she was through with them. No one caused her family pain and lived to tell the tale about it. With that in mind, she placed Ulrik across her shoulders, staring out as the would-be assassins appeared.
Her lips curled almost into a feral snarl when she spotted the bitch who hurt Balthasar, who took his blood and betrayed him. It explained why her blood was boiling beneath her skin, why it was crying out in quick succession to destroy something. She could feel her own fangs elongating, highlighting her feralness as she felt her lips twitch. Before she could think clearly, the one known as Frigga attacked, heading straight for Leora. Had Alarica been in the right state of mind, she would have diverted her attention to her cousin and intervened. But she wasn't. Her mind was clouded with hate for that woman, that thing that hurt Balthasar.
"You didn't deserve him," she growled out of her mouth, charging at the one previously known as Elizabeth. She didn't have a weapon, but Alarica was no fool. She was capable of damage even without Ulrik, and this, she had learned, applied to all vampires, pure-blood or not. Her mother had told her and her siblings of the Pantheon, how they all had different abilities and strengths. If she had been in the right state of mind, she would have remembered this, not attacking and charging blindly.
The hairs on the back of Keir's neck stood on end, his lips pulling back in a vehement and feral snarl at the red-haired pixie woman who challenged Leora. It wasn't even so much as a challenge, really. He didn't like the way woman spoke to her. She called her the Aegis, like she was nothing more than a tool. That alone made his blood boil, the scales on his arms shifting, spreading, hardening. His teeth were clenched as he spoke.
"Shut it, bitch. Get through me first."
Emrys, on the other hand, sighed through his nose. He'd hoped that at least Rica would be able to keep her head, he'd long since given up on Keir. It did not seem to be of any use, however, and for the moment, he focused on taking out the level E's, keeping a close eye on his sister. "Don't be stupid, Rica..." He muttered.
Frigga’s charge was brought up a little short, but she didn’t seem to mind, flashing a brilliant, fanged smile at Keir. “Why hello, gorgeous,” she trilled, laughter evident in her voice if not quite making it into one of the usual forms. “You know, I would not have picked the scaly thing to work for me, but it certainly works for you.” She swung her massive axe right for him, intent on testing the resiliency of the aforementioned scales. Surprisingly, it glanced off. Oooh, that was going to be fun. She might have to actually apply her strength to break through that!
A stray waft of scent was the only thing that alerted her to the other woman’s presence, and she just barely ducked and maneuvered out of the way of a series of punches. She didn’t need to as such, but with skin this durable, blunt damage was actually more likely to work than blades, because it didn’t have to break skin to be effective. Something that might be worth a little field test. One of her dodges was a backbend that put her nearly nose-to-nose with Leora, and her smile only inched wider. “Oooh, you’re beautiful, too. Though I would have never guessed—the Aegis and the dark lord really did have babies! How precious!”
Leo was rather used to being hit on. She was also getting progressively more used to battle. But she had never encountered both at the same time, and it left her a little unsure of how to react. Then again, when in Rome… “Well, there you have it,” she said, throwing a few kicks in with her punches and then ducking to the side so that Keir could launch his own volley, none of which hit the woman any more than her own had. “People can surprise you.”
“It’s a most wonderful thing about them, isn’t it,” Frigga replied, sighing almost wistfully. “And how about you, Kitten? Will you surprise me? Or how about your knight in shining scale armor? Let’s see what you’ve got…” The grass and plants around their feet suddenly seemed to go berserk, growing at an astounding rate and thickening. Leora soon found her legs wrapped in tree roots all the way up to her thighs, and struggled to free herself—no easy task, when they just kept grabbing her every time she pulled free. Frigga really was laughing now, a free, chiming sound that sounded delighted rather than malicious. This was definitely weird.
Sigyn was not nearly so amused. The flare of his aura caught her off-guard. It was not what she’d come to expect of him, and she found it almost… unnerving. Nevertheless, she angled her body so that the girl’s strike passed harmlessly off to her right, though she caught Alarica’s wrist on the way by and spun with her, launching her back into the nearest tree, which cracked with the impact. Sigyn was on her again at once, hooked fingers reaching for the girl’s pale throat. “Do not presume to know what you cannot understand, half-blood,” she sniffed, but there was an unmistakably territorial edge to the statement.
She had found herself… dissatisfied with the way things had ended, and she did not enjoy the attention being called to it. What did such a filthy thin-blood like this child know of deserving, anyway? She had the benefit of standing beside her superiors every day, as though she were good enough to hold her head high among them. “It is you who deserves nothing. You have been raised alongside your betters, treated as one of them, loved and cherished, and still you cannot hold him. I may be a betrayer, but you are a coward who lacks the strength to even say what it is that she wants.”
Her mouth turned up at the corners, the gesture purely malicious. “Shall I tell you what it’s like, being with him? Touching him? Kissing him? Being kissed? Perhaps you would like to know, since it will never happen to you.”
Keir growled louder, his eyes glowing. This chick was not normal...then again, none of them were normal. He moved, pulling free of the plants, shredding them with the scales, as he could move each one individually, and they were all razor-sharp. He could easily keep clear of her plants. As such, he lunged for the woman with the battle axe. He was angry enough that he had reverted to staying silent, something that was not normal for the Alistair.
Alarica flinched, her back colliding in a tree with a soft thud, as she collapsed with it. Her back was stinging, however; that wasn't what was causing Alarica to flinch inwardly. Sigyn's words pierced her like hot knives, each one cutting deeper. What did she know of deserving? She knew that she didn't deserve Balthasar. She knew she didn't deserve to have him as a cousin, let alone as someone to love. But she also knew that she didn't deserve him either. Balthasar deserved so much more, someone who could accent his light, his innocence as she thought of it. Though she knew what her cousin was capable of, he would always be Bally to her.
"You're right, I don't deserve anything but," Alarica began, wiping at the bit of blood that appeared from the corners of her mouth where she pierced her lip. "I can admit to what I want. What I want is for him to be happy, with someone who deserves him. And that someone is not you," she spat. The last sentence, caused her to pull back her lips into a vicious snarl. This woman was truly testing her patience. She was treading on thin ice with Alarica, and with every word Sigyn spoke, a new fire burned beneath her skin. It was as if her skin would melt off if the fan kept feeding the flame.
"I do not need to know any of it. It may never happen to me, but for you, it'll never happen again," she snarled, forming a dagger in her hand made of ice. She may not have had her father's accuracy in throwing knives, but she could still use them regardless. Plus, when you could form ice from the moisture in the air, it was a good way to have an endless arsenal of them, however; the one in her hands would do for now. "Has anyone ever told you, that you are an annoying bitch? I think it's time you shut the hell up and just die already!" she stated. With Ulrik in her right hand, the ice dagger in her left, she lunged for Sigyn again.
Frigga huffed her disappointment. “You’re not as fun as your lovely lady friend,” she told Keir in something of a whine. Of course, it reverted once she noted he was clear of her plants, and she merrily swung her axe again, this time with something quite a bit loser to her full strength. It was avoided, though it took off a few of the long, white hairs that cascaded from his head, signifying a very near miss indeed. Her next hit was aimed at Leora, who managed to get herself out of the roots, though not in quite enough time.
A dark red arc of blood spattered from the end of Frigga’s axe on the backswing, the nearly-overpowering scent of oranges and something more exotic—pomegranates and cream, perhaps—flooded the area, and Leora stumbled back with a hiss, clutching a massive cut in her side. Her healing factor was better than most, due to the Aegis, but that hit had been quite nearly fatal, and she felt dizzy just from the initial impact and blood loss, to say nothing of the pain. Frigga, however, only tilted her head to one side. “Consider me surprised, Kitten—that was supposed to kill you!”
Sigyn sneered. “Do not lie to me. Nobody fights so furiously so that someone else might be happy without them. You want him, little girl. I’ll prove it to you.” When Alarica lunged, Sigyn caught the wrist with Ulrik, leveraging it up and away from her with superior strength, and somehow, the ice dagger that should have hit her abdomen didn’t, winking out of existence as though it had never been there at all. “Because if it was just about his happiness, it would not enrage you so to know that I know what it feels like to lay with him, to feel the sensation of his skin on mine. You would not be this upset to realize that all that delicious heat was mine. He certainly wasn’t complaining, after all.” She smiled slightly and took a step back, ripping a chunk from the shredded tree she’d thrown the girl against, raising it above her head to plunge downward for the woman’s heart.
Call her old-fashioned, but some things were worth doing in the most ancient, most brutal fashion.
The scent of her blood hit his nose, and something in Keir's chest burned. Rage roiled through him from his very core. His whole body tensed, his eyes burning, and he went straight for Frigga's throat, the ends of his claws aimed for her windpipe. He missed, but he quickly flipped, claws tearing at anything and everything he could get at, his face twisted in a mask of rage and utter hatred.
Emrys flinched when he smelled Leora's blood, but he remained focused on the task at hand. His sister was not doing so well, and for a second, he felt his heart stop. He reacted without thinking as Sigyn brought the stake down to meet Alarica's chest. His body glowed as he raced to her, solidifying himself as he pushed his sister out of the way.
The pain radiated from his chest, a feeling of warmth spreading through it. His vision blurred as he coughed, blood spraying from his mouth as he did so. He grasped the front of Sigyn's shirt, forcibly shoving her away from him, his claws digging into her chest deeply as he did so. His voice was barely above a whisper as he said, "Not my little sister, bitch."
He could do nothing more than allow his eyes to roll up into his head as he collapsed, the blood around him pooling on the ground.
Alarica's eyes widened at Sigyn's confession. He...did that with her? Something cracked inside of Alarica's heart, and it was painful. It was painful enough to stop her in her tracks as Sigyn banished the ice dagger from her hand and twisted Ulrik out of her other. Her mind kept playing the words over in her head. Why? Why did it hurt her so much to think that Balthasar actually went that far with that girl? She couldn't understand it. The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and she could feel her heart thrumming fast against her rib-cage. It shouldn't hurt like this. It shouldn't. What he did with this girl was none of her business, but what if...she couldn't think straight; she couldn't think at all.
"You're lying," she managed, barely a note above a whisper as if the word had not existed. She had to be lying. But there was still the fear that crept within Alarica that it might be true. And if it was...her eyes burned, the warmness falling slightly from her eyes, however; before they could fall, something of a blur caught her eyes. Something warm splashed across her face, and the scent was familiar. She could smell Leora's blood, but that wasn't the blood that was splashed across her face. "No...Mik," she spoke, almost speaking her familiar's name, however; her eyes spotted a crown of corn-yellow hair. She had been pushed out of the way, and it was then that she saw the large spear piercing her brother's chest.
"Em...rys," she managed to state, her eyes glued on his form. His eyes were closed, the spear pouring out more blood. "Emrys!" she shouted, something cracking in the back of her mind as everything around her dropped to an uncomfortable temperature. Large pillars of ice began piercing through the ground, hitting random places as her eyes flashed a dangerous vermilion. "You...fucking...bitch...," Alarica stated, her anger flaring, as she lost control of her ability. She could feel something tugging at the back of her mind, but all she could see was red.
This girl would pay...and she would pay in blood. With uncanny speed, Alarica charged after Sigyn, her eyes glowing, her claws extended. She would have her head if it was the last thing Alarica did. No one touched her family like that and lived. No one, not even if she had to die to make it so. They did not call her and her brother Terrors for nothing.
Sigyn jumped, landing lightly atop one of the ice pillars, and continued to jump, ducking away from each subsequent blow. Interesting—the chit’s rage made her faster, almost as fast as Sigyn herself. That was unexpected, and the first blow managed to hit, glancing off her side, though it did draw blood, which spattered into the ice, staining the yellow dress that she wore. Nevertheless, the wound was gone almost immediately, and she was not so foolish as to be surprised twice. Each of Alarica’s subsequent blows was avoided, but this had ceased to be anything but irritating.
“Frigga. Stop playing, it’s time to go.” The words, so similar to the ones Freyr had spoken into her mind on that day, carried a sense of irony to Sigyn, but she did not show it. Frigga, who had been laughing like a child in a toy store as she ducked and dodged around Keir’s vicious claws, pouted, sighed, and then smiled at the both of her foes.
“Well, Kitten, sir Knight, I appears that I must be off. Do say hello to your parents for me!” She and Sigyn were both gone in the next eyeblink, racing away at speeds too great to be caught by ordinary means, at least by the injured or irrational ones present here.
But this, standing here, fighting with them, to protect Rica, this she could do. She was a bit surprised to see that only two figures approached, but less shocked when she recognized both. They were both known members of the Pantheon, from the upper echelon, too, if Vi was right, and he was never wrong when it counted. Both female, one walked with the light steps and bright smile of someone much more childlike than the other. Her shock of vibrantly-red hair and the mismatched color of her eyes—one green, the other gold—gave her away as Frigga, and that alone was a daunting prospect for a fight. The mighty battleaxe that was her trademark rested casually in one hand.
The other figure was more personally known—and perhaps more personally hated. Clad in a yellow dress, dark umber hair trailing behind her in the breeze, and not at all visibly armed, was Sigyn, once known to them all as Elizabeth. If anything, Leora’s guard went up further—she knew that the absence of a weapon was not the absence of danger. She, after all, didn’t carry one, either. The two came to a stop a few hundred feet from where the other four were assembled, three fair-haired and one dark. “Aww,” Frigga trilled in a light soprano. “There’s only four. That’s hardly enough for any fun, even for just me…” She trailed off, though, a scent hitting her on the breeze, and her full, cherry-colored lips turned up in a smile.
“Oh, another Aegis! Hello, Aegis—is that adorable mother of yours still kicking? I want that one!” The last was said obviously without the expectation of a response from Leo, and directly to Sigyn, who simply nodded slightly, her face impassive.
“I honestly don’t care, Frigga,” Her voice, which would have been remembered as sweet, was curiously flat. He wasn’t here. Such a shame. She wanted him to watch his cousin die. He deserved it, for refusing to leave her alone.
Frigga sighed, hefting her axe so that the pole of it rested across her thin shoulders. She wasn’t that much taller than Helen, actually. “You’re really no fun anymore, Sigyn.” Clucking her tongue, she nevertheless launched herself forward, making a beeline for Leora. Sigyn, on the other hand, waited. Her target would come to her, and she well knew it.
Something burned beneath Alarica's skin. She couldn't place the feeling, but there was something there. She couldn't understand why the hairs along the back of her neck were standing, why she felt an insatiable itch in the palm of her hands, or why the wind seemed to be mostly absent. That, perhaps was her doing as the air chilled slightly. She knew it wasn't because they sent assassins after her, and a part of her wondered why they were trying to kill her when they had so fervently tried to kidnap her before. It made little to no sense to her, and she honestly didn't mind. They could try, but they would fail.
She had her brothers, her cousin, by her side, and she herself was adept at battle. Perhaps not as strong as her pure-blood cousins, but enough to not need too much protection. She pulled Ulrik from her back, switching it so that it was in its blade form. She wasn't going to kill her enemies quickly, no she wouldn't allow them that. They had hurt her family too much, and they did not deserve that mercy. They would die slow, painful deaths. They would beg for their lives before she was through with them. No one caused her family pain and lived to tell the tale about it. With that in mind, she placed Ulrik across her shoulders, staring out as the would-be assassins appeared.
Her lips curled almost into a feral snarl when she spotted the bitch who hurt Balthasar, who took his blood and betrayed him. It explained why her blood was boiling beneath her skin, why it was crying out in quick succession to destroy something. She could feel her own fangs elongating, highlighting her feralness as she felt her lips twitch. Before she could think clearly, the one known as Frigga attacked, heading straight for Leora. Had Alarica been in the right state of mind, she would have diverted her attention to her cousin and intervened. But she wasn't. Her mind was clouded with hate for that woman, that thing that hurt Balthasar.
"You didn't deserve him," she growled out of her mouth, charging at the one previously known as Elizabeth. She didn't have a weapon, but Alarica was no fool. She was capable of damage even without Ulrik, and this, she had learned, applied to all vampires, pure-blood or not. Her mother had told her and her siblings of the Pantheon, how they all had different abilities and strengths. If she had been in the right state of mind, she would have remembered this, not attacking and charging blindly.
The hairs on the back of Keir's neck stood on end, his lips pulling back in a vehement and feral snarl at the red-haired pixie woman who challenged Leora. It wasn't even so much as a challenge, really. He didn't like the way woman spoke to her. She called her the Aegis, like she was nothing more than a tool. That alone made his blood boil, the scales on his arms shifting, spreading, hardening. His teeth were clenched as he spoke.
"Shut it, bitch. Get through me first."
Emrys, on the other hand, sighed through his nose. He'd hoped that at least Rica would be able to keep her head, he'd long since given up on Keir. It did not seem to be of any use, however, and for the moment, he focused on taking out the level E's, keeping a close eye on his sister. "Don't be stupid, Rica..." He muttered.
Frigga’s charge was brought up a little short, but she didn’t seem to mind, flashing a brilliant, fanged smile at Keir. “Why hello, gorgeous,” she trilled, laughter evident in her voice if not quite making it into one of the usual forms. “You know, I would not have picked the scaly thing to work for me, but it certainly works for you.” She swung her massive axe right for him, intent on testing the resiliency of the aforementioned scales. Surprisingly, it glanced off. Oooh, that was going to be fun. She might have to actually apply her strength to break through that!
A stray waft of scent was the only thing that alerted her to the other woman’s presence, and she just barely ducked and maneuvered out of the way of a series of punches. She didn’t need to as such, but with skin this durable, blunt damage was actually more likely to work than blades, because it didn’t have to break skin to be effective. Something that might be worth a little field test. One of her dodges was a backbend that put her nearly nose-to-nose with Leora, and her smile only inched wider. “Oooh, you’re beautiful, too. Though I would have never guessed—the Aegis and the dark lord really did have babies! How precious!”
Leo was rather used to being hit on. She was also getting progressively more used to battle. But she had never encountered both at the same time, and it left her a little unsure of how to react. Then again, when in Rome… “Well, there you have it,” she said, throwing a few kicks in with her punches and then ducking to the side so that Keir could launch his own volley, none of which hit the woman any more than her own had. “People can surprise you.”
“It’s a most wonderful thing about them, isn’t it,” Frigga replied, sighing almost wistfully. “And how about you, Kitten? Will you surprise me? Or how about your knight in shining scale armor? Let’s see what you’ve got…” The grass and plants around their feet suddenly seemed to go berserk, growing at an astounding rate and thickening. Leora soon found her legs wrapped in tree roots all the way up to her thighs, and struggled to free herself—no easy task, when they just kept grabbing her every time she pulled free. Frigga really was laughing now, a free, chiming sound that sounded delighted rather than malicious. This was definitely weird.
Sigyn was not nearly so amused. The flare of his aura caught her off-guard. It was not what she’d come to expect of him, and she found it almost… unnerving. Nevertheless, she angled her body so that the girl’s strike passed harmlessly off to her right, though she caught Alarica’s wrist on the way by and spun with her, launching her back into the nearest tree, which cracked with the impact. Sigyn was on her again at once, hooked fingers reaching for the girl’s pale throat. “Do not presume to know what you cannot understand, half-blood,” she sniffed, but there was an unmistakably territorial edge to the statement.
She had found herself… dissatisfied with the way things had ended, and she did not enjoy the attention being called to it. What did such a filthy thin-blood like this child know of deserving, anyway? She had the benefit of standing beside her superiors every day, as though she were good enough to hold her head high among them. “It is you who deserves nothing. You have been raised alongside your betters, treated as one of them, loved and cherished, and still you cannot hold him. I may be a betrayer, but you are a coward who lacks the strength to even say what it is that she wants.”
Her mouth turned up at the corners, the gesture purely malicious. “Shall I tell you what it’s like, being with him? Touching him? Kissing him? Being kissed? Perhaps you would like to know, since it will never happen to you.”
Keir growled louder, his eyes glowing. This chick was not normal...then again, none of them were normal. He moved, pulling free of the plants, shredding them with the scales, as he could move each one individually, and they were all razor-sharp. He could easily keep clear of her plants. As such, he lunged for the woman with the battle axe. He was angry enough that he had reverted to staying silent, something that was not normal for the Alistair.
Alarica flinched, her back colliding in a tree with a soft thud, as she collapsed with it. Her back was stinging, however; that wasn't what was causing Alarica to flinch inwardly. Sigyn's words pierced her like hot knives, each one cutting deeper. What did she know of deserving? She knew that she didn't deserve Balthasar. She knew she didn't deserve to have him as a cousin, let alone as someone to love. But she also knew that she didn't deserve him either. Balthasar deserved so much more, someone who could accent his light, his innocence as she thought of it. Though she knew what her cousin was capable of, he would always be Bally to her.
"You're right, I don't deserve anything but," Alarica began, wiping at the bit of blood that appeared from the corners of her mouth where she pierced her lip. "I can admit to what I want. What I want is for him to be happy, with someone who deserves him. And that someone is not you," she spat. The last sentence, caused her to pull back her lips into a vicious snarl. This woman was truly testing her patience. She was treading on thin ice with Alarica, and with every word Sigyn spoke, a new fire burned beneath her skin. It was as if her skin would melt off if the fan kept feeding the flame.
"I do not need to know any of it. It may never happen to me, but for you, it'll never happen again," she snarled, forming a dagger in her hand made of ice. She may not have had her father's accuracy in throwing knives, but she could still use them regardless. Plus, when you could form ice from the moisture in the air, it was a good way to have an endless arsenal of them, however; the one in her hands would do for now. "Has anyone ever told you, that you are an annoying bitch? I think it's time you shut the hell up and just die already!" she stated. With Ulrik in her right hand, the ice dagger in her left, she lunged for Sigyn again.
Frigga huffed her disappointment. “You’re not as fun as your lovely lady friend,” she told Keir in something of a whine. Of course, it reverted once she noted he was clear of her plants, and she merrily swung her axe again, this time with something quite a bit loser to her full strength. It was avoided, though it took off a few of the long, white hairs that cascaded from his head, signifying a very near miss indeed. Her next hit was aimed at Leora, who managed to get herself out of the roots, though not in quite enough time.
A dark red arc of blood spattered from the end of Frigga’s axe on the backswing, the nearly-overpowering scent of oranges and something more exotic—pomegranates and cream, perhaps—flooded the area, and Leora stumbled back with a hiss, clutching a massive cut in her side. Her healing factor was better than most, due to the Aegis, but that hit had been quite nearly fatal, and she felt dizzy just from the initial impact and blood loss, to say nothing of the pain. Frigga, however, only tilted her head to one side. “Consider me surprised, Kitten—that was supposed to kill you!”
Sigyn sneered. “Do not lie to me. Nobody fights so furiously so that someone else might be happy without them. You want him, little girl. I’ll prove it to you.” When Alarica lunged, Sigyn caught the wrist with Ulrik, leveraging it up and away from her with superior strength, and somehow, the ice dagger that should have hit her abdomen didn’t, winking out of existence as though it had never been there at all. “Because if it was just about his happiness, it would not enrage you so to know that I know what it feels like to lay with him, to feel the sensation of his skin on mine. You would not be this upset to realize that all that delicious heat was mine. He certainly wasn’t complaining, after all.” She smiled slightly and took a step back, ripping a chunk from the shredded tree she’d thrown the girl against, raising it above her head to plunge downward for the woman’s heart.
Call her old-fashioned, but some things were worth doing in the most ancient, most brutal fashion.
The scent of her blood hit his nose, and something in Keir's chest burned. Rage roiled through him from his very core. His whole body tensed, his eyes burning, and he went straight for Frigga's throat, the ends of his claws aimed for her windpipe. He missed, but he quickly flipped, claws tearing at anything and everything he could get at, his face twisted in a mask of rage and utter hatred.
Emrys flinched when he smelled Leora's blood, but he remained focused on the task at hand. His sister was not doing so well, and for a second, he felt his heart stop. He reacted without thinking as Sigyn brought the stake down to meet Alarica's chest. His body glowed as he raced to her, solidifying himself as he pushed his sister out of the way.
The pain radiated from his chest, a feeling of warmth spreading through it. His vision blurred as he coughed, blood spraying from his mouth as he did so. He grasped the front of Sigyn's shirt, forcibly shoving her away from him, his claws digging into her chest deeply as he did so. His voice was barely above a whisper as he said, "Not my little sister, bitch."
He could do nothing more than allow his eyes to roll up into his head as he collapsed, the blood around him pooling on the ground.
Alarica's eyes widened at Sigyn's confession. He...did that with her? Something cracked inside of Alarica's heart, and it was painful. It was painful enough to stop her in her tracks as Sigyn banished the ice dagger from her hand and twisted Ulrik out of her other. Her mind kept playing the words over in her head. Why? Why did it hurt her so much to think that Balthasar actually went that far with that girl? She couldn't understand it. The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and she could feel her heart thrumming fast against her rib-cage. It shouldn't hurt like this. It shouldn't. What he did with this girl was none of her business, but what if...she couldn't think straight; she couldn't think at all.
"You're lying," she managed, barely a note above a whisper as if the word had not existed. She had to be lying. But there was still the fear that crept within Alarica that it might be true. And if it was...her eyes burned, the warmness falling slightly from her eyes, however; before they could fall, something of a blur caught her eyes. Something warm splashed across her face, and the scent was familiar. She could smell Leora's blood, but that wasn't the blood that was splashed across her face. "No...Mik," she spoke, almost speaking her familiar's name, however; her eyes spotted a crown of corn-yellow hair. She had been pushed out of the way, and it was then that she saw the large spear piercing her brother's chest.
"Em...rys," she managed to state, her eyes glued on his form. His eyes were closed, the spear pouring out more blood. "Emrys!" she shouted, something cracking in the back of her mind as everything around her dropped to an uncomfortable temperature. Large pillars of ice began piercing through the ground, hitting random places as her eyes flashed a dangerous vermilion. "You...fucking...bitch...," Alarica stated, her anger flaring, as she lost control of her ability. She could feel something tugging at the back of her mind, but all she could see was red.
This girl would pay...and she would pay in blood. With uncanny speed, Alarica charged after Sigyn, her eyes glowing, her claws extended. She would have her head if it was the last thing Alarica did. No one touched her family like that and lived. No one, not even if she had to die to make it so. They did not call her and her brother Terrors for nothing.
Sigyn jumped, landing lightly atop one of the ice pillars, and continued to jump, ducking away from each subsequent blow. Interesting—the chit’s rage made her faster, almost as fast as Sigyn herself. That was unexpected, and the first blow managed to hit, glancing off her side, though it did draw blood, which spattered into the ice, staining the yellow dress that she wore. Nevertheless, the wound was gone almost immediately, and she was not so foolish as to be surprised twice. Each of Alarica’s subsequent blows was avoided, but this had ceased to be anything but irritating.
“Frigga. Stop playing, it’s time to go.” The words, so similar to the ones Freyr had spoken into her mind on that day, carried a sense of irony to Sigyn, but she did not show it. Frigga, who had been laughing like a child in a toy store as she ducked and dodged around Keir’s vicious claws, pouted, sighed, and then smiled at the both of her foes.
“Well, Kitten, sir Knight, I appears that I must be off. Do say hello to your parents for me!” She and Sigyn were both gone in the next eyeblink, racing away at speeds too great to be caught by ordinary means, at least by the injured or irrational ones present here.
Nikki smirked, standing on the roof of Cross Academy. The blade she held in her hand felt good; it was comfortable, like having an old friend at your side in the middle of a crisis. While this was not perhaps a crisis, persay, it was still good to have that familiarity. She would have preferred being where her daughter was when Yuki took to the field, however; fate deemed she spend this battle elsewhere.
She was honored, really. It had been a long time since anyone had sent an assassin after her specifically. She actually couldn't rightly remember the last time, they had always been after her sons, or her nieces and nephews. A change of pace was welcomed to her. The breeze mussed her hair as the sun set, setting the sky on fire. There was a shift in the atmosphere, new scents flooding her nostrils. She scoffed softly.
"They just love putting on big shows." Really, having such a large display when you were trying to pull off an assassination was just...idiotic, she thought. Balthasar stood to her left, Alden to her right.
"Ready boys?" There was a playful note in her voice as she asked.
Balthasar nodded, but Alden only sighed. Physical confrontation wasn’t hard for him; he was his father’s son, after all, but like his mother, he did not prefer it. Unlike his mother, what he did instead was nothing so innocent as smiling and making people feel better about themselves. He realized with an odd twinge somewhere in his chest that he really missed her. Perhaps he’d have to be home for the holiday this year, if he could manage it…
The rather innocuous train of his thought did not stop him from hurling three knives into the hearts of the first three Level E’s that came into range, of course, and they all burst into spontaneous clouds of ash, floating up towards the setting sun in a way he did not stop to appreciate. His senses alerted him to four more in his zone, and he ducked the overhead swing of a claw, sweeping the legs of the offender out from underneath him and spearing him in the throat with what had once been a knife—Brynhilde was just as useful a weapon for Alden as it had been for Ava, because it could be carried as a knife and utilized as a spear. It swiftly ended the other three, the bored, placid expression remaining firmly entrenched in Alden’s features.
Balthasar also favored polearms, when he had the choice, but his lances were a matched pair, and both currently on fire. These Level E’s didn’t even have humanoid shapes—or at least, not all of them did. It seemed that some of them had been spliced with animals of some kind, if he had to guess. Lizards and insects were the most prominent types, and some of them had scales not unlike his cousin Keir’s, if duller and all over rather than bright and controllable. They were not enough protection against the point of a lance, however, and that resulted in several deaths in quick succession. Balthasar was made for the battlefield more than he ever fit in anywhere else, and it showed. His movements were fluid, but also steady and explosive when the occasion called for it, and not one of the two dozen Level E’s that made for him in those first few seconds got within three feet of him. Though he had no truesight, he seemed to know by instinct where they were, flipping one of his spears and driving it backward into one that attempted to approach from behind.
He glanced over to find his mother already engaged with the assassin. He wasn’t worried—though a few had come close to getting her before, in their attempts on himself or his brother, that was always when they caught things unawares, and as she’d pointed out, they were anything but unaware now.
Nikki did not move as the first wave of level E's swarmed them. At least, it didn't look like she moved. Her movements were almost imperceptible to the eye. Her face remained rather neutral, occasionally donning a small smile. Her grey eyes scanned the battlefield, quickly finding the one who did not match the description of a level E. She scoffed silently. Did they truly expect to kill her with this?
How pathetic. Benehime was still in its sheath, and she held it, using her thumb to push it out slightly. It made a metalic hiss as she pulled it out, the weapon shifting as she did so, Benehime taking on the form of double-ended spear. The man, a Noble vampire, lunged for her. She blocked him easily, her spear parying his blade with ease. Her eyes narrowed, however, when she felt a cut appear on her cheek, the blood running down in response. She'd blocked his attack. She knew she did.
"Sorry, lovely. I don't have to hit you to be able to hurt you." She responded by grinning. "Oh really? That just makes it interesting. Benehime has been bored lately." She retaliated by increasing her rate of attack, the grin on her face the entire time.
The horde was thickening, literally hundreds of the monsters swarming over the field. There was no doubt that between the two of them, Alden and Balthasar could kill the lot, but the problem was, they weren’t all trying to attack the two men. Most of them were actually going after the school itself, and there was no mistaking that the student body would suffer for it. Balthasar knew what had to be done here. “Alden, go get the students out of there! I’ll handle this!” His cousin hesitated for only a moment before nodding and taking off towards the school building, seeming to bound between Level E monsters as he did, a new cloud of ash reaching for the sky with every jump he took.
Turning back around, Balthasar faced the oncoming mass, taking a deep breath and tightening his hold on his lances. This was far more than anyone he knew of, save his father, had ever tried to fight at once, but there was no choice. He was not expecting it to go spectacularly, but it had to be done. If his father could do it, so could he… and at least with nobody around, he didn’t have to worry about hurting them.
Something in him, that unnamable rage that seethed beneath his surface, that darkness that roiled deep in his very core and reminded him that he was not the man he showed the world, stirred. Where he usually pushed it away, locking it deep in the corner of his consciousness as his father had taught him to do, now he reached for it, allowing himself to surrender to it, and submerge everything else that he was beneath its surface. It was dangerous, but it was the only way—he knew this like he knew nothing else.
His aura, always contained, always steady, and most of the time even bright, practically exploded, washing over the entire school grounds in a dark, choking burst for just a moment, before it pulled back in towards himself. The fire at the ends of his lances turned black, and the flare of energy alone vaporized the nearest three dozen Level E’s. The rest, save those that had already made it to the school building, stopped entirely, quivering in their places. It was as though Balthasar’s pupils had bled outward, the inky darkness of them coming to encompass the entire visible portion of his eyes. His will was a pressure of its own, adding to the gravity that pressed uncomfortably heavily over them in a wide radius. When he spoke, his voice was not his own.
“…Perish.” And so they did.
Nikki shuddered, feeling her son's change in aura. The effect was rather instantaneous, but she was not close enough to have no choice but to submit. At this distance, she could fight it. Even so, it wasn't entirely easy, but thanks to Jasper, she'd had a bit of practice. At least, more so than these Nobles, who had both stopped, the one in front of her and the one who had been approaching from behind.
As such, Nikki quickly dispatched them both, sheathing Benehime as she did so. She shook then, watching as the Level E's all died. She closed her eyes, one hand clutching at her chest as all the dust scattered around her.
"Give me my son back." She whispered. This was not her son, just as Jasper was not her husband whenever he used that. She did not move, though. She knew well enough what it meant when in their immediate vicinity. She would have no choice but submit, no matter the consequences. So she stayed where she was.
Perhaps fortunately, the toll the exercise of this power demanded of him was more than Balthasar yet knew how to tolerate, and so while he might have caused untold damage to the school, himself, and the people he loved, what actually happened was somewhat more merciful and infinitely more tolerable. His aura wavered, before seeming to collapse in on itself, his eyes flashing a few times before they regained their usual color and he fell forward, without even the wherewithal remaining to break his fall. He simple collapsed into a heap on the grass, utterly spent.
It was at about this time that Alden returned, soot-streaked and a little worse for wear. The other Level E’s, the ones that had escaped Balthasar’s range, were dead now, and the students evacuated, but Cross Academy was half-collapsed, and the rest of it burned.
Nikki had moved the second she felt her son's aura shift, and she reached him before he collapsed. She caught him as he fell, cradling his head against her chest. She sighed as she sank to the ground with him. She was just happy that he was alright.
She was honored, really. It had been a long time since anyone had sent an assassin after her specifically. She actually couldn't rightly remember the last time, they had always been after her sons, or her nieces and nephews. A change of pace was welcomed to her. The breeze mussed her hair as the sun set, setting the sky on fire. There was a shift in the atmosphere, new scents flooding her nostrils. She scoffed softly.
"They just love putting on big shows." Really, having such a large display when you were trying to pull off an assassination was just...idiotic, she thought. Balthasar stood to her left, Alden to her right.
"Ready boys?" There was a playful note in her voice as she asked.
Balthasar nodded, but Alden only sighed. Physical confrontation wasn’t hard for him; he was his father’s son, after all, but like his mother, he did not prefer it. Unlike his mother, what he did instead was nothing so innocent as smiling and making people feel better about themselves. He realized with an odd twinge somewhere in his chest that he really missed her. Perhaps he’d have to be home for the holiday this year, if he could manage it…
The rather innocuous train of his thought did not stop him from hurling three knives into the hearts of the first three Level E’s that came into range, of course, and they all burst into spontaneous clouds of ash, floating up towards the setting sun in a way he did not stop to appreciate. His senses alerted him to four more in his zone, and he ducked the overhead swing of a claw, sweeping the legs of the offender out from underneath him and spearing him in the throat with what had once been a knife—Brynhilde was just as useful a weapon for Alden as it had been for Ava, because it could be carried as a knife and utilized as a spear. It swiftly ended the other three, the bored, placid expression remaining firmly entrenched in Alden’s features.
Balthasar also favored polearms, when he had the choice, but his lances were a matched pair, and both currently on fire. These Level E’s didn’t even have humanoid shapes—or at least, not all of them did. It seemed that some of them had been spliced with animals of some kind, if he had to guess. Lizards and insects were the most prominent types, and some of them had scales not unlike his cousin Keir’s, if duller and all over rather than bright and controllable. They were not enough protection against the point of a lance, however, and that resulted in several deaths in quick succession. Balthasar was made for the battlefield more than he ever fit in anywhere else, and it showed. His movements were fluid, but also steady and explosive when the occasion called for it, and not one of the two dozen Level E’s that made for him in those first few seconds got within three feet of him. Though he had no truesight, he seemed to know by instinct where they were, flipping one of his spears and driving it backward into one that attempted to approach from behind.
He glanced over to find his mother already engaged with the assassin. He wasn’t worried—though a few had come close to getting her before, in their attempts on himself or his brother, that was always when they caught things unawares, and as she’d pointed out, they were anything but unaware now.
Nikki did not move as the first wave of level E's swarmed them. At least, it didn't look like she moved. Her movements were almost imperceptible to the eye. Her face remained rather neutral, occasionally donning a small smile. Her grey eyes scanned the battlefield, quickly finding the one who did not match the description of a level E. She scoffed silently. Did they truly expect to kill her with this?
How pathetic. Benehime was still in its sheath, and she held it, using her thumb to push it out slightly. It made a metalic hiss as she pulled it out, the weapon shifting as she did so, Benehime taking on the form of double-ended spear. The man, a Noble vampire, lunged for her. She blocked him easily, her spear parying his blade with ease. Her eyes narrowed, however, when she felt a cut appear on her cheek, the blood running down in response. She'd blocked his attack. She knew she did.
"Sorry, lovely. I don't have to hit you to be able to hurt you." She responded by grinning. "Oh really? That just makes it interesting. Benehime has been bored lately." She retaliated by increasing her rate of attack, the grin on her face the entire time.
The horde was thickening, literally hundreds of the monsters swarming over the field. There was no doubt that between the two of them, Alden and Balthasar could kill the lot, but the problem was, they weren’t all trying to attack the two men. Most of them were actually going after the school itself, and there was no mistaking that the student body would suffer for it. Balthasar knew what had to be done here. “Alden, go get the students out of there! I’ll handle this!” His cousin hesitated for only a moment before nodding and taking off towards the school building, seeming to bound between Level E monsters as he did, a new cloud of ash reaching for the sky with every jump he took.
Turning back around, Balthasar faced the oncoming mass, taking a deep breath and tightening his hold on his lances. This was far more than anyone he knew of, save his father, had ever tried to fight at once, but there was no choice. He was not expecting it to go spectacularly, but it had to be done. If his father could do it, so could he… and at least with nobody around, he didn’t have to worry about hurting them.
Something in him, that unnamable rage that seethed beneath his surface, that darkness that roiled deep in his very core and reminded him that he was not the man he showed the world, stirred. Where he usually pushed it away, locking it deep in the corner of his consciousness as his father had taught him to do, now he reached for it, allowing himself to surrender to it, and submerge everything else that he was beneath its surface. It was dangerous, but it was the only way—he knew this like he knew nothing else.
His aura, always contained, always steady, and most of the time even bright, practically exploded, washing over the entire school grounds in a dark, choking burst for just a moment, before it pulled back in towards himself. The fire at the ends of his lances turned black, and the flare of energy alone vaporized the nearest three dozen Level E’s. The rest, save those that had already made it to the school building, stopped entirely, quivering in their places. It was as though Balthasar’s pupils had bled outward, the inky darkness of them coming to encompass the entire visible portion of his eyes. His will was a pressure of its own, adding to the gravity that pressed uncomfortably heavily over them in a wide radius. When he spoke, his voice was not his own.
“…Perish.” And so they did.
Nikki shuddered, feeling her son's change in aura. The effect was rather instantaneous, but she was not close enough to have no choice but to submit. At this distance, she could fight it. Even so, it wasn't entirely easy, but thanks to Jasper, she'd had a bit of practice. At least, more so than these Nobles, who had both stopped, the one in front of her and the one who had been approaching from behind.
As such, Nikki quickly dispatched them both, sheathing Benehime as she did so. She shook then, watching as the Level E's all died. She closed her eyes, one hand clutching at her chest as all the dust scattered around her.
"Give me my son back." She whispered. This was not her son, just as Jasper was not her husband whenever he used that. She did not move, though. She knew well enough what it meant when in their immediate vicinity. She would have no choice but submit, no matter the consequences. So she stayed where she was.
Perhaps fortunately, the toll the exercise of this power demanded of him was more than Balthasar yet knew how to tolerate, and so while he might have caused untold damage to the school, himself, and the people he loved, what actually happened was somewhat more merciful and infinitely more tolerable. His aura wavered, before seeming to collapse in on itself, his eyes flashing a few times before they regained their usual color and he fell forward, without even the wherewithal remaining to break his fall. He simple collapsed into a heap on the grass, utterly spent.
It was at about this time that Alden returned, soot-streaked and a little worse for wear. The other Level E’s, the ones that had escaped Balthasar’s range, were dead now, and the students evacuated, but Cross Academy was half-collapsed, and the rest of it burned.
Nikki had moved the second she felt her son's aura shift, and she reached him before he collapsed. She caught him as he fell, cradling his head against her chest. She sighed as she sank to the ground with him. She was just happy that he was alright.
Her yellow eyes scanned the grounds again. They lacked the luster and shine they once had, underscored by heavy dark circles. Her hair was dull, with a straw-like quality to it. The faces and the voices nudged at the back of her head. She ignored them. There was only one thing that she wanted. And that was answers.
Why did they know her? Why did they feel so familiar? And why could she not forget them? Him?
Her fangs slid down as she found the one she was looking for. Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl as she approached. A horde of level E's followed her, and her eyes, wide, wild, took in the three people in front of her. The Lords Kuragari and von Nacht, and the Trist girl. She flinched as Kisuke's voice filled her head again.
Aryan was...a bit surprised, at his sister's condition. Whatever the serum had done to her, it was having a very adverse effect on her. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks, and the look in her eyes was something dark, something feral. He used his shadows to take out one of the level E's that lunged forward, this insinuating mass chaos. Yuki, however, went straight for Zero again. What she said caught her brother off guard.
Zero stared out into the battle field. There was a mass of Level E vampires, each one different than the next not simply by physicality, but also by scent. It appeared that they were experimenting now, and Zero's lips pulled back into a snarl as one came for the group. Aryan took care of some with his shadows as did Zero, commanding them with the ease his father had shown him. It was then he turned, coming to a stand-still with the one he wanted to protect. She attacked him again; it was like this every time they met on the battle field. Her statement, however, caught him a bit off guard.
"Because Yuki," he spoke, blocking her attack rather than allowing her harm. He had promised. He had promised Balthasar, Nikki, and Aryan (in his own way) that he would save Yuki. Though he would not resort to killing her, he would use his force now to restrain her if he had to. He needed to save her. If not anyone else but her. "You don't leave the one you love," he spoke, shoving her away from him as he pulled out Ragnarok. The weapon could be utilized much like Ulrik, Erys' previous weapon now belonging to Alarica. He switched it, causing it to become a short sword-like weapon.
Yuki looked startled at his response. It made no sense. She did not know him, how could he love her? She skidded backwards when he shoved her, one hand clasped to the side of her head. Pain lanced through her.
The faces swam before her eyes. "No." She said softly. Her eyes widened, seeing, but not what was in front of her. "No!" Him, he was all she could see. She shut her eyes. Kisuke's voice taunted her, scolded her, tore her apart bit by bit until there was nothing left.
"Get the Hell out of my head!"
Aryan took out another few of the level E's, his attention never far from his sister, and he took advantage of the situation. He grabbed hold of his sister by her wrists and ankles, and around the waist using his shadows. "Helen, now!"
She did not need to be told twice. In a move uncharacteristic of her, Helen sheathed both of her blades, applying her speed to come stand in front of the bound Yuki in an eyeblink. Reaching up, she placed a hand on either side of the other girl’s face, forcing golden eyes to make contact with mossy lilac. Something uncommonly fierce burned in Hel’s, and though she was still paper-thin and weaker than she’d ever been in her life, she was strong enough for this. She must be strong enough for this. “Yuki,” she said, the flatness of her tone somehow managing to convey a kind of sternness and a kind of softness all at once. “Remember me. Remember him. Remember this.”
It was, after all, eerily reminiscent of a time a hundred years ago, when their positions had been reversed, and it was Helen who was bound in shadows, Yuki attempting to reach her through the haze of her conditioning and her control. Theodor had let her go, she knew this, but the serum’s hold on Yuki was weakening as well, and all her friend needed was to remember, to throw off the last of the shackles holding her in place. Taking a deep breath, Helen spoke directly into her friend’s mind.
You are not a weapon. You are not a tool. You are a person, and you are loved. Remember that. Remember them. Distantly she felt a disturbance in the air, as Balthasar’s aura flared dark and terrible, but she pushed it aside. Now was not the time for an episode. This was more important than anything else. This was the one place, the one act, in which she could not fail. If she never succeeded at anything else again for the rest of her life, she would succeed at this. Even if she had to die for it. Opening the mental connection wider, Helen showed Yuki things she would know, things she would recognize, and she explained them to her, slowly and clearly.
First were the faces of Jasper and Nikki. These are your parents. They love you. They took you in and raised you into the person you are. They taught you music and love and kindness and light. The image switched, until it was a memory of Balthasar and Aryan playing one another at chess, with matching subtle smiles on their faces. These are your brothers. They love you, too. They taught you devotion and humor and affection.
The rest of the family appeared this time, and she included Freya and herself as well. These are your family, and your friends. They all love you. They have taught you many things, about yourself, and about them. About what it is to have a home, and a real life. How to be something other than a tool, other than a weapon. Taking a deep breath, Hel ignored the fact that fighting off an episode was starting to cause her physical pain—she was bleeding from the nose, and felt ill enough to collapse. She wasn’t done yet, though, and willed her shaking hands to still, refusing to give up until she was done. One final image passed between them.
This is Zero. He loves you, in a way that nobody else can. You love him, too, because you are not a weapon. He has taught you what it is to feel like the most important person in someone’s world. He has taught you complete acceptance. He has taught you that there is nothing he will not do for you. Come back to him. Come back to them. Come back to us.
Yuki was shaking, the images and memories flooding her system. She couldn't make sense of what the girl was trying to tell her, the faces, the words. Her eyes widened, a look of pain and fear crossing her features. She wrested free, the sword in her hand making an arc for Helen. Aryan, however, go there first. There were things he could let slide, he understood that his sister was not herself.
But he would not allow Helen to be harmed. This was made evident when he placed himself between her and Yuki, and caught her with his shadows again, and he snarled. "Don't, Yuki!"
Then she remembered. What she had done, the fact that she had hurt her family. She'd hurt them, and worse, she'd hurt him. The surge in Balthasar's aura made her flinch, and she managed to expel Helen from her mind, as well as slip free from Aryan. She stood there for a second, staring at them, terrified, and she turned and fled.
She couldn't face them, not after what she'd done. She couldn't face him. She ran, and ran. She didn't pay much attention to where she was going. She just wanted to go home.
Helen was conscious exactly as long as it took to confirm that Yuki was at least herself again, but she could not hold onto her waking world any longer than that, and she coughed, the harsh motion pulling yet more blood from her lungs. This was the price for resisting what he wanted to show her, and she was paying it now. She wondered, distantly, if she was going to die. But it didn’t matter. She was back—Yuki was back, and though it would take her time to recover, Helen knew that her friend would. Because she was loved, and surrounded by people who would remind her of this fact. Sometimes, that was all it took. Even if… even if she hadn’t understood it at all at the time.
For the first time in almost a month, Helen lost consciousness, falling still and cold. She was out before she hit the ground.
Why did they know her? Why did they feel so familiar? And why could she not forget them? Him?
Her fangs slid down as she found the one she was looking for. Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl as she approached. A horde of level E's followed her, and her eyes, wide, wild, took in the three people in front of her. The Lords Kuragari and von Nacht, and the Trist girl. She flinched as Kisuke's voice filled her head again.
You know what you're supposed to do.
Aryan was...a bit surprised, at his sister's condition. Whatever the serum had done to her, it was having a very adverse effect on her. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks, and the look in her eyes was something dark, something feral. He used his shadows to take out one of the level E's that lunged forward, this insinuating mass chaos. Yuki, however, went straight for Zero again. What she said caught her brother off guard.
"Why do you not leave me be?"
Zero stared out into the battle field. There was a mass of Level E vampires, each one different than the next not simply by physicality, but also by scent. It appeared that they were experimenting now, and Zero's lips pulled back into a snarl as one came for the group. Aryan took care of some with his shadows as did Zero, commanding them with the ease his father had shown him. It was then he turned, coming to a stand-still with the one he wanted to protect. She attacked him again; it was like this every time they met on the battle field. Her statement, however, caught him a bit off guard.
"Because Yuki," he spoke, blocking her attack rather than allowing her harm. He had promised. He had promised Balthasar, Nikki, and Aryan (in his own way) that he would save Yuki. Though he would not resort to killing her, he would use his force now to restrain her if he had to. He needed to save her. If not anyone else but her. "You don't leave the one you love," he spoke, shoving her away from him as he pulled out Ragnarok. The weapon could be utilized much like Ulrik, Erys' previous weapon now belonging to Alarica. He switched it, causing it to become a short sword-like weapon.
Yuki looked startled at his response. It made no sense. She did not know him, how could he love her? She skidded backwards when he shoved her, one hand clasped to the side of her head. Pain lanced through her.
You are my weapon, and weapons do not love.
The faces swam before her eyes. "No." She said softly. Her eyes widened, seeing, but not what was in front of her. "No!" Him, he was all she could see. She shut her eyes. Kisuke's voice taunted her, scolded her, tore her apart bit by bit until there was nothing left.
"Get the Hell out of my head!"
Aryan took out another few of the level E's, his attention never far from his sister, and he took advantage of the situation. He grabbed hold of his sister by her wrists and ankles, and around the waist using his shadows. "Helen, now!"
She did not need to be told twice. In a move uncharacteristic of her, Helen sheathed both of her blades, applying her speed to come stand in front of the bound Yuki in an eyeblink. Reaching up, she placed a hand on either side of the other girl’s face, forcing golden eyes to make contact with mossy lilac. Something uncommonly fierce burned in Hel’s, and though she was still paper-thin and weaker than she’d ever been in her life, she was strong enough for this. She must be strong enough for this. “Yuki,” she said, the flatness of her tone somehow managing to convey a kind of sternness and a kind of softness all at once. “Remember me. Remember him. Remember this.”
It was, after all, eerily reminiscent of a time a hundred years ago, when their positions had been reversed, and it was Helen who was bound in shadows, Yuki attempting to reach her through the haze of her conditioning and her control. Theodor had let her go, she knew this, but the serum’s hold on Yuki was weakening as well, and all her friend needed was to remember, to throw off the last of the shackles holding her in place. Taking a deep breath, Helen spoke directly into her friend’s mind.
You are not a weapon. You are not a tool. You are a person, and you are loved. Remember that. Remember them. Distantly she felt a disturbance in the air, as Balthasar’s aura flared dark and terrible, but she pushed it aside. Now was not the time for an episode. This was more important than anything else. This was the one place, the one act, in which she could not fail. If she never succeeded at anything else again for the rest of her life, she would succeed at this. Even if she had to die for it. Opening the mental connection wider, Helen showed Yuki things she would know, things she would recognize, and she explained them to her, slowly and clearly.
First were the faces of Jasper and Nikki. These are your parents. They love you. They took you in and raised you into the person you are. They taught you music and love and kindness and light. The image switched, until it was a memory of Balthasar and Aryan playing one another at chess, with matching subtle smiles on their faces. These are your brothers. They love you, too. They taught you devotion and humor and affection.
The rest of the family appeared this time, and she included Freya and herself as well. These are your family, and your friends. They all love you. They have taught you many things, about yourself, and about them. About what it is to have a home, and a real life. How to be something other than a tool, other than a weapon. Taking a deep breath, Hel ignored the fact that fighting off an episode was starting to cause her physical pain—she was bleeding from the nose, and felt ill enough to collapse. She wasn’t done yet, though, and willed her shaking hands to still, refusing to give up until she was done. One final image passed between them.
This is Zero. He loves you, in a way that nobody else can. You love him, too, because you are not a weapon. He has taught you what it is to feel like the most important person in someone’s world. He has taught you complete acceptance. He has taught you that there is nothing he will not do for you. Come back to him. Come back to them. Come back to us.
Yuki was shaking, the images and memories flooding her system. She couldn't make sense of what the girl was trying to tell her, the faces, the words. Her eyes widened, a look of pain and fear crossing her features. She wrested free, the sword in her hand making an arc for Helen. Aryan, however, go there first. There were things he could let slide, he understood that his sister was not herself.
But he would not allow Helen to be harmed. This was made evident when he placed himself between her and Yuki, and caught her with his shadows again, and he snarled. "Don't, Yuki!"
Then she remembered. What she had done, the fact that she had hurt her family. She'd hurt them, and worse, she'd hurt him. The surge in Balthasar's aura made her flinch, and she managed to expel Helen from her mind, as well as slip free from Aryan. She stood there for a second, staring at them, terrified, and she turned and fled.
She couldn't face them, not after what she'd done. She couldn't face him. She ran, and ran. She didn't pay much attention to where she was going. She just wanted to go home.
Helen was conscious exactly as long as it took to confirm that Yuki was at least herself again, but she could not hold onto her waking world any longer than that, and she coughed, the harsh motion pulling yet more blood from her lungs. This was the price for resisting what he wanted to show her, and she was paying it now. She wondered, distantly, if she was going to die. But it didn’t matter. She was back—Yuki was back, and though it would take her time to recover, Helen knew that her friend would. Because she was loved, and surrounded by people who would remind her of this fact. Sometimes, that was all it took. Even if… even if she hadn’t understood it at all at the time.
For the first time in almost a month, Helen lost consciousness, falling still and cold. She was out before she hit the ground.
Yuki Alistair von Nacht. That was her name, who she was. Faces, names, memories flashed before her eyes, and she swayed on her feet once more, having to stop and lean against a tree to keep from collapsing to her knees. The wind blew, the November air cold against her bare skin. Normally, she wouldn't even feel it, but as malnourished and starving as she was, everything was beginning to affect her. Her hair hung limp at the sides of her face.
Kisuke stood in front of her, yelling at her, barking orders. She simply walked forward, and through him, ignoring him this time. He dissolved. Her foot caught something, and she fell, catching herself on her hands and knees. She looked around her, her vision blurring with fatigue. Her hand came away, blackened, and confusion marred her features. It would seem that she had stumbled upon some sort of wreckage. She sat slowly, looking around her, noticing what looked like a door off to her right. Except, the door led underground.
Something pulled at the back of her mind. She knew this place. She crawled over to it, tugging at the heavy door. Whatever this place was, the fire had not destroyed it. She found herself staring down a staircase into utter darkness. Darkness...her eyes widened slightly. She knew this place. She was home. The faces of her family flashed before her eyes again, ending with Zero. She shook her head.
She couldn't go back to them. She didn't deserve to go back. She'd hurt them, and almost killed her brother. She didn't deserve them. She didn't deserve him. She was nothing more than a monster, an abomination that shouldn't have existed in the first place. He deserved better than her.
She slowly made it down the steps, her eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. The memories of this place came flooding back, memories of pain and darkness, of cold, and solitude. Of silence. This was where she belonged. She never should have left in the first place.
Yes, father... Her mind answered.
Kiba paced restlessly as the family moved. Cross Academy was in ruins, they could not stay there, so it had been decided that they would all go to the Kuragari household, if only because they were the closest, and Emrys wouldn't make it anywhere else. In truth, he'd barely made it there. Even now, his condition was far from stable.
Kiba felt for him, for all of them, really, but...he could also feel Yuki, and he was restless. He couldn't form a complete link with her, as every time he tried, she shoved him out, but he could pinpoint her location. He knew where she was, and he wasn't letting her get away this time.
Unable to stand it any longer, and knowing that he couldn't get through to her on his own, the familiar sought out the only person who could. His yellow eyes looked up at the eldest Kuragari. "I know where she is."
They wasted no time, the familiar leading the pure blood. It didn't take them very long, and Kiba, while he'd never seen it, recognized the location as what had once been the Alistair Estate. The wolf's ears flattened slightly, sniffing at the air. He tracked her to the solid pair of doors in the ground, and he snarled slightly. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, the underlying scent of crushed pine along with it. That only ment one thing, and in answer, a shadow shot up in the wolf's face.
Kiba yellped, skittering backwards before racing down the stairs. Wanted or not, he was not simply going to let his master continue this. Because this would kill her. He couldn't get close to her, she prevented that. His ears flattened against his head, his tail between his legs. Yuki sat in a corner, blood slowly dripping from her nose, and her hands. Her eyes were wide, staring at nothing. It was as if she didn't even realize that they were there. She probably didn't. The fingernails of her right hand had been all but torn off as she scratched at the wall. She was muttering something under her breath, and Kiba caught it, but only barely.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."
Kiba let out a whine. "Master..."
Zero had taken to looking after the injured, namely Emrys. They had all retreated to his family's home not too far from the Academy. That was one thing about the von Nacht's and Kuragari's, they always had a home somewhere. It wasn't for flashy occurances, but more for strategic placements. There had to be a place for them to conduct councils and have an advantage on the battlefield. He sighed, running his hand through his burnt locks as he closed his eyes. Cross Academy had been destroyed, there was no going back to it now. It was the last neutral zone, but with the attack, it was sure to cause some hands to be forced in the war. His attention was taken when when Kiba spoke to him.
"Take me to her," were the only words out of Zero's mouth when Kiba spoke to him. He knew where she was. His heart nearly fell to the pit of his stomach that day when Hel was able to get through to her, however; the look in her eyes nearly devastated him. It was one of pure and utter horror, of regret, and it had slowly killed him. He followed closely behind Kiba, his eyes taking in the surrounding area, and something flashed behind his eyes. He knew this place...or he thought he did. This was that place, the one from his father's memories. Zero had fed from Vincent once due to an injury he had sustained that would not have healed either way. He had seen a lot from his father, but this place seemed to be prominent in Zero's mind.
It was the place he held her. It was his Uncle and Aunt's birthplace: the Alistair estate. He felt his breath hitch, his anger rising before subsiding. He ran after Kiba, only stopping behind him when they came to a room, dark as night. He need not worry about his adjusting his vision, his eyes did that on their own, and what he saw almost caused his heart to stop. Yuki, she was facing the wall, her fingers scratching along the wall. He could smell the faint traces of blood, and could only assume that she had harmed herself in one way or another. He willed his limbs to move, and as he did, he grasped her from the wall, turning her around and embracing her.
"Yuki stop. This...this isn't your fault," he spoke, his voice coming out a mere whisper as his hold tightened around her.
Yuki flinched when a pair of hands grabbed her, the shadows writhing in response, but they stilled quickly. She didn't have the energy or the control to use them any longer, if the blood now leaking from her eyes was any indication. Her fingers still scratched, even though there wasn't anything there for her scratch at. Her body began to shake as Zero held her. Finally, she seemed to focus, and realize who was there.
"I almost killed my brother, I attacked you...I hurt you...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." She whispered hoarsely, tears mixing with the blood in her eyes. She flinched again, Kisuke's voice echoing in her head once more.
"I shouldn't have left...I don't belong out there."
Bloody words had been scratched into the wall, ranging from words to sentences, saying different things, in multiple languages. Most of them, however, read 'sorry', 'abomination', and 'home'.
Zero tightened his arms around Yuki as she spoke. "That wasn't you, Yuki. You cannot blame yourself for that. What you did wasn't because you did it. Aryan is fine, Hel saw to him, I'm fine. You didn't hurt any of us," he spoke softly against her hair. It hurt him to see her this way, and he couldn't do anything about it. Her words, they were like knives cutting into his skin, tearing him apart slowly, and he hated this feeling of being useless to the woman he loved. He took a deep breath, smoothing out her hair as he ran his hand down her back, combing through the silver locks.
"You shouldn't say that, Yuki. You do belong out there. You belong with us, with me," he spoke, his hold loosening just a bit. "You are not an animal Yuki. You are not something that needs to be caged. You live, you breathe, you love. None of that would have been possible if you had never left. This isn't a life, Yuki. Whatever this is, was not meant for you. You deserve so much better, and if I could give it to you, the world," he continued, unsure of if he was getting through to her or not. He wanted her to see that she was special, that she was a person who deserved as much out of life as anyone else.
Yuki buried her head in his shoulder. Why? Why didn't he just leave her? She didn't belong with them, she didn't, and she never would. He had said that she wasn't an animal. He was wrong. She was, she was wild and feral and she couldn't be trusted. She trembled again, her fingers curling into his shirt.
But then his scent hit her, and she shoved away from him, the fear in her eyes evident. It was oddly reminiscent of their encounter on the roof, but she wouldn't, she couldn't. She was worse off now than she had been when she almost drained her brother, she couldn't take that risk. Not with Zero.
"Don't," he spoke, reaching back for her arm and pulling her back to him. "Don't push me away, Yuki," he spoke, holding her at arms length as his eyes bore into hers. He didn't want her to push him away, not because of this. Let her push him away for any other reason but this. She looked so fragile, and it pained him to see her so. He could see the desire to feed, and he was the only one around. A smile played at his lips, bringing himself lower to her level, exposing his neck in the process. She had to feed, and he trusted her. He trusted her that she wouldn't let her hunger get the best of her.
"Take it, Yuki. Take what belongs to you, and only you. I trust you, because I love you," he spoke, bringing her head closer to his neck in the process. He kept one hand firmly against her wrist, reminiscent of when she first took his blood up on the roof. He wasn't going to let her go, not this time.
She couldn't do anything, not pull away, not run, she was trapped. But it was his voice that she noticed. He trusted her? It was more than she could fathom. How could he? Why did he? Even in her state, she still felt the thrum of electricity that still passed between them. She took a shaky breath.
And sank her teeth into his throat. He had said that he was hers, but he was wrong. She was his. There was no other way to put it. He grounded her, steadied her, when all else threatened to destroy her. She felt her body healing, and she was able to stop shaking as she pulled away slowly. She found herself swimming in sea foam as she leaned forward, her mouth covering his.
Zero smiled, his lips twitching softly as she sank her fangs into his neck and took what she needed. When she was finished, he felt her pull away and stared at her, wiping off the excess blood that pooled near the corner of her mouth. "And I, you," he spoke, leaning into her kiss, wrapping his hand behind her neck before pulling away. "There are a lot of people worried about you. I think it is time we go back to them," he stated, lifting her up so that he was carrying her bridal style. Without another word, they began a slow pace back to his family's home. Yuki was back, and that was all that mattered.
Kisuke stood in front of her, yelling at her, barking orders. She simply walked forward, and through him, ignoring him this time. He dissolved. Her foot caught something, and she fell, catching herself on her hands and knees. She looked around her, her vision blurring with fatigue. Her hand came away, blackened, and confusion marred her features. It would seem that she had stumbled upon some sort of wreckage. She sat slowly, looking around her, noticing what looked like a door off to her right. Except, the door led underground.
Something pulled at the back of her mind. She knew this place. She crawled over to it, tugging at the heavy door. Whatever this place was, the fire had not destroyed it. She found herself staring down a staircase into utter darkness. Darkness...her eyes widened slightly. She knew this place. She was home. The faces of her family flashed before her eyes again, ending with Zero. She shook her head.
She couldn't go back to them. She didn't deserve to go back. She'd hurt them, and almost killed her brother. She didn't deserve them. She didn't deserve him. She was nothing more than a monster, an abomination that shouldn't have existed in the first place. He deserved better than her.
She slowly made it down the steps, her eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. The memories of this place came flooding back, memories of pain and darkness, of cold, and solitude. Of silence. This was where she belonged. She never should have left in the first place.
You belong here, with me...
Yes, father... Her mind answered.
Kiba paced restlessly as the family moved. Cross Academy was in ruins, they could not stay there, so it had been decided that they would all go to the Kuragari household, if only because they were the closest, and Emrys wouldn't make it anywhere else. In truth, he'd barely made it there. Even now, his condition was far from stable.
Kiba felt for him, for all of them, really, but...he could also feel Yuki, and he was restless. He couldn't form a complete link with her, as every time he tried, she shoved him out, but he could pinpoint her location. He knew where she was, and he wasn't letting her get away this time.
Unable to stand it any longer, and knowing that he couldn't get through to her on his own, the familiar sought out the only person who could. His yellow eyes looked up at the eldest Kuragari. "I know where she is."
They wasted no time, the familiar leading the pure blood. It didn't take them very long, and Kiba, while he'd never seen it, recognized the location as what had once been the Alistair Estate. The wolf's ears flattened slightly, sniffing at the air. He tracked her to the solid pair of doors in the ground, and he snarled slightly. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, the underlying scent of crushed pine along with it. That only ment one thing, and in answer, a shadow shot up in the wolf's face.
Kiba yellped, skittering backwards before racing down the stairs. Wanted or not, he was not simply going to let his master continue this. Because this would kill her. He couldn't get close to her, she prevented that. His ears flattened against his head, his tail between his legs. Yuki sat in a corner, blood slowly dripping from her nose, and her hands. Her eyes were wide, staring at nothing. It was as if she didn't even realize that they were there. She probably didn't. The fingernails of her right hand had been all but torn off as she scratched at the wall. She was muttering something under her breath, and Kiba caught it, but only barely.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."
Kiba let out a whine. "Master..."
Zero had taken to looking after the injured, namely Emrys. They had all retreated to his family's home not too far from the Academy. That was one thing about the von Nacht's and Kuragari's, they always had a home somewhere. It wasn't for flashy occurances, but more for strategic placements. There had to be a place for them to conduct councils and have an advantage on the battlefield. He sighed, running his hand through his burnt locks as he closed his eyes. Cross Academy had been destroyed, there was no going back to it now. It was the last neutral zone, but with the attack, it was sure to cause some hands to be forced in the war. His attention was taken when when Kiba spoke to him.
"Take me to her," were the only words out of Zero's mouth when Kiba spoke to him. He knew where she was. His heart nearly fell to the pit of his stomach that day when Hel was able to get through to her, however; the look in her eyes nearly devastated him. It was one of pure and utter horror, of regret, and it had slowly killed him. He followed closely behind Kiba, his eyes taking in the surrounding area, and something flashed behind his eyes. He knew this place...or he thought he did. This was that place, the one from his father's memories. Zero had fed from Vincent once due to an injury he had sustained that would not have healed either way. He had seen a lot from his father, but this place seemed to be prominent in Zero's mind.
It was the place he held her. It was his Uncle and Aunt's birthplace: the Alistair estate. He felt his breath hitch, his anger rising before subsiding. He ran after Kiba, only stopping behind him when they came to a room, dark as night. He need not worry about his adjusting his vision, his eyes did that on their own, and what he saw almost caused his heart to stop. Yuki, she was facing the wall, her fingers scratching along the wall. He could smell the faint traces of blood, and could only assume that she had harmed herself in one way or another. He willed his limbs to move, and as he did, he grasped her from the wall, turning her around and embracing her.
"Yuki stop. This...this isn't your fault," he spoke, his voice coming out a mere whisper as his hold tightened around her.
Yuki flinched when a pair of hands grabbed her, the shadows writhing in response, but they stilled quickly. She didn't have the energy or the control to use them any longer, if the blood now leaking from her eyes was any indication. Her fingers still scratched, even though there wasn't anything there for her scratch at. Her body began to shake as Zero held her. Finally, she seemed to focus, and realize who was there.
"I almost killed my brother, I attacked you...I hurt you...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." She whispered hoarsely, tears mixing with the blood in her eyes. She flinched again, Kisuke's voice echoing in her head once more.
You don't deserve him.
"I shouldn't have left...I don't belong out there."
Bloody words had been scratched into the wall, ranging from words to sentences, saying different things, in multiple languages. Most of them, however, read 'sorry', 'abomination', and 'home'.
Zero tightened his arms around Yuki as she spoke. "That wasn't you, Yuki. You cannot blame yourself for that. What you did wasn't because you did it. Aryan is fine, Hel saw to him, I'm fine. You didn't hurt any of us," he spoke softly against her hair. It hurt him to see her this way, and he couldn't do anything about it. Her words, they were like knives cutting into his skin, tearing him apart slowly, and he hated this feeling of being useless to the woman he loved. He took a deep breath, smoothing out her hair as he ran his hand down her back, combing through the silver locks.
"You shouldn't say that, Yuki. You do belong out there. You belong with us, with me," he spoke, his hold loosening just a bit. "You are not an animal Yuki. You are not something that needs to be caged. You live, you breathe, you love. None of that would have been possible if you had never left. This isn't a life, Yuki. Whatever this is, was not meant for you. You deserve so much better, and if I could give it to you, the world," he continued, unsure of if he was getting through to her or not. He wanted her to see that she was special, that she was a person who deserved as much out of life as anyone else.
Yuki buried her head in his shoulder. Why? Why didn't he just leave her? She didn't belong with them, she didn't, and she never would. He had said that she wasn't an animal. He was wrong. She was, she was wild and feral and she couldn't be trusted. She trembled again, her fingers curling into his shirt.
But then his scent hit her, and she shoved away from him, the fear in her eyes evident. It was oddly reminiscent of their encounter on the roof, but she wouldn't, she couldn't. She was worse off now than she had been when she almost drained her brother, she couldn't take that risk. Not with Zero.
"Don't," he spoke, reaching back for her arm and pulling her back to him. "Don't push me away, Yuki," he spoke, holding her at arms length as his eyes bore into hers. He didn't want her to push him away, not because of this. Let her push him away for any other reason but this. She looked so fragile, and it pained him to see her so. He could see the desire to feed, and he was the only one around. A smile played at his lips, bringing himself lower to her level, exposing his neck in the process. She had to feed, and he trusted her. He trusted her that she wouldn't let her hunger get the best of her.
"Take it, Yuki. Take what belongs to you, and only you. I trust you, because I love you," he spoke, bringing her head closer to his neck in the process. He kept one hand firmly against her wrist, reminiscent of when she first took his blood up on the roof. He wasn't going to let her go, not this time.
She couldn't do anything, not pull away, not run, she was trapped. But it was his voice that she noticed. He trusted her? It was more than she could fathom. How could he? Why did he? Even in her state, she still felt the thrum of electricity that still passed between them. She took a shaky breath.
And sank her teeth into his throat. He had said that he was hers, but he was wrong. She was his. There was no other way to put it. He grounded her, steadied her, when all else threatened to destroy her. She felt her body healing, and she was able to stop shaking as she pulled away slowly. She found herself swimming in sea foam as she leaned forward, her mouth covering his.
I love you, Zero.
Zero smiled, his lips twitching softly as she sank her fangs into his neck and took what she needed. When she was finished, he felt her pull away and stared at her, wiping off the excess blood that pooled near the corner of her mouth. "And I, you," he spoke, leaning into her kiss, wrapping his hand behind her neck before pulling away. "There are a lot of people worried about you. I think it is time we go back to them," he stated, lifting her up so that he was carrying her bridal style. Without another word, they began a slow pace back to his family's home. Yuki was back, and that was all that mattered.
Leora sighed, running the brush through her hair a few more times, though it really wasn’t necessary. The stuff was already clean, shiny and soft, it was just… well, frankly she needed something to do. Balthasar, Emrys, and Helen were all still unconscious, though Al at least showed signs of waking soon. They were all being kept separately from each other just in case something went poorly in their healing processes or they woke up hungry, and for the same reason, she was being kept away from all of them. Never mind that her mother smelled just as good as she did—Ava was necessary for the healing, one of the abilities of her powers. Since Helen was one of the injured, her mom was basically the only choice. Besides, her dad followed her everywhere, just in case.
Twisting her hair into a braid over one shoulder, Leo tied it off with a band and shook her head faintly. Seeing her parents reminded her, in some strange way, that people were capable of happiness in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and the most dire. At least… people like them were. Their love was so utterly heartstopping, so obvious and yet so subtle, that it honestly might have ruined love for their daughter. What could she ever have that could match that? And yet… that was the only thing she would take, on a permanent basis.
Sharp, chilly blue eyes passed over the surface of her thoughts for a moment, and she shuddered, straightening and pursing her lips at herself in the mirror. “Don’t be stupid, Leo,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just a game. It always has been. And even if it weren’t… you can’t have that. Not like them.” She wasn’t the right kind of person for it, really. Huffing a breath through her nose, she decided she’d been idle long enough, and stood, throwing a long coat on over her bare arms and shoving her hands into her pockets. She didn’t need the protection from the cold, but… as far as fashion statements went, her dad and uncle Jasper had one thing right—long coats were awesome. And right now, Leo wasn’t feeling so awesome on her own, so… every little bit helped.
She’d made it halfway around the house when she spotted Rica, looking distinctly more miserable than usual under a tree. Leora frowned—she knew what that expression meant. Blinking, she shrugged and decided that stewing in her own thoughts could wait for now. Padding over to her cousin, she sat beside her, the knees of their crossed legs just brushing each other, both of their backs against the tree. “You’re wearing your ‘I’m sad about Balthasar’ face,” she informed Rica gently, for once bereft of her usual teasing edge. Maybe she just wasn’t in the mood. “What’s the idiot done now? He'll be waking up soon, so that's not it.”
Alarica sighed, running a hand through her tangled locks. Angelus lay on the bed, his tails swishing as his eyes remained closed. She glanced towards her familiar, stroking a hand through his fur as she allowed a soft smile to plague her lips. It was the first time since the attack she could muster such a thing. Sigyn's words echoed through her mind, playing over like a bad movie that never ended. At first, it only caused her blood to boil, the anger, the hatred seething beneath her skin, however; it fizzled, died out until it became as cold as the ice she could produce. It had taken her a few days to realize that it shouldn't have bothered her. It shouldn't have, but it did. To think that he would...
She sighed softly, shaking her head in the process as she grabbed Angelus from the bed, a soft humming noise escaping him as he lay limp in her arms. Alarica scoffed at Angelus as she tried to push her thoughts away. She didn't need to dwell on them, she didn't need to think of them. Angelus cracked an eye open, glancing up at Alarica before he too sighed. She would have helped Ava with the healing process. She was, in a way, a healer as well. Not only had she inherited her mother's healing blood, but she could also utlitize her ability to heal wounds. But she was weak, and she couldn't bring herself to enter her brother's room, let alone help Hel.
"You should ask him if it would put her mind at ease," Angelus spoke, yawning as he stretched himself across her shoulder, hanging like a piece of cloth. Alarica sighed through her nose, pinching the bridge of it as she shook her head. "It would confirm if it were true, and you could move on. Your mind is a haze at the moment, and it will not do you any good to be distracted should there be another attack," he continued, a frown pulling at his lips as she remained quiet. What could she say? He was right, but what right did she have to ask about his personal business. To ask a question so, intimate.
She remained quiet, causing Angelus to slide from her shoulder. He shook his head, jumping from the spot on the ground out towards one of the open window sills. "You should say something soon. With the war, not even a pure-blood has forever to live," he spoke before disappearing. Alarica pursed her lips together. He was right, the war was taking a toll on everyone. With the Pantheon members as strong as they were, anyone of their lives could end in the blink of an eye. That thought only caused her to draw her lips into a fine line. She found herself outside, sitting beneath one of the cherry blossom trees, her knees hugged closely to her chest.
"It is not that easy," she whispered softly, answering Angelus' statement. It wasn't easy to tell him how she felt because he deserved better than she. He deserved a wonderful woman, vampire or not, who could make him smile, make him laugh, and Alarica knew she couldn't do either. She would only cause him to frown, to be sad, and that was worse than death itself. She didn't want to be the cause of his sorrow, she only wanted to see him smile. She was brought from her thoughts when Leora came into sight, sitting on the other side of her. She tilted her head softly, glancing at Leora before her cousin spoke, causing her to scoff with a smile.
"Is it really that obvious? Or are you just good at reading my face?" she stated with a soft shake of her head before releasing a deep sigh. "He hasn't done anything, but.." she paused, contemplating whether or not she should speak of the matter to her cousin. It couldn't hurt, Leora was always there for her when she needed to speak about these matters, especially matters that concerned him. "It's something that Sigyn said, and I know I shouldn't believe a word she said, but," she paused, glancing at Leora before turning away, pulling her knees close to her chest and leaned her chin upon them.
"She said she slept with him, Leo. I...know I shouldn't believe it, but I can't help but feel that it is true. It shouldn't bother me what he does, and at the time we all thought she was a sweet person," she finally stated, pausing as she felt a knot grow in her throat. She was being selfish now, and she knew it. "But it bothers me. I shouldn't believe her, I shouldn't, but isn't that part of what being with someone is part of? Doesn't that usually happen when you are with someone you love?" she spoke, her voice strong at first, but then fading to a soft whisper before the last word could even be registered as a word.
Leo sighed softly, reaching over to wrap an arm around Alarica’s shoulders. She could see how clearly it bothered the girl, and she could understand. But all the same… she could also imagine what it must be like to be in Balthasar’s position right now. And the position Rica thought that Balthasar occupied. Love, so called, was a very tricky thing, which was perhaps why she’d avoided it ever since the incident, as she’d come to call it. Only her mother knew about it, and only because Leora had found herself unable to lie. She was sure Alden knew, too, but she knew he at least would never judge her for it.
“It’s normal,” she said quietly. “To want the one you love to be with nobody else, to have been with nobody else. Love is… hard. It’s at once the most selfless and the most selfish thing we as people are capable of. To let another person become the center of our world is at once a sacrifice of what we would be without them and also a very selfish thing, because by nature we desire to possess them, to take them away from anyone else, to ensure that no one who is not us will ever have them, in certain ways.” She knew that too well, and not because of whatever confusing things she was feeling for the other Alistair twin. She knew it because there had been a time when Leora thought she was in love, when she was younger, and foolish, and too willing to keep someone’s secret.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, squeezing Rica’s shoulders gently, “I think she was probably lying. You know Balthasar. You know that he’s a bit oblivious, and more than that that he’s very cautious with other people. He wouldn’t have done something like that unless he was in love with her, and I honestly don’t believe he ever thought he was. He’s forgiven her too quickly for that. If she’d left a lasting mark on his heart like that… I think even he might have had a harder time letting it go—letting her go.” The youngest Kuragari pursed her lips. Forgiveness had been a hard road for her, certainly. Especially because she’d had almost no one to turn to about it. Taking a deep breath, she went ahead and made the confession, because she thought it might help Rica.
“But… would it really be so bad, if he had? I know it would hurt—it always hurts to imagine someone you love with someone else. But it’s… I hope it’s not an unforgivable sin, to be fooled. I’ve been fooled before.” She’d relinquished her heart, and her body, to someone who’d done nothing to deserve it, though she’d thought he had, at the time. “I thought I was in love once, and I acted accordingly. But, just like with Balthasar, in the end all he wanted was what I could not bring myself to give.” Her blood. That alone, she had not given him. And she’d learned since not to give her heart either, though… what she did with the rest of her tended to depend on the day. Leo always sought a connection with others, and for some reason, she could never get it right romantically. They were meaningless relations of flesh, and nothing more. There was no heart, no soul involved, and she began to despair of it.
“I don’t think he’s like me, but if he was… I’d hope you could forgive him for being fooled. Al has a big heart, and regardless of what happened between them, he’s the same person you fell in love with, isn’t he? Don't you love him at least in part for his willingness to give of himself for the sake of other people? It’s the same trait, just… shown differently. Don’t give up on him yet, Rica.” She wanted to believe that they could be happy. Because… a part of her needed them to. It gave her hope that maybe one day, even someone as tainted as her could be happy, too.
"Love is for fools," Alarica stated, slipping her face further into her knees, clutching them tightly together. If that was what love was, the painful feeling of her chest constricting, the feeling of being unable to breathe, she didn't want it. She didn't want this feeling in her, to be a part of her. It was painful, it was disgusting. It made her feel so weak, so lost. She sighed softly, lifting her head as she turned to face her cousin. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, finding them dry in the process. How strange, it felt as if she were crying.
"You're right, Leo. You're always right," she stated, switching her arms so that she was wrapping them around Leora's torso. She was right, Balthasar was an oblivious moron, but that was one of the reasons why she loved him so much. She could love him from afar without risking him finding out that she loved him like that. And she always would. Even if it was painful, even if it felt that she couldn't breathe, she would love him. And it still hurt. She took a deep breath, resting her forehead against Leora's shoulder as she cradled into the girl, listening to every word she spoke.
Something more painful constricted in Alarica's heart as Leora spoke. Her heart felt like it was breaking in half. Why did her family have to suffer like this, for love. All it caused was pain, and that was something her family didn't need more of. They all suffered enough. "I'm sorry Leo. I didn't know. If I had...that bastard wouldn't be alive right now. If he knows what's good for him, he'd better not be alive right now," she gritted through her teeth, her arms tightening a fraction around Leora. Leora's last words echoed through her mind. Forgive someone for being fooled? Was being fooled an unforgivable sin?
"Then perhaps I do not deserve to be forgiven if I was fooled. It seems that we are a family of fools," Alarica spoke, a soft smile returning to her face. "And no, I do not love him for that. It scares me to know that he would give himself to others for their sake, and if it were to ever result in his death, I wouldn't know how to take that. I would blame him for being an idiot, but then a part of me would blame the fool whom he gave himself to," she replied honestly. It was true. She didn't love him because of his selflessness, she loved him because of who he was, and how untouched by everything he seemed.
"I...I won't give up on him Leo, but I still feel like I don't deserve him. He deserves someone like you, someone who is beautiful and strong, unyielding and caring all in the same," she started, burying her face in her cousin's shirt in the process. "He deserves better than me," she continued, a slight hiccup to her voice as she kept her eyes from burning. "But I won't give up," she whispered softly, finally allowing her tears to fall. Why did it have to hurt this much?
Leora ran a hand through her cousin’s snow-colored hair, combing the locks out with her fingers and rubbing soothing circles on Rica’s back. “Maybe it is for fools,” she said contemplatively, “but if so, I envy the fools, who get to know what it’s really like.” She could only imagine that love, real love, was sublime, and she really did feel jealous of those who got to experience it in truth, returned by those who loved them just as much. She’d give up all her wit, all her intelligence, just for someone to love her as she loved them. But it was not to be, not for her. She was incapable of that feeling anymore. But Rica… there was still hope for Rica.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, the words a little stern, though her motions were still gentle. “What Balthasar deserves is what everyone deserves: someone who will love him for who he is, big idiot and all. That could be you, Rica, just as well as it could be anyone else. Certainly more easily than it could be Elizabeth. And you are beautiful, and strong, and unyielding and caring as well.” Her cousin wept, and Leora could only hold her, rocking her back and forth gently, murmuring soft words into her ear and trying not to despair.
Her family was in a low, dark place right now, for many and varied reasons. The Pantheon had been attempting to break them, and in some respects, they had succeeded. But Leo would be damned if she let it stay this way forever. So as she sat there, gently caressing Rica’s hair and wiping away her tears, she resolved to talk to the one person she knew who could mend any emotional damage she’d ever come across: her mother. It was time to plan another Kuragari Christmas, and this one would have to be extra special.
Twisting her hair into a braid over one shoulder, Leo tied it off with a band and shook her head faintly. Seeing her parents reminded her, in some strange way, that people were capable of happiness in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and the most dire. At least… people like them were. Their love was so utterly heartstopping, so obvious and yet so subtle, that it honestly might have ruined love for their daughter. What could she ever have that could match that? And yet… that was the only thing she would take, on a permanent basis.
Sharp, chilly blue eyes passed over the surface of her thoughts for a moment, and she shuddered, straightening and pursing her lips at herself in the mirror. “Don’t be stupid, Leo,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just a game. It always has been. And even if it weren’t… you can’t have that. Not like them.” She wasn’t the right kind of person for it, really. Huffing a breath through her nose, she decided she’d been idle long enough, and stood, throwing a long coat on over her bare arms and shoving her hands into her pockets. She didn’t need the protection from the cold, but… as far as fashion statements went, her dad and uncle Jasper had one thing right—long coats were awesome. And right now, Leo wasn’t feeling so awesome on her own, so… every little bit helped.
She’d made it halfway around the house when she spotted Rica, looking distinctly more miserable than usual under a tree. Leora frowned—she knew what that expression meant. Blinking, she shrugged and decided that stewing in her own thoughts could wait for now. Padding over to her cousin, she sat beside her, the knees of their crossed legs just brushing each other, both of their backs against the tree. “You’re wearing your ‘I’m sad about Balthasar’ face,” she informed Rica gently, for once bereft of her usual teasing edge. Maybe she just wasn’t in the mood. “What’s the idiot done now? He'll be waking up soon, so that's not it.”
Alarica sighed, running a hand through her tangled locks. Angelus lay on the bed, his tails swishing as his eyes remained closed. She glanced towards her familiar, stroking a hand through his fur as she allowed a soft smile to plague her lips. It was the first time since the attack she could muster such a thing. Sigyn's words echoed through her mind, playing over like a bad movie that never ended. At first, it only caused her blood to boil, the anger, the hatred seething beneath her skin, however; it fizzled, died out until it became as cold as the ice she could produce. It had taken her a few days to realize that it shouldn't have bothered her. It shouldn't have, but it did. To think that he would...
She sighed softly, shaking her head in the process as she grabbed Angelus from the bed, a soft humming noise escaping him as he lay limp in her arms. Alarica scoffed at Angelus as she tried to push her thoughts away. She didn't need to dwell on them, she didn't need to think of them. Angelus cracked an eye open, glancing up at Alarica before he too sighed. She would have helped Ava with the healing process. She was, in a way, a healer as well. Not only had she inherited her mother's healing blood, but she could also utlitize her ability to heal wounds. But she was weak, and she couldn't bring herself to enter her brother's room, let alone help Hel.
"You should ask him if it would put her mind at ease," Angelus spoke, yawning as he stretched himself across her shoulder, hanging like a piece of cloth. Alarica sighed through her nose, pinching the bridge of it as she shook her head. "It would confirm if it were true, and you could move on. Your mind is a haze at the moment, and it will not do you any good to be distracted should there be another attack," he continued, a frown pulling at his lips as she remained quiet. What could she say? He was right, but what right did she have to ask about his personal business. To ask a question so, intimate.
She remained quiet, causing Angelus to slide from her shoulder. He shook his head, jumping from the spot on the ground out towards one of the open window sills. "You should say something soon. With the war, not even a pure-blood has forever to live," he spoke before disappearing. Alarica pursed her lips together. He was right, the war was taking a toll on everyone. With the Pantheon members as strong as they were, anyone of their lives could end in the blink of an eye. That thought only caused her to draw her lips into a fine line. She found herself outside, sitting beneath one of the cherry blossom trees, her knees hugged closely to her chest.
"It is not that easy," she whispered softly, answering Angelus' statement. It wasn't easy to tell him how she felt because he deserved better than she. He deserved a wonderful woman, vampire or not, who could make him smile, make him laugh, and Alarica knew she couldn't do either. She would only cause him to frown, to be sad, and that was worse than death itself. She didn't want to be the cause of his sorrow, she only wanted to see him smile. She was brought from her thoughts when Leora came into sight, sitting on the other side of her. She tilted her head softly, glancing at Leora before her cousin spoke, causing her to scoff with a smile.
"Is it really that obvious? Or are you just good at reading my face?" she stated with a soft shake of her head before releasing a deep sigh. "He hasn't done anything, but.." she paused, contemplating whether or not she should speak of the matter to her cousin. It couldn't hurt, Leora was always there for her when she needed to speak about these matters, especially matters that concerned him. "It's something that Sigyn said, and I know I shouldn't believe a word she said, but," she paused, glancing at Leora before turning away, pulling her knees close to her chest and leaned her chin upon them.
"She said she slept with him, Leo. I...know I shouldn't believe it, but I can't help but feel that it is true. It shouldn't bother me what he does, and at the time we all thought she was a sweet person," she finally stated, pausing as she felt a knot grow in her throat. She was being selfish now, and she knew it. "But it bothers me. I shouldn't believe her, I shouldn't, but isn't that part of what being with someone is part of? Doesn't that usually happen when you are with someone you love?" she spoke, her voice strong at first, but then fading to a soft whisper before the last word could even be registered as a word.
Leo sighed softly, reaching over to wrap an arm around Alarica’s shoulders. She could see how clearly it bothered the girl, and she could understand. But all the same… she could also imagine what it must be like to be in Balthasar’s position right now. And the position Rica thought that Balthasar occupied. Love, so called, was a very tricky thing, which was perhaps why she’d avoided it ever since the incident, as she’d come to call it. Only her mother knew about it, and only because Leora had found herself unable to lie. She was sure Alden knew, too, but she knew he at least would never judge her for it.
“It’s normal,” she said quietly. “To want the one you love to be with nobody else, to have been with nobody else. Love is… hard. It’s at once the most selfless and the most selfish thing we as people are capable of. To let another person become the center of our world is at once a sacrifice of what we would be without them and also a very selfish thing, because by nature we desire to possess them, to take them away from anyone else, to ensure that no one who is not us will ever have them, in certain ways.” She knew that too well, and not because of whatever confusing things she was feeling for the other Alistair twin. She knew it because there had been a time when Leora thought she was in love, when she was younger, and foolish, and too willing to keep someone’s secret.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, squeezing Rica’s shoulders gently, “I think she was probably lying. You know Balthasar. You know that he’s a bit oblivious, and more than that that he’s very cautious with other people. He wouldn’t have done something like that unless he was in love with her, and I honestly don’t believe he ever thought he was. He’s forgiven her too quickly for that. If she’d left a lasting mark on his heart like that… I think even he might have had a harder time letting it go—letting her go.” The youngest Kuragari pursed her lips. Forgiveness had been a hard road for her, certainly. Especially because she’d had almost no one to turn to about it. Taking a deep breath, she went ahead and made the confession, because she thought it might help Rica.
“But… would it really be so bad, if he had? I know it would hurt—it always hurts to imagine someone you love with someone else. But it’s… I hope it’s not an unforgivable sin, to be fooled. I’ve been fooled before.” She’d relinquished her heart, and her body, to someone who’d done nothing to deserve it, though she’d thought he had, at the time. “I thought I was in love once, and I acted accordingly. But, just like with Balthasar, in the end all he wanted was what I could not bring myself to give.” Her blood. That alone, she had not given him. And she’d learned since not to give her heart either, though… what she did with the rest of her tended to depend on the day. Leo always sought a connection with others, and for some reason, she could never get it right romantically. They were meaningless relations of flesh, and nothing more. There was no heart, no soul involved, and she began to despair of it.
“I don’t think he’s like me, but if he was… I’d hope you could forgive him for being fooled. Al has a big heart, and regardless of what happened between them, he’s the same person you fell in love with, isn’t he? Don't you love him at least in part for his willingness to give of himself for the sake of other people? It’s the same trait, just… shown differently. Don’t give up on him yet, Rica.” She wanted to believe that they could be happy. Because… a part of her needed them to. It gave her hope that maybe one day, even someone as tainted as her could be happy, too.
"Love is for fools," Alarica stated, slipping her face further into her knees, clutching them tightly together. If that was what love was, the painful feeling of her chest constricting, the feeling of being unable to breathe, she didn't want it. She didn't want this feeling in her, to be a part of her. It was painful, it was disgusting. It made her feel so weak, so lost. She sighed softly, lifting her head as she turned to face her cousin. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, finding them dry in the process. How strange, it felt as if she were crying.
"You're right, Leo. You're always right," she stated, switching her arms so that she was wrapping them around Leora's torso. She was right, Balthasar was an oblivious moron, but that was one of the reasons why she loved him so much. She could love him from afar without risking him finding out that she loved him like that. And she always would. Even if it was painful, even if it felt that she couldn't breathe, she would love him. And it still hurt. She took a deep breath, resting her forehead against Leora's shoulder as she cradled into the girl, listening to every word she spoke.
Something more painful constricted in Alarica's heart as Leora spoke. Her heart felt like it was breaking in half. Why did her family have to suffer like this, for love. All it caused was pain, and that was something her family didn't need more of. They all suffered enough. "I'm sorry Leo. I didn't know. If I had...that bastard wouldn't be alive right now. If he knows what's good for him, he'd better not be alive right now," she gritted through her teeth, her arms tightening a fraction around Leora. Leora's last words echoed through her mind. Forgive someone for being fooled? Was being fooled an unforgivable sin?
"Then perhaps I do not deserve to be forgiven if I was fooled. It seems that we are a family of fools," Alarica spoke, a soft smile returning to her face. "And no, I do not love him for that. It scares me to know that he would give himself to others for their sake, and if it were to ever result in his death, I wouldn't know how to take that. I would blame him for being an idiot, but then a part of me would blame the fool whom he gave himself to," she replied honestly. It was true. She didn't love him because of his selflessness, she loved him because of who he was, and how untouched by everything he seemed.
"I...I won't give up on him Leo, but I still feel like I don't deserve him. He deserves someone like you, someone who is beautiful and strong, unyielding and caring all in the same," she started, burying her face in her cousin's shirt in the process. "He deserves better than me," she continued, a slight hiccup to her voice as she kept her eyes from burning. "But I won't give up," she whispered softly, finally allowing her tears to fall. Why did it have to hurt this much?
Leora ran a hand through her cousin’s snow-colored hair, combing the locks out with her fingers and rubbing soothing circles on Rica’s back. “Maybe it is for fools,” she said contemplatively, “but if so, I envy the fools, who get to know what it’s really like.” She could only imagine that love, real love, was sublime, and she really did feel jealous of those who got to experience it in truth, returned by those who loved them just as much. She’d give up all her wit, all her intelligence, just for someone to love her as she loved them. But it was not to be, not for her. She was incapable of that feeling anymore. But Rica… there was still hope for Rica.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, the words a little stern, though her motions were still gentle. “What Balthasar deserves is what everyone deserves: someone who will love him for who he is, big idiot and all. That could be you, Rica, just as well as it could be anyone else. Certainly more easily than it could be Elizabeth. And you are beautiful, and strong, and unyielding and caring as well.” Her cousin wept, and Leora could only hold her, rocking her back and forth gently, murmuring soft words into her ear and trying not to despair.
Her family was in a low, dark place right now, for many and varied reasons. The Pantheon had been attempting to break them, and in some respects, they had succeeded. But Leo would be damned if she let it stay this way forever. So as she sat there, gently caressing Rica’s hair and wiping away her tears, she resolved to talk to the one person she knew who could mend any emotional damage she’d ever come across: her mother. It was time to plan another Kuragari Christmas, and this one would have to be extra special.
Balthasar was one of those people fortunate enough to dream only rarely. When he did, he rarely ever remembered them, but they were always fragments, pieces of lives both his and belonging to someone else. The power called to him in his dreams, that darkness that he knew was as much a part of him as the face he showed the world. He dreaded his few dreams, because there were so few people in the world that could understand them. He dreamed of dominion, and power, and the submission of those around him. He dreamed of thrones and vassals and people who bowed to him, called him by exalted titles.
He hated his dreams.
Which was why, when he awoke, it was to a sense of relief, and a sense of worry all the same. He tensed upon his regaining of consciousness, until he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder, felt a presence that calmed him. Balthasar loved his mother, and he always would, but there was no mistaking that he related most to his father, of anyone else in the world. Ad so when his blue-grey eyes found his sire’s moonsilver ones, he relaxed and lay back without being bid to do so. “Father…” he murmured. “I thought you were…”
Jasper sighed slightly, and shook his head, looking down at his first son with affection and something else, something that resembled worry. “Perhaps,” he admitted. Perhaps he was busy. Perhaps he was needed elsewhere. But this was not a mere injury his child had suffered from. Nikki had told him what happened, and they’d agreed that it was he Balthasar would need to see when he awoke, and he their son would need to speak to. Because it was his fault that his child had suffered so. Or, perhaps more specifically, the fault of his genetics. What they shared was not easily understood, even by those closest to them. Most saw it as a fearsome kind of power, or a talent that simply overrode others by its nature.
Nikki confessed that it was not of them, or at least she did not feel it so. She did not feel that she was looking at her husband or her son when it overtook them, but the unfortunate fact of the matter was that she was. She saw them as they truly were, as their blood made them when it overrode everything else that they had made themselves, that they had become. She saw the very core of their natures, and their natures were dark things. Terrible things that they had to fight at every step of the way. Jasper had managed this, to a considerable extent. Balthasar had been no more than six years old when he awakened to his, and even now, had not mastered it. It was hardly surprising to his father, who had not mastered his instinct in its entirety either. He was just centuries, almost a millennium, more experienced with control in general, and that did make it easier for him.
“But this is where I most need to be right now, Balthasar.” He smiled kindly at his son, who returned the gesture weakly, before he raised both hands to his face and scrubbed down his visage with a sigh.
“Yuki,” he inquired quietly, his tone conveying urgency all the same. “Is she…? And mother, Alden… I remember being with them, and then…” Everything honestly became a little hazy after that. He remembered sinking into that dark part of him, relying on it to save them, and this filled him with a bitter shame. Had he not trained for years, for decades, so that he would never need to do that? So that he would be strong enough to protect them on his own? Was this not the explicit purpose for which he had assumed all the burdens he now carried?
Jasper watched his child with sympathy, a pang of guilt striking his heart for having, however unwittingly, passed this burden to his son. He was, in all honesty, glad that Aryan did not have it, for it made his second son all that much more able to choose his own fate. “She is back, Balthasar. They are all physically fine.” Yuki would be a bit longer in the recovery yet, but he believed that, with time, she would come to see that what she had done was truly not her fault. Jazz suspected that the young Kuragari would be most helpful in this respect, as well as, perhaps, Helen would.
Balthasar just stared at the ceiling for a long moment, and Jasper waited patiently for him to speak. They were frighteningly alike in more than just their capabilities, and he knew hat sometimes, it was simply a matter of waiting for the words to form themselves. “I just… I just gave in, dad. I didn't know what else to do, and I… it seemed so simple, to just do as the power was bidding me. I felt so… free.” It was hard to admit, but part of him honestly liked having that kind of control. Liked being perfectly capable of thinking of those Level E’s as lesser beings. Liked being able to command them with nothing more than a word and a thought. Part of him, however small, reveled in that power, that superiority, and it called to him still. He knew not how, or whether to answer.
“I know,” Jasper replied. Gods, did he know. “But Balthasar, the call defeats itself. If you allow those impulses to control you, then you are still being controlled. We must resist as well as we are able, for the sake of those we love. You activated it when your mother and your cousin were well outside your radius, and this was wise. But you must take care always to be that wise. One mistake could destroy everything.” It was the same for him, and the reason he most often took to the battlefield alone. If there were no allies to worry about, he could simply let himself rage mostly unchecked, without the need for mercy. But it didn’t mean the liked the way his enemies had come to fear his tread most of all.
Balthasar considered that for a moment, nodding. His father was right, of course. His father was usually right. At least about the important things. Sighing a deep breath, he speared his fingers into his hair, pulling it back from his face. He had to be stronger than his darkness, and if he was not, he needed to be judicious in its application. Actually doing so would not be easy, but then… so little in his life really had been. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, dad.”
He hated his dreams.
Which was why, when he awoke, it was to a sense of relief, and a sense of worry all the same. He tensed upon his regaining of consciousness, until he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder, felt a presence that calmed him. Balthasar loved his mother, and he always would, but there was no mistaking that he related most to his father, of anyone else in the world. Ad so when his blue-grey eyes found his sire’s moonsilver ones, he relaxed and lay back without being bid to do so. “Father…” he murmured. “I thought you were…”
Jasper sighed slightly, and shook his head, looking down at his first son with affection and something else, something that resembled worry. “Perhaps,” he admitted. Perhaps he was busy. Perhaps he was needed elsewhere. But this was not a mere injury his child had suffered from. Nikki had told him what happened, and they’d agreed that it was he Balthasar would need to see when he awoke, and he their son would need to speak to. Because it was his fault that his child had suffered so. Or, perhaps more specifically, the fault of his genetics. What they shared was not easily understood, even by those closest to them. Most saw it as a fearsome kind of power, or a talent that simply overrode others by its nature.
Nikki confessed that it was not of them, or at least she did not feel it so. She did not feel that she was looking at her husband or her son when it overtook them, but the unfortunate fact of the matter was that she was. She saw them as they truly were, as their blood made them when it overrode everything else that they had made themselves, that they had become. She saw the very core of their natures, and their natures were dark things. Terrible things that they had to fight at every step of the way. Jasper had managed this, to a considerable extent. Balthasar had been no more than six years old when he awakened to his, and even now, had not mastered it. It was hardly surprising to his father, who had not mastered his instinct in its entirety either. He was just centuries, almost a millennium, more experienced with control in general, and that did make it easier for him.
“But this is where I most need to be right now, Balthasar.” He smiled kindly at his son, who returned the gesture weakly, before he raised both hands to his face and scrubbed down his visage with a sigh.
“Yuki,” he inquired quietly, his tone conveying urgency all the same. “Is she…? And mother, Alden… I remember being with them, and then…” Everything honestly became a little hazy after that. He remembered sinking into that dark part of him, relying on it to save them, and this filled him with a bitter shame. Had he not trained for years, for decades, so that he would never need to do that? So that he would be strong enough to protect them on his own? Was this not the explicit purpose for which he had assumed all the burdens he now carried?
Jasper watched his child with sympathy, a pang of guilt striking his heart for having, however unwittingly, passed this burden to his son. He was, in all honesty, glad that Aryan did not have it, for it made his second son all that much more able to choose his own fate. “She is back, Balthasar. They are all physically fine.” Yuki would be a bit longer in the recovery yet, but he believed that, with time, she would come to see that what she had done was truly not her fault. Jazz suspected that the young Kuragari would be most helpful in this respect, as well as, perhaps, Helen would.
Balthasar just stared at the ceiling for a long moment, and Jasper waited patiently for him to speak. They were frighteningly alike in more than just their capabilities, and he knew hat sometimes, it was simply a matter of waiting for the words to form themselves. “I just… I just gave in, dad. I didn't know what else to do, and I… it seemed so simple, to just do as the power was bidding me. I felt so… free.” It was hard to admit, but part of him honestly liked having that kind of control. Liked being perfectly capable of thinking of those Level E’s as lesser beings. Liked being able to command them with nothing more than a word and a thought. Part of him, however small, reveled in that power, that superiority, and it called to him still. He knew not how, or whether to answer.
“I know,” Jasper replied. Gods, did he know. “But Balthasar, the call defeats itself. If you allow those impulses to control you, then you are still being controlled. We must resist as well as we are able, for the sake of those we love. You activated it when your mother and your cousin were well outside your radius, and this was wise. But you must take care always to be that wise. One mistake could destroy everything.” It was the same for him, and the reason he most often took to the battlefield alone. If there were no allies to worry about, he could simply let himself rage mostly unchecked, without the need for mercy. But it didn’t mean the liked the way his enemies had come to fear his tread most of all.
Balthasar considered that for a moment, nodding. His father was right, of course. His father was usually right. At least about the important things. Sighing a deep breath, he speared his fingers into his hair, pulling it back from his face. He had to be stronger than his darkness, and if he was not, he needed to be judicious in its application. Actually doing so would not be easy, but then… so little in his life really had been. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, dad.”
The funny thing about Emrys, he didn't really dream. His mind was nothing but a large void of darkness. He'd learned to shut his mind down when he slept a long time ago. If he didn't, the faces would haunt him, hound his sleep. The faces of those he'd killed, of those he hadn't been able to save.
And so, he slept. It was almost two days before his condition stabilized, and nearly another before he woke up. When he did, he found himself staring at a ceiling he did not recognize. He blinked a few times, wondering where he was. There was a mixture of scents in the room, two being the most prominent. He recognized them as Alden and Solaris, the latter curled up next to him, actually. Wincing, he sat up, glancing down at his bare chest, a round scar of much lighter skin now where his wound had been, almost two inches in diameter.
Funny thing, he could heal, but he still scarred. He smiled almost grimly before glancing over at his cousin. "Isn't this your room? Funny, I'd have thought there'd be more cobwebs." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "How long was I out? How's Rica?"
Alden was chewing over a truly enormous plate of his mother’s cookies when his cousin woke up, and he sighed slightly to himself, shaking his violet-coiffed head and taking the thing off of where it was balanced on his abdomen, as he presently reclined on his own couch, and extending it towards his newly-woken cousin. Having at least the manners to swallow before he spoke, he made a nonchalant humming noise in the back of his throat first.
“Smaller mansion,” he explained. “We ran out of guest rooms, but mom didn’t want you sharing with another invalid, just in case.” With the condition he’d been in, any mistake with someone else’s waking up could have spelled disaster. “And she doesn’t let me keep the cobwebs. Your mom might be scarier most of the time, but give mine a reason, and I’d rather not be in her way, thanks.” It was a joke, of course, but delivered rather deadpan.
Alden stood, setting the entire plate down on the bedside table and stretching his long frame out for a moment before he pushed his dark-rimmed glasses up his nose and scrutinized his cousin temporarily. “Unless you count her persistent indecisiveness regarding whether she wants to let Balthasar go, punch him in the face, or kiss him senseless, Rica’s fine. Pretty sure Leo’s helping her with that issue, anyway. And before you ask, yes, Yuki’s back, no, she’s not the most stable, and yes, I plan to do something about it. Quite soon, now that you’re up.” It was just like a member of his family to inquire after the others rather than worry about themselves, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t anticipated the question. Still…
“You lost a lot of blood. Mom used transfusion because you needed it, but it’s not gonna help for long. Who’s your usual? I can go get somebody, if you want.”
A raw chuckle forced its way out of his throat. He'd expected as much, from Rica, really. It was good to hear that Yuki was back, too, and that Alden was going to help her. He grabbed a cookie from the plate his cousin offered. Emrys was addicted to his Aunt's cookies. He shook his head at Al's cobweb comment, but silently agreed about the whole mother thing. All of their mothers were scary when they set their minds to it, Ava included.
It was a good thing he'd finished the cookie when Alden asked the question, because Emrys probably would have choked had there been anything in his mouth. As it were, he sighed through his nose. "What the hell, Vi. I don't even remember the last time I fed off of anyone." That was true, it'd been at least ten years, and it had been his mother at that. Still, he had this nagging underlying feeling that his cousin was right [and he usually was], and his mother wasn't here.
Emrys had never gotten used to the idea of drinking blood to survive, if only because he'd never had to. Every once in a while he knew he needed to, if only to heal, but...he'd never fed off of anyone but his mother.
Alden snorted, raising a brow at his cousin. Really, of all the questions to make one uncomfortable, it should not have been that. Then again… he sometimes forgot that some people looked upon such matters as highly personal. Like so many other things, Violet had given up all such alternative meanings and notions of particular intimacy when he became what he was. Shrugging his shoulders lightly, he figured it might also be because Emrys was a dhampir, and as such, did not have the same pressing need to consume blood as a full vampire, unless injured, as now. Still, you’d think a man in his line of work would be grievously injured a little more often.
Well, whatever. There was an obvious solution to this problem, as Erys was not currently present. Raising his own wrist to his mouth, he tugged the elastic band encircling it off with his teeth, then used his hands to gather his hair into a small tail, which he fixed in place with the band. “Well then, you’re welcome to mine. I’m told it’s not bad, as far as such things go, though I’m not my mother or sister. Fortunately.” Aware that he was being perhaps a bit more cavalier about this than his cousin might actually be comfortable with, he donned a peculiar half-smile, caught somewhere between mischievous and wry, and shook his head.
“If you wanna wimp out about it, I could always just slit a wrist for you. Blood’s blood, Em, and you need to drink it.” He arched an eyebrow, in a fashion almost challenging, but said no more. He was consummately practical, which also meant he was practical enough to realize that others were not.
It was absurd, really. Emrys could feel the heat snaking up his face. What he didn't understand was why. It wasn't such an odd thing, really, for family members to feed off of one another, even when they were not immediate. Even so...
The Alistair scoffed slightly. "Aren't you supposed to ask me out first before laying yourself out on a silver platter?" Oh God, that just brought other things to mind, things that had no business being there. He saw Alden's point, even if he didn't like it.
He liked it even less being called a wimp. He scowled, his fangs sliding down as he pulled his lips back slightly. He slid out of bed, situating himself next to his cousin before dragging Alden practically on top of him, one arm around his back. "I never said I wouldn't do it." He murmured before he bit into his cousin. He tasted like honey, tainted with something dark, something dangerous. He released him not long after, his eyes glowing softly. He was still blushing.
Flirtation was a reflex in Alden by this point—it basically needed to be. He had to be able to come onto people he found appealing in absolutely no way whatsoever, as well as those he found very appealing, and do it all with the same amount of rational distance that allowed him to calculate his way through every step of it. It was that reflex that activated at Emrys’s words, and so, perhaps naturally, his smile ticked a little wider at his cousin’s obvious embarrassment. It was amusing, in its own fashion, because there was a little bit of naïveté to it, something truly rare in the world. For all his violence and his aggression, it would seem that there were certain arenas in which Emrys was hopelessly outmatched. Vi did hope he never ran into a situation in which that would hurt him.
This familial concern did not, however, turn out to be enough to prevent him from prolonging his own amusement by cradling the back of his cousin’s head as the fangs pierced his neck, nor indeed from exhaling in a way that might have been accidental but was definitely actually on purpose into the well-known sensitive spot between ear, neck, and jaw. “Trust me, Em,” Alden said with a glimmer of amusement in his red-purple eyes, “If I was laying myself out, as you so delicately put it, you would know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I have some work to do on our dear Yuki. Feel free to make yourself comfortable in here. It is, after all, just us.” Grabbing another cookie from the plate, he bit halfway into it on his way out the door, tossing a languid wave over his shoulder.
Messing with someone hadn’t been that much fun since he was Leo’s age.
Emrys had had to fight not to shudder when Alden had breathed along his neck, and when he left...it felt like Em was suffocating. He couldn't understand why this bothered him so much. He growled after his cousin was gone, Solaris lifting her head and giving him a wolfish grin.
"Shut up." He wanted to hit something.
And so, he slept. It was almost two days before his condition stabilized, and nearly another before he woke up. When he did, he found himself staring at a ceiling he did not recognize. He blinked a few times, wondering where he was. There was a mixture of scents in the room, two being the most prominent. He recognized them as Alden and Solaris, the latter curled up next to him, actually. Wincing, he sat up, glancing down at his bare chest, a round scar of much lighter skin now where his wound had been, almost two inches in diameter.
Funny thing, he could heal, but he still scarred. He smiled almost grimly before glancing over at his cousin. "Isn't this your room? Funny, I'd have thought there'd be more cobwebs." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "How long was I out? How's Rica?"
Alden was chewing over a truly enormous plate of his mother’s cookies when his cousin woke up, and he sighed slightly to himself, shaking his violet-coiffed head and taking the thing off of where it was balanced on his abdomen, as he presently reclined on his own couch, and extending it towards his newly-woken cousin. Having at least the manners to swallow before he spoke, he made a nonchalant humming noise in the back of his throat first.
“Smaller mansion,” he explained. “We ran out of guest rooms, but mom didn’t want you sharing with another invalid, just in case.” With the condition he’d been in, any mistake with someone else’s waking up could have spelled disaster. “And she doesn’t let me keep the cobwebs. Your mom might be scarier most of the time, but give mine a reason, and I’d rather not be in her way, thanks.” It was a joke, of course, but delivered rather deadpan.
Alden stood, setting the entire plate down on the bedside table and stretching his long frame out for a moment before he pushed his dark-rimmed glasses up his nose and scrutinized his cousin temporarily. “Unless you count her persistent indecisiveness regarding whether she wants to let Balthasar go, punch him in the face, or kiss him senseless, Rica’s fine. Pretty sure Leo’s helping her with that issue, anyway. And before you ask, yes, Yuki’s back, no, she’s not the most stable, and yes, I plan to do something about it. Quite soon, now that you’re up.” It was just like a member of his family to inquire after the others rather than worry about themselves, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t anticipated the question. Still…
“You lost a lot of blood. Mom used transfusion because you needed it, but it’s not gonna help for long. Who’s your usual? I can go get somebody, if you want.”
A raw chuckle forced its way out of his throat. He'd expected as much, from Rica, really. It was good to hear that Yuki was back, too, and that Alden was going to help her. He grabbed a cookie from the plate his cousin offered. Emrys was addicted to his Aunt's cookies. He shook his head at Al's cobweb comment, but silently agreed about the whole mother thing. All of their mothers were scary when they set their minds to it, Ava included.
It was a good thing he'd finished the cookie when Alden asked the question, because Emrys probably would have choked had there been anything in his mouth. As it were, he sighed through his nose. "What the hell, Vi. I don't even remember the last time I fed off of anyone." That was true, it'd been at least ten years, and it had been his mother at that. Still, he had this nagging underlying feeling that his cousin was right [and he usually was], and his mother wasn't here.
Emrys had never gotten used to the idea of drinking blood to survive, if only because he'd never had to. Every once in a while he knew he needed to, if only to heal, but...he'd never fed off of anyone but his mother.
Alden snorted, raising a brow at his cousin. Really, of all the questions to make one uncomfortable, it should not have been that. Then again… he sometimes forgot that some people looked upon such matters as highly personal. Like so many other things, Violet had given up all such alternative meanings and notions of particular intimacy when he became what he was. Shrugging his shoulders lightly, he figured it might also be because Emrys was a dhampir, and as such, did not have the same pressing need to consume blood as a full vampire, unless injured, as now. Still, you’d think a man in his line of work would be grievously injured a little more often.
Well, whatever. There was an obvious solution to this problem, as Erys was not currently present. Raising his own wrist to his mouth, he tugged the elastic band encircling it off with his teeth, then used his hands to gather his hair into a small tail, which he fixed in place with the band. “Well then, you’re welcome to mine. I’m told it’s not bad, as far as such things go, though I’m not my mother or sister. Fortunately.” Aware that he was being perhaps a bit more cavalier about this than his cousin might actually be comfortable with, he donned a peculiar half-smile, caught somewhere between mischievous and wry, and shook his head.
“If you wanna wimp out about it, I could always just slit a wrist for you. Blood’s blood, Em, and you need to drink it.” He arched an eyebrow, in a fashion almost challenging, but said no more. He was consummately practical, which also meant he was practical enough to realize that others were not.
It was absurd, really. Emrys could feel the heat snaking up his face. What he didn't understand was why. It wasn't such an odd thing, really, for family members to feed off of one another, even when they were not immediate. Even so...
The Alistair scoffed slightly. "Aren't you supposed to ask me out first before laying yourself out on a silver platter?" Oh God, that just brought other things to mind, things that had no business being there. He saw Alden's point, even if he didn't like it.
He liked it even less being called a wimp. He scowled, his fangs sliding down as he pulled his lips back slightly. He slid out of bed, situating himself next to his cousin before dragging Alden practically on top of him, one arm around his back. "I never said I wouldn't do it." He murmured before he bit into his cousin. He tasted like honey, tainted with something dark, something dangerous. He released him not long after, his eyes glowing softly. He was still blushing.
Flirtation was a reflex in Alden by this point—it basically needed to be. He had to be able to come onto people he found appealing in absolutely no way whatsoever, as well as those he found very appealing, and do it all with the same amount of rational distance that allowed him to calculate his way through every step of it. It was that reflex that activated at Emrys’s words, and so, perhaps naturally, his smile ticked a little wider at his cousin’s obvious embarrassment. It was amusing, in its own fashion, because there was a little bit of naïveté to it, something truly rare in the world. For all his violence and his aggression, it would seem that there were certain arenas in which Emrys was hopelessly outmatched. Vi did hope he never ran into a situation in which that would hurt him.
This familial concern did not, however, turn out to be enough to prevent him from prolonging his own amusement by cradling the back of his cousin’s head as the fangs pierced his neck, nor indeed from exhaling in a way that might have been accidental but was definitely actually on purpose into the well-known sensitive spot between ear, neck, and jaw. “Trust me, Em,” Alden said with a glimmer of amusement in his red-purple eyes, “If I was laying myself out, as you so delicately put it, you would know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I have some work to do on our dear Yuki. Feel free to make yourself comfortable in here. It is, after all, just us.” Grabbing another cookie from the plate, he bit halfway into it on his way out the door, tossing a languid wave over his shoulder.
Messing with someone hadn’t been that much fun since he was Leo’s age.
Emrys had had to fight not to shudder when Alden had breathed along his neck, and when he left...it felt like Em was suffocating. He couldn't understand why this bothered him so much. He growled after his cousin was gone, Solaris lifting her head and giving him a wolfish grin.
"Shut up." He wanted to hit something.
“I need exactly one thing from you, Hel, and that is for you to remember.”
And Hel, obedient as she had always been, remembered.
The world was dark around her. She remembered a lot of this, of darkness, especially in her early life, from which massive patches of memory were missing, replaced by yet more darkness, so that she was never sure if she had actually experienced the things that came to her in the dark, or if she simply had them in her mind because he had put them there. In the end, she knew it didn’t matter. What he had put there was just as much a part of her as what she had taken in on her own. Was it not the function of a repository to collect?
She remembered voices, speaking of things she did not understand, and visions of a man with the eyes of the blind but the soul of a monster. A man who could consume her, inside out, simply by turning those eyes in her direction. She remembered the smile he wore, so full of malice and power and everything but mirth. She could hear his voice, and when she did, it echoed in her very soul. Before him, there was no choice but submission. She could fight it all she wanted, and at first, she did. She fought it so very hard, with the sum of all she was and wanted to protect, but it was like dashing a raindrop against a mountain. Nothing changed, and it was the drop that spattered and spent itself, until it was simply absorbed into the soil of them mountain, into the will, the eyes that consumed her, that burned her.
The worst part of the vision was, she could never tell if it had already happened, or if it was yet to come to pass.
She was aware, occasionally, of something warm tending to her, a person who healed and soothed with mere presence, but it was not enough to draw her from her slumber. She was aware also, of someone who spoke to her, in a voice she knew but could not name. It comforted her, like being wrapped in something safe, but that wasn’t enough, either. Because no matter what they did, they could not force back the chill that his presence caused. Gradually, she knew, his face would resolve into another, a man who shared his hair and his height and some of his majesty, but not his eyes.
It was this man that spoke to her most often, told her things and showed her things that made her tremble. It was he who lingered always in her mind, making her hate, making her fear, always fear. Helen never acted afraid, because she was always afraid. And he had made it so. She had lived at his bidding, and would have died that way, too, had he not let her go. Why… why did he still want her? He’d let her go, to those people who made her life warm again.
“Foolish girl. I never let you go at all. Your cage was opened, but you are tethered to me still. And you have not the wings to fly. You went to them, and they have kept you safe. But there will come a day when even they cannot save you. You will fulfill your purpose, as you were made to do.”
She did not know what her purpose was, but she knew it was connected to the man with the eyes, and that, too, made her afraid. He was satisfied by this, and she could feel it. He had spent so long in her mind that she knew him like nobody else knew him, and nobody would ever know her better than he did. Not until the day she met the man with the white eyes.
Helen had long curled into herself in her slumber, her eyes flickering restlessly back and forth under her lids. In the end, what woke her was the persistent burning in the back of her throat. She’d been asleep and weak for nearly a fortnight, and in the end, she needed to feed, or she was going to die. Even her dreams could not hold her against the need to live. When her eyes snapped open and she took a deep breath, she nearly choked. Ava had been here recently, and Helen was glad she was not here now. Her control was nearly peerless, but she was literally starving. What was worse, someone was still here. Someone who smelled almost as good.
She struggled to pushed herself into a seated position, her arms trembling from her weakness beneath her. How could she have ever let herself decline so far? She was dangerous, now, to them. She would rather die for truth than be that. She nearly fell back, but kept herself upright by sheer force of will. “Tablets,” she managed to whisper hoarsely. “Please.”
Aryan's head snapped up, jolted from his sleep by Helen's voice. He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep. He looked at her, an almost pained expression on his face, but he nonetheless got what she asked for. He only put two in the glass, however.
The family was now all holed up at the Kuragari estate, even his father was there now, because of Bal. The only ones still missing were his Aunt Erys and Uncle Morgan, but with Emrys still not stabilizing, he was sure they would show up soon. Keir had been...approachable, at best, which was to be expected, he supposed.
He sighed through his nose slightly as he handed her the glass. "Helen...you need blood." He said gently. Blood tablets were really only meant as a supplement, not as a replacement. The need to feed off of actual blood would still be there, and it would only get worse. He wanted to make sure she understood that.
She accepted the glass with a low murmured thanks and tipped it back, the foul taste hitting her tongue like acid. But it was better—far better—than the alternative, and so she drank it down to the last, running her tongue over her lips to capture the last couple of droplets. It wasn’t much, but it at least made her thoughts more coherent, even if it did bring the sharpness of the hunger to the surface. She was strong enough to seek a meal in the old, conventional way now—to hunt. She would never allow herself to do that, even if he, in her mind, found nothing at all wrong with it.
Her eyes fell to her hands, still pale and thin, and she exhaled softly, seeming to deflate until she was even smaller. “I am sure Freya has heard by now. She will come, and I can wait until then. There is no need to anticipate anything unexpected from me.” She would not hurt any of them, not now that she was at least back in control of herself. Mostly—though there was no denying that her fangs distended, peeking out over her lower lip, and she had to spend a moment concentrating on retracting them, curling her hands into fists. She would need to call her sister as soon as possible, assuming she was not already on her way here.
“More importantly…” she actually turned to face him now, doing her best to ignore the fact that she could hear the blood moving through the veins at his neck and wrists. “Yuki. She has returned?” She could sense her friend nearby somewhere, but the query was in truth more general, asking after the circumstances under which she’d come back, and her current mental state as well. It was of paramount importance to her that her friend was as well as possible given the circumstances… though, given the state of Cross, all the work she’d put into organizing the infirmary was for naught.
It didn’t matter.
Aryan caught the sigh before he exhaled it, and instead, he smiled slightly. He didn't think she would attack any of them, he'd never thought that. Still, if Freya would be here, at least he knew she would be getting blood.
He frowned slightly, at her question. Yuki had returned, but she still wasn't herself, not completely. "She returned with Zero yesterday. She is stable in way of health, however...it would seem that Kisuke affected her mind a lot more than we thought it would. Alden has agreed to work with her, he should be able to set her to rights."
He left out, of course, the part where she'd attacked Keir. That had been a fiasco that no one wanted to repeat. Of course, he couldn't really blame her, either. The Alistair did bear a strking resemblance to the man.
Helen understood the subtext of these statements, though she may not have been able to pinpoint exactly what had happened, she knew that something had. She also, however, knew that Alden Kuragari was the very best at what he did. She might have wanted to help, herself, but Yuki was obviously in a delicate state, and she did not need to accidentally access something in Helen’s mind that would make matters even worse. They were both in sorry states, in a way, though of course, it was in Hel’s nature to conceptualize the pain of others as both greater and more important than her own, so in her eyes at least, there wasn’t really any comparison.
She would just have to trust that Yuki’s more balanced, less mentally-mutilated family members could succeed where she would not be able to. “I see,” she said quietly, raising the delicate fingers on one hand to her temple. She could almost hear him laughing at her; that low, rich, mocking chuckle. Her inability to help her friend when she needed it most was stinging her more effectively than any physical lash ever could, and he knew it.
But she could not allow herself to dwell on it, nor the burning in the back of her throat. So instead, she shifted the topic of conversation, as well as her person, letting her bare feet touch the richly-carpeted floor. She was in one of the Kuragari guest rooms, she recognized. This was the smaller estate, in the southern part of Russia.
Helen lingered for a moment at the edge of the bed, her eyes closed and her breathing coming with more difficulty than it should. She hated this—how weak she had become. But anything, even this, was better than the alternative. It was not the first time she’d envied the others their health, their vitality, and their minds, whole and unfractured, and she knew it would not be the last. Envy was an ugly thing, though, and she did her best not to hold onto it for long. It was unworthy of them. And as long as she presumed to stand in their company, she had to be as worthy as she possibly could.
“You defended me,” She said quietly, cracking her eyes open and moving them up and over to meet his. This, she thought, was how purple eyes should look: like bright gems set into his patrician face. Not like wilting flower petals, as hers. “I… thank you.” You shouldn’t have, she wanted to say, but she knew the words would produce disagreement in him, and she had not the strength to contest the point at the moment. Helen was not and had never been glad or happy to be alive, but… she did not actively regret it right now, and that was something of an improvement.
Aryan smiled gently. "I figured Yuki had been through enough...I don't think she could have handled knowing she'd hurt her best friend, and besides..." He stood up slowly, his full height almost towering over hers, something not unlike his own parents. That was an interesting thought. He reached out slowly, tucking a stray lock of her snow-white hair behind her ear. It struck him that he actually missed seeing her with her hair ribbon in.
"I could not have stood to see you come to harm, Helen." He said softly, something flashing through his eyes for just a second before vanishing. He let his hand drop, turning towards the door. As his hand rested on the doorknob, he said over his shoulder, "Do make sure you get your strength back up, Helen. I miss having someone to teach chess to."
In the end, it didn't matter how much he loved her, or how happy they all seemed to have her back. It didn't matter that they told her it wasn't her fault. It didn't matter how often she told herself. He still plagued her, haunted her, hounded her. She couldn't sleep, and both nights she'd woken up from some sort of daze, finding herself in the corner. His words whispered to her, she saw his face when nothing was there.
She did everything she could think of to keep her mind off of it, off of him. She busied herself by trying to recover things that she lost in the destruction of Cross Academy, but that was not an easy process. The only thing she'd ever backed up were her own medical files, which was what she found herself looking at now. The prognosis was no better than it had been two months ago.
But then, she'd been in a completely different state of mind two months ago as well. Now, she was more skittish than a rabbit, and she couldn't interact with anyone save for Zero. She couldn't even look her brother in the eye, and she'd actually flinched when her mother had hugged her. She just couldn't understand why they were so quick to forgive her.
"No." She grit her teeth, not realizing she'd spoken aloud. The dark circles under her eyes had returned, a clear indication that she hadn't slept since she'd returned with Zero two days before.
Jasper hovered for the barest second outside the door before he raised his hand to knock, though it was already cracked open, and he didn’t exactly intend to go away without seeing her. He’d tried his best to give Yuki her space in the wake of the recent events, understanding that there would be things she needed to sort through, but it didn’t seem to have helped any, and he knew that Nikki and his sons were incredibly distressed by her recent reticence to interact with them. He wasn’t sure if he could help, but he wanted to. As much as he’d ever wanted anything. She may not be the daughter of his flesh and blood, but she was the daughter of his heart, and that was what counted most.
Allowing a few seconds between his knock and his entrance, he pushed the door open gently and entered the guest room she’d been given, observing that she seemed to be reading her own medical charts. Jasper was not Freya, but he had more expertise in the field than either of his sons. It was something that came with as many years as he had and an interest he’d developed a few centuries ago. But he did not pry into why she was reading them, at least not for the moment, instead seating himself gingerly at the foot of her bed, which clearly had not been used for sleeping at all, if the dark circles beneath her eyes were any indication.
He did not say anything, rather allowing her to choose how and if this conversation occurred, and by what method, for he also lowered the barriers around his mind, in case she wished to initiate telepathic contact. He knew that his mind tended to shut out everything else from hers when she communicated with him this way, so if that was something she desired at the moment, he was happy to grant it to her. But he did not press—such was not in his nature.
She didn't have to glance up to know that Jasper was at the door, and she didn't move as he came in, or when he sat down. Her eyes remained locked onto the paper she held in front of her. A part of her wished he'd say something, anything, yell at her even, but...
He was not that sort of man. He'd never been that sort of man. In every instance, he was the exact opposite of the man that she could not banish, no matter what she tried. She'd killed him, forgotten him, yet still he lingered. Instinctively, she sought out the solitude of his mind, the noise dying away instantly.
It startled her somewhat, but she also realized with a jolt that he was no longer present, either. That made little sense to her, as he was all in her head, and she knew this, but even so...
She shut off that part of her mind, forcing herself to not think of it. Instead, she posed the topic that had been nagging at her as much as Kisuke's voice.
"I do not understand why you do not hate me." The term was generalized, speaking of the whole family, and not simply Jasper, though, with what she'd done to his son, he had more cause to hate her than the others.
Jazz felt the brush of her mind against his, but he made no attempt to initiate further contact than that. If what she needed was silence there, then she would have it. His eyes softened to a dove-grey, he tilted his head to the side, regarding her with a characteristic gentleness that most knew was simply him. More than any other face he’d had to wear, this one was Jasper’s. She was clearly distraught and guilty, and he could understand why. In some ways, Yuki was like himself, and like Balthasar. All three of them tended to shoulder burdens alone that were better shared, and all of them seemed to feel disproportionate amounts of guilt for things they could not control.
These were habits he was slowly, painstakingly unlearning, with the help of his wife and his children and his friends, but he would be lying if he said he did not feel them keenly even so. He let out a breath softly, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smile. “No father could ever hate his daughter, and no brother his sister. That’s part of what it means to be a family,” he said simply. He knew, of course, that what happened had occurred as a result of the serum, and was not her fault at all, but he also knew that others had attempted this line of reasoning, and been met with her refusal or inability to believe it. So instead, he told her something else, something that was also the truth.
“Even if you had done every one of those things and worse, on your own, of your own free will, there is not one among us who would hate you. And what happened, while regrettable for its own reasons, was far short of such a thing. The only choice you made was the choice to leave us. I daresay I cannot fault you for that any more than you faulted me a century ago. And, unless I am mistaken, you did not.”
That was true, she'd never blamed him for leaving when he had. He'd done it to protect them, just as she had. She hadn't been able to fight the serum, even though she'd tried. Some small part of her knew that he was right, it wasn't her fault, even if she wanted to believe it was. She looked back at the chart she held, and realized that she didn't believe it.
She wanted them to believe it. Because if they did, if they hated her, she wouldn't have to say goodbye. She didn't want to say goodbye, she didn't want to die. But in that, she didn't have a choice. She wasn't expecting the sharp pain in her head, or Kisuke's voice.
It had happened suddenly enough that his voice was not only in her mind, but in Jasper's too, because of the link they shared. Her eyes were unfocused as her breath hitched at his intrusion, and before she realized she'd moved, she'd buried her head into her step-father's chest. She shut her eyes as she trembled.
"No...you're wrong." She whispered.
Jasper’s arms closed around his daughter, and he was more than a little perturbed to hear a voice from a long time ago issuing from her mind. His mouth pulled down into a frown, and he splayed his hand over her upper back, moving it in soothing circles for a while, and then stroking her hair gently. “He is,” Jazz agreed softly. “He has always been wrong.” Clearly, he had underestimated the hold the man still had on his daughter, even after his death. He wondered if this was an effect of the serum, or if it had always been so.
“Yuki? How long have you been hearing him?” he asked gently, still making soothing gestures with his hand, his other wound around her back to keep her steady. He wondered… Jasper’s mind worked quickly, trying to bring to bear all the tools he had at his disposal, and all the people who would be willing to help. Perhaps… Freya had told him a great deal about the conditioning implemented on many of the members of the Pantheon by his grandfather, and what had been forced upon Yuki was not that different. Thankfully, it was also not as systematic—if his guess was correct, what she had was one influence, a single source of the intrusion, and if so… he might have a solution.
It could work. It would work, because it would have to. “Listen to me carefully,” he urged quietly, speaking nevertheless in a soft murmur. “I think… there may be a way that I can stop you from hearing him. It will need Alden’s help… and you will have to let us both in. If you are willing to allow that… I will rid you of him, Yuki. Once and for all.” He knew even so that what he was asking of her was a lot. It was never easy to allow someone totally into one’s mind, especially not when the only person who had been there had done so much damage, but… if she could trust him enough for this, he could free her.
And that, he wanted so dearly it was hurting him.
Yuki wasn't entirely sure, there had been instances when she was still a child that she'd had nightmares, but it hadn't been like now. This really had only happened after she'd been injected. "I can only guess that it is a side-effect of the serum. I've only heard him in the last two months."
It was what Jasper said after that caught her off guard. Her eyes snapped open. She...wouldn't have to hear him again? She wanted that more than anything, to not hear him, to be able to forget. Jasper was her father, she knew that, she believed that. Not Kisuke.
It was that belief that gave her her answer. If there was even the slightest chance that this could work, she would take it. She couldn't live like this, and she didn't want to. Balthasar was right, she had to make the most of what little time she had left, and in order to do that...she had to let go of the past. Even if it meant that Jasper and Alden discovered things about her that she'd rather them not know.
There was no hesitation in her voice when she answered, pulling away from him in order to looki up at him. "Then we try."
She did everything she could think of to keep her mind off of it, off of him. She busied herself by trying to recover things that she lost in the destruction of Cross Academy, but that was not an easy process. The only thing she'd ever backed up were her own medical files, which was what she found herself looking at now. The prognosis was no better than it had been two months ago.
But then, she'd been in a completely different state of mind two months ago as well. Now, she was more skittish than a rabbit, and she couldn't interact with anyone save for Zero. She couldn't even look her brother in the eye, and she'd actually flinched when her mother had hugged her. She just couldn't understand why they were so quick to forgive her.
Because they don't forgive you...you belong to me.
"No." She grit her teeth, not realizing she'd spoken aloud. The dark circles under her eyes had returned, a clear indication that she hadn't slept since she'd returned with Zero two days before.
Jasper hovered for the barest second outside the door before he raised his hand to knock, though it was already cracked open, and he didn’t exactly intend to go away without seeing her. He’d tried his best to give Yuki her space in the wake of the recent events, understanding that there would be things she needed to sort through, but it didn’t seem to have helped any, and he knew that Nikki and his sons were incredibly distressed by her recent reticence to interact with them. He wasn’t sure if he could help, but he wanted to. As much as he’d ever wanted anything. She may not be the daughter of his flesh and blood, but she was the daughter of his heart, and that was what counted most.
Allowing a few seconds between his knock and his entrance, he pushed the door open gently and entered the guest room she’d been given, observing that she seemed to be reading her own medical charts. Jasper was not Freya, but he had more expertise in the field than either of his sons. It was something that came with as many years as he had and an interest he’d developed a few centuries ago. But he did not pry into why she was reading them, at least not for the moment, instead seating himself gingerly at the foot of her bed, which clearly had not been used for sleeping at all, if the dark circles beneath her eyes were any indication.
He did not say anything, rather allowing her to choose how and if this conversation occurred, and by what method, for he also lowered the barriers around his mind, in case she wished to initiate telepathic contact. He knew that his mind tended to shut out everything else from hers when she communicated with him this way, so if that was something she desired at the moment, he was happy to grant it to her. But he did not press—such was not in his nature.
She didn't have to glance up to know that Jasper was at the door, and she didn't move as he came in, or when he sat down. Her eyes remained locked onto the paper she held in front of her. A part of her wished he'd say something, anything, yell at her even, but...
He was not that sort of man. He'd never been that sort of man. In every instance, he was the exact opposite of the man that she could not banish, no matter what she tried. She'd killed him, forgotten him, yet still he lingered. Instinctively, she sought out the solitude of his mind, the noise dying away instantly.
It startled her somewhat, but she also realized with a jolt that he was no longer present, either. That made little sense to her, as he was all in her head, and she knew this, but even so...
She shut off that part of her mind, forcing herself to not think of it. Instead, she posed the topic that had been nagging at her as much as Kisuke's voice.
"I do not understand why you do not hate me." The term was generalized, speaking of the whole family, and not simply Jasper, though, with what she'd done to his son, he had more cause to hate her than the others.
Jazz felt the brush of her mind against his, but he made no attempt to initiate further contact than that. If what she needed was silence there, then she would have it. His eyes softened to a dove-grey, he tilted his head to the side, regarding her with a characteristic gentleness that most knew was simply him. More than any other face he’d had to wear, this one was Jasper’s. She was clearly distraught and guilty, and he could understand why. In some ways, Yuki was like himself, and like Balthasar. All three of them tended to shoulder burdens alone that were better shared, and all of them seemed to feel disproportionate amounts of guilt for things they could not control.
These were habits he was slowly, painstakingly unlearning, with the help of his wife and his children and his friends, but he would be lying if he said he did not feel them keenly even so. He let out a breath softly, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smile. “No father could ever hate his daughter, and no brother his sister. That’s part of what it means to be a family,” he said simply. He knew, of course, that what happened had occurred as a result of the serum, and was not her fault at all, but he also knew that others had attempted this line of reasoning, and been met with her refusal or inability to believe it. So instead, he told her something else, something that was also the truth.
“Even if you had done every one of those things and worse, on your own, of your own free will, there is not one among us who would hate you. And what happened, while regrettable for its own reasons, was far short of such a thing. The only choice you made was the choice to leave us. I daresay I cannot fault you for that any more than you faulted me a century ago. And, unless I am mistaken, you did not.”
That was true, she'd never blamed him for leaving when he had. He'd done it to protect them, just as she had. She hadn't been able to fight the serum, even though she'd tried. Some small part of her knew that he was right, it wasn't her fault, even if she wanted to believe it was. She looked back at the chart she held, and realized that she didn't believe it.
She wanted them to believe it. Because if they did, if they hated her, she wouldn't have to say goodbye. She didn't want to say goodbye, she didn't want to die. But in that, she didn't have a choice. She wasn't expecting the sharp pain in her head, or Kisuke's voice.
The little Queen is a hypocrite, it seems. What was it that your brother told you? It is not the years in your life, but the life in your years? It seems even you don't believe that. You are mine, Yuki, and you always have been. You were born alone, and you will die alone.
It had happened suddenly enough that his voice was not only in her mind, but in Jasper's too, because of the link they shared. Her eyes were unfocused as her breath hitched at his intrusion, and before she realized she'd moved, she'd buried her head into her step-father's chest. She shut her eyes as she trembled.
"No...you're wrong." She whispered.
Jasper’s arms closed around his daughter, and he was more than a little perturbed to hear a voice from a long time ago issuing from her mind. His mouth pulled down into a frown, and he splayed his hand over her upper back, moving it in soothing circles for a while, and then stroking her hair gently. “He is,” Jazz agreed softly. “He has always been wrong.” Clearly, he had underestimated the hold the man still had on his daughter, even after his death. He wondered if this was an effect of the serum, or if it had always been so.
“Yuki? How long have you been hearing him?” he asked gently, still making soothing gestures with his hand, his other wound around her back to keep her steady. He wondered… Jasper’s mind worked quickly, trying to bring to bear all the tools he had at his disposal, and all the people who would be willing to help. Perhaps… Freya had told him a great deal about the conditioning implemented on many of the members of the Pantheon by his grandfather, and what had been forced upon Yuki was not that different. Thankfully, it was also not as systematic—if his guess was correct, what she had was one influence, a single source of the intrusion, and if so… he might have a solution.
It could work. It would work, because it would have to. “Listen to me carefully,” he urged quietly, speaking nevertheless in a soft murmur. “I think… there may be a way that I can stop you from hearing him. It will need Alden’s help… and you will have to let us both in. If you are willing to allow that… I will rid you of him, Yuki. Once and for all.” He knew even so that what he was asking of her was a lot. It was never easy to allow someone totally into one’s mind, especially not when the only person who had been there had done so much damage, but… if she could trust him enough for this, he could free her.
And that, he wanted so dearly it was hurting him.
Yuki wasn't entirely sure, there had been instances when she was still a child that she'd had nightmares, but it hadn't been like now. This really had only happened after she'd been injected. "I can only guess that it is a side-effect of the serum. I've only heard him in the last two months."
It was what Jasper said after that caught her off guard. Her eyes snapped open. She...wouldn't have to hear him again? She wanted that more than anything, to not hear him, to be able to forget. Jasper was her father, she knew that, she believed that. Not Kisuke.
It was that belief that gave her her answer. If there was even the slightest chance that this could work, she would take it. She couldn't live like this, and she didn't want to. Balthasar was right, she had to make the most of what little time she had left, and in order to do that...she had to let go of the past. Even if it meant that Jasper and Alden discovered things about her that she'd rather them not know.
There was no hesitation in her voice when she answered, pulling away from him in order to looki up at him. "Then we try."
Yuki believed that Jasper could do this. She knew that he could, and she trusted him. That did not mean she was not terrified. Whether it was because he was a figment of her consciousness, or he was gaining a will of his own, Kisuke seemed to be attacking her with a vengeance, as if he could tell that he was going to lose his hold on her, and he was trying to drive her mad before they could drive him out.
She was at her best whenever she was around Zero, so she'd taken to spending as much time with him as she could, though she would have done so anyway. She'd even managed to sleep that night, if only because she'd fallen asleep in his arms. She certainly looked better than she had the day before, as she sat in the chair across from Jasper and Alden in one of the smaller studies, the door locked. They'd asked the others not to come in, but for this, privacy needed to be enforced.
Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she found her hear fluttering. Balthasar and Zero were the only two who knew, and she'd rather keep it that way, however; there was no way to be certain whether Alden and Jasper would come across it or pass over it, having every access to her mind. And knowing Kisuke, he'd lead them straight to it. But she had to be rid of him, regardless of what it cost her.
"I cannot say for sure what you're going to come across...even I don't venture into some places in my mind, for fear of what I might find. But..." She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, "I'm ready."
Jasper, sitting across the table from his daughter, nodded once, in confirmation and reassurance both. Reaching across the interveining space between them, he took her hands into his and gave a gentle squeeze. “I will disturb as little as possible, Yuki.” It was not something anyone should desire, to have someone rooting around in their mind for an extended period of time, however good their intentions.
Alden, on the other hand, wasn’t terribly excited about this. He was willing to do it—in truth, there was very little, if anything, he wasn’t willing to do for his family, but… the last time he’d come in contact with power like the kind that was about to be used, his mental sensitivity had ensured that he’d nearly lost his fucking mind. That had been Balthasar. Jasper was at least a century ahead of his son in the development of that same power, but thankfully, it also gave him more control. Alden had explained the phenomenon as well as he could to his uncle, but so little was known about their powers that they had not discovered through experimentation that it was impossible to know what would happen here.
The way Uncle Jazz explained it, he was going to go inside Yuki’s mind and do what he was capable of doing outside of it—force another vampire to submit to his will, and then force it to eradicate itself, utterly and completely. The he was going to even be within range of that made the telepath nervous, but he knew he was needed. He had to set up, and maintain, the mental link between the two, and allow Jasper to in a sense borrow his powers, and give him a manifestation in Yuki’s mind that could obliterate Kisuke’s. It wasn’t something Violet had ever done before, but if anyone was capable of it, it was him, and everyone knew it. No arrogance, just fact. He was what he was, and it happened to be helpful sometimes. That was enough.
He’d situated himself comfortably, in case his body happened to take damage while he was messing around with minds here. “All right. No use wasting daylight here,” he said, diffusing the tension in his own way by being as blunt as ever. “Uncle Jazz, Yuki, this might be easier if you close your eyes, so the physical doesn’t make it harder to focus on the mental, and all that.” They’d need all the help they could get, if this was going to work. Cracking off the last stick of pocky he had, he finished it before he set to his task, taking a deep breath and reaching first for his uncle’s mind.
Huh. It really was a little like turning off the rest of the world. Not totally, because Alden’s awareness by nature extended beyond minds, but… things sure got quieter. Not in the you’re stupid so your brain is quiet way, either. More like the kind of quiet that you got when you stood at the shore of the ocean and just looked out at it. Because it was so absolutely massive that nothing else really mattered. It was actually a little unnerving, but he managed to latch into enough of it to sort of mentally ‘tug’ his uncle along as he sought Yuki’s mind. Mercifully, hers was more like an actual mind, if simultaneously keen and fractured. He’d touched Helen’s once—the effect was similar if not exactly the same.
“Insert tab A into slot B,” he mumbled wryly, recalling the directions for assembly of certain pieces of furniture. He much preferred to make it the old-fashioned way, of course, but there you had it—the analogy worked, and he fused the minds together with the mental equivalent of a temporary solder. Uncle Jazz was in Yuki’s mind; now he just had to keep him there.
Her mind wanted to recoil, at first. It barely had room for itself for certain areas, how could it allow something bigger to come in? Nonetheless, Jasper von Nacht was allowed into his daughter's mind, a place that was not overly bright. It was a long black and white hallway, with doors along either side.
Nothing was on any of the doors, and all of them, save for one, seemed to be closed. Inside seemed to be a memory, and it was very old. In it, Yuki was perhaps ten years old, back before she'd met her mother and Jasper. She was back in that old room, underneath the estate, in much the same position that her uncle had been in when they'd found him. The look on her face was one of pain.
The door closed, and another one opened, a barrage of memories of growing up with Jasper and Nikki, and Balthasar and Aryan, always there, but never quite belonging flickering by. There was also...quite a lot of Zero in her head too. Many more of her childhood with Kisuke were there, all dark, full of pain, and acceptance. Acceptance that this was her life, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She shuddered involuntarily at his voice.
Jasper stood, not quite physical but oriented as if he had a body all the same, in the hallway, his hands loose at his sides, and his eyes sliding over the contours of the chamber he was shown. He caught the flickers of memory, some of which made him smile, some of which made it appear as though the most natural expression on his face was in fact a darkening rage. This much, he had expected, including, perhaps, her fascination with his best friend’s oldest son.
He had not, perhaps, expected to be addressed so soon, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “I can banish you from anywhere I choose,” he said, his tone calm, but with an undertone of something unfamiliar to anyone but him, a strange reverberant echo of command. “Manifest yourself, Sou, and leave nothing behind. I can promise you I’ll be able to tell the difference.” He could, too, especially with the little mental tags Alden was placing on everything he saw through his uncle’s eyes. He was not directly appearing himself, having decided that it was best for Yuki to have to deal with as few presences as possible, but he was studiously finding the places where Kisuke’s influence still hid, and marking them down for reference.
A chuckle answered him, doors all around him opening and closing, memories flooding by, both happy and painful, joyous and sorrowful, but perhaps the worst were the ones of two months past, of doing what she had done with no control over her actions, yet being fully aware of it all the same.
Parts of him were slowly coming together, even the apparition falling prey to the command given. With a wicked smile, two memories freeze-framed. It was the conversations she'd had with Balthasar and Zero.
Outside of her head, she whispered, "No..."
Kisuke was being pulled from the very depths of her mind, and he was bringing with him all the ugly things she wanted to keep hidden, and she was powerles to stop him. The medical charts, the blood tests, the results, all leading up to the inevitable conclusion: She was going to die, and soon.
This was not what he had been expecting, but to say he’d never considered the possibility would be to lie. It had always been an unknown, what Yuki’s history and creation would do to her, and here before him, the stark truth was being laid out: his daughter, his child, was going to die, and he could not stop that. Not even the ability to command reality itself could undo what had been done to her, for it would unmake her in her entirety, and he knew that. Yet there were still things he could do.
“You think this is it? That this is your master stroke? That with it you will defeat me, defeat her?” There was a hard thread of contempt laced underneath his voice, and Jasper drew himself up to his full and considerable height, which allowed him the option of looking down his nose at Kisuke, an opportunity he took. He was not, as a rule, a prideful man, but for his children, there was no one prouder. “Then you underestimate her, and misunderstand the nature of what it is to live.”
The air around Jasper began to crackle with some kind of contained energy, and he let his eyes fall shut. When he opened them again, they were stark white from sclera to pupil, but the faintest hint of silver remaining where the iris had been. His will, he pressed down upon the apparition of the man like a lead weight, like gravity itself. “Begone, never to return.”
Outside the connection, Alden was bleeding from his nose and mouth, but he maintained the connection, breathing slowly. It was quite nearly killing him, to keep so much power in one place when it yearned to be everywhere, but he needed to do it. Uncle Jazz’s power had to stay inside Yuki’s mind, or the command given would affect the both of them, and probably a few of their closer-by relatives as well. “Anytime now would be great, Uncle Jazz,” he said, hacking up a globule of blood and coughing it into a square linen napkin. A second was held in front of his nose. “I really wish mom didn’t like these carpets so much… I swear a man should be allowed to bleed where he wants to…”
Even with the pressure, with the weight, the apparition was smirking. With Jasper's command, he began to dissolve.
That was the last thing he ever spoke, and he vanished, completely, every trace of him and his influence in her mind gone. Any memory that contained him was like his image had been burned out. Something had once existed, but no longer. It was as if something heavy was lifted from her.
Had certain events not come to light, she probably would have smiled. As it were, she couldn't quite bring herself to. Jasper knew now. She hadn't wanted to burden him with that knowledge, yet he knew anyway. But even that was pushed aside for now. Right now, she needed to take care of Alden.
She was at her best whenever she was around Zero, so she'd taken to spending as much time with him as she could, though she would have done so anyway. She'd even managed to sleep that night, if only because she'd fallen asleep in his arms. She certainly looked better than she had the day before, as she sat in the chair across from Jasper and Alden in one of the smaller studies, the door locked. They'd asked the others not to come in, but for this, privacy needed to be enforced.
Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she found her hear fluttering. Balthasar and Zero were the only two who knew, and she'd rather keep it that way, however; there was no way to be certain whether Alden and Jasper would come across it or pass over it, having every access to her mind. And knowing Kisuke, he'd lead them straight to it. But she had to be rid of him, regardless of what it cost her.
"I cannot say for sure what you're going to come across...even I don't venture into some places in my mind, for fear of what I might find. But..." She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, "I'm ready."
Jasper, sitting across the table from his daughter, nodded once, in confirmation and reassurance both. Reaching across the interveining space between them, he took her hands into his and gave a gentle squeeze. “I will disturb as little as possible, Yuki.” It was not something anyone should desire, to have someone rooting around in their mind for an extended period of time, however good their intentions.
Alden, on the other hand, wasn’t terribly excited about this. He was willing to do it—in truth, there was very little, if anything, he wasn’t willing to do for his family, but… the last time he’d come in contact with power like the kind that was about to be used, his mental sensitivity had ensured that he’d nearly lost his fucking mind. That had been Balthasar. Jasper was at least a century ahead of his son in the development of that same power, but thankfully, it also gave him more control. Alden had explained the phenomenon as well as he could to his uncle, but so little was known about their powers that they had not discovered through experimentation that it was impossible to know what would happen here.
The way Uncle Jazz explained it, he was going to go inside Yuki’s mind and do what he was capable of doing outside of it—force another vampire to submit to his will, and then force it to eradicate itself, utterly and completely. The he was going to even be within range of that made the telepath nervous, but he knew he was needed. He had to set up, and maintain, the mental link between the two, and allow Jasper to in a sense borrow his powers, and give him a manifestation in Yuki’s mind that could obliterate Kisuke’s. It wasn’t something Violet had ever done before, but if anyone was capable of it, it was him, and everyone knew it. No arrogance, just fact. He was what he was, and it happened to be helpful sometimes. That was enough.
He’d situated himself comfortably, in case his body happened to take damage while he was messing around with minds here. “All right. No use wasting daylight here,” he said, diffusing the tension in his own way by being as blunt as ever. “Uncle Jazz, Yuki, this might be easier if you close your eyes, so the physical doesn’t make it harder to focus on the mental, and all that.” They’d need all the help they could get, if this was going to work. Cracking off the last stick of pocky he had, he finished it before he set to his task, taking a deep breath and reaching first for his uncle’s mind.
Huh. It really was a little like turning off the rest of the world. Not totally, because Alden’s awareness by nature extended beyond minds, but… things sure got quieter. Not in the you’re stupid so your brain is quiet way, either. More like the kind of quiet that you got when you stood at the shore of the ocean and just looked out at it. Because it was so absolutely massive that nothing else really mattered. It was actually a little unnerving, but he managed to latch into enough of it to sort of mentally ‘tug’ his uncle along as he sought Yuki’s mind. Mercifully, hers was more like an actual mind, if simultaneously keen and fractured. He’d touched Helen’s once—the effect was similar if not exactly the same.
“Insert tab A into slot B,” he mumbled wryly, recalling the directions for assembly of certain pieces of furniture. He much preferred to make it the old-fashioned way, of course, but there you had it—the analogy worked, and he fused the minds together with the mental equivalent of a temporary solder. Uncle Jazz was in Yuki’s mind; now he just had to keep him there.
Her mind wanted to recoil, at first. It barely had room for itself for certain areas, how could it allow something bigger to come in? Nonetheless, Jasper von Nacht was allowed into his daughter's mind, a place that was not overly bright. It was a long black and white hallway, with doors along either side.
Nothing was on any of the doors, and all of them, save for one, seemed to be closed. Inside seemed to be a memory, and it was very old. In it, Yuki was perhaps ten years old, back before she'd met her mother and Jasper. She was back in that old room, underneath the estate, in much the same position that her uncle had been in when they'd found him. The look on her face was one of pain.
The door closed, and another one opened, a barrage of memories of growing up with Jasper and Nikki, and Balthasar and Aryan, always there, but never quite belonging flickering by. There was also...quite a lot of Zero in her head too. Many more of her childhood with Kisuke were there, all dark, full of pain, and acceptance. Acceptance that this was her life, and there was nothing she could do about it.
You cannot banish what only exists in one's mind, von Nacht.
She shuddered involuntarily at his voice.
Jasper stood, not quite physical but oriented as if he had a body all the same, in the hallway, his hands loose at his sides, and his eyes sliding over the contours of the chamber he was shown. He caught the flickers of memory, some of which made him smile, some of which made it appear as though the most natural expression on his face was in fact a darkening rage. This much, he had expected, including, perhaps, her fascination with his best friend’s oldest son.
He had not, perhaps, expected to be addressed so soon, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “I can banish you from anywhere I choose,” he said, his tone calm, but with an undertone of something unfamiliar to anyone but him, a strange reverberant echo of command. “Manifest yourself, Sou, and leave nothing behind. I can promise you I’ll be able to tell the difference.” He could, too, especially with the little mental tags Alden was placing on everything he saw through his uncle’s eyes. He was not directly appearing himself, having decided that it was best for Yuki to have to deal with as few presences as possible, but he was studiously finding the places where Kisuke’s influence still hid, and marking them down for reference.
A chuckle answered him, doors all around him opening and closing, memories flooding by, both happy and painful, joyous and sorrowful, but perhaps the worst were the ones of two months past, of doing what she had done with no control over her actions, yet being fully aware of it all the same.
I can tell you this much. You may call her your daughter, but even you cannot save her.
Parts of him were slowly coming together, even the apparition falling prey to the command given. With a wicked smile, two memories freeze-framed. It was the conversations she'd had with Balthasar and Zero.
Outside of her head, she whispered, "No..."
Kisuke was being pulled from the very depths of her mind, and he was bringing with him all the ugly things she wanted to keep hidden, and she was powerles to stop him. The medical charts, the blood tests, the results, all leading up to the inevitable conclusion: She was going to die, and soon.
Nothing can save her from the fate she must endure, and that fate is death. Not even you can change that, with all your power. You and Nikki and her precious little Zero have to watch her die, and it won't be very pretty, either.
This was not what he had been expecting, but to say he’d never considered the possibility would be to lie. It had always been an unknown, what Yuki’s history and creation would do to her, and here before him, the stark truth was being laid out: his daughter, his child, was going to die, and he could not stop that. Not even the ability to command reality itself could undo what had been done to her, for it would unmake her in her entirety, and he knew that. Yet there were still things he could do.
“You think this is it? That this is your master stroke? That with it you will defeat me, defeat her?” There was a hard thread of contempt laced underneath his voice, and Jasper drew himself up to his full and considerable height, which allowed him the option of looking down his nose at Kisuke, an opportunity he took. He was not, as a rule, a prideful man, but for his children, there was no one prouder. “Then you underestimate her, and misunderstand the nature of what it is to live.”
The air around Jasper began to crackle with some kind of contained energy, and he let his eyes fall shut. When he opened them again, they were stark white from sclera to pupil, but the faintest hint of silver remaining where the iris had been. His will, he pressed down upon the apparition of the man like a lead weight, like gravity itself. “Begone, never to return.”
Outside the connection, Alden was bleeding from his nose and mouth, but he maintained the connection, breathing slowly. It was quite nearly killing him, to keep so much power in one place when it yearned to be everywhere, but he needed to do it. Uncle Jazz’s power had to stay inside Yuki’s mind, or the command given would affect the both of them, and probably a few of their closer-by relatives as well. “Anytime now would be great, Uncle Jazz,” he said, hacking up a globule of blood and coughing it into a square linen napkin. A second was held in front of his nose. “I really wish mom didn’t like these carpets so much… I swear a man should be allowed to bleed where he wants to…”
Even with the pressure, with the weight, the apparition was smirking. With Jasper's command, he began to dissolve.
My target never was you, von Nacht. But think of what the news will do to your pretty little wife.
That was the last thing he ever spoke, and he vanished, completely, every trace of him and his influence in her mind gone. Any memory that contained him was like his image had been burned out. Something had once existed, but no longer. It was as if something heavy was lifted from her.
Had certain events not come to light, she probably would have smiled. As it were, she couldn't quite bring herself to. Jasper knew now. She hadn't wanted to burden him with that knowledge, yet he knew anyway. But even that was pushed aside for now. Right now, she needed to take care of Alden.
Thank you.
It was as if someone had reached in Yuki's head and turned on a switch. All of a sudden, she could sleep again, she wasn't having nightmares, and she was able to let go of the guilt that she felt about what she'd done. She was smiling again. There was still the matter of talking with her parents about what Jasper had uncovered, but for now, she was just content with being able to go about her day without worrying about breaking down or hearing voices.
As far as she could tell, Alden was recovering well, if albeit slowly, but all tests ran normal, so she wasn't worried. She was also a little...surprised to find that Emrys spent most of his waking hours by their cousin's bedside, but she left it alone. It was none of her business, really. She'd been able to have a conversation with her youngest brother, which he seemed to be very pleased about, and she was currently on her way to check in on her best friend.
She owed Helen a lot, honestly. If she hadn't broken through to her when she did, Yuki probably wouldn't be here now. She smiled slightly before knocking on Helen's door.
Freya had arrived at the Kuragari mansion no more than twelve hours after she’d been informed of Helen’s recovery, and as a result, the younger of the sisters was looking a little healthier. Granted, she was still too thin, and there were still dark circles beneath her eyes, but she’d managed to sleep sporadically, waking only when the nightmares got too bad to handle. It was far from an ideal situation, but then, Hel had never really experienced the ideal situation, so this was good enough. What was more, Yuki was apparently doing much better, though Helen had elected to give her space to recover. There were plenty of people who needed to be beside her right now, and much as Hel would have liked to be there, it was not a physical need, as it would be for her parents or the one she loved.
She still didn’t really understand that, the need for someone else that stretched beyond desire, even. She had enough trouble understanding the desire, both for someone’s company in particular, and then the further step than that which was romantic instead of platonic. She’d known a few simple instances of liking being around people—she was not, after all, completely incapable of feeling. She liked being around Yuki. She liked being around Freya and Alden and to some extent any of the rest. There were few she’d seek out, though. There was a name suspiciously missing from her mental tally, but that was because she could not divine her own thoughts on Aryan at the moment. She did seek his company, occasionally actively. But that was about all that really made sense. It was enough.
She felt her friend long before the knock at the door, but waited for it to come before she stood from the chair she’d been curled up in, padding in stocking-feet over to the door and opening it wide enough to accommodate either of them. She still could not and did not smile, but something—a spark she’d lost over the intervening weeks maybe, lit in her eyes. It was a small thing, and hardly noticeable, but it was present. “Yuki,” she said softly. “Please come in.” She stepped aside to allow her friend to do so, then poured each of them a cup of tea from the warm ceramic pot resting on the low table between them.
“How do you feel?”
Yuki smiled, brighter than what was usually considered normal for her. She'd been doing that a lot lately, and with Kisuke utterly gone from her head, it was easy to see why. She was a bit concerned to see her friend so thin, but at least she no longer looked like the walking dead, that was something at least.
"I'm doing much better, Helen. What about yourself? I heard Aryan has been teaching you how to play chess?" She raised a slight eyebrow as she sat down, wondering what it was that was happening between her brother and cousin. Whatever it was, she certainly approved, Helen needed to come out of her shell more, and the more people she interacted with, the more chance there was of that happening.
Helen nodded slightly, taking one of the cups of tea and setting it in front of Yuki, cradling the other in her hands. The warmth seeped into her fingers, and she rather liked the feeling, in all honesty. “Yes,” she replied simply. It had, of course, started as a distraction, a way to take her mind away from things when there was no more work to be done. In that sense, she supposed it was not necessary anymore, but… she wouldn’t mind continuing. There were still things left to learn, after all, and Helen did not like leaving a skill unmastered. It was also, perhaps, true that she felt comfortable in that setting, strange as she found the revelation to be.
“Otherwise, I am recovering. Freya believes that there will be a need for some of my ability and relative anonymity quite soon, so I am attempting to regain my health as quickly as possible.” There was a chance she would have to be separated from the majority of them for a long period of time in the near future, and she found herself surprisingly… disappointed by that. She had grown strangely used to having them around. But she also suspected that it would not be long before the war effort fractured them in more directions than just that—Cross Academy was gone, and the conflict was dearly close to their front doorsteps once more.
As someone who had seen the previous war, she knew it would not leave them untouched, and the realization produced a curious pang in her chest. They would lose people, this family, and she did not want it to be so. It hurt her to realize it would be so, and that was something that caught her off-guard.
Yuki sipped at the tea, smiling slightly. It was good to be back in Helen's presence, though her statement gave her pause. It was true, with Cross Academy destroyed, there was no real neutral zone any longer, and that would force a lot of hands to act in the war now. She pursed her lips slightly.
"I'm sure my brother will miss his assistant dearly. As far as I can tell, Emrys will be staying with him for Council meetings. The rest of us..." She trailed off slightly. She didn't want to think about it overmuch, since it led to the possibility that she would be separated from Zero, and she didn't want to think about that.
Instead, she smiled again. [color=#21072]"I'm glad you're doing better, Helen. I'm sorry if I made you worry."[/color]
As ever, Helen seemed to instinctively sense her friend’s worry. “I am sure they will not separate you from him, if at all possible. And you are fortunate in that both of you are talented in similar ways.” If she had to guess, she’d say that they would probably end up on the battlefield together somewhere. Though she would miss her friend quite dearly, she knew enough to understand that the connection between Yuki and Zero was simply of the sort that took first priority in someone’s life. She had said it, after all—Zero had shown Yuki what it was like to be at the very center of someone else’s world, in the good way. The bad way… was one she hoped her friend never had to experience.
“Do not apologize for that,” she said slowly, taking a sip of her tea and trying to think about how to explain it. “That I can worry at all is still very strange to me, but… I consider it a gift. It makes me less like him. Though… please do not feel the need to defend us all again in a similar manner.” It was an experience that did not bear repeating, after all.
As far as she could tell, Alden was recovering well, if albeit slowly, but all tests ran normal, so she wasn't worried. She was also a little...surprised to find that Emrys spent most of his waking hours by their cousin's bedside, but she left it alone. It was none of her business, really. She'd been able to have a conversation with her youngest brother, which he seemed to be very pleased about, and she was currently on her way to check in on her best friend.
She owed Helen a lot, honestly. If she hadn't broken through to her when she did, Yuki probably wouldn't be here now. She smiled slightly before knocking on Helen's door.
Freya had arrived at the Kuragari mansion no more than twelve hours after she’d been informed of Helen’s recovery, and as a result, the younger of the sisters was looking a little healthier. Granted, she was still too thin, and there were still dark circles beneath her eyes, but she’d managed to sleep sporadically, waking only when the nightmares got too bad to handle. It was far from an ideal situation, but then, Hel had never really experienced the ideal situation, so this was good enough. What was more, Yuki was apparently doing much better, though Helen had elected to give her space to recover. There were plenty of people who needed to be beside her right now, and much as Hel would have liked to be there, it was not a physical need, as it would be for her parents or the one she loved.
She still didn’t really understand that, the need for someone else that stretched beyond desire, even. She had enough trouble understanding the desire, both for someone’s company in particular, and then the further step than that which was romantic instead of platonic. She’d known a few simple instances of liking being around people—she was not, after all, completely incapable of feeling. She liked being around Yuki. She liked being around Freya and Alden and to some extent any of the rest. There were few she’d seek out, though. There was a name suspiciously missing from her mental tally, but that was because she could not divine her own thoughts on Aryan at the moment. She did seek his company, occasionally actively. But that was about all that really made sense. It was enough.
She felt her friend long before the knock at the door, but waited for it to come before she stood from the chair she’d been curled up in, padding in stocking-feet over to the door and opening it wide enough to accommodate either of them. She still could not and did not smile, but something—a spark she’d lost over the intervening weeks maybe, lit in her eyes. It was a small thing, and hardly noticeable, but it was present. “Yuki,” she said softly. “Please come in.” She stepped aside to allow her friend to do so, then poured each of them a cup of tea from the warm ceramic pot resting on the low table between them.
“How do you feel?”
Yuki smiled, brighter than what was usually considered normal for her. She'd been doing that a lot lately, and with Kisuke utterly gone from her head, it was easy to see why. She was a bit concerned to see her friend so thin, but at least she no longer looked like the walking dead, that was something at least.
"I'm doing much better, Helen. What about yourself? I heard Aryan has been teaching you how to play chess?" She raised a slight eyebrow as she sat down, wondering what it was that was happening between her brother and cousin. Whatever it was, she certainly approved, Helen needed to come out of her shell more, and the more people she interacted with, the more chance there was of that happening.
Helen nodded slightly, taking one of the cups of tea and setting it in front of Yuki, cradling the other in her hands. The warmth seeped into her fingers, and she rather liked the feeling, in all honesty. “Yes,” she replied simply. It had, of course, started as a distraction, a way to take her mind away from things when there was no more work to be done. In that sense, she supposed it was not necessary anymore, but… she wouldn’t mind continuing. There were still things left to learn, after all, and Helen did not like leaving a skill unmastered. It was also, perhaps, true that she felt comfortable in that setting, strange as she found the revelation to be.
“Otherwise, I am recovering. Freya believes that there will be a need for some of my ability and relative anonymity quite soon, so I am attempting to regain my health as quickly as possible.” There was a chance she would have to be separated from the majority of them for a long period of time in the near future, and she found herself surprisingly… disappointed by that. She had grown strangely used to having them around. But she also suspected that it would not be long before the war effort fractured them in more directions than just that—Cross Academy was gone, and the conflict was dearly close to their front doorsteps once more.
As someone who had seen the previous war, she knew it would not leave them untouched, and the realization produced a curious pang in her chest. They would lose people, this family, and she did not want it to be so. It hurt her to realize it would be so, and that was something that caught her off-guard.
Yuki sipped at the tea, smiling slightly. It was good to be back in Helen's presence, though her statement gave her pause. It was true, with Cross Academy destroyed, there was no real neutral zone any longer, and that would force a lot of hands to act in the war now. She pursed her lips slightly.
"I'm sure my brother will miss his assistant dearly. As far as I can tell, Emrys will be staying with him for Council meetings. The rest of us..." She trailed off slightly. She didn't want to think about it overmuch, since it led to the possibility that she would be separated from Zero, and she didn't want to think about that.
Instead, she smiled again. [color=#21072]"I'm glad you're doing better, Helen. I'm sorry if I made you worry."[/color]
As ever, Helen seemed to instinctively sense her friend’s worry. “I am sure they will not separate you from him, if at all possible. And you are fortunate in that both of you are talented in similar ways.” If she had to guess, she’d say that they would probably end up on the battlefield together somewhere. Though she would miss her friend quite dearly, she knew enough to understand that the connection between Yuki and Zero was simply of the sort that took first priority in someone’s life. She had said it, after all—Zero had shown Yuki what it was like to be at the very center of someone else’s world, in the good way. The bad way… was one she hoped her friend never had to experience.
“Do not apologize for that,” she said slowly, taking a sip of her tea and trying to think about how to explain it. “That I can worry at all is still very strange to me, but… I consider it a gift. It makes me less like him. Though… please do not feel the need to defend us all again in a similar manner.” It was an experience that did not bear repeating, after all.
Alarica wandered through the Kuragari estate, taking a deep sigh as she ran a hand through her hair. Emrys had woken not too long ago and she had yet to see her brother. She still felt responsible of what happened to him. If she had not hesitated, he wouldn't have been injured. He wouldn't have been harmed, and it was her fault that he was. She sighed a bit harshly, rubbing her temples in the process. It wouldn't do her any good if she blamed herself for it. The only thing that would come out of it was a headache she did not need.
Chewing the bottom of her lip a bit, she took a deep breath. What kind of sister would she be if she didn't at least check up on her older brother? A faint smirk pulled at her lips before she shook her head. With that in mind, she pushed her legs in the direction of where Emrys was. She had learned from her aunt that he was sharing a room with Alden, something she found quite amusing as Emrys wasn't one for sharing rooms. She had known. There was a point when she was still just a child, and as such, she was afraid of the monsters under her bed. She ran to Emrys' room who then took her to Keir's thereafter.
She had frowned and called him an unpleasant name (she couldn't recall it), and had opted to stick to Keir's room and her parents' (much to their chagrin). She pushed the door open to Alden's room, not bothering to knock, and found her brother still in bed, curled beneath the blankets. A bright smirk pulled at her lips as she made her way towards the bed. She grabbed the edge of the blanket and tugged at it softly before the smirk turned into a Cheshire cat grin. Pulling the blankets off rather harshly, she waited for his reaction as she crossed her arms over her chest, smirking still down upon her brother.
Of late, sleeping was the only way Emrys was able to escape his waking nightmares. He'd been thinking far too much over the past few days, and he was beginning to wonder if he hadn't developed a minor type of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was hard to say, really. In that regard, he'd been sleeping a lot more.
He jolted awake as the covers were pulled off of him, and found himself staring into the smirking face of his little sister. He groaned, propping his head up with his elbow, and scowled at her. As per usual with him, he was bare-chested. The circular scar was pale, even against his already-white skin.
"Dare I ask what I've done to deserve such harsh treatment from my own kin?"
Alarica rose an eyebrow, staring at her brother before tapping her chin in a thoughtful manner. "Hm, well let us see shall we?" she stated, removing her hand from her chin and placing it on her hip. "Well for starters, you scared the crap out of me. You almost died Em," she began, sighing softly as she situated herself on the edge of his bed. She had been worried about him, and almost afraid that he wasn't going to heal, that he was going to die because of her. Her moment of weakness almost cost her her own life, and then her brother's.
"How are you feeling anyway?" she spoke, her eyes traveling to the scar on his chest, and frowning slightly. She sighed, tracing her finger over it before pulling away. "I'm sorry Em," she murmured, laying down beside him and wrapping her arms around him as much as she could. "You wouldn't have been hurt if I hadn't hesitated," she whispered as she sighed softly.
Well, he couldn't exactly lie and say he hadn't almost died, because the truth of the matter was that he had. He let out a deep sigh. He'd been expecting this, really. He wrapped his arms around Alarica, pressing his lips to her forehead softly. "I'm your big brother, Rica. We're supposed to protect our younger siblings, especially our sisters. Z would have done the same thing for Leo just as Bal and Ary would have for Yuki, though that's a bit of a strange case, Yuyu is older than all of us."
He shrugged slightly. "The point is, I did what I had to do, and I'll do it again. I didn't die, Rica. You can't get rid of me that easily."
Alarica sighed, shifting herself so that she was wrapped tightly against her brother and took a soft breath. He was her big brother, that was his excuse. That didn't matter to her, he could have been nothing to her, and she still would have felt responsible. She pursed her lips together, pulling away from Emrys and rolled off the bed. She shook her head softly. He was right, he didn't die, and that was all that mattered. She walked over towards the door, stopping momentarily and glanced over her shoulder.
"I don't know about you, but I'd refrain from telling mom. You are her baby after all. Dad might get caught in the crossfire if you told her. Though I can't guarantee that Keir hasn't already informed dad. Huh, if he did, I think we may be fatherless," she threw over her shoulder, the smirk still pulling at her lips. She truly did feel bad for her father. Her mother wasn't exactly the most composed of parents when it came to her children, and was perhaps one of the most feared for it. A shudder went down her back, the smirk disappearing from her face.
"I really do feel for dad..." she stated and exited the room.
Chewing the bottom of her lip a bit, she took a deep breath. What kind of sister would she be if she didn't at least check up on her older brother? A faint smirk pulled at her lips before she shook her head. With that in mind, she pushed her legs in the direction of where Emrys was. She had learned from her aunt that he was sharing a room with Alden, something she found quite amusing as Emrys wasn't one for sharing rooms. She had known. There was a point when she was still just a child, and as such, she was afraid of the monsters under her bed. She ran to Emrys' room who then took her to Keir's thereafter.
She had frowned and called him an unpleasant name (she couldn't recall it), and had opted to stick to Keir's room and her parents' (much to their chagrin). She pushed the door open to Alden's room, not bothering to knock, and found her brother still in bed, curled beneath the blankets. A bright smirk pulled at her lips as she made her way towards the bed. She grabbed the edge of the blanket and tugged at it softly before the smirk turned into a Cheshire cat grin. Pulling the blankets off rather harshly, she waited for his reaction as she crossed her arms over her chest, smirking still down upon her brother.
Of late, sleeping was the only way Emrys was able to escape his waking nightmares. He'd been thinking far too much over the past few days, and he was beginning to wonder if he hadn't developed a minor type of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was hard to say, really. In that regard, he'd been sleeping a lot more.
He jolted awake as the covers were pulled off of him, and found himself staring into the smirking face of his little sister. He groaned, propping his head up with his elbow, and scowled at her. As per usual with him, he was bare-chested. The circular scar was pale, even against his already-white skin.
"Dare I ask what I've done to deserve such harsh treatment from my own kin?"
Alarica rose an eyebrow, staring at her brother before tapping her chin in a thoughtful manner. "Hm, well let us see shall we?" she stated, removing her hand from her chin and placing it on her hip. "Well for starters, you scared the crap out of me. You almost died Em," she began, sighing softly as she situated herself on the edge of his bed. She had been worried about him, and almost afraid that he wasn't going to heal, that he was going to die because of her. Her moment of weakness almost cost her her own life, and then her brother's.
"How are you feeling anyway?" she spoke, her eyes traveling to the scar on his chest, and frowning slightly. She sighed, tracing her finger over it before pulling away. "I'm sorry Em," she murmured, laying down beside him and wrapping her arms around him as much as she could. "You wouldn't have been hurt if I hadn't hesitated," she whispered as she sighed softly.
Well, he couldn't exactly lie and say he hadn't almost died, because the truth of the matter was that he had. He let out a deep sigh. He'd been expecting this, really. He wrapped his arms around Alarica, pressing his lips to her forehead softly. "I'm your big brother, Rica. We're supposed to protect our younger siblings, especially our sisters. Z would have done the same thing for Leo just as Bal and Ary would have for Yuki, though that's a bit of a strange case, Yuyu is older than all of us."
He shrugged slightly. "The point is, I did what I had to do, and I'll do it again. I didn't die, Rica. You can't get rid of me that easily."
Alarica sighed, shifting herself so that she was wrapped tightly against her brother and took a soft breath. He was her big brother, that was his excuse. That didn't matter to her, he could have been nothing to her, and she still would have felt responsible. She pursed her lips together, pulling away from Emrys and rolled off the bed. She shook her head softly. He was right, he didn't die, and that was all that mattered. She walked over towards the door, stopping momentarily and glanced over her shoulder.
"I don't know about you, but I'd refrain from telling mom. You are her baby after all. Dad might get caught in the crossfire if you told her. Though I can't guarantee that Keir hasn't already informed dad. Huh, if he did, I think we may be fatherless," she threw over her shoulder, the smirk still pulling at her lips. She truly did feel bad for her father. Her mother wasn't exactly the most composed of parents when it came to her children, and was perhaps one of the most feared for it. A shudder went down her back, the smirk disappearing from her face.
"I really do feel for dad..." she stated and exited the room.
The Spider dreams of the workings of its web, as things turn out. He was not so gifted as to be able to escape the magnitude of his sins in his dreams, but at least they were things he was willing to let go. The mantra of his entire life had been: the lesser evil in service of the greater good. That was what he had become, and he had done so willingly. So sometimes, when he dreamed of the things he’d had to do and to be in service of that greater good, it troubled him with startling clarity. The times he’d ripped information straight from an unprepared mind. The times he’d used his abilities to inflict subtle psychological torment on Pantheon agents or mercenary assassins. Far fewer attempts had actually been made on his family’s lives than were ever planned. The Spider preferred to nip such problems in the bud, so to speak.
And then there were the times when more subtle methods had been necessary, when simply taking the information he desired was not the best way to go about things. He’d slept his way to the top of more than one alliance, and secretly murdered his way up other hierarchies. Through them all, he’d worn countless faces, played countless characters, and none of them were him.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that all of them were him.
They were what he had become, for their sake. All the things he would continue to do but never speak of. All his ghosts and his demons and the little pieces of his soul he’d left behind on the way. But it was worth it, every time, for those times when he could go home and see his mother and his siblings and his family, and allow himself to be cocooned in their warmth and their light for a while. He could forget, for just a moment, that he still wore a face with nothing underneath. He had given all that up, because it was necessary to pay the toll in something, and Alden had only shreds of his soul to give. He paid and he paid and he paid some more, and somehow, there was always just enough to keep him putting one foot in front of another. To track the next lead, worm into the next alliance by whatever means necessary, wear the next face. Spin one more thread for his web.
It was obvious when he woke that his mother had been giving him transfusions, because he could tell that it had been at least a couple of weeks, and he wasn’t dead yet. He was, however, ravenous, and he could smell someone enticingly-familiar not too far away. Cracking open one eye, Alden laid an arm over his abdomen and turned his head to face his cousin. “So what’s your excuse? Could have moved in with someone else by now, wouldn’t have had to worry about the cobwebs getting out of hand.” His eyes were a tad redder than normal, but, razor’s edge or not, he was still in control of himself. He just really hoped Emrys didn’t start bleeding. It wasn’t as though he’d lost much himself, it was just that his metabolism was insane and essentially unslakeable. Sucked to be him, sometimes.
Emrys had been flipping through a book, bored, when Alden awoke. It had been almost three weeks since he'd nearly died helping their uncle and Yuki. While Emrys was sincerely glad that his cousin was alright, he was also going to miss the solitude. He rose an eyebrow slightly at his question.
"I like the cobwebs, actually. They're a nice touch. Besides, with you out of it, it was almost like having a room to myself again. Z snores and is usually with Yuki anyway, and I'd die before I shared a room with Bal, Keir, or Ary. Plus, I'm lazy and didn't feel like being bothered to move anything when I was already here." He'd returned to the book while he was speaking, but then paused and set it down. He looked over at Alden again. "It would seem our roles are quite reversed. I can give you your blood back, if you wanted it."
Alden snorted, the half-smile cracking his face anyway. And he was sure all four of his other brothers were unsuitable for various reasons also. He could sense them nearby; clearly, everyone was returned for the annual circus... or Christmas, as his mother liked to call it. “Glad to know I could be of convenience,” he said dryly, pushing himself up so that he was sitting with his back to the headboard. An extra bed had indeed been moved in here, but other than that, the décor was unchanged. There were not actually any cobwebs, of course, though sunlight did stream in through a window. Violet didn’t need to ask how long he’d been out, because Emrys had thought about it, which meant he’d heard it as clearly as if it had been spoken.
He pretended to ponder the question for a moment, running a hand through his purple hair and trailing the gesture into working the knot out of the back of his neck. Alden could be pretty lazy when he wanted to be, but he did not make a habit of sleeping in the same spot for three damn weeks. Then again, he’d contained Uncle Jasper’s power to Yuki’s head. He was surprised it hadn’t killed him. It probably would have, if it had been Balthasar making the attempt, or any lesser telepath trying to do the containing. He wasn’t surprised his brain had needed so long to repair itself.
But the mischief in his smile had nothing to do with any of that, really. “My own back? Hm… I think not. Yours, though…” He arched an eyebrow and raised one of his arms slightly to make a beckoning motion with one of his index fingers. “Yours, I’ll take.”
Emrys raised his eyebrow a little higher. "My own, huh? And what is so special about my own blood?" Despite the question, he did move over to the bed, sliding in next to his cousin. He had to wonder why when he'd been the one to drink from Alden, it had bothered him, yet now, when it was Alden drinking from him, it was perfectly fine. He didn't know. A part of him didn't want to.
He cocked his head at his cousin for a second before leaning his head over, exposing the smooth ivory arch of his neck for him. The last time he'd seen Alden, he'd been blonde, his hair cropped very close to his head. "You know, I kinda like you in purple. It suits you." He didn't even bother to take the time to wonder why he'd felt the need to say that.
Even if he weren’t a mindreader, it would have been relatively obvious to Alden just how hilariously-confused his cousin was about this whole thing. Growing up, they perhaps hadn’t interacted as much as Alden had with Aryan or Emrys with Zero, because they were closest in age that way, but then… it wasn’t like they were the same people as they’d been back then. More than perhaps any other members of their generation, this war had changed them, deeply and irrevocably. They’d both been paying the tolls since they were old enough to know how, and had run into each other only sporadically since then. It was, in a way, a lot like meeting a new person.
A new person who had absolutely no idea what he was up against.
Shifting, Alden hovered over his cousin for just a moment, that secretive half-smile still adorning his face, even as his eyeteeth extended below the line of his bottom lip. “Does it?” he inquired playfully, making his voice a little breathier than usual and leaning down so that he was within a few inches of Em’s face. “I happen to think that red is a very good color on you.” He referred of course, to the hue that Emrys’s pale face took on when he blushed. Inching closer, he diverted his course at the last moment, running his tongue along the juncture of Em’s throat and shoulder.
He sank his teeth into the same spot, adjusting a little so that he moved a leg over his cousin’s waist for a better angle. The taste was interesting—a mixture of the sweet and the spicy, like dark chocolate with chilis in it. Violet’s eyes slid closed for a moment, and he hummed a note of contentedness before extracting his teeth, licking the last drop from the corner of his mouth. “Just as I suspected,” he murmured, rising onto his knees and removing himself from Em’s person. He swiped a finger along his own lip and then over his tongue, making sure the rest was gone as well. His eyes narrowed, and the wicked smirk returned to him. “You’re delicious.”
When blood is offered instead of taken by force, there is something rather intimate about the whole ordeal. With Emrys, it was no different, even if he did not understand it. Had he not twisted his fingers into the sheets, he would have wrapped his arm around Alden's shoulders to prevent him from pulling away. As it were, he simply blushed and allowed him to do as he would, acutely aware of his body positioning.
When he did pull away, Emrys swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up with his back to Alden. Al's comment about his taste sent a shiver down his spine. "Yeah, yeah. Just don't get too attached." He said gruffly.
Alden chuckled, shaking his head, but he did not immediately say anything in response, simply climbing off his bed with a sort of easy grace that seemed to come naturally to felines and vampires alike. As he’d suspected, he was quite capable of moving about now, as his injuries had mostly been to his brain and then his metabolism, and both of those were now in quite well-functioning order. “I shall do my very best, cousin,” he said, laying a hand over his heart in a mocking gesture of sincerity, “but it could be said that my family is predisposed to both ends of addiction, after all.”
And then there were the times when more subtle methods had been necessary, when simply taking the information he desired was not the best way to go about things. He’d slept his way to the top of more than one alliance, and secretly murdered his way up other hierarchies. Through them all, he’d worn countless faces, played countless characters, and none of them were him.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that all of them were him.
They were what he had become, for their sake. All the things he would continue to do but never speak of. All his ghosts and his demons and the little pieces of his soul he’d left behind on the way. But it was worth it, every time, for those times when he could go home and see his mother and his siblings and his family, and allow himself to be cocooned in their warmth and their light for a while. He could forget, for just a moment, that he still wore a face with nothing underneath. He had given all that up, because it was necessary to pay the toll in something, and Alden had only shreds of his soul to give. He paid and he paid and he paid some more, and somehow, there was always just enough to keep him putting one foot in front of another. To track the next lead, worm into the next alliance by whatever means necessary, wear the next face. Spin one more thread for his web.
It was obvious when he woke that his mother had been giving him transfusions, because he could tell that it had been at least a couple of weeks, and he wasn’t dead yet. He was, however, ravenous, and he could smell someone enticingly-familiar not too far away. Cracking open one eye, Alden laid an arm over his abdomen and turned his head to face his cousin. “So what’s your excuse? Could have moved in with someone else by now, wouldn’t have had to worry about the cobwebs getting out of hand.” His eyes were a tad redder than normal, but, razor’s edge or not, he was still in control of himself. He just really hoped Emrys didn’t start bleeding. It wasn’t as though he’d lost much himself, it was just that his metabolism was insane and essentially unslakeable. Sucked to be him, sometimes.
Emrys had been flipping through a book, bored, when Alden awoke. It had been almost three weeks since he'd nearly died helping their uncle and Yuki. While Emrys was sincerely glad that his cousin was alright, he was also going to miss the solitude. He rose an eyebrow slightly at his question.
"I like the cobwebs, actually. They're a nice touch. Besides, with you out of it, it was almost like having a room to myself again. Z snores and is usually with Yuki anyway, and I'd die before I shared a room with Bal, Keir, or Ary. Plus, I'm lazy and didn't feel like being bothered to move anything when I was already here." He'd returned to the book while he was speaking, but then paused and set it down. He looked over at Alden again. "It would seem our roles are quite reversed. I can give you your blood back, if you wanted it."
Alden snorted, the half-smile cracking his face anyway. And he was sure all four of his other brothers were unsuitable for various reasons also. He could sense them nearby; clearly, everyone was returned for the annual circus... or Christmas, as his mother liked to call it. “Glad to know I could be of convenience,” he said dryly, pushing himself up so that he was sitting with his back to the headboard. An extra bed had indeed been moved in here, but other than that, the décor was unchanged. There were not actually any cobwebs, of course, though sunlight did stream in through a window. Violet didn’t need to ask how long he’d been out, because Emrys had thought about it, which meant he’d heard it as clearly as if it had been spoken.
He pretended to ponder the question for a moment, running a hand through his purple hair and trailing the gesture into working the knot out of the back of his neck. Alden could be pretty lazy when he wanted to be, but he did not make a habit of sleeping in the same spot for three damn weeks. Then again, he’d contained Uncle Jasper’s power to Yuki’s head. He was surprised it hadn’t killed him. It probably would have, if it had been Balthasar making the attempt, or any lesser telepath trying to do the containing. He wasn’t surprised his brain had needed so long to repair itself.
But the mischief in his smile had nothing to do with any of that, really. “My own back? Hm… I think not. Yours, though…” He arched an eyebrow and raised one of his arms slightly to make a beckoning motion with one of his index fingers. “Yours, I’ll take.”
Emrys raised his eyebrow a little higher. "My own, huh? And what is so special about my own blood?" Despite the question, he did move over to the bed, sliding in next to his cousin. He had to wonder why when he'd been the one to drink from Alden, it had bothered him, yet now, when it was Alden drinking from him, it was perfectly fine. He didn't know. A part of him didn't want to.
He cocked his head at his cousin for a second before leaning his head over, exposing the smooth ivory arch of his neck for him. The last time he'd seen Alden, he'd been blonde, his hair cropped very close to his head. "You know, I kinda like you in purple. It suits you." He didn't even bother to take the time to wonder why he'd felt the need to say that.
Even if he weren’t a mindreader, it would have been relatively obvious to Alden just how hilariously-confused his cousin was about this whole thing. Growing up, they perhaps hadn’t interacted as much as Alden had with Aryan or Emrys with Zero, because they were closest in age that way, but then… it wasn’t like they were the same people as they’d been back then. More than perhaps any other members of their generation, this war had changed them, deeply and irrevocably. They’d both been paying the tolls since they were old enough to know how, and had run into each other only sporadically since then. It was, in a way, a lot like meeting a new person.
A new person who had absolutely no idea what he was up against.
Shifting, Alden hovered over his cousin for just a moment, that secretive half-smile still adorning his face, even as his eyeteeth extended below the line of his bottom lip. “Does it?” he inquired playfully, making his voice a little breathier than usual and leaning down so that he was within a few inches of Em’s face. “I happen to think that red is a very good color on you.” He referred of course, to the hue that Emrys’s pale face took on when he blushed. Inching closer, he diverted his course at the last moment, running his tongue along the juncture of Em’s throat and shoulder.
He sank his teeth into the same spot, adjusting a little so that he moved a leg over his cousin’s waist for a better angle. The taste was interesting—a mixture of the sweet and the spicy, like dark chocolate with chilis in it. Violet’s eyes slid closed for a moment, and he hummed a note of contentedness before extracting his teeth, licking the last drop from the corner of his mouth. “Just as I suspected,” he murmured, rising onto his knees and removing himself from Em’s person. He swiped a finger along his own lip and then over his tongue, making sure the rest was gone as well. His eyes narrowed, and the wicked smirk returned to him. “You’re delicious.”
When blood is offered instead of taken by force, there is something rather intimate about the whole ordeal. With Emrys, it was no different, even if he did not understand it. Had he not twisted his fingers into the sheets, he would have wrapped his arm around Alden's shoulders to prevent him from pulling away. As it were, he simply blushed and allowed him to do as he would, acutely aware of his body positioning.
When he did pull away, Emrys swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up with his back to Alden. Al's comment about his taste sent a shiver down his spine. "Yeah, yeah. Just don't get too attached." He said gruffly.
Alden chuckled, shaking his head, but he did not immediately say anything in response, simply climbing off his bed with a sort of easy grace that seemed to come naturally to felines and vampires alike. As he’d suspected, he was quite capable of moving about now, as his injuries had mostly been to his brain and then his metabolism, and both of those were now in quite well-functioning order. “I shall do my very best, cousin,” he said, laying a hand over his heart in a mocking gesture of sincerity, “but it could be said that my family is predisposed to both ends of addiction, after all.”
This was, perhaps, the first time in a while, that Zero had left Yuki's side. He knew she wanted her space, and that he couldn't keep smothering her like that, though they both really had no complaints. Still, it was nice at least to give her some alone time, or time to spend with her family and not just him. As much as he wanted it to be that way, he couldn't be selfish. He glanced out the window, watching as the snow fell in small flurries, and a faint smile tugged at his lips. It was getting close to Christmas time, and that usually meant his mother would be setting up traps all over the estate. Not that he minded, he'd probably drag Yuki to one of them, or force some of his cousins under them.
It was a tempting thought really. Instead, he shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind for a later use, focusing on the snow as it fell. He pushed himself from the chair he was seated in and made his way outside, allowing the snowflakes to fall upon his face as he stared up at the sky. He almost admired the snowflakes really. Each one was unique, different in every way possible. In a strange way, they reminded him of his family. They were all connected in one way or another, but like the snowflakes, each of them was vastly different than the next. Such an odd comparison, but he thought it fit.
"What do you think mom has planned this year?" he stated, turning his head slightly to meet the gaze of his youngest sibling, his only sister. "Do you think we'll stand a chance?" he continued, turning his attention back to the sky, catching a snowflake on his tongue and smiling when it dissolved.
Leo mimicked her brother’s posture, lacing her hands behind her back and sticking her tongue out to catch a snowflake or two. Her nose crinkled with amusement at his face, though she knew she looked just as silly. That was all right though—she’d never had to worry about being anything in particular in front of her brother. So if she felt like doing silly things, she would, because it was the same for him. She treasured this bond, more than she could ever put into words, and it made her joyful to see him so happy, enough that she felt her mood lifting regardless of anything else going on.
“You know she never tells anyone,” she replied with a smile and a shake of her head. Their mother was the Queen of All Things Christmas, a title happily ceded to her by everyone who got to reap the benefits. The benefits being her delicious food, a fully decorated (and always very musical) home to stay in, the warmth of family, and the gifts. It had apparently been decided about fifty years ago that nobody really needed presents from everyone else, so they basically just donated the money to Ava, who selected one gift for everyone, and it was always basically the most amazing thing ever. Of course, couples still gave their own personal things, but other than that, it kept everyone happy to have things that really suited them, and not have to worry about trying to find space to put it all. Besides, they all found the experience of being together more important.
“But I’m betting it’ll involve food, a ton of mistletoe, and probably some really awesome music,” she said, as though it ever didn’t. Then, in a slightly more somber tone, she added. “It might be the last one we all get together, for a while. Alden says things are about to pick up again, and our parents are going to need us all, now.” There was no telling where they’d end up, and it hurt to think of being separated from the majority of her family for that long. But… perhaps it was better not to dwell on it for now.
“I’m really tempted to shove Al and Rica under some, but honestly I doubt it would help anything,” she said, shaking her head. Leo wasn’t sure if Balthasar had any feelings for Rica, and it might crush her if he refused to participate. Leora could see the potential there, but it wasn’t far enough along on his end for that kind of push. Poor Rica was so in love it hurt to look at, honestly. She was just glad that Balthasar would never be like Alexander and take advantage of that.
"True, mom's always been so secretive about those kind of things. I was actually hoping she would have told you something this year," he stated, a light shrug of his shoulders in the process. At Leora's statement, Zero almost scoffed before a smirk appeared on his lips. He shook his head lightly. "It probably wouldn't help anything. Rica's too stubborn to tell him, and Bal has no clue. And if he doesn't reciprocate those feelings she has, it'll only make things awkward between them," he sighed softly through his nose before taking a deep breath. Besides, it wasn't in their place to push things. They had to let nature take its course gradually.
If they tried to push something that wasn't meant to be, they would only succeed in making things awkward. In time, it would probably mend, but it was hard to mend a broken heart forever. He didn't want to dwell on that thought, because he knew his would never mend when she died. He promised Balthasar he would live every moment with Yuki, but the fact that she was still going to disappear from his side, would never be with him again, it had already broken his heart just a bit. He sighed softly, allowing a smile to grace his lips in the process, blinking owlishly before he turned back to his sister.
"Well, that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun with it though," he spoke, the smile morphing into a wide grin. "Though, I think the whole family would be a little fun to mess with. What do you say, Leo? Care to start a little early with helping mom hang the mistletoe?" he questioned, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
She was no empath, but all the same, she could sense her brother’s feelings, and honestly, a part of her heart had broken, too, for what would happen to her cousin and to him. But she knew that right now, talking about it wasn’t the thing that would help. Distraction was. And the form of distraction that he suggested was pretty much exactly the kind of thing she felt like doing right now. “You know Zero, for an idiot, you sure can be a genius sometimes. Let’s do it—I know which closet she keeps the stuff in.”
Maybe this time, they could actually get Alden underneath some. He always seemed to know exactly where they were, and she swore he would stand underneath some of them alone on purpose right until someone else walked over, at which point he’d move out of the way just in time. He’d usually shoot her a serpentine grin when he did, as though he knew she was trying to get him and was just teasing her with it. Knowing Alden, all of that was true. It was also weirdly difficult to get Balthasar of all people—he seemed to avoid it by dent of dumb luck. Not this year, though—Leo was determined to prank as many people as possible in this way. No matter how many times she had to move the stuff.
“Make a list, Zero. This is going to be fun.”
It was a tempting thought really. Instead, he shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind for a later use, focusing on the snow as it fell. He pushed himself from the chair he was seated in and made his way outside, allowing the snowflakes to fall upon his face as he stared up at the sky. He almost admired the snowflakes really. Each one was unique, different in every way possible. In a strange way, they reminded him of his family. They were all connected in one way or another, but like the snowflakes, each of them was vastly different than the next. Such an odd comparison, but he thought it fit.
"What do you think mom has planned this year?" he stated, turning his head slightly to meet the gaze of his youngest sibling, his only sister. "Do you think we'll stand a chance?" he continued, turning his attention back to the sky, catching a snowflake on his tongue and smiling when it dissolved.
Leo mimicked her brother’s posture, lacing her hands behind her back and sticking her tongue out to catch a snowflake or two. Her nose crinkled with amusement at his face, though she knew she looked just as silly. That was all right though—she’d never had to worry about being anything in particular in front of her brother. So if she felt like doing silly things, she would, because it was the same for him. She treasured this bond, more than she could ever put into words, and it made her joyful to see him so happy, enough that she felt her mood lifting regardless of anything else going on.
“You know she never tells anyone,” she replied with a smile and a shake of her head. Their mother was the Queen of All Things Christmas, a title happily ceded to her by everyone who got to reap the benefits. The benefits being her delicious food, a fully decorated (and always very musical) home to stay in, the warmth of family, and the gifts. It had apparently been decided about fifty years ago that nobody really needed presents from everyone else, so they basically just donated the money to Ava, who selected one gift for everyone, and it was always basically the most amazing thing ever. Of course, couples still gave their own personal things, but other than that, it kept everyone happy to have things that really suited them, and not have to worry about trying to find space to put it all. Besides, they all found the experience of being together more important.
“But I’m betting it’ll involve food, a ton of mistletoe, and probably some really awesome music,” she said, as though it ever didn’t. Then, in a slightly more somber tone, she added. “It might be the last one we all get together, for a while. Alden says things are about to pick up again, and our parents are going to need us all, now.” There was no telling where they’d end up, and it hurt to think of being separated from the majority of her family for that long. But… perhaps it was better not to dwell on it for now.
“I’m really tempted to shove Al and Rica under some, but honestly I doubt it would help anything,” she said, shaking her head. Leo wasn’t sure if Balthasar had any feelings for Rica, and it might crush her if he refused to participate. Leora could see the potential there, but it wasn’t far enough along on his end for that kind of push. Poor Rica was so in love it hurt to look at, honestly. She was just glad that Balthasar would never be like Alexander and take advantage of that.
"True, mom's always been so secretive about those kind of things. I was actually hoping she would have told you something this year," he stated, a light shrug of his shoulders in the process. At Leora's statement, Zero almost scoffed before a smirk appeared on his lips. He shook his head lightly. "It probably wouldn't help anything. Rica's too stubborn to tell him, and Bal has no clue. And if he doesn't reciprocate those feelings she has, it'll only make things awkward between them," he sighed softly through his nose before taking a deep breath. Besides, it wasn't in their place to push things. They had to let nature take its course gradually.
If they tried to push something that wasn't meant to be, they would only succeed in making things awkward. In time, it would probably mend, but it was hard to mend a broken heart forever. He didn't want to dwell on that thought, because he knew his would never mend when she died. He promised Balthasar he would live every moment with Yuki, but the fact that she was still going to disappear from his side, would never be with him again, it had already broken his heart just a bit. He sighed softly, allowing a smile to grace his lips in the process, blinking owlishly before he turned back to his sister.
"Well, that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun with it though," he spoke, the smile morphing into a wide grin. "Though, I think the whole family would be a little fun to mess with. What do you say, Leo? Care to start a little early with helping mom hang the mistletoe?" he questioned, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
She was no empath, but all the same, she could sense her brother’s feelings, and honestly, a part of her heart had broken, too, for what would happen to her cousin and to him. But she knew that right now, talking about it wasn’t the thing that would help. Distraction was. And the form of distraction that he suggested was pretty much exactly the kind of thing she felt like doing right now. “You know Zero, for an idiot, you sure can be a genius sometimes. Let’s do it—I know which closet she keeps the stuff in.”
Maybe this time, they could actually get Alden underneath some. He always seemed to know exactly where they were, and she swore he would stand underneath some of them alone on purpose right until someone else walked over, at which point he’d move out of the way just in time. He’d usually shoot her a serpentine grin when he did, as though he knew she was trying to get him and was just teasing her with it. Knowing Alden, all of that was true. It was also weirdly difficult to get Balthasar of all people—he seemed to avoid it by dent of dumb luck. Not this year, though—Leo was determined to prank as many people as possible in this way. No matter how many times she had to move the stuff.
“Make a list, Zero. This is going to be fun.”
With about a week left until Christmas Day, Leo was taking a break from her position as sous-chef for the occasion, sprawled out over one of the couches in the living room, her eyes covered with the crook of an elbow. She honestly had no idea where her mom got the energy for these marathon baking sessions. Raising seven kids, one of whom was Alden, basically meant that you had to learn to do a million things at once and make a lot of food, so maybe she was just used to it. The funny thing was, though, Leo was pretty sure that she’d never once seen her mother look fatigued or impatient or irritable. It was like she was some kind of minor saint. Scratch that—she was a major saint.
If Leo had been the kind of person who thought she was going to end up with children of her own, she would have made a mental note here to cap her limit at three. But she didn’t think that, and so she simply let the thought flicker by, sighing slightly and shaking her head. Turning so that she was on her stomach, her calves and feet swishing back and forth in the air, she propped herself on her elbows and decided she was sorely in need of something to do that didn’t involve a kitchen. She might have gone to go bother Keir, but… the challenge had kind of stagnated recently. They were both way too good at what they did to give in, though she found herself sorely tempted sometimes.
Unless something weird happened, they were probably going to end in a tie. And she really wanted to beat him, too. Oh well. They could always devise another one, she supposed, though… It wouldn’t be quite as amusingly-torturous as this one, she was certain. Ha. Amusingly-torturous. I must be a masochist after all.
Keir smirked slightly, checkmating his cousin. It wasn't often that he won, but he did take a certain pride in knowing there were times he could beat Aryan. Aryan, on the other hand, blinked languidly and smirked on the inside. Let Keir gloat all he wanted. He didn't have to know that Aryan let him win.
Instead, he sighed through his nose, cocking his head at his younger cousin. "It seems you and Leora are at a bit of a standstill at the moment, no? It would seem the two of you are almost evenly matched."
Keir raised an eyebrow at him, pulling the long snow-white locks of his hair back into a tail, held loosely by a red string. "Perhaps."
Aryan stood up after packing away the chess board, the set tucked under one arm. "Go collect her and meet me in one of the studys. You'll be able to find me, I'm sure."
Keir looked a bit surprised as he watched the younger von Nacht walk out of the room, but sighed and shook his head all the same. Aryan just really couldn't help but be cryptic all the time. Still, he stood up, tracking Leora's scent to the sofa she currently occupied, nudging her with his foot. "Hey, Dungeon Master needs to see us. We must've broke something."
Leo raised an eyebrow, looking back over her shoulder at Keir. “Really? Dungeon Master? I’m a little hurt you think the challenge is like prison, cousin.” Nevertheless, she smiled slightly and rolled off the couch, landing in a feline crouch and rising to her feet, padding behind her cousin to one of the several studies in their house. It must be a requisite for their family that any house any of them occupied had to have multiple rooms for books and work. Not that she minded—Leo was a reader herself, when she could find the time.
She slid into a chair across from Aryan, regarding the youngest von Nacht with a quizzical expression and crossing her arms loosely beneath her chest. “What’s up, Ary?
Keir rolled his eyes, "Please, a prison would be easier to break out of than this challenge is to win." Not that he wanted to win, of course. He'd already planned out the ending. He stood behind the chair Leora had sat in, leaning on his elbows. Leora had voiced the question, he just waited for it to be answered.
Aryan smiled slightly. "It would seem you and Keir have come to a bit of a stand-still in our little game, so as such, I've decided that a revision of the rules is in order. You still cannot tell anyone, and you cannot use any powers, however; some minor physical contact can now be allowed."
Keir snorted slightly. "You're making it too easy, Ary. A lot of things can be done with another person without actually kissing them."
Aryan smirked. Keir was probably going to pay for that comment, and its not-so-subtle underlay.
Leo raised an eyebrow at the comment, tipping her head back a bit so that she could see her cousin’s face. “You don’t say,” she drawled with a little bit of sarcasm. “You’ll have to demonstrate, cousin, as the only thing I can think of right now would be punching someone for getting a little too handsy.” Though her eyes were narrowed as if in slight displeasure, she was actually trying not to think too much about the implications of this. It was hard enough not to kiss the man senseless when he was near; how was she going to cope if he actually touched her? Probably by preempting.
There was no mistaking that this was about to go from a stalemate of indefinite length to a battle with time—she’d have to hold out long enough, and hope that he struggled to do so as much as she did. Well, actually, no. There was no hoping about it. She was going to make him struggle with it. She wasn’t Alden’s sister for nothing, and her brother knew more about the art of seduction than anyone in the family. If she ran out of ideas, she’d be going straight to him, and asking for advice in the abstract. He probably knew anyway, though nobody had told him—it was hard to keep a secret from a telepath.
Returning her eyes to Aryan, she shrugged. “Sounds like a deal,” she replied. They still had just over six months, but… the impending deployment of most of the family to battlefields at all corners of the earth meant that they realistically had something more like three. Three months to have her cousin falling at her feet—she was looking forward to the attempt, if the little smile that curved her mouth was anything to go by.
Aryan shook his head slightly, standing up to leave them. "Just be sure you follow the rules, I'll know if you cheat." The grin on his face as he left was wicked. He was enjoying this too much.
Keir shook his head a few times, a smirk adorning his features. He leaned back on his hands, looking down at Leo, feline eyes ablaze. "Where's the fun in a demonstration? It's only good if both parties participate." He reached out as he spoke, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. He leaned over, his voice breathy as he whispered, "I know you won't disappoint me, Leora, and I can promise you, neither will I disappoint you."
She arched a delicate, dark brow, aware of the gooseflesh pricking her skin just behind her ear and the tiny shudder that moved down her spine at his tone. “Oh?” She replied in a purr. “I’ll hold you to that, Keir.
If Leo had been the kind of person who thought she was going to end up with children of her own, she would have made a mental note here to cap her limit at three. But she didn’t think that, and so she simply let the thought flicker by, sighing slightly and shaking her head. Turning so that she was on her stomach, her calves and feet swishing back and forth in the air, she propped herself on her elbows and decided she was sorely in need of something to do that didn’t involve a kitchen. She might have gone to go bother Keir, but… the challenge had kind of stagnated recently. They were both way too good at what they did to give in, though she found herself sorely tempted sometimes.
Unless something weird happened, they were probably going to end in a tie. And she really wanted to beat him, too. Oh well. They could always devise another one, she supposed, though… It wouldn’t be quite as amusingly-torturous as this one, she was certain. Ha. Amusingly-torturous. I must be a masochist after all.
Keir smirked slightly, checkmating his cousin. It wasn't often that he won, but he did take a certain pride in knowing there were times he could beat Aryan. Aryan, on the other hand, blinked languidly and smirked on the inside. Let Keir gloat all he wanted. He didn't have to know that Aryan let him win.
Instead, he sighed through his nose, cocking his head at his younger cousin. "It seems you and Leora are at a bit of a standstill at the moment, no? It would seem the two of you are almost evenly matched."
Keir raised an eyebrow at him, pulling the long snow-white locks of his hair back into a tail, held loosely by a red string. "Perhaps."
Aryan stood up after packing away the chess board, the set tucked under one arm. "Go collect her and meet me in one of the studys. You'll be able to find me, I'm sure."
Keir looked a bit surprised as he watched the younger von Nacht walk out of the room, but sighed and shook his head all the same. Aryan just really couldn't help but be cryptic all the time. Still, he stood up, tracking Leora's scent to the sofa she currently occupied, nudging her with his foot. "Hey, Dungeon Master needs to see us. We must've broke something."
Leo raised an eyebrow, looking back over her shoulder at Keir. “Really? Dungeon Master? I’m a little hurt you think the challenge is like prison, cousin.” Nevertheless, she smiled slightly and rolled off the couch, landing in a feline crouch and rising to her feet, padding behind her cousin to one of the several studies in their house. It must be a requisite for their family that any house any of them occupied had to have multiple rooms for books and work. Not that she minded—Leo was a reader herself, when she could find the time.
She slid into a chair across from Aryan, regarding the youngest von Nacht with a quizzical expression and crossing her arms loosely beneath her chest. “What’s up, Ary?
Keir rolled his eyes, "Please, a prison would be easier to break out of than this challenge is to win." Not that he wanted to win, of course. He'd already planned out the ending. He stood behind the chair Leora had sat in, leaning on his elbows. Leora had voiced the question, he just waited for it to be answered.
Aryan smiled slightly. "It would seem you and Keir have come to a bit of a stand-still in our little game, so as such, I've decided that a revision of the rules is in order. You still cannot tell anyone, and you cannot use any powers, however; some minor physical contact can now be allowed."
Keir snorted slightly. "You're making it too easy, Ary. A lot of things can be done with another person without actually kissing them."
Aryan smirked. Keir was probably going to pay for that comment, and its not-so-subtle underlay.
Leo raised an eyebrow at the comment, tipping her head back a bit so that she could see her cousin’s face. “You don’t say,” she drawled with a little bit of sarcasm. “You’ll have to demonstrate, cousin, as the only thing I can think of right now would be punching someone for getting a little too handsy.” Though her eyes were narrowed as if in slight displeasure, she was actually trying not to think too much about the implications of this. It was hard enough not to kiss the man senseless when he was near; how was she going to cope if he actually touched her? Probably by preempting.
There was no mistaking that this was about to go from a stalemate of indefinite length to a battle with time—she’d have to hold out long enough, and hope that he struggled to do so as much as she did. Well, actually, no. There was no hoping about it. She was going to make him struggle with it. She wasn’t Alden’s sister for nothing, and her brother knew more about the art of seduction than anyone in the family. If she ran out of ideas, she’d be going straight to him, and asking for advice in the abstract. He probably knew anyway, though nobody had told him—it was hard to keep a secret from a telepath.
Returning her eyes to Aryan, she shrugged. “Sounds like a deal,” she replied. They still had just over six months, but… the impending deployment of most of the family to battlefields at all corners of the earth meant that they realistically had something more like three. Three months to have her cousin falling at her feet—she was looking forward to the attempt, if the little smile that curved her mouth was anything to go by.
Aryan shook his head slightly, standing up to leave them. "Just be sure you follow the rules, I'll know if you cheat." The grin on his face as he left was wicked. He was enjoying this too much.
Keir shook his head a few times, a smirk adorning his features. He leaned back on his hands, looking down at Leo, feline eyes ablaze. "Where's the fun in a demonstration? It's only good if both parties participate." He reached out as he spoke, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. He leaned over, his voice breathy as he whispered, "I know you won't disappoint me, Leora, and I can promise you, neither will I disappoint you."
She arched a delicate, dark brow, aware of the gooseflesh pricking her skin just behind her ear and the tiny shudder that moved down her spine at his tone. “Oh?” She replied in a purr. “I’ll hold you to that, Keir.
Jasper sighed softly, dimming the computer screen and raising a hand to his temple for a moment. Alden’s informational network was working overdrive, and Morgan as well seemed to believe that things were going to get much worse very soon. The Council and the Pantheon had all but cut ties, due in no small part to the subtle work of Aryan, Emrys, and Helen from within the former organization, as well as a seeming inability to agree on a strategy. While it was still unclear what either group wanted to accomplish, he knew it had to have something to do with his grandfather. It always came back to Theodor, even after his death. Jasper had never described in detail the encounter between them on the day he’d killed the man—it was enough to know that he’d wanted to restore vampiric society to its former order, where the caste distinctions were even more pronounced and the entire thing was run by a single figure.
But if this was perhaps what both the Council and the Pantheon wanted, as it seemed safe to assume it was, why could they not agree? The most obvious answer was that they had different ideas about who that monarch should be. His grandfather had wanted to raise his own kin to the position, Balthasar or Aryan specifically, if he’d been telling the truth about his goals on that day a century ago. He could understand why the Council would prefer someone else, but should the Pantheon not by now also want to switch strategies? He’d exercised all of the power and resources at his disposal and the disposal of his extended family to protect his children from Pantheon influence, and though he had not entirely succeeded, as the incident with Sigyn had proven, his sons were both praiseworthy, morally-sound individuals who did not seek power for its own sake—the exact sort of people his grandfather had once accused him of being and disparaged him for.
Closing the lid of the laptop computer, he straightened it on his desk and stood, moving instead to the suite of rooms that he and Nikki currently shared next door. Sparing a soft smile for his wife, he took her hand as he walked by and placed a chaste kiss on her fingers. One hundred years was not enough time to spend with so extraordinary a person, but fortunately, they had as long as time would give them, though it was given an edge of danger by the war. Their daughter… was not so lucky, and as he gently released Nikki’s digits, he sighed softly through his nose. He’d thought Yuki would want the privacy of walls and a locked door (and his support) when she broke the news to her mother, but he was no fool. Even that was not going to soften the blow much, for either of them. She would tell Aryan in time as well, and the others also, but this would be the hardest of the confessions, and it was best taken care of first, so that they might have time to adjust to it as a unit before it was brought to the attention of everyone else.
To this end, he had asked her to come in no more than a few minutes, and bid Nikki stay for long enough to hear it, though he did not say why. When Yuki did at last make her entrance, he closed the door behind her and sat beside his wife on the sofa in the sitting area, letting Yuki take the chair across from them. He laced his hand with Nikki’s, but he would, as he always did, allow his daughter to speak for herself, in her own time, and her own way.
Nikki's stomach dropped out from under her, leaving her with a chilling sense of dread. For a long while, she didn't move. She could barely think straight, her brain desprately trying to reject what her ears had heard. She stared at her daughter, who was looking down at her lap, as if she expected to be yelled at.
Parents should never outlive their children. For a long time, Nikki had been sad over her mother's death, but she also now knew that it was better she had died, instead of living with the knowledge that her daughter was not. It was something no parent should ever have shoulder, and now Nikki found herself with that burden.
Yuki was dying. Dying. As hard as she might try, her brain simply did not want to process that information. She didn't want to believe it, she couldn't believe it, and yet...she realized with a small shudder that Jasper had already known. For how long, she did not know, nor did she care. She wasn't angry with him, he would have wanted Yuki to tell her on her own, which she did. No, she was angry with the man who had done this, and with herself...because she had let him. A piece of her heart broke, and her chest felt like it was going to collapse.
Yuki was going to die. One tear slid down her cheek, a prelude of those to come. "Yuki, come here." Her voice was even despite this, and calm. Yuki silently did as she was told, she always did. Once she reached her mother, Nikki pulled her down onto her lap, cradling her head on her shoulder. She didn't bother to hide her tears or the emotion in her voice as she held her daughter.
"I'm so sorry, Yuki."
Beside his wife and daughter on the sofa, Jasper adjusted himself, turning so that one of his arms was placed comfortingly over his wife’s shoulders, and with a small movement, inclined the embrace just slightly so that both were leaning into him, circling his other arm around Yuki’s back and propping his chin on Nikki’s crown. His fingers traced idle patterns on her arm, and he let his eyes fall shut. From a very early age, Jasper had been taught not to weep—that it was a sign of weakness his enemies would use against him. But his mother had taught him something different. She had told him that sometimes, things were important enough that one’s weakness to them was to be embraced. It was improper to cry over everything, because one’s tears should be saved for the significant things.
Until this point in his life, he had wept only twice: once, when he was a child and his mother had given her life to protect humanity, and again, when he was a man and his father had told him that his aunt, uncle, and cousins were dead. Because these were the important things—the people who held the most valuable places in his heart. His family, and his friends. And now that he was a father, it would seem that he wept a third time: for the knowledge that he would most likely live beyond the years allotted to his daughter, his Yuki. Not because it was such a strange thing to expect; as a pureblood, he expected to live forever, unless something happened to him, but her time was tragically short. It may be the case that Ava had once taught him that the number on his years was not the important thing, but that did not shake the simple grief that came of knowing that there would be a time in his life when he was without his child.
From beneath his eyes, then, slid a pair of tears, though his breathing remained steady, and perhaps it would be hard to tell they were there at all.
But if this was perhaps what both the Council and the Pantheon wanted, as it seemed safe to assume it was, why could they not agree? The most obvious answer was that they had different ideas about who that monarch should be. His grandfather had wanted to raise his own kin to the position, Balthasar or Aryan specifically, if he’d been telling the truth about his goals on that day a century ago. He could understand why the Council would prefer someone else, but should the Pantheon not by now also want to switch strategies? He’d exercised all of the power and resources at his disposal and the disposal of his extended family to protect his children from Pantheon influence, and though he had not entirely succeeded, as the incident with Sigyn had proven, his sons were both praiseworthy, morally-sound individuals who did not seek power for its own sake—the exact sort of people his grandfather had once accused him of being and disparaged him for.
Closing the lid of the laptop computer, he straightened it on his desk and stood, moving instead to the suite of rooms that he and Nikki currently shared next door. Sparing a soft smile for his wife, he took her hand as he walked by and placed a chaste kiss on her fingers. One hundred years was not enough time to spend with so extraordinary a person, but fortunately, they had as long as time would give them, though it was given an edge of danger by the war. Their daughter… was not so lucky, and as he gently released Nikki’s digits, he sighed softly through his nose. He’d thought Yuki would want the privacy of walls and a locked door (and his support) when she broke the news to her mother, but he was no fool. Even that was not going to soften the blow much, for either of them. She would tell Aryan in time as well, and the others also, but this would be the hardest of the confessions, and it was best taken care of first, so that they might have time to adjust to it as a unit before it was brought to the attention of everyone else.
To this end, he had asked her to come in no more than a few minutes, and bid Nikki stay for long enough to hear it, though he did not say why. When Yuki did at last make her entrance, he closed the door behind her and sat beside his wife on the sofa in the sitting area, letting Yuki take the chair across from them. He laced his hand with Nikki’s, but he would, as he always did, allow his daughter to speak for herself, in her own time, and her own way.
Nikki's stomach dropped out from under her, leaving her with a chilling sense of dread. For a long while, she didn't move. She could barely think straight, her brain desprately trying to reject what her ears had heard. She stared at her daughter, who was looking down at her lap, as if she expected to be yelled at.
Parents should never outlive their children. For a long time, Nikki had been sad over her mother's death, but she also now knew that it was better she had died, instead of living with the knowledge that her daughter was not. It was something no parent should ever have shoulder, and now Nikki found herself with that burden.
Yuki was dying. Dying. As hard as she might try, her brain simply did not want to process that information. She didn't want to believe it, she couldn't believe it, and yet...she realized with a small shudder that Jasper had already known. For how long, she did not know, nor did she care. She wasn't angry with him, he would have wanted Yuki to tell her on her own, which she did. No, she was angry with the man who had done this, and with herself...because she had let him. A piece of her heart broke, and her chest felt like it was going to collapse.
Yuki was going to die. One tear slid down her cheek, a prelude of those to come. "Yuki, come here." Her voice was even despite this, and calm. Yuki silently did as she was told, she always did. Once she reached her mother, Nikki pulled her down onto her lap, cradling her head on her shoulder. She didn't bother to hide her tears or the emotion in her voice as she held her daughter.
"I'm so sorry, Yuki."
Beside his wife and daughter on the sofa, Jasper adjusted himself, turning so that one of his arms was placed comfortingly over his wife’s shoulders, and with a small movement, inclined the embrace just slightly so that both were leaning into him, circling his other arm around Yuki’s back and propping his chin on Nikki’s crown. His fingers traced idle patterns on her arm, and he let his eyes fall shut. From a very early age, Jasper had been taught not to weep—that it was a sign of weakness his enemies would use against him. But his mother had taught him something different. She had told him that sometimes, things were important enough that one’s weakness to them was to be embraced. It was improper to cry over everything, because one’s tears should be saved for the significant things.
Until this point in his life, he had wept only twice: once, when he was a child and his mother had given her life to protect humanity, and again, when he was a man and his father had told him that his aunt, uncle, and cousins were dead. Because these were the important things—the people who held the most valuable places in his heart. His family, and his friends. And now that he was a father, it would seem that he wept a third time: for the knowledge that he would most likely live beyond the years allotted to his daughter, his Yuki. Not because it was such a strange thing to expect; as a pureblood, he expected to live forever, unless something happened to him, but her time was tragically short. It may be the case that Ava had once taught him that the number on his years was not the important thing, but that did not shake the simple grief that came of knowing that there would be a time in his life when he was without his child.
From beneath his eyes, then, slid a pair of tears, though his breathing remained steady, and perhaps it would be hard to tell they were there at all.
Aryan was currently walking through the gardens, the snow falling gently around him. He watched the sky, a slight smile etched onto his face, despite the inner turmoil in his head. Yuki had told him a few days after she had broken the news to their mother. He’d taken it, at least outwardly, much like Balthasar had. But on the inside, something had broken. He’d always known that one day he’d have to face this, he just thought it wouldn’t be so soon.
He also felt immensely bad for his cousin. That would not be an easy thing for him to deal with. Yuki had told him, of course, but still. He sighed through his nose. So far, Zero and her immediate family were the only ones who knew. He didn’t want to think about how the rest of the family would take it when they found out.
”We’ll make sure they’re the best years of your life, Yuki.” He whispered.
Zero wandered through the estate, humming to himself as he glanced at the various things littered about. One in particular caught his eye. It was a picture of the entire family in one of the music rooms. Everyone had their preferred instrument in hand, or in Yuki, Alarica, and Balthasar's case, situated at the piano. He had his mother's violin in his hand, staring at the flustered face of Alarica, who had been situated between Yuki and Balthasar. He remembered that day. He had tried so hard not to laugh, but failed. Shaking his head, he made his way outside, blinking owlishly when he spotted Aryan.
"Yes, they will be the best years of her life. Whatever she wants, whatever she desires, she will have," he spoke, walking so that he stood next to Aryan. "I suppose she told you already then," he spoke, sparing a glance towards Aryan before returning his attention towards the Garden. Surprisingly, it was his father's idea to have such a thing in the estate. His mother designed the garden, but it was his father's idea to have one. Still something that confuses him to this day.
Aryan glanced over at Zero wth a weary sigh, nodding once. It was not an overly great way to start the holiday, but he could also understand why she preffered not to wait with such news. Such was not in his sister's nature. For the most part, she was incredibly direct when it came to just about everything, so long as she understood it. Yuki failed to understand little other than the human heart, but it would seem she was getting better at that.
"Yuki killed the man once, father killed him a second time, and even that is not enough. It really isn't fair. But then, many things are not fair. If I were younger, I might've been more smug with the news with you. I can only thank the heavens that I am that boy no longer. I am sorry, Zero."
"Don't be," Zero responded, shaking his head softly in the process. "There is nothing to be sorry for. Though this is different, this would have come eventually. You are correct, it is not fair. It was never fair to begin with. Yuki was born a noble, she would have eventually died, but to be this soon," he continued, trailing off for a second, running a hand through his hair. There wasn't much they could do, but do what they said they were going to do. They could only give her the best years of her life. "All we can do is ensure that she is happy, that she'll enjoy the rest of her life before it is over, besides," he continued, a light smile tugging at his lips.
"It is something we shouldn't be thinking of such things. It is Christmas after all, we should be celebrating the life we have, not what we are going to lose," he spoke with a light shrug of his shoulders. He really didn't need to think any longer on the inevitable death that would end Yuki. It almost pained him to know that the woman he loved was a noble. Part of him wondered how his Uncle Jasper would take it when his Aunt Nikki died. She too, was a noble, but from his understanding, her life had been prolonged just a bit. He didn't know how, but it had.
Aryan smiled wanly. His cousin was right, now was not the time to be dwelling on such things. He shook his head, chuckling slightly. He'd giver her anything, hm? He wondered what Zero would think when he found out that Yuki wanted children. She always had, though a part of her was also terrified, and now he knew why. She was afraid the child would be like she was.
Aryan's purple eyes slid over to Zero, regarding him with a slight smirk. With Zero being a pureblood, it probably wouldn't be a problem. Still, it did seem a bit cruel, having a child knowing you only had a set amount of time to be with them. Still, that was their choice, in the end. He'd never really considered it before, but Uncle Aryan did have a nice ring to it. He pushed it aside. She would be the one to inform him of anything regarding children, Aryan had no wish to intrude upon that.
"Frankly, I'm just celebrating the vacation, even if it is only one day. The Council can be harrowing, at times."
Zero regarded Aryan with a silent smile as he sighed softly. "Yeah, well no one said it would be easy. For what it is worth, I think you are doing a rather formidable job. Not everyone can do it you know," he stated with a light smirk. Gods knew he couldn't be on the council. He'd probably fuck things up, and that was a thought he did not want to entertain. Besides, his cousin was a bright, manipulative thing, and if anyone could be more suited for such a job, it would be Aryan.
"Well, one day of vacation is worth it all just to be with family. We will be separating soon. Who knows the next time we'll see everyone, let alone if something happens," he stated, his fists unconsciously clenching tightly together. He would be spending his separation with Yuki, but he'd be separated from the rest of his family. Anything could happen within the span of time that they were separated, anything. And he wasn't sure if he could manage it if something happened to his family.
Aryan chuckled. "You worry too much, cousin. I'll be with Emrys, if anyone knows how to keep people safe, it's him. As for the rest of us...we all have our ways. We'll make it through this, just like we always do."
He also felt immensely bad for his cousin. That would not be an easy thing for him to deal with. Yuki had told him, of course, but still. He sighed through his nose. So far, Zero and her immediate family were the only ones who knew. He didn’t want to think about how the rest of the family would take it when they found out.
”We’ll make sure they’re the best years of your life, Yuki.” He whispered.
Zero wandered through the estate, humming to himself as he glanced at the various things littered about. One in particular caught his eye. It was a picture of the entire family in one of the music rooms. Everyone had their preferred instrument in hand, or in Yuki, Alarica, and Balthasar's case, situated at the piano. He had his mother's violin in his hand, staring at the flustered face of Alarica, who had been situated between Yuki and Balthasar. He remembered that day. He had tried so hard not to laugh, but failed. Shaking his head, he made his way outside, blinking owlishly when he spotted Aryan.
"Yes, they will be the best years of her life. Whatever she wants, whatever she desires, she will have," he spoke, walking so that he stood next to Aryan. "I suppose she told you already then," he spoke, sparing a glance towards Aryan before returning his attention towards the Garden. Surprisingly, it was his father's idea to have such a thing in the estate. His mother designed the garden, but it was his father's idea to have one. Still something that confuses him to this day.
Aryan glanced over at Zero wth a weary sigh, nodding once. It was not an overly great way to start the holiday, but he could also understand why she preffered not to wait with such news. Such was not in his sister's nature. For the most part, she was incredibly direct when it came to just about everything, so long as she understood it. Yuki failed to understand little other than the human heart, but it would seem she was getting better at that.
"Yuki killed the man once, father killed him a second time, and even that is not enough. It really isn't fair. But then, many things are not fair. If I were younger, I might've been more smug with the news with you. I can only thank the heavens that I am that boy no longer. I am sorry, Zero."
"Don't be," Zero responded, shaking his head softly in the process. "There is nothing to be sorry for. Though this is different, this would have come eventually. You are correct, it is not fair. It was never fair to begin with. Yuki was born a noble, she would have eventually died, but to be this soon," he continued, trailing off for a second, running a hand through his hair. There wasn't much they could do, but do what they said they were going to do. They could only give her the best years of her life. "All we can do is ensure that she is happy, that she'll enjoy the rest of her life before it is over, besides," he continued, a light smile tugging at his lips.
"It is something we shouldn't be thinking of such things. It is Christmas after all, we should be celebrating the life we have, not what we are going to lose," he spoke with a light shrug of his shoulders. He really didn't need to think any longer on the inevitable death that would end Yuki. It almost pained him to know that the woman he loved was a noble. Part of him wondered how his Uncle Jasper would take it when his Aunt Nikki died. She too, was a noble, but from his understanding, her life had been prolonged just a bit. He didn't know how, but it had.
Aryan smiled wanly. His cousin was right, now was not the time to be dwelling on such things. He shook his head, chuckling slightly. He'd giver her anything, hm? He wondered what Zero would think when he found out that Yuki wanted children. She always had, though a part of her was also terrified, and now he knew why. She was afraid the child would be like she was.
Aryan's purple eyes slid over to Zero, regarding him with a slight smirk. With Zero being a pureblood, it probably wouldn't be a problem. Still, it did seem a bit cruel, having a child knowing you only had a set amount of time to be with them. Still, that was their choice, in the end. He'd never really considered it before, but Uncle Aryan did have a nice ring to it. He pushed it aside. She would be the one to inform him of anything regarding children, Aryan had no wish to intrude upon that.
"Frankly, I'm just celebrating the vacation, even if it is only one day. The Council can be harrowing, at times."
Zero regarded Aryan with a silent smile as he sighed softly. "Yeah, well no one said it would be easy. For what it is worth, I think you are doing a rather formidable job. Not everyone can do it you know," he stated with a light smirk. Gods knew he couldn't be on the council. He'd probably fuck things up, and that was a thought he did not want to entertain. Besides, his cousin was a bright, manipulative thing, and if anyone could be more suited for such a job, it would be Aryan.
"Well, one day of vacation is worth it all just to be with family. We will be separating soon. Who knows the next time we'll see everyone, let alone if something happens," he stated, his fists unconsciously clenching tightly together. He would be spending his separation with Yuki, but he'd be separated from the rest of his family. Anything could happen within the span of time that they were separated, anything. And he wasn't sure if he could manage it if something happened to his family.
Aryan chuckled. "You worry too much, cousin. I'll be with Emrys, if anyone knows how to keep people safe, it's him. As for the rest of us...we all have our ways. We'll make it through this, just like we always do."
Christmas day, as it always did, brought a high level of energy to the Kuragari-Alistair-von Nacht household, but fortunately, most of its members were still asleep. Aside from the usual gifts selected and purchased by Ava for everyone, Jasper had an additional one to give this year, and he thought it would provide an opportunity to speak with his son for a while, something which there had been precious little time for so far on the holiday, due in part to the circumstances surrounding Yuki, but also because Aryan himself was quite occupied. As his second son had been quick to discover, politics rarely took holidays, though generally speaking, Ava enforced a strict “no-working-on-the-day” rule… which came into effect as soon as she woke.
Given that his surrogate sister had always been an early riser, there was no much time left before everything became a flurry of activity and warmth, but there were perhaps a few minutes for a quiet conversation, and this was what Jasper sought. So, the gift under his elbow, he made his way to one of the studies, this the one that Aryan had more or less assumed for his own use, given its closeness to his usual guest room. The door was open, so Jasper knocked only out of courtesy on the frame before he entered.
“Good morning, Aryan. And Merry Christmas, as the saying goes.” He smiled slightly, taking a seat across the desk from his son. The wrapped parcel, he placed on the desk, careful to avoid any of the paperwork or writing utensils, though his son usually kept a reasonably-organized workspace. Helped along, no doubt, by Miss Trist. “I realize this isn’t much, as far as such things go, but I think perhaps you can find some use for it.” It was, in fact, a chess set, though of particularly interesting construction. The board itself was marble, each of the squares an inset of obsidian or mother-of-pearl. The white pieces had a certain feel of fluidity and elegance to them, shaped as though they were made around themes of wind and plants. The black pieces were a little thicker, on average, made of ebony rather than ivory, cool to the touch and evocative of shadows.
“I understand you’re teaching the game to someone else, now. I thought, perhaps, that when the war effort begins in full… this might be left at our central home. Nobody would touch it, if you would like to keep a game up over time.” It was a way, he supposed, of maintaining some thread of contact that may not otherwise occur. He and Morgan had once done something similar, remembering how the board was laid out, and making a move whenever they happened to be back at the centralized location. It was a small reminder, that the other person was still around, still well, and still connected to oneself.
Aryan looked up briefly at the knock. By his timing, he had about thirty more minutes before his Aunt Ava woke up. Something turned on in the kitchen, and with a slight shake of his head and a smile, he retracted his thought. It seemed she was up. With that in mind, and because his father was here as well, he set aside the transcript for the council. He still had plenty of time to finish it, one day aside would not make a difference. Helen had been an irreplaceable asset, and he was not looking forward to being away from her.
For more than one reason, at that. ”Merry Christmas, Father.”
A wry smile appeared on Aryan's face at the chess pieces. His father certainly had a knack for knowing things. Aryan laced his fingers together, leaning back in his chair, purple eyes meeting silver eyes. It was slightly strange, at least Aryan always thought so. Balthasar had inherited their father's eyes, and even their mother had eyes the color of wet stone. He could only surmise that Yuki’s eye color came from her father’s family.
”Helen has proven to be an attentive student. She could probably beat Keir now.”
Jasper’s smile ticked a little wider, and he shook his head slightly. “Perhaps they should have a match at some point today, then.” Still, he did not press any further on the topic. He was of the firm opinion that his children’s business was their own, especially when it came to their personal lives, and if there was something important to be said on such matters or his opinion was desired, they would know to ask. He had worked very hard to impress upon all of them that they could ask him anything, and his answer would always be as honest and free of judgement as he could make it. He was not the kind to interfere, however—even a gesture like this could be taken as any number of things, and if it was only a somewhat unique way of representing two newly-minted friends, then that was entirely fine by him.
He shifted the topic of conversation, then, in part because it would not be long before Aryan was juggling even more political responsibility and in an even more precarious position. Morgan had determined that Helen was best utilized in a slightly more clandestine fashion, especially given the now-obvious need to ensure that Yuki and Zero were together as much as possible. This meant her assistance to his son would have to minimize, though he did not doubt she would find small ways to try and ease the burdens of the others even so.
But in truth, his son’s look triggered a memory in Jasper, and if there was any appropriate time to mention this, it might as well be now, when there might be some assurance to be gained from it. “You know,” he said conversationally, leaning back in his chair a bit and crossing one ankle over the opposite knee, “while it’s true that you look very much like your mother, your eyes belonged to my mother.” Elsa had been almost identical in physical appearance to Erys, actually, save that she was a bit taller and reedier, also not unlike Aryan, and her eyes had been the same shade of amethyst-purple.
“It strikes me sometimes that I do not speak of her often enough. I think perhaps of all of us, she would have related most closely to you. It was not in her to do violence to anyone, but she was frighteningly intelligent. Not as much a scientist as my father, but much, much more clever in other ways. She was tempered, though, by an innate kindness that is sadly quite rare.” He paused folding his hands together in a manner not unlike his son’s, something wistful entering his eyes. “She ended the first war by giving her life to protect humanity. My grandfather always despised her for that. In the end, the ambition of people like him was not defeated by outright power, but a different kind of strength—by the ability to see the unusual solution, the gentleness to desire it, and the courage to follow it through.”
There was something a little wry in his expression when he glanced back over at his youngest, and he raised a brow faintly. “I am certain the analogy is not lost on you, but if possible, I would request that the unconventional solutions be limited to those which do not demand your life in payment, should any of them present themselves to you.”
Aryan smiled, a little wistfully. It was an interesting concept, the subject of his eyes. He'd always assumed they had come from his mother's side of the family, but...it was nice to know that they were, in fact, of his father, in a way. The rest of his father's conversation almost made him frown. Almost. Aryan always found it difficult to frown in his father's presence.
"I believe there would be a line waiting to bring me back and kill me all over again if I ever did that, Mother and Yuki first and foremost. As it were, I've been in that situation once, I have no desire to repeat it, I assure you. As you said, much like my grandmother, I am not suited for the battlefield, I have no problem leaving that up to Balthasar and our cousins."
Nikki had noted it before, though Aryan had never noticed, but Aryan and Jasper did have the tendency to sit or stand in much the same positions, mirroring each other. Aryan did notice it now. His grin became a bit cat-like then, saying, "I've ended more careers and started as many scandals that never existed in the first place on paper, I'm sure many people would beg to differ in your saying I was kind." He understood what his father meant of course, and the war called for such necessary evils from time to time. It came down, to the end, to family, and while Aryan certainly had his fair share of enjoyment at tugging him around, cruelty was not in his nature, just as physically harming someone was not.
“And yet I think the people that know you best would agree with me in the assertion that you are,” Jasper replied. “We all have to wear faces sometimes, Aryan. What matters is that we never forget which one we will keep, when the time comes to be rid of all the rest.” He himself had worn and did wear no few, but the most genuine, the one he wished most to keep, was this, the one that he had in front of his family, with those he cared about most. It was a husband and a father that he wanted always to be. A soldier and a politician, he was good at, but they were not the shape of his heart, not in the end.
The general sounds of stirring had come over the household, though, and the time for peaceful conversation was at an end. Jasper inhaled, wondering for a moment what Freya was doing with her sister, Leora, and Alarica, but he decided that some things were best left uncontemplated. “I suspect I will see you soon, but I’ll leave you the last few minutes to prepare yourself for the inevitable onslaught.” he shook his head. It was always… quite the event, Christmas with the family.
Given that his surrogate sister had always been an early riser, there was no much time left before everything became a flurry of activity and warmth, but there were perhaps a few minutes for a quiet conversation, and this was what Jasper sought. So, the gift under his elbow, he made his way to one of the studies, this the one that Aryan had more or less assumed for his own use, given its closeness to his usual guest room. The door was open, so Jasper knocked only out of courtesy on the frame before he entered.
“Good morning, Aryan. And Merry Christmas, as the saying goes.” He smiled slightly, taking a seat across the desk from his son. The wrapped parcel, he placed on the desk, careful to avoid any of the paperwork or writing utensils, though his son usually kept a reasonably-organized workspace. Helped along, no doubt, by Miss Trist. “I realize this isn’t much, as far as such things go, but I think perhaps you can find some use for it.” It was, in fact, a chess set, though of particularly interesting construction. The board itself was marble, each of the squares an inset of obsidian or mother-of-pearl. The white pieces had a certain feel of fluidity and elegance to them, shaped as though they were made around themes of wind and plants. The black pieces were a little thicker, on average, made of ebony rather than ivory, cool to the touch and evocative of shadows.
“I understand you’re teaching the game to someone else, now. I thought, perhaps, that when the war effort begins in full… this might be left at our central home. Nobody would touch it, if you would like to keep a game up over time.” It was a way, he supposed, of maintaining some thread of contact that may not otherwise occur. He and Morgan had once done something similar, remembering how the board was laid out, and making a move whenever they happened to be back at the centralized location. It was a small reminder, that the other person was still around, still well, and still connected to oneself.
Aryan looked up briefly at the knock. By his timing, he had about thirty more minutes before his Aunt Ava woke up. Something turned on in the kitchen, and with a slight shake of his head and a smile, he retracted his thought. It seemed she was up. With that in mind, and because his father was here as well, he set aside the transcript for the council. He still had plenty of time to finish it, one day aside would not make a difference. Helen had been an irreplaceable asset, and he was not looking forward to being away from her.
For more than one reason, at that. ”Merry Christmas, Father.”
A wry smile appeared on Aryan's face at the chess pieces. His father certainly had a knack for knowing things. Aryan laced his fingers together, leaning back in his chair, purple eyes meeting silver eyes. It was slightly strange, at least Aryan always thought so. Balthasar had inherited their father's eyes, and even their mother had eyes the color of wet stone. He could only surmise that Yuki’s eye color came from her father’s family.
”Helen has proven to be an attentive student. She could probably beat Keir now.”
Jasper’s smile ticked a little wider, and he shook his head slightly. “Perhaps they should have a match at some point today, then.” Still, he did not press any further on the topic. He was of the firm opinion that his children’s business was their own, especially when it came to their personal lives, and if there was something important to be said on such matters or his opinion was desired, they would know to ask. He had worked very hard to impress upon all of them that they could ask him anything, and his answer would always be as honest and free of judgement as he could make it. He was not the kind to interfere, however—even a gesture like this could be taken as any number of things, and if it was only a somewhat unique way of representing two newly-minted friends, then that was entirely fine by him.
He shifted the topic of conversation, then, in part because it would not be long before Aryan was juggling even more political responsibility and in an even more precarious position. Morgan had determined that Helen was best utilized in a slightly more clandestine fashion, especially given the now-obvious need to ensure that Yuki and Zero were together as much as possible. This meant her assistance to his son would have to minimize, though he did not doubt she would find small ways to try and ease the burdens of the others even so.
But in truth, his son’s look triggered a memory in Jasper, and if there was any appropriate time to mention this, it might as well be now, when there might be some assurance to be gained from it. “You know,” he said conversationally, leaning back in his chair a bit and crossing one ankle over the opposite knee, “while it’s true that you look very much like your mother, your eyes belonged to my mother.” Elsa had been almost identical in physical appearance to Erys, actually, save that she was a bit taller and reedier, also not unlike Aryan, and her eyes had been the same shade of amethyst-purple.
“It strikes me sometimes that I do not speak of her often enough. I think perhaps of all of us, she would have related most closely to you. It was not in her to do violence to anyone, but she was frighteningly intelligent. Not as much a scientist as my father, but much, much more clever in other ways. She was tempered, though, by an innate kindness that is sadly quite rare.” He paused folding his hands together in a manner not unlike his son’s, something wistful entering his eyes. “She ended the first war by giving her life to protect humanity. My grandfather always despised her for that. In the end, the ambition of people like him was not defeated by outright power, but a different kind of strength—by the ability to see the unusual solution, the gentleness to desire it, and the courage to follow it through.”
There was something a little wry in his expression when he glanced back over at his youngest, and he raised a brow faintly. “I am certain the analogy is not lost on you, but if possible, I would request that the unconventional solutions be limited to those which do not demand your life in payment, should any of them present themselves to you.”
Aryan smiled, a little wistfully. It was an interesting concept, the subject of his eyes. He'd always assumed they had come from his mother's side of the family, but...it was nice to know that they were, in fact, of his father, in a way. The rest of his father's conversation almost made him frown. Almost. Aryan always found it difficult to frown in his father's presence.
"I believe there would be a line waiting to bring me back and kill me all over again if I ever did that, Mother and Yuki first and foremost. As it were, I've been in that situation once, I have no desire to repeat it, I assure you. As you said, much like my grandmother, I am not suited for the battlefield, I have no problem leaving that up to Balthasar and our cousins."
Nikki had noted it before, though Aryan had never noticed, but Aryan and Jasper did have the tendency to sit or stand in much the same positions, mirroring each other. Aryan did notice it now. His grin became a bit cat-like then, saying, "I've ended more careers and started as many scandals that never existed in the first place on paper, I'm sure many people would beg to differ in your saying I was kind." He understood what his father meant of course, and the war called for such necessary evils from time to time. It came down, to the end, to family, and while Aryan certainly had his fair share of enjoyment at tugging him around, cruelty was not in his nature, just as physically harming someone was not.
“And yet I think the people that know you best would agree with me in the assertion that you are,” Jasper replied. “We all have to wear faces sometimes, Aryan. What matters is that we never forget which one we will keep, when the time comes to be rid of all the rest.” He himself had worn and did wear no few, but the most genuine, the one he wished most to keep, was this, the one that he had in front of his family, with those he cared about most. It was a husband and a father that he wanted always to be. A soldier and a politician, he was good at, but they were not the shape of his heart, not in the end.
The general sounds of stirring had come over the household, though, and the time for peaceful conversation was at an end. Jasper inhaled, wondering for a moment what Freya was doing with her sister, Leora, and Alarica, but he decided that some things were best left uncontemplated. “I suspect I will see you soon, but I’ll leave you the last few minutes to prepare yourself for the inevitable onslaught.” he shook his head. It was always… quite the event, Christmas with the family.
Helen was up relatively early on Christmas morning, not because she had any particular need or desire to be, but out of habit. Freya was the same, and the two were taking tea in the room they now shared. Though they were not related by blood to Helen’s knowledge, Freya and once Freyr had counted as the better part of what little childhood she’d been able to have, and for some reason, Theodor had neglected to erase the memories of the love she’d been shown by them. Perhaps it was to keep her obedient, knowing that Freya was under his thumb. Perhaps it was to hurt her more, when her brother betrayed them. Whatever the case, she was grateful, odd as it might be to say so.
“You’ve changed, Helen,” her sister told her abruptly, and pale lilac moved up to meet emerald green across the coffee table. She’d always admired Freya, for her poise and her intelligence. For some reason, she now found herself admiring her sister’s beauty as well, though she’d never had much of a sense of aesthetics before. How she or anyone else had looked had never mattered to her, but somehow recently, she’d begun to wonder what it might be like, if she were so lovely as Freya or Yuki or someone like that.
“Have I?” she replied dully, taking another sip of tea. Her odd interest in such matters notwithstanding, she didn’t think she’d changed that much since they last saw each other a year or so previous. They’d been in frequent contact since, but of course Freya needed to be on someone’s actual proximity to look into them the way she did. Perhaps Helen had missed something—she tried not to introspect too deeply, for fear of what she might find.
“You have,” her sister replied with a smile. “It’s a good thing. You’re opening up to people a little more, speaking with them a little more. And what’s this Jasper tells me about chess?” She wore a smile that Helen could not read, though she soon hid it behind the rim of her cup, sipping elegantly at the vessel. “He is lesser in you, as well.”
Helen dropped her eyes to where her free hand lay in her lap. “He does not feel lesser in me,” she said quietly, blinking back the flickering thoughts and images that threatened. “If anything, he feels greater.” Her hand curled into a loose fist, her fingernails biting slightly into her palm, even blunt as they were. “Chess is… interesting. Aryan is a very skilled opponent.” She missed the way her sister’s lips curled further upwards, but not the words that followed.
“You don’t use their names often, Helen,” Freya observed offhandedly, meeting her sister’s surprised glance with an even one. Hel’s recovery had been long, and it was still far from complete. Some days, Freya was uncertain it ever would be, but recently, the small flicker of hope that had always been in her for her sister had become a small flame. It was taking time, but the people she was surrounded with now were having a positive effect on her. For a long time, she’d been held stable between Freya and Yuki, but she was starting to forge connections, however tenuous, with others, and Freya could tell that this one was important, or would be. Especially when Yuki was no longer present, as would unfortunately be the case in the relatively near future. “I think they would be happy if you tried.”
“I don’t—” she started, but was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by the black and white-haired heads belonging to Leo and Rica poking into the room.
“Merry Christmas, you two,” Leora said with a smile. “We actually have a small surprise for Lena, if she wouldn’t mind coming with us. You can too, Freya!.” Both women blinked, but Freya smiled, setting her tea down and beckoning her sister after the other two girls. She had a feeling this would be… interesting.
Somehow, the youngest Kuragari managed to have the youngest Alistair tagging a long with her, going around and greeting everyone a Merry Christmas. Not that Alarica minded, she was rather bored, and Keir was off with Emrys somewhere, and Zero was currently with Yuki. She had to nearly keep her eyes from rolling every time she saw the two of them together. She wasn't against them being together, it was more-so the fact that Zero was a bit less, compulsive. He had joined in on Keir and her fun less often, and she missed him somewhat. Nevertheless, she was at least happy for the both of them. At least he had managed to confess, and from the looks of it, she had reciprocated his feelings, even though she gave them hell trying to get her back.
Alarica, however, did not blame Yuki for what happened. She knew it wasn't the eldest girl's fault, and knew that there was more to it than that, however; she wasn't going to pry into Yuki's business. What she did, how she lived her life, was all up to her. Though she was but a noble, she still had a lot of life left in her, and Alarica was expecting that, much like her Uncle Vincent, and Aunt Ava, that Zero and Yuki would probably be spitting out kids over the course of the next one hundred years. Shaking her head, she followed Leora to the next set of rooms, one that was currently occupied by Freya and her sister Helen. Leora knocked on the door before they both poked their heads through, greeting the two sisters in the process.
"Merry Christmas" she chimed in after Leora. She offered her usual smirk, however; it lacked any usual mischief. It was simply one she had grown to use around the two as a way of greeting. There was nothing malicious about it, nothing threatening. If anything, it was pleasant. She remained silent as Leora spoke to the two, stating their initial plan before they were all dragged towards Leora's room. Once they were there, the pleasant smirk that she wore was quickly replaced by something a little more devious. She cleared her throat, glancing at Leora to see if the girl had anything else to say before returning her attention towards Helen and Freya.
"Because Helen is built more or less like one, Leora and I have decided," she began, glancing at the Kuragari female before continuing. "We have decided to use her facial structure and frame to try on a few things. She is to be our doll today," she stated, nodding towards Leora to grab the first outfit they had picked. "And you can't back out of it," she concluded, fixing the older girl with a stare that was almost saying not to leave.
By the time the plan was stated in full, Freya was having difficulty not giggling, though one or two may have escaped her despite her best efforts. She glanced down at her sister, who stared flatly at the other two girls for a moment. Freya at least could see the internal conflict going on inside her sister—part of her wanted to refuse because she was uncomfortable, and the other didn’t want to displease these people. Ordinarily, Freya would have thought that it would be bad for her to make a decision based on that, but she could also see a niggling curiosity edging in on the discomfort, just barely there, and she concluded that this could be good for her adopted sibling.
Helen had never had any real reason to pay attention to her femininity before. Her life had been about killing and about doing whatever Theodor wanted her to do. Battlefields did not care for the difference between male and female. Enemies could be slain just as surely by one as the other, and the difference had never become salient for the former Pantheon member. It had never mattered that she was a girl, aside from certain minor inconveniences that she took care of with bandage tape and wearing clothes for boys. But… she wondered, just for a moment, what it might be like to be a girl.
Something in her posture must have indicated her assent, because Leo tugged her further into the room, leaving Freya to shut the door behind her. “Oh my god, you actually have boobs!” the girl stated frankly at one point, which actually managed to produce a reaction in Helen—the girl blinked for a moment, then cleared her throat and looked away shyly. “You’re so adorable. Oh, hang on! I’ve got the perfect thing… one of mom’s dresses…” Venturing to the armoire, she threw open the doors and dug around until she came away with a velvety dress in dark green, accented with silver, which made it of course perfect for the day. There was a bow around the waist that tied in the back, and trailed to the bottom of the dress, which would hit Helen’s knees or so. Leo was glad her mother was short, because none of her own things would really have looked right, given the fact that she was ten inches taller than Helen.
Alarica had to keep from snickering at Leora's comment. "Every woman has boobs, Leora. Some are just not as prominent as the others," she stated, sending a wry smile towards Helen before shaking her head softly. She raised a brow at Leora's statement as she watched her dive into the armoire, coming back to produce a rather lovely green dress. The smirk that tugged at Alarica's mouth was usually never a good sign. She, along with Leora, walked towards Helen, and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Well then, shall we see just how much of a doll we can make the lovely Helen into?" she stated, as the mischief sparkled in her eyes. Between the next few seconds, they both had Helen undressed before sliding the green dress over her, situating it and fixing it so that it was settled properly upon Helen's figure. "I will let the hair master manage your hair," she stated, taking a step back and glanced towards Leora. Granted, right now Helen looked very much like a porcelain doll, flawless and yet breakable. And Alarica was very tempted to break it, if the grin on her face was any indication.
“Not what I meant, Rica,” Leo replied with a short laugh. “I just meant that this tape hides a lot more than I thought it did.” She shot a glance at Helen, but the girl seemed unperturbed by the topic of conversation, which was no fun. Ah well. It was probably just one of those things that was obviously factual to her, and thus she could see no reason to think about it in any particular way. That was the way Helen would think, right? It seemed to be, from what she knew of the girl. Embarrassment didn’t seem to be in her repertoire. Leo was going have to change that. She was willing to bet that a bit of pink on that face would totally work for her.
Helen wasn’t sure she liked the look on Alarica’s face, as it was usually one would expect to see on the face of something stalking prey. She realized she didn’t have her swords on her, then immediately berated herself internally for thinking that was even the kind of thing she needed. The girl wasn’t actually going to try to kill her—she simply assumed that there was something going on here that she didn’t understand.
In the next few moments, she became aware of a comb working through her hair, each stroke followed by a brush of Leora’s fingers. It was actually a somewhat pleasant sensation, though she was normally disinclined to touch. “Hey Lena,” Leo said, gently fingering the ends of the girl’s chin-length hair. “Is there a reason you wear your hair so short? I mean, it’s pretty, but… I bet it would be really nice long, too.”
Helen blinked for a moment. Honestly, she’d never thought about whether or not her hair or anything else looked nice. She’d gotten so used to almost everyone she met regarding her with either fear or revulsion or pity that she’d just sort of assumed that she must not have any pretty features. It had not bothered her, as such—one did not need them to have a purpose, nor even friends, and those two things were all she had ever sought, the last one only quite recently, at that. “I have only ever considered the convenience. Short hair is more manageable,” she said simply, and Leo smiled.
“You’re not wrong,” the other girl said simply, shaking her own head. “And hey Rica, stop looking at her like you want to eat her, you silly. There’s a white dress in there, and you’re wearing it or I’ll never let you live it down.” She smiled slyly, and then tried to decide what she was going to do with Helen’s head of silver hair. There weren’t a lot of options when there was so little length, but—something moved into her field of vision, and she followed it to see Freya smiling with a little mischief all her own. What she held was a small cluster of three lilies, the edges of the white flowers gilded in silver. Clearly, some ability or another had been used to keep the flowers permanently fresh, and allow them to stand up to the process of being painted with metal. It was perfect, and with some deft motions, Leo wound the cluster into Helen’s hair, placing them slightly above and in frond of her right ear where the bow of her ribbon usually went.
“There! All done!” Leo stepped back to admire her handiwork, giving an approving nod. If Alarica in white was a snow queen and Yuki in pale blue was the winter sky, then Helen in dark green and silver was the fey spirit of an evergreen tree, the impression of course helped along by how small she was. Freya had even smeared just the faintest touch of silver glitter at the corners of her eyes, which definitely just added to it. “Seriously, I have the best looking family in the world.” Leora included Freya and Helen in the word without even needing to think about it, and why not? They were family, even if not by blood. It wasn’t that which bound her relatives together anyway. It was something deeper than that. Like a shared fate, maybe, a resolution that, come what may, they would meet it as a unit. And Helen and Freya were definitely in that unit.
Leo turned Helen around to make her look in the mirror, and for a long moment the girl simply stared, entirely unrecognizing of herself. She looked… she wasn’t sure, but it was definitely different. Shaking her head faintly, she turned back to the other three, all of whom were visions of loveliness themselves, in white, red, and dark blue, on Freya’s part. “You’re a witch,” she told Leora with a completely straight face, “And so are you.” That was directed at Rica. Because the difference was so strange it must surely be magic.
"I don't think that's quite the compliment it is supposed to be, but even I cannot deny that my cousins can work magic when it comes to things like clothing." Aryan's cool voice issued from the door. He'd watched the last few seconds, and was quite glad none of them had noticed him, or if they had, so far they had ignored or missed the fact that he hadn't been able to breathe at the sight of Helen at first.
All of them looked quite stunning, of course, but, to him at least, Helen was down-right beautiful. It was a bit funny, really, with the black and green attire he himself was wearing, they matched quite well. If he didn't know any better, he'd say his cousins had planned it. His amethyst eyes locked on to Helen's lilac ones, the silver bringing out that faint hint of blue hers held.
"You look beautiful." He addressed the entire room, of course, though his eyes never left Helen's.
It was a really good thing Leora was so good at her poker-face, because she at least had not failed to notice Aryan, and part of her was definitely laughing inside. Maybe more like full-blown maniacal cackling, really. Vengeance was sweet. If Ary was going to torture her by instituting this challenge with Keir, she was going to make it just as uncomfortably hard for him not to lose his composure. To his credit, she actually hadn’t been sure of anything until now, but of course, it was plain as day at the moment that he had a serious crush on Helen. She might just have been wearing the Spider’s own smile as her eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them.
Leora had known they were spending a lot of time together, of course, but this was just too good. She and Rica had come up with this idea largely for fun and to do something nice for Helen, but Alden had taught her to never be afraid to take an opportunity when it presented itself, so she took it. Grabbing hold of Rica’s hand and pulling her from the room. Freya followed easily, but none of it stopped Leo from standing on her toes to speak into Ary’s ear as she passed. “A challenge for you, dear cousin.”
The room was suddenly much emptier than it had been before, and Helen found herself rather… unsure what to do. She’d never been called beautiful before, and had never cared one way or the other about that. But when he said it, something about her was a little bit… happy. It was a foreign feeling, enough so that she almost did not recognize it at first. She knew contentedness and she knew placidity, and maybe even a little of peace, but she did not know happiness. It was like a little false-start in her heart, a small trickle of warmth underneath her skin, and she could feel her face heat just a little, enough to turn it the faintest of pinks. “Thank you,” she replied, as neutrally as she knew how. There was something else in it though, as though that tiny thread of happiness colored her words the same pink as her face.
She supposed this was the occasion for a return compliment. “You look…” a pause, as she considered the best way to put it. “much as always, but with more green.” Another momentary pause. That was the truth, but was it the whole truth? Did she know what the whole truth was? She’d never been very good with making such judgements, but all the same… she knew she had one. Her eyes dropped to the floor, her hands folding in front of her, mostly because there was no sword hilt to hold for the sake of comfort. “Which is to say, very handsome.” It was true, of course, and no more than a month ago, if someone had asked her the very same question, she would have responded factually and without hesitation. So why was it so hard to say now?
If Aryan had the decency to blush when his cousin whispered to him, he would have turned an impressive shade of scarlet. As it were, his brother was the only one to see that side of him, and his face remained rather placid with an easy smile as the other three left. He regarded Helen with a soft gaze as she spoke. It was easy to see that a part of her was uncomfortable in this situation; he wasn't surprised, he was slightly uncomfortable with this situation.
It had taken him some time to sort through his feelings for the girl who acted as his assistant. The more time they'd spent together, whether it had been working or at chess, he'd found himself growing rather accustomed to her presence, enough so that he didn't like to be away from her. He'd found himself looking at her just to see her, making up excuses to talk to her, anything, really.
Her straightforwardness was something he admired, perhaps because of his nature to work in lies and shadows. He admired it no less right now, and he found his heart gave an odd little thump when she'd said handsome. While he didn't doubt that she would probably say the same about any of the males in the family, it still pleased it to hear it, from her.
Even so, he had no wish to make her uncomfortable, and at the moment, he was unsure of how to proceed. "It does me well to see you looking so much better, Helen. You will be careful, in the upcoming months, won't you? I could not stand for seeing you hurt."
There it was again, that curious kindness, which she could not fully wrap her mind around. Certainly, these people were considerate to her, but it was hard to wipe out the strangeness of it and grow used to being treated in such a fashion. Even after so much time. She blinked slowly, some of her centeredness returning to her, because he spoke now of things that made sense to her, and said things to which she could answer without feeling… so odd. Lifting her eyes again, she tilted her head to one side, a touch birdlike, and nodded slightly.
“I will exercise as much caution as I am able. I do not… have a wish to die.” Not anymore, though there had been more than once in her life, even in the last hundred years, that it had been a near thing. She would not take her own life, of course, but… the battlefield was a cruel master, and even one small error could lead to disaster. She had sometimes contemplated the nature of such errors a little too closely for comfort. “Please do the same.” She honestly did not know what she would do if he was hurt—if any of them were hurt, but somehow, him most of all.
With a tentative motion, she extended a hand. “I believe that when bargains are made, this is the way to seal them,” she said, though there was something in her tone that made it almost a question. Physical contact was not easy for her, but perhaps the fact that she had braved Leora and Alarica treating her like a mannequin for a little while made this seem less daunting by comparison. If only a little.
Aryan raised his eyebrows slightly, looking at her extended hand with amused interest. Helen was not one for physical contact, even less so than Yuki. He gently took the hand that she offered, his fingers winding around the back of her hand. He smiled at her.
"It is a deal then. We will both be careful, in order that we may see each other again."
“You’ve changed, Helen,” her sister told her abruptly, and pale lilac moved up to meet emerald green across the coffee table. She’d always admired Freya, for her poise and her intelligence. For some reason, she now found herself admiring her sister’s beauty as well, though she’d never had much of a sense of aesthetics before. How she or anyone else had looked had never mattered to her, but somehow recently, she’d begun to wonder what it might be like, if she were so lovely as Freya or Yuki or someone like that.
“Have I?” she replied dully, taking another sip of tea. Her odd interest in such matters notwithstanding, she didn’t think she’d changed that much since they last saw each other a year or so previous. They’d been in frequent contact since, but of course Freya needed to be on someone’s actual proximity to look into them the way she did. Perhaps Helen had missed something—she tried not to introspect too deeply, for fear of what she might find.
“You have,” her sister replied with a smile. “It’s a good thing. You’re opening up to people a little more, speaking with them a little more. And what’s this Jasper tells me about chess?” She wore a smile that Helen could not read, though she soon hid it behind the rim of her cup, sipping elegantly at the vessel. “He is lesser in you, as well.”
Helen dropped her eyes to where her free hand lay in her lap. “He does not feel lesser in me,” she said quietly, blinking back the flickering thoughts and images that threatened. “If anything, he feels greater.” Her hand curled into a loose fist, her fingernails biting slightly into her palm, even blunt as they were. “Chess is… interesting. Aryan is a very skilled opponent.” She missed the way her sister’s lips curled further upwards, but not the words that followed.
“You don’t use their names often, Helen,” Freya observed offhandedly, meeting her sister’s surprised glance with an even one. Hel’s recovery had been long, and it was still far from complete. Some days, Freya was uncertain it ever would be, but recently, the small flicker of hope that had always been in her for her sister had become a small flame. It was taking time, but the people she was surrounded with now were having a positive effect on her. For a long time, she’d been held stable between Freya and Yuki, but she was starting to forge connections, however tenuous, with others, and Freya could tell that this one was important, or would be. Especially when Yuki was no longer present, as would unfortunately be the case in the relatively near future. “I think they would be happy if you tried.”
“I don’t—” she started, but was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by the black and white-haired heads belonging to Leo and Rica poking into the room.
“Merry Christmas, you two,” Leora said with a smile. “We actually have a small surprise for Lena, if she wouldn’t mind coming with us. You can too, Freya!.” Both women blinked, but Freya smiled, setting her tea down and beckoning her sister after the other two girls. She had a feeling this would be… interesting.
Somehow, the youngest Kuragari managed to have the youngest Alistair tagging a long with her, going around and greeting everyone a Merry Christmas. Not that Alarica minded, she was rather bored, and Keir was off with Emrys somewhere, and Zero was currently with Yuki. She had to nearly keep her eyes from rolling every time she saw the two of them together. She wasn't against them being together, it was more-so the fact that Zero was a bit less, compulsive. He had joined in on Keir and her fun less often, and she missed him somewhat. Nevertheless, she was at least happy for the both of them. At least he had managed to confess, and from the looks of it, she had reciprocated his feelings, even though she gave them hell trying to get her back.
Alarica, however, did not blame Yuki for what happened. She knew it wasn't the eldest girl's fault, and knew that there was more to it than that, however; she wasn't going to pry into Yuki's business. What she did, how she lived her life, was all up to her. Though she was but a noble, she still had a lot of life left in her, and Alarica was expecting that, much like her Uncle Vincent, and Aunt Ava, that Zero and Yuki would probably be spitting out kids over the course of the next one hundred years. Shaking her head, she followed Leora to the next set of rooms, one that was currently occupied by Freya and her sister Helen. Leora knocked on the door before they both poked their heads through, greeting the two sisters in the process.
"Merry Christmas" she chimed in after Leora. She offered her usual smirk, however; it lacked any usual mischief. It was simply one she had grown to use around the two as a way of greeting. There was nothing malicious about it, nothing threatening. If anything, it was pleasant. She remained silent as Leora spoke to the two, stating their initial plan before they were all dragged towards Leora's room. Once they were there, the pleasant smirk that she wore was quickly replaced by something a little more devious. She cleared her throat, glancing at Leora to see if the girl had anything else to say before returning her attention towards Helen and Freya.
"Because Helen is built more or less like one, Leora and I have decided," she began, glancing at the Kuragari female before continuing. "We have decided to use her facial structure and frame to try on a few things. She is to be our doll today," she stated, nodding towards Leora to grab the first outfit they had picked. "And you can't back out of it," she concluded, fixing the older girl with a stare that was almost saying not to leave.
By the time the plan was stated in full, Freya was having difficulty not giggling, though one or two may have escaped her despite her best efforts. She glanced down at her sister, who stared flatly at the other two girls for a moment. Freya at least could see the internal conflict going on inside her sister—part of her wanted to refuse because she was uncomfortable, and the other didn’t want to displease these people. Ordinarily, Freya would have thought that it would be bad for her to make a decision based on that, but she could also see a niggling curiosity edging in on the discomfort, just barely there, and she concluded that this could be good for her adopted sibling.
Helen had never had any real reason to pay attention to her femininity before. Her life had been about killing and about doing whatever Theodor wanted her to do. Battlefields did not care for the difference between male and female. Enemies could be slain just as surely by one as the other, and the difference had never become salient for the former Pantheon member. It had never mattered that she was a girl, aside from certain minor inconveniences that she took care of with bandage tape and wearing clothes for boys. But… she wondered, just for a moment, what it might be like to be a girl.
Something in her posture must have indicated her assent, because Leo tugged her further into the room, leaving Freya to shut the door behind her. “Oh my god, you actually have boobs!” the girl stated frankly at one point, which actually managed to produce a reaction in Helen—the girl blinked for a moment, then cleared her throat and looked away shyly. “You’re so adorable. Oh, hang on! I’ve got the perfect thing… one of mom’s dresses…” Venturing to the armoire, she threw open the doors and dug around until she came away with a velvety dress in dark green, accented with silver, which made it of course perfect for the day. There was a bow around the waist that tied in the back, and trailed to the bottom of the dress, which would hit Helen’s knees or so. Leo was glad her mother was short, because none of her own things would really have looked right, given the fact that she was ten inches taller than Helen.
Alarica had to keep from snickering at Leora's comment. "Every woman has boobs, Leora. Some are just not as prominent as the others," she stated, sending a wry smile towards Helen before shaking her head softly. She raised a brow at Leora's statement as she watched her dive into the armoire, coming back to produce a rather lovely green dress. The smirk that tugged at Alarica's mouth was usually never a good sign. She, along with Leora, walked towards Helen, and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Well then, shall we see just how much of a doll we can make the lovely Helen into?" she stated, as the mischief sparkled in her eyes. Between the next few seconds, they both had Helen undressed before sliding the green dress over her, situating it and fixing it so that it was settled properly upon Helen's figure. "I will let the hair master manage your hair," she stated, taking a step back and glanced towards Leora. Granted, right now Helen looked very much like a porcelain doll, flawless and yet breakable. And Alarica was very tempted to break it, if the grin on her face was any indication.
“Not what I meant, Rica,” Leo replied with a short laugh. “I just meant that this tape hides a lot more than I thought it did.” She shot a glance at Helen, but the girl seemed unperturbed by the topic of conversation, which was no fun. Ah well. It was probably just one of those things that was obviously factual to her, and thus she could see no reason to think about it in any particular way. That was the way Helen would think, right? It seemed to be, from what she knew of the girl. Embarrassment didn’t seem to be in her repertoire. Leo was going have to change that. She was willing to bet that a bit of pink on that face would totally work for her.
Helen wasn’t sure she liked the look on Alarica’s face, as it was usually one would expect to see on the face of something stalking prey. She realized she didn’t have her swords on her, then immediately berated herself internally for thinking that was even the kind of thing she needed. The girl wasn’t actually going to try to kill her—she simply assumed that there was something going on here that she didn’t understand.
In the next few moments, she became aware of a comb working through her hair, each stroke followed by a brush of Leora’s fingers. It was actually a somewhat pleasant sensation, though she was normally disinclined to touch. “Hey Lena,” Leo said, gently fingering the ends of the girl’s chin-length hair. “Is there a reason you wear your hair so short? I mean, it’s pretty, but… I bet it would be really nice long, too.”
Helen blinked for a moment. Honestly, she’d never thought about whether or not her hair or anything else looked nice. She’d gotten so used to almost everyone she met regarding her with either fear or revulsion or pity that she’d just sort of assumed that she must not have any pretty features. It had not bothered her, as such—one did not need them to have a purpose, nor even friends, and those two things were all she had ever sought, the last one only quite recently, at that. “I have only ever considered the convenience. Short hair is more manageable,” she said simply, and Leo smiled.
“You’re not wrong,” the other girl said simply, shaking her own head. “And hey Rica, stop looking at her like you want to eat her, you silly. There’s a white dress in there, and you’re wearing it or I’ll never let you live it down.” She smiled slyly, and then tried to decide what she was going to do with Helen’s head of silver hair. There weren’t a lot of options when there was so little length, but—something moved into her field of vision, and she followed it to see Freya smiling with a little mischief all her own. What she held was a small cluster of three lilies, the edges of the white flowers gilded in silver. Clearly, some ability or another had been used to keep the flowers permanently fresh, and allow them to stand up to the process of being painted with metal. It was perfect, and with some deft motions, Leo wound the cluster into Helen’s hair, placing them slightly above and in frond of her right ear where the bow of her ribbon usually went.
“There! All done!” Leo stepped back to admire her handiwork, giving an approving nod. If Alarica in white was a snow queen and Yuki in pale blue was the winter sky, then Helen in dark green and silver was the fey spirit of an evergreen tree, the impression of course helped along by how small she was. Freya had even smeared just the faintest touch of silver glitter at the corners of her eyes, which definitely just added to it. “Seriously, I have the best looking family in the world.” Leora included Freya and Helen in the word without even needing to think about it, and why not? They were family, even if not by blood. It wasn’t that which bound her relatives together anyway. It was something deeper than that. Like a shared fate, maybe, a resolution that, come what may, they would meet it as a unit. And Helen and Freya were definitely in that unit.
Leo turned Helen around to make her look in the mirror, and for a long moment the girl simply stared, entirely unrecognizing of herself. She looked… she wasn’t sure, but it was definitely different. Shaking her head faintly, she turned back to the other three, all of whom were visions of loveliness themselves, in white, red, and dark blue, on Freya’s part. “You’re a witch,” she told Leora with a completely straight face, “And so are you.” That was directed at Rica. Because the difference was so strange it must surely be magic.
"I don't think that's quite the compliment it is supposed to be, but even I cannot deny that my cousins can work magic when it comes to things like clothing." Aryan's cool voice issued from the door. He'd watched the last few seconds, and was quite glad none of them had noticed him, or if they had, so far they had ignored or missed the fact that he hadn't been able to breathe at the sight of Helen at first.
All of them looked quite stunning, of course, but, to him at least, Helen was down-right beautiful. It was a bit funny, really, with the black and green attire he himself was wearing, they matched quite well. If he didn't know any better, he'd say his cousins had planned it. His amethyst eyes locked on to Helen's lilac ones, the silver bringing out that faint hint of blue hers held.
"You look beautiful." He addressed the entire room, of course, though his eyes never left Helen's.
It was a really good thing Leora was so good at her poker-face, because she at least had not failed to notice Aryan, and part of her was definitely laughing inside. Maybe more like full-blown maniacal cackling, really. Vengeance was sweet. If Ary was going to torture her by instituting this challenge with Keir, she was going to make it just as uncomfortably hard for him not to lose his composure. To his credit, she actually hadn’t been sure of anything until now, but of course, it was plain as day at the moment that he had a serious crush on Helen. She might just have been wearing the Spider’s own smile as her eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them.
Leora had known they were spending a lot of time together, of course, but this was just too good. She and Rica had come up with this idea largely for fun and to do something nice for Helen, but Alden had taught her to never be afraid to take an opportunity when it presented itself, so she took it. Grabbing hold of Rica’s hand and pulling her from the room. Freya followed easily, but none of it stopped Leo from standing on her toes to speak into Ary’s ear as she passed. “A challenge for you, dear cousin.”
The room was suddenly much emptier than it had been before, and Helen found herself rather… unsure what to do. She’d never been called beautiful before, and had never cared one way or the other about that. But when he said it, something about her was a little bit… happy. It was a foreign feeling, enough so that she almost did not recognize it at first. She knew contentedness and she knew placidity, and maybe even a little of peace, but she did not know happiness. It was like a little false-start in her heart, a small trickle of warmth underneath her skin, and she could feel her face heat just a little, enough to turn it the faintest of pinks. “Thank you,” she replied, as neutrally as she knew how. There was something else in it though, as though that tiny thread of happiness colored her words the same pink as her face.
She supposed this was the occasion for a return compliment. “You look…” a pause, as she considered the best way to put it. “much as always, but with more green.” Another momentary pause. That was the truth, but was it the whole truth? Did she know what the whole truth was? She’d never been very good with making such judgements, but all the same… she knew she had one. Her eyes dropped to the floor, her hands folding in front of her, mostly because there was no sword hilt to hold for the sake of comfort. “Which is to say, very handsome.” It was true, of course, and no more than a month ago, if someone had asked her the very same question, she would have responded factually and without hesitation. So why was it so hard to say now?
If Aryan had the decency to blush when his cousin whispered to him, he would have turned an impressive shade of scarlet. As it were, his brother was the only one to see that side of him, and his face remained rather placid with an easy smile as the other three left. He regarded Helen with a soft gaze as she spoke. It was easy to see that a part of her was uncomfortable in this situation; he wasn't surprised, he was slightly uncomfortable with this situation.
It had taken him some time to sort through his feelings for the girl who acted as his assistant. The more time they'd spent together, whether it had been working or at chess, he'd found himself growing rather accustomed to her presence, enough so that he didn't like to be away from her. He'd found himself looking at her just to see her, making up excuses to talk to her, anything, really.
Her straightforwardness was something he admired, perhaps because of his nature to work in lies and shadows. He admired it no less right now, and he found his heart gave an odd little thump when she'd said handsome. While he didn't doubt that she would probably say the same about any of the males in the family, it still pleased it to hear it, from her.
Even so, he had no wish to make her uncomfortable, and at the moment, he was unsure of how to proceed. "It does me well to see you looking so much better, Helen. You will be careful, in the upcoming months, won't you? I could not stand for seeing you hurt."
There it was again, that curious kindness, which she could not fully wrap her mind around. Certainly, these people were considerate to her, but it was hard to wipe out the strangeness of it and grow used to being treated in such a fashion. Even after so much time. She blinked slowly, some of her centeredness returning to her, because he spoke now of things that made sense to her, and said things to which she could answer without feeling… so odd. Lifting her eyes again, she tilted her head to one side, a touch birdlike, and nodded slightly.
“I will exercise as much caution as I am able. I do not… have a wish to die.” Not anymore, though there had been more than once in her life, even in the last hundred years, that it had been a near thing. She would not take her own life, of course, but… the battlefield was a cruel master, and even one small error could lead to disaster. She had sometimes contemplated the nature of such errors a little too closely for comfort. “Please do the same.” She honestly did not know what she would do if he was hurt—if any of them were hurt, but somehow, him most of all.
With a tentative motion, she extended a hand. “I believe that when bargains are made, this is the way to seal them,” she said, though there was something in her tone that made it almost a question. Physical contact was not easy for her, but perhaps the fact that she had braved Leora and Alarica treating her like a mannequin for a little while made this seem less daunting by comparison. If only a little.
Aryan raised his eyebrows slightly, looking at her extended hand with amused interest. Helen was not one for physical contact, even less so than Yuki. He gently took the hand that she offered, his fingers winding around the back of her hand. He smiled at her.
"It is a deal then. We will both be careful, in order that we may see each other again."
Yuki sighed slightly, looking down at herself. Somehow, her mother had managed to talk her into the dress she now wore. It was a pale sky blue, setting off the silver of her hair and the yellow of her eyes. It was tight at the bodice, with minimal flare at the waist, accentuating her height, the hem reaching her feet. She wore a pair of silver heels, and the dress bared her shoulders, the sleeves belling out from the elbows down.
She looked at herself in the mirror, her mother braiding her hair. She fought not to shake her head, her mother was enjoying this too much. She smiled however, as she was enjoying it, too. Still, she was a bit unsure about the bare shoulders…which was amusing, considering what she normally wore exposed her midriff considerably.
Zero found himself wandering around the estate again, having just come back from talking with his father. It was odd. He'd never really sought advice from the man, seeing as he had loathed him for a better part of his years. He hadn't exactly told his father what was going on, but knowing Vincent, the man already just knew. It was perhaps one of the things that terrified him about his father. You didn't have to say much, or anything at all, and he would still know. He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he pushed their conversation to the back of his mind.
He didn't want to push things, but if it was what she wanted, he would give it to her. It was far too soon to be thinking about things like that anyway, even though their time was limited. Sighing, he shoved his hands into his pockets and continued to roam. He had left Yuki to her own space as of late, again, as he didn't want to smother her. He would never want to do that, and cause her distress. Instead, he found himself standing outside the door frame of the room Yuki and her mother were currently occupying.
"Good evening, Aunt Nikki, Yuki. The two of you look lovely, as always, but I must say," he stated, leaning on the door frame and crossing his arms over his chest, a light smirk crossing his face. "Yuki, you look rather ravishing in that attire," he spoke, a hint of teasing in his voice. He wouldn't say too much for fear of Nikki, but he could still tease the woman he loved.
Nikki smiled, just having finished her daughter's hair, when Zero entered. She courtsied to Zero, a rather knowing smile on her face, the midnight-black dress she wore accented with crimson billowing out as she did so. She paused on her way out, laying a hand on Zero's arm.
"Do be careful, Mr. Kuragari. The Alistair women are not known for their gentleness."
Yuki let out a sigh as her mother left, shaking her head. "I don't get her sometimes." Once they were alone, however, she wasted no time in crossing over to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, murmuring into his chest, "I've missed you, Zero."
He chuckled at his aunt's words. That he was well aware of. If his Aunt Erys and his cousin Alarica were anything to go by, he didn't want to know about his Aunt Nikki. Shaking that thought from his mind, he smiled softly when Yuki crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in the process as he laid his head down upon the top of her head, placing a kiss upon it before doing so.
"You do not have to miss me. I am always here. If anything, I miss you more," he replied, smiling against the top of her head. Which was true, he did miss her, even when he had her wrapped in his arms he still missed her. He wasn't sure...he paused in that thought and banished it. He still had a lot of time with her. He really did need to stop thinking like that. It was becoming annoying more-so than anything.
Yuki frowned slightly, as if reading his thoughts. She hadn't of course, but even so, his train of thought was not hard to follow just by watching his body language. She sighed softly. pulling her head back to look at him. "I think we both should just call a truce and stop missing each other, it won't do us any good. And we have each other now. So, let's make the most of it, shall we?"
There was an almost uncharacteristic smirk on her face as she laced her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, lowering his head to her. Kissing was not something she'd done very often; indeed, the only time it had ever happened were the two times prior with Zero, but it was something she had decidedly taken a liking to.
Zero had to keep from smiling so widely, unless he wanted to tear his face in half. "True, but then again, I can't promise that I won't miss you, even still," he spoke, smiling against her lips as she pulled him down to her. "But you are correct, we should make the most of it," he spoke against her lips, brushing against them once more before taking her hands into his. "Let's dance shall we?" he spoke, twirling her around before adjusting his hands upon her waist, keeping one of her hands into his.
Yuki smiled, spinning as he twirled her. Her hand met his shoulder, and she looked at him with half-lidded eyes. "You silly man." She murmured. "You would dance to no music." Silly or not, she loved him, and that was a fact.
She looked at herself in the mirror, her mother braiding her hair. She fought not to shake her head, her mother was enjoying this too much. She smiled however, as she was enjoying it, too. Still, she was a bit unsure about the bare shoulders…which was amusing, considering what she normally wore exposed her midriff considerably.
Zero found himself wandering around the estate again, having just come back from talking with his father. It was odd. He'd never really sought advice from the man, seeing as he had loathed him for a better part of his years. He hadn't exactly told his father what was going on, but knowing Vincent, the man already just knew. It was perhaps one of the things that terrified him about his father. You didn't have to say much, or anything at all, and he would still know. He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he pushed their conversation to the back of his mind.
He didn't want to push things, but if it was what she wanted, he would give it to her. It was far too soon to be thinking about things like that anyway, even though their time was limited. Sighing, he shoved his hands into his pockets and continued to roam. He had left Yuki to her own space as of late, again, as he didn't want to smother her. He would never want to do that, and cause her distress. Instead, he found himself standing outside the door frame of the room Yuki and her mother were currently occupying.
"Good evening, Aunt Nikki, Yuki. The two of you look lovely, as always, but I must say," he stated, leaning on the door frame and crossing his arms over his chest, a light smirk crossing his face. "Yuki, you look rather ravishing in that attire," he spoke, a hint of teasing in his voice. He wouldn't say too much for fear of Nikki, but he could still tease the woman he loved.
Nikki smiled, just having finished her daughter's hair, when Zero entered. She courtsied to Zero, a rather knowing smile on her face, the midnight-black dress she wore accented with crimson billowing out as she did so. She paused on her way out, laying a hand on Zero's arm.
"Do be careful, Mr. Kuragari. The Alistair women are not known for their gentleness."
Yuki let out a sigh as her mother left, shaking her head. "I don't get her sometimes." Once they were alone, however, she wasted no time in crossing over to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, murmuring into his chest, "I've missed you, Zero."
He chuckled at his aunt's words. That he was well aware of. If his Aunt Erys and his cousin Alarica were anything to go by, he didn't want to know about his Aunt Nikki. Shaking that thought from his mind, he smiled softly when Yuki crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in the process as he laid his head down upon the top of her head, placing a kiss upon it before doing so.
"You do not have to miss me. I am always here. If anything, I miss you more," he replied, smiling against the top of her head. Which was true, he did miss her, even when he had her wrapped in his arms he still missed her. He wasn't sure...he paused in that thought and banished it. He still had a lot of time with her. He really did need to stop thinking like that. It was becoming annoying more-so than anything.
Yuki frowned slightly, as if reading his thoughts. She hadn't of course, but even so, his train of thought was not hard to follow just by watching his body language. She sighed softly. pulling her head back to look at him. "I think we both should just call a truce and stop missing each other, it won't do us any good. And we have each other now. So, let's make the most of it, shall we?"
There was an almost uncharacteristic smirk on her face as she laced her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, lowering his head to her. Kissing was not something she'd done very often; indeed, the only time it had ever happened were the two times prior with Zero, but it was something she had decidedly taken a liking to.
Zero had to keep from smiling so widely, unless he wanted to tear his face in half. "True, but then again, I can't promise that I won't miss you, even still," he spoke, smiling against her lips as she pulled him down to her. "But you are correct, we should make the most of it," he spoke against her lips, brushing against them once more before taking her hands into his. "Let's dance shall we?" he spoke, twirling her around before adjusting his hands upon her waist, keeping one of her hands into his.
Yuki smiled, spinning as he twirled her. Her hand met his shoulder, and she looked at him with half-lidded eyes. "You silly man." She murmured. "You would dance to no music." Silly or not, she loved him, and that was a fact.
After all the present opening in the morning, the family was more or less left to their own devices for a while, which meant that most of them were occupying the large living room, spread out over the various pieces of furniture, occupying themselves with games or conversation or food, of which there was plenty. Most of their parents were around, but the central living room was basically the haven of the younger generation at present, including the other four Kuragari brothers. Leora, as it turned out, was just entering the room with another plate of cookies, unaware that she had passed under a certain conspicuous object at the same time as Alarica was there, who did not seem to know that she was standing beneath it.
“Ne, Leo,” said Carlisle, her youngest brother and the family’s primary contact with the Dissident hunters’ group. “You and Rica.” He’d been entertaining himself with backgammon against his immediately older brother Lysander, but since he was facing one of the two pieces of mistletoe in the room, he’d also taken it upon himself to notify the entire set of relatives when someone and someone else happened to be under it at the same time. His telekinesis may also have been responsible for moving it, but if so, he wasn’t fessing up.
Leora looked over her head as if to confirm it, then at Alarica, and shrugged. Balthasar was in the room, which just amused her further. Setting the baked goods down on the table and rolling her eyes when Alden immediately descended upon them like a ravenous shark, she returned to her previous spot. “How ‘bout it, Rica?” She didn’t mind if her cousin rather wouldn’t, but knowing the other woman’s instinct for doing the unexpected and the mischievous, she doubted there would be a real protest to the notion.
Alarica had been standing off to the side, leaning against the door frame as she stared at her cousins. She had a delicate brow raised as she watched most of the Kuragari males devour Ava's cookies, something she had grown quite used to over the years. It must run in the family or something, because no matter where they were, they would always find a way back to Ava's cookies. Not that she could blame them really, her aunt had always been great at baking things. Alarica could cook, that much she knew, but when it came to baking...she leaves all the baking to Ava and Leora.
No one wanted a destroyed home, and Alarica was content at letting it be. There were some things she just couldn't do, and she was perfectly fine with letting baking be one of them. She sighed softly, her attention being drawn towards the second youngest Kuragari when she heard her name. She glanced up, spotting the mistletoe hovering above her, and her brow ascended further up her forehead. Leora just passed by, and judging by the look on Carlisle's face, that meant that Leora and herself had momentarily been standing underneath it. She mirrored Leora's shrug with one of her own.
She watched as Alden attacked the baked goods, scoffing slightly in the process. "You are an idiot to think I wouldn't do it otherwise, Carlisle," she stated, a light smirk covering her features in the process. She had, momentarily, forgotten that Balthasar was in the same room. There was a challenge hidden beneath that tone of Carlisle's, and she was never one to back down from one. "Shall we show them how it's done, dear cousin?" she stated, the smirk pulling wider across her face.
Alden watched with some interest as the smirk across his sister’s face grew to match the one on their cousin’s, and he smiled inwardly, quite anticipatory regarding all of the various thoughts he was going to hear in reaction to this. Some of them were already a bit funny, but he hid his amusement well, reclining back against the couch and chewing over his cookie with enthusiasm. His interest was purely professional—he had taken it upon himself to teach his little sister how to do these sorts of things, and he was going to be sadly disappointed if she didn’t remember the lessons for lack of practice.
As it happened, Leo raised a hand to Alarica’s cheek, laying her palm against it and leaning slightly forward and down the couple of inches they had in height difference. It was assuredly a showman’s kiss, not entirely chaste but nothing too risqué. He was duly impressed when she remembered to nip a little at her cousin’s lower lip on the way back, though. This, of course, produced a catcall from Lysander, who thought the whole thing was hilarious. Carlisle, who in fact had not believed they would actually go through with it, looked faintly gobsmacked, and Leo tapped the underside of his chin on her way past. “Pick up your jaw, Carey, you look like a fish.”
He had to try very hard not to laugh at the fact that Balthasar’s train of thought just stopped for a moment, screeching to a halt before picking back up again with a bewildered shake of the man’s head. Helen was mildly confused as to the point of mistletoe in the first place, but otherwise oblivious to the appeal. Zero, of course, had fallen out of his chair laughing, mostly because he’d been leaning back too far to begin with.
“Not bad, Leo,” he pronounced, pushing his glasses up his nose a bit. “That’s a solid seven out of ten, but it was pretty obvious you don’t usually kiss girls—if you’re going to do it again, get used to being taller.” She was at least a pair of inches over the next tallest female in their family, and more than that over the average woman.
Leora frowned. “Put up or shut up, Vi. Go stand under that thing, and kiss the next person that walks through that door. I don’t care if it’s dad—since you have to be flexible and all.” It was pretty much the first rule of seduction, after all.
Alden’s response was to shrug. He knew exactly who the next person through the door was going to be, and it wasn’t going to be their dad. He certainly didn’t mind—but would his unwitting partner? He was rather interested to find out.
Yuki had watched the entire thing with a slight amusement at the whole situation with Leora and Rica, and even more so when Zero ended up in the floor. She raised a slight eyebrow as she stared down at him. She shook her head slightly, her amusement only growing as Alden stood under the mistletoe just as Emrys entered the room. He’d been about to just go through when Yuki stopped him with a wall of telekinetic force. She wasn’t about to miss this. She smirked at her cousin, who looked confused at smacking into something invisible.
Emrys rubbed at his nose slightly, blinking. Yuki was smirking at him, Zero was on the floor, and Alden was in the doorway. He glanced at each of them until Yuki glanced above him, and he did the same.
”Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” He looked down at Alden, who was grinning at him. He sighed. ”Well, are we bending over backwards for them, or shall we just go our own way?”
Emrys really did have to learn how to consider his verbiage a little more carefully before he spoke. “You’re welcome to bend over backwards if you want to, dear cousin, but I at least certainly intend to do this my way.” He arched an eyebrow, then turned towards his only sister, giving Leo a wink. “Watch and learn how to handle being the taller one, dear sister mine.”
Of course, the purpose of such things was not best served by simply throwing oneself at one’s intended target with no ceremony whatsoever, so Alden was deliberately slow, partially to give his cousin a chance to escape (which he was far too stubborn to ever do), but also for the effect it would naturally have. Anticipation was one of the best weapons in the arsenal of teasing, and he played it to its full advantage here, placing a hand at the side of Em’s neck before sliding it back and up slightly so as to tangle his long fingers in the sun-blonde locks his cousin sported. This of course was also an excellent way to assure that he didn’t worm his way out of anything. Hovering bare inches from Emrys’s face, Alden let their breathing co-mingle for just a moment before he closed the gap, brushing his lips with a light, teasing motion over the other’s, once, twice.
On the third pass, he actually committed to the kiss, and unlike in Leora’s case, there was nothing even remotely chaste about it. It was heated, open-mouthed, and a bit lingering, and at the end of it, he pulled away with a smile on his face and absolutely no shame whatsoever. He heard his sister sigh. “Yeah, okay. That’s your win, Alden.”
If he were being completely honest with himself, and he usually was, he didn't want to worm out of anything. That did not stop his mind to come to a screeching halt the first time their lips connected, nor from actually participating in the kiss.
Leora's sigh and subsequent comment did, however, force him to remember that there were others in the room, at which point the eldest Alistair blushed almost as crimson as his eyes and cleared his throat awkwardly. It was Yuki's turn to laugh, because in that moment, Emrys reminded her so much of his father back when she'd first met him that it was uncanny. She was doubled over in her chair laughing, causing Emrys to glare at her.
Keir, on the other hand, arrived late enough that he wasn't sure what was happening, he just knew, at the moment, he couldn't pass because his brother and his cousin were standing in the doorway. He glanced at both of them, and then looked up, and laughed. "Aw, you're kidding me, I missed it? At least tell me you did a good job, Em."
Emrys scowled at his little brother, but then glanced up at the mistletoe again. "You know, you're under it, too." He grinned a little wickedly, and Keir shook his head. "Oh no, I don't think--" He was cut off, however, when both Emrys and Alden leaned in, each kissing Keir's cheek at the same time, effectively sandwiching him between them. Em loved it, he didn't even have to say anything. Such was the perks when your partner in crime was a telepath. Keir scowled.
"You guys suck."
“Ne, Leo,” said Carlisle, her youngest brother and the family’s primary contact with the Dissident hunters’ group. “You and Rica.” He’d been entertaining himself with backgammon against his immediately older brother Lysander, but since he was facing one of the two pieces of mistletoe in the room, he’d also taken it upon himself to notify the entire set of relatives when someone and someone else happened to be under it at the same time. His telekinesis may also have been responsible for moving it, but if so, he wasn’t fessing up.
Leora looked over her head as if to confirm it, then at Alarica, and shrugged. Balthasar was in the room, which just amused her further. Setting the baked goods down on the table and rolling her eyes when Alden immediately descended upon them like a ravenous shark, she returned to her previous spot. “How ‘bout it, Rica?” She didn’t mind if her cousin rather wouldn’t, but knowing the other woman’s instinct for doing the unexpected and the mischievous, she doubted there would be a real protest to the notion.
Alarica had been standing off to the side, leaning against the door frame as she stared at her cousins. She had a delicate brow raised as she watched most of the Kuragari males devour Ava's cookies, something she had grown quite used to over the years. It must run in the family or something, because no matter where they were, they would always find a way back to Ava's cookies. Not that she could blame them really, her aunt had always been great at baking things. Alarica could cook, that much she knew, but when it came to baking...she leaves all the baking to Ava and Leora.
No one wanted a destroyed home, and Alarica was content at letting it be. There were some things she just couldn't do, and she was perfectly fine with letting baking be one of them. She sighed softly, her attention being drawn towards the second youngest Kuragari when she heard her name. She glanced up, spotting the mistletoe hovering above her, and her brow ascended further up her forehead. Leora just passed by, and judging by the look on Carlisle's face, that meant that Leora and herself had momentarily been standing underneath it. She mirrored Leora's shrug with one of her own.
She watched as Alden attacked the baked goods, scoffing slightly in the process. "You are an idiot to think I wouldn't do it otherwise, Carlisle," she stated, a light smirk covering her features in the process. She had, momentarily, forgotten that Balthasar was in the same room. There was a challenge hidden beneath that tone of Carlisle's, and she was never one to back down from one. "Shall we show them how it's done, dear cousin?" she stated, the smirk pulling wider across her face.
Alden watched with some interest as the smirk across his sister’s face grew to match the one on their cousin’s, and he smiled inwardly, quite anticipatory regarding all of the various thoughts he was going to hear in reaction to this. Some of them were already a bit funny, but he hid his amusement well, reclining back against the couch and chewing over his cookie with enthusiasm. His interest was purely professional—he had taken it upon himself to teach his little sister how to do these sorts of things, and he was going to be sadly disappointed if she didn’t remember the lessons for lack of practice.
As it happened, Leo raised a hand to Alarica’s cheek, laying her palm against it and leaning slightly forward and down the couple of inches they had in height difference. It was assuredly a showman’s kiss, not entirely chaste but nothing too risqué. He was duly impressed when she remembered to nip a little at her cousin’s lower lip on the way back, though. This, of course, produced a catcall from Lysander, who thought the whole thing was hilarious. Carlisle, who in fact had not believed they would actually go through with it, looked faintly gobsmacked, and Leo tapped the underside of his chin on her way past. “Pick up your jaw, Carey, you look like a fish.”
He had to try very hard not to laugh at the fact that Balthasar’s train of thought just stopped for a moment, screeching to a halt before picking back up again with a bewildered shake of the man’s head. Helen was mildly confused as to the point of mistletoe in the first place, but otherwise oblivious to the appeal. Zero, of course, had fallen out of his chair laughing, mostly because he’d been leaning back too far to begin with.
“Not bad, Leo,” he pronounced, pushing his glasses up his nose a bit. “That’s a solid seven out of ten, but it was pretty obvious you don’t usually kiss girls—if you’re going to do it again, get used to being taller.” She was at least a pair of inches over the next tallest female in their family, and more than that over the average woman.
Leora frowned. “Put up or shut up, Vi. Go stand under that thing, and kiss the next person that walks through that door. I don’t care if it’s dad—since you have to be flexible and all.” It was pretty much the first rule of seduction, after all.
Alden’s response was to shrug. He knew exactly who the next person through the door was going to be, and it wasn’t going to be their dad. He certainly didn’t mind—but would his unwitting partner? He was rather interested to find out.
Yuki had watched the entire thing with a slight amusement at the whole situation with Leora and Rica, and even more so when Zero ended up in the floor. She raised a slight eyebrow as she stared down at him. She shook her head slightly, her amusement only growing as Alden stood under the mistletoe just as Emrys entered the room. He’d been about to just go through when Yuki stopped him with a wall of telekinetic force. She wasn’t about to miss this. She smirked at her cousin, who looked confused at smacking into something invisible.
Emrys rubbed at his nose slightly, blinking. Yuki was smirking at him, Zero was on the floor, and Alden was in the doorway. He glanced at each of them until Yuki glanced above him, and he did the same.
”Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” He looked down at Alden, who was grinning at him. He sighed. ”Well, are we bending over backwards for them, or shall we just go our own way?”
Emrys really did have to learn how to consider his verbiage a little more carefully before he spoke. “You’re welcome to bend over backwards if you want to, dear cousin, but I at least certainly intend to do this my way.” He arched an eyebrow, then turned towards his only sister, giving Leo a wink. “Watch and learn how to handle being the taller one, dear sister mine.”
Of course, the purpose of such things was not best served by simply throwing oneself at one’s intended target with no ceremony whatsoever, so Alden was deliberately slow, partially to give his cousin a chance to escape (which he was far too stubborn to ever do), but also for the effect it would naturally have. Anticipation was one of the best weapons in the arsenal of teasing, and he played it to its full advantage here, placing a hand at the side of Em’s neck before sliding it back and up slightly so as to tangle his long fingers in the sun-blonde locks his cousin sported. This of course was also an excellent way to assure that he didn’t worm his way out of anything. Hovering bare inches from Emrys’s face, Alden let their breathing co-mingle for just a moment before he closed the gap, brushing his lips with a light, teasing motion over the other’s, once, twice.
On the third pass, he actually committed to the kiss, and unlike in Leora’s case, there was nothing even remotely chaste about it. It was heated, open-mouthed, and a bit lingering, and at the end of it, he pulled away with a smile on his face and absolutely no shame whatsoever. He heard his sister sigh. “Yeah, okay. That’s your win, Alden.”
If he were being completely honest with himself, and he usually was, he didn't want to worm out of anything. That did not stop his mind to come to a screeching halt the first time their lips connected, nor from actually participating in the kiss.
Leora's sigh and subsequent comment did, however, force him to remember that there were others in the room, at which point the eldest Alistair blushed almost as crimson as his eyes and cleared his throat awkwardly. It was Yuki's turn to laugh, because in that moment, Emrys reminded her so much of his father back when she'd first met him that it was uncanny. She was doubled over in her chair laughing, causing Emrys to glare at her.
Keir, on the other hand, arrived late enough that he wasn't sure what was happening, he just knew, at the moment, he couldn't pass because his brother and his cousin were standing in the doorway. He glanced at both of them, and then looked up, and laughed. "Aw, you're kidding me, I missed it? At least tell me you did a good job, Em."
Emrys scowled at his little brother, but then glanced up at the mistletoe again. "You know, you're under it, too." He grinned a little wickedly, and Keir shook his head. "Oh no, I don't think--" He was cut off, however, when both Emrys and Alden leaned in, each kissing Keir's cheek at the same time, effectively sandwiching him between them. Em loved it, he didn't even have to say anything. Such was the perks when your partner in crime was a telepath. Keir scowled.
"You guys suck."
The close of the day drew near, and Leo had retreated from the family for a little while, before they all got together again for music and more food. She loved them all more dearly than life itself, but she needed a chance to breathe every once in a while. Leaning against the balcony railing outside her library, she folded her arms over one another and looked out over the snowy landscape. There’d probably be another massive snow fight that night—she and Rica tended to be the victors in those, especially when they worked together. But she bet if they could get Helen to participate, the girl’s aerokinesis would make things interesting. Now, there was some food for thought…
Humming a contemplative note to herself, Leo took a deep breath of the crisp air, and nearly exhaled it in a groan. He was coming… it looked like it was time to see just who had the advantage over whom in this little arrangement of theirs. In a move she'd debated for a long time that morning, she'd dressed to impress, sort of, and though of course not indecent, her dress did manage a bit more skin-showing than she usually went for, being cast off both shoulders and only about midway down her thighs. Still, she was wearing knee-high socks, so... it was moderate, as far as choices went. Plus the deep red of it totally complimented her eyes, or something. Alden had approved, anyway, and the smugness of his expression when he said so told her he knew, without having to be told. He probably did, the creepy Spider that he was.
Keir would be a liar if he said he wasn’t very stunned by the dress Leora was wearing. Well…he was a liar, but not to himself. So, with a smirk, he found his way to where she was. He’d considered calling a truce for the day, but then that was no fun. He walked up, leaning against the railing next to her.
His eyes glowed slightly as he grinned at her. ”So, you know…Rica is my other half, so to speak…so technically, when you kiss her, you kiss me, some would say.”
Leora looked at him through the corners of her eyes, arching a delicate brow. It was actually a little funny, how opposite they were in terms of coloration. His hair was white and his eyes silver-tinged blue. Her hair was black as night and her eyes gold-ringed red. She wondered if this was part of what was meant by opposites attract. Usually, it was a personality thing, but they were actually quite similar in those terms, at least in many respects.
Her voice was a touch amused when she replied. “You’ll be wanting to reconsider that logic if she ever gets around to expressing certain feelings to Balthasar, I expect. Dear as he is, I don’t think you want to kiss him any more than I do.” Which was not to say that she hadn’t nursed a crush on the man in her childhood, because she absolutely had, but it was literally impossible to see him as anything but another one of her brothers now. “But I confess I’m a little hurt, Keir, if such indirectness really suffices for you.”
The corresponding expression of mock woundedness fell from her face quickly, though, to be replaced by her trademark sultry confidence, and she turned herself so that her back was to the railing, leaning over to trace an index finger from the palm of his hand over the skin of his wrist and up to the crook of his elbow. The skin-to-skin contact, small as it was, felt absolutely electric. She could feel the way his blood pulsed in his veins, and it was such an intimate kind of knowledge, really, one she had not appreciated before now. “But you know,” she whispered lowly, close to his ear, “I really don't think it does, does it?”
Keir grinned almost wickedly at her, his blue eyes dancing. It was taking most of his self-control not to wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss her right then, but no, he couldn't...he was going to play this out until the end. So instead, he did something that was probably a bit more dangerous than necessary. He leaned down to the point where their noses were touching, their breath mingling in the frosty air. "Leora..." He growled softly, his voice husky. Their mouths were literally centimeters away from each other.
"I never said it did, did I?" He whispered softly, his own hands traveling lightly up her arms and to her shoulders. He was playing a dangerous game, mostly with himself. And he was enjoying it. It made him wonder again just how she'd never put the pieces together, if she truly did not see that he loved her. Well, all the more fun for him then, to see just what made her crack.
Oh how easy it would have been, to close those last centimeters and just kiss him. The strength of the desire to do so actually frightened Leora a little bit, but at least that strange mix of feelings kept her in one place instead of just moving her forward to claim his mouth for hers. Instead, she fell back on the things Alden had worked to make instinct in her, so that she would always have the edge over people who tried to take what wasn’t theirs by right. Granted, she knew that wasn’t what Keir was after, which might have been part of the reason this was so damnably difficult.
The calluses of his hands were pleasantly rough against the smooth skin of her arms, and it was only with great effort that she contained the pleasant shudder that threatened at the sound of his voice. That low, almost growling tone was really, really unfair. Time to even the playing field a little. “Keir…” she replied, reducing her volume to a breathy whisper. She trailed her hands from his abdomen up his chest, sealing her body to his as she went, which was relatively easy to do, given the fact that he was only a couple of inches taller than her. Sorry, Vi, I really don’t have to worry about being the taller one here… Her fingers found their way into his hair, and she teased the long strands of it, moving slightly sideways to inhale the way he smelled at his throat, like a more concentrated form of winter air and the salty tang of the ocean.
“And you never will, I should think.”
Keir chuckled at that comment. She wasn't Alden's sister for nothing, that was for sure. He traced lazy circles up her spine with the middle finger of his left hand. "No, kazu-mi, I never will, for it was not me that you kissed, and I'm afraid I don't like that very much."
Inwardly, Keir almost cringed. This was getting too dangerous, and he was starting to forget himself. No matter, he hadn't thrown it away, not yet, anyhow. He just needed to play it a bit safer from now on, lest he lose his head completely.
She was unfamiliar with the term, but from the tone in which it was given, it sounded suspiciously like a term of endearment. Pet names, Keir? Perhaps she wasn’t at as much of a disadvantage as she thought, though it was hard to deny that her heart did flutter at the notion that he might have such a things for her. The reaction actually disturbed Leo a little, because, while she had long admitted to herself her physical attraction to her cousin, that was as far as she intended to let it go. So why was she hearing the tiniest sliver of possessiveness in his voice, and why did it thrill her so?
She closed her eyes for just a moment, leaning into his touch and using the opportunity to center herself. When she opened them again, she looked up at him through her lashes, moving her arms to loosely drape over his neck. “Is that so?” she inquired in a tone with much the same glide as honey. “Well… here we are now… you could always rectify the situation.” She even did most of the moving for him, standing on her toes just slightly to that they were once again breathing the same air and merely centimeters from one another.
If Keir was willing to admit it, he would admit that Leora was making this damnably difficult. Being able to touch her was making it no easier, nor when she looked at him like that. It was enough to make him think, to make him wish...
But no, even at the end of it, to her at least, it was still only a matter of seduction. This was not the time, nor the place. He smiled slightly, his eyes slipping closed as their foreheads touched for a second. He stayed there, his arms stilling around her waist for the briefest of moments before he gently disentangled himself from her limbs. He winked at her then, tapping her nose with his index finger before walking away.
"I'm afraid not, my little lioness. Not today, at least."
She waited until he was gone, because she had that much dignity at least, but there was no mistaking that Leora pouted after his refusal, huffing and leaning herself back against the railing with a disappointed moue. She’d been so close—she knew she had. She chose to focus on this rather than on the fact that she’d quite nearly caved herself. Damn her for being susceptible to the cutesy nicknames. Ugh.
“Stupid Keir.”
Humming a contemplative note to herself, Leo took a deep breath of the crisp air, and nearly exhaled it in a groan. He was coming… it looked like it was time to see just who had the advantage over whom in this little arrangement of theirs. In a move she'd debated for a long time that morning, she'd dressed to impress, sort of, and though of course not indecent, her dress did manage a bit more skin-showing than she usually went for, being cast off both shoulders and only about midway down her thighs. Still, she was wearing knee-high socks, so... it was moderate, as far as choices went. Plus the deep red of it totally complimented her eyes, or something. Alden had approved, anyway, and the smugness of his expression when he said so told her he knew, without having to be told. He probably did, the creepy Spider that he was.
Keir would be a liar if he said he wasn’t very stunned by the dress Leora was wearing. Well…he was a liar, but not to himself. So, with a smirk, he found his way to where she was. He’d considered calling a truce for the day, but then that was no fun. He walked up, leaning against the railing next to her.
His eyes glowed slightly as he grinned at her. ”So, you know…Rica is my other half, so to speak…so technically, when you kiss her, you kiss me, some would say.”
Leora looked at him through the corners of her eyes, arching a delicate brow. It was actually a little funny, how opposite they were in terms of coloration. His hair was white and his eyes silver-tinged blue. Her hair was black as night and her eyes gold-ringed red. She wondered if this was part of what was meant by opposites attract. Usually, it was a personality thing, but they were actually quite similar in those terms, at least in many respects.
Her voice was a touch amused when she replied. “You’ll be wanting to reconsider that logic if she ever gets around to expressing certain feelings to Balthasar, I expect. Dear as he is, I don’t think you want to kiss him any more than I do.” Which was not to say that she hadn’t nursed a crush on the man in her childhood, because she absolutely had, but it was literally impossible to see him as anything but another one of her brothers now. “But I confess I’m a little hurt, Keir, if such indirectness really suffices for you.”
The corresponding expression of mock woundedness fell from her face quickly, though, to be replaced by her trademark sultry confidence, and she turned herself so that her back was to the railing, leaning over to trace an index finger from the palm of his hand over the skin of his wrist and up to the crook of his elbow. The skin-to-skin contact, small as it was, felt absolutely electric. She could feel the way his blood pulsed in his veins, and it was such an intimate kind of knowledge, really, one she had not appreciated before now. “But you know,” she whispered lowly, close to his ear, “I really don't think it does, does it?”
Keir grinned almost wickedly at her, his blue eyes dancing. It was taking most of his self-control not to wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss her right then, but no, he couldn't...he was going to play this out until the end. So instead, he did something that was probably a bit more dangerous than necessary. He leaned down to the point where their noses were touching, their breath mingling in the frosty air. "Leora..." He growled softly, his voice husky. Their mouths were literally centimeters away from each other.
"I never said it did, did I?" He whispered softly, his own hands traveling lightly up her arms and to her shoulders. He was playing a dangerous game, mostly with himself. And he was enjoying it. It made him wonder again just how she'd never put the pieces together, if she truly did not see that he loved her. Well, all the more fun for him then, to see just what made her crack.
Oh how easy it would have been, to close those last centimeters and just kiss him. The strength of the desire to do so actually frightened Leora a little bit, but at least that strange mix of feelings kept her in one place instead of just moving her forward to claim his mouth for hers. Instead, she fell back on the things Alden had worked to make instinct in her, so that she would always have the edge over people who tried to take what wasn’t theirs by right. Granted, she knew that wasn’t what Keir was after, which might have been part of the reason this was so damnably difficult.
The calluses of his hands were pleasantly rough against the smooth skin of her arms, and it was only with great effort that she contained the pleasant shudder that threatened at the sound of his voice. That low, almost growling tone was really, really unfair. Time to even the playing field a little. “Keir…” she replied, reducing her volume to a breathy whisper. She trailed her hands from his abdomen up his chest, sealing her body to his as she went, which was relatively easy to do, given the fact that he was only a couple of inches taller than her. Sorry, Vi, I really don’t have to worry about being the taller one here… Her fingers found their way into his hair, and she teased the long strands of it, moving slightly sideways to inhale the way he smelled at his throat, like a more concentrated form of winter air and the salty tang of the ocean.
“And you never will, I should think.”
Keir chuckled at that comment. She wasn't Alden's sister for nothing, that was for sure. He traced lazy circles up her spine with the middle finger of his left hand. "No, kazu-mi, I never will, for it was not me that you kissed, and I'm afraid I don't like that very much."
Inwardly, Keir almost cringed. This was getting too dangerous, and he was starting to forget himself. No matter, he hadn't thrown it away, not yet, anyhow. He just needed to play it a bit safer from now on, lest he lose his head completely.
She was unfamiliar with the term, but from the tone in which it was given, it sounded suspiciously like a term of endearment. Pet names, Keir? Perhaps she wasn’t at as much of a disadvantage as she thought, though it was hard to deny that her heart did flutter at the notion that he might have such a things for her. The reaction actually disturbed Leo a little, because, while she had long admitted to herself her physical attraction to her cousin, that was as far as she intended to let it go. So why was she hearing the tiniest sliver of possessiveness in his voice, and why did it thrill her so?
She closed her eyes for just a moment, leaning into his touch and using the opportunity to center herself. When she opened them again, she looked up at him through her lashes, moving her arms to loosely drape over his neck. “Is that so?” she inquired in a tone with much the same glide as honey. “Well… here we are now… you could always rectify the situation.” She even did most of the moving for him, standing on her toes just slightly to that they were once again breathing the same air and merely centimeters from one another.
If Keir was willing to admit it, he would admit that Leora was making this damnably difficult. Being able to touch her was making it no easier, nor when she looked at him like that. It was enough to make him think, to make him wish...
But no, even at the end of it, to her at least, it was still only a matter of seduction. This was not the time, nor the place. He smiled slightly, his eyes slipping closed as their foreheads touched for a second. He stayed there, his arms stilling around her waist for the briefest of moments before he gently disentangled himself from her limbs. He winked at her then, tapping her nose with his index finger before walking away.
"I'm afraid not, my little lioness. Not today, at least."
She waited until he was gone, because she had that much dignity at least, but there was no mistaking that Leora pouted after his refusal, huffing and leaning herself back against the railing with a disappointed moue. She’d been so close—she knew she had. She chose to focus on this rather than on the fact that she’d quite nearly caved herself. Damn her for being susceptible to the cutesy nicknames. Ugh.
“Stupid Keir.”
The day after Christmas, Freya sat in the salon area of the suite of rooms she and Helen shared, a thick genetics journal spread out over her lap, sipping tea. Her sister was out and about at the moment, presently occupied, she thought, with the Kuragari siblings for some reason or another. It was nice to see that she was finally starting to inch out of her shell, even if her progress came in millimeters rather than leaps and bounds. It was assuredly a good thing regardless. Freya still sustained hope that she would one day be free of Theodor’s influence… but she knew better than anyone, including Helen herself, just how difficult that was going to be.
It was perhaps time to enlist some assistance, and after a great deal of careful observation and deliberation, she’d settled on asking Aryan von Nacht to provide that. All of Jasper’s children had good hearts, as did all of their relatives, but she had seen something in his that was not present in the same way in anyone else’s, and it was this little bud of a thing that Freya intended to give a chance to bloom—right alongside the girl she could not save. She’d sent a member of staff to ask him to appear at his leisure—though she might have preferred to go herself, she did not want to interrupt anything important, and her presence would obligate courtesy in a more immediate fashion than such a message. Consideration was important, after all, and his measure of it was one of the reasons she was asking this of him. The least she could do was show the same.
Even so, she expected him presently, and had laid out additional tea with this in mind. Turning a page in the journal, she was content to wait. She, after all, had nothing but time.
Aryan was, in a word, surprised, when he recieved the summons from Freya from no less than four of the various servants running around the house. Either communication in the Kuragari household staff was rather poor, or Freya Trist really wished to see him. He could not fathom either topic, really, but nonetheless made his way to the room the woman shared with her sister.
That thought gave him slight pause, yet he figured it only made sense. He sighed through his nose slightly. He had a feeling this was not going to be a topic of conversation that he would be overly comfortable with. Still, he was here now, and she was probably already aware that he was here. The door was cracked, so there was no guessing at that. He knocked once, the door opening wider in the process.
"I believe you wished to speak to me, Miss Trist?"
Feya looked up from her text and smiled, unfolding her legs for a moment and closing the cover of the journal. Her lips tilted into a mild smile—she could tell he was uneasy, and she supposed that was perhaps not entirely unwarranted. They had not had much occasion to speak at length before, and besides that, the man still harbored some uncertainty regarding his footing with her sister, someone for whom only Freya herself really could or would intervene in certain familial capacities. This was not that talk precisely, but it did bear some striking similarities, more than enough to justify a little unease. “Freya, if you please. And I hope you shall not take it poorly if I refer to you as Aryan? I am rather unfond of formality, all things considered. Do come in, and feel free to sit. I am not going to attack you—I daresay there are plenty of other people who wish to do that.”
Not even she had been allowed to go without several attempts on her life, and more importantly, perhaps, her knowledge. But she still had a job to do, and until such time as it was done, no simple killer would find himself or herself able to end her life. She waited until he was as settled as he was inclined to be, then set her book aside and folded her hands together on her lap, tilting her head slightly to the side, then shaking it gently. “Forgive me; I am always startled by how much of your father I see in you. And in your brother as well, of course, but that I think is considerably more obvious.” It was still a little odd for her—though Jasper was married and she would never even dream of acting on her feelings, she was, in fact, yet in love with the man. That he knew as much and wanted to be her friend anyway actually soothed the hurt rather than making it worse. Despite this, she was not a jealous person, and it made her happy that he had such wonderful children.
“Not to put you on the spot Aryan, but… well, I suppose it is what I’m about to do. Can I ask you why you think I’ve called you here?” One of this youth’s (compared to her, he was still quite young) talents was for observation and psychological analysis, and she was curious as to his answer. It might also provide her a way to broach a difficult topic with some grace, which she was certain both of them would appreciate, in the end. It was still bound to be an uncomfortable question, and so she allowed him the time to think by pouring him tea and refilling her own cup.
Aryan smiled slightly at the woman, replying coolly, "By all means, you may refer to me however you wish. Though you'll forgive me, I hope, if I slip up from time to time. Formality, as it were, is a bit rigid in my line of work, I'm sure you are aware."
This was essentially true, one did not sit on the Council for almost four months now and not become unerringly strict with oneself in how they addressed others. Not that Aryan had not done so before, as he'd been dealing with the Council for years before he actually joined it. Even so, he was not overly surprised that she preferred to be called by her first name. She was one of his father's oldest friends, after all.
The odd habit of supporting his head on his knuckles as he regarded her final question crept back into his persona. It had been something he had always done, and now did it subconsciously. He was silent for several seconds before answering her. She was correct, it did put him on the spot, though he would expect no less of her.
"I would normally think that it would have something to do regarding what seems to be my personal feelings for your sister, Helen. While this may be a breached topic, I have a feeling that there is more to it than simply that. Am I correct to assume this?"
Freya nodded simply, her smile inching wider. “Perceptive. Yes, in fact. It is a combination of things, your feelings, as you put it, being one. I am in need of some help, Aryan, but it is not the kind of thing that a sword can fix, I’m afraid. Alas, it is not the kind of thing that words can fix, either, else I’d have seen to it myself some time ago.” That was why she needed someone who wanted just as badly as she did to help her sister. Someone who would understand when subtlety was necessary, and when action was required. Someone who understood Helen, insofar as anyone did.
“As you’re aware, my sister still suffers under considerable effects of sustained mental torture, inflicted over a period of more than two hundred years by Theodor von Nacht. It makes her vulnerable to certain things, and especially sensitive to others. She is also missing large pieces of her memory from that time, and as a result, there are many things about herself that she does not know any longer, if she ever knew them. I… know some of those things. I would have given her this information, if I thought it would make anything better for her, but I fear at this stage that the knowing will do her much more harm than good.” She was silent for a moment, sipping quietly at her tea and gathering her thoughts as well as possible. They were not easy things to know, especially because of the way the knowledge just…stopped. There was even more, but it was information that Freya simply did not have, and what it might mean honestly made her a little fearful.
“It is not comfortable knowledge, I will tell you that here and now. There is not even much to be done about it, but the next period of time will see me in very little contact with my sister, and someone else must know. Your father does, but his place is on the field more often than not, and I doubt they will ever cross paths. You, on the other hand, may still see her from time to time, and if I tell you what to look for, it should be enough. But I will not burden you with this knowledge if you do not wish to have it. That is your choice to make. Just how far would you be willing to go to help my sister, Aryan von Nacht?”
"I would die for her."
It was not a bold declaration or an over-confident statement. It was the simplest of truths, a mere fact that needed to time to be prepped. In retrospect, he hadn't even been aware that he'd thought to speak, it had simply come out, for lack of a better term. Still, it was a rather general answer, so, setting down his tea cup, Aryan elaborated.
"Allow me to clarify that. It is not even that I would die for her, as I would easily give my life for any of my family, I almost did already for Zero. Perhaps a better way to put it would be if I was given the choice, it may very well be that I would choose her life above anyone else's." Perhaps not the most comfortable thought in the world, but it was still true. He was positively certain that when it was her life weighed against another's, he would take any means necessary to ensure that she would be the one who survived, even against his own. He was beginning to understand what it meant to love another, to not bear the thought of living in this world without them.
The mere thought of what his great-grandfather had done to Helen angered him to the point where he actually wanted to physically hurt something, and that was saying something for Aryan. It was even worse than what he was like with Yuki, and the physical damage to his sister was far worse. But Helen's torture was psychological, and Yuki had been freed of that, at least. Helen was a different matter, however. It astounded him, frankly, that she would ask his help in so delicate a matter. He wasn't even sure he could help. That did not mean he would not try. When he spoke again, he spoke quietly.
"If you have deemed me so far fit for the task, I would know what you wish me to. The level of pleasantness is irrelevant, if it means that I can help her."
The little tilt to her mouth was knowing, as well it should be. She had known, but it was important for him to hear himself say it, to choose it for himself, as his own course of action. Exhaling gently through her nose, Freya felt an old pressure on her heart lifting. Because there was someone else in this world who valued her sister just as much as she did, as much as she deserved. Perhaps it was true to say that everyone deserved to be so cared for by someone, but admittedly Freya was not concerned with everyone; it simply wasn’t feasible to be. She had people that she cared for, and others that she would not harm if she could avoid it, but that was simply the extent of things.
“Very well. Then I will tell you everything that I know, and attempt to outline the shape of what I do not.” Setting the tea back down on the table, she reached under her chair and pulled out a file. It was Helen’s dossier, from Theodor’s files, and the folder it was kept in read Project 009: The Queen. Opening the file with care, Freya flipped past several childhood photographs of Helen, as well as medical charts detailing her capabilities. Some of the information was clearly heavily redacted, and these were the things that even she did not know. The page she landed on contained a photograph taken not long before Helen had come to live with herself and the others, after being ostensibly ‘freed’ from Theodor’s control. Freya now knew this to be something of a mischaracterization of what had actually happened.
“Each of the members of the Pantheon was created with a very specific purpose in mind. Among us were soldiers, scholars such as myself, strategists, and others. So, too, were specific powers cultivated in us, such that each of us possessed at least one ability never before seen in vampires, as well as any extraneous abilities that happened to develop. I was designed not only to be a scientist and a geneticist, but also to be able to look at the very soul of a person, and determine its character. I can divine what a person most fears, and then I can force them to confront it, over and over again.” A small pause. “It was not uncommon that we initially disliked our capabilities, as I’m sure you can imagine. Because of this tendency, each of us was subject to a certain amount of conditioning, largely the work of Theodor.”
She still did not remember her own with anything but abject terror. Alden Kuragari may be a better telepath than Theodor was, but even he at his worst possessed more mercy than that man had. “It is not, perhaps, uncommon to see what the conditioning did to Helen and assume that she had an already weak or fragile mind. This is not so. In some ways, she was the strongest of us all, and Theodor had to literally break her consciousness and her will and reorganize it to suit his needs. He also implanted various pieces of information, that I believe are inaccessible without certain kinds of triggering circumstances.” That, however, was one of the things that she did not know for certain, because it was impossible to find out without testing, and that was something she would not subject her sister to.
“This initial breaking and subsequent resorting is the reason she currently suffers from nightmares, and she is aware of that. What she does not know is that the powers that were aimed for in her creation are not the ones she presently displays. For some reason, Theodor had one of his other creations—Baldr—seal the talents she was made for. The seal isn’t perfect, however, for it was made to deteriorate with time. When it breaks, I expect that a lot of extra information and memories will come with it, and it is this that we must watch for. I don’t know what will trigger the break, and I do not know how soon it is in coming. Nor could I even tell you what she will be capable of when it happens. But… it will not leave her unaffected, emotionally or psychologically, and when that time comes, she is quite likely going to need someone to stop her from ending her own life.”
That… bore further explaining. “She is very logical, and unlike before, when she was under his control, she has a deep revulsion for the fact that she was part of his plans. If they are as bad as all of Theodor’s plans have been, there will likely be very small chance of escaping them. Helen is attached enough to all of you that she will refuse to her very last breath to allow them to go as he willed them, and… you can see where those things might lead someone. I do not mean to suggest that she currently has any such designs on her own life, only that it is a very real possibility that she will, when the time comes. We both need to be prepared for that.”
If Aryan had needed a reason to despise his great-grandfather before, which he did not, this would have been it. Even so, the muscle in his jaw tightened as he listened, his eyes narrowing and his positioning transferring so that he was now sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands laced in front of his mouth. It was a lot of information to absorb, to be sure.
"I never would have made that assumption, that she was weak. Even as a child, I could see that she was holding something back. The episodes plague her like waking nightmares, I can only imagine what goes on inside her head, and I do not want to. To have undergone what she has and yet still retain something, even as little as she has, is more than most can attest to. I have no doubt that Helen is stronger than any give her credit for being."
His mind was running in overdrive at the moment. His mind simply pulling together threads that had been the barest of connections before, now solidifying with a bit more stable evidence.
"It would make sense, aside from when she is sleeping, while her episodes are for the most part random, both my father and Balthasar, and to a lesser extent, myself, seem to have the greatest effect on her. I can only assume it is because of our connection to Theodor. I have a hard time imagining that the man would overlook this scenario, he planned for his death of all things. I also have a difficult time thinking that he would have overlooked something as simple as her taking her own life, although that may be giving the man too much credit. There were certain things the man did not understand, sympathy and empathy among them."
His eyes traveled down to the file again, taking in a few bits of information here and there, until his eyes rested on the file name. "Do we know what Theodor meant by naming her Queen?" That, perhaps, was what disturbed him the most. He was aware of the fact that Theodor had referred to his father in his youth as a king...but perhaps now his mind was making connections where there was none.
Freya closed the file, running her fingers over the words he’d referred to. It had been one of the very first questions she’d asked herself upon seeing the file, because all the rest of them were simply named as they had been. Her own read only Project 004: Freya. “I have often wondered that myself. I know that he was fond of thinking Jasper a king, after a fashion, but… I think the title was more general than that. It need not have been Jasper, nor even Balthasar, though I believe Theodor thought that angle to be most promising. This is purely speculation based on what I know of his mind, but… I think Helen’s designation may have been connected to another one of his options. What that option was, I could not say.”
She frowned. “Most of what I did was theoretical work for the Aegis project, and that was something Theodor designed for many reasons, many possible outcomes. I can only assume that what he planned for Helen was similar—she would have some kind of role in any of his plans, but for at least one of them… I suspect that the title would make more sense if we knew what her seal was keeping back. But we don’t, and frankly… I’m not sure we should want to.” She tapped her fingers on the file for a moment, then tilted her head thoughtfully and offered it across the coffee table.
“There is much in here. Perhaps, if you find yourself with the time, you might see if you can discern something I have missed. Until then… I recommend being very careful of any appearances by a man named Baldr. He was ever the custodian of Theodor’s will, and the only one of us who never needed conditioning to be fine with what he was asked to do. He is also exceptionally dangerous, but he will not show himself unless he has a very good reason.”
Aryan nodded. He, too, had no desire to find out what she was truly meant for, and would love nothing more to believe that he would never have to. But Aryan was not the type of man to believe in notions like wishing and luck. Sure, it took some amount of luck with what he did, but he was a factual man, and the fact remained that sooner or later, the seal holding back whatever was there in Helen's mind would either break or be removed.
With the upcoming events soon separating them all, Aryan could only hope that he was with her when that happened. No matter what she was to be used for, or what the damage would be, he would not just allow her to cast aside her own life. He sighed through his nose, taking the file from her. He was struck by a sudden thought then, and returned his purple gaze to Freya.
"Perhaps you can also do me a favor." Believe it or not, he actually had the chess board his father had given him as a gift not a few days prior, and he produced it now, setting up the pieces as Freya watched. It was easy to see that it was, in fact, and extended game. They still had time before they all went their separate ways, but it was never too early to start. Helen would also be the one to start the game, seeing as it was her pieces that were white.
"Would you mind letting Helen know that it is her move?"
It was perhaps time to enlist some assistance, and after a great deal of careful observation and deliberation, she’d settled on asking Aryan von Nacht to provide that. All of Jasper’s children had good hearts, as did all of their relatives, but she had seen something in his that was not present in the same way in anyone else’s, and it was this little bud of a thing that Freya intended to give a chance to bloom—right alongside the girl she could not save. She’d sent a member of staff to ask him to appear at his leisure—though she might have preferred to go herself, she did not want to interrupt anything important, and her presence would obligate courtesy in a more immediate fashion than such a message. Consideration was important, after all, and his measure of it was one of the reasons she was asking this of him. The least she could do was show the same.
Even so, she expected him presently, and had laid out additional tea with this in mind. Turning a page in the journal, she was content to wait. She, after all, had nothing but time.
Aryan was, in a word, surprised, when he recieved the summons from Freya from no less than four of the various servants running around the house. Either communication in the Kuragari household staff was rather poor, or Freya Trist really wished to see him. He could not fathom either topic, really, but nonetheless made his way to the room the woman shared with her sister.
That thought gave him slight pause, yet he figured it only made sense. He sighed through his nose slightly. He had a feeling this was not going to be a topic of conversation that he would be overly comfortable with. Still, he was here now, and she was probably already aware that he was here. The door was cracked, so there was no guessing at that. He knocked once, the door opening wider in the process.
"I believe you wished to speak to me, Miss Trist?"
Feya looked up from her text and smiled, unfolding her legs for a moment and closing the cover of the journal. Her lips tilted into a mild smile—she could tell he was uneasy, and she supposed that was perhaps not entirely unwarranted. They had not had much occasion to speak at length before, and besides that, the man still harbored some uncertainty regarding his footing with her sister, someone for whom only Freya herself really could or would intervene in certain familial capacities. This was not that talk precisely, but it did bear some striking similarities, more than enough to justify a little unease. “Freya, if you please. And I hope you shall not take it poorly if I refer to you as Aryan? I am rather unfond of formality, all things considered. Do come in, and feel free to sit. I am not going to attack you—I daresay there are plenty of other people who wish to do that.”
Not even she had been allowed to go without several attempts on her life, and more importantly, perhaps, her knowledge. But she still had a job to do, and until such time as it was done, no simple killer would find himself or herself able to end her life. She waited until he was as settled as he was inclined to be, then set her book aside and folded her hands together on her lap, tilting her head slightly to the side, then shaking it gently. “Forgive me; I am always startled by how much of your father I see in you. And in your brother as well, of course, but that I think is considerably more obvious.” It was still a little odd for her—though Jasper was married and she would never even dream of acting on her feelings, she was, in fact, yet in love with the man. That he knew as much and wanted to be her friend anyway actually soothed the hurt rather than making it worse. Despite this, she was not a jealous person, and it made her happy that he had such wonderful children.
“Not to put you on the spot Aryan, but… well, I suppose it is what I’m about to do. Can I ask you why you think I’ve called you here?” One of this youth’s (compared to her, he was still quite young) talents was for observation and psychological analysis, and she was curious as to his answer. It might also provide her a way to broach a difficult topic with some grace, which she was certain both of them would appreciate, in the end. It was still bound to be an uncomfortable question, and so she allowed him the time to think by pouring him tea and refilling her own cup.
Aryan smiled slightly at the woman, replying coolly, "By all means, you may refer to me however you wish. Though you'll forgive me, I hope, if I slip up from time to time. Formality, as it were, is a bit rigid in my line of work, I'm sure you are aware."
This was essentially true, one did not sit on the Council for almost four months now and not become unerringly strict with oneself in how they addressed others. Not that Aryan had not done so before, as he'd been dealing with the Council for years before he actually joined it. Even so, he was not overly surprised that she preferred to be called by her first name. She was one of his father's oldest friends, after all.
The odd habit of supporting his head on his knuckles as he regarded her final question crept back into his persona. It had been something he had always done, and now did it subconsciously. He was silent for several seconds before answering her. She was correct, it did put him on the spot, though he would expect no less of her.
"I would normally think that it would have something to do regarding what seems to be my personal feelings for your sister, Helen. While this may be a breached topic, I have a feeling that there is more to it than simply that. Am I correct to assume this?"
Freya nodded simply, her smile inching wider. “Perceptive. Yes, in fact. It is a combination of things, your feelings, as you put it, being one. I am in need of some help, Aryan, but it is not the kind of thing that a sword can fix, I’m afraid. Alas, it is not the kind of thing that words can fix, either, else I’d have seen to it myself some time ago.” That was why she needed someone who wanted just as badly as she did to help her sister. Someone who would understand when subtlety was necessary, and when action was required. Someone who understood Helen, insofar as anyone did.
“As you’re aware, my sister still suffers under considerable effects of sustained mental torture, inflicted over a period of more than two hundred years by Theodor von Nacht. It makes her vulnerable to certain things, and especially sensitive to others. She is also missing large pieces of her memory from that time, and as a result, there are many things about herself that she does not know any longer, if she ever knew them. I… know some of those things. I would have given her this information, if I thought it would make anything better for her, but I fear at this stage that the knowing will do her much more harm than good.” She was silent for a moment, sipping quietly at her tea and gathering her thoughts as well as possible. They were not easy things to know, especially because of the way the knowledge just…stopped. There was even more, but it was information that Freya simply did not have, and what it might mean honestly made her a little fearful.
“It is not comfortable knowledge, I will tell you that here and now. There is not even much to be done about it, but the next period of time will see me in very little contact with my sister, and someone else must know. Your father does, but his place is on the field more often than not, and I doubt they will ever cross paths. You, on the other hand, may still see her from time to time, and if I tell you what to look for, it should be enough. But I will not burden you with this knowledge if you do not wish to have it. That is your choice to make. Just how far would you be willing to go to help my sister, Aryan von Nacht?”
"I would die for her."
It was not a bold declaration or an over-confident statement. It was the simplest of truths, a mere fact that needed to time to be prepped. In retrospect, he hadn't even been aware that he'd thought to speak, it had simply come out, for lack of a better term. Still, it was a rather general answer, so, setting down his tea cup, Aryan elaborated.
"Allow me to clarify that. It is not even that I would die for her, as I would easily give my life for any of my family, I almost did already for Zero. Perhaps a better way to put it would be if I was given the choice, it may very well be that I would choose her life above anyone else's." Perhaps not the most comfortable thought in the world, but it was still true. He was positively certain that when it was her life weighed against another's, he would take any means necessary to ensure that she would be the one who survived, even against his own. He was beginning to understand what it meant to love another, to not bear the thought of living in this world without them.
The mere thought of what his great-grandfather had done to Helen angered him to the point where he actually wanted to physically hurt something, and that was saying something for Aryan. It was even worse than what he was like with Yuki, and the physical damage to his sister was far worse. But Helen's torture was psychological, and Yuki had been freed of that, at least. Helen was a different matter, however. It astounded him, frankly, that she would ask his help in so delicate a matter. He wasn't even sure he could help. That did not mean he would not try. When he spoke again, he spoke quietly.
"If you have deemed me so far fit for the task, I would know what you wish me to. The level of pleasantness is irrelevant, if it means that I can help her."
The little tilt to her mouth was knowing, as well it should be. She had known, but it was important for him to hear himself say it, to choose it for himself, as his own course of action. Exhaling gently through her nose, Freya felt an old pressure on her heart lifting. Because there was someone else in this world who valued her sister just as much as she did, as much as she deserved. Perhaps it was true to say that everyone deserved to be so cared for by someone, but admittedly Freya was not concerned with everyone; it simply wasn’t feasible to be. She had people that she cared for, and others that she would not harm if she could avoid it, but that was simply the extent of things.
“Very well. Then I will tell you everything that I know, and attempt to outline the shape of what I do not.” Setting the tea back down on the table, she reached under her chair and pulled out a file. It was Helen’s dossier, from Theodor’s files, and the folder it was kept in read Project 009: The Queen. Opening the file with care, Freya flipped past several childhood photographs of Helen, as well as medical charts detailing her capabilities. Some of the information was clearly heavily redacted, and these were the things that even she did not know. The page she landed on contained a photograph taken not long before Helen had come to live with herself and the others, after being ostensibly ‘freed’ from Theodor’s control. Freya now knew this to be something of a mischaracterization of what had actually happened.
“Each of the members of the Pantheon was created with a very specific purpose in mind. Among us were soldiers, scholars such as myself, strategists, and others. So, too, were specific powers cultivated in us, such that each of us possessed at least one ability never before seen in vampires, as well as any extraneous abilities that happened to develop. I was designed not only to be a scientist and a geneticist, but also to be able to look at the very soul of a person, and determine its character. I can divine what a person most fears, and then I can force them to confront it, over and over again.” A small pause. “It was not uncommon that we initially disliked our capabilities, as I’m sure you can imagine. Because of this tendency, each of us was subject to a certain amount of conditioning, largely the work of Theodor.”
She still did not remember her own with anything but abject terror. Alden Kuragari may be a better telepath than Theodor was, but even he at his worst possessed more mercy than that man had. “It is not, perhaps, uncommon to see what the conditioning did to Helen and assume that she had an already weak or fragile mind. This is not so. In some ways, she was the strongest of us all, and Theodor had to literally break her consciousness and her will and reorganize it to suit his needs. He also implanted various pieces of information, that I believe are inaccessible without certain kinds of triggering circumstances.” That, however, was one of the things that she did not know for certain, because it was impossible to find out without testing, and that was something she would not subject her sister to.
“This initial breaking and subsequent resorting is the reason she currently suffers from nightmares, and she is aware of that. What she does not know is that the powers that were aimed for in her creation are not the ones she presently displays. For some reason, Theodor had one of his other creations—Baldr—seal the talents she was made for. The seal isn’t perfect, however, for it was made to deteriorate with time. When it breaks, I expect that a lot of extra information and memories will come with it, and it is this that we must watch for. I don’t know what will trigger the break, and I do not know how soon it is in coming. Nor could I even tell you what she will be capable of when it happens. But… it will not leave her unaffected, emotionally or psychologically, and when that time comes, she is quite likely going to need someone to stop her from ending her own life.”
That… bore further explaining. “She is very logical, and unlike before, when she was under his control, she has a deep revulsion for the fact that she was part of his plans. If they are as bad as all of Theodor’s plans have been, there will likely be very small chance of escaping them. Helen is attached enough to all of you that she will refuse to her very last breath to allow them to go as he willed them, and… you can see where those things might lead someone. I do not mean to suggest that she currently has any such designs on her own life, only that it is a very real possibility that she will, when the time comes. We both need to be prepared for that.”
If Aryan had needed a reason to despise his great-grandfather before, which he did not, this would have been it. Even so, the muscle in his jaw tightened as he listened, his eyes narrowing and his positioning transferring so that he was now sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands laced in front of his mouth. It was a lot of information to absorb, to be sure.
"I never would have made that assumption, that she was weak. Even as a child, I could see that she was holding something back. The episodes plague her like waking nightmares, I can only imagine what goes on inside her head, and I do not want to. To have undergone what she has and yet still retain something, even as little as she has, is more than most can attest to. I have no doubt that Helen is stronger than any give her credit for being."
His mind was running in overdrive at the moment. His mind simply pulling together threads that had been the barest of connections before, now solidifying with a bit more stable evidence.
"It would make sense, aside from when she is sleeping, while her episodes are for the most part random, both my father and Balthasar, and to a lesser extent, myself, seem to have the greatest effect on her. I can only assume it is because of our connection to Theodor. I have a hard time imagining that the man would overlook this scenario, he planned for his death of all things. I also have a difficult time thinking that he would have overlooked something as simple as her taking her own life, although that may be giving the man too much credit. There were certain things the man did not understand, sympathy and empathy among them."
His eyes traveled down to the file again, taking in a few bits of information here and there, until his eyes rested on the file name. "Do we know what Theodor meant by naming her Queen?" That, perhaps, was what disturbed him the most. He was aware of the fact that Theodor had referred to his father in his youth as a king...but perhaps now his mind was making connections where there was none.
Freya closed the file, running her fingers over the words he’d referred to. It had been one of the very first questions she’d asked herself upon seeing the file, because all the rest of them were simply named as they had been. Her own read only Project 004: Freya. “I have often wondered that myself. I know that he was fond of thinking Jasper a king, after a fashion, but… I think the title was more general than that. It need not have been Jasper, nor even Balthasar, though I believe Theodor thought that angle to be most promising. This is purely speculation based on what I know of his mind, but… I think Helen’s designation may have been connected to another one of his options. What that option was, I could not say.”
She frowned. “Most of what I did was theoretical work for the Aegis project, and that was something Theodor designed for many reasons, many possible outcomes. I can only assume that what he planned for Helen was similar—she would have some kind of role in any of his plans, but for at least one of them… I suspect that the title would make more sense if we knew what her seal was keeping back. But we don’t, and frankly… I’m not sure we should want to.” She tapped her fingers on the file for a moment, then tilted her head thoughtfully and offered it across the coffee table.
“There is much in here. Perhaps, if you find yourself with the time, you might see if you can discern something I have missed. Until then… I recommend being very careful of any appearances by a man named Baldr. He was ever the custodian of Theodor’s will, and the only one of us who never needed conditioning to be fine with what he was asked to do. He is also exceptionally dangerous, but he will not show himself unless he has a very good reason.”
Aryan nodded. He, too, had no desire to find out what she was truly meant for, and would love nothing more to believe that he would never have to. But Aryan was not the type of man to believe in notions like wishing and luck. Sure, it took some amount of luck with what he did, but he was a factual man, and the fact remained that sooner or later, the seal holding back whatever was there in Helen's mind would either break or be removed.
With the upcoming events soon separating them all, Aryan could only hope that he was with her when that happened. No matter what she was to be used for, or what the damage would be, he would not just allow her to cast aside her own life. He sighed through his nose, taking the file from her. He was struck by a sudden thought then, and returned his purple gaze to Freya.
"Perhaps you can also do me a favor." Believe it or not, he actually had the chess board his father had given him as a gift not a few days prior, and he produced it now, setting up the pieces as Freya watched. It was easy to see that it was, in fact, and extended game. They still had time before they all went their separate ways, but it was never too early to start. Helen would also be the one to start the game, seeing as it was her pieces that were white.
"Would you mind letting Helen know that it is her move?"
Erys tapped her fingers against the window sill, staring out the window as she sighed heavily. She was still pissed about the events that had taken place a few months prior, one that almost cost her the life of her eldest child and her youngest. Her fists clenched tightly together, a scowl covering her face in the process. She should have been there for her children, but she was needed elsewhere. She was only grateful that nothing had happened to Emrys or the twins. At least Emrys was recovered and well enough. It still didn't stop the rising anger from within her.
She had decimated an entire battle field on her own because of the rage, the anger, the fear she had felt when Morgan told her the news of what happened to Emrys and Alarica. It was, perhaps, not as bad as it was the first time, when Mikhail died and put Alarica in a coma. When that had happened, she nearly destroyed the Alistair estate in a fit of rage. Morgan was lucky he had not been caught in the crossfire. Not that she'd actually hurt him, but he could have suffered a bit of damage.
"This war will never end, will it," she stated, twisting the ring around her finger as she continued to stare out the window.
Breaking the news to his wife that they had almost lost a child not once, but twice, was one of the hardest things Morgan had ever had to do. He couldn't help but feel like he was failing as a father. Having Emrys out on the front lines with them had been the last thing he had ever wanted, but the boy had insisted. Morgan could only regret it, as he saw the price the boy was having to pay, even if he acted like nothing was wrong.
That had been the reason he'd suggested to Nikki that Emrys could help Aryan out with the Council. It was droll work, but necessary nonetheless, and perhaps it could help Emrys. That only seemed to backfire on him, as Emrys had almost died protecting Alarica. But Morgan could not be in two places at once, and they needed him here. He could not do that and protect his children at the same time. All he could do was try and do his part to end the war, so he wouldn't have to. He slid his arms around Erys's shoulders, placing his lips at the nape of her neck.
"It doesn't seem like it, but it will. It will end, and I'll tear apart any bastard who tries to say otherwise."
Erys leaned back into Morgan as he appeared, closing her eyes and allowing his scent to calm her nerves. She pulled her arm up, locking his around her shoulders as she laid her hand against it. Even after a hundred years, she still felt safe with him, still felt loved. He was right though, this would end. If she had to die to make it end, then so be it. Her family deserved to live the rest of their lives in peace, not whatever this was. There were moments she was tempted to just uproot her family and move to a secluded part of the world, however; it was wishful thinking.
The war would follow them wherever they went, and it wouldn't be just them specifically. Though her family was a major target, innocent people would get caught in the crossfire. She would not have cared otherwise, however; a threat that was constantly after her family was something she could not allow. It had to be dealt with. She sighed softly, turning so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and stared at him, studying the features of his face. He looked almost as worn out as she did.
"Hm, I would feel bad for the unlucky bastard then. He'd have two Alistair's after him. Don't think you are the only one who gets to have any fun," she stated lightly, a small smirk pulling at her lips as she brought his face closer to hers, hovering their lips just centimeters apart.
Morgan chuckled slightly bridging what few centimeters remained between them. "I would never dream of denying you your fun, watashi no koibito." He sat down next to her, pulling Erys into his lap. He grinned what had become known as the Alistair Smirk, as all of them made it for varying reasons, or in Morgan's case, no real reason at all.
"Just try not to let the Twins destroy too much, okay? We're going to need things after the war, and you know how they both get." Especially Keir. Morgan and Erys were a force to be reckoned with, but Keir alone was...incredibly destructive. He shook his head slightly. It was easy to see which parent his youngest son took after.
She smirked against his lips, placing another kiss upon his lips as he spoke. "And what makes you think I could deny my son what he wants?" she spoke, chuckling somewhat as she nipped lightly at the crook of his neck. Though he did have a point, out of the twins, Keir was perhaps the most destructive of the two. Alarica could keep a level head and restrain herself a bit when she wanted to, whereas Keir was just battle happy. She began nipping against his neck, dragging her teeth along his jawline before pulling at his bottom lip.
"But I suppose I'll try to. Shall we see what we can destroy now?" she stated, a hint of mischief bleeding into her eyes as a grin pulled at her lips.
Morgan grinned at her comment, turning her head to kiss her again. He certainly liked where this was going, though Vincent might not. Not that he cared, anyhow.
"I do believe that we can, my dear."
She had decimated an entire battle field on her own because of the rage, the anger, the fear she had felt when Morgan told her the news of what happened to Emrys and Alarica. It was, perhaps, not as bad as it was the first time, when Mikhail died and put Alarica in a coma. When that had happened, she nearly destroyed the Alistair estate in a fit of rage. Morgan was lucky he had not been caught in the crossfire. Not that she'd actually hurt him, but he could have suffered a bit of damage.
"This war will never end, will it," she stated, twisting the ring around her finger as she continued to stare out the window.
Breaking the news to his wife that they had almost lost a child not once, but twice, was one of the hardest things Morgan had ever had to do. He couldn't help but feel like he was failing as a father. Having Emrys out on the front lines with them had been the last thing he had ever wanted, but the boy had insisted. Morgan could only regret it, as he saw the price the boy was having to pay, even if he acted like nothing was wrong.
That had been the reason he'd suggested to Nikki that Emrys could help Aryan out with the Council. It was droll work, but necessary nonetheless, and perhaps it could help Emrys. That only seemed to backfire on him, as Emrys had almost died protecting Alarica. But Morgan could not be in two places at once, and they needed him here. He could not do that and protect his children at the same time. All he could do was try and do his part to end the war, so he wouldn't have to. He slid his arms around Erys's shoulders, placing his lips at the nape of her neck.
"It doesn't seem like it, but it will. It will end, and I'll tear apart any bastard who tries to say otherwise."
Erys leaned back into Morgan as he appeared, closing her eyes and allowing his scent to calm her nerves. She pulled her arm up, locking his around her shoulders as she laid her hand against it. Even after a hundred years, she still felt safe with him, still felt loved. He was right though, this would end. If she had to die to make it end, then so be it. Her family deserved to live the rest of their lives in peace, not whatever this was. There were moments she was tempted to just uproot her family and move to a secluded part of the world, however; it was wishful thinking.
The war would follow them wherever they went, and it wouldn't be just them specifically. Though her family was a major target, innocent people would get caught in the crossfire. She would not have cared otherwise, however; a threat that was constantly after her family was something she could not allow. It had to be dealt with. She sighed softly, turning so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and stared at him, studying the features of his face. He looked almost as worn out as she did.
"Hm, I would feel bad for the unlucky bastard then. He'd have two Alistair's after him. Don't think you are the only one who gets to have any fun," she stated lightly, a small smirk pulling at her lips as she brought his face closer to hers, hovering their lips just centimeters apart.
Morgan chuckled slightly bridging what few centimeters remained between them. "I would never dream of denying you your fun, watashi no koibito." He sat down next to her, pulling Erys into his lap. He grinned what had become known as the Alistair Smirk, as all of them made it for varying reasons, or in Morgan's case, no real reason at all.
"Just try not to let the Twins destroy too much, okay? We're going to need things after the war, and you know how they both get." Especially Keir. Morgan and Erys were a force to be reckoned with, but Keir alone was...incredibly destructive. He shook his head slightly. It was easy to see which parent his youngest son took after.
She smirked against his lips, placing another kiss upon his lips as he spoke. "And what makes you think I could deny my son what he wants?" she spoke, chuckling somewhat as she nipped lightly at the crook of his neck. Though he did have a point, out of the twins, Keir was perhaps the most destructive of the two. Alarica could keep a level head and restrain herself a bit when she wanted to, whereas Keir was just battle happy. She began nipping against his neck, dragging her teeth along his jawline before pulling at his bottom lip.
"But I suppose I'll try to. Shall we see what we can destroy now?" she stated, a hint of mischief bleeding into her eyes as a grin pulled at her lips.
Morgan grinned at her comment, turning her head to kiss her again. He certainly liked where this was going, though Vincent might not. Not that he cared, anyhow.
"I do believe that we can, my dear."
Being the end of the second day after Christmas, it was now time to take down all of the decorations and pack away the remnants of the celebrations. This was something Ava usually did, and this year, she was at it by herself for the most part, not that she minded. There was a matter of mere months before everyone would be parting from one another, possibly for good—they should take all the time together they possibly could. She did not like to think of the risk that this would happen, but the fact that they lived in a world at war and every one of them was in some kind of direct danger meant that she could not close her eyes to the possibility.
It was a depressing train of thought, and she deliberately did not linger on it. She gave her children and her family all the support she possibly could, and she traveled frequently between battlefields, healing the worst of the damage with her powers and trying to soothe the other hurts with kindness where possible, and in this, she liked to believe she was at least partially successful. She wasn’t often exactly the person someone wanted to see, but she knew her presence was welcomed where she could give it, and if that was as much as she could do, then she would continue to do it every time, for as along as it took for the war to be over with.
One thing at a time, as had been her motto for a long time now.
Reaching up to take down a wreath, she sneezed with a small squeak when it accidentally brushed her nose, staggering backwards a step. It made her smile and shake her head at herself. She’d never quite gotten used to the graceful pureblood lady thing that people like Freya or even her own daughter seemed to handle so well. There was some part of Ava that, at least in spirit, would always just be a human girl. She didn’t much mind it—it was simply part of who she was. Setting the wreath in its box, she went about taking down the holiday candles and humming to herself, mostly. Most everyone else had retired for the day, or at least ensconced themselves in their rooms, so for the moment at least, she wasn’t going to be bothering anyone by doing so.
Vincent passed through the halls of the estate, occasionally tilting his head into a door way to spot his family in one of the rooms. There were times he'd spot Keir and Leora a bit too close for the older Kuragari's comfort, however; he would say nothing of the matter...yet. He knew how Erys would react to it, though he was loath to tell his sister that. He did not fear her as the others quite did when it came to her children, however; he was inclined to be an overprotective parent as well. Besides, Leora was his only daughter, and that unfortunately meant that she was also Esther's daughter. She inherited that ability from her mother, and it was all the more reason for him to be protective.
He had to keep not only those who would try and take advantage of his daughter, as they had once tried with her mother, but also from some of his own. Some of his offspring did not have the control that he had, that Zero had (which he was thankful for, though albeit still reluctant about it) and the control that Balthasar had. Some of his younger sons would attack both Leora and their mother if given the chance. Not that he blamed them. He knew it was hard for them, and though he could not teach them something as vital as control, he could at least be there to render them from harming the ones they loved.
He was partly grateful that Yuki had actually been one of the ones to help deliver Ava's children. Between the blood that was caused from birthing, it would have sent any other vampire in a frenzy. There was so much of it, that much he remembered. So enamored with his thoughts, he failed to realize his feet carried him to one of the sources of his thoughts. A small, ghost-like smile tilted upon his lips as he reached above Ava, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting his chin rest on top of her head. She was humming a tune, and he was inclined to close his eyes.
"Why did you not ask for help? I would have," he spoke, referring to her solitude at removing the Christmas decorations. Usually, the others would help with the removal, but the way things were turning, there was perhaps another motive as to why she did not ask. He wasn't so busy that he couldn't have helped her remove the items anyway. And he would have done so regardless.
She stopped humming, turning the remaining exhale into a little contented sigh, closing her own eyes as well and leaning back into his chest. Ava still felt safe and protected in his arms, like none of the problems that went on outside of their little cocoon of warmth could touch them. It wasn’t quite true, of course, but he still managed to chase away every one of her nightmares. She only dreamed of pleasant things when she fell asleep beside him, and she missed him dearly every time he had to go. “I know,” she said quietly, speaking in a low tone meant only for him. “I just wanted everyone to be able to enjoy themselves without having to worry about the little things.” There were certainly enough big things to worry about—nobody needed to trouble themselves about this, not even the few household staff they had, who she’d encouraged to take the evening off and go be with their families as well.
She moved her arms so that they lay over his at her waist, worming her fingers underneath his and tangling their digits together. He really was so very warm, even if she had come to understand that this was a side of himself he would show only to herself and Leora, and very very rarely, another member of the family. She occasionally wished he would be more expressive with their sons, but at the same time, she could never fault him for being as he was. In so many ways, he was perfect, and she loved him even for the reasons he was not.
“You can help me now if you want, though. There’s only a few things left.” She’d already taken care of the tree and the majority of the tinsel and garland and candles, which left the mistletoe, wherever her mischievous children had managed to put it, and a few of the odds and ends. It was nothing she couldn’t handle, but she didn't mind accepting the help. Maybe once she would have, out of some misplaced sense of needing to be the one that helped, but not anymore. Theirs was a relationship of mutual reliance, from the momentous things to the inconsequential ones.
He only shook his head at her reply. "Little things such as this should be done as a family. I do not believe they would think it a burden. It gives them reason to be with each other still, helping one another. It would strengthen their bonds, if only by a little," he replied, smiling softly as she laced their fingers together. Even after a hundred years of being together, of being hers and she his, he still felt the small flutter of his heart beat pick up every time they touched, every time they kissed. He could never deny this woman what she wanted, because to deny her would be to deny himself.
He couldn't have imagined, that after all these years, he had a family of his own, a wife, sons to carry on the family, and a daughter whom he cherished most of all. He would never have thought this possible, but now, everything was, thanks to her. Part of him wondered if he would have ever felt this way if he had gone through with that engagement of his to his sister. It was done out of necessity more than anything, however; he knew that the both of them would have never been happy. But happiness was something that wasn't to be expected out of something like that.
Now, here he was, happy. Each of their own with family, and happy. He glanced down at her when she spoke he could help her now. "Alright," he spoke, removing himself, reluctantly, from her embrace. There wasn't much left, she had spoken, and Vincent found himself removing the mistletoe from various spots around the area. He rose his brow at one particular location, and for a moment, wondered how they had even managed to put it there, however; each of his children were gifted with talents.
It wasn't something quite far-fetched to believe in, and he only sighed. "These children," he spoke, reaching for one of the last mistletoe in sight. Of course, this one had been hidden in an arch way that led into the gardens. He rose an eyebrow, momentarily curious as to how many people had actually been caught beneath this particular object. It was no secret that most of the family members tended to go through the garden simply because it was calming, or if they wanted to escape the mischief that was the Alistair twins. Shaking his head lightly, he began to untie the object.
While her husband took down the various hanging branches, Ava packed up the rest of the odds and ends, sealing the boxes and stowing them away in enough time to notice that he was out by the garden arch. Had someone really put one all the way under there? Shaking her head at the memory of a very well-placed stalk tied to a certain tree, she slipped outside and approached him from behind, coming to a stop beside him and looking up into the arch. She was willing to bet that one had been Alden’s idea; he really was a mischievous person, and had the cleverness to make sure that other people felt it, though he was perhaps more subtle than most. Maybe it had been Carlisle after all. Ava smiled faintly as Vincent lowered the object, leaning her shoulder into his arm by way of getting his attention.
“You know,” she said conversationally, looking out over the wintry gardens for a moment. She’d been surprised he’d suggested them, but she’d happily designed and planted them when he had—they reminded her a little of the ones on the von Nacht estate where she’d done most of her growing up, though there were definitely distinct touches that made them their own. “We were technically both standing under that one for a moment. I know it’s past the actual day, but I don't think that means the rule goes away…” Her smile widened, and she slid around so that she was in front of him, her arms reaching up to twine around his neck.
“Indulge me?” she asked playfully, raising a brow in a way that made quite clear the resemblance between herself and her daughter.
Vincent glanced down, tilting his head slightly as Ava approached him, leaning her head on his shoulder in the process. She spoke, and it was enough for him to allow a smile to plague his lips. She would see it that way, but who was he to deny her? "Perhaps it the rule does not go away, but," he stated, leaning slightly forward so that their noses were grazing each other. "Did you know that rule is null and void once the berries on this were plucked? I do not believe they understood this, however; you know I cannot deny you what you desire," he spoke, leaning further in.
His lips brushed hers softly at first before he pulled back. "Do we really need this as a reason?" he spoke, perhaps a bit of mischief laced carefully in his tone when he referred to the mistletoe. "I'd like to think you enjoy doing this even without reason," he spoke, finally capturing her lips in a desired kiss, something soft, firm, and gentle rolled up in one.
She could have sworn her smile was going to split her mouth in half, but fortunately her ever-generous husband found a much more pleasant way to occupy it, returning the tender gesture with something similar, though she’d never deny that stoking thread of heat that had never disappeared between them. “Well, I certainly never need a reason,” she said, pressing a second kiss to his neck and drawing back a little. “But you know I never get tired of hearing you say you don’t, either.” The mischief was returned, though she sobered after a moment, running her hands through his dark hair with a contemplative hum. He would be leaving her soon, for the field of battle. It hurt to be apart from him for too long, but she understood quite well the necessity of it.
Sometimes, she wished she didn’t have the Aegis, wished the powers she’d been granted upon her change were more straightforwardly combative, but she knew that what she did was just as necessary. Besides, she didn't have it in her to kill anyone, not really. While Ava had killed Level E’s from time to time to defend herself and the people she loved, it had always made her feel ill to do so, and honestly killing a Level E was a mercy. So perhaps it was for the best that she’d acquired powers that were suited to her personality. It didn’t make the separation any easier to think this, unfortunately.
“I will miss you, dearest,” she said quietly, leaning her forehead against his chest, her words slightly muffled. “Promise me you’ll come back.” It was something she asked him to do every time he had to go for some reason like this, because it was something she needed to hear. She knew, of course, that it was impossible to actually make such a promise, but the words were something she could keep close to her heart on her nights alone, and they kept her almost warm enough. Almost. All she could really do was send him off with her protection, her Aegis, and be his shield in that way, as he was hers in so many others.
If Vincent could laugh, he would have chuckled at his wife's statement. He settled for a wider smile though, and almost shivered when she pressed a kiss to his neck. He was brought out of his thoughts, though, when she began running her hands through his hair, giving a hum that he knew all too well. He sighed softly, wrapping his arms further around her as he brought her a bit closer to him. It was like this mostly all of the time. It was still something how they managed to raise seven kids together, being mostly separated most of the time.
"As will I. There will not be a second I do not think of you," he murmured softly, laying his head to rest in the crook of her neck. He smiled against it, placing a soft kiss before trailing along her jawline, stopping centimeters away from her lips. "I promise I will return to you. You are, after all, my light," he spoke, kissing her softly before pulling back, the smile still ever present on his face. He would return to her, because he always had, and he always will. There would never be anything that would keep him away from her.
She sighed softly, shuddering as he trailed his lips up her neck and jaw. She leaned into the kiss on a developed reflex that she hoped she never lost, smiling softly. “One day,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper because it was such a precious, fragile thought. “One day, this will all be over and we’ll have nothing but the rest of forever to spend however we want.” It was the dream that sustained her through everything. One day. One day they would never have to leave each other to go risk their lives. They would never have to watch their children do the same. She would labor for as long as it took for that day to appear before them.
But until that day… they’d just have to spend every moment wisely. With a very certain sort of smile on her face, Ava backed away, tugging him after her with a hand in his. He was right, after all. They hardly needed a reason.
It was a depressing train of thought, and she deliberately did not linger on it. She gave her children and her family all the support she possibly could, and she traveled frequently between battlefields, healing the worst of the damage with her powers and trying to soothe the other hurts with kindness where possible, and in this, she liked to believe she was at least partially successful. She wasn’t often exactly the person someone wanted to see, but she knew her presence was welcomed where she could give it, and if that was as much as she could do, then she would continue to do it every time, for as along as it took for the war to be over with.
One thing at a time, as had been her motto for a long time now.
Reaching up to take down a wreath, she sneezed with a small squeak when it accidentally brushed her nose, staggering backwards a step. It made her smile and shake her head at herself. She’d never quite gotten used to the graceful pureblood lady thing that people like Freya or even her own daughter seemed to handle so well. There was some part of Ava that, at least in spirit, would always just be a human girl. She didn’t much mind it—it was simply part of who she was. Setting the wreath in its box, she went about taking down the holiday candles and humming to herself, mostly. Most everyone else had retired for the day, or at least ensconced themselves in their rooms, so for the moment at least, she wasn’t going to be bothering anyone by doing so.
Vincent passed through the halls of the estate, occasionally tilting his head into a door way to spot his family in one of the rooms. There were times he'd spot Keir and Leora a bit too close for the older Kuragari's comfort, however; he would say nothing of the matter...yet. He knew how Erys would react to it, though he was loath to tell his sister that. He did not fear her as the others quite did when it came to her children, however; he was inclined to be an overprotective parent as well. Besides, Leora was his only daughter, and that unfortunately meant that she was also Esther's daughter. She inherited that ability from her mother, and it was all the more reason for him to be protective.
He had to keep not only those who would try and take advantage of his daughter, as they had once tried with her mother, but also from some of his own. Some of his offspring did not have the control that he had, that Zero had (which he was thankful for, though albeit still reluctant about it) and the control that Balthasar had. Some of his younger sons would attack both Leora and their mother if given the chance. Not that he blamed them. He knew it was hard for them, and though he could not teach them something as vital as control, he could at least be there to render them from harming the ones they loved.
He was partly grateful that Yuki had actually been one of the ones to help deliver Ava's children. Between the blood that was caused from birthing, it would have sent any other vampire in a frenzy. There was so much of it, that much he remembered. So enamored with his thoughts, he failed to realize his feet carried him to one of the sources of his thoughts. A small, ghost-like smile tilted upon his lips as he reached above Ava, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting his chin rest on top of her head. She was humming a tune, and he was inclined to close his eyes.
"Why did you not ask for help? I would have," he spoke, referring to her solitude at removing the Christmas decorations. Usually, the others would help with the removal, but the way things were turning, there was perhaps another motive as to why she did not ask. He wasn't so busy that he couldn't have helped her remove the items anyway. And he would have done so regardless.
She stopped humming, turning the remaining exhale into a little contented sigh, closing her own eyes as well and leaning back into his chest. Ava still felt safe and protected in his arms, like none of the problems that went on outside of their little cocoon of warmth could touch them. It wasn’t quite true, of course, but he still managed to chase away every one of her nightmares. She only dreamed of pleasant things when she fell asleep beside him, and she missed him dearly every time he had to go. “I know,” she said quietly, speaking in a low tone meant only for him. “I just wanted everyone to be able to enjoy themselves without having to worry about the little things.” There were certainly enough big things to worry about—nobody needed to trouble themselves about this, not even the few household staff they had, who she’d encouraged to take the evening off and go be with their families as well.
She moved her arms so that they lay over his at her waist, worming her fingers underneath his and tangling their digits together. He really was so very warm, even if she had come to understand that this was a side of himself he would show only to herself and Leora, and very very rarely, another member of the family. She occasionally wished he would be more expressive with their sons, but at the same time, she could never fault him for being as he was. In so many ways, he was perfect, and she loved him even for the reasons he was not.
“You can help me now if you want, though. There’s only a few things left.” She’d already taken care of the tree and the majority of the tinsel and garland and candles, which left the mistletoe, wherever her mischievous children had managed to put it, and a few of the odds and ends. It was nothing she couldn’t handle, but she didn't mind accepting the help. Maybe once she would have, out of some misplaced sense of needing to be the one that helped, but not anymore. Theirs was a relationship of mutual reliance, from the momentous things to the inconsequential ones.
He only shook his head at her reply. "Little things such as this should be done as a family. I do not believe they would think it a burden. It gives them reason to be with each other still, helping one another. It would strengthen their bonds, if only by a little," he replied, smiling softly as she laced their fingers together. Even after a hundred years of being together, of being hers and she his, he still felt the small flutter of his heart beat pick up every time they touched, every time they kissed. He could never deny this woman what she wanted, because to deny her would be to deny himself.
He couldn't have imagined, that after all these years, he had a family of his own, a wife, sons to carry on the family, and a daughter whom he cherished most of all. He would never have thought this possible, but now, everything was, thanks to her. Part of him wondered if he would have ever felt this way if he had gone through with that engagement of his to his sister. It was done out of necessity more than anything, however; he knew that the both of them would have never been happy. But happiness was something that wasn't to be expected out of something like that.
Now, here he was, happy. Each of their own with family, and happy. He glanced down at her when she spoke he could help her now. "Alright," he spoke, removing himself, reluctantly, from her embrace. There wasn't much left, she had spoken, and Vincent found himself removing the mistletoe from various spots around the area. He rose his brow at one particular location, and for a moment, wondered how they had even managed to put it there, however; each of his children were gifted with talents.
It wasn't something quite far-fetched to believe in, and he only sighed. "These children," he spoke, reaching for one of the last mistletoe in sight. Of course, this one had been hidden in an arch way that led into the gardens. He rose an eyebrow, momentarily curious as to how many people had actually been caught beneath this particular object. It was no secret that most of the family members tended to go through the garden simply because it was calming, or if they wanted to escape the mischief that was the Alistair twins. Shaking his head lightly, he began to untie the object.
While her husband took down the various hanging branches, Ava packed up the rest of the odds and ends, sealing the boxes and stowing them away in enough time to notice that he was out by the garden arch. Had someone really put one all the way under there? Shaking her head at the memory of a very well-placed stalk tied to a certain tree, she slipped outside and approached him from behind, coming to a stop beside him and looking up into the arch. She was willing to bet that one had been Alden’s idea; he really was a mischievous person, and had the cleverness to make sure that other people felt it, though he was perhaps more subtle than most. Maybe it had been Carlisle after all. Ava smiled faintly as Vincent lowered the object, leaning her shoulder into his arm by way of getting his attention.
“You know,” she said conversationally, looking out over the wintry gardens for a moment. She’d been surprised he’d suggested them, but she’d happily designed and planted them when he had—they reminded her a little of the ones on the von Nacht estate where she’d done most of her growing up, though there were definitely distinct touches that made them their own. “We were technically both standing under that one for a moment. I know it’s past the actual day, but I don't think that means the rule goes away…” Her smile widened, and she slid around so that she was in front of him, her arms reaching up to twine around his neck.
“Indulge me?” she asked playfully, raising a brow in a way that made quite clear the resemblance between herself and her daughter.
Vincent glanced down, tilting his head slightly as Ava approached him, leaning her head on his shoulder in the process. She spoke, and it was enough for him to allow a smile to plague his lips. She would see it that way, but who was he to deny her? "Perhaps it the rule does not go away, but," he stated, leaning slightly forward so that their noses were grazing each other. "Did you know that rule is null and void once the berries on this were plucked? I do not believe they understood this, however; you know I cannot deny you what you desire," he spoke, leaning further in.
His lips brushed hers softly at first before he pulled back. "Do we really need this as a reason?" he spoke, perhaps a bit of mischief laced carefully in his tone when he referred to the mistletoe. "I'd like to think you enjoy doing this even without reason," he spoke, finally capturing her lips in a desired kiss, something soft, firm, and gentle rolled up in one.
She could have sworn her smile was going to split her mouth in half, but fortunately her ever-generous husband found a much more pleasant way to occupy it, returning the tender gesture with something similar, though she’d never deny that stoking thread of heat that had never disappeared between them. “Well, I certainly never need a reason,” she said, pressing a second kiss to his neck and drawing back a little. “But you know I never get tired of hearing you say you don’t, either.” The mischief was returned, though she sobered after a moment, running her hands through his dark hair with a contemplative hum. He would be leaving her soon, for the field of battle. It hurt to be apart from him for too long, but she understood quite well the necessity of it.
Sometimes, she wished she didn’t have the Aegis, wished the powers she’d been granted upon her change were more straightforwardly combative, but she knew that what she did was just as necessary. Besides, she didn't have it in her to kill anyone, not really. While Ava had killed Level E’s from time to time to defend herself and the people she loved, it had always made her feel ill to do so, and honestly killing a Level E was a mercy. So perhaps it was for the best that she’d acquired powers that were suited to her personality. It didn’t make the separation any easier to think this, unfortunately.
“I will miss you, dearest,” she said quietly, leaning her forehead against his chest, her words slightly muffled. “Promise me you’ll come back.” It was something she asked him to do every time he had to go for some reason like this, because it was something she needed to hear. She knew, of course, that it was impossible to actually make such a promise, but the words were something she could keep close to her heart on her nights alone, and they kept her almost warm enough. Almost. All she could really do was send him off with her protection, her Aegis, and be his shield in that way, as he was hers in so many others.
If Vincent could laugh, he would have chuckled at his wife's statement. He settled for a wider smile though, and almost shivered when she pressed a kiss to his neck. He was brought out of his thoughts, though, when she began running her hands through his hair, giving a hum that he knew all too well. He sighed softly, wrapping his arms further around her as he brought her a bit closer to him. It was like this mostly all of the time. It was still something how they managed to raise seven kids together, being mostly separated most of the time.
"As will I. There will not be a second I do not think of you," he murmured softly, laying his head to rest in the crook of her neck. He smiled against it, placing a soft kiss before trailing along her jawline, stopping centimeters away from her lips. "I promise I will return to you. You are, after all, my light," he spoke, kissing her softly before pulling back, the smile still ever present on his face. He would return to her, because he always had, and he always will. There would never be anything that would keep him away from her.
She sighed softly, shuddering as he trailed his lips up her neck and jaw. She leaned into the kiss on a developed reflex that she hoped she never lost, smiling softly. “One day,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper because it was such a precious, fragile thought. “One day, this will all be over and we’ll have nothing but the rest of forever to spend however we want.” It was the dream that sustained her through everything. One day. One day they would never have to leave each other to go risk their lives. They would never have to watch their children do the same. She would labor for as long as it took for that day to appear before them.
But until that day… they’d just have to spend every moment wisely. With a very certain sort of smile on her face, Ava backed away, tugging him after her with a hand in his. He was right, after all. They hardly needed a reason.
Jasper sighed through his nose, leaning forward on the sofa and placing the file on the coffee table. For a moment, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, his brow furrowing intently before he shook his head and lowered his arm, returning to sit upright. It looked like at least some of the deployment would have to happen sooner rather than later. He could take care of the Romanian front by himself, but the intelligence was looking like everything was about to get pitched again very soon. He’d drawn up plans, grouping people together as well as he could so that the groups would at least be able to move and work together.
It was scant comfort, that he could at least assure them the opportunity to fight alongside their family where possible, but it was all he could give. He’d placed the twins with their mother, because he knew Erys would be displeased with him if he did otherwise, and he wouldn’t separate the two of them anyway. Emrys and Aryan were still handling the Council, and that would have to be enough most of the time, though he was sure Ava would help where she could. She and Freya were put on healing, though—they’d probably have to travel more than most, to wherever people were being injured. He knew that both were quite capable of fighting, but the family had a dearth of capable healers, at least ones with methods that didn’t weaken themselves.
His own wife and daughter would go into battle beside the oldest and youngest Kuragari siblings—he was not inclined to separate Yuki from either Nikki or Zero if he could avoid it, and he could. That meant, unfortunately, that neither he nor Balthasar would be with her, but they and Vincent represented the heaviest hitters the family had, and they would need to remain as mobile as possible, because it was absolutely vital to be able to react to anything the Pantheon or the Council could come up with as quickly as possible. As the only person with consistent access to the Aegis, and having a century of practice in using it effectively, Vincent could sweep a battlefield almost as easily as himself or Balthasar. Easier than the latter, actually, because Balthasar still had problems with control. That was what made it so necessary that he went with his son. If Balthasar lost control, Jasper was the only possible way to get him back.
His lips pursed. Alden, Morgan, and the other Kuragari brothers would do what they always had, only perhaps with even greater risk. That left Helen, and though he was loath to admit it, she was well-suited for some of the grimmer work of this situation. She’d have to float between healing, assassinating prominent targets in both battlefields and boardrooms, and lending a hand with the Council work when possible. Jasper sighed again, feeling keenly the burden of these decisions and hoping that, above all else, what he chose did not get them killed.
Nikki von Nacht may not have had the skill at reading people like some of her family did, such as her son and nephew, but she knew her husband well enough to read him. It had always been that way, even when she was a child and they'd simply been cousins. Jasper had the bad habit of trying to shoulder most of everything, and it was something she saw in her eldest son as well.
So when he sighed twice in almost as many minutes, she had to fight not to smile slightly. Same old Jasper, he never changed. But then, she didn't want him to, either, because he wouldn't be the man she loved. Silently, she set down the book she'd been holding and walked over to the man, sliding her arms around his shoulders from behind.
"You're doing it again, my love. I thought we'd worked on this."
Jasper leaned gratefully into his wife’s touch, shaking his head slightly, the smallest of smiles appearing on his countenance. “The habits of nearly a thousand years are not the easiest to break, I fear.” He could speak the number with ease, most of the time, as he felt no particular way about it, but… at times like these, when his decisions and the ones made by those around him really would make or break their efforts, and really did have the power to change the world… he felt those thousand years in ways he never had before. It occurred to him that minus his own father, who even now resided in an unused estate, unwhole of mind but well cared-for, he was perhaps one of the oldest living people in existence. Perhaps the oldest.
It was a sobering thought—his own wife was barely a fifth of his age, and may not survive to reach this number, even with his mother’s blood in her system. That… he wasn’t going to think about that right now. It didn’t bear thinking about, not when there were so many more immediate problems to be considered. With his third sigh in as many minutes, he reached up, taking one of her hands in his and tugging her gently around forward, pulling her down into his lap and burying his nose at the crook of her neck, simply enjoying the sensation of breathing her scent. He was convinced, sometimes, that being in love with someone made everything about them that much more sublime to you. Nikki had always been beautiful, but to him, she was the single loveliest creature that had ever existed. She’d always been loyal and canny and brave, but to him she was the perfect apex of these traits. He adored even her flaws.
Swallowing thickly, he leaned his head sideways against hers, his hands tracing nonsense patterns over the small of her back. “I love you,” he said, not because it was any great revelation or because one of them was going somewhere, but simply because some things bore repeating, frequently. This was one of those things. It soothed him to say it as it soothed him to be in her company, and he liked to think that she appreciated hearing it, as much as he appreciated hearing it from her.
Nikki smiled, running her hands through his hair as her eyes slipped closed. One hundred years together and it hadn't changed, not the way he made her feel when he touched her or the little electric sparks that trailed on her skin from the contact, nor the sound of his voice. If anything, the past century had only magnified it. Everything he was, despite, or perhaps because of, his flaws, he was hers, just as she was his.
Her eyes opened slowly, grey eyes meeting silver, the love that she felt for him easily displayed. "And I love you." He had always said that she was the one who grounded him, who kept him centered, but he did just the same for her, and he always had. He was the one she turned to, for anything. It pained her to know that they would be separated for an unknown length of time, but she also understood the necessity of it. Balthasar would need his father, and she would not, and could never, deny her son that. Really, she could not deny any of her children anything.
He smiled, dipping his head slightly to kiss her with gentle lightness. As he pulled back, his expression sobered, though he admittedly had a bit of a hard time not simply abandoning his worries to relish in the feel of her fingers in his hair. That particular gesture had a way of derailing his thoughts, as though he were some kind of overlarge cat, that need do nothing but lean into the touch and feel it. “I cannot help but worry,” he admitted softly, though of course she knew this about him by now. “There are things of our foes’ motives that I do not yet understand, and that troubles me. At least with him, I understood what he wanted. I can only assume they want the same, and yet…”
He rarely deigned to speak his grandfather’s name, or even refer to him as such, and his other grandfather, from his mother’s side, was the progenitor of all vampires, someone he’d never met before, making his family tree admittedly a bit truncated by this point. He didn’t mind being the roots of such a thing, but it did mean that he felt a certain abiding responsibility for the branches of it. “I just do not want our children to have to raise their own families in a world that is not yet free of him.” There was no mistaking that, Pantheon, Council, or whomever, the events that moved apace with them did so because Theodor had willed it to be so. “And I want them to be able to raise their families,” he added, though they both knew there was at least one who had precious little time left to do so.
Nikki wanted nothing more than to simply dissolve into his kiss, though now was not the time for that. She was well aware of what her touch did to him, and so she delicately extracted her fingers from the silky, dark locks, resting them instead on his shoulders. She agreed with him, of course, though it pained her to think that her eldest child, who should have the soonest chance to have a family, would have little time to do so.
She banished the thought from her mind. Now was not the time to mourn the situation. What had been done had been done, and Nikki was more than grateful to both her husband and her nephew in their successful attempt to free her daughter from the man who had destroyed her.
It was her turn to sigh then, in a way that very much mirrored him. "I can agree, we at least knew his endgame...we do not have that luxury here." That had been, to some degree, Balthasar, though with a different parentage. Even now, with the numerous assassination attempts on her son's life, Nikki still felt as though there were those out there who wanted to control him rather than kill him, and she could only surmise that they were the ones following closely to Theodor's original goal.
What she did not understand was why Sigyn and Freyr had simply...left him. They'd both had opportunities to take him if they so wished, Freyr especially, and yet...they hadn't. It left a prickle at the back of her mind saying that they were missing something, some vital piece of information that was beyond their reach. Even with Aryan as close to the center of things as he could get, they still could come up with nothing. It was rather infuriating.
She looked to her husband again, choosing instead, as she always did, to think of less dark things. "We can only do what we can do with the time and information we are given, nothing more. We have to make the best of it, and, if it is supposed to happen, it will. You just have to trust yourself, Jasper." She laced her fingers through his.
"I know I do."
She never ceased to amaze him. He was not so sure he could trust himself in the way she did, but he could trust her judgement, and if she believed in him, he would do his best to echo that. “I don’t like it,” he said simply, “but you are nevertheless correct as usual. Just… be careful, please. As much faith as I have in your strength, I am still afraid for you.” He was afraid for all of them, of course, but Nikki was the very center of his world, and there was no denying that though losing any of them would shake him to his core, losing her was the only thing that would utterly destroy him. They had spoken of these possibilities, of course, late at night and wrapped in each other, when they were close enough that the mere possibility did not shake them overmuch. So he knew that they were both resolved to live for their children if ever the time came when they should lose each other, but he knew even so beyond doubt that he would never be the same man without her. He could only be worse.
But he followed her example and moved his constantly-whirring mind to lighter thoughts, reaching up with his free hand to cradle her cheek. “But I trust you as well. Perhaps it is time I took a break from the planning.” Taking his mind off things for a while would help; it usually did. It was hard to find the time, but that was what he needed his family for, among other things—to remind him to do just that.
Nikki chuckled at that. "Frankly I think I'd have an easier time getting hurt if I were with the Twins." While it seemed she took it lightly, she knew very well what would happen to Jasper should anything other than the natural order of things happen to her, and even that was not going to be easy on him. She also knew what would happen to herself if she lost him. "Just know that I'm holding you to your promise, as well."
That first promise he'd made to her, when finally every last brick of the wall she'd formed around her heart had come down, and hadn't been afraid any more. She ran her hand through his hair again, smiling when he leaned into it. She leaned forward, fitting her mouth to his and murmuring afterwards, "Well then, it's a good thing I know how to be distracting then, isn't it?"
It was scant comfort, that he could at least assure them the opportunity to fight alongside their family where possible, but it was all he could give. He’d placed the twins with their mother, because he knew Erys would be displeased with him if he did otherwise, and he wouldn’t separate the two of them anyway. Emrys and Aryan were still handling the Council, and that would have to be enough most of the time, though he was sure Ava would help where she could. She and Freya were put on healing, though—they’d probably have to travel more than most, to wherever people were being injured. He knew that both were quite capable of fighting, but the family had a dearth of capable healers, at least ones with methods that didn’t weaken themselves.
His own wife and daughter would go into battle beside the oldest and youngest Kuragari siblings—he was not inclined to separate Yuki from either Nikki or Zero if he could avoid it, and he could. That meant, unfortunately, that neither he nor Balthasar would be with her, but they and Vincent represented the heaviest hitters the family had, and they would need to remain as mobile as possible, because it was absolutely vital to be able to react to anything the Pantheon or the Council could come up with as quickly as possible. As the only person with consistent access to the Aegis, and having a century of practice in using it effectively, Vincent could sweep a battlefield almost as easily as himself or Balthasar. Easier than the latter, actually, because Balthasar still had problems with control. That was what made it so necessary that he went with his son. If Balthasar lost control, Jasper was the only possible way to get him back.
His lips pursed. Alden, Morgan, and the other Kuragari brothers would do what they always had, only perhaps with even greater risk. That left Helen, and though he was loath to admit it, she was well-suited for some of the grimmer work of this situation. She’d have to float between healing, assassinating prominent targets in both battlefields and boardrooms, and lending a hand with the Council work when possible. Jasper sighed again, feeling keenly the burden of these decisions and hoping that, above all else, what he chose did not get them killed.
Nikki von Nacht may not have had the skill at reading people like some of her family did, such as her son and nephew, but she knew her husband well enough to read him. It had always been that way, even when she was a child and they'd simply been cousins. Jasper had the bad habit of trying to shoulder most of everything, and it was something she saw in her eldest son as well.
So when he sighed twice in almost as many minutes, she had to fight not to smile slightly. Same old Jasper, he never changed. But then, she didn't want him to, either, because he wouldn't be the man she loved. Silently, she set down the book she'd been holding and walked over to the man, sliding her arms around his shoulders from behind.
"You're doing it again, my love. I thought we'd worked on this."
Jasper leaned gratefully into his wife’s touch, shaking his head slightly, the smallest of smiles appearing on his countenance. “The habits of nearly a thousand years are not the easiest to break, I fear.” He could speak the number with ease, most of the time, as he felt no particular way about it, but… at times like these, when his decisions and the ones made by those around him really would make or break their efforts, and really did have the power to change the world… he felt those thousand years in ways he never had before. It occurred to him that minus his own father, who even now resided in an unused estate, unwhole of mind but well cared-for, he was perhaps one of the oldest living people in existence. Perhaps the oldest.
It was a sobering thought—his own wife was barely a fifth of his age, and may not survive to reach this number, even with his mother’s blood in her system. That… he wasn’t going to think about that right now. It didn’t bear thinking about, not when there were so many more immediate problems to be considered. With his third sigh in as many minutes, he reached up, taking one of her hands in his and tugging her gently around forward, pulling her down into his lap and burying his nose at the crook of her neck, simply enjoying the sensation of breathing her scent. He was convinced, sometimes, that being in love with someone made everything about them that much more sublime to you. Nikki had always been beautiful, but to him, she was the single loveliest creature that had ever existed. She’d always been loyal and canny and brave, but to him she was the perfect apex of these traits. He adored even her flaws.
Swallowing thickly, he leaned his head sideways against hers, his hands tracing nonsense patterns over the small of her back. “I love you,” he said, not because it was any great revelation or because one of them was going somewhere, but simply because some things bore repeating, frequently. This was one of those things. It soothed him to say it as it soothed him to be in her company, and he liked to think that she appreciated hearing it, as much as he appreciated hearing it from her.
Nikki smiled, running her hands through his hair as her eyes slipped closed. One hundred years together and it hadn't changed, not the way he made her feel when he touched her or the little electric sparks that trailed on her skin from the contact, nor the sound of his voice. If anything, the past century had only magnified it. Everything he was, despite, or perhaps because of, his flaws, he was hers, just as she was his.
Her eyes opened slowly, grey eyes meeting silver, the love that she felt for him easily displayed. "And I love you." He had always said that she was the one who grounded him, who kept him centered, but he did just the same for her, and he always had. He was the one she turned to, for anything. It pained her to know that they would be separated for an unknown length of time, but she also understood the necessity of it. Balthasar would need his father, and she would not, and could never, deny her son that. Really, she could not deny any of her children anything.
He smiled, dipping his head slightly to kiss her with gentle lightness. As he pulled back, his expression sobered, though he admittedly had a bit of a hard time not simply abandoning his worries to relish in the feel of her fingers in his hair. That particular gesture had a way of derailing his thoughts, as though he were some kind of overlarge cat, that need do nothing but lean into the touch and feel it. “I cannot help but worry,” he admitted softly, though of course she knew this about him by now. “There are things of our foes’ motives that I do not yet understand, and that troubles me. At least with him, I understood what he wanted. I can only assume they want the same, and yet…”
He rarely deigned to speak his grandfather’s name, or even refer to him as such, and his other grandfather, from his mother’s side, was the progenitor of all vampires, someone he’d never met before, making his family tree admittedly a bit truncated by this point. He didn’t mind being the roots of such a thing, but it did mean that he felt a certain abiding responsibility for the branches of it. “I just do not want our children to have to raise their own families in a world that is not yet free of him.” There was no mistaking that, Pantheon, Council, or whomever, the events that moved apace with them did so because Theodor had willed it to be so. “And I want them to be able to raise their families,” he added, though they both knew there was at least one who had precious little time left to do so.
Nikki wanted nothing more than to simply dissolve into his kiss, though now was not the time for that. She was well aware of what her touch did to him, and so she delicately extracted her fingers from the silky, dark locks, resting them instead on his shoulders. She agreed with him, of course, though it pained her to think that her eldest child, who should have the soonest chance to have a family, would have little time to do so.
She banished the thought from her mind. Now was not the time to mourn the situation. What had been done had been done, and Nikki was more than grateful to both her husband and her nephew in their successful attempt to free her daughter from the man who had destroyed her.
It was her turn to sigh then, in a way that very much mirrored him. "I can agree, we at least knew his endgame...we do not have that luxury here." That had been, to some degree, Balthasar, though with a different parentage. Even now, with the numerous assassination attempts on her son's life, Nikki still felt as though there were those out there who wanted to control him rather than kill him, and she could only surmise that they were the ones following closely to Theodor's original goal.
What she did not understand was why Sigyn and Freyr had simply...left him. They'd both had opportunities to take him if they so wished, Freyr especially, and yet...they hadn't. It left a prickle at the back of her mind saying that they were missing something, some vital piece of information that was beyond their reach. Even with Aryan as close to the center of things as he could get, they still could come up with nothing. It was rather infuriating.
She looked to her husband again, choosing instead, as she always did, to think of less dark things. "We can only do what we can do with the time and information we are given, nothing more. We have to make the best of it, and, if it is supposed to happen, it will. You just have to trust yourself, Jasper." She laced her fingers through his.
"I know I do."
She never ceased to amaze him. He was not so sure he could trust himself in the way she did, but he could trust her judgement, and if she believed in him, he would do his best to echo that. “I don’t like it,” he said simply, “but you are nevertheless correct as usual. Just… be careful, please. As much faith as I have in your strength, I am still afraid for you.” He was afraid for all of them, of course, but Nikki was the very center of his world, and there was no denying that though losing any of them would shake him to his core, losing her was the only thing that would utterly destroy him. They had spoken of these possibilities, of course, late at night and wrapped in each other, when they were close enough that the mere possibility did not shake them overmuch. So he knew that they were both resolved to live for their children if ever the time came when they should lose each other, but he knew even so beyond doubt that he would never be the same man without her. He could only be worse.
But he followed her example and moved his constantly-whirring mind to lighter thoughts, reaching up with his free hand to cradle her cheek. “But I trust you as well. Perhaps it is time I took a break from the planning.” Taking his mind off things for a while would help; it usually did. It was hard to find the time, but that was what he needed his family for, among other things—to remind him to do just that.
Nikki chuckled at that. "Frankly I think I'd have an easier time getting hurt if I were with the Twins." While it seemed she took it lightly, she knew very well what would happen to Jasper should anything other than the natural order of things happen to her, and even that was not going to be easy on him. She also knew what would happen to herself if she lost him. "Just know that I'm holding you to your promise, as well."
That first promise he'd made to her, when finally every last brick of the wall she'd formed around her heart had come down, and hadn't been afraid any more. She ran her hand through his hair again, smiling when he leaned into it. She leaned forward, fitting her mouth to his and murmuring afterwards, "Well then, it's a good thing I know how to be distracting then, isn't it?"
With a faint metallic ringing, the odachi slid home in the sheath over her back, and her fingers played absently at the hilt of the wakizashi for a moment. Both blades were sharpened to deadly efficiency, and so was she. Though Helen would perhaps never have a lot of spare anything on her figure, she had at least lost the sickly thinness she had sported up until several months ago, and had regained a considerable amount of lost muscle tone with hard training. It was now late March, and time for them all to depart. They’d had more time than they believed they would, in truth, but that time was up at last.
Alden Kuragari had shown up at her bedroom door that morning, her first mission in hand, and she understood what it meant. So would begin her work, alone, but for the same end as everyone else. She was not deluded about the nature of her tasks—she was being asked, once again, to kill. But this time, she did so in the service of something greater, something she wanted to protect, not something she was beholden to by telepathic control. Though she still did not understand why Theodor had released her when he did, nor what her strange dreams meant, she was coping with them as well as she could, and she would continue to do so.
She was useful and respected and perhaps even liked, and that meant more to her than she could properly express. So she would show it in this way, by doing what she could to ensure the safety and the victory of the people who had given her this. But before she did… there was one more person she needed to see. Helen had said her goodbyes to Yuki and Freya, as well as the rest of the family, but something had bid her keep this parting for last. Stopping for a moment at the desk of the study she currently occupied, her fingers brushed lightly over an ivory figure, and Helen castled her king, bulwarking it against possible assault. It felt strangely symbolic. She was to be that rook now, and put herself in harm’s way so that others may be safer.
Leaving the board, she proceeded down the hall and knocked twice on Aryan’s door. She could hear the sound of movement within, and supposed he must be packing, preparing to move to another location closer to the Council’s new meeting place. She would be the first to depart, but she would certainly not be the only one who did so soon.
Aryan sighed through his nose slightly, reading over the summons again. He was actually a bit surprised that the Council had not convened sooner, but he supposed it had to do with their sudden need to switch locations. He and Emrys would be leaving by the day's end, their destination a smal rural town outside of London. The Council had deemed it unwise to be based out of a large, well-known city. Aryan thought that it was stupid to say that and yet remain to close to one. But, he'd held his peace, like always.
He had been so absorbed in his own thoughts, that at first, he thought he'd imagined the knock on his door. With a cock of his head, one sniff told him otherwise, and a small smile appeared on his face. It was her. He still felt a twinge of disappointment that she would not be coming with him. Still, he answered the door, stepping aside if she wished o come in or remain where she was, it made little difference to him.
"Good afternoon, Helen." He took in her appearance, not overly surprised. "I see my cousin and I are not the only ones leaving today."
Hel inclined her head faintly, stepping inside and closing the door over, though she refrained from shutting it completely. She would admit to a lack of understanding regarding certain principles of propriety, but she observed them all the same, and somehow… it seemed like a good idea to do so here. “Indeed not,” she replied simply, then paused. “I will be in China for some time, I expect.” Alden was having her do a little… what was the word he used? Housecleaning. She wasn’t sure exactly what murdering people had to do with sweeping, as it tended to leave a bit of a mess, but she supposed it was simply an idiom.
She hesitated then, uncertain quite how she wanted to proceed. Her left hand curled into a loose fist, and her brow furrowed faintly as she tried to summon the right words from wherever such things were kept. They weren’t coming to her, but an idea did, and she held onto it for a moment, pondering its purpose, before deciding that she might as well. “If you do not mind, would you extend your arm towards me for a moment?” If she thought it was an odd request, she gave no indication, simply looking up at him expectantly. Or at least as expectantly as a visage as smooth and generally stoic as Helen’s really ever got.
Aryan watched her silently struggle with something, wondering slightly what was on her mind. He cocked his head to the side slightly and looked a bit confused, but nonetheless did as she asked of him. Now he was really wondering what was going through her mind. He could only assume it was something she'd seen others doing, yet had little idea of how to go about doing so herself, and as such, was unable to ask in what one considered a normal way. It was not that Aryan minded, rather; he quite enjoyed her take on things, it was quite refreshing.
For a moment, Helen just blinked down at the extended hand, second-guessing herself, but she’d decided she was going to do it, and so she would. Reaching up into her own hair, she tugged slightly at one of the ends of the ribbon that conventionally held back her tresses, loosening it such that it fell away into her hand. A few locks of silvery hair immediately found their way into her face, but she would correct that later. “I should not feel the need to tell you to be careful,” she said quietly. “You are always careful.” Though… the times he’d thrown himself in front of danger for Zero and then for herself flashed in her mind, and she amended her statement. “Almost.”
She paused, letting the strip of black velvet slide between her fingers a bit. “But I do feel the need all the same. Please be careful, Aryan. I would not…” she shook her head. That was a sentence she could not finish, largely because she did not know how she wanted to finish it. “Your family needs you. Also, I would not know what to do, if I lost you. I do not have many friends, and so I suppose I feel… like I want to protect the ones I do have.” She sensed that something wasn’t quite right with the sentiment as she expressed it, but it was as close as she could get.
Reaching out to his extended wrist, she carefully wrapped the ribbon around it, tying it in an easily-removable knot that would nevertheless hold until he wished to be rid of it. Swallowing a bit thickly, she tipped her head up to regard him steadily. He was very tall, compared to her, and she was conscious of this in a slightly different way than before, though she couldn’t name the difference. “I would consider it a personal favor if you would keep this for me, until I come back.” She hadn't noticed, but the fingers of both hands still rested gently on his arm.
Her way of speaking was something he had grown used to a number of years ago, and therefore, it did not surprise him. What did surprise him was the gesture, not to mention the fact that her touch sent little electrical sparks shooting up his arm. He'd not expected that, and it was not unpleasant, either. He was painfully aware of the slight reddening of his face at her touch, though he felt absurd. He simply could not fathom how something so innocent could elicit such a reaction.
Even so, he smiled down at her gently. She really was built rather small, and perhaps it was absurd of him to think so, considering how much older she was compared to him, but he found it rather endearing.
"I can promise you that this will not leave my side until such a day comes that I may give it back to you. I can also promise that I will be as careful as my position and work allows. While it would pain me to see you come to harm, it would wound me greater still to know that I was the cause, so I plan to do everything in my power to prevent that, Helen."
And that was when the strangest thing happened. Helen’s face, neutral in cast as if by default and rarely known to deviate from such a pattern save for the occasional hint of contemplation or the smallest of frowns, morphed into an expression she could not recall ever wearing.
She smiled.
Granted, it was not a grin, nor even what most people would recognize as a true smile, just a small tilt to her lips, but it was definitely in an upwards direction, and something about the usual flatness of her lilac irises gained a bit of shine, and it lent her entire face a softness it did not usually hold, like a curious kind of magic. It was suddenly just barely apparent what her life might have been like, if she were raised as other girls were raised and had learned to smile as naturally and as often as they did. But like many small and fragile things, it did not last long before it faded, and that hint as to what could have been was gone. “Thank you,” she said, though exactly what part of his statement it applied to was unclear.
It was only after she’d reflexively caressed his hand, running the fingers of her own left over his wrist and up his palm, that she realized she’d never dropped the arm, and he’d never pulled it away. Her eyes widened fractionally, and the light dusting of pink on her face matched his rather well. Why had she…? She let go, dropping her own arms back to her sides. “I suppose, then, that this is goodbye, for now.”
He did not miss the way she blushed when she realised that their hands had not lifted their contact, and something in his heart softened a little. He did not, however, mention it. While teasing was something he enjoyed with his cousins, it was not something he'd ever done with Helen. She probably wouldn't understand it anyway. Instead, he chose to smile at her again.
"Indeed it is goodbye. But only for now."
Alden Kuragari had shown up at her bedroom door that morning, her first mission in hand, and she understood what it meant. So would begin her work, alone, but for the same end as everyone else. She was not deluded about the nature of her tasks—she was being asked, once again, to kill. But this time, she did so in the service of something greater, something she wanted to protect, not something she was beholden to by telepathic control. Though she still did not understand why Theodor had released her when he did, nor what her strange dreams meant, she was coping with them as well as she could, and she would continue to do so.
She was useful and respected and perhaps even liked, and that meant more to her than she could properly express. So she would show it in this way, by doing what she could to ensure the safety and the victory of the people who had given her this. But before she did… there was one more person she needed to see. Helen had said her goodbyes to Yuki and Freya, as well as the rest of the family, but something had bid her keep this parting for last. Stopping for a moment at the desk of the study she currently occupied, her fingers brushed lightly over an ivory figure, and Helen castled her king, bulwarking it against possible assault. It felt strangely symbolic. She was to be that rook now, and put herself in harm’s way so that others may be safer.
Leaving the board, she proceeded down the hall and knocked twice on Aryan’s door. She could hear the sound of movement within, and supposed he must be packing, preparing to move to another location closer to the Council’s new meeting place. She would be the first to depart, but she would certainly not be the only one who did so soon.
Aryan sighed through his nose slightly, reading over the summons again. He was actually a bit surprised that the Council had not convened sooner, but he supposed it had to do with their sudden need to switch locations. He and Emrys would be leaving by the day's end, their destination a smal rural town outside of London. The Council had deemed it unwise to be based out of a large, well-known city. Aryan thought that it was stupid to say that and yet remain to close to one. But, he'd held his peace, like always.
He had been so absorbed in his own thoughts, that at first, he thought he'd imagined the knock on his door. With a cock of his head, one sniff told him otherwise, and a small smile appeared on his face. It was her. He still felt a twinge of disappointment that she would not be coming with him. Still, he answered the door, stepping aside if she wished o come in or remain where she was, it made little difference to him.
"Good afternoon, Helen." He took in her appearance, not overly surprised. "I see my cousin and I are not the only ones leaving today."
Hel inclined her head faintly, stepping inside and closing the door over, though she refrained from shutting it completely. She would admit to a lack of understanding regarding certain principles of propriety, but she observed them all the same, and somehow… it seemed like a good idea to do so here. “Indeed not,” she replied simply, then paused. “I will be in China for some time, I expect.” Alden was having her do a little… what was the word he used? Housecleaning. She wasn’t sure exactly what murdering people had to do with sweeping, as it tended to leave a bit of a mess, but she supposed it was simply an idiom.
She hesitated then, uncertain quite how she wanted to proceed. Her left hand curled into a loose fist, and her brow furrowed faintly as she tried to summon the right words from wherever such things were kept. They weren’t coming to her, but an idea did, and she held onto it for a moment, pondering its purpose, before deciding that she might as well. “If you do not mind, would you extend your arm towards me for a moment?” If she thought it was an odd request, she gave no indication, simply looking up at him expectantly. Or at least as expectantly as a visage as smooth and generally stoic as Helen’s really ever got.
Aryan watched her silently struggle with something, wondering slightly what was on her mind. He cocked his head to the side slightly and looked a bit confused, but nonetheless did as she asked of him. Now he was really wondering what was going through her mind. He could only assume it was something she'd seen others doing, yet had little idea of how to go about doing so herself, and as such, was unable to ask in what one considered a normal way. It was not that Aryan minded, rather; he quite enjoyed her take on things, it was quite refreshing.
For a moment, Helen just blinked down at the extended hand, second-guessing herself, but she’d decided she was going to do it, and so she would. Reaching up into her own hair, she tugged slightly at one of the ends of the ribbon that conventionally held back her tresses, loosening it such that it fell away into her hand. A few locks of silvery hair immediately found their way into her face, but she would correct that later. “I should not feel the need to tell you to be careful,” she said quietly. “You are always careful.” Though… the times he’d thrown himself in front of danger for Zero and then for herself flashed in her mind, and she amended her statement. “Almost.”
She paused, letting the strip of black velvet slide between her fingers a bit. “But I do feel the need all the same. Please be careful, Aryan. I would not…” she shook her head. That was a sentence she could not finish, largely because she did not know how she wanted to finish it. “Your family needs you. Also, I would not know what to do, if I lost you. I do not have many friends, and so I suppose I feel… like I want to protect the ones I do have.” She sensed that something wasn’t quite right with the sentiment as she expressed it, but it was as close as she could get.
Reaching out to his extended wrist, she carefully wrapped the ribbon around it, tying it in an easily-removable knot that would nevertheless hold until he wished to be rid of it. Swallowing a bit thickly, she tipped her head up to regard him steadily. He was very tall, compared to her, and she was conscious of this in a slightly different way than before, though she couldn’t name the difference. “I would consider it a personal favor if you would keep this for me, until I come back.” She hadn't noticed, but the fingers of both hands still rested gently on his arm.
Her way of speaking was something he had grown used to a number of years ago, and therefore, it did not surprise him. What did surprise him was the gesture, not to mention the fact that her touch sent little electrical sparks shooting up his arm. He'd not expected that, and it was not unpleasant, either. He was painfully aware of the slight reddening of his face at her touch, though he felt absurd. He simply could not fathom how something so innocent could elicit such a reaction.
Even so, he smiled down at her gently. She really was built rather small, and perhaps it was absurd of him to think so, considering how much older she was compared to him, but he found it rather endearing.
"I can promise you that this will not leave my side until such a day comes that I may give it back to you. I can also promise that I will be as careful as my position and work allows. While it would pain me to see you come to harm, it would wound me greater still to know that I was the cause, so I plan to do everything in my power to prevent that, Helen."
And that was when the strangest thing happened. Helen’s face, neutral in cast as if by default and rarely known to deviate from such a pattern save for the occasional hint of contemplation or the smallest of frowns, morphed into an expression she could not recall ever wearing.
She smiled.
Granted, it was not a grin, nor even what most people would recognize as a true smile, just a small tilt to her lips, but it was definitely in an upwards direction, and something about the usual flatness of her lilac irises gained a bit of shine, and it lent her entire face a softness it did not usually hold, like a curious kind of magic. It was suddenly just barely apparent what her life might have been like, if she were raised as other girls were raised and had learned to smile as naturally and as often as they did. But like many small and fragile things, it did not last long before it faded, and that hint as to what could have been was gone. “Thank you,” she said, though exactly what part of his statement it applied to was unclear.
It was only after she’d reflexively caressed his hand, running the fingers of her own left over his wrist and up his palm, that she realized she’d never dropped the arm, and he’d never pulled it away. Her eyes widened fractionally, and the light dusting of pink on her face matched his rather well. Why had she…? She let go, dropping her own arms back to her sides. “I suppose, then, that this is goodbye, for now.”
He did not miss the way she blushed when she realised that their hands had not lifted their contact, and something in his heart softened a little. He did not, however, mention it. While teasing was something he enjoyed with his cousins, it was not something he'd ever done with Helen. She probably wouldn't understand it anyway. Instead, he chose to smile at her again.
"Indeed it is goodbye. But only for now."
It had not been how he had planned it, but then, fate had a way of turning all the Alistair men's plans on their asses and leaving them in the dust. At least, that's what his father said, and he was fairly certain he understood that now. Their year had been shortened considerably thanks to the war, and now, he, his brother and sister, their mother, and Aryan were all headed back to Europe. Aryan and Emrys had things regarding the Council, and himself, his twin, and his mother were to try and help stem the flow of onslaught that had recently erupted.
As such, since they were leaving this afternoon, it was now or never to end the challenge, and he didn't feel like dealing with Aryan, or the questions he was certain to elicit from his mother and siblings, by asking for an extension. He sighed through his nose, tracking her to the gardens. The air was chill, but not overly so, the first vestiges of spring wresting from winter's grasp.
"I daresay you've been hiding from me, little lioness." He said with that telltale Alistair grin.
The beginning of spring had brought life to the slumbering Kuragari gardens, and Leora was intent on enjoying it for as long as possible. She was presently laying sideways on one of the benches, content to be surrounded by the scents of springtime flowers, at least until his scent became laced in with them, at which point, she opened her eyes and glanced over at him, smiling a little. She had been avoiding him, though given the size of the mansion, that would have been impossible if he really wanted to find her. There had, of course, been a few more run-ins since Christmas, and though none of them had been quite as pitched as that one, she felt a little more of her thread of control over herself slipping every time. She wondered if his was deteriorating as quickly.
But she’d been told today that she’d be leaving in another few hours, along with Aunt Nikki, Yuki, and her brother Zero. She was going to miss everyone else, but she was glad at least that she’d be with some of them—especially her brother. She didn’t much relish the idea of being away from him for too long, and she was glad to be able to look out for Yuki as well, though she knew enough to know that such an arrangement was definitely mutual. “You seem awfully fond of calling me that,” she said, dropping her voice into a purr just because it fit the theme. “And here I thought you despised cats…” She was aware of the fact that her current position of laying on the bench was somewhat disadvantageous, but she found it oddly hard to care at the moment. This was the last day possible, and he’d sought her out… she was curious as to what he would do.
Keir smirked slightly, eyeing her position on the bench, and then, just because he felt like it, he laid down on the ground below her. This forced him to look up at her, his hands laced behind his head. The grin never left his face. "There seems to be one cat I don't seem to mind, surprisingly. If you recall, I've called you something else before as well. Kazu-mi. Do you know what it means?"
When she only blinked down at him, he chuckled and continued. "I figured you didn't. It's Japanese for Beautiful One, or One of Beauty." He reached up, catching a stray lock of her hair and allowing it to slip through his fingers. His eyes caught hers again. "Do you recall what I told you at our last run-in at Cross?"
Leora smiled, turning onto her side on the bench such that the waist-length cascade of her hair hit the ground below her, raising a brow as he reached over to toy with a few of the strands. She shook her head and rolled right off the bench, landing with an easy sort of grace on her hands and knees. “I think,” she said with a playful sort of tone, “That the last time we were alone at Cross, I was punching you repeatedly and you thanked me for it. You’re almost as much of a masochist as your father, I think. …Though not as much as your brother, if he’s really going to get involved with Vi.” Her eyes glittered with amusement, but she did in fact know which encounter he was actually talking about, though she pretended to ponder it a little longer, moving so that she swung a leg over his waist and braced her hands on his chest.
“I believe you insinuated that you didn’t care whether you won or lost, but I think I might have to call foul play on that one, dear cousin, because I have given you plenty of chances to lose with your dignity intact. And you know me,” She lowered herself such that her mouth was at his ear, exhaling heatedly onto the shell of it. “I do like to win.” The phrase was breathed so softly it was almost part of the exhale, but the words were still intelligible. And then, because she’d thought about this perhaps a little more than she should have, she bit teasingly at the juncture between his neck and jaw, then soothed the small sting by running her tongue over it, because neither of those things constituted a kiss. And because she really, really wanted to see what he looked like when he was incredibly bothered, so to speak.
Keir didn't even bother trying to suppress the shudder that ran through him at her touch. There was no reason to, for once this was over with, one way or another she would understand exactly how he felt about her. His eyes blazed electric blue as he gazed up at her, his hands running from her waist and up her sides. There was a glimmer of something in his gaze, something crossed between need and desire. Whether she knew it or not, she was unraveling him, thread by thread.
"You do like to win, you always have. So have I, and yet, I cannot help but feel as though I'm not losing if I lose to you. And maybe that's because I lost this particular battle a long time ago, Leora."
He sat up then, closing the space between their faces where nothing more than their noses was left between them. His eyes slipped closed as he wrapped an arm around her waist, the other hand finding its way into her hair. There was a slight smirk on his face and he chuckled lightly.
"When it comes to you, kazu-mi, not even all the dignity in the world could save me, for I have none. For all my pride, I am utterly at the mercy of one person, and that is something I both fear and despise, yet live for all the same. Because that person is you."
There was no more waiting, and he couldn't even if he'd tried to. There was still that chance, that small sliver of fear there in the back of his mind that she would reject him, and if she did, then so be it. He tilted his head ever so slightly, capturing her lips with his own, softly, teasingly.
For all her subtlety, for all her canny intelligence, his words took an awfully long time to process, and she was honestly still trying to decide what he really meant by them when his lips brushed hers, bringing the train of thought to an abrupt halt and replacing all of them, not with the smug pleasure of a victory hard earned, but a single, rather surprising word: finally. Finally, he was kissing her, like that was what she’d been waiting for the whole time, and not the resolution of a lifelong rivalry. Like this was the part that mattered.
There was maybe something she was forgetting right now that should have caused her to hesitate, to pull back, to laugh it off as a game well-played by both parties, but for the life of her she could not remember it, because his hand was in her hair and his arm around her waist, and the touch of his mouth on hers was simply divine, and so she barely remembered to breathe, let alone why she should not be doing this. Leo hummed a contented note in the back of her throat and leaned into the kiss, for the moment abandoning all sense of subtlety and illusion and simply taking what she hadn’t quite understood she wanted. Her arms twined around his neck, and she pressed herself to him, molding the curves that were hers against the angles that were his, not even truly surprised by how well it all fit.
What was light and affectionate, she deepened until its character was entirely different, something fierce and yet just a bit contained, the sensual slide of tongues against one another enough to steal her breath. There was something she was forgetting… but why did she care? Her fingers caressed the back of his neck before she slid them upwards into his hair. She’s always loved his hair. White, soft, and just a little unruly, it suited him so well, and one of the things she would never regret about this challenge was that she’d gotten to touch it basically whenever she wanted, the usual rules and boundaries about such things being rather null, at least for the past few months.
Her reaction surprised him somewhat, but if anything, Keir was not one to complain. Still, he was fairly certain that she had not completely processed what he'd said, if indeed she'd processed it at all. The way she molded her body into his only confirmed his suspicion. Where some may have been disappointed at that, it only made him want to laugh, because it was exactly who she was.
Sometimes her brain had to catch up with what her body and heart were doing. He figured he should also help her along with that, and so with more than a little reluctance, he pulled away from her, trying to ignore the fact that, for the moment, neither of them could breathe as easily as they could a few minutes ago.
"Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that means you won. Of course, you did kiss me back, with much more heat than I you. I'm half tempted to call it a draw."
Her enthusiasm had rather gotten away from her, and though Leora never blushed, she was the faintest shade of pink when he extricated himself from the kiss, which naturally immediately forced her on the defensive as far as the little verbal jab went. She hadn’t counted on that being her own reaction—apparently, he’d done no shoddy job seducing her, even if the challenge was her victory in the end. Right. The challenge. She needed to get her thoughts back in order. Of course, naturally the first thing she did was fire back at him. “It is most certainly not a draw,” she said imperiously, shoving lightly at his chest. “Heat or no, I’m not the one who just admitted that I—”
And that was when the realization came crashing back in. He hadn’t said the words, but he might as well have. He’d just… he… Leora’s eyes widened, the red color of them managing to look oddly wounded by something, and she swallowed thickly, nervously, shaking her head just slightly. “Oh no. Please no. Don’t tell me that, Keir. Tell me anything but that.” He could tell her he was playing her the whole time, that he felt nothing, that he reviled her, and it would hurt less than this. Because it was the one sentiment she would never allow herself to return. She couldn’t, not after what had happened the last time.
Letting out a noise that sounded depressingly like a small, hurt animal, Leo leaned her head against his chest, clutching his shirt in both. It was so unfair. If she’d just never met Alexander, this could have been perfect. It could have been everything she’d ever wanted and some things she’d never thought she would. Now… it was like showing someone the door to happiness, but leaving it locked. And why now? She closed her eyes against the heat building behind them, but she still shuddered, almost as though from cold. “You don’t understand. I’m not… I’m damaged goods, Keir, and gods know you deserve more than that. I can’t… I can’t subject you to me, knowing that.”
Shocked was perhaps not the right word to describe what Keir felt. Hurt, perhaps? Well, a part of him did, but that wasn't all of it, either. "Leora..." he murmured softly, wrapping his arms around her.
He had no idea what had happened to her, or what exactly she meant by damaged goods, but he had a rough idea, and that...made him unbearably angry, just the thought of anyone else even touching her. "You're wrong, you know. You're not damaged goods. You're a person, not a piece of property." She also was not subjecting him to anything, it was his choice. She wasn't forcing him to do anything. He sighed softly.
"I'm sorry, Leora."
She knew, on some level, that he was right, that the way she spoke of herself was not the right way to be thinking, but even that was not enough to shake it from her mind. She’d been trying, for so very long, keeping this secret from everyone but her mother, from whom she could keep nothing, Alden, who’d known right away and nearly attacked Alexander, and from Rica, who’d needed to hear it. And now him. Somehow, she wanted him to know it least of all, but… she also needed him to know, so that he would at least understand that this coldhearted horrible thing she had to do had nothing to do with him at all.
Part of her felt wrong, lingering in his embrace, especially now that she knew how he felt. It seemed to her like using him, and that was something she would never want to do. So, with great care and great reluctance both, she extracted herself from his hold and stood, taking a deep breath to steady herself. Her voice still sounded tremulous when she spoke, and the hated that, but she just had to deal with it. “I’m sorry, too, Keir.” And she was. Sorry for what she was, sorry that this game had turned into something that wasn’t a game anymore, sorry that they’d even started playing it when he had real feelings. If she’d just have known… she would never have played at all.
Because, she was pretty sure she had real feelings, too, even if they weren’t quite the same as his. With just a little more, they could be. But she wouldn’t do that to either of them. Not now. And she was sorry for this, too. Closing her eyes and swallowing, Leora gathered her courage and walked away. It was the best thing to do, the only thing she could do… so why did it have to hurt so much?
As such, since they were leaving this afternoon, it was now or never to end the challenge, and he didn't feel like dealing with Aryan, or the questions he was certain to elicit from his mother and siblings, by asking for an extension. He sighed through his nose, tracking her to the gardens. The air was chill, but not overly so, the first vestiges of spring wresting from winter's grasp.
"I daresay you've been hiding from me, little lioness." He said with that telltale Alistair grin.
The beginning of spring had brought life to the slumbering Kuragari gardens, and Leora was intent on enjoying it for as long as possible. She was presently laying sideways on one of the benches, content to be surrounded by the scents of springtime flowers, at least until his scent became laced in with them, at which point, she opened her eyes and glanced over at him, smiling a little. She had been avoiding him, though given the size of the mansion, that would have been impossible if he really wanted to find her. There had, of course, been a few more run-ins since Christmas, and though none of them had been quite as pitched as that one, she felt a little more of her thread of control over herself slipping every time. She wondered if his was deteriorating as quickly.
But she’d been told today that she’d be leaving in another few hours, along with Aunt Nikki, Yuki, and her brother Zero. She was going to miss everyone else, but she was glad at least that she’d be with some of them—especially her brother. She didn’t much relish the idea of being away from him for too long, and she was glad to be able to look out for Yuki as well, though she knew enough to know that such an arrangement was definitely mutual. “You seem awfully fond of calling me that,” she said, dropping her voice into a purr just because it fit the theme. “And here I thought you despised cats…” She was aware of the fact that her current position of laying on the bench was somewhat disadvantageous, but she found it oddly hard to care at the moment. This was the last day possible, and he’d sought her out… she was curious as to what he would do.
Keir smirked slightly, eyeing her position on the bench, and then, just because he felt like it, he laid down on the ground below her. This forced him to look up at her, his hands laced behind his head. The grin never left his face. "There seems to be one cat I don't seem to mind, surprisingly. If you recall, I've called you something else before as well. Kazu-mi. Do you know what it means?"
When she only blinked down at him, he chuckled and continued. "I figured you didn't. It's Japanese for Beautiful One, or One of Beauty." He reached up, catching a stray lock of her hair and allowing it to slip through his fingers. His eyes caught hers again. "Do you recall what I told you at our last run-in at Cross?"
Leora smiled, turning onto her side on the bench such that the waist-length cascade of her hair hit the ground below her, raising a brow as he reached over to toy with a few of the strands. She shook her head and rolled right off the bench, landing with an easy sort of grace on her hands and knees. “I think,” she said with a playful sort of tone, “That the last time we were alone at Cross, I was punching you repeatedly and you thanked me for it. You’re almost as much of a masochist as your father, I think. …Though not as much as your brother, if he’s really going to get involved with Vi.” Her eyes glittered with amusement, but she did in fact know which encounter he was actually talking about, though she pretended to ponder it a little longer, moving so that she swung a leg over his waist and braced her hands on his chest.
“I believe you insinuated that you didn’t care whether you won or lost, but I think I might have to call foul play on that one, dear cousin, because I have given you plenty of chances to lose with your dignity intact. And you know me,” She lowered herself such that her mouth was at his ear, exhaling heatedly onto the shell of it. “I do like to win.” The phrase was breathed so softly it was almost part of the exhale, but the words were still intelligible. And then, because she’d thought about this perhaps a little more than she should have, she bit teasingly at the juncture between his neck and jaw, then soothed the small sting by running her tongue over it, because neither of those things constituted a kiss. And because she really, really wanted to see what he looked like when he was incredibly bothered, so to speak.
Keir didn't even bother trying to suppress the shudder that ran through him at her touch. There was no reason to, for once this was over with, one way or another she would understand exactly how he felt about her. His eyes blazed electric blue as he gazed up at her, his hands running from her waist and up her sides. There was a glimmer of something in his gaze, something crossed between need and desire. Whether she knew it or not, she was unraveling him, thread by thread.
"You do like to win, you always have. So have I, and yet, I cannot help but feel as though I'm not losing if I lose to you. And maybe that's because I lost this particular battle a long time ago, Leora."
He sat up then, closing the space between their faces where nothing more than their noses was left between them. His eyes slipped closed as he wrapped an arm around her waist, the other hand finding its way into her hair. There was a slight smirk on his face and he chuckled lightly.
"When it comes to you, kazu-mi, not even all the dignity in the world could save me, for I have none. For all my pride, I am utterly at the mercy of one person, and that is something I both fear and despise, yet live for all the same. Because that person is you."
There was no more waiting, and he couldn't even if he'd tried to. There was still that chance, that small sliver of fear there in the back of his mind that she would reject him, and if she did, then so be it. He tilted his head ever so slightly, capturing her lips with his own, softly, teasingly.
For all her subtlety, for all her canny intelligence, his words took an awfully long time to process, and she was honestly still trying to decide what he really meant by them when his lips brushed hers, bringing the train of thought to an abrupt halt and replacing all of them, not with the smug pleasure of a victory hard earned, but a single, rather surprising word: finally. Finally, he was kissing her, like that was what she’d been waiting for the whole time, and not the resolution of a lifelong rivalry. Like this was the part that mattered.
There was maybe something she was forgetting right now that should have caused her to hesitate, to pull back, to laugh it off as a game well-played by both parties, but for the life of her she could not remember it, because his hand was in her hair and his arm around her waist, and the touch of his mouth on hers was simply divine, and so she barely remembered to breathe, let alone why she should not be doing this. Leo hummed a contented note in the back of her throat and leaned into the kiss, for the moment abandoning all sense of subtlety and illusion and simply taking what she hadn’t quite understood she wanted. Her arms twined around his neck, and she pressed herself to him, molding the curves that were hers against the angles that were his, not even truly surprised by how well it all fit.
What was light and affectionate, she deepened until its character was entirely different, something fierce and yet just a bit contained, the sensual slide of tongues against one another enough to steal her breath. There was something she was forgetting… but why did she care? Her fingers caressed the back of his neck before she slid them upwards into his hair. She’s always loved his hair. White, soft, and just a little unruly, it suited him so well, and one of the things she would never regret about this challenge was that she’d gotten to touch it basically whenever she wanted, the usual rules and boundaries about such things being rather null, at least for the past few months.
Her reaction surprised him somewhat, but if anything, Keir was not one to complain. Still, he was fairly certain that she had not completely processed what he'd said, if indeed she'd processed it at all. The way she molded her body into his only confirmed his suspicion. Where some may have been disappointed at that, it only made him want to laugh, because it was exactly who she was.
Sometimes her brain had to catch up with what her body and heart were doing. He figured he should also help her along with that, and so with more than a little reluctance, he pulled away from her, trying to ignore the fact that, for the moment, neither of them could breathe as easily as they could a few minutes ago.
"Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that means you won. Of course, you did kiss me back, with much more heat than I you. I'm half tempted to call it a draw."
Her enthusiasm had rather gotten away from her, and though Leora never blushed, she was the faintest shade of pink when he extricated himself from the kiss, which naturally immediately forced her on the defensive as far as the little verbal jab went. She hadn’t counted on that being her own reaction—apparently, he’d done no shoddy job seducing her, even if the challenge was her victory in the end. Right. The challenge. She needed to get her thoughts back in order. Of course, naturally the first thing she did was fire back at him. “It is most certainly not a draw,” she said imperiously, shoving lightly at his chest. “Heat or no, I’m not the one who just admitted that I—”
And that was when the realization came crashing back in. He hadn’t said the words, but he might as well have. He’d just… he… Leora’s eyes widened, the red color of them managing to look oddly wounded by something, and she swallowed thickly, nervously, shaking her head just slightly. “Oh no. Please no. Don’t tell me that, Keir. Tell me anything but that.” He could tell her he was playing her the whole time, that he felt nothing, that he reviled her, and it would hurt less than this. Because it was the one sentiment she would never allow herself to return. She couldn’t, not after what had happened the last time.
Letting out a noise that sounded depressingly like a small, hurt animal, Leo leaned her head against his chest, clutching his shirt in both. It was so unfair. If she’d just never met Alexander, this could have been perfect. It could have been everything she’d ever wanted and some things she’d never thought she would. Now… it was like showing someone the door to happiness, but leaving it locked. And why now? She closed her eyes against the heat building behind them, but she still shuddered, almost as though from cold. “You don’t understand. I’m not… I’m damaged goods, Keir, and gods know you deserve more than that. I can’t… I can’t subject you to me, knowing that.”
Shocked was perhaps not the right word to describe what Keir felt. Hurt, perhaps? Well, a part of him did, but that wasn't all of it, either. "Leora..." he murmured softly, wrapping his arms around her.
He had no idea what had happened to her, or what exactly she meant by damaged goods, but he had a rough idea, and that...made him unbearably angry, just the thought of anyone else even touching her. "You're wrong, you know. You're not damaged goods. You're a person, not a piece of property." She also was not subjecting him to anything, it was his choice. She wasn't forcing him to do anything. He sighed softly.
"I'm sorry, Leora."
She knew, on some level, that he was right, that the way she spoke of herself was not the right way to be thinking, but even that was not enough to shake it from her mind. She’d been trying, for so very long, keeping this secret from everyone but her mother, from whom she could keep nothing, Alden, who’d known right away and nearly attacked Alexander, and from Rica, who’d needed to hear it. And now him. Somehow, she wanted him to know it least of all, but… she also needed him to know, so that he would at least understand that this coldhearted horrible thing she had to do had nothing to do with him at all.
Part of her felt wrong, lingering in his embrace, especially now that she knew how he felt. It seemed to her like using him, and that was something she would never want to do. So, with great care and great reluctance both, she extracted herself from his hold and stood, taking a deep breath to steady herself. Her voice still sounded tremulous when she spoke, and the hated that, but she just had to deal with it. “I’m sorry, too, Keir.” And she was. Sorry for what she was, sorry that this game had turned into something that wasn’t a game anymore, sorry that they’d even started playing it when he had real feelings. If she’d just have known… she would never have played at all.
Because, she was pretty sure she had real feelings, too, even if they weren’t quite the same as his. With just a little more, they could be. But she wouldn’t do that to either of them. Not now. And she was sorry for this, too. Closing her eyes and swallowing, Leora gathered her courage and walked away. It was the best thing to do, the only thing she could do… so why did it have to hurt so much?
This was it. Today, they all left to go take the field against the Council and the Pantheon and the more militant Hunters as well. In one sense, Balthasar was almost relieved. It would be nice to feel like he was pulling his weight in the war for once, but even he was not fool enough to believe that he would truly enjoy it. Fighting, he liked, because it was the testing of one person’s skill against another’s. But what he was going to be doing, touring the bloodiest parts of the world alongside his father and his Uncle Vincent, that wasn’t fighting.
It was going to be nothing short of slaughter.
The thought made him uncomfortable, and he knew that his relatives didn’t like it any more than he did, but the role they filled was a necessary one. Just as necessary as Helen’s contract killing and Alden’s spying and Ary’s work with the Council. All of it had to be done, so that one day, there wouldn’t be any more of it to do. So that the world could start over free of the ugly ambitions of a few, and those that were left could rebuild their lives. Maybe one day, he’d be able to build a life and a family as well, though admittedly, such a day seemed a long way off. It always had—not even Elizabeth had changed that. There was just too much death in his world for him to really imagine simply living a life. Sometimes, his father’s face grew wistful when he remembered times without war. Balthasar had never really known a time without war.
He heaved a sigh, scrubbing both hands over his face and shaking his head as if to clear the errant thoughts out of it. His lances and a small bag of his possessions lay against one wall of the small spare sitting room he occupied, but there were still a few hours before he had to leave. As usual, he was early. Unusually, he had nothing to really do to fill his time. He’d managed to catch most of his relatives already, sparing his immediate family, and he knew they were all gathering later. He’d been unable to find Rica, but at the very least, he’d left Keir a goodbye to pass along to her. She didn’t ever seem to be around where he was, lately, and he almost thought she might be avoiding him again, except that they were often at least in groups at the same time, and nothing seemed to have changed there.
Alarica stared at Ulrik, pulling the blade up to her as she continued to brandish it. They were all leaving, going to various parts of the world for battle. A smirk had tugged at her lips at first, knowing she was going to be with her mother and her twin, however; it had twisted into a frown. She'd be away from the rest of her family, and though she had already spoke her parting words to the rest of her family save for one person. She sighed heavily at that thought. She hadn't ignored him, but she avoided him. She didn't do it on purpose per se, but she wanted to.
She didn't know if she had it in her to say goodbye to him. There were a lot of scenarios that had plagued her mind, some that were not pleasant, and others that were a little questionable. Angelus stared at his master, his head tilted to the side as he lay on the bed. "You will regret it if you do not at least say goodbye, Lari," he spoke, his tails swaying back and forth as Alarica pulled her lips back. He was right though, she would regret it if she didn't at least say that. Pushing herself from her bed, she placed Ulrik at her back in his holster, waiting as Angelus landed upon her shoulder.
"That is all I am saying, Angelus. You speak a word about anything," she spoke, glancing at her familiar who shook his head. Nodding her acknowledgement, she began wandering the estate, shifting through the scents to find his. She eventually found him in the spare sitting room, his weapons and bags already in place. She shook her head, tempted to just leave without saying anything, but the feeling kept nagging at the back of her mind, and so she forced herself into the room. She took a seat across from him, crossing one leg over the other, and folded her arms in front of her.
"So, today's the day, huh," she spoke, finally breaking the silence that reigned between them. "You'll be going with Uncle Vincent and Jasper," she stated, trying to keep herself from fidgeting slightly.
As it usually did, his troubled expression broke into a smile when she appeared, and he tilted his head inquisitively to the side when she sat down. Still, like his father, Balthasar was a person with a lot of patience, and though he could tell she wanted to say something, he didn’t press her about it. When she did speak, he inclined his head in a short nod. “Yeah. I guess we’re headed to Romania first, but you guys are probably going to be closer to Spain, dad says.” He pursed his lips, leaning forward a little with a short sigh and propping his elbows on his knees, though he still wore a faint smile.
He didn’t like the idea of being separated from his family—he never had. But it pulled at him especially now, when there was no telling just when any of them would see each other next, or if they’d see each other again at all. The realization that this could well be the last time he ever looked at or spoke with Alarica hit him suddenly and with the force of a ton of lead. It was quite quickly very hard to even breathe, and for a moment, his breaths simply ceased, as though the enormity of the thought alone might well be enough to kill him.
Balthasar’s lips parted, and honestly, he didn’t do a lot of mental filtering when it came to what he said next—he just sort of blurted. “I’ll miss you, Rica. I don’t know if I ever made up for whatever I did, but… it’s been really great being able to talk to you again for the last half a year. I just want you to know that… I’m really honestly proud of you, and how strong you’ve become, and I… I believe in you, you know? You’ll get through this just fine.” Of course, when Balthasar didn't filter, he tended to ramble, and he cut himself off with a self-effacing smile, shaking his head slightly. He couldn’t let himself think too hard about losing her, because he had to believe that she’d make it. That they all would.
Alarica couldn't help but crack a small smile. It never failed, in his presence her lips always had a mind of their own. "Yeah, Spain. It's close to Italy, which I'll actually enjoy seeing for the first time, maybe brush up on my Italian or Spanish," she half chided, however; the smile that had been present on her face had all but disappeared when he spoke. He'd miss her? She was almost tempted...so very tempted, but she kept herself calm for the most part. Instead, she took his hands into hers, rubbing her thumb softly over it as she took a slow breath.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Balthasar. I told you that it wasn't your fault, and I meant it. There is no reason for you to say that," she spoke, her lips pursed into a fine line. She felt bad about ignoring him for those three years, and to hear him say that, it only caused her heart to clench painfully. It was, after all, mainly her fault. "It was my fault, it was a problem I had to sort out, and I did...I think," she spoke, shaking her head softly before releasing his hands.
"I'm going to miss you too," she spoke, her voice a bit lower than a whisper. She reached over, grabbing his shoulders softly before wrapping her arms around them, embracing him softly as she laid her head against his shoulder. "But like you said, we'll make it through this. I am an Alistair after all," she stated, pulling back from the embrace, the trademark smirk appearing back on her lips.
He chuckled softly at her comment about being an Alistair—they really were tough people, that much was for sure. He’d wrapped his arms around her shoulders and upper back, and he gave a brief squeeze before letting go when she pulled back, tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear. “That’s my Rica,” he said with a grin, shaking his head faintly. A stray thought struck him then, and he held up one of his hands, all his fingers save the last folded against his hand. “Remember these?” he asked, referring to the childhood promises one made in such a way. She’d taken to extracting them from him somewhere around the age of eight, and he’d always had a hard time refusing her.
“Make me a promise this time?” he asked, and though he still smiled, his tone was surprisingly serious. “Come back in one piece, okay?” He extended his hand halfway into the distance between them, meeting her eyes with an expectant arch to his brow. It was a small thing, and a silly one, even, but then… sometimes, things were too heavy to say any way but lightly. Neither of them needed heartfelt words about trying to stay alive, because they’d be getting plenty of them. But this, a simple promise given in the manner of children… this he felt he could ask for.
Alarica shook her head, the smirk turning into a smile before she blinked at Balthasar. He held up one of his hands, closing his fingers and extending his pinky out towards her. She tilted her head slightly confused until he spoke. The smile on her face would have grown had she not thinned them into a fine line. The air had turned serious in a matter of seconds, her eyes faintly dimming. Of course she remembered them. How could she forget? It was at a time in her life where she had always wanted him to make her a promise, and also an excuse just to hold his hand, partially.
"I promise to come back, though I can't say it'll be one piece, I do promise I will come back alive," she stated, taking his pinky with her own. "Just...take care of yourself Bally. I can't imagine what it would be like without you," she spoke, the worry carried through her tone. She really couldn't imagine a world without him in it. It was hard enought knowing that she was going to be away from him for who knew how long. At least the three years she ignored him, she was still near him. He'd be okay though. He was Balthasar, he would always be Balthasar.
It was going to be nothing short of slaughter.
The thought made him uncomfortable, and he knew that his relatives didn’t like it any more than he did, but the role they filled was a necessary one. Just as necessary as Helen’s contract killing and Alden’s spying and Ary’s work with the Council. All of it had to be done, so that one day, there wouldn’t be any more of it to do. So that the world could start over free of the ugly ambitions of a few, and those that were left could rebuild their lives. Maybe one day, he’d be able to build a life and a family as well, though admittedly, such a day seemed a long way off. It always had—not even Elizabeth had changed that. There was just too much death in his world for him to really imagine simply living a life. Sometimes, his father’s face grew wistful when he remembered times without war. Balthasar had never really known a time without war.
He heaved a sigh, scrubbing both hands over his face and shaking his head as if to clear the errant thoughts out of it. His lances and a small bag of his possessions lay against one wall of the small spare sitting room he occupied, but there were still a few hours before he had to leave. As usual, he was early. Unusually, he had nothing to really do to fill his time. He’d managed to catch most of his relatives already, sparing his immediate family, and he knew they were all gathering later. He’d been unable to find Rica, but at the very least, he’d left Keir a goodbye to pass along to her. She didn’t ever seem to be around where he was, lately, and he almost thought she might be avoiding him again, except that they were often at least in groups at the same time, and nothing seemed to have changed there.
Alarica stared at Ulrik, pulling the blade up to her as she continued to brandish it. They were all leaving, going to various parts of the world for battle. A smirk had tugged at her lips at first, knowing she was going to be with her mother and her twin, however; it had twisted into a frown. She'd be away from the rest of her family, and though she had already spoke her parting words to the rest of her family save for one person. She sighed heavily at that thought. She hadn't ignored him, but she avoided him. She didn't do it on purpose per se, but she wanted to.
She didn't know if she had it in her to say goodbye to him. There were a lot of scenarios that had plagued her mind, some that were not pleasant, and others that were a little questionable. Angelus stared at his master, his head tilted to the side as he lay on the bed. "You will regret it if you do not at least say goodbye, Lari," he spoke, his tails swaying back and forth as Alarica pulled her lips back. He was right though, she would regret it if she didn't at least say that. Pushing herself from her bed, she placed Ulrik at her back in his holster, waiting as Angelus landed upon her shoulder.
"That is all I am saying, Angelus. You speak a word about anything," she spoke, glancing at her familiar who shook his head. Nodding her acknowledgement, she began wandering the estate, shifting through the scents to find his. She eventually found him in the spare sitting room, his weapons and bags already in place. She shook her head, tempted to just leave without saying anything, but the feeling kept nagging at the back of her mind, and so she forced herself into the room. She took a seat across from him, crossing one leg over the other, and folded her arms in front of her.
"So, today's the day, huh," she spoke, finally breaking the silence that reigned between them. "You'll be going with Uncle Vincent and Jasper," she stated, trying to keep herself from fidgeting slightly.
As it usually did, his troubled expression broke into a smile when she appeared, and he tilted his head inquisitively to the side when she sat down. Still, like his father, Balthasar was a person with a lot of patience, and though he could tell she wanted to say something, he didn’t press her about it. When she did speak, he inclined his head in a short nod. “Yeah. I guess we’re headed to Romania first, but you guys are probably going to be closer to Spain, dad says.” He pursed his lips, leaning forward a little with a short sigh and propping his elbows on his knees, though he still wore a faint smile.
He didn’t like the idea of being separated from his family—he never had. But it pulled at him especially now, when there was no telling just when any of them would see each other next, or if they’d see each other again at all. The realization that this could well be the last time he ever looked at or spoke with Alarica hit him suddenly and with the force of a ton of lead. It was quite quickly very hard to even breathe, and for a moment, his breaths simply ceased, as though the enormity of the thought alone might well be enough to kill him.
Balthasar’s lips parted, and honestly, he didn’t do a lot of mental filtering when it came to what he said next—he just sort of blurted. “I’ll miss you, Rica. I don’t know if I ever made up for whatever I did, but… it’s been really great being able to talk to you again for the last half a year. I just want you to know that… I’m really honestly proud of you, and how strong you’ve become, and I… I believe in you, you know? You’ll get through this just fine.” Of course, when Balthasar didn't filter, he tended to ramble, and he cut himself off with a self-effacing smile, shaking his head slightly. He couldn’t let himself think too hard about losing her, because he had to believe that she’d make it. That they all would.
Alarica couldn't help but crack a small smile. It never failed, in his presence her lips always had a mind of their own. "Yeah, Spain. It's close to Italy, which I'll actually enjoy seeing for the first time, maybe brush up on my Italian or Spanish," she half chided, however; the smile that had been present on her face had all but disappeared when he spoke. He'd miss her? She was almost tempted...so very tempted, but she kept herself calm for the most part. Instead, she took his hands into hers, rubbing her thumb softly over it as she took a slow breath.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Balthasar. I told you that it wasn't your fault, and I meant it. There is no reason for you to say that," she spoke, her lips pursed into a fine line. She felt bad about ignoring him for those three years, and to hear him say that, it only caused her heart to clench painfully. It was, after all, mainly her fault. "It was my fault, it was a problem I had to sort out, and I did...I think," she spoke, shaking her head softly before releasing his hands.
"I'm going to miss you too," she spoke, her voice a bit lower than a whisper. She reached over, grabbing his shoulders softly before wrapping her arms around them, embracing him softly as she laid her head against his shoulder. "But like you said, we'll make it through this. I am an Alistair after all," she stated, pulling back from the embrace, the trademark smirk appearing back on her lips.
He chuckled softly at her comment about being an Alistair—they really were tough people, that much was for sure. He’d wrapped his arms around her shoulders and upper back, and he gave a brief squeeze before letting go when she pulled back, tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear. “That’s my Rica,” he said with a grin, shaking his head faintly. A stray thought struck him then, and he held up one of his hands, all his fingers save the last folded against his hand. “Remember these?” he asked, referring to the childhood promises one made in such a way. She’d taken to extracting them from him somewhere around the age of eight, and he’d always had a hard time refusing her.
“Make me a promise this time?” he asked, and though he still smiled, his tone was surprisingly serious. “Come back in one piece, okay?” He extended his hand halfway into the distance between them, meeting her eyes with an expectant arch to his brow. It was a small thing, and a silly one, even, but then… sometimes, things were too heavy to say any way but lightly. Neither of them needed heartfelt words about trying to stay alive, because they’d be getting plenty of them. But this, a simple promise given in the manner of children… this he felt he could ask for.
Alarica shook her head, the smirk turning into a smile before she blinked at Balthasar. He held up one of his hands, closing his fingers and extending his pinky out towards her. She tilted her head slightly confused until he spoke. The smile on her face would have grown had she not thinned them into a fine line. The air had turned serious in a matter of seconds, her eyes faintly dimming. Of course she remembered them. How could she forget? It was at a time in her life where she had always wanted him to make her a promise, and also an excuse just to hold his hand, partially.
"I promise to come back, though I can't say it'll be one piece, I do promise I will come back alive," she stated, taking his pinky with her own. "Just...take care of yourself Bally. I can't imagine what it would be like without you," she spoke, the worry carried through her tone. She really couldn't imagine a world without him in it. It was hard enought knowing that she was going to be away from him for who knew how long. At least the three years she ignored him, she was still near him. He'd be okay though. He was Balthasar, he would always be Balthasar.
Emrys sighed through his teeth. While he had no wish to rejoin the front lines, he wasn't overly fond of standing in a stuffy room full of pompous asses who thought they were better than everyone else simply because they were born. Still, someone had to protect Aryan's skinny hide, and Helen wouldn't be around to do that anymore, so that left him.
The gun made a heavy clicking sound as everything slid back into place and he set it back down among the other two. Like most of the weapons in the family, his were also named. Antissa, Esternos, and Ushas. He holstered the first two where they belonged, hoisting up his right pant leg for the other. He finally spoke as he concealed it.
"Well, it looks like you'll be getting your room back to yourself again, though I doubt it'll see much use, no?"
Alden, currently sprawled out on his bed with bare feet, mussed violet hair and files everywhere, looked up from the one he was reading when his cousin spoke, blinking somewhat owlishly beneath the lenses of his glasses. It was true that most of them would be departing within the next day or two for battlefields or Council rooms, and he himself would resume his lifestyle of dozens of rented homes and seedy hotel rooms and wherever and whatever else he needed to be to get his job done. He’d actually mostly occupied the same skin and persona for several months, which was some kind of record for him, at least since he’d turned twenty or so. He’d almost gotten comfortable in it.
“The bedrooms I occupy always see considerable use, Emrys,” Violet replied, the tone he used somewhere between the sultry and the amused, but with a very faint tinge of melancholy. It never ended, really, his job. The things he had to do. “But none of them will be this one, so you’re quite correct. Feel free to use it, or any of mine, should you find yourself in one of my family’s homes, for some reason.” He shrugged, then tossed the file so that it landed with a thunk atop another, then slid off his mattress, bare feet hitting the carpet soundlessly.
Stretching his arms over his head, he tilted his head sideways at his cousin. “You needn’t suffer too much, Em. I’m sure we’ll run into each other with considerably more frequency than most of our relatives will. Who knows? I may even have to attend a few Council functions, myself. Though not as myself, of course.” Whomever that was.
Emrys almost scowled at his cousin. Almost. Over the last three months, he'd gotten used to whatever it was that was the back and forth between them. It was different than it had been before, even more so since the mistletoe incident, but...he shrugged.
"Just don't go getting yourself killed. And you're damned right you won't be yourself. Any functions you attend will be with me. More than likely Aryan'll have Hel, and if I have to go, I ain't going alone, or with some random chick."
At least with Alden, he knew where he stood. Well, most of the time, at least.
Alden chuckled. “I never said by myself, Emrys. I rather assumed you’d want to go with me, though that does bring up an important question.” The smile was evident enough in his voice, though he only wore a hint of it as he crossed the room to where his cousin was, folding his hands behind his back and leaning forward and down a few inches, such that their noses were about a centimeter apart. The Spider arched one of his eyebrows in a playful sort of way, the hint of a smirk blossoming into a fuller one. It was… interesting what such instances of proximity did to his cousin, though he’d not pressed anything much since Christmas day. Not physically, anyway. Verbal exchange was always up for grabs.
“Do you prefer blondes or redheads?” He refused to go anywhere he didn’t have to as a brunet or someone with black hair, because the latter tended to make him look like his father unless he did serious work to his facial structure and the former was so pedestrian that he had to use it for most of his guises anyway, and he hated repetition.
It wasn't planned, it wasn't thought out. It just sort of happened. Alden had leaned down at him, looking like that, with that look on his face. What came next seemed almost natural. The eldest Alistair simply hooked his finger into his cousin's shirt and pulled him forward, their lips meeting in the space between.
When he released him, Emrys murmured, "I prefer purple, but if it must be something different, go with red. I don't feel like everyone thinking I'm there with my sister." He stood up at that point, slinging his jacket over his shoulder.
"Now stop screwing with me. We've all got a lot of work to do." That last comment could almost pertain to himself, and not Alden, it was hard to be certain.
Being perfectly aware of intention and thought, Vi was not surprised when Emrys pulled him forward, though he was a little surprised it had taken him this long to produce such a reaction. His cousin was not the first ostensibly heterosexual or asexual male he’d moved in such a fashion, but something about it was quite a bit more satisfying, in this case. He smiled into the kiss, straightening when he was released, but not bothering overmuch with fixing his shift collar where it had been seized. He almost laughed at his cousin’s comment, but managed to restrain his mirth.
It was funny to him that Emrys still seemed to be holding on to some very strange vestiges of his presumed sexuality, speaking as though Alden would be appearing as a woman in any such capacity. While he did not ascribe to any such silly notions of what being the man or the woman in a relationship actually meant, there was nevertheless an idiom, and by the application of that idiom, it was not he who was the ‘feminine’ presence in this little dynamic of theirs. “And if I came as your brother?” Actually, he could shape his body to a woman’s proportions if he so desired, well enough to fool anyone, assuming his articles of clothing remained intact, but he had not yet mastered the becoming of a biological female.
Nevertheless, he let the topic drop, seeing as Emrys was departing. Still, a parting shot was never off-limits for someone like Violet, and so he called smugly to his cousin just as the oldest Alistair left the premises. “Em, I haven’t even begun to screw with you. I promise you’ll know it when I have.”
The gun made a heavy clicking sound as everything slid back into place and he set it back down among the other two. Like most of the weapons in the family, his were also named. Antissa, Esternos, and Ushas. He holstered the first two where they belonged, hoisting up his right pant leg for the other. He finally spoke as he concealed it.
"Well, it looks like you'll be getting your room back to yourself again, though I doubt it'll see much use, no?"
Alden, currently sprawled out on his bed with bare feet, mussed violet hair and files everywhere, looked up from the one he was reading when his cousin spoke, blinking somewhat owlishly beneath the lenses of his glasses. It was true that most of them would be departing within the next day or two for battlefields or Council rooms, and he himself would resume his lifestyle of dozens of rented homes and seedy hotel rooms and wherever and whatever else he needed to be to get his job done. He’d actually mostly occupied the same skin and persona for several months, which was some kind of record for him, at least since he’d turned twenty or so. He’d almost gotten comfortable in it.
“The bedrooms I occupy always see considerable use, Emrys,” Violet replied, the tone he used somewhere between the sultry and the amused, but with a very faint tinge of melancholy. It never ended, really, his job. The things he had to do. “But none of them will be this one, so you’re quite correct. Feel free to use it, or any of mine, should you find yourself in one of my family’s homes, for some reason.” He shrugged, then tossed the file so that it landed with a thunk atop another, then slid off his mattress, bare feet hitting the carpet soundlessly.
Stretching his arms over his head, he tilted his head sideways at his cousin. “You needn’t suffer too much, Em. I’m sure we’ll run into each other with considerably more frequency than most of our relatives will. Who knows? I may even have to attend a few Council functions, myself. Though not as myself, of course.” Whomever that was.
Emrys almost scowled at his cousin. Almost. Over the last three months, he'd gotten used to whatever it was that was the back and forth between them. It was different than it had been before, even more so since the mistletoe incident, but...he shrugged.
"Just don't go getting yourself killed. And you're damned right you won't be yourself. Any functions you attend will be with me. More than likely Aryan'll have Hel, and if I have to go, I ain't going alone, or with some random chick."
At least with Alden, he knew where he stood. Well, most of the time, at least.
Alden chuckled. “I never said by myself, Emrys. I rather assumed you’d want to go with me, though that does bring up an important question.” The smile was evident enough in his voice, though he only wore a hint of it as he crossed the room to where his cousin was, folding his hands behind his back and leaning forward and down a few inches, such that their noses were about a centimeter apart. The Spider arched one of his eyebrows in a playful sort of way, the hint of a smirk blossoming into a fuller one. It was… interesting what such instances of proximity did to his cousin, though he’d not pressed anything much since Christmas day. Not physically, anyway. Verbal exchange was always up for grabs.
“Do you prefer blondes or redheads?” He refused to go anywhere he didn’t have to as a brunet or someone with black hair, because the latter tended to make him look like his father unless he did serious work to his facial structure and the former was so pedestrian that he had to use it for most of his guises anyway, and he hated repetition.
It wasn't planned, it wasn't thought out. It just sort of happened. Alden had leaned down at him, looking like that, with that look on his face. What came next seemed almost natural. The eldest Alistair simply hooked his finger into his cousin's shirt and pulled him forward, their lips meeting in the space between.
When he released him, Emrys murmured, "I prefer purple, but if it must be something different, go with red. I don't feel like everyone thinking I'm there with my sister." He stood up at that point, slinging his jacket over his shoulder.
"Now stop screwing with me. We've all got a lot of work to do." That last comment could almost pertain to himself, and not Alden, it was hard to be certain.
Being perfectly aware of intention and thought, Vi was not surprised when Emrys pulled him forward, though he was a little surprised it had taken him this long to produce such a reaction. His cousin was not the first ostensibly heterosexual or asexual male he’d moved in such a fashion, but something about it was quite a bit more satisfying, in this case. He smiled into the kiss, straightening when he was released, but not bothering overmuch with fixing his shift collar where it had been seized. He almost laughed at his cousin’s comment, but managed to restrain his mirth.
It was funny to him that Emrys still seemed to be holding on to some very strange vestiges of his presumed sexuality, speaking as though Alden would be appearing as a woman in any such capacity. While he did not ascribe to any such silly notions of what being the man or the woman in a relationship actually meant, there was nevertheless an idiom, and by the application of that idiom, it was not he who was the ‘feminine’ presence in this little dynamic of theirs. “And if I came as your brother?” Actually, he could shape his body to a woman’s proportions if he so desired, well enough to fool anyone, assuming his articles of clothing remained intact, but he had not yet mastered the becoming of a biological female.
Nevertheless, he let the topic drop, seeing as Emrys was departing. Still, a parting shot was never off-limits for someone like Violet, and so he called smugly to his cousin just as the oldest Alistair left the premises. “Em, I haven’t even begun to screw with you. I promise you’ll know it when I have.”
Yuki paced. She paused. She paced again. She sat down. She stood up. It seemed as though no matter what she did, she simply could not sit still. Of all things, of all times, this had to happen now. It had been something she'd given up on a long time ago. She was happy, of course, but this hadn't been how she wanted it.
She leaned against the wall, blushing slightly when she remembered that night. She'd fed from Zero, and then one thing had simply led to another. She sighed, and paced again. She needed to tell him. She wanted to tell him. She just had no idea how to go about telling him.
It was not every day you found out that you were pregnant, after all.
Zero twisted his neck, listening to the pop it made. A faint smile tugged at his lips before morphing into a frown. He was going to be leaving soon with Yuki, his aunt, and his sister. He had been against Leora going out onto the battle field, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Most of the family was battle prone, and his family was no exception. Perhaps his mom, but she was always such a gentle creature, though she could still be fierce to the point it scared him. He shook the thought from his head as he wandered down the hall. He was meeting his family for a meeting, and he was currently on his way there.
"Yuki?" he spoke, blinking a bit confusedly when he spotted her pacing. "Is there something wrong?" he spoke, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a light hug.
Yuki sighed, relaxing into Zero's hug. It was amazing, really, how he made her feel better just by being there. She wondered if this was how her parents felt. She could only imagine that it was something similar. She shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong, in that sense. Do you remember the night a few months ago, where we...um." She paused, blushing slightly. Her fingers curled into his shirt, inhaling his scent before finally saying the words. They sounded strange to her, saying them aloud.
"I'm pregnant, Zero."
Zero stared down at Yuki as she spoke, a smirk forming on his lips as he recalled that night. She had fed from him, and before he had known what happened, it was a night of ecstasy on their parts. He hummed a thoughtful noise at the back of his throat, trying to keep himself from laughing at the memory before placing his chin on top of her head. "Of course I do," he spoke, placing a kiss ontop of her head as he pulled back. The smile disappeared from his face as he continued to stare at her.
And then she spoke those words. He blinked a few times, the information registering into his mind. Again he blinked, still trying to properly register the words she had spoken. He knew pregnant was one of the two words, however; he couldn't register the fact that she was pregnant. That she would be having his child, out on the battle field. Immediately, his arms tightened around her, a large grin plastered on his face as he burried his nose in her hair.
"We're going to be parents," he spoke softly. The thought finally struck him, however, and he pulled away from her, holding her at an arms distance. "You...do...do you want to stay? I can't force you to stay, and I know you'll not want to, but still," he spoke. If he could, he would have forced her to stay, but he couldn't do that to her. It was her decision if she still wanted to go out to the battlefield in her condition. For a brief moment, he wondered what his mother would think when she found out she was going to be a grandmother. He could only imagine the look on his father's face.
Yuki had to fight not to roll her eyes. Instead, she smiled. "No, Zero, I'm not staying anywhere that isn't with you or my mother. Now, come on...we, ah...should probably tell the others." That was something she was decidedly not looking forward to, but it was necessary nonetheless.
Ava’s hand was twined in her husband’s as she and her family, minus Zero, headed towards the front door, the majority of them packed and ready to go off wherever. Leora looked absolutely miserable, and she was feeling the strong urge to pull her daughter aside and ask what troubled her, but she was hiding it under the same face her father wore, which meant that likely only herself, Alden, and Vincent would be able to read her actual mood. It was a sure sign that she didn’t want to discuss it, and now was unfortunately not the time.
The Kuragari brood, as it were, passed their eldest and his beloved in the hallway, and Ava stopped the procession, smiling over at the both of them. She hadn’t spent so many years as Jasper’s assistant and not learned to read people, and the look Yuki was wearing on her face, that subtle glow that had nothing to do with her actual expression, was immediately clear to Ava, having possessed it herself no less than seven times. The way Alden was grinning, licorice wand dangling from between his teeth, was a sure indication that she was right, and she struggled to contain her excitement, squeezing Vincent’s hand gently and fidgeting, attempting not to jump up and down with glee. They should be able to present the news properly, after all.
What she did do was open the opportunity, before Alden could be much more blunt about doing the same. “Hello, you two. It’s almost time to leave—we were looking for you, Zero.”
Vincent had decided against his better judgement to leave his daughter be. He had not missed the sudden drop in her mood, nor the fact that she had taken to hiding behind it with the facade that he knew all too well. If she needed to speak about it, she would, on her own terms. He trusted her enough that in time she would, whether it was with him, one of her brothers, or even Jasper's son. He cared not who she talked to as long as she eventually did. His hand clasped a bit tighter against Ava's, giving a gentle squeeze before loosening the hold.
Zero's eyes swiveled to meet the gaze of his mother before glancing at his family. They had to be told regardless, and perhaps it wasn't the best of times to say such things, it needed to be done. The look on Alden's face already gave it away that his brother knew, however; he still needed to voice it. "I was on my way to catch up, but it appears that you have all come to me," he spoke, his usual teasing missing from his tone.
"There is something you should all know," he spoke, pausing only momentarily to let the information sink in. Before he could speak another word, Vincent cut the silence, saying what Zero wanted to say, however; he merely shook his head. Leave it to his father to be ever observant. Then again, the man did have seven children. Part of Zero feared that there would soon be more on the way, however; those thoughts were for another time.
"She is with child," was the curt reply from Vincent, glancing towards Yuki as he sighed softly through his nose. There were times he wondered if his son actually ever thought about anything he did. Now was not the time to be bringing in new life, however; it would only make him a hypocrite if he were to ever state that. He and Ava had seven children in the war, raised them all the best that they could. He thought about it for a moment before a light glittered behind his eyes. "Congratulations Yuki," were the only words he spoke.
Ava sighed when her husband delivered the news in his usual blunt manner, elbowing him in the side. “You’re not one of the parents this time, dearest, so don’t steal the thunder.” Nevertheless, she was smiling brightly, as were all six of her other children. Even Leora had managed to shake off her melancholy for a moment, punching her brother in the arm.
“You dog,” she told him, but the words were laced with affection. “Congratulations, both of you,” she said, shooting her father a look. Sure, Z wasn’t having the kid, but it took two to tango, vertically or horizontally. Her mother, apparently unable to contain herself a moment longer, at last departed her father’s side, coming to stand in front of Yuki.
“This is probably going to make you slightly uncomfortable,” Ava confessed with a rueful smile, “but it’s a good skill for when one has a family. We’re all going to hug you now.” She started, throwing her arms around Yuki’s shoulders warmly. “I’d say welcome to the family, but you were already a part of it,” she admitted with a smile, and it was at this point that Leo, Tugging Zero in one hand and Alden in another, joined the hug, wrapping around the two smaller women with a giggle. The rest of her brothers piled on afterwards, swaying back and forth in some amorphous Kuragari blob that was nevertheless missing a component.
“Vincent Kuragari, you are not in this group hug and I know it!” came Ava’s considerably muffled voice from somewhere in the middle. “You suck it up and come hug your children and future grandchild, or so help me, I won’t hug you for a year!” The threat was impotent, and they both knew it, but the point was clear.
“Mom,” Alden said from somewhere behind her, “We’ve really got to work on your leveraging skills. You could have dad in your back pocket by now if you knew what to actually threaten him with.” He was pretty much there already, but she should be telling him she’d be withholding something much more desirable than simple hugs if she really wanted to make a point.
“Hush, Violet. This is a group hug, not an opportunity to show us all how smart you are.”
“…yes, mother.”
She leaned against the wall, blushing slightly when she remembered that night. She'd fed from Zero, and then one thing had simply led to another. She sighed, and paced again. She needed to tell him. She wanted to tell him. She just had no idea how to go about telling him.
It was not every day you found out that you were pregnant, after all.
Zero twisted his neck, listening to the pop it made. A faint smile tugged at his lips before morphing into a frown. He was going to be leaving soon with Yuki, his aunt, and his sister. He had been against Leora going out onto the battle field, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Most of the family was battle prone, and his family was no exception. Perhaps his mom, but she was always such a gentle creature, though she could still be fierce to the point it scared him. He shook the thought from his head as he wandered down the hall. He was meeting his family for a meeting, and he was currently on his way there.
"Yuki?" he spoke, blinking a bit confusedly when he spotted her pacing. "Is there something wrong?" he spoke, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a light hug.
Yuki sighed, relaxing into Zero's hug. It was amazing, really, how he made her feel better just by being there. She wondered if this was how her parents felt. She could only imagine that it was something similar. She shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong, in that sense. Do you remember the night a few months ago, where we...um." She paused, blushing slightly. Her fingers curled into his shirt, inhaling his scent before finally saying the words. They sounded strange to her, saying them aloud.
"I'm pregnant, Zero."
Zero stared down at Yuki as she spoke, a smirk forming on his lips as he recalled that night. She had fed from him, and before he had known what happened, it was a night of ecstasy on their parts. He hummed a thoughtful noise at the back of his throat, trying to keep himself from laughing at the memory before placing his chin on top of her head. "Of course I do," he spoke, placing a kiss ontop of her head as he pulled back. The smile disappeared from his face as he continued to stare at her.
And then she spoke those words. He blinked a few times, the information registering into his mind. Again he blinked, still trying to properly register the words she had spoken. He knew pregnant was one of the two words, however; he couldn't register the fact that she was pregnant. That she would be having his child, out on the battle field. Immediately, his arms tightened around her, a large grin plastered on his face as he burried his nose in her hair.
"We're going to be parents," he spoke softly. The thought finally struck him, however, and he pulled away from her, holding her at an arms distance. "You...do...do you want to stay? I can't force you to stay, and I know you'll not want to, but still," he spoke. If he could, he would have forced her to stay, but he couldn't do that to her. It was her decision if she still wanted to go out to the battlefield in her condition. For a brief moment, he wondered what his mother would think when she found out she was going to be a grandmother. He could only imagine the look on his father's face.
Yuki had to fight not to roll her eyes. Instead, she smiled. "No, Zero, I'm not staying anywhere that isn't with you or my mother. Now, come on...we, ah...should probably tell the others." That was something she was decidedly not looking forward to, but it was necessary nonetheless.
Ava’s hand was twined in her husband’s as she and her family, minus Zero, headed towards the front door, the majority of them packed and ready to go off wherever. Leora looked absolutely miserable, and she was feeling the strong urge to pull her daughter aside and ask what troubled her, but she was hiding it under the same face her father wore, which meant that likely only herself, Alden, and Vincent would be able to read her actual mood. It was a sure sign that she didn’t want to discuss it, and now was unfortunately not the time.
The Kuragari brood, as it were, passed their eldest and his beloved in the hallway, and Ava stopped the procession, smiling over at the both of them. She hadn’t spent so many years as Jasper’s assistant and not learned to read people, and the look Yuki was wearing on her face, that subtle glow that had nothing to do with her actual expression, was immediately clear to Ava, having possessed it herself no less than seven times. The way Alden was grinning, licorice wand dangling from between his teeth, was a sure indication that she was right, and she struggled to contain her excitement, squeezing Vincent’s hand gently and fidgeting, attempting not to jump up and down with glee. They should be able to present the news properly, after all.
What she did do was open the opportunity, before Alden could be much more blunt about doing the same. “Hello, you two. It’s almost time to leave—we were looking for you, Zero.”
Vincent had decided against his better judgement to leave his daughter be. He had not missed the sudden drop in her mood, nor the fact that she had taken to hiding behind it with the facade that he knew all too well. If she needed to speak about it, she would, on her own terms. He trusted her enough that in time she would, whether it was with him, one of her brothers, or even Jasper's son. He cared not who she talked to as long as she eventually did. His hand clasped a bit tighter against Ava's, giving a gentle squeeze before loosening the hold.
Zero's eyes swiveled to meet the gaze of his mother before glancing at his family. They had to be told regardless, and perhaps it wasn't the best of times to say such things, it needed to be done. The look on Alden's face already gave it away that his brother knew, however; he still needed to voice it. "I was on my way to catch up, but it appears that you have all come to me," he spoke, his usual teasing missing from his tone.
"There is something you should all know," he spoke, pausing only momentarily to let the information sink in. Before he could speak another word, Vincent cut the silence, saying what Zero wanted to say, however; he merely shook his head. Leave it to his father to be ever observant. Then again, the man did have seven children. Part of Zero feared that there would soon be more on the way, however; those thoughts were for another time.
"She is with child," was the curt reply from Vincent, glancing towards Yuki as he sighed softly through his nose. There were times he wondered if his son actually ever thought about anything he did. Now was not the time to be bringing in new life, however; it would only make him a hypocrite if he were to ever state that. He and Ava had seven children in the war, raised them all the best that they could. He thought about it for a moment before a light glittered behind his eyes. "Congratulations Yuki," were the only words he spoke.
Ava sighed when her husband delivered the news in his usual blunt manner, elbowing him in the side. “You’re not one of the parents this time, dearest, so don’t steal the thunder.” Nevertheless, she was smiling brightly, as were all six of her other children. Even Leora had managed to shake off her melancholy for a moment, punching her brother in the arm.
“You dog,” she told him, but the words were laced with affection. “Congratulations, both of you,” she said, shooting her father a look. Sure, Z wasn’t having the kid, but it took two to tango, vertically or horizontally. Her mother, apparently unable to contain herself a moment longer, at last departed her father’s side, coming to stand in front of Yuki.
“This is probably going to make you slightly uncomfortable,” Ava confessed with a rueful smile, “but it’s a good skill for when one has a family. We’re all going to hug you now.” She started, throwing her arms around Yuki’s shoulders warmly. “I’d say welcome to the family, but you were already a part of it,” she admitted with a smile, and it was at this point that Leo, Tugging Zero in one hand and Alden in another, joined the hug, wrapping around the two smaller women with a giggle. The rest of her brothers piled on afterwards, swaying back and forth in some amorphous Kuragari blob that was nevertheless missing a component.
“Vincent Kuragari, you are not in this group hug and I know it!” came Ava’s considerably muffled voice from somewhere in the middle. “You suck it up and come hug your children and future grandchild, or so help me, I won’t hug you for a year!” The threat was impotent, and they both knew it, but the point was clear.
“Mom,” Alden said from somewhere behind her, “We’ve really got to work on your leveraging skills. You could have dad in your back pocket by now if you knew what to actually threaten him with.” He was pretty much there already, but she should be telling him she’d be withholding something much more desirable than simple hugs if she really wanted to make a point.
“Hush, Violet. This is a group hug, not an opportunity to show us all how smart you are.”
“…yes, mother.”
Morgan leaned against the wall, watching his sons with a mild form of amusement on his face. Keir was downright sulking as he sat in the chair with his arms crossed, Alucard's head on his knee, and Morgan did not have to guess that it had to do with the youngest of the Kuragari children. He had half a mind to warn his youngest child that it was Vincent he had to watch out for, but for now he was more or less content to watch Keir struggle with it a bit longer.
Emrys, on the other hand, looked almost put out, Solaris simply sitting quietly next to him. It amused him slightly to see his son so confused with his sexuality, though going up against someone like Alden made you question a lot of things if you weren't careful. He shook his head lightly. It seemed there was an underlying pattern, Alistair men were drawn to the Kuragari females [well, most of them, Emrys was drawn to a Kuragari, anyway] while Alistair females were drawn to the von Nacht men, if his sister and daughter were any indication. He smiled slightly, thinking of what his sister had told him.
The third generation would be starting soon. He wondered what Vincent and Jasper thought about becoming grandfathers.
Erys stared at her children, glancing from one to the other and shook her head. She ran her fingers through Yuri's coat, still slightly baffled at the fact that her daughter's familiar looks exactly like her own. She had smiled at Angelus, still slightly confused as to why her daughter addressed Angelus as she. Of course, the sneaky familiar had told Erys and the Alistair mother only laughed. Familiars, they truly were something. Her eyes drifted to her oldest, watching the expression upon his face before shaking her head.
"Did I miss something?" she questioned, leaning on her husband's shoulder in the process. Alarica tilted her head in the process at her mother's inquiry. "I must have, or is there another reason why my children have the look upon their face?" she stated, folding her arms across her chest in the process. Alarica pursed her lips together, trying to figure out what her mother meant by that.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, mother. This is the face we always wear," Alarica replied, stroking Angelus in a similar manner. "Dad, Em," she spoke, her voice unusually soft as she glanced at her father and brother. "I know you guys won't be on the front line, like mom, Keir, and I will be, but...still, be careful," she spoke, her eyes hardening just a fraction. Erys shook her head softly, dislodging a few strawberry pink locks in the process. Her daughter may be who she was, but she still cared about her family, just like she did.
Morgan smirked, wrapping his arms around his wife as he did so. "Well, let's see...Em can't find the door to the closet he's stuck in, Keir basically just got shot down, and Rica, well...hers is the same problem it's always been, I'm thinking she may need to have a talk with Nikki about that."
Keir glanced up at his father, but said nothing. Instead, he chose to smirk at his older brother, who was positively glaring at Morgan. "What the hell, Dad?"
Morgan chuckled, reaching over to tousle Alarica's hair slightly. "Don't you worry about us, Koneko. We'll be fine. I think at most, Em might die of boredom."
Erys stared at Emrys, gauging his reaction when Morgan spoke. "Oh? It's simple really. All you have to do is turn the knob and viola, you're out of the closet," she spoke, a smirk crossing her features as she stared at Emrys. So he was having that issue. He'd figure it out eventually at his own pace, at his own time. But that didn't mean she couldn't have her fun with it. Alarica smoothed out her hair, frowning at her father as she swatted his hand away.
"I don't have a problem. I've dealt with it," she stated, pursing her lips together as Erys only laughed. "And I do not need to talk to Aunt Nikki about it," she huffed, her face turning a bit pink in the process. Her parents didn't need to know anything about her personal life, and she sure as hell didn't want her aunt to know about her little resolved problem. She'd deal with this as she always had: alone.
"I'm not in a closet to get out of in the first place." Em scowled.
Morgan chuckled, regarding his younger two again. "Just make sure you two leave some for your mother, okay? You know how she gets when she has nothing to kill."
At that, Keir grinned. "Hey, I make no promises if she doesn't get there in time."
"Little brat, you're only saying that because there won't be any left for you," Erys stated, chucking a pillow at Keir before returning her attention towards Emrys. "You can say that all you want, kid. You're still stuck in the closet, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Though you get it from your father. Took him a while to say what needed to be said," she continued, turning towards Morgan and locking her lips with his, pulling softly at the bottom of his lip in the process.
"I didn't need to see that," Alarica stated, causing her mother to grin brightly as she repeated the process.
Emrys, on the other hand, looked almost put out, Solaris simply sitting quietly next to him. It amused him slightly to see his son so confused with his sexuality, though going up against someone like Alden made you question a lot of things if you weren't careful. He shook his head lightly. It seemed there was an underlying pattern, Alistair men were drawn to the Kuragari females [well, most of them, Emrys was drawn to a Kuragari, anyway] while Alistair females were drawn to the von Nacht men, if his sister and daughter were any indication. He smiled slightly, thinking of what his sister had told him.
The third generation would be starting soon. He wondered what Vincent and Jasper thought about becoming grandfathers.
Erys stared at her children, glancing from one to the other and shook her head. She ran her fingers through Yuri's coat, still slightly baffled at the fact that her daughter's familiar looks exactly like her own. She had smiled at Angelus, still slightly confused as to why her daughter addressed Angelus as she. Of course, the sneaky familiar had told Erys and the Alistair mother only laughed. Familiars, they truly were something. Her eyes drifted to her oldest, watching the expression upon his face before shaking her head.
"Did I miss something?" she questioned, leaning on her husband's shoulder in the process. Alarica tilted her head in the process at her mother's inquiry. "I must have, or is there another reason why my children have the look upon their face?" she stated, folding her arms across her chest in the process. Alarica pursed her lips together, trying to figure out what her mother meant by that.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, mother. This is the face we always wear," Alarica replied, stroking Angelus in a similar manner. "Dad, Em," she spoke, her voice unusually soft as she glanced at her father and brother. "I know you guys won't be on the front line, like mom, Keir, and I will be, but...still, be careful," she spoke, her eyes hardening just a fraction. Erys shook her head softly, dislodging a few strawberry pink locks in the process. Her daughter may be who she was, but she still cared about her family, just like she did.
Morgan smirked, wrapping his arms around his wife as he did so. "Well, let's see...Em can't find the door to the closet he's stuck in, Keir basically just got shot down, and Rica, well...hers is the same problem it's always been, I'm thinking she may need to have a talk with Nikki about that."
Keir glanced up at his father, but said nothing. Instead, he chose to smirk at his older brother, who was positively glaring at Morgan. "What the hell, Dad?"
Morgan chuckled, reaching over to tousle Alarica's hair slightly. "Don't you worry about us, Koneko. We'll be fine. I think at most, Em might die of boredom."
Erys stared at Emrys, gauging his reaction when Morgan spoke. "Oh? It's simple really. All you have to do is turn the knob and viola, you're out of the closet," she spoke, a smirk crossing her features as she stared at Emrys. So he was having that issue. He'd figure it out eventually at his own pace, at his own time. But that didn't mean she couldn't have her fun with it. Alarica smoothed out her hair, frowning at her father as she swatted his hand away.
"I don't have a problem. I've dealt with it," she stated, pursing her lips together as Erys only laughed. "And I do not need to talk to Aunt Nikki about it," she huffed, her face turning a bit pink in the process. Her parents didn't need to know anything about her personal life, and she sure as hell didn't want her aunt to know about her little resolved problem. She'd deal with this as she always had: alone.
"I'm not in a closet to get out of in the first place." Em scowled.
Morgan chuckled, regarding his younger two again. "Just make sure you two leave some for your mother, okay? You know how she gets when she has nothing to kill."
At that, Keir grinned. "Hey, I make no promises if she doesn't get there in time."
"Little brat, you're only saying that because there won't be any left for you," Erys stated, chucking a pillow at Keir before returning her attention towards Emrys. "You can say that all you want, kid. You're still stuck in the closet, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Though you get it from your father. Took him a while to say what needed to be said," she continued, turning towards Morgan and locking her lips with his, pulling softly at the bottom of his lip in the process.
"I didn't need to see that," Alarica stated, causing her mother to grin brightly as she repeated the process.
Balthasar stood beside his father, lances crossed over his back and his bag of belongings slung between them. He was doing an excellent job of not showing it, but there was a fair amount of nervous energy bouncing around like electricity under his skin, and he was having a hard time standing still, though he managed it. It was marginally easier, with his very calm, very composed father right there next to him. For those who knew, it was obvious that Jasper loved his family, but there would be people who looked upon him hundreds of times and only ever saw the cool, rational leader of the smallest, but arguably most formidable, army in the war. Sometimes, his son wondered if he would ever master that kind of stoicism—or if he even wanted to.
Presently, they awaited the rest of their family, because the time drew near for them to depart one another’s company, by and large, and they’d agreed to see each other off, so to speak. He was certain that the Kuragaris and the Alistairs were doing something similar elsewhere in the house. Despite his well-practiced solemn face, his father must have sensed his underlying tension, because he glanced sideways at his son through silvery eyes and smiled, just slightly. It was, as it had always been, enough to set Balthasar a little more at ease, and he returned it with one of the same. Jasper was armed as well, with a two-handed blade made from the metal his mother had sacrificed herself to make. All the von Nachts were quite resistant to it, or rather all the ones directly related to Elsa, and for this reason, they could handle it for their own use, which was just another edge against their foes that they could not afford to forgo.
Aryan was the only one out of the five of them who was not, in fact, armed in any obvious way with any weaponry. His mother had Benehime, and Yuki, of course, had Benehime's twin, Hineko. They both wore the blades strapped to their backs, though Yuki had long outgrew the need to do so, but it was comfortable there for her. It was not something that made Aryan feel inferior, as it was his choice. He wore no weaponry because he felt he did not need to do so. His mind and his shadows were weapon enough for him. His hands were in his pockets, the bag slung over his shoulder. Helen's ribbon, however, was still tied to his wrist, as he had not bothered to take it off. Even standing the way he was, next to his brother, the black velvet was clearly visible against his pale skin.
Yuki, on the other hand, was dressed much the same as always when she walked up with her mother, though for once, her hair was down. Not being tied back, the white tresses almost reached her ankles. She looked...oddly distracted, though Nikki had not said anything to her yet. She would have plenty of time to talk with her daughter later, after all. The older woman silently regarded her husband and two sons. It was uncanny, really, just how much Balthasar looked like his father. She smiled slightly. Even Aryan clearly resembled him, in the way he mirrored his father's gestures, even if he did hate to admit it.
"You look lost, Mother."
Nikki chuckled, running a hand through her youngest child's hair. "No, just trying to figure out when my sons went and grew up on me."
Jasper’s mouth ticked upwards into a smile; he occasionally had the same thought. Balthasar, on the other hand, grinned outright. “Don’t count us too grown up yet,” he pointed out. “At least, not me. I’m still honestly confused half the time.” It was meant more as a jest than anything, though there was a kernel of truth to it. To both his credit and his detriment, some things had always eluded him and always will, like the seeking of power for power’s sake or the motives behind going to war with someone. He just couldn’t see them, though he could name them well enough if asked, perhaps.
“We’ve done a very good job fooling you if you think adults are never confused, Balthasar,” his father put in with some amusement, and the son shook his head a little, clearly amused. His sire certainly had a point, though he was quite sure that the previous generation of his family did and always would just get certain things better than their progeny did. Who knew though? Maybe with another few hundred years, they would be in a similar place.
His attention was taken for a moment, though, because there was something a little different about Ary. He might not be the emotionally-intelligent member of the family, but Balthasar was damn observant, and so it did not take long to locate the source of the difference. He proved his rather stunning lack of emotional comprehension, however, by asking the question rather than knowing the answer. “Hey Ary, isn’t that Helen’s hair ribbon? Why do you have it? Did she forget it or something?” Jasper made a truncated noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, but he said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow in Balthasar’s general direction, then flicking his glance to Aryan. He was not oblivious to Yuki’s present state of distraction, but as he always had, he would allow her to speak in her own time.
Yuki's eyebrows raised up in slight amusement at her brothers, and the barest tick of a smile appeared. "Helen is not the sort of person to simply forget something, even simply a hair ribbon." More truthfully, especially that particular ribbon, as it had been a gift to her from Freya. So the fact that Aryan now had it...well, it pleased the girl's friend, no doubt.
Aryan sighed softly. "You never cease to amaze me with your utter lack of skill at reading emotional situations, dear brother."
Nikki had to fight not to laugh, and barely managed to contain her chuckle. "Now, now, Aryan. We don't all have your skill at reading people."
Yuki watched them all for a few seconds. She really had no idea how to tell them the news. How did you tell your parents and brothers that you were pregnant? She furrowed her brows, thinking. In the end, she did what she always did, she just came out and said it.
"I think we all know that I'm no good at putting things delicately or saying things at the right time, and now may not even be the right time, but it's something you should probably know before it gets obvious..." She took a breath.
"I'm pregnant."
Well, if there was a way to slam the brakes on any conversation whatsoever, that was probably it. Jasper and Balthasar both snapped their eyes to Yuki, all four going considerably wider than usual as each struggled to find the words with which one was supposed to respond to something like that. Balthasar’s “Congratulations!” escaped him at about the same time as the first part of Jasper’s “There’s no way you’re fighting any battles past your first trimester. We’ll set yourself and Zero up at the house in Ireland… no, France. I’ll have Ava and Freya there, too… just in case.”
Balthasar blinked. “Uh… dad?” Jasper had a very intent look on his face, probably due to the fact that he was now planning about a thousand possible contingencies and ways to make this go as smoothly as possible, but also to compensate for the loss of both Yuki and Zero from the field, at least for the first few months of the child’s life. Also… he was going to be a grandfather. His daughter was having a child. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected it to happen eventually, but he wasn’t expecting it yet.
As per usual, her daughter's way of putting things had the effect of what one might consider a deer in the headlights, as Nikki watched her husband and sons glue their eyes to their daughter and sister, the look on each of their faces almost identical to the point that Nikki was struggling not to laugh. It did not take overly long for the three of them to recover, as Balthasar then congratulated his sister, and Jasper started going off about where they would put her. That made her smile, he'd done the same thing with her when they'd found out she was pregnant with Balthasar.
Aryan himself found his mind a little...fogged. He honestly wasn't sure what to think, and that perplexed him. He sounded almost exactly like his older brother when he suddenly spouted, "Wait, you mean I'm going to be an uncle?", at which point both Yuki and Nikki burst out laughing.
Nikki pulled her daughter into a hug. "I'm happy for you, dear. Just...don't be reckless." Yuki smiled. "I won't, Mother."
Having satisfied himself that this could be properly accounted for with a little more work on his team’s part, Jasper shook himself out of his thoughtful reverie and returned to the manner with which his children were more accustomed to seeing him behave, smiling gently and laying a hand on Yuki’s snow-white head. “Congratulations, Yuki. I am certain you will be among the very best of mothers.”
Balthasar was not nearly so reserved, and after actually rolling his eyes at Ary (was this how people always felt when he was slow on the uptake?) he waited with little patience for his mother to release Yuki, at which point he swooped in, lifted her from the ground, and spun her in a circle. “That’s amazing news, Yuyu, and we’ll be here for you all the way.” Mindful of her condition, he set her down gently on her feet and grinned broadly. He was going to be an uncle, and though he’d never given that much thought to it before, he was genuinely excited at the prospect. He bet Zero had nearly fallen over when she told him.
Yuki blushed slightly at her father's comment, and outright laughed when Bal picked her up. Nikki returned to her husband's side, lacing her fingers with his. At least she would be with her daughter, for the most part, and Leora would be there as well. She smiled slightly, and gave a little sigh. "I don't feel old enough to be a grandmother yet."
Presently, they awaited the rest of their family, because the time drew near for them to depart one another’s company, by and large, and they’d agreed to see each other off, so to speak. He was certain that the Kuragaris and the Alistairs were doing something similar elsewhere in the house. Despite his well-practiced solemn face, his father must have sensed his underlying tension, because he glanced sideways at his son through silvery eyes and smiled, just slightly. It was, as it had always been, enough to set Balthasar a little more at ease, and he returned it with one of the same. Jasper was armed as well, with a two-handed blade made from the metal his mother had sacrificed herself to make. All the von Nachts were quite resistant to it, or rather all the ones directly related to Elsa, and for this reason, they could handle it for their own use, which was just another edge against their foes that they could not afford to forgo.
Aryan was the only one out of the five of them who was not, in fact, armed in any obvious way with any weaponry. His mother had Benehime, and Yuki, of course, had Benehime's twin, Hineko. They both wore the blades strapped to their backs, though Yuki had long outgrew the need to do so, but it was comfortable there for her. It was not something that made Aryan feel inferior, as it was his choice. He wore no weaponry because he felt he did not need to do so. His mind and his shadows were weapon enough for him. His hands were in his pockets, the bag slung over his shoulder. Helen's ribbon, however, was still tied to his wrist, as he had not bothered to take it off. Even standing the way he was, next to his brother, the black velvet was clearly visible against his pale skin.
Yuki, on the other hand, was dressed much the same as always when she walked up with her mother, though for once, her hair was down. Not being tied back, the white tresses almost reached her ankles. She looked...oddly distracted, though Nikki had not said anything to her yet. She would have plenty of time to talk with her daughter later, after all. The older woman silently regarded her husband and two sons. It was uncanny, really, just how much Balthasar looked like his father. She smiled slightly. Even Aryan clearly resembled him, in the way he mirrored his father's gestures, even if he did hate to admit it.
"You look lost, Mother."
Nikki chuckled, running a hand through her youngest child's hair. "No, just trying to figure out when my sons went and grew up on me."
Jasper’s mouth ticked upwards into a smile; he occasionally had the same thought. Balthasar, on the other hand, grinned outright. “Don’t count us too grown up yet,” he pointed out. “At least, not me. I’m still honestly confused half the time.” It was meant more as a jest than anything, though there was a kernel of truth to it. To both his credit and his detriment, some things had always eluded him and always will, like the seeking of power for power’s sake or the motives behind going to war with someone. He just couldn’t see them, though he could name them well enough if asked, perhaps.
“We’ve done a very good job fooling you if you think adults are never confused, Balthasar,” his father put in with some amusement, and the son shook his head a little, clearly amused. His sire certainly had a point, though he was quite sure that the previous generation of his family did and always would just get certain things better than their progeny did. Who knew though? Maybe with another few hundred years, they would be in a similar place.
His attention was taken for a moment, though, because there was something a little different about Ary. He might not be the emotionally-intelligent member of the family, but Balthasar was damn observant, and so it did not take long to locate the source of the difference. He proved his rather stunning lack of emotional comprehension, however, by asking the question rather than knowing the answer. “Hey Ary, isn’t that Helen’s hair ribbon? Why do you have it? Did she forget it or something?” Jasper made a truncated noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, but he said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow in Balthasar’s general direction, then flicking his glance to Aryan. He was not oblivious to Yuki’s present state of distraction, but as he always had, he would allow her to speak in her own time.
Yuki's eyebrows raised up in slight amusement at her brothers, and the barest tick of a smile appeared. "Helen is not the sort of person to simply forget something, even simply a hair ribbon." More truthfully, especially that particular ribbon, as it had been a gift to her from Freya. So the fact that Aryan now had it...well, it pleased the girl's friend, no doubt.
Aryan sighed softly. "You never cease to amaze me with your utter lack of skill at reading emotional situations, dear brother."
Nikki had to fight not to laugh, and barely managed to contain her chuckle. "Now, now, Aryan. We don't all have your skill at reading people."
Yuki watched them all for a few seconds. She really had no idea how to tell them the news. How did you tell your parents and brothers that you were pregnant? She furrowed her brows, thinking. In the end, she did what she always did, she just came out and said it.
"I think we all know that I'm no good at putting things delicately or saying things at the right time, and now may not even be the right time, but it's something you should probably know before it gets obvious..." She took a breath.
"I'm pregnant."
Well, if there was a way to slam the brakes on any conversation whatsoever, that was probably it. Jasper and Balthasar both snapped their eyes to Yuki, all four going considerably wider than usual as each struggled to find the words with which one was supposed to respond to something like that. Balthasar’s “Congratulations!” escaped him at about the same time as the first part of Jasper’s “There’s no way you’re fighting any battles past your first trimester. We’ll set yourself and Zero up at the house in Ireland… no, France. I’ll have Ava and Freya there, too… just in case.”
Balthasar blinked. “Uh… dad?” Jasper had a very intent look on his face, probably due to the fact that he was now planning about a thousand possible contingencies and ways to make this go as smoothly as possible, but also to compensate for the loss of both Yuki and Zero from the field, at least for the first few months of the child’s life. Also… he was going to be a grandfather. His daughter was having a child. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected it to happen eventually, but he wasn’t expecting it yet.
As per usual, her daughter's way of putting things had the effect of what one might consider a deer in the headlights, as Nikki watched her husband and sons glue their eyes to their daughter and sister, the look on each of their faces almost identical to the point that Nikki was struggling not to laugh. It did not take overly long for the three of them to recover, as Balthasar then congratulated his sister, and Jasper started going off about where they would put her. That made her smile, he'd done the same thing with her when they'd found out she was pregnant with Balthasar.
Aryan himself found his mind a little...fogged. He honestly wasn't sure what to think, and that perplexed him. He sounded almost exactly like his older brother when he suddenly spouted, "Wait, you mean I'm going to be an uncle?", at which point both Yuki and Nikki burst out laughing.
Nikki pulled her daughter into a hug. "I'm happy for you, dear. Just...don't be reckless." Yuki smiled. "I won't, Mother."
Having satisfied himself that this could be properly accounted for with a little more work on his team’s part, Jasper shook himself out of his thoughtful reverie and returned to the manner with which his children were more accustomed to seeing him behave, smiling gently and laying a hand on Yuki’s snow-white head. “Congratulations, Yuki. I am certain you will be among the very best of mothers.”
Balthasar was not nearly so reserved, and after actually rolling his eyes at Ary (was this how people always felt when he was slow on the uptake?) he waited with little patience for his mother to release Yuki, at which point he swooped in, lifted her from the ground, and spun her in a circle. “That’s amazing news, Yuyu, and we’ll be here for you all the way.” Mindful of her condition, he set her down gently on her feet and grinned broadly. He was going to be an uncle, and though he’d never given that much thought to it before, he was genuinely excited at the prospect. He bet Zero had nearly fallen over when she told him.
Yuki blushed slightly at her father's comment, and outright laughed when Bal picked her up. Nikki returned to her husband's side, lacing her fingers with his. At least she would be with her daughter, for the most part, and Leora would be there as well. She smiled slightly, and gave a little sigh. "I don't feel old enough to be a grandmother yet."
The family was separated for a total of seven years, and in that time, only infrequently did any two members of it cross paths with one another. Some never once caught sight of one another in that time, but all were connected through the impressive organizational and informational networks of Morgan, Alden and Ava, and so it could be said that each of them took a small moment to smile and celebrate when the news reached them of the birth of Yuki and Zero’s first child, their daughter Diya, and a year later, her younger brother Bryer. Over the next six turns of the earth around the sun, each of them would meet their newest relatives, and not one of them was less than charmed.
But war waits for nothing, and certainly not for children, and time moves ever apace. Each of the groups found themselves almost too busy to handle over the intervening years, and not one person was unchanged by the events they encountered and participated in. Some changed less than others, but few changed more than the fledgling family born of Yuki and Zero Kuragari…
Two hundred and fifty years was perhaps a very long time to go between seeing family members. At least, she would assume so. She really neither knew nor cared, and as such, she held a lack of certain things like notions of family and love. She could fake them well enough, she'd done so for the first sixty years of her life before her parents had died, after all. For a long time, she'd thought her brother had died, too. But she had been proven wrong in that.
The night air was chill on her bare feet, her waist-length midnight black hair hovering around her, as if suspended. It made her look like some wild, magnificent spectre, her red eyes only furthering the design. A strange little song escaped her, the melody carried away on the wind. She laughed at nothing in particular, leaning her head sideways as if listening to something. In the darkness, one could make out two other figures with her, though they gave off no scent, no heartbeat was detected, and they made no sound. But they moved when she did, and the three slowly picked their way through the trees, towards the mansion where she knew her prize was.
She had a grandson to meet, after all.
Nikki von Nacht was, without a doubt, a very patient woman. She would have to be, with her granddaughter and grandson running along after her most days she was in the house. She loved them both dearly, but some days, there was work to be done that she'd rather they not be around for. Well, Diya at least. Bryer had proven more than once that he was capable of handling such gruesome matters, to the point where Nikki often forgot he was only six years old. She shook her head slightly, trying to banish the prickling feeling that was underneath her skin, as if something was wrong. She tried to occupy herself with other things, like organizing her brother's desk. Sometimes she wondered how he got anything done.
Yuki, on the other hand, was currently curled up next to the man she loved and the father of her children. She was feeling particularly lazy and did not feeling like waking up, her son curled up between his parents. Their daughter, of course, had other ideas. Quietly, the little girl crawled up into the bed, peeking over her father's shoulder. She reached out a finger and began to repeatedly poke him in the cheek.
"Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Wake up!"
Seven years was perhaps a blink of an eye to one such as a pure-blood, however; for Zero Kuragari, they were the best years of his life. He could not fathom the happiness he received from the two pairs of feet that had run along the house, echoing their laughter, their voices in general, throughout the home. There were times he wondered if he was truly ready to be a parent, however; the thought eventually subsided. No one could ever prepare for things such as parenthood, but he and Yuki managed to make the most of it. He was happy, she was happy. That was all that mattered.
Currently, he was laying in bed, his arms wrapped around Yuki and encasing their son. A slight sensation was poking his cheek, and he heard a vague sound. Groaning slightly, he turned, cracking one eye open and allowing a tired smile to greet his features. He moved his arms so that he managed to trap Diya in them, bringing the girl over as he rolled with her. "I think not little one," he spoke, nuzzling his face into her hair in the process. "Daddy likes his sleep," he spoke, kissing the top of her head in the process.
Diya laughed in delight as her father all but smothered her. By this point, both Yuki and Bryer were also awake, the latter giving a tired little smile over at her daughter. She had to shake her head slightly. Seven years and they were lucky if they got five hours of sleep at a time. Diya was an endless ball of energy, and she did so enjoy proving it.
Bryer, on the other hand, seemed to be wide awake, and for the most part he was. His big pink eyes looked up at his father and sister, he blinked and then gave a funny little smile. Diya had been his alarm clock for as long as he could remember, at least on the days that he could actually sleep, so this was no surprise to him.
Bryer's eyes widened fractionally. It was the voices again. He sat up slowly, conscious of his mother watching him, but looked out the window nonetheless.
The voices were getting louder, but it was odd, like he was hearing them through a layer of cotton. He just wished they would go away.
Nikki jumped slightly when a knock rapped across the door. She frowned. They hadn't been expecting anyone, and what was more strange, she couldn't smell anything either. Her eyes narrowed, her hand reaching for Benehime as she approached the door. Every fiber of her being screamed danger. The face that she saw when she opened the door was one she would never forget, in all her years.
She found herself staring into the eyes of Michaline Alistair, her mother. But her mother was dead. An eerie little laugh sounded from behind Michaline, and Nikki jumped again, preoccupied by her thoughts to notice the scent enter her vicinity.
"Aw, is poor big sister too shocked to say anything? I'm hurt Kiki..." There was something...very familiar about that voice, something that Nikki couldn't place. She wasn't sure she wanted to. "And where is our dear big brother? I was hoping to see him again..." Nikki couldn't see her, but if she had to guess by the tone, whoever was speaking was pouting. Someone was messing with her. They had to be. She finally managed to get over her shock and form her face into a fierce glare. "Show yourself. I'll have none of these games."
The voice giggled again. "Oh, that's so mean, Kiki!" Naya Alistair stuck her head down over the edge of the porch's awning, her hair cascading down in waves and then floating, suspended. "Is that how you're going to treat your own little sister? Have you forgotten me, Nikki?" She made a frown, everything distorted because she was up-side down. "It was Jasper, wasn't it? He made you forget! That's so rude...but I haven't forgotten you, Sister..."
Nikki couldn't breathe. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. The name escaped her lips before she even realized she was speaking. "Naya..."
Zero chuckled as Diya laughed, reaching over towards his son and placing a hand on top of his head. "Everything alright, kido?" he asked, watching as his son slowly rose and glanced out the window. He followed Bryer's gaze, glancing out the same window, but saw nothing. He pursed his lips together momentarily before glancing down at Yuki. She had a tired smile upon her face which only caused the grin on his to widen. As he opened his mouth to say something, the sound of the door knocking caught his attention.
"Who could that be?" he stated more to himself than any of the people present. He removed himself from the bed, rolling off and letting his feet hit the ground, sending a light shiver down his spine. There was an odd feeling rolling down his back, one that he couldn't place, and it bothered him. Shaking his head, he sighed softly, shooting his family a soft smile before opening the door to the room. Though the knock was plenty soft, he could still hear it as he heard every other small noise. One of the perks of being a vampire was heightened senses, hearing being no exception.
"Aunt Nikki?" he spoke, glancing at her shocked expression when he came into view. He still couldn't see who was outside of the door, however; he did not miss the name that left his aunt's lips. Naya? Who was Naya? He couldn't recall anyone by that name, or at least no one in particular that wasn't a part of the family. But then it clicked. Naya, Naya Alistair, Nikki and Morgan's sister. His eyes widened slightly as he rushed towards his aunt's side.
Leora had been up early that morning, taking a run around the house they were all in for the moment. She and the others still frequently found their way onto battlefields, but for the moment at least, they’d been granted a short reprieve. She knew her brother and Yuki were glad for the chance to spend some time with the kids, and honestly, she was too. Diya was the cutest little thing, and Bryer was probably the most interesting kid she’d ever met. She never forgot he was a kid, exactly, but she was still pretty consistently amazed by how quickly he learned things. It was fun watching him interact with the other members of the family, actually.
She allowed these thoughts to occupy her mind, because she would rather not think about all the things seven years had managed to change for the worse. She understood now the darkened look Alden got to his eyes when someone asked him a question about his work, and what he and Emrys were talking about when they talked about the toll. Leora had been still just a girl when the time came for her to start paying it—nineteen and still untried. Seven years later, she was twenty-six and an old hand with killing and battle, and she knew how much it could hurt to pay the toll.
She would like to be able to say that the first few years had been the worst, that she no longer cried herself to sleep at night, that she no longer saw the faces of the people she’d killed in her dreams, but… it would be a lie to assert that. It was just as bad now as it always had been, and she understood why her mother had never taken to this kind of thing. Her soul was far too gentle. Leora’s soul… might have been that way, once, but she’d bathed it in blood so many times now that it was mangled and twisted and blackened, and there was nobody left to protect her from it. Growing up, her parents had sheltered her from the worst of the world, and then when she’d tasted it the first time, Alden had taught her to build a shield so that she could keep it at arms’ length again. Now… there was no shield for this. Not even the Aegis in her blood.
The worst part was that there was really nobody to talk to about it. Zero and Yuki were so happy with their family that she didn’t want to interrupt that warmth and light, now that she knew how limited that happiness would be. Aunt Nikki was a wonderful person and a good mentor, and seven years had made her Leo’s mentor, after a fashion, but she was so accustomed to fighting, had that Alistair flair for it, and Leora felt like admitting her weakness to someone like that would just make it worse. So she hid it all behind her father’s face, or rather the version of it that she wore, and she pretended that everything was fine.
Of course, even thinking the word Alistair made her think of him, and she increased her speed until she was almost flying around the grounds, her feet barely touching the ground. How she wished she could fly, could just soar so high above everything that it seemed not at all to matter anymore. She missed flying with Balthasar. Hell, she just missed Balthasar. She missed them all, and some days, she just wanted her parents, or Alden, or anyone who wasn’t so terrifyingly happy that she couldn’t help but envy them.
More than anything or anyone, though, she just wanted to see him.
Leora wasn’t a fool. She knew what that meant. Seven years should have dimmed the keenness of that pain, but for her, it had simply sharpened to a razor point, on which she cut herself far too often. She hadn’t seen his face in seven years. She’d seen Rica a few times, and Ary and Vi and Em and Helen, but she hadn’t seen Balthasar or her parents or him, and she was feeling the loneliness of that with a fervency that she hated. Any of them would have been a balm to the wound in her soul, but it was they she’d always seemed to miss, in the between-time of battles and the endless red haze that fell over her eyes when she was forced once again to end life to preserve other lives. If this was the toll, she wasn’t sure she had anything left to pay.
She hoped, prayed even, though she knew not to whom, that he didn’t care for her anymore. That seven years had done for him what it could not do for her, and that he was happy as he could be, given the circumstances. Sometimes, she even hoped that he’d found someone else, but her heart wouldn't let her hold onto that hope for too long. She was a horrid, selfish person, but she was slowly coming to terms with that. Because at least she’d been strong enough, and good enough, not to subject him to this, to her. Leora counted it strongly in her favor that that much was true, at least.
Something moving in the corner of her vision caught her attention, and Leo was brought from her thoughts by the sight of three figures moving towards the house. Her brows drew together, her mouth compressing into a suspicious line. Thinking quickly, she stepped into the nearest shadow, her form dissolving into it so that she lost visibility, sound, and even her distinctive smell, had become one with the dark. Jumping several times, she ended up in the shadow of a woman with black hair, walking behind another woman, who was flanked also by a man. She watched and waited when the one she followed climbed up the awning, and the shadow Leo belonged to stopped. It was strange—though the leader had a scent and an aura, neither of the other two did.
Her Aunt Nikki answering the door produced more confusion than anything, and then her brother appeared. The leader was obviously psychotic, but… just what was going on here?
But war waits for nothing, and certainly not for children, and time moves ever apace. Each of the groups found themselves almost too busy to handle over the intervening years, and not one person was unchanged by the events they encountered and participated in. Some changed less than others, but few changed more than the fledgling family born of Yuki and Zero Kuragari…
Two hundred and fifty years was perhaps a very long time to go between seeing family members. At least, she would assume so. She really neither knew nor cared, and as such, she held a lack of certain things like notions of family and love. She could fake them well enough, she'd done so for the first sixty years of her life before her parents had died, after all. For a long time, she'd thought her brother had died, too. But she had been proven wrong in that.
The night air was chill on her bare feet, her waist-length midnight black hair hovering around her, as if suspended. It made her look like some wild, magnificent spectre, her red eyes only furthering the design. A strange little song escaped her, the melody carried away on the wind. She laughed at nothing in particular, leaning her head sideways as if listening to something. In the darkness, one could make out two other figures with her, though they gave off no scent, no heartbeat was detected, and they made no sound. But they moved when she did, and the three slowly picked their way through the trees, towards the mansion where she knew her prize was.
She had a grandson to meet, after all.
Nikki von Nacht was, without a doubt, a very patient woman. She would have to be, with her granddaughter and grandson running along after her most days she was in the house. She loved them both dearly, but some days, there was work to be done that she'd rather they not be around for. Well, Diya at least. Bryer had proven more than once that he was capable of handling such gruesome matters, to the point where Nikki often forgot he was only six years old. She shook her head slightly, trying to banish the prickling feeling that was underneath her skin, as if something was wrong. She tried to occupy herself with other things, like organizing her brother's desk. Sometimes she wondered how he got anything done.
Yuki, on the other hand, was currently curled up next to the man she loved and the father of her children. She was feeling particularly lazy and did not feeling like waking up, her son curled up between his parents. Their daughter, of course, had other ideas. Quietly, the little girl crawled up into the bed, peeking over her father's shoulder. She reached out a finger and began to repeatedly poke him in the cheek.
"Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Wake up!"
Seven years was perhaps a blink of an eye to one such as a pure-blood, however; for Zero Kuragari, they were the best years of his life. He could not fathom the happiness he received from the two pairs of feet that had run along the house, echoing their laughter, their voices in general, throughout the home. There were times he wondered if he was truly ready to be a parent, however; the thought eventually subsided. No one could ever prepare for things such as parenthood, but he and Yuki managed to make the most of it. He was happy, she was happy. That was all that mattered.
Currently, he was laying in bed, his arms wrapped around Yuki and encasing their son. A slight sensation was poking his cheek, and he heard a vague sound. Groaning slightly, he turned, cracking one eye open and allowing a tired smile to greet his features. He moved his arms so that he managed to trap Diya in them, bringing the girl over as he rolled with her. "I think not little one," he spoke, nuzzling his face into her hair in the process. "Daddy likes his sleep," he spoke, kissing the top of her head in the process.
Diya laughed in delight as her father all but smothered her. By this point, both Yuki and Bryer were also awake, the latter giving a tired little smile over at her daughter. She had to shake her head slightly. Seven years and they were lucky if they got five hours of sleep at a time. Diya was an endless ball of energy, and she did so enjoy proving it.
Bryer, on the other hand, seemed to be wide awake, and for the most part he was. His big pink eyes looked up at his father and sister, he blinked and then gave a funny little smile. Diya had been his alarm clock for as long as he could remember, at least on the days that he could actually sleep, so this was no surprise to him.
jaciv ui confnir. jaciv ui confnir. jaciv ui confnir. jaciv ui confnir.
Bryer's eyes widened fractionally. It was the voices again. He sat up slowly, conscious of his mother watching him, but looked out the window nonetheless.
jaciv ui confnir. jaciv ui confnir. jaciv ui confnir. jaciv ui confnir.
The voices were getting louder, but it was odd, like he was hearing them through a layer of cotton. He just wished they would go away.
Nikki jumped slightly when a knock rapped across the door. She frowned. They hadn't been expecting anyone, and what was more strange, she couldn't smell anything either. Her eyes narrowed, her hand reaching for Benehime as she approached the door. Every fiber of her being screamed danger. The face that she saw when she opened the door was one she would never forget, in all her years.
She found herself staring into the eyes of Michaline Alistair, her mother. But her mother was dead. An eerie little laugh sounded from behind Michaline, and Nikki jumped again, preoccupied by her thoughts to notice the scent enter her vicinity.
"Aw, is poor big sister too shocked to say anything? I'm hurt Kiki..." There was something...very familiar about that voice, something that Nikki couldn't place. She wasn't sure she wanted to. "And where is our dear big brother? I was hoping to see him again..." Nikki couldn't see her, but if she had to guess by the tone, whoever was speaking was pouting. Someone was messing with her. They had to be. She finally managed to get over her shock and form her face into a fierce glare. "Show yourself. I'll have none of these games."
The voice giggled again. "Oh, that's so mean, Kiki!" Naya Alistair stuck her head down over the edge of the porch's awning, her hair cascading down in waves and then floating, suspended. "Is that how you're going to treat your own little sister? Have you forgotten me, Nikki?" She made a frown, everything distorted because she was up-side down. "It was Jasper, wasn't it? He made you forget! That's so rude...but I haven't forgotten you, Sister..."
Nikki couldn't breathe. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. The name escaped her lips before she even realized she was speaking. "Naya..."
Zero chuckled as Diya laughed, reaching over towards his son and placing a hand on top of his head. "Everything alright, kido?" he asked, watching as his son slowly rose and glanced out the window. He followed Bryer's gaze, glancing out the same window, but saw nothing. He pursed his lips together momentarily before glancing down at Yuki. She had a tired smile upon her face which only caused the grin on his to widen. As he opened his mouth to say something, the sound of the door knocking caught his attention.
"Who could that be?" he stated more to himself than any of the people present. He removed himself from the bed, rolling off and letting his feet hit the ground, sending a light shiver down his spine. There was an odd feeling rolling down his back, one that he couldn't place, and it bothered him. Shaking his head, he sighed softly, shooting his family a soft smile before opening the door to the room. Though the knock was plenty soft, he could still hear it as he heard every other small noise. One of the perks of being a vampire was heightened senses, hearing being no exception.
"Aunt Nikki?" he spoke, glancing at her shocked expression when he came into view. He still couldn't see who was outside of the door, however; he did not miss the name that left his aunt's lips. Naya? Who was Naya? He couldn't recall anyone by that name, or at least no one in particular that wasn't a part of the family. But then it clicked. Naya, Naya Alistair, Nikki and Morgan's sister. His eyes widened slightly as he rushed towards his aunt's side.
Leora had been up early that morning, taking a run around the house they were all in for the moment. She and the others still frequently found their way onto battlefields, but for the moment at least, they’d been granted a short reprieve. She knew her brother and Yuki were glad for the chance to spend some time with the kids, and honestly, she was too. Diya was the cutest little thing, and Bryer was probably the most interesting kid she’d ever met. She never forgot he was a kid, exactly, but she was still pretty consistently amazed by how quickly he learned things. It was fun watching him interact with the other members of the family, actually.
She allowed these thoughts to occupy her mind, because she would rather not think about all the things seven years had managed to change for the worse. She understood now the darkened look Alden got to his eyes when someone asked him a question about his work, and what he and Emrys were talking about when they talked about the toll. Leora had been still just a girl when the time came for her to start paying it—nineteen and still untried. Seven years later, she was twenty-six and an old hand with killing and battle, and she knew how much it could hurt to pay the toll.
She would like to be able to say that the first few years had been the worst, that she no longer cried herself to sleep at night, that she no longer saw the faces of the people she’d killed in her dreams, but… it would be a lie to assert that. It was just as bad now as it always had been, and she understood why her mother had never taken to this kind of thing. Her soul was far too gentle. Leora’s soul… might have been that way, once, but she’d bathed it in blood so many times now that it was mangled and twisted and blackened, and there was nobody left to protect her from it. Growing up, her parents had sheltered her from the worst of the world, and then when she’d tasted it the first time, Alden had taught her to build a shield so that she could keep it at arms’ length again. Now… there was no shield for this. Not even the Aegis in her blood.
The worst part was that there was really nobody to talk to about it. Zero and Yuki were so happy with their family that she didn’t want to interrupt that warmth and light, now that she knew how limited that happiness would be. Aunt Nikki was a wonderful person and a good mentor, and seven years had made her Leo’s mentor, after a fashion, but she was so accustomed to fighting, had that Alistair flair for it, and Leora felt like admitting her weakness to someone like that would just make it worse. So she hid it all behind her father’s face, or rather the version of it that she wore, and she pretended that everything was fine.
Of course, even thinking the word Alistair made her think of him, and she increased her speed until she was almost flying around the grounds, her feet barely touching the ground. How she wished she could fly, could just soar so high above everything that it seemed not at all to matter anymore. She missed flying with Balthasar. Hell, she just missed Balthasar. She missed them all, and some days, she just wanted her parents, or Alden, or anyone who wasn’t so terrifyingly happy that she couldn’t help but envy them.
More than anything or anyone, though, she just wanted to see him.
Leora wasn’t a fool. She knew what that meant. Seven years should have dimmed the keenness of that pain, but for her, it had simply sharpened to a razor point, on which she cut herself far too often. She hadn’t seen his face in seven years. She’d seen Rica a few times, and Ary and Vi and Em and Helen, but she hadn’t seen Balthasar or her parents or him, and she was feeling the loneliness of that with a fervency that she hated. Any of them would have been a balm to the wound in her soul, but it was they she’d always seemed to miss, in the between-time of battles and the endless red haze that fell over her eyes when she was forced once again to end life to preserve other lives. If this was the toll, she wasn’t sure she had anything left to pay.
She hoped, prayed even, though she knew not to whom, that he didn’t care for her anymore. That seven years had done for him what it could not do for her, and that he was happy as he could be, given the circumstances. Sometimes, she even hoped that he’d found someone else, but her heart wouldn't let her hold onto that hope for too long. She was a horrid, selfish person, but she was slowly coming to terms with that. Because at least she’d been strong enough, and good enough, not to subject him to this, to her. Leora counted it strongly in her favor that that much was true, at least.
Something moving in the corner of her vision caught her attention, and Leo was brought from her thoughts by the sight of three figures moving towards the house. Her brows drew together, her mouth compressing into a suspicious line. Thinking quickly, she stepped into the nearest shadow, her form dissolving into it so that she lost visibility, sound, and even her distinctive smell, had become one with the dark. Jumping several times, she ended up in the shadow of a woman with black hair, walking behind another woman, who was flanked also by a man. She watched and waited when the one she followed climbed up the awning, and the shadow Leo belonged to stopped. It was strange—though the leader had a scent and an aura, neither of the other two did.
Her Aunt Nikki answering the door produced more confusion than anything, and then her brother appeared. The leader was obviously psychotic, but… just what was going on here?
Yuki sat up, sliding her arms around Bryer. Something was troubling him, and it bothered her that she did not know what it was. A shiver ran down her spine, her brows furrowing as she frowned. She looked at her daughter. "Diya, I want you to stay here, with your brother, okay? I'm going to see what Daddy's doing." Diya's big blue eyes looked up at her mother, and she nodded. "Okay, Mommy." Diya scooted over, wrapping her arms around Bryer's shoulders. Though neither of them would say it, both children could also feel that something was wrong.
Bryer shivered.
"Ooh, goody! The little Kuragari lord is here. But where is the little Aegis girl? I was looking forward to playing with her. Oh well. She's not what I'm here for, anyhow." Naya giggled madly as she swung down, landing silently behind the Michaline puppet. Naya's eyebrows rose slightly, her grin only widening with Nikki's increased confusion. She touched the Michaline puppet on the arm, and it immediately sank down onto one knee. "She looks almost exactly like mom did, huh? She should, I made her myself. Daddy is here, too, see? It's amazing, what one can do with a bound soul...and it would seem that my grandson has inherited my ability, yes? That's good...I've always wanted a student. It's a shame, though, that the girl does not have it. I have no use for her."
Naya spun around on the ball of her bare foot, her grin shining as she did so. "Oh Sebastian!" She trilled, her voice sing-song. "Do be a good puppet and take care of the Kuragari lord for me? I have a feeling he'll just get in the way. Mother Dearest, go find the boy. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic...I think I want to play with my big sister for a while."
Both puppets did as they were bid, the female heading off in the direction where she could sense the other animator, the one called Bryer, while the male, Sebastian, headed straight for Zero. Nikki had gone through it all, her eyes glued to her sister, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. But when the puppets moved, Naya too, flickered out of view, reappearing right in front of her sister with a gleam in her eye that screamed insanity. Nikki's eyes widened, but she was too shocked to react in time, Naya had latched on to her wrist, pulling her forward before slamming her chest with an open palm. The force of the blow sent Nikki straight into and through the far wall.
"Oh dear. Please tell me you aren't going to disappoint me, Kiki...I've been looking forward to this for oh so long."
Sebastian was a tall man, who other than the height, looked very much like his son Morgan. His face, however, held no expression, and his eyes were a dull, lifeless red. He did as he was bid, of course, attacking the Kuragari without hesitation, the polarity in the area around Zero reversing and sending the Pureblood to his knees. It was then that Sebastian spoke, his voice flat, lifeless.
"He can help us."
Yuki, on the other hand, found herself face-to-face with a woman she had only seen in memories. While she was rather unsure of what was going on, the intent was clear enough: this woman wanted past her, and the only thing past her was her children.
Like hell that was happening.
With seconds of coming across from her, Yuki had forced Michaline to retreat back into the entryway, the scowl on her face only deepening as she took in the damage already done. At this point, Yuki didn't care what was going on, she just wanted these people away from her family.
In the room where their parents had left them, Bryer was shaking violently, his hands covering his ears in an attempt to shut out the voices that only he could hear and could not understand. Diya held her little brother, trying to comfort him, but to no avail. "Bry..."
Leora chose this moment to appear, torn between assisting Yuki and helping her aunt, but it was clear that Nikki needed it more—clearly in too much of a state of shock to do anything. So she appeared from the shadow of the doorway, having jumped into it when the Michaline-puppet passed it. “Back off my family, bitch,” she snarled, not in any mood for this sort of thing. She’d heard enough to guess who all these people were supposed to be, and Naya or not, this woman had no good intentions for them. Leo wasn’t about to let that stand, and with the speed borne of her blood, her training, and her years of practice, she launched a heavy kick for Naya’s midsection.
For a brief moment, Zero's eyes flashed a dangerous crimson. This woman, this Naya, she was deranged. The look in her eyes was feral, and laced with dangerous intent, however; the moment she spoke about his family, a low growl emitted through his throat. His family was not something one threatened so lightly, and could get away with it. His eyes, however, darkened considerably when Naya ordered the female puppet to go after the boy. The only other boy around was his son, Bryer. Immediately, Zero made to move, but found himself unable to.
"What the," he gritted between his teeth as he found himself on his knees. Something was forcing him to his knees, and he didn't like it one bit. Sebastian was doing something, something that Zero couldn't put his finger on, however; he began to summon his ability, the energy around him, and forcing it within himself, sending it through the electrical current of his body. It was enough to give him his mobility back, however; it was still hard to keep on his knees.
"He can help you? Who?" Zero spoke, his gaze furious and angered. If Zero had paid any attention, he would have noticed the resemblance the man shared with his uncle, Morgan, however; Zero wasn't interested in who or what the man in front of him looked like. He was only interested in destroying him. If he wanted to do that, he'd have to make it quick. His ergokinesis would only last for so long before he was drained of his energy, rendering him to fall to his knees again. Gritting his teeth, he attacked Sebastian.
What felt like hours was merely a few minutes at most as Zero let out uneven breaths. Every time he would get close to destroying this thing, it always seemed to regenerate itself. He was growing weary, tired, and it did not help that he was concentrating every thing he had into keeping his body from being subjected to Sebastian's polarity control. His ability was the only thing canceling it out. He manifested a ball of light into his hand, attacking Sebastian with it, but the puppet merely dodged. He growled, his frustration becoming apparent.
He needed to end this quickly. Something sparkled, catching his attention as Zero dodged an oncoming attack from Sebastian. Though he appeared physically fine, Zero would have sported a few scars already from the attacks that had landed upon him. His regeneration, however, was slowing down with the passing moments. He managed to grab the back of Sebastian's head, forcing the puppet to look at him, and he noticed it. Sebastian managed to twist out of Zero's grasp as the two men stared off. Zero lunged first, his fist aiming straight for Sebastian who countered.
The scent of blood filled the air a bit thicker than normal as a sharp pain went through Zero's shoulder. The point where his shoulder met the socket had been pierced by Sebastian's hand, the whole fist being exposed through his back. Zero winced slightly, however, with a fluid movement, his forefinger and thumb plunged deeply into Sebastian's right eye, pulling it from the socket as quickly as he could. He had to get close enough to do this, and the only way for that to have been possible was for Zero to become injured one way or another. Once the eye was free from the socket, Zero crushed it.
He then pulled Sebastian's arm from his shoulder, watching as his blood coated the ground. He fell to his knees, the fatigue finally settling in as he banished his ability from his body. "Leo," he spoke softly as his eyes went towards his sister and his aunt. He couldn't focus with the loss of blood, nor did he know what happened to Sebastian. He didn't care. He needed to go to his family. To Yuki, to Bryer, to Diya. With that thought in mind, he forced himself up, holding his shoulder in the process to keep it from bleeding further.
letoclo udoka. seilor udoka duulo.
Bryer shivered.
"Ooh, goody! The little Kuragari lord is here. But where is the little Aegis girl? I was looking forward to playing with her. Oh well. She's not what I'm here for, anyhow." Naya giggled madly as she swung down, landing silently behind the Michaline puppet. Naya's eyebrows rose slightly, her grin only widening with Nikki's increased confusion. She touched the Michaline puppet on the arm, and it immediately sank down onto one knee. "She looks almost exactly like mom did, huh? She should, I made her myself. Daddy is here, too, see? It's amazing, what one can do with a bound soul...and it would seem that my grandson has inherited my ability, yes? That's good...I've always wanted a student. It's a shame, though, that the girl does not have it. I have no use for her."
Naya spun around on the ball of her bare foot, her grin shining as she did so. "Oh Sebastian!" She trilled, her voice sing-song. "Do be a good puppet and take care of the Kuragari lord for me? I have a feeling he'll just get in the way. Mother Dearest, go find the boy. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic...I think I want to play with my big sister for a while."
Both puppets did as they were bid, the female heading off in the direction where she could sense the other animator, the one called Bryer, while the male, Sebastian, headed straight for Zero. Nikki had gone through it all, her eyes glued to her sister, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. But when the puppets moved, Naya too, flickered out of view, reappearing right in front of her sister with a gleam in her eye that screamed insanity. Nikki's eyes widened, but she was too shocked to react in time, Naya had latched on to her wrist, pulling her forward before slamming her chest with an open palm. The force of the blow sent Nikki straight into and through the far wall.
"Oh dear. Please tell me you aren't going to disappoint me, Kiki...I've been looking forward to this for oh so long."
Sebastian was a tall man, who other than the height, looked very much like his son Morgan. His face, however, held no expression, and his eyes were a dull, lifeless red. He did as he was bid, of course, attacking the Kuragari without hesitation, the polarity in the area around Zero reversing and sending the Pureblood to his knees. It was then that Sebastian spoke, his voice flat, lifeless.
"He can help us."
Yuki, on the other hand, found herself face-to-face with a woman she had only seen in memories. While she was rather unsure of what was going on, the intent was clear enough: this woman wanted past her, and the only thing past her was her children.
Like hell that was happening.
With seconds of coming across from her, Yuki had forced Michaline to retreat back into the entryway, the scowl on her face only deepening as she took in the damage already done. At this point, Yuki didn't care what was going on, she just wanted these people away from her family.
letoclo udoka. letoclo udoka. letoclo udoka. letoclo udoka.
In the room where their parents had left them, Bryer was shaking violently, his hands covering his ears in an attempt to shut out the voices that only he could hear and could not understand. Diya held her little brother, trying to comfort him, but to no avail. "Bry..."
Leora chose this moment to appear, torn between assisting Yuki and helping her aunt, but it was clear that Nikki needed it more—clearly in too much of a state of shock to do anything. So she appeared from the shadow of the doorway, having jumped into it when the Michaline-puppet passed it. “Back off my family, bitch,” she snarled, not in any mood for this sort of thing. She’d heard enough to guess who all these people were supposed to be, and Naya or not, this woman had no good intentions for them. Leo wasn’t about to let that stand, and with the speed borne of her blood, her training, and her years of practice, she launched a heavy kick for Naya’s midsection.
For a brief moment, Zero's eyes flashed a dangerous crimson. This woman, this Naya, she was deranged. The look in her eyes was feral, and laced with dangerous intent, however; the moment she spoke about his family, a low growl emitted through his throat. His family was not something one threatened so lightly, and could get away with it. His eyes, however, darkened considerably when Naya ordered the female puppet to go after the boy. The only other boy around was his son, Bryer. Immediately, Zero made to move, but found himself unable to.
"What the," he gritted between his teeth as he found himself on his knees. Something was forcing him to his knees, and he didn't like it one bit. Sebastian was doing something, something that Zero couldn't put his finger on, however; he began to summon his ability, the energy around him, and forcing it within himself, sending it through the electrical current of his body. It was enough to give him his mobility back, however; it was still hard to keep on his knees.
"He can help you? Who?" Zero spoke, his gaze furious and angered. If Zero had paid any attention, he would have noticed the resemblance the man shared with his uncle, Morgan, however; Zero wasn't interested in who or what the man in front of him looked like. He was only interested in destroying him. If he wanted to do that, he'd have to make it quick. His ergokinesis would only last for so long before he was drained of his energy, rendering him to fall to his knees again. Gritting his teeth, he attacked Sebastian.
What felt like hours was merely a few minutes at most as Zero let out uneven breaths. Every time he would get close to destroying this thing, it always seemed to regenerate itself. He was growing weary, tired, and it did not help that he was concentrating every thing he had into keeping his body from being subjected to Sebastian's polarity control. His ability was the only thing canceling it out. He manifested a ball of light into his hand, attacking Sebastian with it, but the puppet merely dodged. He growled, his frustration becoming apparent.
He needed to end this quickly. Something sparkled, catching his attention as Zero dodged an oncoming attack from Sebastian. Though he appeared physically fine, Zero would have sported a few scars already from the attacks that had landed upon him. His regeneration, however, was slowing down with the passing moments. He managed to grab the back of Sebastian's head, forcing the puppet to look at him, and he noticed it. Sebastian managed to twist out of Zero's grasp as the two men stared off. Zero lunged first, his fist aiming straight for Sebastian who countered.
The scent of blood filled the air a bit thicker than normal as a sharp pain went through Zero's shoulder. The point where his shoulder met the socket had been pierced by Sebastian's hand, the whole fist being exposed through his back. Zero winced slightly, however, with a fluid movement, his forefinger and thumb plunged deeply into Sebastian's right eye, pulling it from the socket as quickly as he could. He had to get close enough to do this, and the only way for that to have been possible was for Zero to become injured one way or another. Once the eye was free from the socket, Zero crushed it.
He then pulled Sebastian's arm from his shoulder, watching as his blood coated the ground. He fell to his knees, the fatigue finally settling in as he banished his ability from his body. "Leo," he spoke softly as his eyes went towards his sister and his aunt. He couldn't focus with the loss of blood, nor did he know what happened to Sebastian. He didn't care. He needed to go to his family. To Yuki, to Bryer, to Diya. With that thought in mind, he forced himself up, holding his shoulder in the process to keep it from bleeding further.
Naya had been in the process of walking slowly towards her sister, a deliberateness in her step that spoke of intent to harm, when something collided with her side. Even with the amount of force used, she only stumbled a few steps, and she looked over at the newcomer. Her grin only widened, her eyes a light. "Oh, where did you come from, lovely? You smell like the Aegis girl...oh how delightful!" She giggled again, the sound light and airy. She spun, her foot amed for Leora's head, Nikki almost utterly forgotten. Indeed, she herself could barely move.
Fire and water do not mix, and as it were, Yuki was beginning to seriously consider using that in order to finish this, even if it did have the chance to kill her. She didn't care, she was not going to allow harm to come to her children. In the end, it didn't matter one way or another. Yuki and Michaline had backed towards the door, and Diya opened the door. Bryer was curled up into a little ball, shaking, and she didn't know what to do. Of course, with the scene before her, there was little any of them could do.
Naya's eyes narrowed at the open door, just barely able to see Bryer on the bed. But Yuki and Diya were in the way. She had little use for either of them, really. "Oh Michaline..." She purred, and with a speed that most would have thought impossible, the puppet moved, sending Yuki into the far wall, and headed straight for the little girl.
The stench of blood mixed with pine and something sweeter hit the air. Yuki hit her knees, positioned between Diya and the puppet, a hole in her chest where her heart had been. Her eyes, once a vibrant yellow, had gone flat and dull, utterly devoid of life. Diya simply stood there, her big blue eyes wide, blood splattered across her face and hair.
"Mom...my?"
It was as if everything simply stopped then, and the silence was broken by Naya, who threw her head back and laughed. It was not the light, airy giggle that it had been before. It was heavy, and dark. "Oh how precious...she died to save her daughter. Now tell me, Kiki, that sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? Isn't that what our dear mother did years ago? Hm...I wonder if this one would make any use as a puppet...I can always toss her back if she's not..."
Lost in her musings, Naya did not realize that Bryer had moved. The little boy was now standing next to his sister, his face a blank, expressionless mask, except for his eyes. A deep crimson, something akin to pure rage shined behind them, as he stared at the body of his mother. Naya only noticed him when waves of energy began to roll off of him. That, and she suddenly found herself with a sword through her right forearm.
It was Yuki. Her eyes lifeless, her wound not healing, and no expression on her face, Yuki stood before Naya, blade in hand. Bryer had not moved, but one look told Naya all that she needed to know. "My my...to think you brought her back already. Good...you'll be a better puppet master than I am, boy. Now let's see what you can do!" She tore her arm free, and with a flick of her wrist, brought Michaline back to her side.
Bryer stared with a deep hatred at the woman who reminded him of his grandmother. There was a deep silence around him, he couldn't even hear the voices any longer. All he was aware of was her, and the fact that his mother was dead, and she was the cause. He wasn't even aware of the fact that he was crying.
"Die." He whispered softly.
Nikki, from her position behind Naya, shivered at the scene before her. There were too many things for her to understand, but she did understand two things: the first was that Yuki, her daughter, was dead. The second was that the woman in front of her, Naya, was the one who killed her.
Something snapped. She lunged at Naya, the rage, the regret, the confusion all evident in her eyes and voice as she screamed something incoherent. She had aimed for the back of Naya's head, intent on kiling her, but Naya was faster. She spun, catching Nikki's wrist and twisting it behind her back, pulling Benehime out of it's sheath and holding the blade up to her throat as she forced her sister to her knees.
Her long hair fell in front of her eyes as she grinned, Nikki utterly helpless. "Think, Bryer. You've lost your mother this night, would you like to add your grandmother to this list? Although...I have half a mind to kill her anyway, that would cause Jazzie to break...what do you think Sister? Do you think your husband would weep for you?"
Nikki struggled, the blade biting into her throat. No. No. She would not die here, she could not die here. Her eyes were a steel-cold glare as she looked up at the woman who had once been her little sister. "Fuck you." Naya laughed. "Oh my, what a mouth!"
Bryer hesitated when Naya took control of Nikki, his body tense as he watched. Naya was getting distracted, and that was an opening he could use. Using more subtle movements than those Naya deployed, Bryer moved Yuki around Michaline, and right after Naya said the word mouth, Hineko slid upwards through her chest, piercing straight through her heart. A look of surprise laced Naya's features, and she looked down at the blood-coated blade. She grinned again then, looking over at Bryer, who still glared at her.
"Oh dear...you've gone and killed me. That's too bad, you would have made such...a good..." She never finished her sentence, as she desintegrated before she could. The effect on Michaline was instantaneous. Without a master, the puppets could no longer function. The soul trapped inside screamed, though Bryer was the only one who could hear her. The puppet itself merely stood there. But Bryer could hear it howling. He crouched, covering his ears.
Leo ducked swiftly under the blow aimed for her head, flipping backwards in just enough time to hear her won name spoken aloud. Turning, she caught sight of her brother over her shoulder. Uncertain what the right choice was in terms of action, she acted on instinct alone, and she was at Zero’s instantaneously, taking the majority of his weight on her as he half-collapsed into her side. Winding an arm around his waist, she threw his good arm around her shoulders and tried to walk the both of them inside. They needed to stop these people, and then surely, Yuki would be able to—
Both of them stopped dead in their tracks as they passed inside, in just enough time to watch the scentless woman rip out Yuki’s heart. Leo’s eyes went wide, their color a near-perfect match for the smears of her brother’s blood on her face, her arms, her clothing, and she felt him sag against her, losing consciousness. Oh gods, he’d seen… Yuki!
Burdened down by her brother’s weight and in shock, Leo could do little more than watch events unfold, words like puppet and grandson swimming around in her head until she finally got some kind of tenuous hold on the whole situation. Naya… this was Nikki’s twin, and she was implying that she, not Aunt Nikki, was Bryer’s grandmother, and therefor Yuki’s mother. There were the actual bodies of her dead parents, and she was using some kind of ability to animate them, the same power that little Bry was using on his own mother right now.
Leo regained her ability to move only when she saw her little nephew covering his ears, as though he could hear something that pained him. Setting Zero down on the ground as carefully as she could, Leo straightened, her face as devoid of expression as her father’s ever was, and straightened to a stand. She didn’t know how to kill these things, exactly, but she had a guess. Worst case scenario, she’d just have to try again, but… she’d just had to watch all that happen, and there had been nothing she could do for her family. She had more than enough anger to dismantle this puppet as many times as was necessary. Taking a deep breath, Leo extended her nails until they were vampiric claws, then formed her hand into a spade or dart shape, plunging it into the remaining puppet’s back until she felt its heart. Closing her hands over the organ, she felt somehow that she had the right spot, and squeezed until it was crushed ash in her hand. The rest of the body followed, dissolving into a cloud of nothing, and Leo fell to her knees, feeling suddenly weaker than she properly should.
Her eyes swung to where the puppet-Yuki still stood, and her only thought was that she was glad Zero didn’t have to see this part.
Bryer was only aware of the silence that followed, the Michaline-puppet having been destroyed. For long moments, he didn't move.
Yuki felt her soul slipping from her body. It was an odd feeling, dying. Everything was cold, and where ever she was, it was dark. But there was an overwhelming sense of belonging, as well. But something was tugging at the back of her mind as she floated in the void. Something didn't want to let her go. There was a flash of crimson light, and she became suddenly very aware of her surroundings, scents, sights, and touch. Her body felt...wrong.
Her body. She was back in her body. But she was not in control of it. She could hear something whispering to her, and she was compelled to comply, doing whatever it told her to do. Then, everything was over, and she fond herself standing over her mother, who was mutely staring up at her. Yuki understood then, what had happened. She felt a longing desire to return to where she had been, to go back. Her dull yellow eyes traveled over to her son, and her heart broke. She didn't want to leave him, to leave them, but she had little choice. She did not belong on this plane of existence any longer. Without a sound, she made her way over to her son, and placed her hands on his shoulders.
"Bryer...you need to let me go, little one." Bryer looked up, as if surprised to hear his mother talking. Stubbornly, he shook his head, tears still streaming silently down his cheeks. Yuki smiled. "Please, Bry...I don't belong here any longer. You saw how Michaline and Sebastian were. Surely you don't want that for me as well?" She gently wiped away her son's tears as he shook his head again.
"I love you, Bryer."
Hineko's hilt shattered, and Yuki closed her eyes as she slowly dissolved. Bryer's shoulders shook as she disappeared, his silent tears turning into sobs.
Fire and water do not mix, and as it were, Yuki was beginning to seriously consider using that in order to finish this, even if it did have the chance to kill her. She didn't care, she was not going to allow harm to come to her children. In the end, it didn't matter one way or another. Yuki and Michaline had backed towards the door, and Diya opened the door. Bryer was curled up into a little ball, shaking, and she didn't know what to do. Of course, with the scene before her, there was little any of them could do.
Naya's eyes narrowed at the open door, just barely able to see Bryer on the bed. But Yuki and Diya were in the way. She had little use for either of them, really. "Oh Michaline..." She purred, and with a speed that most would have thought impossible, the puppet moved, sending Yuki into the far wall, and headed straight for the little girl.
The stench of blood mixed with pine and something sweeter hit the air. Yuki hit her knees, positioned between Diya and the puppet, a hole in her chest where her heart had been. Her eyes, once a vibrant yellow, had gone flat and dull, utterly devoid of life. Diya simply stood there, her big blue eyes wide, blood splattered across her face and hair.
"Mom...my?"
It was as if everything simply stopped then, and the silence was broken by Naya, who threw her head back and laughed. It was not the light, airy giggle that it had been before. It was heavy, and dark. "Oh how precious...she died to save her daughter. Now tell me, Kiki, that sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? Isn't that what our dear mother did years ago? Hm...I wonder if this one would make any use as a puppet...I can always toss her back if she's not..."
Lost in her musings, Naya did not realize that Bryer had moved. The little boy was now standing next to his sister, his face a blank, expressionless mask, except for his eyes. A deep crimson, something akin to pure rage shined behind them, as he stared at the body of his mother. Naya only noticed him when waves of energy began to roll off of him. That, and she suddenly found herself with a sword through her right forearm.
It was Yuki. Her eyes lifeless, her wound not healing, and no expression on her face, Yuki stood before Naya, blade in hand. Bryer had not moved, but one look told Naya all that she needed to know. "My my...to think you brought her back already. Good...you'll be a better puppet master than I am, boy. Now let's see what you can do!" She tore her arm free, and with a flick of her wrist, brought Michaline back to her side.
Bryer stared with a deep hatred at the woman who reminded him of his grandmother. There was a deep silence around him, he couldn't even hear the voices any longer. All he was aware of was her, and the fact that his mother was dead, and she was the cause. He wasn't even aware of the fact that he was crying.
"Die." He whispered softly.
Nikki, from her position behind Naya, shivered at the scene before her. There were too many things for her to understand, but she did understand two things: the first was that Yuki, her daughter, was dead. The second was that the woman in front of her, Naya, was the one who killed her.
Something snapped. She lunged at Naya, the rage, the regret, the confusion all evident in her eyes and voice as she screamed something incoherent. She had aimed for the back of Naya's head, intent on kiling her, but Naya was faster. She spun, catching Nikki's wrist and twisting it behind her back, pulling Benehime out of it's sheath and holding the blade up to her throat as she forced her sister to her knees.
Her long hair fell in front of her eyes as she grinned, Nikki utterly helpless. "Think, Bryer. You've lost your mother this night, would you like to add your grandmother to this list? Although...I have half a mind to kill her anyway, that would cause Jazzie to break...what do you think Sister? Do you think your husband would weep for you?"
Nikki struggled, the blade biting into her throat. No. No. She would not die here, she could not die here. Her eyes were a steel-cold glare as she looked up at the woman who had once been her little sister. "Fuck you." Naya laughed. "Oh my, what a mouth!"
Bryer hesitated when Naya took control of Nikki, his body tense as he watched. Naya was getting distracted, and that was an opening he could use. Using more subtle movements than those Naya deployed, Bryer moved Yuki around Michaline, and right after Naya said the word mouth, Hineko slid upwards through her chest, piercing straight through her heart. A look of surprise laced Naya's features, and she looked down at the blood-coated blade. She grinned again then, looking over at Bryer, who still glared at her.
"Oh dear...you've gone and killed me. That's too bad, you would have made such...a good..." She never finished her sentence, as she desintegrated before she could. The effect on Michaline was instantaneous. Without a master, the puppets could no longer function. The soul trapped inside screamed, though Bryer was the only one who could hear her. The puppet itself merely stood there. But Bryer could hear it howling. He crouched, covering his ears.
Leo ducked swiftly under the blow aimed for her head, flipping backwards in just enough time to hear her won name spoken aloud. Turning, she caught sight of her brother over her shoulder. Uncertain what the right choice was in terms of action, she acted on instinct alone, and she was at Zero’s instantaneously, taking the majority of his weight on her as he half-collapsed into her side. Winding an arm around his waist, she threw his good arm around her shoulders and tried to walk the both of them inside. They needed to stop these people, and then surely, Yuki would be able to—
Both of them stopped dead in their tracks as they passed inside, in just enough time to watch the scentless woman rip out Yuki’s heart. Leo’s eyes went wide, their color a near-perfect match for the smears of her brother’s blood on her face, her arms, her clothing, and she felt him sag against her, losing consciousness. Oh gods, he’d seen… Yuki!
Burdened down by her brother’s weight and in shock, Leo could do little more than watch events unfold, words like puppet and grandson swimming around in her head until she finally got some kind of tenuous hold on the whole situation. Naya… this was Nikki’s twin, and she was implying that she, not Aunt Nikki, was Bryer’s grandmother, and therefor Yuki’s mother. There were the actual bodies of her dead parents, and she was using some kind of ability to animate them, the same power that little Bry was using on his own mother right now.
Leo regained her ability to move only when she saw her little nephew covering his ears, as though he could hear something that pained him. Setting Zero down on the ground as carefully as she could, Leo straightened, her face as devoid of expression as her father’s ever was, and straightened to a stand. She didn’t know how to kill these things, exactly, but she had a guess. Worst case scenario, she’d just have to try again, but… she’d just had to watch all that happen, and there had been nothing she could do for her family. She had more than enough anger to dismantle this puppet as many times as was necessary. Taking a deep breath, Leo extended her nails until they were vampiric claws, then formed her hand into a spade or dart shape, plunging it into the remaining puppet’s back until she felt its heart. Closing her hands over the organ, she felt somehow that she had the right spot, and squeezed until it was crushed ash in her hand. The rest of the body followed, dissolving into a cloud of nothing, and Leo fell to her knees, feeling suddenly weaker than she properly should.
Her eyes swung to where the puppet-Yuki still stood, and her only thought was that she was glad Zero didn’t have to see this part.
Bryer was only aware of the silence that followed, the Michaline-puppet having been destroyed. For long moments, he didn't move.
Yuki felt her soul slipping from her body. It was an odd feeling, dying. Everything was cold, and where ever she was, it was dark. But there was an overwhelming sense of belonging, as well. But something was tugging at the back of her mind as she floated in the void. Something didn't want to let her go. There was a flash of crimson light, and she became suddenly very aware of her surroundings, scents, sights, and touch. Her body felt...wrong.
Her body. She was back in her body. But she was not in control of it. She could hear something whispering to her, and she was compelled to comply, doing whatever it told her to do. Then, everything was over, and she fond herself standing over her mother, who was mutely staring up at her. Yuki understood then, what had happened. She felt a longing desire to return to where she had been, to go back. Her dull yellow eyes traveled over to her son, and her heart broke. She didn't want to leave him, to leave them, but she had little choice. She did not belong on this plane of existence any longer. Without a sound, she made her way over to her son, and placed her hands on his shoulders.
"Bryer...you need to let me go, little one." Bryer looked up, as if surprised to hear his mother talking. Stubbornly, he shook his head, tears still streaming silently down his cheeks. Yuki smiled. "Please, Bry...I don't belong here any longer. You saw how Michaline and Sebastian were. Surely you don't want that for me as well?" She gently wiped away her son's tears as he shook his head again.
"I love you, Bryer."
Hineko's hilt shattered, and Yuki closed her eyes as she slowly dissolved. Bryer's shoulders shook as she disappeared, his silent tears turning into sobs.
Goodbye.
Leo wasn’t exactly sure how she did it, but she managed to roll out of bed the next night, careful not to disturb her niece or nephew, both of whom she’d slept curled around to keep them comfortable. Aunt Nikki was in the room, too—none of them had really felt like being separated after the events of yesterday, and that made complete sense. Zero had yet to wake, and they’d put him up in the room next to the one that had been his and Yuki’s, but not the room itself. Waking up to that, and then those memories… it would be jarring to say the least.
She needed to check on him, though—she wouldn’t feel right if she didn’t. It was halfway down the hall that a familiar scent entered her nose, and Leora had to stop and compose herself so as to not burst into tears on the spot. Seven years… seven years, and at least, her mother was here. At the worst possible time, but then, this was exactly when they would need her the most. Leo opened the door to the room Zero was in, to find her mother sitting at the side of his bed, her thumb rubbing small, soothing circles on the back of his hand as her other, alight with her healing luminance, worked the soothing skill into his still-wounded shoulder. The wound closed, and Ava brushed the auburn hair back from her son’s face.
From the redness of her eyes, Leo knew her mother had been weeping. Her own eyes matched, she was sure. “Mom…” she choked out, and her mother turned, smiling sadly and gesturing her daughter over. They both fit in the chair Ava occupied, and she wrapped her arm around her youngest, moving her palm up and down her daughter’s back. Leo’s shoulders shook, and Ava propped her chin on one of them, still holding Zero’s hand with her own left.
“It’s okay, Leo,” she whispered softly, tightening her hold on her only daughter. “It’s okay to cry.” And just like that, everything that the last seven years had done, to her and to them all, compounded by the tragedy of yesterday, came pouring out her eyes, and Leo wept in truth.
Everything was dark. The world was dark, it was cold, and there was nothing he could feel. The last thing he could recall was the scent of blood permeating the air, and it wasn't just anyone's blood. It was hers. It was Yuki's blood that coated the air in a thick scent that it almost suffocated him. But that was just a dream, right? He was dreaming. Yuki wasn't dead, and the hand that was currently rubbing circles upon his own, even as his eyes were still closed to the world, was the hand that belonged to her. Then why was he so afraid of opening his eyes?
Slowly, he shifted, cracking his eyes open as slowly as possible. His body ached, and his shoulder still felt sore. They were clear indications that he had in fact not been dreaming. Everything that he had witnessed, everything that had happened, it was all real. That woman's hand, plunged through Yuki's chest, had been real. She was gone. Yuki was gone, again. The only thing, he wouldn't be able to get her back. Ever. There was no going after her, no chasing her to the ends of the earth to bring her back. She wouldn't be able to come back.
She was gone. And he would never get to see her again. He wasn't even able to say goodbye. He couldn't say goodbye to the woman he loved because she was gone, stolen from him before her time. Already, he could feel the back of his eyes stinging, and as he fully adjusted to his surroundings, the light that had once been vibrant behind his sea-foam green eyes, was dull and lifeless. He stared at his sister as she wept in their mother's arms. How much more of this could they take? How much more did they have to endure before the world ended, before they could live in peace to raise their family?
"Leo, Mom...she's gone," he spoke, his voice low, monotonous, and void of any real feeling but pain. Pain at losing the woman he loved, the mother of his children, but most of all, his reason for existing. Without her, there was just no purpose, however; he stopped himself in that thought. He had Diya, and Bryer. He had his son, and his daughter. They would be his new reason for existing. They would be the reason why he was anchored to this world until the time came that he could join Yuki once more. But for now, all he could do was weep for her, and that is what he did.
Unashamed, unafraid, he wept for the life that was lost to him. He wept for the innocence that was stolen from not only his sister, but his children, his lost wife. He wept for the life that was stolen from his children whose mother would not be around to see them grow. They still had forty years together, and it was plenty of time to raise Diya and Bryer, to watch them grow, perhaps finally end the war, and watch as they carried on the family line with the ones they loved. Yuki would no longer be a part of their lives, his life. The tears continued to fall in a searing sensation across his cheeks as his fist closed softly around his mother's hand.
When Zero stirred, his mother’s eyes snapped to him, and part of her broke for the emptiness she saw. Leora sniffled, took one look at her brother, and crawled in next to him, hugging him around the waist, and their mother moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside them, running a hand in repetitive, soothing motions through her son’s hair. Her heart clenched in her chest, and Ava lamented what was lost. Yuki first and foremost, but also the other things that she could see that seven years had taken from her children. In that time, she’d been fortunate enough to see her grandchildren and her son, but not her daughter, and the changes in all of them threw her, to the degree that her head was spinning with it all—the unanswered questions, the what-ifs, but most of all… just pain. A mother’s pain, pain on behalf of her children.
She could only imagine what Nikki must be going through, and she mourned for her friend just as surely as any of them. What was precious was lost now, in all but memory. Those memories, she knew, they would have to hold tightly to, but there would be times when even they were not enough. She recalled the promise Vincent made to her every time he left, and she wept because her son did not have his beloved to make it to, to ask it from. Shifting her position, she gently moved her son’s head into her lap, still stroking his hair, her other hand moving to entwine with her daughter’s. There was nothing else she could do for them, in this moment, and for that, she felt a failure as a mother.
What did one do or say in the face of such pain? There was nothing. There were no words, no actions, that could make this better. All she could do was be there, physically present and willing to do anything they should ask of her. That was it, and it was not enough. Ava knew this with a cold, trembling certainty. She would do it anyway—because if they simply stopped going, then none of it would ever mean anything. One thing at a time, and the first thing was to allow them to grieve, as long and as hard as they needed to.
Bryer did not sleep. The voices had returned, and they would not leave him be. But it was more than that. What he had done was wrong, and more than one wrong had been commited. His sister had slept fitfully, and he had watched her in the arms of his Aunt. His grandmother had fared no better, and in fact, Bryer was almost sure she had not slept, either. One look at her face and the dark circles that hung under her eyes confirmed this.
Leora was the first to leave, and Bryer sat up, then. Nikki at first did not move, but she did when Diya spoke. "G-ma...where's Daddy?" Nikki smiled as best she could, sitting up and taking Diya into her arms. Silently, Bryer followed. Nikki's chest hurt, some twisted lump in the place where her heart had once been, but even so, she worried about her grandson, about the utter lack of emotion that she saw there.
She was not surprised to find Ava present, and the second she set Diya down, the little girl went straight over to her father, her little hand wrapping around his as she looked at him sadly. Bryer, however, stayed next to Nikki, one hand clenched into her skirt as he half-hid behind her, as if he was afraid to enter.
It wasn't that he was afraid to enter. He felt he had no right to. He'd killed someone, and what was worse, he'd brought his mother back onto this plane of existence when she had no reason to be here. He understood more about his ability because of this encounter, and he reviled it now. He was no god, what right did he have to go around using souls? He was nothing more than a monster, and the fact that he had so easily killed another, regardless of the fact that he had been protecting his grandmother or not, only added more proof.
Zero wrapped his arms around Leora as best as he could. His mother tried her best to soothe him, however; he just couldn't feel it. He wanted to, so desperately so. He wanted to feel that calming affect, that soothing gesture that made everything feel better. But nothing would ever feel better again. It would mend, with time, his heart, but it would never be better. It would remain broken, jagged and unhealed. He sighed softly, inhaling the fading scent of her. He could still smell her, though faint as it was, lingering about. He was brought from his thoughts when Nikki appeared, Diya going straight for his hand while Bryer stayed behind Nikki.
His eyes softened as he watched his children, running his free hand through Diya's hair as he tried to muster a smile for them. "Diya, Bryer," he spoke, mustering enough emotion to be laced into his voice as he called to his children. He could see something behind his son's eyes, something he couldn't quite place, and a part of it broke his heart. He sighed softly. He had to be stronger than this. He had to be strong for his children, so that they could be allowed to grieve for their deceased mother, while still having their father for support.
"Nikki...I'm sorry," he finally spoke, addressing his aunt in the process. What was he apologizing for though? The fact that he couldn't protect Yuki? The fact that he let her die before her time? That he had failed to protect her when she needed him most? He did not know, and he could not describe the feeling of something reaching inside of his stomach and twisting it around. "I'm sorry," he repeated, turning his attention back to Diya. It hurt to stare at his aunt, and he wasn't even sure he could face the rest of his family once they found out.
Leora slid back when Diya and the others appeared, allowing the little girl to get in closer to her father. Wiping her face of her tears as well as she could, she gave her aunt and nephew a watery, wan smile, which faded abruptly on seeing the look in the little boy’s eyes. It didn’t take Leo long to guess what it meant. She was not the most academic of her relatives, nor the best strategist, but Leo had an instinctive understanding of emotion that she shared with her mother. Only, unlike Ava, she had seen what happened, and could connect the child’s obvious guilt to the events.
On bare feet, she padded quietly over to where he was, hidden partially behind Aunt Nikki, and descended to her knees in front of him. For a moment, she just looked at him, reading the guilt and the hurt hidden behind the lack of expressiveness, and she shook her head slowly, opening her arms and leaning forward a little to wrap them around her nephew. “You saved us,” she whispered, softly enough that only he could hear her. “You saved us in the only way you knew how. Don't ever feel bad about that, Bry. Thank you.”
He could understand what his aunt was saying, surely. But that didn't make him feel any better. But instead of speaking, he only allowed her to hug him, closing his eyes in the process, trying to block out the voices.
Nikki watched silently as Zero apologized to her. That right there was almost too much for her to handle, and a tear slid slowly down her cheek. No, he had no reason to apologize. If anything, she should be apologizing to him. She'd hesitated, and if it had not been for that, she may have been able...
She had to stop her train of thought. She could not have known that her sister had survived that night so long ago that would not stop haunting her, even after two and half centuries. She'd watched Naya die, and in truth, Nikki believed that she had died that night. The woman who had appeared before them had not been Naya. In body, perhaps, but not mind. Naya had always been gentle, and kind, and that woman had been anything but. "No, Zero...it is I who is sorry..."
Diya closed her eyes, buring her face in her father's chest as two big tears fell down her cheeks. "Daddy and Bry hurt...I don't like it."
Zero shook his head lightly at Nikki. It wasn't her fault. None of this was their fault. The fault lay with the war, the one who started it. If it had not been for that, they would all not have suffered so. They would not have had to have lost the ones they did. Yuki would not have suffered as she had, his family would not have to suffer for it now. They could have all lived peacefully, in a faux ever after, but it was too much to ask for. He was a fool to think otherwise. Sighing softly, his attention was taken by Diya when she spoke.
"We are all sorry," he spoke, responding to his aunt before turning towards Bryer and watching as his sister hugged him. "I'm sorry, Diya. Daddy won't hurt any longer then," he spoke, poking her nose softly with his forefinger and offering her a small smile. He wrapped his arms around his daughter, allowing her to bury her face into his chest as she cried. He would see to it that this war ended. He would do everything in his power to end this war, even if he had to die to do so. His children, his family, deserved to live in a world free of war, and he would do everything he could to provide it to them.
She needed to check on him, though—she wouldn’t feel right if she didn’t. It was halfway down the hall that a familiar scent entered her nose, and Leora had to stop and compose herself so as to not burst into tears on the spot. Seven years… seven years, and at least, her mother was here. At the worst possible time, but then, this was exactly when they would need her the most. Leo opened the door to the room Zero was in, to find her mother sitting at the side of his bed, her thumb rubbing small, soothing circles on the back of his hand as her other, alight with her healing luminance, worked the soothing skill into his still-wounded shoulder. The wound closed, and Ava brushed the auburn hair back from her son’s face.
From the redness of her eyes, Leo knew her mother had been weeping. Her own eyes matched, she was sure. “Mom…” she choked out, and her mother turned, smiling sadly and gesturing her daughter over. They both fit in the chair Ava occupied, and she wrapped her arm around her youngest, moving her palm up and down her daughter’s back. Leo’s shoulders shook, and Ava propped her chin on one of them, still holding Zero’s hand with her own left.
“It’s okay, Leo,” she whispered softly, tightening her hold on her only daughter. “It’s okay to cry.” And just like that, everything that the last seven years had done, to her and to them all, compounded by the tragedy of yesterday, came pouring out her eyes, and Leo wept in truth.
Everything was dark. The world was dark, it was cold, and there was nothing he could feel. The last thing he could recall was the scent of blood permeating the air, and it wasn't just anyone's blood. It was hers. It was Yuki's blood that coated the air in a thick scent that it almost suffocated him. But that was just a dream, right? He was dreaming. Yuki wasn't dead, and the hand that was currently rubbing circles upon his own, even as his eyes were still closed to the world, was the hand that belonged to her. Then why was he so afraid of opening his eyes?
Slowly, he shifted, cracking his eyes open as slowly as possible. His body ached, and his shoulder still felt sore. They were clear indications that he had in fact not been dreaming. Everything that he had witnessed, everything that had happened, it was all real. That woman's hand, plunged through Yuki's chest, had been real. She was gone. Yuki was gone, again. The only thing, he wouldn't be able to get her back. Ever. There was no going after her, no chasing her to the ends of the earth to bring her back. She wouldn't be able to come back.
She was gone. And he would never get to see her again. He wasn't even able to say goodbye. He couldn't say goodbye to the woman he loved because she was gone, stolen from him before her time. Already, he could feel the back of his eyes stinging, and as he fully adjusted to his surroundings, the light that had once been vibrant behind his sea-foam green eyes, was dull and lifeless. He stared at his sister as she wept in their mother's arms. How much more of this could they take? How much more did they have to endure before the world ended, before they could live in peace to raise their family?
"Leo, Mom...she's gone," he spoke, his voice low, monotonous, and void of any real feeling but pain. Pain at losing the woman he loved, the mother of his children, but most of all, his reason for existing. Without her, there was just no purpose, however; he stopped himself in that thought. He had Diya, and Bryer. He had his son, and his daughter. They would be his new reason for existing. They would be the reason why he was anchored to this world until the time came that he could join Yuki once more. But for now, all he could do was weep for her, and that is what he did.
Unashamed, unafraid, he wept for the life that was lost to him. He wept for the innocence that was stolen from not only his sister, but his children, his lost wife. He wept for the life that was stolen from his children whose mother would not be around to see them grow. They still had forty years together, and it was plenty of time to raise Diya and Bryer, to watch them grow, perhaps finally end the war, and watch as they carried on the family line with the ones they loved. Yuki would no longer be a part of their lives, his life. The tears continued to fall in a searing sensation across his cheeks as his fist closed softly around his mother's hand.
When Zero stirred, his mother’s eyes snapped to him, and part of her broke for the emptiness she saw. Leora sniffled, took one look at her brother, and crawled in next to him, hugging him around the waist, and their mother moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside them, running a hand in repetitive, soothing motions through her son’s hair. Her heart clenched in her chest, and Ava lamented what was lost. Yuki first and foremost, but also the other things that she could see that seven years had taken from her children. In that time, she’d been fortunate enough to see her grandchildren and her son, but not her daughter, and the changes in all of them threw her, to the degree that her head was spinning with it all—the unanswered questions, the what-ifs, but most of all… just pain. A mother’s pain, pain on behalf of her children.
She could only imagine what Nikki must be going through, and she mourned for her friend just as surely as any of them. What was precious was lost now, in all but memory. Those memories, she knew, they would have to hold tightly to, but there would be times when even they were not enough. She recalled the promise Vincent made to her every time he left, and she wept because her son did not have his beloved to make it to, to ask it from. Shifting her position, she gently moved her son’s head into her lap, still stroking his hair, her other hand moving to entwine with her daughter’s. There was nothing else she could do for them, in this moment, and for that, she felt a failure as a mother.
What did one do or say in the face of such pain? There was nothing. There were no words, no actions, that could make this better. All she could do was be there, physically present and willing to do anything they should ask of her. That was it, and it was not enough. Ava knew this with a cold, trembling certainty. She would do it anyway—because if they simply stopped going, then none of it would ever mean anything. One thing at a time, and the first thing was to allow them to grieve, as long and as hard as they needed to.
Bryer did not sleep. The voices had returned, and they would not leave him be. But it was more than that. What he had done was wrong, and more than one wrong had been commited. His sister had slept fitfully, and he had watched her in the arms of his Aunt. His grandmother had fared no better, and in fact, Bryer was almost sure she had not slept, either. One look at her face and the dark circles that hung under her eyes confirmed this.
Leora was the first to leave, and Bryer sat up, then. Nikki at first did not move, but she did when Diya spoke. "G-ma...where's Daddy?" Nikki smiled as best she could, sitting up and taking Diya into her arms. Silently, Bryer followed. Nikki's chest hurt, some twisted lump in the place where her heart had once been, but even so, she worried about her grandson, about the utter lack of emotion that she saw there.
She was not surprised to find Ava present, and the second she set Diya down, the little girl went straight over to her father, her little hand wrapping around his as she looked at him sadly. Bryer, however, stayed next to Nikki, one hand clenched into her skirt as he half-hid behind her, as if he was afraid to enter.
It wasn't that he was afraid to enter. He felt he had no right to. He'd killed someone, and what was worse, he'd brought his mother back onto this plane of existence when she had no reason to be here. He understood more about his ability because of this encounter, and he reviled it now. He was no god, what right did he have to go around using souls? He was nothing more than a monster, and the fact that he had so easily killed another, regardless of the fact that he had been protecting his grandmother or not, only added more proof.
Zero wrapped his arms around Leora as best as he could. His mother tried her best to soothe him, however; he just couldn't feel it. He wanted to, so desperately so. He wanted to feel that calming affect, that soothing gesture that made everything feel better. But nothing would ever feel better again. It would mend, with time, his heart, but it would never be better. It would remain broken, jagged and unhealed. He sighed softly, inhaling the fading scent of her. He could still smell her, though faint as it was, lingering about. He was brought from his thoughts when Nikki appeared, Diya going straight for his hand while Bryer stayed behind Nikki.
His eyes softened as he watched his children, running his free hand through Diya's hair as he tried to muster a smile for them. "Diya, Bryer," he spoke, mustering enough emotion to be laced into his voice as he called to his children. He could see something behind his son's eyes, something he couldn't quite place, and a part of it broke his heart. He sighed softly. He had to be stronger than this. He had to be strong for his children, so that they could be allowed to grieve for their deceased mother, while still having their father for support.
"Nikki...I'm sorry," he finally spoke, addressing his aunt in the process. What was he apologizing for though? The fact that he couldn't protect Yuki? The fact that he let her die before her time? That he had failed to protect her when she needed him most? He did not know, and he could not describe the feeling of something reaching inside of his stomach and twisting it around. "I'm sorry," he repeated, turning his attention back to Diya. It hurt to stare at his aunt, and he wasn't even sure he could face the rest of his family once they found out.
Leora slid back when Diya and the others appeared, allowing the little girl to get in closer to her father. Wiping her face of her tears as well as she could, she gave her aunt and nephew a watery, wan smile, which faded abruptly on seeing the look in the little boy’s eyes. It didn’t take Leo long to guess what it meant. She was not the most academic of her relatives, nor the best strategist, but Leo had an instinctive understanding of emotion that she shared with her mother. Only, unlike Ava, she had seen what happened, and could connect the child’s obvious guilt to the events.
On bare feet, she padded quietly over to where he was, hidden partially behind Aunt Nikki, and descended to her knees in front of him. For a moment, she just looked at him, reading the guilt and the hurt hidden behind the lack of expressiveness, and she shook her head slowly, opening her arms and leaning forward a little to wrap them around her nephew. “You saved us,” she whispered, softly enough that only he could hear her. “You saved us in the only way you knew how. Don't ever feel bad about that, Bry. Thank you.”
He could understand what his aunt was saying, surely. But that didn't make him feel any better. But instead of speaking, he only allowed her to hug him, closing his eyes in the process, trying to block out the voices.
Nikki watched silently as Zero apologized to her. That right there was almost too much for her to handle, and a tear slid slowly down her cheek. No, he had no reason to apologize. If anything, she should be apologizing to him. She'd hesitated, and if it had not been for that, she may have been able...
She had to stop her train of thought. She could not have known that her sister had survived that night so long ago that would not stop haunting her, even after two and half centuries. She'd watched Naya die, and in truth, Nikki believed that she had died that night. The woman who had appeared before them had not been Naya. In body, perhaps, but not mind. Naya had always been gentle, and kind, and that woman had been anything but. "No, Zero...it is I who is sorry..."
Diya closed her eyes, buring her face in her father's chest as two big tears fell down her cheeks. "Daddy and Bry hurt...I don't like it."
Zero shook his head lightly at Nikki. It wasn't her fault. None of this was their fault. The fault lay with the war, the one who started it. If it had not been for that, they would all not have suffered so. They would not have had to have lost the ones they did. Yuki would not have suffered as she had, his family would not have to suffer for it now. They could have all lived peacefully, in a faux ever after, but it was too much to ask for. He was a fool to think otherwise. Sighing softly, his attention was taken by Diya when she spoke.
"We are all sorry," he spoke, responding to his aunt before turning towards Bryer and watching as his sister hugged him. "I'm sorry, Diya. Daddy won't hurt any longer then," he spoke, poking her nose softly with his forefinger and offering her a small smile. He wrapped his arms around his daughter, allowing her to bury her face into his chest as she cried. He would see to it that this war ended. He would do everything in his power to end this war, even if he had to die to do so. His children, his family, deserved to live in a world free of war, and he would do everything he could to provide it to them.
Over seven years, the battle for information was just as pitched as the battle for territory. In the Council Boardroom and in the shadowy dark of less-reputable places, Aryan, Emrys, Morgan, and Alden ferreted out pieces of plans, names of Council agents and hidden Pantheon members, and these names, locations, and dates were funneled back to Helen, who served largely as the shadowy hand of those brokers. It was from there her task, sometimes with the assistance of Emrys or Alden, to seek out the bearers of those names, at those places and times, and end them. The ritualistic dismantling of well-laid plans may well have been the most complex and arduous of all the tasks, and there was not one among them who did not feel their burdens keenly, weighting their shoulders a little more with each year that passed.
In the seventh year, a tip from an informant brought the four youngest of these together, to an impressive Council function held for all the most important names in vampiric society. There was to be something, an attack of some kind, launched at the party, and aimed squarely for the neck of the youngest von Nacht. With customary daring and aplomb, as well as the assistance of three of his sharpest companions, Aryan stepped forward, using himself as bait to unmask his would-be assassin.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
Aryan's bright violet eyes slid to his cousin's reflection in the mirror as he straightened the cuffs of his jacket. There was the hint of a wry smile as he answered him. "I have little choice, Emrys. Besides, I've got you and Alden to watch my back."
Emrys had to fight not to roll his eyes. "Sometimes I think you put too much stock in us. Maybe we'll just let you die, to throw you for a loop."
Aryan chuckled. "I wish you luck in dealing with my mother when you explain to her that you let me die simply to prove a point."
Emrys grimaced. He had a point, Nikki would probably kill him, Erys or no. He shook his head, sighing. "Touche."
Aryan slid the gold ring on his finger, his fingers brushing over the black velvet ribbon stashed away in the box. He paused, a small smile lighting his lips. It had been nearly seven years since he'd seen her last, but his constant contact with Alden and his Uncle Morgan assured him that she was fine. It still pained him not to see her, but their word and the on-going chess game that they shared was enough for now. His mind drifted then.
He had two on-going games now, one with Helen, and another, more recent game with his nephew and God-son, Bryer. That thought made him smile all the more. It had been almost seven months since he'd seen the boy, who had been sharp as ever. Aryan had suggested the long-distance game, and the boy had eagerly agreed. As it stood, Aryan was losing, which rather amused him, to be losing to a six-year-old.
Anyone who was familiar with Alden Kuragari would be able to tell that the satisfied little half-smile on his face meant trouble for someone, and in this case, it was the good kind for his cousin and the bad kind for whomever was trying to kill him. Seven more years in the field had wrought a certain kind of change in the woman, and it was greater than any of the physical alterations anyone else had been through in that time.
Well, besides him, of course, but shapeshifters didn’t count.
Helen was obediently still as he tugged at the laces on the corset, tying them with an expert hand. Granted, he was a little more used to getting someone out of such a contraption, but in his line of work, one was more effective if one was multitalented. She didn’t need one as such—the woman was lean, having developed a fleet, svelte musculature, reminiscent of a gazelle or something of that nature, and she was deceptively long despite her height, from the swanlike curve of her neck down to the pale, porcelain-doll fingers that tipped her hands. Of course, one did not go to Council functions dressed as one went to more conventional assassinations, hence the corset.
“Would you look at that?” he mused with some kind of abstract approval at his own handiwork. “Green may be your color, but purple works just as well.” And someone might as well be in purple this evening, since he was presently masquerading as a lanky, redheaded fellow with multiple piercings in each ear and a very interesting dragon tattoo just visible over the collar of his shirt. This was a face that had an alias and a long history of mercenary work behind it—important enough to be welcome at a function like this, unimportant enough to draw no more attention than he wanted. And the attention was going to be on Aryan this evening.
Well, Aryan and the mysterious woman at his side, dressed in a gown the color of his eyes. Helen was nigh unrecognizable, partly due to his work and partly due to her own changes. She was quiet as Alden ran a fine-toothed comb through the sheet of silver hair that fell now to her waist. Cosmetics, he felt, were unnecessary, and so he used none. At his nod, Helen moved at last, picking up the array of weapons that lay out on the table and slashing several in various places where they would remain unseen. He shook his head when a knife even disappeared into the décolletage created by the corset. “Now that, I do envy about women,” he said with a grin, and to his surprise, Helen actually cocked an eyebrow at him.
“What? It’s true. Now come on. We, my bella luna, have a party to crash, and a cousin to surprise.” He’d taken to calling her a number of synonyms for the moon, because that was what her hair reminded him of. Honestly, if she wasn’t so delicate psychologically and Ary so obviously taken with her, he’d have probably attempted to… but ah. Such thoughts were not for today. Besides, he had a date of his own this evening. Reaching the door behind which his cousins were, Alden knocked sharply three times. “Sir? I’m here, and I brought a guest.” This body would not, after all, refer to Aryan has his cousin, or even Ary.
Aryan's eyes slid to the door as Alden, or rather, Seth Arwood, knocked. A guest? He pursed his lips, tucking the hair ribbon into the pocket on his jacket, Emrys smirking at him in the mirror. Aryan's eyes narrowed on his cousin slightly. "Do stop leering at me and go see who he's brought."
Emrys chucked slightly, for once, his blonde hair slicked back instead of wild. That had taken him some work, but he'd managed, even if it was a pain in the ass. His eye brows rose as he found himself face to face with Seth and, of all people, Helen. He grinned. "Well I'll be damned." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Hey Ary...looks like you won't be dateless tonight after all."
Aryan sighed, turning around while speaking. "What are you--" He cut himself off mid-sentence as he took in the appearance of none other than Helen Trist. His purple eyes widened slightly as he felt his breath catch. Perhaps some people would not be able to recognize her off-hand with her hair, and in that dress, but one thing Aryan always knew. He'd know her anywhere, no matter how long it went between seeing her. He would always know her. That funny little truthful smile that only seemed to grace his face when he saw her now appeared on Aryan von Nacht's face. "Helen."
Emrys shook his head slightly, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall. "Tricky little bastard, ain't you Seth?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“The very trickiest, Emrys,” Alden replied with a smile. He was, after all, the man’s date, so really, he was allowed such liberties. As well as perhaps the one he took with Em’s person, catching up his cousin’s hand and brushing his lips over the knuckles. “I do believe, however, that we would be best served getting a head start on the surveying, don’t you?” He raised a crimson brow, leading his cousin out of the room. Helen was more than enough guard for Aryan at the moment—the real danger would not come until the party itself.
It was only peripherally that Helen noticed the two men depart, the majority of her attention—too much, something inside her warned—focused on the one in front of her. To say that her nagging thoughts had disappeared over seven years would be to lie outright. If anything, she only thought of him more now than she had before, and had always found herself holding her breath every time she approached the chess board, knowing she was going to find a black piece moved because she knew he was alive, yet somehow unable to believe it for truth until she saw it. Seeing him in the flesh was like… she honestly had nothing to compare it to. She didn’t know what it was like, this strange, irregular flutter in her chest.
Her lips tilted only fractionally, but it was more than they had since she’d seen him last. Helen inclined her head, dropping smoothly into a curtsy, and then rising again to her meager height. “Aryan. It is good to see you. I am sorry I was not able to contact you regarding this sooner—I only just returned from Canada.” Another day, another dead man. That one had believed himself well hidden. Nobody was well hidden from the Spider. And she… she did not waver from her task. The trace of a smile disappeared, and she released her skirts, so that they just barely brushed the floor once more. As much as she would like to inquire after his last several years, they were here to do a job.
Goosebumps raised along the back of his neck as Seth ran his lips over his knuckles. It was odd, really, how much reaction could be elicited from one simple touch. But then, Alden was very good at what he did, which was why Emrys had decided years ago that whatever this was, this feeling he had when he was around his cousin, that he would ignore it. It was obvious to see how well that was going. Which was to say, rather poorly. Even so, he allowed himself to be tugged along; Seth was right, scouting was a necessary part of their job if they were to keep Aryan alive, and that they would, without a doubt. Besides, Seth was his date.
Aryan smiled, bowing slightly to her after her curtsy. The words his father had once spoken to him as a child were true, after all. Kings bowed to their Queens. A sly smile appeared on his face as he straightened, and he pulled the ribbon out of his pocket. "I believe I have something that belongs to you, my dear."
In the seventh year, a tip from an informant brought the four youngest of these together, to an impressive Council function held for all the most important names in vampiric society. There was to be something, an attack of some kind, launched at the party, and aimed squarely for the neck of the youngest von Nacht. With customary daring and aplomb, as well as the assistance of three of his sharpest companions, Aryan stepped forward, using himself as bait to unmask his would-be assassin.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
Aryan's bright violet eyes slid to his cousin's reflection in the mirror as he straightened the cuffs of his jacket. There was the hint of a wry smile as he answered him. "I have little choice, Emrys. Besides, I've got you and Alden to watch my back."
Emrys had to fight not to roll his eyes. "Sometimes I think you put too much stock in us. Maybe we'll just let you die, to throw you for a loop."
Aryan chuckled. "I wish you luck in dealing with my mother when you explain to her that you let me die simply to prove a point."
Emrys grimaced. He had a point, Nikki would probably kill him, Erys or no. He shook his head, sighing. "Touche."
Aryan slid the gold ring on his finger, his fingers brushing over the black velvet ribbon stashed away in the box. He paused, a small smile lighting his lips. It had been nearly seven years since he'd seen her last, but his constant contact with Alden and his Uncle Morgan assured him that she was fine. It still pained him not to see her, but their word and the on-going chess game that they shared was enough for now. His mind drifted then.
He had two on-going games now, one with Helen, and another, more recent game with his nephew and God-son, Bryer. That thought made him smile all the more. It had been almost seven months since he'd seen the boy, who had been sharp as ever. Aryan had suggested the long-distance game, and the boy had eagerly agreed. As it stood, Aryan was losing, which rather amused him, to be losing to a six-year-old.
Anyone who was familiar with Alden Kuragari would be able to tell that the satisfied little half-smile on his face meant trouble for someone, and in this case, it was the good kind for his cousin and the bad kind for whomever was trying to kill him. Seven more years in the field had wrought a certain kind of change in the woman, and it was greater than any of the physical alterations anyone else had been through in that time.
Well, besides him, of course, but shapeshifters didn’t count.
Helen was obediently still as he tugged at the laces on the corset, tying them with an expert hand. Granted, he was a little more used to getting someone out of such a contraption, but in his line of work, one was more effective if one was multitalented. She didn’t need one as such—the woman was lean, having developed a fleet, svelte musculature, reminiscent of a gazelle or something of that nature, and she was deceptively long despite her height, from the swanlike curve of her neck down to the pale, porcelain-doll fingers that tipped her hands. Of course, one did not go to Council functions dressed as one went to more conventional assassinations, hence the corset.
“Would you look at that?” he mused with some kind of abstract approval at his own handiwork. “Green may be your color, but purple works just as well.” And someone might as well be in purple this evening, since he was presently masquerading as a lanky, redheaded fellow with multiple piercings in each ear and a very interesting dragon tattoo just visible over the collar of his shirt. This was a face that had an alias and a long history of mercenary work behind it—important enough to be welcome at a function like this, unimportant enough to draw no more attention than he wanted. And the attention was going to be on Aryan this evening.
Well, Aryan and the mysterious woman at his side, dressed in a gown the color of his eyes. Helen was nigh unrecognizable, partly due to his work and partly due to her own changes. She was quiet as Alden ran a fine-toothed comb through the sheet of silver hair that fell now to her waist. Cosmetics, he felt, were unnecessary, and so he used none. At his nod, Helen moved at last, picking up the array of weapons that lay out on the table and slashing several in various places where they would remain unseen. He shook his head when a knife even disappeared into the décolletage created by the corset. “Now that, I do envy about women,” he said with a grin, and to his surprise, Helen actually cocked an eyebrow at him.
“What? It’s true. Now come on. We, my bella luna, have a party to crash, and a cousin to surprise.” He’d taken to calling her a number of synonyms for the moon, because that was what her hair reminded him of. Honestly, if she wasn’t so delicate psychologically and Ary so obviously taken with her, he’d have probably attempted to… but ah. Such thoughts were not for today. Besides, he had a date of his own this evening. Reaching the door behind which his cousins were, Alden knocked sharply three times. “Sir? I’m here, and I brought a guest.” This body would not, after all, refer to Aryan has his cousin, or even Ary.
Aryan's eyes slid to the door as Alden, or rather, Seth Arwood, knocked. A guest? He pursed his lips, tucking the hair ribbon into the pocket on his jacket, Emrys smirking at him in the mirror. Aryan's eyes narrowed on his cousin slightly. "Do stop leering at me and go see who he's brought."
Emrys chucked slightly, for once, his blonde hair slicked back instead of wild. That had taken him some work, but he'd managed, even if it was a pain in the ass. His eye brows rose as he found himself face to face with Seth and, of all people, Helen. He grinned. "Well I'll be damned." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Hey Ary...looks like you won't be dateless tonight after all."
Aryan sighed, turning around while speaking. "What are you--" He cut himself off mid-sentence as he took in the appearance of none other than Helen Trist. His purple eyes widened slightly as he felt his breath catch. Perhaps some people would not be able to recognize her off-hand with her hair, and in that dress, but one thing Aryan always knew. He'd know her anywhere, no matter how long it went between seeing her. He would always know her. That funny little truthful smile that only seemed to grace his face when he saw her now appeared on Aryan von Nacht's face. "Helen."
Emrys shook his head slightly, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall. "Tricky little bastard, ain't you Seth?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“The very trickiest, Emrys,” Alden replied with a smile. He was, after all, the man’s date, so really, he was allowed such liberties. As well as perhaps the one he took with Em’s person, catching up his cousin’s hand and brushing his lips over the knuckles. “I do believe, however, that we would be best served getting a head start on the surveying, don’t you?” He raised a crimson brow, leading his cousin out of the room. Helen was more than enough guard for Aryan at the moment—the real danger would not come until the party itself.
It was only peripherally that Helen noticed the two men depart, the majority of her attention—too much, something inside her warned—focused on the one in front of her. To say that her nagging thoughts had disappeared over seven years would be to lie outright. If anything, she only thought of him more now than she had before, and had always found herself holding her breath every time she approached the chess board, knowing she was going to find a black piece moved because she knew he was alive, yet somehow unable to believe it for truth until she saw it. Seeing him in the flesh was like… she honestly had nothing to compare it to. She didn’t know what it was like, this strange, irregular flutter in her chest.
Her lips tilted only fractionally, but it was more than they had since she’d seen him last. Helen inclined her head, dropping smoothly into a curtsy, and then rising again to her meager height. “Aryan. It is good to see you. I am sorry I was not able to contact you regarding this sooner—I only just returned from Canada.” Another day, another dead man. That one had believed himself well hidden. Nobody was well hidden from the Spider. And she… she did not waver from her task. The trace of a smile disappeared, and she released her skirts, so that they just barely brushed the floor once more. As much as she would like to inquire after his last several years, they were here to do a job.
Goosebumps raised along the back of his neck as Seth ran his lips over his knuckles. It was odd, really, how much reaction could be elicited from one simple touch. But then, Alden was very good at what he did, which was why Emrys had decided years ago that whatever this was, this feeling he had when he was around his cousin, that he would ignore it. It was obvious to see how well that was going. Which was to say, rather poorly. Even so, he allowed himself to be tugged along; Seth was right, scouting was a necessary part of their job if they were to keep Aryan alive, and that they would, without a doubt. Besides, Seth was his date.
Aryan smiled, bowing slightly to her after her curtsy. The words his father had once spoken to him as a child were true, after all. Kings bowed to their Queens. A sly smile appeared on his face as he straightened, and he pulled the ribbon out of his pocket. "I believe I have something that belongs to you, my dear."
Helen’s eyes widened—she had taken him at his word that he’d keep it, of course, but she hardly expected it to be on his person at a Council function. And the name he called her… that was a term of endearment, like Alden used. Only… it felt very much different from the way it did when Alden used one. She swallowed, gathering the wherewithal to speak, and collected the ribbon from his hands as though it were something precious. To her, it was. This object had been the first gift Helen was ever given, from her sister, Freya. “Thank you,” she breathed softly, looking up at him with honest gratitude. With an old, familiar motion, she tied the ribbon in her hair, which Alden had left unadorned, almost as if he’d known there would be something for it eventually. She certainly would not put it past him.
The two of them proceeded out towards the great double doors leading into the ballroom for the event, Helen placing her palm gently on Aryan’s arm with some reserve but very little hesitation. The only sort of touch she’d really consistently experienced in the last seven years was the kiss of steel and the feel of a hilt in her hands. This was actually… nice. She chased the thoughts away as they entered, setting herself as firmly into the work mindset as possible, surreptitiously scanning the room.
They were drawing a lot of attention, which she had expected. No few people knew what was planned here, and for Aryan to be so bold as to actually show up to his own assassination was not going unremarked upon, though even her keen ears could not pick out more than the occasional word. She was a bit surprised to hear the occasional comment regarding herself, though she supposed those must be the people who had no idea what was going to happen tonight, and thus had nothing more to worry about than the usual politics of who was associating with whom. She counted no fewer than thirty guards hidden, but custom was to allow each member of the Council to post some, so not all of those would be against them. A few might even help—Aryan had won himself a few allies, as Alden told it.
No, the attack would come from one or more of the guests, at least at first. Or from outside. She could not help the tension in her shoulders, but she knew that there was little she could do yet. It was her job to stick close and defend against anyone that tried anything. The other two would try to find the likely perpetrators in advance. Helen swallowed. This was a hundred—a thousand times more important than anything she had to do before, and it was entirely out of her element, besides. What if she—no. She could not even allow the thought.
Near the edge of the dance floor, Alden’s eyes were half-closed as he sifted through the various thoughts coming to him from the people in his immediate proximity. No few knew that Ary was a target, but he couldn’t detect any of those who wanted to make him one, at least not directly. He got a few hilarious tidbits as well—that girl over there was definitely checking out Emrys, and Al tried not to laugh. Not a chance in Hell, sweetheart. That one’s mine, and nobody steals from the Spider. He raised his goblet of wine to his lips and took a sip, very industriously refraining from spitting it back out in amusement when the jealousy got intense for a second there, for both Helen and Ary, actually. He did his work well, after all, and his cousin was something of a heroic rebel figure in certain circles. It was only natural.
Placing his glass on a passing tray, he decided to crush the girl’s hopes a bit, and swept his cousin out onto the floor as a waltz started up. “Dance with me,” he murmured into Emrys’s ear. “I need to get in range of some more thoughts.” He didn’t bother hiding his smile at the girl’s internal disappointment. She’d be fine; the man two tables down was madly in love with her anyway.
Aryan may not have been a telepath like his cousin, or skilled in fighting like the rest of his family. But he knew how to read poeple, and plenty of information was being thrown at him, from subtle undertones to body language. He was quite amused to see just how many females seemed to be jealous of Helen. He was also well aware of quite a few dirty looks thrown to his own back from various males. That he could certainly attest to, as Helen was beautiful, but he had no doubt that not a one in this room would ever be able to handle her. He wasn't even sure if he could, to be perfectly honest. Many people greeted him, a few carrying on small conversation. Behind each one, Aryan was well aware of what they meant, regardless of what they said. Each one was greeted affluently, Aryan smiling and answering whenever necessary, his charisma and talent for making people see what they wanted to see truly shining in this atmosphere. There were times it got dull, honestly.
Emrys on the other hand, blinked down at Alden as he all but dragged him onto the dance floor, but this was quickly replaced with a small smirk. Over the past seven years, he'd gotten very much used to his cousins' antics, even if he didn't like his own reactions to them. He shook his head slightly as they spun, not missing a few of the dirty looks that more than female threw at them. "It appears that we're breaking a few hearts, Seth."
“Emrys, I’ve been breaking hearts since I was twelve,” Alden replied smartly, pleasantly surprised to find that his cousin had taken after Morgan in the dancing department rather than Erys. He liked having toes. “It’s funnier when they like it, but don’t quite know why,” he said, referring to the strange proclivity of females to find something intriguing about two attractive men clearly with each other. Then again, it wasn’t so mysterious. Many men felt the same way about two females. It never failed to amuse Violet either way.
They waltz was fading when Alden caught the fragment of a thought he’d been looking for. “To the left, black dress, champagne flute. Watch her—she’ll signal the assailants.” At the same time, he mentally connected to Helen and Aryan. Seven, signaled by Lady Knox, it would appear. Should be any second now, so be prepared. In order to preserve his cover as Seth Arwood, Alden would not be intervening directly unless it became very necessary, but seven was a large number of well-trained assassins, especially when there would doubtless be some guards moving in on the action as well.
It was just then that Emrys would be able to see the lady in question drain the rest of her champagne flute, setting the empty thing upside down on the tray of a waiter who’d walked by. It was smooth, but the slight irregularity of placement gave it away as a signal, and as soon as Em was able to warn the others, the whole room burst into action, six of the party guests both male and female pulling weapons from somewhere on their persons. Three made for Aryan, and three more for Emrys, having caught onto the fact that he was the von Nacht’s personal bodyguard. But where was the seventh?
It was the same question Helen asked herself, producing a knife from each thigh via concealed slits in her purple dress and stepping smoothly in front of Aryan even as the first assailant reached them. Doubtless, they’d heard that the von Nacht heir preferred the pen to the sword, and had underestimated him for it. She was going to take satisfaction in showing them just how much that error was going to cost them. The first assassin was surprised by her sudden motion, and her knife sank easily into his heart. Before he could slump into her and impede her motion, Helen cast him away with a foot, drawing another knife and letting the one she’d killed him with clatter to the ground as he became ash and dust. There was no time to recover it, and no efficiency to waste. With as much grace and skill as Aryan had navigated the first part of the night, she took to this, raising a hand to block an incoming sword with the new blade, twisting her whole body to pin the hand holding it under her elbow and jerking back with the other weapon, tearing upwards and disemboweling the second.
Dropping into a low sweep, she knocked the third assassin’s legs out from under her, rolling smoothly on top of the other woman and pinning her with her knees, staking her last knife up and into the space between the woman’s jaw and chin, rendering her instantly brain-dead and actually dead no more than a second later. Helen rose, drawing a very long dagger from a sheath along her shin. She had yet to come away marked with even a spot of blood, her own or her foes’.
Emrys made no mention whether or not he'd heard Alden or not. He didn't have to, really, as he saw when they turned. The woman in question set down the glass, and the barest of smiles appeared on Emrys's face. Showtime. Six of the assassins made themselves known, three of which, all males, made straight for Em himself. This was slightly amusing, as considering he was no where near his charge, you'd think they would have all gone straight for their target. Well, it didn't really matter. He got to have fun now.
And fun he did have, no matter how much he hated killing, this was a bit different. Fluidly, he kept spinning with Alden, pulling Antiss out with his free hand, one bullet going straight through the the first man's eye. Emrys side-stepped, his left hand still entwined with the other males, and he leveled another shot into the heart of the second assassin. The third had jumped, and Emrys could only smirk. He pulled Alden back towards him, dipping the other man as he fired back behind himself, over his shoulder. They righted as the last one disintigrated. Now where was the seventh?
Aryan, to his credit, didn't even flinch as the attack began. He was honestly impressed with the skill in which Helen dispatched the first three; truly, she was in her element. He was also very amused at the fact that Emrys continued dancing with Alden as he killed the remaining three. The Alistairs did truly have a knack for adding their own flair to things. Still, his purple eyes surveyed the remaining crowd, whispers and murmurs abundant around him. There was still one more.
The two of them proceeded out towards the great double doors leading into the ballroom for the event, Helen placing her palm gently on Aryan’s arm with some reserve but very little hesitation. The only sort of touch she’d really consistently experienced in the last seven years was the kiss of steel and the feel of a hilt in her hands. This was actually… nice. She chased the thoughts away as they entered, setting herself as firmly into the work mindset as possible, surreptitiously scanning the room.
They were drawing a lot of attention, which she had expected. No few people knew what was planned here, and for Aryan to be so bold as to actually show up to his own assassination was not going unremarked upon, though even her keen ears could not pick out more than the occasional word. She was a bit surprised to hear the occasional comment regarding herself, though she supposed those must be the people who had no idea what was going to happen tonight, and thus had nothing more to worry about than the usual politics of who was associating with whom. She counted no fewer than thirty guards hidden, but custom was to allow each member of the Council to post some, so not all of those would be against them. A few might even help—Aryan had won himself a few allies, as Alden told it.
No, the attack would come from one or more of the guests, at least at first. Or from outside. She could not help the tension in her shoulders, but she knew that there was little she could do yet. It was her job to stick close and defend against anyone that tried anything. The other two would try to find the likely perpetrators in advance. Helen swallowed. This was a hundred—a thousand times more important than anything she had to do before, and it was entirely out of her element, besides. What if she—no. She could not even allow the thought.
Near the edge of the dance floor, Alden’s eyes were half-closed as he sifted through the various thoughts coming to him from the people in his immediate proximity. No few knew that Ary was a target, but he couldn’t detect any of those who wanted to make him one, at least not directly. He got a few hilarious tidbits as well—that girl over there was definitely checking out Emrys, and Al tried not to laugh. Not a chance in Hell, sweetheart. That one’s mine, and nobody steals from the Spider. He raised his goblet of wine to his lips and took a sip, very industriously refraining from spitting it back out in amusement when the jealousy got intense for a second there, for both Helen and Ary, actually. He did his work well, after all, and his cousin was something of a heroic rebel figure in certain circles. It was only natural.
Placing his glass on a passing tray, he decided to crush the girl’s hopes a bit, and swept his cousin out onto the floor as a waltz started up. “Dance with me,” he murmured into Emrys’s ear. “I need to get in range of some more thoughts.” He didn’t bother hiding his smile at the girl’s internal disappointment. She’d be fine; the man two tables down was madly in love with her anyway.
Aryan may not have been a telepath like his cousin, or skilled in fighting like the rest of his family. But he knew how to read poeple, and plenty of information was being thrown at him, from subtle undertones to body language. He was quite amused to see just how many females seemed to be jealous of Helen. He was also well aware of quite a few dirty looks thrown to his own back from various males. That he could certainly attest to, as Helen was beautiful, but he had no doubt that not a one in this room would ever be able to handle her. He wasn't even sure if he could, to be perfectly honest. Many people greeted him, a few carrying on small conversation. Behind each one, Aryan was well aware of what they meant, regardless of what they said. Each one was greeted affluently, Aryan smiling and answering whenever necessary, his charisma and talent for making people see what they wanted to see truly shining in this atmosphere. There were times it got dull, honestly.
Emrys on the other hand, blinked down at Alden as he all but dragged him onto the dance floor, but this was quickly replaced with a small smirk. Over the past seven years, he'd gotten very much used to his cousins' antics, even if he didn't like his own reactions to them. He shook his head slightly as they spun, not missing a few of the dirty looks that more than female threw at them. "It appears that we're breaking a few hearts, Seth."
“Emrys, I’ve been breaking hearts since I was twelve,” Alden replied smartly, pleasantly surprised to find that his cousin had taken after Morgan in the dancing department rather than Erys. He liked having toes. “It’s funnier when they like it, but don’t quite know why,” he said, referring to the strange proclivity of females to find something intriguing about two attractive men clearly with each other. Then again, it wasn’t so mysterious. Many men felt the same way about two females. It never failed to amuse Violet either way.
They waltz was fading when Alden caught the fragment of a thought he’d been looking for. “To the left, black dress, champagne flute. Watch her—she’ll signal the assailants.” At the same time, he mentally connected to Helen and Aryan. Seven, signaled by Lady Knox, it would appear. Should be any second now, so be prepared. In order to preserve his cover as Seth Arwood, Alden would not be intervening directly unless it became very necessary, but seven was a large number of well-trained assassins, especially when there would doubtless be some guards moving in on the action as well.
It was just then that Emrys would be able to see the lady in question drain the rest of her champagne flute, setting the empty thing upside down on the tray of a waiter who’d walked by. It was smooth, but the slight irregularity of placement gave it away as a signal, and as soon as Em was able to warn the others, the whole room burst into action, six of the party guests both male and female pulling weapons from somewhere on their persons. Three made for Aryan, and three more for Emrys, having caught onto the fact that he was the von Nacht’s personal bodyguard. But where was the seventh?
It was the same question Helen asked herself, producing a knife from each thigh via concealed slits in her purple dress and stepping smoothly in front of Aryan even as the first assailant reached them. Doubtless, they’d heard that the von Nacht heir preferred the pen to the sword, and had underestimated him for it. She was going to take satisfaction in showing them just how much that error was going to cost them. The first assassin was surprised by her sudden motion, and her knife sank easily into his heart. Before he could slump into her and impede her motion, Helen cast him away with a foot, drawing another knife and letting the one she’d killed him with clatter to the ground as he became ash and dust. There was no time to recover it, and no efficiency to waste. With as much grace and skill as Aryan had navigated the first part of the night, she took to this, raising a hand to block an incoming sword with the new blade, twisting her whole body to pin the hand holding it under her elbow and jerking back with the other weapon, tearing upwards and disemboweling the second.
Dropping into a low sweep, she knocked the third assassin’s legs out from under her, rolling smoothly on top of the other woman and pinning her with her knees, staking her last knife up and into the space between the woman’s jaw and chin, rendering her instantly brain-dead and actually dead no more than a second later. Helen rose, drawing a very long dagger from a sheath along her shin. She had yet to come away marked with even a spot of blood, her own or her foes’.
Emrys made no mention whether or not he'd heard Alden or not. He didn't have to, really, as he saw when they turned. The woman in question set down the glass, and the barest of smiles appeared on Emrys's face. Showtime. Six of the assassins made themselves known, three of which, all males, made straight for Em himself. This was slightly amusing, as considering he was no where near his charge, you'd think they would have all gone straight for their target. Well, it didn't really matter. He got to have fun now.
And fun he did have, no matter how much he hated killing, this was a bit different. Fluidly, he kept spinning with Alden, pulling Antiss out with his free hand, one bullet going straight through the the first man's eye. Emrys side-stepped, his left hand still entwined with the other males, and he leveled another shot into the heart of the second assassin. The third had jumped, and Emrys could only smirk. He pulled Alden back towards him, dipping the other man as he fired back behind himself, over his shoulder. They righted as the last one disintigrated. Now where was the seventh?
Aryan, to his credit, didn't even flinch as the attack began. He was honestly impressed with the skill in which Helen dispatched the first three; truly, she was in her element. He was also very amused at the fact that Emrys continued dancing with Alden as he killed the remaining three. The Alistairs did truly have a knack for adding their own flair to things. Still, his purple eyes surveyed the remaining crowd, whispers and murmurs abundant around him. There was still one more.
Violet did not generally go in for being led but he supposed it was worth it to watch his cousin at work, and so he flowed obediently where directed, unable to suppress a snort of laugher when a bullet was fired over his head. There was a certain kind of flair to it, he supposed, and as the music drew to a close, he stood straight, amusement playing clearly over the features that simultaneously were and were not his own. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to swoon and fall madly in love with you, my dashing hero?” he asked, his green eyes glittering with mirth.
This did not, of course stop his awareness of what was going on around him, and he finally managed to locate the last assassin, who, much more subtly than her counterparts, had simply crossed the room in all the excitement and was only now exhibiting killing intent, as she moved in a nonthreatening manner in Aryan’s general direction. Unlike the others, her weapon was a gun, however, a slight miscalculation on his part, and he was only halfway through the thought that would warn them both when the crack of the weapon signified that it had been fired.
But for Aryan, at least, the impact would not come. Helen, reacting on instinct and adrenaline, had moved, quickly enough to catch the bullet in her shoulder. She had the oddly-distant thought that it had likely been aimed right for Aryan’s heart, at that height, but would have missed a bit low, and probably hit a lung instead. Thinking so did not interrupt the trained motion of her body, however, and when the wicked dagger went sailing through the air, Helen’s aim proved superior. It landed with a startling thwack in the woman’s forehead, penetrating bone and rendering her nothing more than another cloud of dust.
Hel flinched, reaching up to the injury with a hand. The smell of her blood—lilies and spun sugar—was everywhere, and had more than a few people moving away so as not to attempt to attack her. Alden was among them, as he didn’t want any accidents. The bullet had lodged in her flesh, but because it was nowhere fatal, her healing factor simply pushed it out again, the wound closing oddly slowly. She wondered why, and Alden caught the thought. Ary, get her out of there; I think that’s the same paralytic they used on Balthasar. She’ll keep bleeding all over the place if we don’t treat her.
Emrys had been rather tempted to return the snark back at his cousin, however; his train of thought was interrupted by the shot that had been fired, and it was not from him. The smell of Helen's blood hit him, and even as a Dhampir, he was slightly tempted. He did not, however, act upon that, and merely stood for a second.
Aryan, on the other hand, remained in control of his naturally cool visage, despite the anger and rage that was searing through him at seeing Helen hurt. He knelt down, picking the girl up, one arm underneath her knees while his other circled around her back. "You'll have to forgive me, Miss Trist, but contact is necessary, I'm afraid." he murmured. He also took the fastest route out, and the shadows at his command covered them, becoming a pillar of solid black before disappearing, they themselves gone.
Shadow travel was by far one of the fastest way to travel, and within seconds Aryan had Helen out side of the building. His face was calm, but there was no denying the concern laced through his voice when he spoke to her. "How are you faring, Helen?"
She couldn’t move, could hardly breathe even, and her vision was fading in and out. Whatever had been used on her was a powerful toxin, enough for someone twice her size, and no doubt meant to be fatal even to Aryan. She understood suddenly why the woman’s aim was off—it wouldn’t have mattered if they hit him in the heart or not—this could have killed him anyway. The only reason she still lived was because of her powers, and even that wouldn’t hold out much longer. Helen struggled to make her voice work, trying to focus on the necessary movements of lips and tongue. She needed contact, physical contact with something alive, and the only living thing she was in contact with right now was one she would never think to use for this purpose.
“Tree…” she whispered. She needed to touch a tree, the ground, anything. Anything alive. But she couldn’t make her own body do it. Her eyelids slackened, falling half-closed, and her breathing grew shallower.
Aryan's grip on Helen only tightened, and he took her to the first tree he could find: a rather large and old oak tree. It's bark was twisted and gnarled from age, and with surprising gentleness, he shifted her in his arms so that he still held her to him, but with the hand that was across her back, he took one of her hands in hers, holding it against the bark of the tree. His heart was pounding, he could only hope that she was able to use her power.
She felt the tree under her fingers more than she saw it before her eyes, and even that sense was starting to go numb. Helen knew that she had to act quickly, but it took her a few seconds to remember how to make her powers work through the haze that fogged her mind. Slowly, though, she began to absorb the energy from the tree, deconstructing its molecular bonds and absorbing the energy of the linkages. The life drained from the leaves first, as they lost their green shine and curled up, drying to a dead brown even as the bark grew brittle and petrified.
Her skin grew warm underneath his hand and against his chest, and Helen glowed from within, her veins lit like lava beneath her flesh, and the tree began to break down much like vampires did when they died, turning into ash and dust that itself seemed to utterly disintegrate until there was nothing left. Helen’s heart gave an irregular thud in her chest, restarted into motion just as it stopped, the energy working to burn the poison out of her system and close the wound. Her eyes were still foggy, and her mind not working precisely in its usual way, else she would not likely have lifted the still faintly-glowing hand to his face and rested her palm against his cheek.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I’ll be all right, now.” But then she lost her hold on consciousness and the world went dark. Her vitals, however, were all strong and normal, so it could be inferred that she simply needed to rest.
Aryan breathed a heavy sigh of relief after Helen lost consciousness. It was easy enough for him to sense that she would, indeed, be alright. So, with that in mind, he dissolved into the shadows once more, reappearing in his own rooms, back inside. He laid her gently on the couch, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face as he sat down in a chair. Emrys and Alden should be along soon.
This did not, of course stop his awareness of what was going on around him, and he finally managed to locate the last assassin, who, much more subtly than her counterparts, had simply crossed the room in all the excitement and was only now exhibiting killing intent, as she moved in a nonthreatening manner in Aryan’s general direction. Unlike the others, her weapon was a gun, however, a slight miscalculation on his part, and he was only halfway through the thought that would warn them both when the crack of the weapon signified that it had been fired.
But for Aryan, at least, the impact would not come. Helen, reacting on instinct and adrenaline, had moved, quickly enough to catch the bullet in her shoulder. She had the oddly-distant thought that it had likely been aimed right for Aryan’s heart, at that height, but would have missed a bit low, and probably hit a lung instead. Thinking so did not interrupt the trained motion of her body, however, and when the wicked dagger went sailing through the air, Helen’s aim proved superior. It landed with a startling thwack in the woman’s forehead, penetrating bone and rendering her nothing more than another cloud of dust.
Hel flinched, reaching up to the injury with a hand. The smell of her blood—lilies and spun sugar—was everywhere, and had more than a few people moving away so as not to attempt to attack her. Alden was among them, as he didn’t want any accidents. The bullet had lodged in her flesh, but because it was nowhere fatal, her healing factor simply pushed it out again, the wound closing oddly slowly. She wondered why, and Alden caught the thought. Ary, get her out of there; I think that’s the same paralytic they used on Balthasar. She’ll keep bleeding all over the place if we don’t treat her.
Emrys had been rather tempted to return the snark back at his cousin, however; his train of thought was interrupted by the shot that had been fired, and it was not from him. The smell of Helen's blood hit him, and even as a Dhampir, he was slightly tempted. He did not, however, act upon that, and merely stood for a second.
Aryan, on the other hand, remained in control of his naturally cool visage, despite the anger and rage that was searing through him at seeing Helen hurt. He knelt down, picking the girl up, one arm underneath her knees while his other circled around her back. "You'll have to forgive me, Miss Trist, but contact is necessary, I'm afraid." he murmured. He also took the fastest route out, and the shadows at his command covered them, becoming a pillar of solid black before disappearing, they themselves gone.
Shadow travel was by far one of the fastest way to travel, and within seconds Aryan had Helen out side of the building. His face was calm, but there was no denying the concern laced through his voice when he spoke to her. "How are you faring, Helen?"
She couldn’t move, could hardly breathe even, and her vision was fading in and out. Whatever had been used on her was a powerful toxin, enough for someone twice her size, and no doubt meant to be fatal even to Aryan. She understood suddenly why the woman’s aim was off—it wouldn’t have mattered if they hit him in the heart or not—this could have killed him anyway. The only reason she still lived was because of her powers, and even that wouldn’t hold out much longer. Helen struggled to make her voice work, trying to focus on the necessary movements of lips and tongue. She needed contact, physical contact with something alive, and the only living thing she was in contact with right now was one she would never think to use for this purpose.
“Tree…” she whispered. She needed to touch a tree, the ground, anything. Anything alive. But she couldn’t make her own body do it. Her eyelids slackened, falling half-closed, and her breathing grew shallower.
Aryan's grip on Helen only tightened, and he took her to the first tree he could find: a rather large and old oak tree. It's bark was twisted and gnarled from age, and with surprising gentleness, he shifted her in his arms so that he still held her to him, but with the hand that was across her back, he took one of her hands in hers, holding it against the bark of the tree. His heart was pounding, he could only hope that she was able to use her power.
She felt the tree under her fingers more than she saw it before her eyes, and even that sense was starting to go numb. Helen knew that she had to act quickly, but it took her a few seconds to remember how to make her powers work through the haze that fogged her mind. Slowly, though, she began to absorb the energy from the tree, deconstructing its molecular bonds and absorbing the energy of the linkages. The life drained from the leaves first, as they lost their green shine and curled up, drying to a dead brown even as the bark grew brittle and petrified.
Her skin grew warm underneath his hand and against his chest, and Helen glowed from within, her veins lit like lava beneath her flesh, and the tree began to break down much like vampires did when they died, turning into ash and dust that itself seemed to utterly disintegrate until there was nothing left. Helen’s heart gave an irregular thud in her chest, restarted into motion just as it stopped, the energy working to burn the poison out of her system and close the wound. Her eyes were still foggy, and her mind not working precisely in its usual way, else she would not likely have lifted the still faintly-glowing hand to his face and rested her palm against his cheek.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I’ll be all right, now.” But then she lost her hold on consciousness and the world went dark. Her vitals, however, were all strong and normal, so it could be inferred that she simply needed to rest.
Aryan breathed a heavy sigh of relief after Helen lost consciousness. It was easy enough for him to sense that she would, indeed, be alright. So, with that in mind, he dissolved into the shadows once more, reappearing in his own rooms, back inside. He laid her gently on the couch, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face as he sat down in a chair. Emrys and Alden should be along soon.
It had been three hours since Aryan von Nacht had heard the news. Three hours since he'd merely stood quietly from the convened meeting that had been called due to the events of two nights prior, and left without a word. Three hours since he had shut the door to his room and simply stood there, watching as everything twisted and cracked and broke around him. He'd fallen to his knees then, and simply wept. Even that was silent. It had only been three hours, but it felt like an eternity.
His sister, Yuki, was dead.
Helen had stared dead-eyed at Alden when he’d told her the news, and only a brief brush against her mind had convinced the man that she’d even heard or properly understood him at all. It was uncanny, how silent and still she was. It was not until he’d left that she even moved, and even then, it was only to curl in on herself, hugging her knees tightly to her chest, and fall sideways until her cheek was pressed against the rough carpet. She could hear mass destruction next door, and knew that Aryan was taking the news no better than she had.
Yuki was dead. It didn’t seem real to her, like it was some kind of cosmic impossibility that her best friend should be dead before her. Helen had heard, of course, about her friend’s genetic instability, but it had always been a question of what would fracture first: Yuki’s body or Helen’s mind. She’d always assumed it would be her, because it had seemed so obvious that, even at her weakest, Yuki was the stronger of them, the better able to tolerate the damage that life naturally inflicted upon the living. She still remembered the day her friend had asked her, in her typical blunt fashion, if she would be the godmother to Diya and Bryer.
Helen had been so surprised by that—she’d been unable to speak for a good thirty seconds. Yuki had only smiled at her, and when at last she found her voice, she’d asked if maybe it wasn’t better for some member of the family to be doing that. The response had been so simple, so natural: you are my family.
The sound of things being destroyed raged around her, and Helen thought that, maybe, since it was loud anyway, it was okay that she couldn’t help her sobs, and the way they shook her whole frame from the core outwards, leaving her feeling wasted and raw and more breakable than she could ever recall being. She hadn’t cried in… she didn’t remember. She didn’t care. There was no dignity in her grief, but she did not need it. Helen had little pride and less concern for it. What she had once had was a best friend, and now she did not. She had godchildren without a mother, and other friends that were mourning and grief-stricken and beyond her help. She had a well of sadness so deep she’d never have thought it could all be contained inside her—perhaps that was why it had to leak out though her eyes.
The sounds of shattering and tearing fell silent, and so did she, swallowing thickly and lingering there, on the floor, curled as tight and as small as she could make herself, and Helen did not know what to do. How was she supposed to do anything? What was to be done? She knew nothing of her supposed-tos or her should in a situation, so she did the only thing left: the thing she wanted to do. And what she wanted to do was to see him. With a tremendous effort, Helen willed her limbs to move, standing with none of her usual grace and shuffling out into the hallway. She paused outside his door, suddenly unsure. She wanted to see him, but would he want to see her? Was it even right to seek company in such a moment, or was grief the kind of thing meant to be borne alone?
She leaned her body weight against the door, pressing her forehead and the side of one fist to the wood, her other arm still wrapped around her person, as if to hold herself together. She didn't know how to go any further. How to ask, how to comfort. These were not things he had ever taught her, because she was never meant to do them. Hel was tempted to slam her fist against the door, to crack it, because once again, he was making everything harder. He hadn’t taken Yuki away, but if not for him, her friend would still be alive, because this war would not have happened, and they, these people that she cared about, would have been safe and together and happy.
That she would not have existed was hardly a fact she cared about.
If Aryan had not been so acutely aware of her, he probably would have missed her presence entirely. As it were, for the first few seconds he was unable to bring himself to move. He couldn't make his body do what his mind was telling it. So he didn't, and instead used a shadow to open the door. He was lying on the floor in the center of the room, the area around him clear of most debris, thought the rest of the room was nothing but wreakage. He had, for the most part, curled into a ball, his normally vibrant purple eyes a flat, dull, dark grey. He sat up when he saw her, her visage no better than his was.
Somehow, the mere sight of her in tears was enough to get him to move, and he stood, crossing over to her in three strides. He hesitated at first, but in the end, he knelt down in front of her, pulling her to him gently. He didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. They were both the God-parents of children who no longer had a mother. What on earth could be said to make that right?
She was not usually the kind of person who invited touch, or even welcomed it, necessarily. There was some kind of standoffishness or distance about her that meant most people did not even really seem to consider trying. But right now, being held was somehow exactly what she needed, and she supposed that it was the least she could do to return the favor. As silently as he had, she wrapped her arms around him, as though seeking to hold him together the same way she’d been trying to do for herself. Maybe, if she was lucky, it would work a little better.
Helen let herself fall forward onto her own knees, more or less tucking herself into his side and curling against it, feeling smaller than she usually did, though in a slightly better way than she had on the floor by herself. She shook still, her muscles unable to relax enough to lose the fine motor tremor that seemed to wrack her whole frame, but he was solid and warm and really those were the only thoughts that managed to work their way through the fog of her misery. Her arms tightened, and she swallowed thickly, pressing her forehead to his chest as well as she could at this angle.
She lost track of how much time passed in such a fashion, but somehow, the tremor steadied, and she chewed slightly on her lower lip, straightening slightly and adjusting such that she was sitting back on her legs. There was one gesture of comfort she knew, that had surfaced in distant memory. Something Freya had done for her, once, when she was very small and very scared. Neither of them were small, and scared was not the right word, but… it was all she had. Gently, she tugged on his sleeve, in a way indicating that she wanted him to lay down. She didn’t know how to express it with words, so she just hoped that he would do what he always did and know what she meant even without them.
It hurt, knowing that this was all he could do for her, his own grief lost in preoccupation with her own. Silently, he held her until her shaking subsided, at least for the most part, and did not protest when she pulled away. Somehow he always seemed to know what she wanted, even when she could not find the ways to express herself or ask. So when she tugged on his sleeve, he laid down, finding his head on her lap. His own tears had long since run dry, but that did not stop the deep ache he felt in his chest, or the grief he felt for his sister, his brother...his parents. He was sure they all knew by now. But even so...the reality of the situation would not be easy for any of them.
Aryan's eyes slowly slipped closed, exaughsted emotionally, and before he even realized it, he fell asleep, his head still positioned in Helen's lap.
It had been Freya’s custom to ease her sister’s fear by running her hands gently through Hel’s hair, and it was this she did now for Aryan, making the motions as small and soothing as possible. His breathing evened out, and eventually, she sensed he was asleep, though for some time, she continued the motions anyway, finding that they helped her, in some strange way. In time, though, her hand stilled, falling back to her side, and Helen too fell asleep, her back to the wall.
His sister, Yuki, was dead.
Helen had stared dead-eyed at Alden when he’d told her the news, and only a brief brush against her mind had convinced the man that she’d even heard or properly understood him at all. It was uncanny, how silent and still she was. It was not until he’d left that she even moved, and even then, it was only to curl in on herself, hugging her knees tightly to her chest, and fall sideways until her cheek was pressed against the rough carpet. She could hear mass destruction next door, and knew that Aryan was taking the news no better than she had.
Yuki was dead. It didn’t seem real to her, like it was some kind of cosmic impossibility that her best friend should be dead before her. Helen had heard, of course, about her friend’s genetic instability, but it had always been a question of what would fracture first: Yuki’s body or Helen’s mind. She’d always assumed it would be her, because it had seemed so obvious that, even at her weakest, Yuki was the stronger of them, the better able to tolerate the damage that life naturally inflicted upon the living. She still remembered the day her friend had asked her, in her typical blunt fashion, if she would be the godmother to Diya and Bryer.
Helen had been so surprised by that—she’d been unable to speak for a good thirty seconds. Yuki had only smiled at her, and when at last she found her voice, she’d asked if maybe it wasn’t better for some member of the family to be doing that. The response had been so simple, so natural: you are my family.
The sound of things being destroyed raged around her, and Helen thought that, maybe, since it was loud anyway, it was okay that she couldn’t help her sobs, and the way they shook her whole frame from the core outwards, leaving her feeling wasted and raw and more breakable than she could ever recall being. She hadn’t cried in… she didn’t remember. She didn’t care. There was no dignity in her grief, but she did not need it. Helen had little pride and less concern for it. What she had once had was a best friend, and now she did not. She had godchildren without a mother, and other friends that were mourning and grief-stricken and beyond her help. She had a well of sadness so deep she’d never have thought it could all be contained inside her—perhaps that was why it had to leak out though her eyes.
The sounds of shattering and tearing fell silent, and so did she, swallowing thickly and lingering there, on the floor, curled as tight and as small as she could make herself, and Helen did not know what to do. How was she supposed to do anything? What was to be done? She knew nothing of her supposed-tos or her should in a situation, so she did the only thing left: the thing she wanted to do. And what she wanted to do was to see him. With a tremendous effort, Helen willed her limbs to move, standing with none of her usual grace and shuffling out into the hallway. She paused outside his door, suddenly unsure. She wanted to see him, but would he want to see her? Was it even right to seek company in such a moment, or was grief the kind of thing meant to be borne alone?
She leaned her body weight against the door, pressing her forehead and the side of one fist to the wood, her other arm still wrapped around her person, as if to hold herself together. She didn't know how to go any further. How to ask, how to comfort. These were not things he had ever taught her, because she was never meant to do them. Hel was tempted to slam her fist against the door, to crack it, because once again, he was making everything harder. He hadn’t taken Yuki away, but if not for him, her friend would still be alive, because this war would not have happened, and they, these people that she cared about, would have been safe and together and happy.
That she would not have existed was hardly a fact she cared about.
If Aryan had not been so acutely aware of her, he probably would have missed her presence entirely. As it were, for the first few seconds he was unable to bring himself to move. He couldn't make his body do what his mind was telling it. So he didn't, and instead used a shadow to open the door. He was lying on the floor in the center of the room, the area around him clear of most debris, thought the rest of the room was nothing but wreakage. He had, for the most part, curled into a ball, his normally vibrant purple eyes a flat, dull, dark grey. He sat up when he saw her, her visage no better than his was.
Somehow, the mere sight of her in tears was enough to get him to move, and he stood, crossing over to her in three strides. He hesitated at first, but in the end, he knelt down in front of her, pulling her to him gently. He didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. They were both the God-parents of children who no longer had a mother. What on earth could be said to make that right?
She was not usually the kind of person who invited touch, or even welcomed it, necessarily. There was some kind of standoffishness or distance about her that meant most people did not even really seem to consider trying. But right now, being held was somehow exactly what she needed, and she supposed that it was the least she could do to return the favor. As silently as he had, she wrapped her arms around him, as though seeking to hold him together the same way she’d been trying to do for herself. Maybe, if she was lucky, it would work a little better.
Helen let herself fall forward onto her own knees, more or less tucking herself into his side and curling against it, feeling smaller than she usually did, though in a slightly better way than she had on the floor by herself. She shook still, her muscles unable to relax enough to lose the fine motor tremor that seemed to wrack her whole frame, but he was solid and warm and really those were the only thoughts that managed to work their way through the fog of her misery. Her arms tightened, and she swallowed thickly, pressing her forehead to his chest as well as she could at this angle.
She lost track of how much time passed in such a fashion, but somehow, the tremor steadied, and she chewed slightly on her lower lip, straightening slightly and adjusting such that she was sitting back on her legs. There was one gesture of comfort she knew, that had surfaced in distant memory. Something Freya had done for her, once, when she was very small and very scared. Neither of them were small, and scared was not the right word, but… it was all she had. Gently, she tugged on his sleeve, in a way indicating that she wanted him to lay down. She didn’t know how to express it with words, so she just hoped that he would do what he always did and know what she meant even without them.
It hurt, knowing that this was all he could do for her, his own grief lost in preoccupation with her own. Silently, he held her until her shaking subsided, at least for the most part, and did not protest when she pulled away. Somehow he always seemed to know what she wanted, even when she could not find the ways to express herself or ask. So when she tugged on his sleeve, he laid down, finding his head on her lap. His own tears had long since run dry, but that did not stop the deep ache he felt in his chest, or the grief he felt for his sister, his brother...his parents. He was sure they all knew by now. But even so...the reality of the situation would not be easy for any of them.
Aryan's eyes slowly slipped closed, exaughsted emotionally, and before he even realized it, he fell asleep, his head still positioned in Helen's lap.
It had been Freya’s custom to ease her sister’s fear by running her hands gently through Hel’s hair, and it was this she did now for Aryan, making the motions as small and soothing as possible. His breathing evened out, and eventually, she sensed he was asleep, though for some time, she continued the motions anyway, finding that they helped her, in some strange way. In time, though, her hand stilled, falling back to her side, and Helen too fell asleep, her back to the wall.
The battlefront in Europe saw perhaps the worst of the fighting over those seven years, entire cities falling to the hazards of war. Budapest, Milan, Prague, Frankfurt, even Barcelona were devastated in their entirety, leaving broken, hollowed-out shells of buildings and a sense of lost hope. No place was left entirely unscarred, but Paris, which served as an informal base of operations for the three members of the Alistair family assigned to keep the peace there, held much more stable than most.
As the seventh year of total warfare drew to a close, however, even Paris came under siege, and it was soon apparent that the family would not be able to make it through the fight without a miracle, or perhaps some very well-timed assistance, sent by their very own father and husband…
Seven years was a long time to not see someone, and for most of the family, Alarica had probably adapted rather well. With the constant battles filling most of her days, there was hardly time to think about anything else other than what the next day would bring. Though she would be lying if she said her thoughts didn't drift from time to time to the rest of her family, to him. She knew that he would be okay. He was with his father and their uncle. In the slightest, he would have them for protection. Vincent could be a terrifying person all his own, and she'd never once seen Jasper upset or angry about something.
She was sure that he could be just as frightening as Vincent should he be upset or angered. She didn't need to worry about him. And thus most of her thoughts centered around the other members of her family. Word had reached them about the birth of Diya and Bryer, Zero's children, and that had brought a small smile to her blood soaked face. It had caused the three Alistair members a moment's peace through the battles they endured. Somewhere, in this blood soaked war, their family had managed to find a sentiment of peace to it. A part of her almost envied Yuki and Zero, for the life they had.
But that was a thought she knew she could not entertain. They deserved whatever happiness they could get, and to envy something like that only caused her heart to ache painfully. She wanted something like that, perhaps one day, but she knew it was just a far off dream. It was something that she could never have, at least not with the one she wanted it to be with. She sighed, ducking slightly as a pair of claws swiped over her head. She could see strands of white falling as the vampire that attacked her managed to tear a few strands of hair from her crown.
She sighed heavily, watching as her mother cleared her part of the battle field, a bored expression upon her face. "You would think after seven years, they would learn to stay away from this place," her mother stated, throwing her weapon across her shoulders as she shook her head. Alarica mimicked her mother's head motion, shaking her head in the process. "This area is cleared, we should move to the next," Erys continued, swinging her blade once more towards a vampire that attacked her.
"If you say so," Alarica replied. She glanced over towards her brother, a small smirk crossing her features in the process. "Shall we play a little game, Keir?" she spoke, a hint of teasing behind her tone. "Shall we see who can kill the most?" the issue challenged, Alarica swung Ulrik on her back, waiting for his reply as Erys shook her head. Honestly, sometimes her children could still be childish, even after seven years. That put them both at nearly thirty years old. But then again, she was just as bad as they were at their age, and a smirk crossed her features.
"Only if you two plan on losing to your mother."
Unlike his mother and sister, Keir used no weapons other than his own hands. He'd been well-muscled before all the fighting, and after spending seven years on the battlefield, it had only added to that. Other than that, his appearance had remained rather unchanged, save for his right eye that now swiveled over to his mother and sister. A thin, white scar ran from the middle of his forehead, across the center of his eye, stopping just above his jaw-line. Two years into the fighting he'd taken a blade to the face, not being fast enough. His eye had healed, and he had retained his sight, but the scar had remained. Not that he really cared much.
Scars were just another part of life, just like the one inside his chest. It still functioned, it moved blood around his body. But it not longer felt, not like it once had, anyway. Seven years he had been fighting, and he had not once seen her. No matter how often he thought about her, he would always push those thoughts away, creating yet another layer of ice around the organ called his heart. She had made her decision. Now he had to live with it, no matter how painful.
He smirked at his sister. "That's assuming you can keep count. We all know how you get when killing things." That right there was a lie, it was he who would lose his head in battle, becoming so engrossed in ripping things apart that he was aware of little else. He made a fist, placing it on his hip as the scales glittered on his body, shimmering in blues and purples under layers of dark crimson.
"Oh? Do you now?" Alarica responded, shifting Ulrik so that she could place a free hand on her hip. "Well then, I take it that the challenge is accepted. And mom, you don't count because you cheat," she stated, throwing the comment over her shoulder towards her mother who merely scoffed. Alarica shook her head as she ran after her mother, watching as Erys cut her way through various vampires, some level E's, others bordering the lines of Level C's and D's. Alarica managed a few kills herself, however; something seemed so very wrong. She couldn't put her finger on it, nor could she place the feeling.
She paused, barely missing a javelin that was thrown in her direction as she leaned back. It grazed her cheek, however, producing a small thin red line as her eyes turned to face the one responsible. Her lips pursed together into a fine line as she raised Ulrik, shifting it so that it was now in its gun form, and she closed one eye. She pulled the trigger, watching as a ball of ash fell from a tree a few yards away before swinging Ulrik over her shoulders, catching a vampire and watching as his head rolled away, turning to ash just as quickly. As much as she loved the battle, Alarica was growing weary of it.
Erys had managed to send a few more vampires to their demise as she straightened her posture out. She glanced over the horizon, her eyes set into a dead narrow in the process. She could feel something, and whatever it was, it managed to pull her lips back into a light snarl. She took off in the direction the hill they were on dropped, Alarica not far behind her. Both Alistair women stopped at the tip of the hill, their eyes narrowing in unison at the sight below them. In the seven years they were here, they had mainly dealt with normal Level E's.
Below them, there was a horde of Level E vampires, similar to the ones they had faced when Sigyn had appeared and had almost killed Emrys. Alarica's eyes flashed a brilliant crimson as her lips pulled back in unison with her mother. She gripped Ulrik tighter, watching as the vampire horde grew as they appeared from the trees. There were too many, and even she knew they were outnumbered. It, however, only caused the adrenaline to course through her veins as she turned to her mother. She could see the same light in her mother's eyes, but it was soon drowned.
There, in the middle of the horde, was a rather large vampire. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but she knew it was a vampire nonetheless. "Is that a new modification?" she managed to speak out, watching as the horde grew closer and closer. Erys merely shook her head. She did not know if that particular vampire was a new modification or not. The only thing on her mind was the fact that it needed to die. And soon. Without another word, Erys charged the horde, Alarica cursing slightly behind her mother as she followed suite.
Keir laughed, following after his female relatives. He tore through vampire after vampire, crimson dying his snow-white hair red. He joined Erys and Rica on the hill, hanging from a tree branch as they gazed out over the battlefield. A small spark of memory pulled at the back of his head, remembering the last time he'd seen these things. His face split into a fanged grin. There was no Balthasar to make them die this time. As the women charged the battlefield, Keir let out a shrill whistle. Alucard didn't always grace the battlefield, but the dragon was never far. Together, they flew over the arm, spinning and dodging the projectiles aimed for them. After about five hundred yards, Keir leaped off, taking off as soon as his feet hit the ground.
Amist the screams and growls of the vampire horde, one could hear the Alistair laughing maniacally. There was no counting here. It was all simply death and destruction. It was not long, however, before Keir was panting and bleeding from several cuts, that insane gleam never leaving his ice-blue eyes. "Come on, lovelies! Who's next?"
As the seventh year of total warfare drew to a close, however, even Paris came under siege, and it was soon apparent that the family would not be able to make it through the fight without a miracle, or perhaps some very well-timed assistance, sent by their very own father and husband…
Seven years was a long time to not see someone, and for most of the family, Alarica had probably adapted rather well. With the constant battles filling most of her days, there was hardly time to think about anything else other than what the next day would bring. Though she would be lying if she said her thoughts didn't drift from time to time to the rest of her family, to him. She knew that he would be okay. He was with his father and their uncle. In the slightest, he would have them for protection. Vincent could be a terrifying person all his own, and she'd never once seen Jasper upset or angry about something.
She was sure that he could be just as frightening as Vincent should he be upset or angered. She didn't need to worry about him. And thus most of her thoughts centered around the other members of her family. Word had reached them about the birth of Diya and Bryer, Zero's children, and that had brought a small smile to her blood soaked face. It had caused the three Alistair members a moment's peace through the battles they endured. Somewhere, in this blood soaked war, their family had managed to find a sentiment of peace to it. A part of her almost envied Yuki and Zero, for the life they had.
But that was a thought she knew she could not entertain. They deserved whatever happiness they could get, and to envy something like that only caused her heart to ache painfully. She wanted something like that, perhaps one day, but she knew it was just a far off dream. It was something that she could never have, at least not with the one she wanted it to be with. She sighed, ducking slightly as a pair of claws swiped over her head. She could see strands of white falling as the vampire that attacked her managed to tear a few strands of hair from her crown.
She sighed heavily, watching as her mother cleared her part of the battle field, a bored expression upon her face. "You would think after seven years, they would learn to stay away from this place," her mother stated, throwing her weapon across her shoulders as she shook her head. Alarica mimicked her mother's head motion, shaking her head in the process. "This area is cleared, we should move to the next," Erys continued, swinging her blade once more towards a vampire that attacked her.
"If you say so," Alarica replied. She glanced over towards her brother, a small smirk crossing her features in the process. "Shall we play a little game, Keir?" she spoke, a hint of teasing behind her tone. "Shall we see who can kill the most?" the issue challenged, Alarica swung Ulrik on her back, waiting for his reply as Erys shook her head. Honestly, sometimes her children could still be childish, even after seven years. That put them both at nearly thirty years old. But then again, she was just as bad as they were at their age, and a smirk crossed her features.
"Only if you two plan on losing to your mother."
Unlike his mother and sister, Keir used no weapons other than his own hands. He'd been well-muscled before all the fighting, and after spending seven years on the battlefield, it had only added to that. Other than that, his appearance had remained rather unchanged, save for his right eye that now swiveled over to his mother and sister. A thin, white scar ran from the middle of his forehead, across the center of his eye, stopping just above his jaw-line. Two years into the fighting he'd taken a blade to the face, not being fast enough. His eye had healed, and he had retained his sight, but the scar had remained. Not that he really cared much.
Scars were just another part of life, just like the one inside his chest. It still functioned, it moved blood around his body. But it not longer felt, not like it once had, anyway. Seven years he had been fighting, and he had not once seen her. No matter how often he thought about her, he would always push those thoughts away, creating yet another layer of ice around the organ called his heart. She had made her decision. Now he had to live with it, no matter how painful.
He smirked at his sister. "That's assuming you can keep count. We all know how you get when killing things." That right there was a lie, it was he who would lose his head in battle, becoming so engrossed in ripping things apart that he was aware of little else. He made a fist, placing it on his hip as the scales glittered on his body, shimmering in blues and purples under layers of dark crimson.
"Oh? Do you now?" Alarica responded, shifting Ulrik so that she could place a free hand on her hip. "Well then, I take it that the challenge is accepted. And mom, you don't count because you cheat," she stated, throwing the comment over her shoulder towards her mother who merely scoffed. Alarica shook her head as she ran after her mother, watching as Erys cut her way through various vampires, some level E's, others bordering the lines of Level C's and D's. Alarica managed a few kills herself, however; something seemed so very wrong. She couldn't put her finger on it, nor could she place the feeling.
She paused, barely missing a javelin that was thrown in her direction as she leaned back. It grazed her cheek, however, producing a small thin red line as her eyes turned to face the one responsible. Her lips pursed together into a fine line as she raised Ulrik, shifting it so that it was now in its gun form, and she closed one eye. She pulled the trigger, watching as a ball of ash fell from a tree a few yards away before swinging Ulrik over her shoulders, catching a vampire and watching as his head rolled away, turning to ash just as quickly. As much as she loved the battle, Alarica was growing weary of it.
Erys had managed to send a few more vampires to their demise as she straightened her posture out. She glanced over the horizon, her eyes set into a dead narrow in the process. She could feel something, and whatever it was, it managed to pull her lips back into a light snarl. She took off in the direction the hill they were on dropped, Alarica not far behind her. Both Alistair women stopped at the tip of the hill, their eyes narrowing in unison at the sight below them. In the seven years they were here, they had mainly dealt with normal Level E's.
Below them, there was a horde of Level E vampires, similar to the ones they had faced when Sigyn had appeared and had almost killed Emrys. Alarica's eyes flashed a brilliant crimson as her lips pulled back in unison with her mother. She gripped Ulrik tighter, watching as the vampire horde grew as they appeared from the trees. There were too many, and even she knew they were outnumbered. It, however, only caused the adrenaline to course through her veins as she turned to her mother. She could see the same light in her mother's eyes, but it was soon drowned.
There, in the middle of the horde, was a rather large vampire. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but she knew it was a vampire nonetheless. "Is that a new modification?" she managed to speak out, watching as the horde grew closer and closer. Erys merely shook her head. She did not know if that particular vampire was a new modification or not. The only thing on her mind was the fact that it needed to die. And soon. Without another word, Erys charged the horde, Alarica cursing slightly behind her mother as she followed suite.
Keir laughed, following after his female relatives. He tore through vampire after vampire, crimson dying his snow-white hair red. He joined Erys and Rica on the hill, hanging from a tree branch as they gazed out over the battlefield. A small spark of memory pulled at the back of his head, remembering the last time he'd seen these things. His face split into a fanged grin. There was no Balthasar to make them die this time. As the women charged the battlefield, Keir let out a shrill whistle. Alucard didn't always grace the battlefield, but the dragon was never far. Together, they flew over the arm, spinning and dodging the projectiles aimed for them. After about five hundred yards, Keir leaped off, taking off as soon as his feet hit the ground.
Amist the screams and growls of the vampire horde, one could hear the Alistair laughing maniacally. There was no counting here. It was all simply death and destruction. It was not long, however, before Keir was panting and bleeding from several cuts, that insane gleam never leaving his ice-blue eyes. "Come on, lovelies! Who's next?"
Their efforts were valiant, to be sure, but this was not a battlefield of typical size. In fact, it was more than five times the amount of opponents they’d ever had to face in their seven years together, and even they were feeling the strain. The overlarge level E had two matching partners, and these wreaked great devastation on the Alistairs’ allies. The lines of the Pantheon’s army pressed forward, and though it was almost hidden beneath the roiling combined aura of so many vampires, something disturbingly familiar stirred.
Perhaps fortunately, Morgan had gotten word through his networks of this attack shortly before it happened, and the relief team consisting of but another three men was close enough to get there and assist. By the time the three of them crested the same hill that their family members had, half of the city was destroyed or close, but their relatives still fought on. Jasper’s face was set stonily as he surveyed the damage, picking out the three people he was most concerned with. They’d gotten separated enough that his group would have to split, too.
“Balthasar, take center. I’ll go left. Vincent, the right, if you would.” His son nodded, drawing the lances from his back even as the ring of steel heralded the appearance of Jazz’s own sword.
The first ten Level E's had been no problem for Alarica and her mother. It was when they reached the fifth hundred or so that they could already feel the wear and tear upon their bodies. The army was massive in number, and it did not make matters any better that there were three rather large Level E vampires instead of the initial one they had seen. Alarica gritted her teeth, torn between summoning Angelus to the battle field and keeping him safe. Even through the seven years they battled side by side, she still feared losing him. She couldn't lose him, not like she'd lost Mikhail. She had promised herself that she would keep him from harm if she could. And now was definitely one of those times.
She snarled, watching as a level E grazed her arm with its claws as she side-stepped, narrowly missing another. She couldn't keep this up, her stamina was growing thin. Vampire or not, she was still human in a sense, and she knew she couldn't keep going. They needed to break the army, however; they couldn't find a point. The smell of her mother and brother's blood coated the air, mixing with hers as they all began sporting wounds. She leaned back, placing the flat of her palms upon the grass as she flipped backwards, narrowly missing another javelin in the process. Erys, on the other hand, had began to push further into the fray.
She was getting separated from her children, that much she knew, however; they needed to split up. Perhaps not the best of ideas, but if they were going to thin out the army's ranks, they needed to get into specific locations. She could feel something pierce through her shoulder, and immediately ripped out the long spear, throwing it haphazardly towards the side. With a snarl, she began attacking once more, until she found herself trapped between the three massive Level E's. Alarica spotted her mother's predicament, but she was too far. She sported a small dagger in her shoulder, another sticking between her rib-cage, and a third currently lodging itself into her left forearm.
Vincent stood upon the hill, his crimson gaze fixed on the battle below. Most of the city had been destroyed, and he only frowned when he noticed his sister and his niece and nephew were separated. He could smell their blood in the air, and it only caused Vincent to become furious. He did not like his family being injured, but he wasn't such a fool that he knew that this was the price they all had to pay in the time of war. He glanced towards Jasper as Jasper spoke of them splitting up. It was the most logical thing, and with the three of them there now, they would all be fine. Vincent nodded in Jasper's direction, taking off towards the right in a blink of an eye, Gilgamesh pulled and blocking a weapon that had been aimed for his sister.
Erys glanced, blinking in rapid succession at the sudden appearance of her brother. She frowned slightly, her thoughts currently rolling in small incoherent words. "I thought you were supposed to be in Romania?" were the first words out of her mouth. Vincent had to resist the urge to actually roll his eyes at his sister. A little over a hundred years and she was still the same. He should have known that age does not come to all. Alarica, however, was still further off, finding herself surrounded by a few of the modified Level E's. A smirk adorned her features, her arm hanging limply at her side as she tried to regain control of it.
"You know, it's not nice to paralyze someone's arm when they are about to kick your ass!" she nearly shouted. One of the level E's had grazed her arm, sending a secretion into it that was currently the cause of her temporary arm paralysis. She still managed to wield Ulrik as best as she could, but not being able to use both arms was getting a bit...annoying. Ulrik was a heavy weapon at times, and it didn't help that she still sported some of the daggers in her body. She had managed to remove the one in her forearm and her rib-cage, however; the one that had been aimed at her shoulder remained lodged. "Could this day get any better?" she managed out.
Covered in blood both his own and that of his enemies, Keir was having the time of his life, even more so when a certain pixie woman decided to grace the battlefield with her presence. A loud, boisterous laugh echoed across the field as the massive axe swung at the dhampir, and much to his surprise, actually managed to pierce his scales on his side. It went in only about a centimeter, but the fact that it had pierced him at all was astounding. Keir grinned wide and feral as he met Frigga's mis-matched eyes.
"It looks like the little pixie has learned something! How fun, now indulge me!"
It was not long after that that Keir became well aware of three more aura's on the battlefield, this time being friendlies. He grinned. Rica would be so pleased. He back-flipped away from one of Frigga's swings, landing deftly at his Uncle Jasper's side. "Hiya, Uncle! Just couldn't keep away from all the fun, now could you? Lemme guess, Dad sent you, right?"
As if in response to Alarica’s sarcastic question, a flame-tipped lance appeared over her shoulder, seeking and finding the heart of the nearest Level E trying to get at her with its claws. “I like to maintain hope to this effect,” Balthasar replied. His expression was grim as he stepped around her, his free lance sweeping horizontally and neatly cleaving the heads from a triplicate of vampires. He didn’t bother to keep track of level anymore. He couldn’t. He’d tried counting the number of people he’d killed in the last seven years, and that he’d lost count after a week perhaps spoke more eloquently of his situation than he ever could. Still, for his cousin, he managed a smile. “Hello, Rica. he tilted his head to the side slightly, nonchalantly stabbing backwards with one of his spears and impaling someone who’d decided to try and sneak up on him.
Unfortunately, it was at about that moment that the weaker ones started to clear away from them, and he’d learned that this meant only one thing: the Pantheon was coming. In this case, he turned to find himself staring down a face he didn’t know… and the one he saw in the mirror.
“What—?” He shook his head as if to clear his vision, but no, that one had a face that looked just like his. The eyes were the same color, the hair was a bit shorter, maybe, but looked to be the right thickness and texture. Their heights and builds were nearly identical also. Balthasar parted his lips to say something, only to find that he was entirely speechless.
“Oh, good,” a voice spoke, and he swung his eyes at last to the other man, an almost equally-tall fellow of a more slender build with malice in his glittering, golden eyes. “I was hoping to run into you. How better to test the replica than against the original?” He didn't leave much room to reply, as the Balthasar look-alike charged right for them, swinging in a cutting arc meant for both the original and Alarica. Aware that his cousin was likely exhausted, Balthasar banded an arm around her waist and launched both of them backwards, setting Rica down on her feet and meeting the next downswing of his clone’s sword with his crossed lances.
Just what the hell was going on?
Jasper blinked, raising a brow at his blood-soaked nephew. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied, glancing between Frigga, who had just appeared, and Thor, who only now stepped up beside her, cracking his neck to either side.
“Consider yourself indulged, handsome. Though I really thought you’d have the Aegis with you this time. She was so much more fun than you were…” the redhead released a sigh of disappointment. “I don’t usually go for one-on-one, cause it’s boring, but if you promise to be fun, I suppose I can let Thor have the false king.”
Thor was undoubtedly pleased by this prospect, if the grin that spread over his face was any indication, and he launched a bolt of lightning for Jasper, who raised a hand as if to catch it, the bolt fizzling out in a shower of sparks as soon as it met his fingertips.
Perhaps fortunately, Morgan had gotten word through his networks of this attack shortly before it happened, and the relief team consisting of but another three men was close enough to get there and assist. By the time the three of them crested the same hill that their family members had, half of the city was destroyed or close, but their relatives still fought on. Jasper’s face was set stonily as he surveyed the damage, picking out the three people he was most concerned with. They’d gotten separated enough that his group would have to split, too.
“Balthasar, take center. I’ll go left. Vincent, the right, if you would.” His son nodded, drawing the lances from his back even as the ring of steel heralded the appearance of Jazz’s own sword.
The first ten Level E's had been no problem for Alarica and her mother. It was when they reached the fifth hundred or so that they could already feel the wear and tear upon their bodies. The army was massive in number, and it did not make matters any better that there were three rather large Level E vampires instead of the initial one they had seen. Alarica gritted her teeth, torn between summoning Angelus to the battle field and keeping him safe. Even through the seven years they battled side by side, she still feared losing him. She couldn't lose him, not like she'd lost Mikhail. She had promised herself that she would keep him from harm if she could. And now was definitely one of those times.
She snarled, watching as a level E grazed her arm with its claws as she side-stepped, narrowly missing another. She couldn't keep this up, her stamina was growing thin. Vampire or not, she was still human in a sense, and she knew she couldn't keep going. They needed to break the army, however; they couldn't find a point. The smell of her mother and brother's blood coated the air, mixing with hers as they all began sporting wounds. She leaned back, placing the flat of her palms upon the grass as she flipped backwards, narrowly missing another javelin in the process. Erys, on the other hand, had began to push further into the fray.
She was getting separated from her children, that much she knew, however; they needed to split up. Perhaps not the best of ideas, but if they were going to thin out the army's ranks, they needed to get into specific locations. She could feel something pierce through her shoulder, and immediately ripped out the long spear, throwing it haphazardly towards the side. With a snarl, she began attacking once more, until she found herself trapped between the three massive Level E's. Alarica spotted her mother's predicament, but she was too far. She sported a small dagger in her shoulder, another sticking between her rib-cage, and a third currently lodging itself into her left forearm.
Vincent stood upon the hill, his crimson gaze fixed on the battle below. Most of the city had been destroyed, and he only frowned when he noticed his sister and his niece and nephew were separated. He could smell their blood in the air, and it only caused Vincent to become furious. He did not like his family being injured, but he wasn't such a fool that he knew that this was the price they all had to pay in the time of war. He glanced towards Jasper as Jasper spoke of them splitting up. It was the most logical thing, and with the three of them there now, they would all be fine. Vincent nodded in Jasper's direction, taking off towards the right in a blink of an eye, Gilgamesh pulled and blocking a weapon that had been aimed for his sister.
Erys glanced, blinking in rapid succession at the sudden appearance of her brother. She frowned slightly, her thoughts currently rolling in small incoherent words. "I thought you were supposed to be in Romania?" were the first words out of her mouth. Vincent had to resist the urge to actually roll his eyes at his sister. A little over a hundred years and she was still the same. He should have known that age does not come to all. Alarica, however, was still further off, finding herself surrounded by a few of the modified Level E's. A smirk adorned her features, her arm hanging limply at her side as she tried to regain control of it.
"You know, it's not nice to paralyze someone's arm when they are about to kick your ass!" she nearly shouted. One of the level E's had grazed her arm, sending a secretion into it that was currently the cause of her temporary arm paralysis. She still managed to wield Ulrik as best as she could, but not being able to use both arms was getting a bit...annoying. Ulrik was a heavy weapon at times, and it didn't help that she still sported some of the daggers in her body. She had managed to remove the one in her forearm and her rib-cage, however; the one that had been aimed at her shoulder remained lodged. "Could this day get any better?" she managed out.
Covered in blood both his own and that of his enemies, Keir was having the time of his life, even more so when a certain pixie woman decided to grace the battlefield with her presence. A loud, boisterous laugh echoed across the field as the massive axe swung at the dhampir, and much to his surprise, actually managed to pierce his scales on his side. It went in only about a centimeter, but the fact that it had pierced him at all was astounding. Keir grinned wide and feral as he met Frigga's mis-matched eyes.
"It looks like the little pixie has learned something! How fun, now indulge me!"
It was not long after that that Keir became well aware of three more aura's on the battlefield, this time being friendlies. He grinned. Rica would be so pleased. He back-flipped away from one of Frigga's swings, landing deftly at his Uncle Jasper's side. "Hiya, Uncle! Just couldn't keep away from all the fun, now could you? Lemme guess, Dad sent you, right?"
As if in response to Alarica’s sarcastic question, a flame-tipped lance appeared over her shoulder, seeking and finding the heart of the nearest Level E trying to get at her with its claws. “I like to maintain hope to this effect,” Balthasar replied. His expression was grim as he stepped around her, his free lance sweeping horizontally and neatly cleaving the heads from a triplicate of vampires. He didn’t bother to keep track of level anymore. He couldn’t. He’d tried counting the number of people he’d killed in the last seven years, and that he’d lost count after a week perhaps spoke more eloquently of his situation than he ever could. Still, for his cousin, he managed a smile. “Hello, Rica. he tilted his head to the side slightly, nonchalantly stabbing backwards with one of his spears and impaling someone who’d decided to try and sneak up on him.
Unfortunately, it was at about that moment that the weaker ones started to clear away from them, and he’d learned that this meant only one thing: the Pantheon was coming. In this case, he turned to find himself staring down a face he didn’t know… and the one he saw in the mirror.
“What—?” He shook his head as if to clear his vision, but no, that one had a face that looked just like his. The eyes were the same color, the hair was a bit shorter, maybe, but looked to be the right thickness and texture. Their heights and builds were nearly identical also. Balthasar parted his lips to say something, only to find that he was entirely speechless.
“Oh, good,” a voice spoke, and he swung his eyes at last to the other man, an almost equally-tall fellow of a more slender build with malice in his glittering, golden eyes. “I was hoping to run into you. How better to test the replica than against the original?” He didn't leave much room to reply, as the Balthasar look-alike charged right for them, swinging in a cutting arc meant for both the original and Alarica. Aware that his cousin was likely exhausted, Balthasar banded an arm around her waist and launched both of them backwards, setting Rica down on her feet and meeting the next downswing of his clone’s sword with his crossed lances.
Just what the hell was going on?
Jasper blinked, raising a brow at his blood-soaked nephew. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied, glancing between Frigga, who had just appeared, and Thor, who only now stepped up beside her, cracking his neck to either side.
“Consider yourself indulged, handsome. Though I really thought you’d have the Aegis with you this time. She was so much more fun than you were…” the redhead released a sigh of disappointment. “I don’t usually go for one-on-one, cause it’s boring, but if you promise to be fun, I suppose I can let Thor have the false king.”
Thor was undoubtedly pleased by this prospect, if the grin that spread over his face was any indication, and he launched a bolt of lightning for Jasper, who raised a hand as if to catch it, the bolt fizzling out in a shower of sparks as soon as it met his fingertips.
Keir's eyes narrowed to feline slits, the smile dropping from his face the second the word Aegis left the redhead's lips. She said more, however; Keir barely heard her, if indeed he heard her at all. The scales on his body glimmered, moving slowly up his neck. He didn't usually take it this far unless he really wanted to kill something.
And right now, he really wanted to kill this woman. Two bright blue wings spread from his back, yellow webbing between them as the scales covered every inch of his explosed skin, his eyes going full sapphire blue, fangs protruding below his elongated, snout-like upper lip. A forked tongue flickered out from between his teeth as he pulled his lips back in a snarl. He looked very much like a humanoid dragon, it wasn't a full transformation, but rather something caught in between.
Keir had only recently gained mastery over this particular level of his ability, though it put a considerable drain on his system. To finish the look, a spiked tail as long as he was tall flickered out behind him, his eyes zeroing in on Frigga. A deep, reptilian laugh rumbled from his throat. "Oh, Lovely, I promise it will be fun...just not for you."
He didn't even give his uncle or the second Pantheon member a second glance as he simply vanished from view. He was a lot faster in this form, and he reappeared behind Frigga, wickedly sharp claws intent on tearing through her back. As he expected, it did not work overly well. Her body was just about as indestructible as his was. Still, he grinned, opening his mouth as a ball of concentrated energy began to form there, and then fired straight for her, and at close range, it was not something she could dodge.
Alarica frowned slightly, her gaze meeting Balthasar's as he appeared and spoke. At first, she wanted nothing more than to give him a hug, glad that he was okay, however; not only was she unable to because of her paralyzed arm, but because of the look upon his face. It was sullen, grim-like, and it only caused her frown to deepen. Even as he smiled, she did not return the gesture. "Balthasar," she began, however; she was unable to complete her sentence when her attention was taken by the horde of vampires parting for someone.
If there was ever a time to be surprised, Alarica was not one to keep it in. The surprise fluttered across her face as she stared at the two men that approached. One she had to do a double take. She glanced at Balthasar, and then back at the man who approached. He was identical in almost every way to Balthasar, and it was perplexing. How was that even possible? She couldn't even register anything properly when Balthasar pulled her back with him, barely missing the blade the other Balthasar had made for them.
"What the hell is that!?" she finally spoke, her eyes still glued to the other Balthasar. Erys had gritted through her teeth, wiping her hands clean of the dust one of the Massive E's left behind when it was destroyed. There were only two remaining, and even then they were still not easily destroyed. Though Vincent had the Aegis with him, he did not wish to use it quite yet. He had only seen Esther periodically, and the last time he'd seen her was about a two years ago. He had to use the Aegis wisely, and in controlled situations that were dire. Though they were in a tight spot, the situation was far from dire.
Frigga took the energy blast full on, blinking a bit in surprise when it succeeded in scorching the vast majority of her visible skin and even some of what was under her armor. Of course, her healing factor, comparable to what one had under the influence of an Aegis, compensated quickly, replacing the scorching with brand-new skin, and she merrily swung her axe for his head. “I see I hit a sore spot. You shouldn’t wear your heart on your sleeve, Lizard-man, it makes you too easy to hit!” So saying, she applied something closer to her full speed, the axe blurring through the air too quickly to be seen in a flurry of attempted blows.
“What is it, Scaley? Did she die? That can be arranged, you know. Shack up with somebody else? That would be unfortunate. She really is quite pretty. And so feisty! Don’t let it get you down too badly, though, there’s always somebody else!” The way she said it did not sound at all conciliatory, more taunting than anything, though even that wasn’t quite right. She was too chipper to be taunting as such.
Elsewhere, Thor was finding himself rather outmatched. It was a feeling he was not used to—he hadn’t struggled so much to even land a hit since Tyr had died. Of course, this was the man that had killed him, so perhaps it was to be expected.
The well-dressed man accompanying the clone tilted his head slightly to one side, the knuckle of his index finger resting just beneath his chin. “Allow me to explain,” he said coolly, in tones almost polite. “This is a field test for Subject Seven. You will recall, I believe, an incident in which the young von Nacht’s blood was taken? This was one of the purposes to which it was turned. I merely needed to secure his presence on the field today, which I did by staging this attack and leaking the plan ahead of time to one of Morgan Alistair’s known informants, who should be dead by now, I expect.”
He spoke mostly to Alarica, as Balthasar was still engaged with the clone, the two seeming evenly matched. They had opposing gravity fields working, both had their weapons on fire, though neither had yet dipped into that other power, though the original Balthasar was wearing an expression grim enough that he might well be close. “Admittedly, it lacks certain… features I had hoped would survive the replication, but it does not possess much in the way of morality, making it much easier to persuade. I’m sure you can see the benefit.”
Keir only snarled in response to Frigga. No, what had happened was much worse. Even Leora being with someone else would hurt less than the actual reality, the reality that she rejected him because she thought herself unworthy of anyone. The memory of that day, the one he'd tried to hard to push out, to forget burned themselves into his irises. He dodged most of Frigga's blows, a few of them glancing off of him, and a few of them drawing blood, though nothing was permanent damage.
But it was beginning to wear him thin, having drawn out far too long. He lunged for her again, his tail wrapping around her throat as he plunged his hand in her mouth. He didn't have time for an attack, and there was no way he could kill her. Even this was only for a certain measure of his satisfaction. His clawed fingers finding their prize, he pulled.
And tore out her tongue. It burned to ash in his clawed hand as he leaped away from her, the scales receding from his body as he sank to his knees, for the most part spent. "Regenerate that, bitch."
She knew what he was referring to when he spoke of the incident. It was when Elizabeth stole Balthasar's blood. She glanced at both the Balthasar's doing battle, and the frown that seemed intent on remaining on her face, continued to remain so. This is what they had planned for his blood? To replicate him? His powers? Her brows furrowed even more, and had she not been so exhausted, she would have attacked this man and went on her way to helping Balthasar, however; she knew the difference from stupidity and staying alive. Right now, she needed to stay alive, not throw her life away so carelessly.
"No, I do not see the purpose nor benefit of such a thing. Your plan will backfire on you," she spoke, her voice unusually calm as she finally pulled the other dagger from her shoulder. She tossed it to the side, her eyes glued to the Balthasar's as they continued their battle. She couldn't fight, not in the condition she was in, however; if she needed to, she could defend herself long enough to buy time for herself should she need to. Erys took a chance glance towards her children, trying to find them and barely dodging a hand aimed for her head.
"Concentrate, Erys," Vincent spoke, coming up behind the last Massive E. The first one was easy, the second one a little challenging, but it was the third one that was taking the longest. It was proving to be a bit more durable than the last two, however; it suffered eventually, falling to the hands of the Kuragari siblings as they watched the creature float into nothing.
The well-dressed man simply smiled at Alarica when the clone manage to knock Balthasar down, staking his shoulder to the ground with the two-handed sword he possessed. The von Nacht heir hissed painfully, and the retaliation aimed for the clone’s throat just missed, causing the man’s eyebrows to draw together faintly. Shaking his head slightly, he turned and started walking away. As if by unspoken signal, the clone did the same, twisting the blade on its way out. He’d felt the surge in the boy’s aura—if they stayed any longer, the false one really would be outmatched. Still, the field test had given them some useful data, data that he intended to exploit.
Frigga, her own blood dripping from her chin, swiped at it with a hand, her mismatched eyes aglow with the first traces of anger she’d ever been known to show. She looked about ready to rip his scaly throat out, and she required no words to convey that. Unfortunately, she heard the soundless signal at the same time, and though the woman wanted very much to stay here and kill him, she managed to sigh, shaking her head as the glimmer of anger disappeared in a flash. She replaced it with a smile, which was admittedly much more unnerving, and waved jauntily before taking off. She had to peel Thor off the nearest tree, noting that, surprisingly, he was bleeding. His skin was even stronger than hers, so she wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened, but she didn’t really want to stay to find out. Even she knew better than to try and take on the false king by herself. Stupid Thor.
After the departure of the Pantheon, the Level E’s cleaned up quickly, and though half-obliterated, Paris was safe once more.
And right now, he really wanted to kill this woman. Two bright blue wings spread from his back, yellow webbing between them as the scales covered every inch of his explosed skin, his eyes going full sapphire blue, fangs protruding below his elongated, snout-like upper lip. A forked tongue flickered out from between his teeth as he pulled his lips back in a snarl. He looked very much like a humanoid dragon, it wasn't a full transformation, but rather something caught in between.
Keir had only recently gained mastery over this particular level of his ability, though it put a considerable drain on his system. To finish the look, a spiked tail as long as he was tall flickered out behind him, his eyes zeroing in on Frigga. A deep, reptilian laugh rumbled from his throat. "Oh, Lovely, I promise it will be fun...just not for you."
He didn't even give his uncle or the second Pantheon member a second glance as he simply vanished from view. He was a lot faster in this form, and he reappeared behind Frigga, wickedly sharp claws intent on tearing through her back. As he expected, it did not work overly well. Her body was just about as indestructible as his was. Still, he grinned, opening his mouth as a ball of concentrated energy began to form there, and then fired straight for her, and at close range, it was not something she could dodge.
Alarica frowned slightly, her gaze meeting Balthasar's as he appeared and spoke. At first, she wanted nothing more than to give him a hug, glad that he was okay, however; not only was she unable to because of her paralyzed arm, but because of the look upon his face. It was sullen, grim-like, and it only caused her frown to deepen. Even as he smiled, she did not return the gesture. "Balthasar," she began, however; she was unable to complete her sentence when her attention was taken by the horde of vampires parting for someone.
If there was ever a time to be surprised, Alarica was not one to keep it in. The surprise fluttered across her face as she stared at the two men that approached. One she had to do a double take. She glanced at Balthasar, and then back at the man who approached. He was identical in almost every way to Balthasar, and it was perplexing. How was that even possible? She couldn't even register anything properly when Balthasar pulled her back with him, barely missing the blade the other Balthasar had made for them.
"What the hell is that!?" she finally spoke, her eyes still glued to the other Balthasar. Erys had gritted through her teeth, wiping her hands clean of the dust one of the Massive E's left behind when it was destroyed. There were only two remaining, and even then they were still not easily destroyed. Though Vincent had the Aegis with him, he did not wish to use it quite yet. He had only seen Esther periodically, and the last time he'd seen her was about a two years ago. He had to use the Aegis wisely, and in controlled situations that were dire. Though they were in a tight spot, the situation was far from dire.
Frigga took the energy blast full on, blinking a bit in surprise when it succeeded in scorching the vast majority of her visible skin and even some of what was under her armor. Of course, her healing factor, comparable to what one had under the influence of an Aegis, compensated quickly, replacing the scorching with brand-new skin, and she merrily swung her axe for his head. “I see I hit a sore spot. You shouldn’t wear your heart on your sleeve, Lizard-man, it makes you too easy to hit!” So saying, she applied something closer to her full speed, the axe blurring through the air too quickly to be seen in a flurry of attempted blows.
“What is it, Scaley? Did she die? That can be arranged, you know. Shack up with somebody else? That would be unfortunate. She really is quite pretty. And so feisty! Don’t let it get you down too badly, though, there’s always somebody else!” The way she said it did not sound at all conciliatory, more taunting than anything, though even that wasn’t quite right. She was too chipper to be taunting as such.
Elsewhere, Thor was finding himself rather outmatched. It was a feeling he was not used to—he hadn’t struggled so much to even land a hit since Tyr had died. Of course, this was the man that had killed him, so perhaps it was to be expected.
The well-dressed man accompanying the clone tilted his head slightly to one side, the knuckle of his index finger resting just beneath his chin. “Allow me to explain,” he said coolly, in tones almost polite. “This is a field test for Subject Seven. You will recall, I believe, an incident in which the young von Nacht’s blood was taken? This was one of the purposes to which it was turned. I merely needed to secure his presence on the field today, which I did by staging this attack and leaking the plan ahead of time to one of Morgan Alistair’s known informants, who should be dead by now, I expect.”
He spoke mostly to Alarica, as Balthasar was still engaged with the clone, the two seeming evenly matched. They had opposing gravity fields working, both had their weapons on fire, though neither had yet dipped into that other power, though the original Balthasar was wearing an expression grim enough that he might well be close. “Admittedly, it lacks certain… features I had hoped would survive the replication, but it does not possess much in the way of morality, making it much easier to persuade. I’m sure you can see the benefit.”
Keir only snarled in response to Frigga. No, what had happened was much worse. Even Leora being with someone else would hurt less than the actual reality, the reality that she rejected him because she thought herself unworthy of anyone. The memory of that day, the one he'd tried to hard to push out, to forget burned themselves into his irises. He dodged most of Frigga's blows, a few of them glancing off of him, and a few of them drawing blood, though nothing was permanent damage.
But it was beginning to wear him thin, having drawn out far too long. He lunged for her again, his tail wrapping around her throat as he plunged his hand in her mouth. He didn't have time for an attack, and there was no way he could kill her. Even this was only for a certain measure of his satisfaction. His clawed fingers finding their prize, he pulled.
And tore out her tongue. It burned to ash in his clawed hand as he leaped away from her, the scales receding from his body as he sank to his knees, for the most part spent. "Regenerate that, bitch."
She knew what he was referring to when he spoke of the incident. It was when Elizabeth stole Balthasar's blood. She glanced at both the Balthasar's doing battle, and the frown that seemed intent on remaining on her face, continued to remain so. This is what they had planned for his blood? To replicate him? His powers? Her brows furrowed even more, and had she not been so exhausted, she would have attacked this man and went on her way to helping Balthasar, however; she knew the difference from stupidity and staying alive. Right now, she needed to stay alive, not throw her life away so carelessly.
"No, I do not see the purpose nor benefit of such a thing. Your plan will backfire on you," she spoke, her voice unusually calm as she finally pulled the other dagger from her shoulder. She tossed it to the side, her eyes glued to the Balthasar's as they continued their battle. She couldn't fight, not in the condition she was in, however; if she needed to, she could defend herself long enough to buy time for herself should she need to. Erys took a chance glance towards her children, trying to find them and barely dodging a hand aimed for her head.
"Concentrate, Erys," Vincent spoke, coming up behind the last Massive E. The first one was easy, the second one a little challenging, but it was the third one that was taking the longest. It was proving to be a bit more durable than the last two, however; it suffered eventually, falling to the hands of the Kuragari siblings as they watched the creature float into nothing.
The well-dressed man simply smiled at Alarica when the clone manage to knock Balthasar down, staking his shoulder to the ground with the two-handed sword he possessed. The von Nacht heir hissed painfully, and the retaliation aimed for the clone’s throat just missed, causing the man’s eyebrows to draw together faintly. Shaking his head slightly, he turned and started walking away. As if by unspoken signal, the clone did the same, twisting the blade on its way out. He’d felt the surge in the boy’s aura—if they stayed any longer, the false one really would be outmatched. Still, the field test had given them some useful data, data that he intended to exploit.
Frigga, her own blood dripping from her chin, swiped at it with a hand, her mismatched eyes aglow with the first traces of anger she’d ever been known to show. She looked about ready to rip his scaly throat out, and she required no words to convey that. Unfortunately, she heard the soundless signal at the same time, and though the woman wanted very much to stay here and kill him, she managed to sigh, shaking her head as the glimmer of anger disappeared in a flash. She replaced it with a smile, which was admittedly much more unnerving, and waved jauntily before taking off. She had to peel Thor off the nearest tree, noting that, surprisingly, he was bleeding. His skin was even stronger than hers, so she wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened, but she didn’t really want to stay to find out. Even she knew better than to try and take on the false king by herself. Stupid Thor.
After the departure of the Pantheon, the Level E’s cleaned up quickly, and though half-obliterated, Paris was safe once more.
The news had come in via video call from Morgan, and from the sound of his cousin’s voice, he’d had to relay it more than once already, and grew weary of speaking the words. Understandable, but it made the news no less earthshattering than it was. They’d all been gathered around the screen, but as soon as it shut off, Jasper had taken the amount of steps backwards required to sink onto the nearest object of seating, which happened to be an armchair, and leaned forward, sinking his head into his hands.
She was gone. His daughter was dead.
He needed to see Nikki. He needed to be with her, and his sons, and his family, but that was simply impossible right now. Somewhere to his left, Balthasar just stood in stony silence, looking vaguely like he was lost and didn’t no what to do with himself. It was a feeling Jasper understood very well. They’d known it was coming, but there were supposed to be forty more years. Now, there were none. Jazz swallowed, his composure somehow still in place, but everything beneath that simply numb. There was grief in there, but it could not and did not break the surface of his expression, though it was writ large in his body language.
Yuki.
Vincent stood, his eyes fixed on the blank screen as he felt the air in the room shift. This war was taking a toll on everyone, and to hear the news that Morgan just relayed, was not something he wished upon anyone. Yuki was dead, killed in battle. He had his arms wrapped around Erys, who was struggling against him, yelling, screaming, and crying. She needed to get away, to destroy something, anything to replace this swelling in her heart. Over the years, Yuki had grown to be a part of her family, and she loved the girl as much as she loved her own children. She was her niece. Vincent, on the other hand, remained unreadable, though he too felt the overwhelming grief of losing Yuki.
She had been frightened of him as a child, however; over the years he taught her to control her ability, they had bonded as an uncle should. She was as much his kin as the others were. Alarica stared much like her uncle did, at the blank screen. She could hear her mother's screams, but she simply ignored it. Dead, was the only word that kept repeating in her mind. It was the only word that managed to filter into her mind. The words Yuki, and was were simply not making it through. She refused to believe it. Her sister was not dead. Yuki was still alive somewhere with Zero, building a home with their children.
"Yuki," she muttered out, her voice cracked and soft. Something hot burned behind her eyes as she wiped at them, letting the tears coat the back of her hand as she studied them. She was crying. Why was she crying? Yuki was alive, this was just an illusion, a trick of the mind. They were simply tired, worn out, and exhausted. The news delivered by her father was not the news of Yuki's death, but of something else. And she was trying so hard to believe it. Her body shook slightly, her eyes fluttering towards her uncle and her mother, who now had her head buried deeply in Vincent's chest.
He ran his hand through Erys' hair, trying to soothe his sister, but it only caused her to cry harder into him. Alarica did not know what to do, and instead did the only thing she could. She fell to her knees, face buried beneath her hands, and she wept. She wept for her sister, her mother, her cousin, for all of them. Though they would weep on their own, Alarica could not stop the tears that fell from her eyes, nor the mangled sobs that escaped her that matched her mother's.
For the longest time, Keir only stared at the blank screen where his father's face had been. Death was always a part of war, it was inevitable, and they had all know that her death in particular was to come sooner than most. But not like this. Something in his chest twisted in the mass of ice that was there when he thought of his young niece and nephew. Something dark and cold clouded over the young Alistair's face, and he simply turned from the screen, unable to just stand there any longer.
Yuki, silly, quirky, misunderstanding Yuki, his cousin, him and his sister's partner in crime, was dead. Dead. He swallowed, unsure if he could even remember how to breathe. It wasn't easy, but somehow he managed. He knelt next to his twin, pulling her to him, his arms wrapping around her shoulders. He could understand how his mother fought against his Uncle, he, too, felt the need to destroy something, to kill. But to do so would not bring Yuki back. So he did what he could, and held Alarica.
It was perhaps the sound of his aunt and his cousin weeping that finally broke through the haze of Balthasar’s mind, shrouded and fogged and entirely unsure of what was going on. That sound, the sobbing and the screaming, made it real in a way it hadn’t been, for those first few minutes, and several expressions flashed over his face in quick succession. First was a stricken sort of look, something evidently breaking behind his eyes, and then there was anger, hot and cold at the same time, as one might say of dry ice. He scrubbed his hands down his face, trying to regulate his breathing, but there was no mistaking the fact that his aura was starting to roil underneath the surface.
That darkness, that part of him that he tried so hard to avoid until he could harness it, was bubbling to the surface, and the room was suddenly filled with a choking, raw energy, oppressive and cloying, like an endless clammy dark, shot through with lances of pain, like lightning streaking the sky during a storm. It wasn’t enough to actually hurt anyone, but it was close, and Jasper stood at once, moving to place himself in front of his son, grabbing both sides of his child’s face and forcing his eyes to meet his own.
“Balthasar,” he said, his own tone harder, sterner than most had ever heard it. “Stop. Not here, not now.” Jasper’s own aura flared in response, but only to lift the pressure being created by his son’s, making it easier for the room to breathe again.
“She’s gone, dad,” he said, but his tone was defeated, broken, not combative. “Yuki’s gone, and I…”
Jasper frowned, his lips compressing into a thin line. “You’re still here. We’re all still here. And we owe it to her to stay here. With each other. Now is not the time to lose ourselves. Now is precisely the time to remember who we are, and why we’re here in the first place.” He held Balthasar’s eyes for a few more seconds, both of their auras gradually dying down. Satisfied for the moment, Jasper released his son and stepped back a bit, steadying his own breaths.
Alarica's arms instinctively wrapped around Keir when he held her, burying her face in a similar fashion as her mother had, against his chest. It was getting harder to breathe with each sob that escaped her. Yuki was gone, and a part of her wished that it had been her instead. If it were possible, she would have gladly switched roles with Yuki. She would have taken her death upon herself so that Yuki could live happily with Zero, live to see her children grow. If it were her then they would not grieve as hard as they all did for Yuki. Her hands clutched tightly to Keir as the pressure in the room became a bit much.
It was slowly lifted and Alarica felt another pair of arms encircling her and Keir. She lifted her head just enough to see the pink strands of her mother's hair, and she removed one of her arms from Keir and wrapped it around her mother. She could hear Jasper speaking to Balthasar, and the words he spoke were true. Now was not the time to lose themselves. They were, however, allowed to grieve for their deceased sister, daughter, niece. And that is what she would do. She would grieve for Yuki. She would grieve until the war was over, when she could finally say that the war was at an end.
She would become stronger, to protect her family. She had to become stronger. Losing any more of her family members would kill her, and she wasn't sure she could handle that. Strength would be the only way to ensure the safety of her family, however; there were many forms of strength, of power. She just needed to sort through the one she needed the most. For now, all she could do was try and provide comfort for her family. Like her mother, and her brother, she felt the compelling need to destroy something, but she wouldn't allow it to consume her.
She would master this pain, use it and mold it into a weapon. They would regret the day they took from her family, from her. She would make it so.
She was gone. His daughter was dead.
He needed to see Nikki. He needed to be with her, and his sons, and his family, but that was simply impossible right now. Somewhere to his left, Balthasar just stood in stony silence, looking vaguely like he was lost and didn’t no what to do with himself. It was a feeling Jasper understood very well. They’d known it was coming, but there were supposed to be forty more years. Now, there were none. Jazz swallowed, his composure somehow still in place, but everything beneath that simply numb. There was grief in there, but it could not and did not break the surface of his expression, though it was writ large in his body language.
Yuki.
Vincent stood, his eyes fixed on the blank screen as he felt the air in the room shift. This war was taking a toll on everyone, and to hear the news that Morgan just relayed, was not something he wished upon anyone. Yuki was dead, killed in battle. He had his arms wrapped around Erys, who was struggling against him, yelling, screaming, and crying. She needed to get away, to destroy something, anything to replace this swelling in her heart. Over the years, Yuki had grown to be a part of her family, and she loved the girl as much as she loved her own children. She was her niece. Vincent, on the other hand, remained unreadable, though he too felt the overwhelming grief of losing Yuki.
She had been frightened of him as a child, however; over the years he taught her to control her ability, they had bonded as an uncle should. She was as much his kin as the others were. Alarica stared much like her uncle did, at the blank screen. She could hear her mother's screams, but she simply ignored it. Dead, was the only word that kept repeating in her mind. It was the only word that managed to filter into her mind. The words Yuki, and was were simply not making it through. She refused to believe it. Her sister was not dead. Yuki was still alive somewhere with Zero, building a home with their children.
"Yuki," she muttered out, her voice cracked and soft. Something hot burned behind her eyes as she wiped at them, letting the tears coat the back of her hand as she studied them. She was crying. Why was she crying? Yuki was alive, this was just an illusion, a trick of the mind. They were simply tired, worn out, and exhausted. The news delivered by her father was not the news of Yuki's death, but of something else. And she was trying so hard to believe it. Her body shook slightly, her eyes fluttering towards her uncle and her mother, who now had her head buried deeply in Vincent's chest.
He ran his hand through Erys' hair, trying to soothe his sister, but it only caused her to cry harder into him. Alarica did not know what to do, and instead did the only thing she could. She fell to her knees, face buried beneath her hands, and she wept. She wept for her sister, her mother, her cousin, for all of them. Though they would weep on their own, Alarica could not stop the tears that fell from her eyes, nor the mangled sobs that escaped her that matched her mother's.
For the longest time, Keir only stared at the blank screen where his father's face had been. Death was always a part of war, it was inevitable, and they had all know that her death in particular was to come sooner than most. But not like this. Something in his chest twisted in the mass of ice that was there when he thought of his young niece and nephew. Something dark and cold clouded over the young Alistair's face, and he simply turned from the screen, unable to just stand there any longer.
Yuki, silly, quirky, misunderstanding Yuki, his cousin, him and his sister's partner in crime, was dead. Dead. He swallowed, unsure if he could even remember how to breathe. It wasn't easy, but somehow he managed. He knelt next to his twin, pulling her to him, his arms wrapping around her shoulders. He could understand how his mother fought against his Uncle, he, too, felt the need to destroy something, to kill. But to do so would not bring Yuki back. So he did what he could, and held Alarica.
It was perhaps the sound of his aunt and his cousin weeping that finally broke through the haze of Balthasar’s mind, shrouded and fogged and entirely unsure of what was going on. That sound, the sobbing and the screaming, made it real in a way it hadn’t been, for those first few minutes, and several expressions flashed over his face in quick succession. First was a stricken sort of look, something evidently breaking behind his eyes, and then there was anger, hot and cold at the same time, as one might say of dry ice. He scrubbed his hands down his face, trying to regulate his breathing, but there was no mistaking the fact that his aura was starting to roil underneath the surface.
That darkness, that part of him that he tried so hard to avoid until he could harness it, was bubbling to the surface, and the room was suddenly filled with a choking, raw energy, oppressive and cloying, like an endless clammy dark, shot through with lances of pain, like lightning streaking the sky during a storm. It wasn’t enough to actually hurt anyone, but it was close, and Jasper stood at once, moving to place himself in front of his son, grabbing both sides of his child’s face and forcing his eyes to meet his own.
“Balthasar,” he said, his own tone harder, sterner than most had ever heard it. “Stop. Not here, not now.” Jasper’s own aura flared in response, but only to lift the pressure being created by his son’s, making it easier for the room to breathe again.
“She’s gone, dad,” he said, but his tone was defeated, broken, not combative. “Yuki’s gone, and I…”
Jasper frowned, his lips compressing into a thin line. “You’re still here. We’re all still here. And we owe it to her to stay here. With each other. Now is not the time to lose ourselves. Now is precisely the time to remember who we are, and why we’re here in the first place.” He held Balthasar’s eyes for a few more seconds, both of their auras gradually dying down. Satisfied for the moment, Jasper released his son and stepped back a bit, steadying his own breaths.
Alarica's arms instinctively wrapped around Keir when he held her, burying her face in a similar fashion as her mother had, against his chest. It was getting harder to breathe with each sob that escaped her. Yuki was gone, and a part of her wished that it had been her instead. If it were possible, she would have gladly switched roles with Yuki. She would have taken her death upon herself so that Yuki could live happily with Zero, live to see her children grow. If it were her then they would not grieve as hard as they all did for Yuki. Her hands clutched tightly to Keir as the pressure in the room became a bit much.
It was slowly lifted and Alarica felt another pair of arms encircling her and Keir. She lifted her head just enough to see the pink strands of her mother's hair, and she removed one of her arms from Keir and wrapped it around her mother. She could hear Jasper speaking to Balthasar, and the words he spoke were true. Now was not the time to lose themselves. They were, however, allowed to grieve for their deceased sister, daughter, niece. And that is what she would do. She would grieve for Yuki. She would grieve until the war was over, when she could finally say that the war was at an end.
She would become stronger, to protect her family. She had to become stronger. Losing any more of her family members would kill her, and she wasn't sure she could handle that. Strength would be the only way to ensure the safety of her family, however; there were many forms of strength, of power. She just needed to sort through the one she needed the most. For now, all she could do was try and provide comfort for her family. Like her mother, and her brother, she felt the compelling need to destroy something, but she wouldn't allow it to consume her.
She would master this pain, use it and mold it into a weapon. They would regret the day they took from her family, from her. She would make it so.
The entire family had gathered at the small home where Yuki and Zero had begun to build a family together. It was, for the most part, a rather somber event, in light of recent events, though one could not deny a certain amount of joy everyone felt at seeing everyone else safe and whole, at least for the most part. They were all alive, and that was something to be happy about.
A small ceremony for Yuki had been held, each saying something, most shedding more tears, and slowly, as they grieved together, the bonds they all shared were reforged, becoming stronger. At least, most of them. Keir had not wanted to come for one reason, but also knew that he had to come, and she was not reason enough otherwise. He owed Yuki that much. He'd seen her, said hello, but otherwise, Keir Alistair was utterly avoiding Leora. There had been no pet names, not even Leo.
He hadn't been prepared for just how much it hurt, seeing her again after all these years. No matter how many layers he put over his heart, it simply did nothing in the end, really. She was still Leora, just as he was still Keir, the man who had foolishly, hopelessly, fallen in love with her. Seven years had not changed that. If anything, it made it worse. He simply could not fathom why she thought so poorly of herself. A bitter chuckle escaped his throat. She actually thought that she was protecting him from herself by rejecting him. She could not see that, in fact, it was slowly killing him, like a poison.
Her scent reached him before she did, as he stood on the hill overlooking the house. He had been spending a great majority of his time outside. He fought not to sigh, and failed. His voice was clipped, short, as he spoke. He did not turn to look at her. "What do you want, Leora?"
The funny thing was, she’d not intended to come this way at all, as was evident from the brief flash of surprise that crossed her face when the irritated sigh punctuated the quiet of the evening. She’d just been walking, her thoughts adrift, and let her feet take her where they will. Her conscience was probably trying to tell her something, because she’d been thinking in large part of him, anyway. When she’d finished for the moment with recollections of Yuki and her permanent concern for her nephew and her brother. No matter what she did though, her thoughts always came back to him.
How cold he’d been, managing a quick hello but then disappearing. Being absolutely nowhere she was. In a house the size of this one, that was definitely on purpose. She supposed that, in some measure, she deserved it. Leora knew that it was a sign of one of two things: either he was entirely done with his feelings for her but had lost most of the familial warmth as well, which was unfortunately the better possibility, or… he was more like his twin than was strictly healthy, and he wasn’t over her at all. Just like she wasn’t even remotely close to being over him. Though it had taken her longer to realize there was something there to get over.
And he called her Leora. He’d never really used to, save in fun, and this was clearly anything but. That hurt, honestly, maybe more than any physical blow she’d ever taken. It knocked the breath right out of her, and for a moment, she struggled to form the words, to apologize and tell him she was leaving. It was the right thing to do—she had no reason to impose upon him with her company, not after what she’d done. Even if she did… seven years may only have endeared him more to her, but it didn’t change she base fact that she could not be with him as he deserved.
Her tongue moved before her thoughts could catch up, though. “To see you,” she said suddenly, and it was so close to the truth that her eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth, almost as though she could take them back, swallow them again and make it as though they’d never existed at all. But that was impossible, and her eyes found his, somewhere above her on the hill. She hadn’t approached any closer after he spoke, though she’d wanted to. Her hand fell away from her lips, and she added a few more things to the list, still just barely skirting the raw truth of the matter. “To be anyone but me. To have my cousin back. For the war to be over.” But most of all, she just wanted him, because it felt like that would allow her to have the strength to deal with everything else.
She shook her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t mean to be.”She turned to head back down the hill. It was funny, really, that in the end she blamed the Aegis for these problems. Not for the war, though she knew there was a large role to play there, but for this. The fact that she couldn’t just do what everyone else did when they might love someone and be with them, see what came of it. The fact that Alexander had ruined her at all for anyone else. The fact that she had to be careful around everyone when all she really wanted was to be open and generous and kind and happy. But this thing in her blood had made her reserved and cold and deceptive and a thousand other things she hated, just so that she could remain alive. Oh, how she hated it. How she hated being the Aegis.
The iced-over part of him wanted to simply let her leave. To not say anything, to let her go. But what was underneath that ice gave an odd little thump at her words, as if trying to believe there was some flicker of hope, and it wanted to escape. He squashed it. There was no hope, there never had been. But that did not mean, perhaps, that she had to leave. Everyone was grieving over Yuki, himself included, but...
Leora had been here, when it had happened. Keir could only imagine how that felt. At least he had not had to see it. He stood up, grabbing her wrist as she turned. The words left his mouth before he'd even realized he'd made the decision to speak. "You don't have to go, Leo." His voice was much softer than it had been previously. It was still nowhere near the old Keir, but then...that man may never come back. It wasn't just Leora and his feelings he was trying to deal with, after all.
The hand at her wrist stopped her dead in her tracks. It was like that time she’d struck herself with lightning to take out an enemy, only somehow worse. The contact was positively electric, and she couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. As it was, she didn’t know if she wanted to or not. Part of her, the good part, was screaming at her to leave, to not make this worse on them than it already was. But the other part, the selfish one, she supposed, wanted nothing more than to turn around, bury her face in his chest, and weep. Weep for everything, and everyone, they’d lost. Weep because even if by some magic Yuki reappeared tomorrow, not even half the damage that had been done to them all would repair.
Because this wasn’t a matter of one incident’s worth of pain, however traumatic and tragic that incident had been to watch and experience. It was seven years. Seven years of battlefields and death and a slow-growing self-hatred that she’d never thought herself capable of. Seven years of anxiety and worry so great it made her sick at night, unable to sleep during the day, and just so tired of everything that it choked her and made it hard to breathe when she thought about it. She knew, knew, that there were things that had hurt him just as badly, and all she wanted to do was make those things better, make them go away, but not even her damnable Aegis could heal that.
What good was any of it, if they all stumbled out of it bleeding and broken and scarred at the end? What good was life when there could be no joy in it anymore? When everything they’d been living for was just as corrupted and shattered as they were? “Yes I do,” she said in a cracked whisper, and when she turned to face him, her cheeks were streaked with shining trails where the tears slid down her face. “I hurt you—I won't let myself twist the knife, too. I can’t. I can’t protect anything, I can’t save anyone. I couldn’t save her, but I won’t let myself hurt you again. I’ve done so much wrong… all I want is to get this one thing right.” To protect him. At least from herself.
In that moment, Keir wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her, kiss her, to make her pain go away. Because in the end, his pain was nothing compared to hers. He couldn't handle seeing her this way, and be able to do absolutely nothing about it. He almost did what he wanted, and was a fraction away from pulling her to him when her words stopped him in tracks. Hurt him again? Didn't she realize the hurt had never stopped?
He dropped her wrist, the cold, stony mask forming back on his face and he scowled. She wanted to do this right? Then she needed to stop lying to herself. But that was not his problem to correct. She wanted to go? Fine. His voice held much of the same tone he had started with as he spoke again. "Then go. I won't stop you." He turned away from her, ignoring the painful twinge in his chest where his heart was trying to protest.
She saw it, the moment his face closed off, masking whatever gentle part of him these seven years had left him with. That part of him was not for her any longer, she knew, and while she should have been relieved, it was just… a fresh wave of grief assaulted her. It took every last shred of ability she had to retain her composure, to not lose everything she had left right there, because her heart, bloody and bruised, was stabbed afresh with that simple change of expression, and then again when he dropped her wrist like he’d never wanted to hold it in the first place.
This is a good thing, Leo, she said to herself, unconvinced and raw on the inside, but slowly composing herself on the outside. Brick by aching brick, stone and mortar, and eventually, her face was even more impassive than his, her blood-colored eyes, ringed in fire, the only possible hint of the blow she’d just been dealt. This was not only a severing of what might have been but for her… this was the relinquishing of a familial warmth. This was the donning of a mask that was to become permanent—one of cool courtesy and indifference. They would wear these artificial faces until they were real, until they were truth, and what was left of her heart would bleed out, blacken, and wither away, and somehow… it was still for the best.
One day, someone else would melt the ice around his heart. And on that day, hers would die for truth. But… as long as that someone else was more worthy of what he could give than she was, she would weather this death in silence. It was the only thing she could do for him. The only thing she could do for herself, lest the wound spread to the rest of her and destroy her utterly. Nodding slightly, she dropped her hand back to her side. “Sorry to have disturbed you, cousin.” And to her credit, she did not look back.
A small ceremony for Yuki had been held, each saying something, most shedding more tears, and slowly, as they grieved together, the bonds they all shared were reforged, becoming stronger. At least, most of them. Keir had not wanted to come for one reason, but also knew that he had to come, and she was not reason enough otherwise. He owed Yuki that much. He'd seen her, said hello, but otherwise, Keir Alistair was utterly avoiding Leora. There had been no pet names, not even Leo.
He hadn't been prepared for just how much it hurt, seeing her again after all these years. No matter how many layers he put over his heart, it simply did nothing in the end, really. She was still Leora, just as he was still Keir, the man who had foolishly, hopelessly, fallen in love with her. Seven years had not changed that. If anything, it made it worse. He simply could not fathom why she thought so poorly of herself. A bitter chuckle escaped his throat. She actually thought that she was protecting him from herself by rejecting him. She could not see that, in fact, it was slowly killing him, like a poison.
Her scent reached him before she did, as he stood on the hill overlooking the house. He had been spending a great majority of his time outside. He fought not to sigh, and failed. His voice was clipped, short, as he spoke. He did not turn to look at her. "What do you want, Leora?"
The funny thing was, she’d not intended to come this way at all, as was evident from the brief flash of surprise that crossed her face when the irritated sigh punctuated the quiet of the evening. She’d just been walking, her thoughts adrift, and let her feet take her where they will. Her conscience was probably trying to tell her something, because she’d been thinking in large part of him, anyway. When she’d finished for the moment with recollections of Yuki and her permanent concern for her nephew and her brother. No matter what she did though, her thoughts always came back to him.
How cold he’d been, managing a quick hello but then disappearing. Being absolutely nowhere she was. In a house the size of this one, that was definitely on purpose. She supposed that, in some measure, she deserved it. Leora knew that it was a sign of one of two things: either he was entirely done with his feelings for her but had lost most of the familial warmth as well, which was unfortunately the better possibility, or… he was more like his twin than was strictly healthy, and he wasn’t over her at all. Just like she wasn’t even remotely close to being over him. Though it had taken her longer to realize there was something there to get over.
And he called her Leora. He’d never really used to, save in fun, and this was clearly anything but. That hurt, honestly, maybe more than any physical blow she’d ever taken. It knocked the breath right out of her, and for a moment, she struggled to form the words, to apologize and tell him she was leaving. It was the right thing to do—she had no reason to impose upon him with her company, not after what she’d done. Even if she did… seven years may only have endeared him more to her, but it didn’t change she base fact that she could not be with him as he deserved.
Her tongue moved before her thoughts could catch up, though. “To see you,” she said suddenly, and it was so close to the truth that her eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth, almost as though she could take them back, swallow them again and make it as though they’d never existed at all. But that was impossible, and her eyes found his, somewhere above her on the hill. She hadn’t approached any closer after he spoke, though she’d wanted to. Her hand fell away from her lips, and she added a few more things to the list, still just barely skirting the raw truth of the matter. “To be anyone but me. To have my cousin back. For the war to be over.” But most of all, she just wanted him, because it felt like that would allow her to have the strength to deal with everything else.
She shook her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t mean to be.”She turned to head back down the hill. It was funny, really, that in the end she blamed the Aegis for these problems. Not for the war, though she knew there was a large role to play there, but for this. The fact that she couldn’t just do what everyone else did when they might love someone and be with them, see what came of it. The fact that Alexander had ruined her at all for anyone else. The fact that she had to be careful around everyone when all she really wanted was to be open and generous and kind and happy. But this thing in her blood had made her reserved and cold and deceptive and a thousand other things she hated, just so that she could remain alive. Oh, how she hated it. How she hated being the Aegis.
The iced-over part of him wanted to simply let her leave. To not say anything, to let her go. But what was underneath that ice gave an odd little thump at her words, as if trying to believe there was some flicker of hope, and it wanted to escape. He squashed it. There was no hope, there never had been. But that did not mean, perhaps, that she had to leave. Everyone was grieving over Yuki, himself included, but...
Leora had been here, when it had happened. Keir could only imagine how that felt. At least he had not had to see it. He stood up, grabbing her wrist as she turned. The words left his mouth before he'd even realized he'd made the decision to speak. "You don't have to go, Leo." His voice was much softer than it had been previously. It was still nowhere near the old Keir, but then...that man may never come back. It wasn't just Leora and his feelings he was trying to deal with, after all.
The hand at her wrist stopped her dead in her tracks. It was like that time she’d struck herself with lightning to take out an enemy, only somehow worse. The contact was positively electric, and she couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. As it was, she didn’t know if she wanted to or not. Part of her, the good part, was screaming at her to leave, to not make this worse on them than it already was. But the other part, the selfish one, she supposed, wanted nothing more than to turn around, bury her face in his chest, and weep. Weep for everything, and everyone, they’d lost. Weep because even if by some magic Yuki reappeared tomorrow, not even half the damage that had been done to them all would repair.
Because this wasn’t a matter of one incident’s worth of pain, however traumatic and tragic that incident had been to watch and experience. It was seven years. Seven years of battlefields and death and a slow-growing self-hatred that she’d never thought herself capable of. Seven years of anxiety and worry so great it made her sick at night, unable to sleep during the day, and just so tired of everything that it choked her and made it hard to breathe when she thought about it. She knew, knew, that there were things that had hurt him just as badly, and all she wanted to do was make those things better, make them go away, but not even her damnable Aegis could heal that.
What good was any of it, if they all stumbled out of it bleeding and broken and scarred at the end? What good was life when there could be no joy in it anymore? When everything they’d been living for was just as corrupted and shattered as they were? “Yes I do,” she said in a cracked whisper, and when she turned to face him, her cheeks were streaked with shining trails where the tears slid down her face. “I hurt you—I won't let myself twist the knife, too. I can’t. I can’t protect anything, I can’t save anyone. I couldn’t save her, but I won’t let myself hurt you again. I’ve done so much wrong… all I want is to get this one thing right.” To protect him. At least from herself.
In that moment, Keir wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her, kiss her, to make her pain go away. Because in the end, his pain was nothing compared to hers. He couldn't handle seeing her this way, and be able to do absolutely nothing about it. He almost did what he wanted, and was a fraction away from pulling her to him when her words stopped him in tracks. Hurt him again? Didn't she realize the hurt had never stopped?
He dropped her wrist, the cold, stony mask forming back on his face and he scowled. She wanted to do this right? Then she needed to stop lying to herself. But that was not his problem to correct. She wanted to go? Fine. His voice held much of the same tone he had started with as he spoke again. "Then go. I won't stop you." He turned away from her, ignoring the painful twinge in his chest where his heart was trying to protest.
She saw it, the moment his face closed off, masking whatever gentle part of him these seven years had left him with. That part of him was not for her any longer, she knew, and while she should have been relieved, it was just… a fresh wave of grief assaulted her. It took every last shred of ability she had to retain her composure, to not lose everything she had left right there, because her heart, bloody and bruised, was stabbed afresh with that simple change of expression, and then again when he dropped her wrist like he’d never wanted to hold it in the first place.
This is a good thing, Leo, she said to herself, unconvinced and raw on the inside, but slowly composing herself on the outside. Brick by aching brick, stone and mortar, and eventually, her face was even more impassive than his, her blood-colored eyes, ringed in fire, the only possible hint of the blow she’d just been dealt. This was not only a severing of what might have been but for her… this was the relinquishing of a familial warmth. This was the donning of a mask that was to become permanent—one of cool courtesy and indifference. They would wear these artificial faces until they were real, until they were truth, and what was left of her heart would bleed out, blacken, and wither away, and somehow… it was still for the best.
One day, someone else would melt the ice around his heart. And on that day, hers would die for truth. But… as long as that someone else was more worthy of what he could give than she was, she would weather this death in silence. It was the only thing she could do for him. The only thing she could do for herself, lest the wound spread to the rest of her and destroy her utterly. Nodding slightly, she dropped her hand back to her side. “Sorry to have disturbed you, cousin.” And to her credit, she did not look back.
Bryer had not spoken since the incident. It had been almost two weeks now, and the little boy had said not a word, to anyone, not even his father or his sister. Normally, none of the family would think much of this, as Bryer had been known to do so from time to time, however; he always responded in some form. These days, it was hard to get him to do so. More often than not he would be found sitting in the corner of his parents' room, his back to one wall and his head against the other, his pink eyes wide and underscored by heavy dark circles. Sometimes he would be covering his ears, other times he would not be.
No matter what anyone tried to do, he usually would not respond, and if he did, it was generally a refusal to do other than sit there. At a loss for what to do and worried for her grandson's well-being, she turned to the other person she could think of who had gone through something similar. Her son Balthasar had also been six years old the first time he'd taken someone else's life in the defense of another. That fact that it had been she both times was something she chose to ignore. While she doubted that was the root of the entire problem, she guessed that it was a good part of it. So, she asked her eldest son to talk to the boy.
Honestly, Balthasar wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do about his little nephew, and when his mother had asked him to talk to Bryer, he wondered if maybe Aryan wouldn’t be more suited to it or something, because they were really very alike, and while Balthasar himself wasn’t exactly the opposite of his brother, they did tend to handle most situations very differently. He could only assume that his mother thought for some reason that his own approach would work here, but Balthasar honestly didn’t know what his approach was. He was not known for conversational finesse or any great amount of subtlety; he was very much the bull in the china shop when it came to delicate topics, but he would do his best, anyway.
He found Bryer where the boy usually was, sitting in his parents’ old room, shoved into a corner like he wanted to make himself as small as possible, and Balthasar remembered a time in which he’d been not so different, and his father had been standing more or less where he was now. Gods, his father would know what to do here. Balthasar just felt lost. Nevertheless… his steps were deceptively light for a person of his considerable body mass, his musculature only increased over the near-decade until he was easily the broadest person in his family. He sat down about a foot from his nephew, crossing his legs and draping his forearms over his knees.
“Bryer?” he asked softly, his voice laced with concern. It produced no immediate response, and then Balthasar remembered something Alden had told him, stopping him outside the door with a hand on his arm. Try thinking at him, the way you and Uncle Jazz do. He wasn’t sure exactly why Alden would think that would work, but he was willing to try it.
One of the more benevolent aspects of the powers Al shared with his father was the ability to originate mental links with those who had mind powers. They were not telepaths themselves, exactly—the recipient of the link had to have some capacity to hear minds. But it was useful because if the telepath was too overtaxed to create the link themselves, then he could do it instead. They also seemed to create what both Yuki and Alden had told him was total telepathic silence—when they linked to someone this way, nothing else came through, at all. He hadn’t been aware his nephew had any sort of applicable mind abilities, but the link established when he attempted it, and so he tried again.
Bry? Can you hear me? Well, it wasn’t hearing exactly, but for want of a better metaphor, there it was. He was careful to gentle his mental voice about as much as he could. He got the sense that it was an ability made to command more than anything, so making it quiet enough for a conversation like this took some effort, but he had a lot of practice, fortunately.
Bryer had heard his uncle, of course, but for the first few seconds, like he did with everyone else, he simply didn't respond. It was when the mental link was established that something akin to shock passed over the little boy's face, followed closely by grief. He had not inherited his mother's gift for telepathy, his mind powers were connected to souls, not other live beings, but even so, it was still telepathic, in a way, allowing this link that he now held with Balthasar.
The second his uncle had formed it, the voices had just stopped. A profound silence rang through his head, and his pink eyes blinked at his Uncle. For a second, he still said nothing, and without even really considering what it meant or the implications, he replied, They're gone...you made the voices go away.
Balthasar watched the emotions flicker over his nephew’s face, blinking slowly. Something strange was going on here, and though he suspected that Vi might have an idea as to what it was, Al had to flail around in the dark and hope he didn’t break anything. But this was important, and so he would go as slowly and as carefully as he knew how. He turned the words over in his mind, wondering for a moment if Bryer really was a telepath, because if so, the only voices he should be hearing were those of his family, and this should not make him feel as bad as he did. Furthermore, Violet probably would have done something about it himself. So… what was going on?
Carefully closing off parts of his mind anyway, the eldest von Nacht son leaned forward a bit, clasping his hands together and resting his chin on them. He kept his facial expression and his mental voice both as open and kind as he knew how. What voices are those, Bry?
Bryer hesitated at that. He hadn't meant to say anything. He wasn't sure if he wanted anyone to know. Even so, the metaphorical cat was out of bag now. Bryer looked down, unsure of how to answer. Even he didn't know what the voices were. He shook his head slowly.
I don't...know. They don't speak like us. They're just always...there. They were worse when that woman was here, though...she called Grandma Nikki sister...she had puppets, too. She... He paused at that. He didn't want to continue that train of thought. I killed her... The final thought was so quiet that it almost wasn't there.
Bathasar wasn’t exactly quite sure what to do with that, because it wasn’t any sort of ability he’d heard of before. He made a mental note to ask his mom about it—or maybe his dad. Jasper always seemed to know everything Balthasar could think to ask, and even what he didn’t know was usually simply because nobody knew it. Some people might have found it frustrating, growing up with such a person for a father, but Al had always found comfort in it. It might be true that not even his dad was always put together and in control of the situation—the war had taught him that. But he was still easily the one person Balthasar looked up to more that anyone, and he probably always would be.
What he could do was help in a different way. I know how that feels, he said into the mental connection. Not the voices, but… killing someone. And being able to do things that don’t quite make sense or feel right to you. When I was six, like you, my mother and I were on our way to be with my father, when we were attacked. His awakening to his powers had been violent and very nearly disastrous—he’d somehow torn through every last one of the assailants with his bare hands, something he remembered in flashes of memory only. But he would never forget the look on his mother’s face when he came down from the adrenaline spike and whatever it had done to him. The look had been fear.
He didn’t show Bryer the images, of course; his goal was not to scare or scar his nephew even further. I killed a lot of people that day, and for a very long time, I felt really bad about it. Guilty. Depressed. Unworthy. Like I didn’t even know who I was. I felt like I had no right to kill those people, that what I did made me a monster. They were heavy thoughts for a child, and he could sense at least some of them in his sister’s son. But then my father came to me, and he asked me something very simple. He asked me if I loved my family. If I wanted to protect them. I told him I did, and then he told me that the rest was just details, and that nobody who acted from a desire to protect what they loved was ever truly a monster.
It seems like what you can do is very unusual, Bryer, but that doesn’t make it evil. It doesn’t make you bad. It just makes you different, like me. And… you can learn, how to make the most of what you have, and maybe then the voices won’t seem so bad.
Bryer met his uncle's eyes. He wanted to believe it, that he wasn't a monster, that what he had done wasn't wrong. But he'd brought his mother back, of all things. Even so...he couldn't remember consciously making the decision. Nikki had been in danger, and he'd simply acted. He did love his family, he knew that. But he wasn't so sure about the voices. He sighed slightly.
I don't like what I can do. I don't like the voices. But I can try.
Bryer was not an expressive person, much like his own mother. So what he did next surprised even himself. He stood up and hugged his uncle. "Thank you, Uncle."
No matter what anyone tried to do, he usually would not respond, and if he did, it was generally a refusal to do other than sit there. At a loss for what to do and worried for her grandson's well-being, she turned to the other person she could think of who had gone through something similar. Her son Balthasar had also been six years old the first time he'd taken someone else's life in the defense of another. That fact that it had been she both times was something she chose to ignore. While she doubted that was the root of the entire problem, she guessed that it was a good part of it. So, she asked her eldest son to talk to the boy.
Honestly, Balthasar wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do about his little nephew, and when his mother had asked him to talk to Bryer, he wondered if maybe Aryan wouldn’t be more suited to it or something, because they were really very alike, and while Balthasar himself wasn’t exactly the opposite of his brother, they did tend to handle most situations very differently. He could only assume that his mother thought for some reason that his own approach would work here, but Balthasar honestly didn’t know what his approach was. He was not known for conversational finesse or any great amount of subtlety; he was very much the bull in the china shop when it came to delicate topics, but he would do his best, anyway.
He found Bryer where the boy usually was, sitting in his parents’ old room, shoved into a corner like he wanted to make himself as small as possible, and Balthasar remembered a time in which he’d been not so different, and his father had been standing more or less where he was now. Gods, his father would know what to do here. Balthasar just felt lost. Nevertheless… his steps were deceptively light for a person of his considerable body mass, his musculature only increased over the near-decade until he was easily the broadest person in his family. He sat down about a foot from his nephew, crossing his legs and draping his forearms over his knees.
“Bryer?” he asked softly, his voice laced with concern. It produced no immediate response, and then Balthasar remembered something Alden had told him, stopping him outside the door with a hand on his arm. Try thinking at him, the way you and Uncle Jazz do. He wasn’t sure exactly why Alden would think that would work, but he was willing to try it.
One of the more benevolent aspects of the powers Al shared with his father was the ability to originate mental links with those who had mind powers. They were not telepaths themselves, exactly—the recipient of the link had to have some capacity to hear minds. But it was useful because if the telepath was too overtaxed to create the link themselves, then he could do it instead. They also seemed to create what both Yuki and Alden had told him was total telepathic silence—when they linked to someone this way, nothing else came through, at all. He hadn’t been aware his nephew had any sort of applicable mind abilities, but the link established when he attempted it, and so he tried again.
Bry? Can you hear me? Well, it wasn’t hearing exactly, but for want of a better metaphor, there it was. He was careful to gentle his mental voice about as much as he could. He got the sense that it was an ability made to command more than anything, so making it quiet enough for a conversation like this took some effort, but he had a lot of practice, fortunately.
Bryer had heard his uncle, of course, but for the first few seconds, like he did with everyone else, he simply didn't respond. It was when the mental link was established that something akin to shock passed over the little boy's face, followed closely by grief. He had not inherited his mother's gift for telepathy, his mind powers were connected to souls, not other live beings, but even so, it was still telepathic, in a way, allowing this link that he now held with Balthasar.
The second his uncle had formed it, the voices had just stopped. A profound silence rang through his head, and his pink eyes blinked at his Uncle. For a second, he still said nothing, and without even really considering what it meant or the implications, he replied, They're gone...you made the voices go away.
Balthasar watched the emotions flicker over his nephew’s face, blinking slowly. Something strange was going on here, and though he suspected that Vi might have an idea as to what it was, Al had to flail around in the dark and hope he didn’t break anything. But this was important, and so he would go as slowly and as carefully as he knew how. He turned the words over in his mind, wondering for a moment if Bryer really was a telepath, because if so, the only voices he should be hearing were those of his family, and this should not make him feel as bad as he did. Furthermore, Violet probably would have done something about it himself. So… what was going on?
Carefully closing off parts of his mind anyway, the eldest von Nacht son leaned forward a bit, clasping his hands together and resting his chin on them. He kept his facial expression and his mental voice both as open and kind as he knew how. What voices are those, Bry?
Bryer hesitated at that. He hadn't meant to say anything. He wasn't sure if he wanted anyone to know. Even so, the metaphorical cat was out of bag now. Bryer looked down, unsure of how to answer. Even he didn't know what the voices were. He shook his head slowly.
I don't...know. They don't speak like us. They're just always...there. They were worse when that woman was here, though...she called Grandma Nikki sister...she had puppets, too. She... He paused at that. He didn't want to continue that train of thought. I killed her... The final thought was so quiet that it almost wasn't there.
Bathasar wasn’t exactly quite sure what to do with that, because it wasn’t any sort of ability he’d heard of before. He made a mental note to ask his mom about it—or maybe his dad. Jasper always seemed to know everything Balthasar could think to ask, and even what he didn’t know was usually simply because nobody knew it. Some people might have found it frustrating, growing up with such a person for a father, but Al had always found comfort in it. It might be true that not even his dad was always put together and in control of the situation—the war had taught him that. But he was still easily the one person Balthasar looked up to more that anyone, and he probably always would be.
What he could do was help in a different way. I know how that feels, he said into the mental connection. Not the voices, but… killing someone. And being able to do things that don’t quite make sense or feel right to you. When I was six, like you, my mother and I were on our way to be with my father, when we were attacked. His awakening to his powers had been violent and very nearly disastrous—he’d somehow torn through every last one of the assailants with his bare hands, something he remembered in flashes of memory only. But he would never forget the look on his mother’s face when he came down from the adrenaline spike and whatever it had done to him. The look had been fear.
He didn’t show Bryer the images, of course; his goal was not to scare or scar his nephew even further. I killed a lot of people that day, and for a very long time, I felt really bad about it. Guilty. Depressed. Unworthy. Like I didn’t even know who I was. I felt like I had no right to kill those people, that what I did made me a monster. They were heavy thoughts for a child, and he could sense at least some of them in his sister’s son. But then my father came to me, and he asked me something very simple. He asked me if I loved my family. If I wanted to protect them. I told him I did, and then he told me that the rest was just details, and that nobody who acted from a desire to protect what they loved was ever truly a monster.
It seems like what you can do is very unusual, Bryer, but that doesn’t make it evil. It doesn’t make you bad. It just makes you different, like me. And… you can learn, how to make the most of what you have, and maybe then the voices won’t seem so bad.
Bryer met his uncle's eyes. He wanted to believe it, that he wasn't a monster, that what he had done wasn't wrong. But he'd brought his mother back, of all things. Even so...he couldn't remember consciously making the decision. Nikki had been in danger, and he'd simply acted. He did love his family, he knew that. But he wasn't so sure about the voices. He sighed slightly.
I don't like what I can do. I don't like the voices. But I can try.
Bryer was not an expressive person, much like his own mother. So what he did next surprised even himself. He stood up and hugged his uncle. "Thank you, Uncle."
They met at the small home that was once shared by Yuki and Zero. There was something heavy, something almost suffocating being in the home where she was no longer living. They held a small memorial for Yuki, most of her family standing and speaking something of the white-haired girl. Alarica found herself unable to speak for the most part. She had remained silent, refusing to speak for she could not find the words to do so. Her mother wept silently as she did, and the only comfort she found was in her mother and father's arms. Yuki was gone, and it was a fact that Alarica could not comprehend. She refused to believe it.
She found herself wandering the small home, somehow finding the small music room the home had. She entered, running her fingers over the various instruments, and allowed a sullen smile to cross her features. The memories of the family playing together, played over in her mind. She spotted the piano, crossing the room over to it and ran her fingers over the dust-filled keys. She could feel the back of her eyes burning as she pressed a key, producing a soft sound as she tried to keep herself from crying. She sat at the bench and slid her fingers over the keys, removing the dust in the process.
She took a deep breath, and began playing the instrument song flowing through her quietly. She could feel her tears falling silently, hitting the keys as she did with her fingers. She recalled the day Leora, Yuki, and herself had went into the city for a day of shopping, when Leora had teased her about Balthasar's note, and then turned it on Yuki's feelings for Zero. Her heart clenched painfully against her chest as she continued to play. She didn't want to lose any more of her family members. Angelus appeared, sitting next to his master as he stared up at her.
He rubbed against her side as she ended the last note. "I am sorry, Yuki," she finally spoke, placing a hand on Angelus' head and stroked his fur. Angelus remained quiet as he leaned into her hand. Maybe...maybe she could be as strong as Yuki was and just tell him. But how could she, at a time like this? Now was not the time to confess anything. "I want to tell him, Gel. I want him to know, but I can't. Why can't I tell him?" she spoke, the guilt, the sorrow finally leaking from her eyes as Angelus tried to keep the tears from falling any further. Why did it have to be so hard? Why did there have to be so much sorrow?
Balthasar was tired. Tired of the palpable aura of grief that still hung over everyone, including himself, tired of the war, tired of the fact that he could no longer sleep at night for fear of what he’d see when he closed his eyes. The darkness was so much closer to the surface than it had ever been before. He could feel it there, just beneath his skin, and only several hours a day in the company of his father was even doing anything at all to help. He felt restless, like he needed to be somewhere, doing something, but what that nameless thing was continued to elude him. He was fortunate, at least, in that his sleeplessness wasn’t showing yet. He didn’t want anyone to worry anymore than they already were. The last thing they needed was to add a wariness of him just snapping to the list of things that preoccupied their minds.
Privately, he thought they should not be here. That they should all be somewhere other than this place where his sister had died. Seeing the scenery of her demise over and over again could not be good for any of the people who had been there, especially not the kids. He hoped they’d all be moving somewhere else soon. Returning here was something they would all have to do eventually, maybe, but not while the wounds were so fresh.
He found himself pacing the halls of the home, doing his best to ignore the traces of Yuki’s scent that were still present in places, and eventually, he scented someone else instead. He followed it only half-consciously, the other half of him pulled along by some visceral instinct he did not quite understand, a desire to be near her. It was very strange to him—though they’d run into each other perhaps three times over the seven year period, he somehow managed to miss her more than anyone else, including the ones he’d not seen at all. He felt guilty, because those people included his mother and his sister. But Balthasar knew well enough that there was no helping feelings, and it didn’t do anybody much good to blame himself for them. There was plenty else to blame himself for if he wanted to feel guilty, so he simply accepted this fact, though he was admittedly still puzzling over the reason for it.
Whatever the case, he found that he wanted presently to be near her, so he made it happen, tracking her to the music room even as the last notes of the song died off. She might not have been able to speak at the memorial, but she certainly expressed herself very well in music. He felt like that sometimes, too. He pushed open the door, catching the last fragment of a sentence to Angelus, but he didn’t comment on it. If it were something he could help with, he liked to believe she would tell him about it. If not… then asking about it wouldn’t do her any good, so he wouldn’t. With a bone-deep sigh, Balthasar smiled wanly at his cousin and took a seat on the piano bench next to her, placing a hand briefly atop her head before allowing it to return to his side. Odd—had he ever noticed how soft her hair was before?
“Looks like we both managed to keep our promises,” he said quietly. Though he couldn’t quite get the weight out of his voice, these days, he at least sounded happier about it than he had about anything else he’d said—in how long, he did not care to remember. “I’m… glad is an inadequate word, but I suppose none of us can really claim to be happy at the moment. Even so… I am happy I didn’t lose you.” He could be happy about something without being happy generally, he supposed. If ever that had been obvious, it was now.
Fate seemed to tease her as his scent became apparent before he had. Was this some bad karma following her around? Or was this simply an opportunity presenting itself to her? She sighed softly, rubbing the remaining tears from her eyes as she felt them dry. She felt him sit next to her, place a hand on her head before removing it. It was odd, the gesture. All the negativity burning within her seemed to almost disappear, however; it still remained somewhat. She leaned back a little, stopping herself part way as if to contemplate her next action. It was just a gesture of comfort, nothing else.
With that in mind, she leaned fully back, letting her head rest on his shoulder as she took a soft breath. "Honestly, it was that promise that kept me alive," she stated truthfully. Had she not promised that, to him, who knows what would have happened to her. They might be mourning more than just one person. She shook the thought from her mind. She shouldn't think like that, because either way, she was still alive, still breathing. "And you're right. I'm glad is perhaps not the right word to be using, but," she stated, tilting her head up so that she was staring at him.
"I am glad that you are still here, as well as everyone else. I...don't know if I could handle losing you too," she continued, her eyes darkening just a fraction. It was not a thought she wanted to entertain. If she had lost him, the guilt would have eaten her up. The regret would have killed her to know that she never told him and never knew how he felt. "Bal, I..." she began, pausing momentarily before reeling the words back in. "Never mind, it's not important," she stated, picking herself up from him in the process. As blunt as she ever was, it was something how she couldn't bring herself to say that.
Balthasar blinked as she settled against him, being as still as he could, save the steady rise and fall of his chest where he breathed. Which was… actually harder, now? It was weird, but for some reason, the actual feel of her against him was different than it used to be, when she was a kid or even just the last time they’d actually had a moment to themselves. That difference constricted something in his chest and shortened his breaths, almost imperceptibly. But he certainly felt it, and he swallowed, looking for the words he wanted while trying simultaneously to push back the burgeoning sense of distraction. It was… not an easy thing, but he managed it.
“Then I guess we’re making one every time we see each other from now on,” he said quietly. If something so simple had really played a role in keeping her alive… he wondered if she knew how much further he’d go to ensure that. He wondered of he knew how far he’d go. It wasn’t a question of whether or not he’d die for her—he’d die for any member of his family, no questions asked, no hesitation. But… that battle, with his clone… he’d been this close to giving himself over to the dark, and it had been for no other reason than because he knew that her life was in danger, with that other Pantheon man standing there.
He would have done it. If they hadn’t chosen that moment to retreat, almost as if they knew what was coming, he would have done it. He hadn’t been that close since… since the last time, on the day Cross was destroyed. A cold chill crept down his spine at the belated realization, at odds with the warmth he felt where she leaned against his shoulder. Her last few sentences perplexed him, though, and when she drew away, his brows furrowed with faint concern. “If you say so, I won’t press, but… you know you can tell me anything, right Rica? I won’t be upset with you.” He had striven always the be the kind of person who accepted things about other people, without judging them, and he’d never stop that striving.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bench, he moved so that he was facing the same way as she was and draped an arm over her shoulders, tugging her gently into his side and resting his chin on her crown. “Besides, we don’t have to only talk about important things. I’m pretty sure I made you listen to me talk about ducks at one point, and trees, so… really, I think anything goes for topics at this point.”
Alarica scoffed slightly at his statement. Making the same promise everytime they saw each other? Would it really be enough to keep her alive though? She had said that it was the promise they made that kept her alive, but somehow, it was more than just that. She knew it too, but she could not bring herself to acknowledge it. She felt her breath hitch in her throat at the next statement. She could tell him anything, and he wouldn't be upset with her. She knew that, or at least a small part of her knew. But it wasn't that she couldn't tell him, it was because she wouldn't. Why was it becoming so hard to breathe now?
Even as his legs crossed over, even as he pulled her back to him, she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She felt like she was suffocating, that his arms were the source, and that she would suffocate. "You couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to do," she stated, clearing her airways as she tried to laugh softly. It was caught somewhere between a choked scoff and a mangled laugh. She wanted to tell him the reason why she ignored him, to tell him that he was someone who was so very special to her in so many ways, but she couldn't.
She placed a hand on his arm that draped over her shoulder, grabbing and giving an almost fearful squeeze before letting it go. "I wonder if those ducks ever hatched," she stated with a hint of melancholy. "I wonder if they were able to grow, to reach maturity, and have small ducklings of their own," she continued, however; each word she spoke grew quieter. She kept associating Zero and Yuki to those ducks, and the ducklings her second cousins, Bryer and Diya.
"I hope you know the courtesy applies to you as well Balthasar. You can't be the only one who can listen. There are things that bother you too, and just like the rest of us, you need to speak about them. Though, like you said, I will not press the matter upon you. You will speak to someone when the moments are right, and when you feel the most comfortable. Just know," she spoke, unsure of as to why she was suddenly feeling very bold. "Just know that I am still here to help you along the way. I said I would be here for you until you got it right, and that goes still," she finished, her words a bit confused but there nonetheless.
Something a little darker than usual passed behind his eyes, like the barest glimpse of a shadow, but then it was gone. The truth was, he preferred being the listener because he hated talking about himself. He’d endured enough attention, enough scrutiny, for one life, and all he wanted was for everyone around him to feel happy and appreciated and content. What he was, or what became of him, or the things he fought inside himself… those things didn’t matter. But he didn’t tell her that, either, only chuckled lightly at her typically-straightforward manner of speaking, shaking his head slightly.
“You know, I bet they did. And something tells me that, in the end, everything is going to be okay. For them, and for us.”
She found herself wandering the small home, somehow finding the small music room the home had. She entered, running her fingers over the various instruments, and allowed a sullen smile to cross her features. The memories of the family playing together, played over in her mind. She spotted the piano, crossing the room over to it and ran her fingers over the dust-filled keys. She could feel the back of her eyes burning as she pressed a key, producing a soft sound as she tried to keep herself from crying. She sat at the bench and slid her fingers over the keys, removing the dust in the process.
She took a deep breath, and began playing the instrument song flowing through her quietly. She could feel her tears falling silently, hitting the keys as she did with her fingers. She recalled the day Leora, Yuki, and herself had went into the city for a day of shopping, when Leora had teased her about Balthasar's note, and then turned it on Yuki's feelings for Zero. Her heart clenched painfully against her chest as she continued to play. She didn't want to lose any more of her family members. Angelus appeared, sitting next to his master as he stared up at her.
He rubbed against her side as she ended the last note. "I am sorry, Yuki," she finally spoke, placing a hand on Angelus' head and stroked his fur. Angelus remained quiet as he leaned into her hand. Maybe...maybe she could be as strong as Yuki was and just tell him. But how could she, at a time like this? Now was not the time to confess anything. "I want to tell him, Gel. I want him to know, but I can't. Why can't I tell him?" she spoke, the guilt, the sorrow finally leaking from her eyes as Angelus tried to keep the tears from falling any further. Why did it have to be so hard? Why did there have to be so much sorrow?
Balthasar was tired. Tired of the palpable aura of grief that still hung over everyone, including himself, tired of the war, tired of the fact that he could no longer sleep at night for fear of what he’d see when he closed his eyes. The darkness was so much closer to the surface than it had ever been before. He could feel it there, just beneath his skin, and only several hours a day in the company of his father was even doing anything at all to help. He felt restless, like he needed to be somewhere, doing something, but what that nameless thing was continued to elude him. He was fortunate, at least, in that his sleeplessness wasn’t showing yet. He didn’t want anyone to worry anymore than they already were. The last thing they needed was to add a wariness of him just snapping to the list of things that preoccupied their minds.
Privately, he thought they should not be here. That they should all be somewhere other than this place where his sister had died. Seeing the scenery of her demise over and over again could not be good for any of the people who had been there, especially not the kids. He hoped they’d all be moving somewhere else soon. Returning here was something they would all have to do eventually, maybe, but not while the wounds were so fresh.
He found himself pacing the halls of the home, doing his best to ignore the traces of Yuki’s scent that were still present in places, and eventually, he scented someone else instead. He followed it only half-consciously, the other half of him pulled along by some visceral instinct he did not quite understand, a desire to be near her. It was very strange to him—though they’d run into each other perhaps three times over the seven year period, he somehow managed to miss her more than anyone else, including the ones he’d not seen at all. He felt guilty, because those people included his mother and his sister. But Balthasar knew well enough that there was no helping feelings, and it didn’t do anybody much good to blame himself for them. There was plenty else to blame himself for if he wanted to feel guilty, so he simply accepted this fact, though he was admittedly still puzzling over the reason for it.
Whatever the case, he found that he wanted presently to be near her, so he made it happen, tracking her to the music room even as the last notes of the song died off. She might not have been able to speak at the memorial, but she certainly expressed herself very well in music. He felt like that sometimes, too. He pushed open the door, catching the last fragment of a sentence to Angelus, but he didn’t comment on it. If it were something he could help with, he liked to believe she would tell him about it. If not… then asking about it wouldn’t do her any good, so he wouldn’t. With a bone-deep sigh, Balthasar smiled wanly at his cousin and took a seat on the piano bench next to her, placing a hand briefly atop her head before allowing it to return to his side. Odd—had he ever noticed how soft her hair was before?
“Looks like we both managed to keep our promises,” he said quietly. Though he couldn’t quite get the weight out of his voice, these days, he at least sounded happier about it than he had about anything else he’d said—in how long, he did not care to remember. “I’m… glad is an inadequate word, but I suppose none of us can really claim to be happy at the moment. Even so… I am happy I didn’t lose you.” He could be happy about something without being happy generally, he supposed. If ever that had been obvious, it was now.
Fate seemed to tease her as his scent became apparent before he had. Was this some bad karma following her around? Or was this simply an opportunity presenting itself to her? She sighed softly, rubbing the remaining tears from her eyes as she felt them dry. She felt him sit next to her, place a hand on her head before removing it. It was odd, the gesture. All the negativity burning within her seemed to almost disappear, however; it still remained somewhat. She leaned back a little, stopping herself part way as if to contemplate her next action. It was just a gesture of comfort, nothing else.
With that in mind, she leaned fully back, letting her head rest on his shoulder as she took a soft breath. "Honestly, it was that promise that kept me alive," she stated truthfully. Had she not promised that, to him, who knows what would have happened to her. They might be mourning more than just one person. She shook the thought from her mind. She shouldn't think like that, because either way, she was still alive, still breathing. "And you're right. I'm glad is perhaps not the right word to be using, but," she stated, tilting her head up so that she was staring at him.
"I am glad that you are still here, as well as everyone else. I...don't know if I could handle losing you too," she continued, her eyes darkening just a fraction. It was not a thought she wanted to entertain. If she had lost him, the guilt would have eaten her up. The regret would have killed her to know that she never told him and never knew how he felt. "Bal, I..." she began, pausing momentarily before reeling the words back in. "Never mind, it's not important," she stated, picking herself up from him in the process. As blunt as she ever was, it was something how she couldn't bring herself to say that.
Balthasar blinked as she settled against him, being as still as he could, save the steady rise and fall of his chest where he breathed. Which was… actually harder, now? It was weird, but for some reason, the actual feel of her against him was different than it used to be, when she was a kid or even just the last time they’d actually had a moment to themselves. That difference constricted something in his chest and shortened his breaths, almost imperceptibly. But he certainly felt it, and he swallowed, looking for the words he wanted while trying simultaneously to push back the burgeoning sense of distraction. It was… not an easy thing, but he managed it.
“Then I guess we’re making one every time we see each other from now on,” he said quietly. If something so simple had really played a role in keeping her alive… he wondered if she knew how much further he’d go to ensure that. He wondered of he knew how far he’d go. It wasn’t a question of whether or not he’d die for her—he’d die for any member of his family, no questions asked, no hesitation. But… that battle, with his clone… he’d been this close to giving himself over to the dark, and it had been for no other reason than because he knew that her life was in danger, with that other Pantheon man standing there.
He would have done it. If they hadn’t chosen that moment to retreat, almost as if they knew what was coming, he would have done it. He hadn’t been that close since… since the last time, on the day Cross was destroyed. A cold chill crept down his spine at the belated realization, at odds with the warmth he felt where she leaned against his shoulder. Her last few sentences perplexed him, though, and when she drew away, his brows furrowed with faint concern. “If you say so, I won’t press, but… you know you can tell me anything, right Rica? I won’t be upset with you.” He had striven always the be the kind of person who accepted things about other people, without judging them, and he’d never stop that striving.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bench, he moved so that he was facing the same way as she was and draped an arm over her shoulders, tugging her gently into his side and resting his chin on her crown. “Besides, we don’t have to only talk about important things. I’m pretty sure I made you listen to me talk about ducks at one point, and trees, so… really, I think anything goes for topics at this point.”
Alarica scoffed slightly at his statement. Making the same promise everytime they saw each other? Would it really be enough to keep her alive though? She had said that it was the promise they made that kept her alive, but somehow, it was more than just that. She knew it too, but she could not bring herself to acknowledge it. She felt her breath hitch in her throat at the next statement. She could tell him anything, and he wouldn't be upset with her. She knew that, or at least a small part of her knew. But it wasn't that she couldn't tell him, it was because she wouldn't. Why was it becoming so hard to breathe now?
Even as his legs crossed over, even as he pulled her back to him, she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She felt like she was suffocating, that his arms were the source, and that she would suffocate. "You couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to do," she stated, clearing her airways as she tried to laugh softly. It was caught somewhere between a choked scoff and a mangled laugh. She wanted to tell him the reason why she ignored him, to tell him that he was someone who was so very special to her in so many ways, but she couldn't.
She placed a hand on his arm that draped over her shoulder, grabbing and giving an almost fearful squeeze before letting it go. "I wonder if those ducks ever hatched," she stated with a hint of melancholy. "I wonder if they were able to grow, to reach maturity, and have small ducklings of their own," she continued, however; each word she spoke grew quieter. She kept associating Zero and Yuki to those ducks, and the ducklings her second cousins, Bryer and Diya.
"I hope you know the courtesy applies to you as well Balthasar. You can't be the only one who can listen. There are things that bother you too, and just like the rest of us, you need to speak about them. Though, like you said, I will not press the matter upon you. You will speak to someone when the moments are right, and when you feel the most comfortable. Just know," she spoke, unsure of as to why she was suddenly feeling very bold. "Just know that I am still here to help you along the way. I said I would be here for you until you got it right, and that goes still," she finished, her words a bit confused but there nonetheless.
Something a little darker than usual passed behind his eyes, like the barest glimpse of a shadow, but then it was gone. The truth was, he preferred being the listener because he hated talking about himself. He’d endured enough attention, enough scrutiny, for one life, and all he wanted was for everyone around him to feel happy and appreciated and content. What he was, or what became of him, or the things he fought inside himself… those things didn’t matter. But he didn’t tell her that, either, only chuckled lightly at her typically-straightforward manner of speaking, shaking his head slightly.
“You know, I bet they did. And something tells me that, in the end, everything is going to be okay. For them, and for us.”
Zero stared out the window, his eyes slightly glazed. They were not as dull and lifeless as they had once been, however; they were not so vibrant either. He had learned to cope with Yuki's death, for the sake of his children. It was hard, knowing she was gone, and for a while, Zero had neglected himself, never his kids, but himself. His hair had lost its luster, dark circles had formed underneath his eyes from the lack of sleep, however; he always tried to keep himself composed for Diya and Bryer. They were the only link he had to her, and he couldn't lose them too.
He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the limp, wispyness of it as he pulled a few strands out. A small smile appeared on his face as he released the strands into the air. He pushed himself from his seat and stood. He needed to stretch his legs a bit. Diya was with his father, that much he knew, and Bryer had opted to keep to himself. Zero tried everything he could to get his son to talk more about the situation. Losing his mother at such a young age was not an easy task for either child, however; Bryer had seemed to withdraw into himself. He sighed, his legs carrying him towards a rather peculiar area.
A smile littered his lips, small, but still noticeable. "Why does it no longer surprise me that I find you in the kitchen," he stated, crossing his arms as he stared at his mother.
Ava looked up as her son entered, smiling her usual sun-bright smile and tilting her head slightly to the side. For all that she was his mother, she had never lost the relative air of youthfulness she had, and even when the weight of their lives seemed to burden the others and age them, even just a bit, she seemed untouched. It was not true, of course, but it was a unique gift of hers that she was able to see the happiness in anything, find it like the elusive needle in the proverbial haystack. Even when she saw her son, some of the color gone from him, and it broke her heart, Ava could smile.
“I would hope it no longer surprises you,” she replied with a lofted eyebrow. “I’ve been this way since before you were born—I don’t see it changing, I’m afraid. Now come on, stranger, I made pretzels.” Zero had lost his sweet tooth after considerable overindulgence in his childhood, but she compensated for this by making things he liked that were primarily savory, spicy, or salty, such as the soft pretzels she pulled out of the oven, as if her timing were magic. That, too, was something her children were used to by now, perhaps.
Ushering him into a seat, Ava moved a few strands of his hair around with her fingers, tutting in an unmistakably maternal fashion before taking the seat across from him at the small kitchen table. “I’m glad you came to see me, Zero,” she said quietly. “I missed having you around, all these years.” She’d missed her entire family, as the only time she seemed to see any of them was when they were heavily injured, and then that was only for long enough to have them back on their feet before they were leaving her again. She’d gotten awfully lonely, watching so many retreating backs. Ava was not yet so old that seven years couldn’t seem like forever. It could certainly seem like too long.
Zero shook his head, a faint smile brushing his lips at his mother's response. It shouldn't surprise him, because she was always in the kitchen. Even before he lost his sweet tooth, he would always find his mother in the kitchen cooking or baking something. Though she baked more often than cooked simply because everyone in his family, extended included, loved his mother's sweets. He used to...until he got sick of them. He consumed too many as a child, and he was paying greatly for it. Even if he were to even just have a bite of something sweet, he'd get sick. Shaking his head once more, he entered the kitchen, and stood next to his mother.
"Pretzels? You know me too well already." he stated, a light chuckle escaping his throat before a small frown covered his face. He sighed softly, taking a seat at the small table as his mother took the other side. "And I've missed you all. You can't get rid of me that easily," he stated, a small hint of playfulness returning to his throat. He had missed his family dearly, but he was happy during those years because he had Yuki, Diya, and Bryer. He had his own family there with him, and it had provided to fill the empty feeling he had when he thought of his siblings and parents.
Ava rolled her eyes at her son, but the gesture was playful. If he wanted to talk about it, he would. She was here for that, just like she’d been there for every one of his growing pains and his triumphs. She’d delivered his children, with Freya. She chose to hang onto the fact that she would, barring disaster, always be able to be there for him as she had, to help him raise them and do the silly small things like this that would make him smile for a while. Outwardly, though, she kept her words light. A little bit of normalcy could go a long way at a time like this, and he spent too long with his darkest thoughts anyway. She knew he would—because she knew him as only a mother could.
“Already? I’ve known you for almost a century, mister, and don’t you forget it!” Reaching forward, she flicked his forehead lightly with her index finger, something she’d done to mock-scold him since he was a child. She missed those days, sometimes, not because she wanted him to be a child again, but because in these days, he’d been simply happy, without reservation. But pain and hardship had made her son into the man he was today, and there was no denying that she loved that man dearly. Her eyes softened, though, and she used the hand to lay on his head for a second, meeting his blue eyes. His grandfather, whom she’d never met, had had them, apparently, but her own father’s had not been so different, either.
“I know,” she said gently, with a soft smile. “And we’d never want to. I’m proud of you, Zero, and everything that you’ve become. Your dad’s horrible at saying it, but he’s proud of you, too. And we love you, so, so much.”
Zero covered his forehead, giving his mother a faint mock-hurt look as he rubbed the spot she flicked. He chuckled lightly as he took a pretzel from the plate they were situated on and took a bite from it, a faint smirk crossing his features, but disappearing slightly at his mother's choice of words. He knew she was proud of him, but his father. That was a matter that he still did not know. Was his father proud of him? Even after all of the screwed up things he did? Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't. He needed to talk to his father, but that was for another time. He was with his mother now.
"How could I forget that I've been alive for that long? And that you were the one who created me? You underestimate me, mother. I am not as dull as Balthasar," he spoke, shaking his head once more, his smile brightening just a little more. "Yeah, I know," he responded as he glanced at his mom. "I love you too, mom. And even the rest of our crazy family," he chuckled softly. Speaking of which, Leora had a sudden change in attitude. Though she wore their father's face, he knew there was something wrong with her, and he was concerned.
"Have you, perchance, spoken to Leora? She seems...a little lost," he questioned. He was worried about his sister more-so than he was worried about himself.
The question drew a sigh from Ava, and she shook her head gently. “Your sister is in a lot of pain,” she said quietly, “Of a different sort from yours or even mine, I’m afraid. I have spoken to her a bit, but she is resolute in the course she’s chosen, and it will unfortunately only continue to hurt her.” She couldn’t say much more than that, because Zero didn’t know about Alexander and the incident surrounding him, and she respected her youngest child’s privacy. She wished she could do more for her daughter, just like she wished she could do more for Zero, and for Alden, and for all her sons. But they were old enough now that their decisions were their own to make, and the best she could do was offer love and support and someone to lean on if things went sour.
She wished more than anything that she could take their pain away, but it was simply impossible. “For now, we’ll have to let her make her choice, and see if she really ends up going through with things, and be there for her if she needs us. Just like we always do.” They were family, after all, and that meant that they were there for one another, no matter what. “But we don’t need to fix everything today. One thing at a time, okay? You focus on your children and on moving forward as well as you can, and we’ll all do our best, too.” She smiled kindly and took a pretzel herself, tearing it into small pieces. She’d never quite been able to get over her love of solid foods, after all, even if she didn’t really need them anymore.
Zero frowned when his mother spoke. His sister...was in pain? Why? What could have possibly hurt her? The thought that someone might have hurt her caused a sharp chill to go down his spine, and he resisted the urge to pull his lips back into a snarl. No one messed with his sister and got away with it. At least, as long as he and their father knew about it. He knew his father wouldn't have allowed anything to harm his sister, and he sighed softly, running a hand through his hair in the process. As the rest of the sentence entered his senses, he sighed even heavier. So, it was a choice she was making. That... couldn't be good. Why would she choose to hurt herself? He should speak with her, perhaps, but then again, he would probably only make things worse.
"She's a strong girl, she'll be able to make the right decision," he spoke, taking another bite from his pretzel before setting it down. He suddenly lost his appetite. "But like you said, we will be there for when she needs us. I just hope it won't be too late," he continued before laughing at her last statement. One thing at a time: that was her motto. Perhaps he should try and follow it more often. His mother was right, though, he needed to focus on his children and trying to move forward. He could do this. Though it will be hard, he could do this with the support and love he had from his family. That was all he needed.
"I wonder what dad would do without you," he spoke, his lips tilting into a light smirk, his tone a bit teasing in the process. His mother always knew what to say, and he loved her for it.
“The same thing you would all do,” Ava replied with a grin. “Fall into chaos and misery.” She winked, though, to show she was only joking, and stood, giving her son’s shoulder a brief squeeze. “We’ve got your back, Zero. We always will.”
He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the limp, wispyness of it as he pulled a few strands out. A small smile appeared on his face as he released the strands into the air. He pushed himself from his seat and stood. He needed to stretch his legs a bit. Diya was with his father, that much he knew, and Bryer had opted to keep to himself. Zero tried everything he could to get his son to talk more about the situation. Losing his mother at such a young age was not an easy task for either child, however; Bryer had seemed to withdraw into himself. He sighed, his legs carrying him towards a rather peculiar area.
A smile littered his lips, small, but still noticeable. "Why does it no longer surprise me that I find you in the kitchen," he stated, crossing his arms as he stared at his mother.
Ava looked up as her son entered, smiling her usual sun-bright smile and tilting her head slightly to the side. For all that she was his mother, she had never lost the relative air of youthfulness she had, and even when the weight of their lives seemed to burden the others and age them, even just a bit, she seemed untouched. It was not true, of course, but it was a unique gift of hers that she was able to see the happiness in anything, find it like the elusive needle in the proverbial haystack. Even when she saw her son, some of the color gone from him, and it broke her heart, Ava could smile.
“I would hope it no longer surprises you,” she replied with a lofted eyebrow. “I’ve been this way since before you were born—I don’t see it changing, I’m afraid. Now come on, stranger, I made pretzels.” Zero had lost his sweet tooth after considerable overindulgence in his childhood, but she compensated for this by making things he liked that were primarily savory, spicy, or salty, such as the soft pretzels she pulled out of the oven, as if her timing were magic. That, too, was something her children were used to by now, perhaps.
Ushering him into a seat, Ava moved a few strands of his hair around with her fingers, tutting in an unmistakably maternal fashion before taking the seat across from him at the small kitchen table. “I’m glad you came to see me, Zero,” she said quietly. “I missed having you around, all these years.” She’d missed her entire family, as the only time she seemed to see any of them was when they were heavily injured, and then that was only for long enough to have them back on their feet before they were leaving her again. She’d gotten awfully lonely, watching so many retreating backs. Ava was not yet so old that seven years couldn’t seem like forever. It could certainly seem like too long.
Zero shook his head, a faint smile brushing his lips at his mother's response. It shouldn't surprise him, because she was always in the kitchen. Even before he lost his sweet tooth, he would always find his mother in the kitchen cooking or baking something. Though she baked more often than cooked simply because everyone in his family, extended included, loved his mother's sweets. He used to...until he got sick of them. He consumed too many as a child, and he was paying greatly for it. Even if he were to even just have a bite of something sweet, he'd get sick. Shaking his head once more, he entered the kitchen, and stood next to his mother.
"Pretzels? You know me too well already." he stated, a light chuckle escaping his throat before a small frown covered his face. He sighed softly, taking a seat at the small table as his mother took the other side. "And I've missed you all. You can't get rid of me that easily," he stated, a small hint of playfulness returning to his throat. He had missed his family dearly, but he was happy during those years because he had Yuki, Diya, and Bryer. He had his own family there with him, and it had provided to fill the empty feeling he had when he thought of his siblings and parents.
Ava rolled her eyes at her son, but the gesture was playful. If he wanted to talk about it, he would. She was here for that, just like she’d been there for every one of his growing pains and his triumphs. She’d delivered his children, with Freya. She chose to hang onto the fact that she would, barring disaster, always be able to be there for him as she had, to help him raise them and do the silly small things like this that would make him smile for a while. Outwardly, though, she kept her words light. A little bit of normalcy could go a long way at a time like this, and he spent too long with his darkest thoughts anyway. She knew he would—because she knew him as only a mother could.
“Already? I’ve known you for almost a century, mister, and don’t you forget it!” Reaching forward, she flicked his forehead lightly with her index finger, something she’d done to mock-scold him since he was a child. She missed those days, sometimes, not because she wanted him to be a child again, but because in these days, he’d been simply happy, without reservation. But pain and hardship had made her son into the man he was today, and there was no denying that she loved that man dearly. Her eyes softened, though, and she used the hand to lay on his head for a second, meeting his blue eyes. His grandfather, whom she’d never met, had had them, apparently, but her own father’s had not been so different, either.
“I know,” she said gently, with a soft smile. “And we’d never want to. I’m proud of you, Zero, and everything that you’ve become. Your dad’s horrible at saying it, but he’s proud of you, too. And we love you, so, so much.”
Zero covered his forehead, giving his mother a faint mock-hurt look as he rubbed the spot she flicked. He chuckled lightly as he took a pretzel from the plate they were situated on and took a bite from it, a faint smirk crossing his features, but disappearing slightly at his mother's choice of words. He knew she was proud of him, but his father. That was a matter that he still did not know. Was his father proud of him? Even after all of the screwed up things he did? Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't. He needed to talk to his father, but that was for another time. He was with his mother now.
"How could I forget that I've been alive for that long? And that you were the one who created me? You underestimate me, mother. I am not as dull as Balthasar," he spoke, shaking his head once more, his smile brightening just a little more. "Yeah, I know," he responded as he glanced at his mom. "I love you too, mom. And even the rest of our crazy family," he chuckled softly. Speaking of which, Leora had a sudden change in attitude. Though she wore their father's face, he knew there was something wrong with her, and he was concerned.
"Have you, perchance, spoken to Leora? She seems...a little lost," he questioned. He was worried about his sister more-so than he was worried about himself.
The question drew a sigh from Ava, and she shook her head gently. “Your sister is in a lot of pain,” she said quietly, “Of a different sort from yours or even mine, I’m afraid. I have spoken to her a bit, but she is resolute in the course she’s chosen, and it will unfortunately only continue to hurt her.” She couldn’t say much more than that, because Zero didn’t know about Alexander and the incident surrounding him, and she respected her youngest child’s privacy. She wished she could do more for her daughter, just like she wished she could do more for Zero, and for Alden, and for all her sons. But they were old enough now that their decisions were their own to make, and the best she could do was offer love and support and someone to lean on if things went sour.
She wished more than anything that she could take their pain away, but it was simply impossible. “For now, we’ll have to let her make her choice, and see if she really ends up going through with things, and be there for her if she needs us. Just like we always do.” They were family, after all, and that meant that they were there for one another, no matter what. “But we don’t need to fix everything today. One thing at a time, okay? You focus on your children and on moving forward as well as you can, and we’ll all do our best, too.” She smiled kindly and took a pretzel herself, tearing it into small pieces. She’d never quite been able to get over her love of solid foods, after all, even if she didn’t really need them anymore.
Zero frowned when his mother spoke. His sister...was in pain? Why? What could have possibly hurt her? The thought that someone might have hurt her caused a sharp chill to go down his spine, and he resisted the urge to pull his lips back into a snarl. No one messed with his sister and got away with it. At least, as long as he and their father knew about it. He knew his father wouldn't have allowed anything to harm his sister, and he sighed softly, running a hand through his hair in the process. As the rest of the sentence entered his senses, he sighed even heavier. So, it was a choice she was making. That... couldn't be good. Why would she choose to hurt herself? He should speak with her, perhaps, but then again, he would probably only make things worse.
"She's a strong girl, she'll be able to make the right decision," he spoke, taking another bite from his pretzel before setting it down. He suddenly lost his appetite. "But like you said, we will be there for when she needs us. I just hope it won't be too late," he continued before laughing at her last statement. One thing at a time: that was her motto. Perhaps he should try and follow it more often. His mother was right, though, he needed to focus on his children and trying to move forward. He could do this. Though it will be hard, he could do this with the support and love he had from his family. That was all he needed.
"I wonder what dad would do without you," he spoke, his lips tilting into a light smirk, his tone a bit teasing in the process. His mother always knew what to say, and he loved her for it.
“The same thing you would all do,” Ava replied with a grin. “Fall into chaos and misery.” She winked, though, to show she was only joking, and stood, giving her son’s shoulder a brief squeeze. “We’ve got your back, Zero. We always will.”
Diya wandered slowly through the house. She had been avoiding her parents' room, even though she knew her brother was there. She simply could not bring herself to go there. She wanted so much to help her brother, and had no idea what to do. Everyone around her was hurting, and even though she was too, as she missed her mother dearly, she tried her best to smile and be happy, at least on the outside.
It wasn't easy for a seven year old. When she was alone, the smile usually fell from her face, leaving a look of sadness and guilt on her face. Her mother had died protecting her, after all, and then Bryer...she shook her head. She didn't want to think about that. Seeing her mother that way, and her little brother...that had been harder than watching her mother die.
Before she even realized it, Diya found herself in the study doorway. One of the two doors was open, the other remaining shut. Her grandfather, Vincent, was there, doing something at the desk. Diya didn't say anything, but instead stood there, peeking around the closed door, her face half-hidden. She also couldn't bring herself to smile anymore.
Vincent stared at the papers in front of him, a sullen look crossing his features briefly. The war was at a standstill at the moment. There had been no attacks, or at least major ones. They were allowed to grieve properly for Yuki, something he had been a bit grateful for. Had they not been able to at least do that, the family could have suffered more casualties than just Yuki. He sighed heavily, his mind refocusing on the papers, however; his attention was brought to a small child that entered the room. A soft, ghost-like smile, appeared on his lips.
"Diya," he spoke, motioning for her to come closer. If there had been one thing his son could have done right, it was ensuring that his children were the main priority in this time. "Why do you not smile?" he spoke, his voice calm as he could make it. Something tugged at the strings of his heart, watching his grandchildren become the way they had. The loss of their mother affected them both, and Vincent was not so blind as to not be able to see it.
Diya loved all of her family, of course, but there was simply something about her father's father that she was simply drawn to. She didn't know what it was, and she didn't really care, either. She walked over to Vincent, crawling up into his lap as she laid her head on his chest. She had that stubborn look on her face when she didn't want to do something.
"I don't want to smile anymore. No one cares when Bry doesn't smile, and he never smiles." The barest of pouts wormed its way onto the little girl's face. It wasn't completely true, of course. She did want to smile. But it was hard. Her father tried to hide it, but she could see that he still hurt, that her mother's death was affecting him the most out of any of them.
Vincent smiled softly, the only smile he ever showed to Ava and to his own daughter. He wrapped his arms around her as Diya burried her head into his chest. He stroked her hair, watching as the face she made was one of stubbornness. He knew that face, it was one she shared with her father, his son. Zero used to make the same face when he was a child, and Vincent could only shake his head. Instead, he listened as she spoke, waiting for her to finish speaking before pulling her closer to him.
"Little one, everyone cares," he spoke, a soft humming noise escaping his throat. "We try to make Bryer smile, but he does not smile as easily. It is why when you smile, you smile for yourself and for your brother," he continued, running a hand through her hair in a comforting manner. He did not like to see his grandchildren this way. They were too young to be feeling the way they did, to have the war affect them as much as it had. It only served to fuel the fire beneath him to end it as soon as possible. The war was taking a heavy toll upon them all, and it was only getting worse the longer it continued.
Diya sighed softly, remaining silent for a while while Vincent stroked her hair. She smiled for Bryer as well? She supposed she could do that. She was the big sister after all, and this family didn't get many of those. Actually, they'd only had one, her mother, and she was now gone. Everyone else was big brothers and baby sisters. It was hard being the big sister.
"That's a lot of work, smiling for two people." She sat up straight for a second, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration before she spoke again. "Well, then I'm just gonna have to be busy. Daddy and Papa Vivi aren't smiling enough, either, so until you do, I'll just have to smile for the both of you, too."
Where the sudden strange logic had come from was hard to explain, but nonetheless the child's face split into that normal, bright, happy-go-lucky grin without a care in the world that only a seven-year-old could possibly possess in such dark times. She was still sad, she would always be sad, but her grandfather was right. There were people who needed to see her smile, and she wasn't going to let them down.
"It is a lot of work, but it is worth it in the end, little one. It is a good goal to have. Until the others can smile, you smile for them," Vincent replied, the ghost-like smile gracing his features. He placed a hand on her head and ruffled her hair a bit. At least his granddaughter was smiling again. If only he could get his grandson to smile now. "Now, go show the rest your smile, and let them know you are okay," he spoke, standing up with Diya in his arms. He walked towards the door and opened it, setting her down in the process. With a final soft smile, Vincent watched his granddaughter leave down the hall.
It wasn't easy for a seven year old. When she was alone, the smile usually fell from her face, leaving a look of sadness and guilt on her face. Her mother had died protecting her, after all, and then Bryer...she shook her head. She didn't want to think about that. Seeing her mother that way, and her little brother...that had been harder than watching her mother die.
Before she even realized it, Diya found herself in the study doorway. One of the two doors was open, the other remaining shut. Her grandfather, Vincent, was there, doing something at the desk. Diya didn't say anything, but instead stood there, peeking around the closed door, her face half-hidden. She also couldn't bring herself to smile anymore.
Vincent stared at the papers in front of him, a sullen look crossing his features briefly. The war was at a standstill at the moment. There had been no attacks, or at least major ones. They were allowed to grieve properly for Yuki, something he had been a bit grateful for. Had they not been able to at least do that, the family could have suffered more casualties than just Yuki. He sighed heavily, his mind refocusing on the papers, however; his attention was brought to a small child that entered the room. A soft, ghost-like smile, appeared on his lips.
"Diya," he spoke, motioning for her to come closer. If there had been one thing his son could have done right, it was ensuring that his children were the main priority in this time. "Why do you not smile?" he spoke, his voice calm as he could make it. Something tugged at the strings of his heart, watching his grandchildren become the way they had. The loss of their mother affected them both, and Vincent was not so blind as to not be able to see it.
Diya loved all of her family, of course, but there was simply something about her father's father that she was simply drawn to. She didn't know what it was, and she didn't really care, either. She walked over to Vincent, crawling up into his lap as she laid her head on his chest. She had that stubborn look on her face when she didn't want to do something.
"I don't want to smile anymore. No one cares when Bry doesn't smile, and he never smiles." The barest of pouts wormed its way onto the little girl's face. It wasn't completely true, of course. She did want to smile. But it was hard. Her father tried to hide it, but she could see that he still hurt, that her mother's death was affecting him the most out of any of them.
Vincent smiled softly, the only smile he ever showed to Ava and to his own daughter. He wrapped his arms around her as Diya burried her head into his chest. He stroked her hair, watching as the face she made was one of stubbornness. He knew that face, it was one she shared with her father, his son. Zero used to make the same face when he was a child, and Vincent could only shake his head. Instead, he listened as she spoke, waiting for her to finish speaking before pulling her closer to him.
"Little one, everyone cares," he spoke, a soft humming noise escaping his throat. "We try to make Bryer smile, but he does not smile as easily. It is why when you smile, you smile for yourself and for your brother," he continued, running a hand through her hair in a comforting manner. He did not like to see his grandchildren this way. They were too young to be feeling the way they did, to have the war affect them as much as it had. It only served to fuel the fire beneath him to end it as soon as possible. The war was taking a heavy toll upon them all, and it was only getting worse the longer it continued.
Diya sighed softly, remaining silent for a while while Vincent stroked her hair. She smiled for Bryer as well? She supposed she could do that. She was the big sister after all, and this family didn't get many of those. Actually, they'd only had one, her mother, and she was now gone. Everyone else was big brothers and baby sisters. It was hard being the big sister.
"That's a lot of work, smiling for two people." She sat up straight for a second, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration before she spoke again. "Well, then I'm just gonna have to be busy. Daddy and Papa Vivi aren't smiling enough, either, so until you do, I'll just have to smile for the both of you, too."
Where the sudden strange logic had come from was hard to explain, but nonetheless the child's face split into that normal, bright, happy-go-lucky grin without a care in the world that only a seven-year-old could possibly possess in such dark times. She was still sad, she would always be sad, but her grandfather was right. There were people who needed to see her smile, and she wasn't going to let them down.
"It is a lot of work, but it is worth it in the end, little one. It is a good goal to have. Until the others can smile, you smile for them," Vincent replied, the ghost-like smile gracing his features. He placed a hand on her head and ruffled her hair a bit. At least his granddaughter was smiling again. If only he could get his grandson to smile now. "Now, go show the rest your smile, and let them know you are okay," he spoke, standing up with Diya in his arms. He walked towards the door and opened it, setting her down in the process. With a final soft smile, Vincent watched his granddaughter leave down the hall.
Two months.
They’d finally moved away from the home that had belonged to Yuki and Zero, and were presently all camped in one of the largest estates any of them had—the von Nacht one in Italy. He wasn’t sure if the sun was really doing any of them any good or not, but it was nice to be away from the place with the memories of death, and the sheer size of the place meant that everyone felt like they had a little more space, which was helping most of them, he was pretty sure. As much as they could be helped. But time dulled all pain, and at least things were starting to become somewhat functional again. Those that were so inclined were even fighting again from time to time, but there would be no more seven-year split-ups. It was too hard on them, and for all the good they’d done… Balthasar didn’t honestly believe it was worth it if it continued to hurt them as much as it had.
And it had hurt them. It had hurt them all. But all they could really do about that was be there for each other as much as possible and try to regain some sense of normalcy in their lives. Normal for Ary was trying to get work done. Normal for Balthasar was periodically checking in to make sure his brother was feeding properly and not overtaxing himself. So perhaps it was to be counted a small victory that Aryan was in a study, trying to work, and Balthasar was walking up the stairs, having tracked him by scent, intending to check on him.
He entered the study to find his brother basically bent over a desk. It was a position he’d seen his father occupy many times as well, but Al knew both of them well enough to pick up on the subtle differences rather than the obvious similarity. Grabbing a chair, Balthasar moved it to the opposite side of the desk, turning it around so that when he sat down, he could brace his forearms along the back of it, and his chin atop them. “Not to sound like an idiot, though I often do, but… it still surprises me how much paperwork you have to deal with,” he said, blinking at the stack with some trepidation.
Two months did not ease the ache in his chest that Aryan felt over the loss of his sister, however; he had put off what he had to do for far too long already, if the stack of papers on his desk was any indication. As such, it was no surprise to anyone when his brother found him thus, bent over a desk with the stack of paper next to him. The younger von Nacht did not look up as his brother approached, nor when he spoke.
When he finished with the document in front of him, though, he set it aside and leaned back in the chair, his purple eyes meeting the cool grey of his brother's. "You do often sound as such, though as it is part of your personality, I do not hold it against you. And I have been..." His eyes skimmed over the papers on the desk, the stack much larger than was normal, even for him. "A bit neglectful over the past few weeks. I take it Bryer is doing better?" It had been about a month and a half since his God-son had perked back up again. While neither of the children were the bright, cheery personas they had been, they were certainly much closer than they had been. Bryer himself was much more vibrant now, and Aryan had lost to him five times now in chess.
Balthasar did not bother to hide the fact that he rolled his eyes at his brother’s statement, hiking a brow and shaking his head faintly. “As I do not hold your copious tact against you,” he replied sarcastically. Balthasar was not, as a rule, particularly acerbic, but he occasionally fell into such a routine with his brother, and that had been the same since they were children. Well, since Ary was a child and Balthasar was still a very young person, anyway. “And… yes, I think. At least, as much as he can be expected to be. I think Dad and Alden are planning on trying to help him out a little, too; they can probably do more for him than any of the rest of us, at least in some respects.”
He chose not to mention the peculiar nature of the boy’s powers, partially because he was a little fuzzy on the details himself. He hadn’t gone seeking them out, but as ever, his father seemed to know more than he did, probably because his mother had told him everything she knew. Which would have been about as much as anyone alive did. “How are you doing, Ary? We get worried sometimes, since you’re always sort of isolated up here.” he stopped for a moment, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, and I know you’re not one for crowds and all, but… we are here if you need us.”
Aryan chuckled slightly at his brother's comment. Yes, he had a large amount of tact, but that was usually dropped when he was alone with his family, especially his brother. He raised an eyebrow at his form of surrender. "You act as though I'm going to to gouge your eyes out for showing concern. I can understand where you are coming from, and I can assure you mother has been up here almost three times a day. If anyone can keep a recluse such as I in top form, it's certainly her."
Aryan had not talked about Yuki, and he did not have much wish to, either. He would continue on, as he always did. It was others that concerned him. "You know, for all the time you spend running after me, you're still no better about letting things go yourself. When was the last time you indulged in something, Bal?"
Balthasar snorted, a small smile forming on his face. “I’m your older brother, Ary. It’s my job to spend my time running after you. And I don’t mind it besides.” The question made him think, though. Indulge was an interesting choice of word, and not one he would generally associate with himself. Knowing Aryan, that was half the point. Lifting both shoulders in some kind of shrug, he let them drop again. “I don’t think I really have anything to indulge in,” he said simply. Unless one counted music, maybe, but even then… he hadn’t touched a piano in a while.
“I could just as easily turn the question back on you, though. Even your chess games have a purpose,” he pointed out, which was true, after a fashion. Ary was teaching his two most frequent opponents of late, Helen and Bryer. That sort of put it outside the realm of something done purely for fun, at least in his elder brother’s mind. “I mean, if you have a suggestion, I’m listening, but… we’re both a bit hopeless when it comes to not working, I think.”
Aryan smiled slightly. "Though that may be true enough, though Bryer has begun beating me to the point where I don't think there's any more that I could teach him. Give him a few more years, and I think he might be a match for father." That would be an interesting match to watch, certainly. "Helen has proven to be more than an adaptable learner, and has thrown my strategies for a loop every now and again."
Aryan's eyes gleamed slightly as his grin widened. "Rica certainly seems pleased to have you around again."
Frankly, Balthsar didn’t think anyone could beat his father in chess, but Ary was more the expert than he was. Al had learned all the strategies and knew them as well as anyone, but when it came down to it—he played too defensively. He didn’t like losing pieces, sacrificing them for the larger gain. It just wasn’t how his mind worked. While he was very good at coming up with new ways to lose as few as possible, all it could really do was prolong a game. He could beat Keir, most of the time, but he only very rarely managed to draw a game out long enough to beat Aryan. This was something he’d accepted about himself; he didn’t have to be the best at everything, he just had to be able to do what he needed to.
“Uh… I mean, I’m pretty sure we’re all pleased to be around each other, right?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t help the weird connection his brain made between a seemingly innocuous comment and the recent… weirdness he’d been feeling around his cousin. His facial expression, however, was pretty much the same one he always wore when vaguely perplexed by his brother’s angle. Wisdom did come to Balthasar in time, and intelligence was always a property of his. But… he certainly had a fair number of blind spots. This was one of them.
“Oh!” he said, snapping his fingers as if suddenly recalling something. “How did that problem you were having work out? You know, the one about Helen?” He hadn’t run into her much over the seven year period, and Aryan even less, and obviously all of them had had more dire matters on their minds at the time. That did not mean he’d just forgotten about it. Anything that could fluster Ary was well worth keeping track of, for big-brother reasons if no others.
Aryan had to fight not to sigh. His brother's obliviousness never ceased to amaze him. No matter how obvious it was to everyone else, Balthasar simply did not see it. He shook his head slightly, choosing to drop the subject for now. At least, he had planned to, but his brother seemed to have other matters, as his next question cause Aryan's half-closed eyes to snap back open, a look of surprise on his face.
Aryan always had a way of speaking, and could easily and smoothly talk his way out of situations, however; his brother seemed to have an uncanny knack to simply throw him for a loop. For a second, Aryan struggled with his words, and much to his chagrin, a slight blush creeped across his face. He scowled slightly. "That...is a complicated situation, Balthasar."
The slow smile that spread over Balthasar’s place would have looked more at home on his brother’s, but somehow, it worked with the von Nacht features quite naturally. “Complicated, huh? Looks pretty simple from over here, Ary. I think I’ve seen you blush maybe three times in your life, and two of those instances have been when the topic of conversation was her.” It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, not even for him. What had been a sneaking suspicion was now blatantly obvious.
But he could see how it would be difficult. That Helen was… damaged was a bit of an understatement. Still, if anyone could handle something like that with the required delicacy, it would be his brother. “Do you have any read on how she feels about you?”
Aryan sighed through his nose softly. He supposed he deserved this, really. He had suspicions, of course, as some of Helen's requests of him would not be what one considered in the normal realm of friendship, however; it was hard to discern, as she herself would not understand what she felt. Aryan was not willing to risk further damage by pushing matters; he'd been calm enough on the outside when she'd been shot protecting him, but he'd very nearly had a mental breakdown watching her bleed.
"I do not, and unless she herself decides to voice them, I have no intention of pushing the matter. There are outside factors that make this situation more delicate than most." He was referring, of course, to Theodor's plans for her, not just the state of her mind. Not that Balthasar would know that, of course.
Balthasar could understand that, of course, and so he only nodded simply. “Seems wise,” he agreed with a rueful sigh, and his look was surprisingly knowing somehow. “Doesn’t make it easy, I expect. But I think it’ll work out all right, for whatever that’s worth. Helen’s stronger than she thinks she is, and you’re kinder than you suppose you are, so…” he trailed off and shrugged.
“Wanna kick my ass in chess?”
They’d finally moved away from the home that had belonged to Yuki and Zero, and were presently all camped in one of the largest estates any of them had—the von Nacht one in Italy. He wasn’t sure if the sun was really doing any of them any good or not, but it was nice to be away from the place with the memories of death, and the sheer size of the place meant that everyone felt like they had a little more space, which was helping most of them, he was pretty sure. As much as they could be helped. But time dulled all pain, and at least things were starting to become somewhat functional again. Those that were so inclined were even fighting again from time to time, but there would be no more seven-year split-ups. It was too hard on them, and for all the good they’d done… Balthasar didn’t honestly believe it was worth it if it continued to hurt them as much as it had.
And it had hurt them. It had hurt them all. But all they could really do about that was be there for each other as much as possible and try to regain some sense of normalcy in their lives. Normal for Ary was trying to get work done. Normal for Balthasar was periodically checking in to make sure his brother was feeding properly and not overtaxing himself. So perhaps it was to be counted a small victory that Aryan was in a study, trying to work, and Balthasar was walking up the stairs, having tracked him by scent, intending to check on him.
He entered the study to find his brother basically bent over a desk. It was a position he’d seen his father occupy many times as well, but Al knew both of them well enough to pick up on the subtle differences rather than the obvious similarity. Grabbing a chair, Balthasar moved it to the opposite side of the desk, turning it around so that when he sat down, he could brace his forearms along the back of it, and his chin atop them. “Not to sound like an idiot, though I often do, but… it still surprises me how much paperwork you have to deal with,” he said, blinking at the stack with some trepidation.
Two months did not ease the ache in his chest that Aryan felt over the loss of his sister, however; he had put off what he had to do for far too long already, if the stack of papers on his desk was any indication. As such, it was no surprise to anyone when his brother found him thus, bent over a desk with the stack of paper next to him. The younger von Nacht did not look up as his brother approached, nor when he spoke.
When he finished with the document in front of him, though, he set it aside and leaned back in the chair, his purple eyes meeting the cool grey of his brother's. "You do often sound as such, though as it is part of your personality, I do not hold it against you. And I have been..." His eyes skimmed over the papers on the desk, the stack much larger than was normal, even for him. "A bit neglectful over the past few weeks. I take it Bryer is doing better?" It had been about a month and a half since his God-son had perked back up again. While neither of the children were the bright, cheery personas they had been, they were certainly much closer than they had been. Bryer himself was much more vibrant now, and Aryan had lost to him five times now in chess.
Balthasar did not bother to hide the fact that he rolled his eyes at his brother’s statement, hiking a brow and shaking his head faintly. “As I do not hold your copious tact against you,” he replied sarcastically. Balthasar was not, as a rule, particularly acerbic, but he occasionally fell into such a routine with his brother, and that had been the same since they were children. Well, since Ary was a child and Balthasar was still a very young person, anyway. “And… yes, I think. At least, as much as he can be expected to be. I think Dad and Alden are planning on trying to help him out a little, too; they can probably do more for him than any of the rest of us, at least in some respects.”
He chose not to mention the peculiar nature of the boy’s powers, partially because he was a little fuzzy on the details himself. He hadn’t gone seeking them out, but as ever, his father seemed to know more than he did, probably because his mother had told him everything she knew. Which would have been about as much as anyone alive did. “How are you doing, Ary? We get worried sometimes, since you’re always sort of isolated up here.” he stopped for a moment, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, and I know you’re not one for crowds and all, but… we are here if you need us.”
Aryan chuckled slightly at his brother's comment. Yes, he had a large amount of tact, but that was usually dropped when he was alone with his family, especially his brother. He raised an eyebrow at his form of surrender. "You act as though I'm going to to gouge your eyes out for showing concern. I can understand where you are coming from, and I can assure you mother has been up here almost three times a day. If anyone can keep a recluse such as I in top form, it's certainly her."
Aryan had not talked about Yuki, and he did not have much wish to, either. He would continue on, as he always did. It was others that concerned him. "You know, for all the time you spend running after me, you're still no better about letting things go yourself. When was the last time you indulged in something, Bal?"
Balthasar snorted, a small smile forming on his face. “I’m your older brother, Ary. It’s my job to spend my time running after you. And I don’t mind it besides.” The question made him think, though. Indulge was an interesting choice of word, and not one he would generally associate with himself. Knowing Aryan, that was half the point. Lifting both shoulders in some kind of shrug, he let them drop again. “I don’t think I really have anything to indulge in,” he said simply. Unless one counted music, maybe, but even then… he hadn’t touched a piano in a while.
“I could just as easily turn the question back on you, though. Even your chess games have a purpose,” he pointed out, which was true, after a fashion. Ary was teaching his two most frequent opponents of late, Helen and Bryer. That sort of put it outside the realm of something done purely for fun, at least in his elder brother’s mind. “I mean, if you have a suggestion, I’m listening, but… we’re both a bit hopeless when it comes to not working, I think.”
Aryan smiled slightly. "Though that may be true enough, though Bryer has begun beating me to the point where I don't think there's any more that I could teach him. Give him a few more years, and I think he might be a match for father." That would be an interesting match to watch, certainly. "Helen has proven to be more than an adaptable learner, and has thrown my strategies for a loop every now and again."
Aryan's eyes gleamed slightly as his grin widened. "Rica certainly seems pleased to have you around again."
Frankly, Balthsar didn’t think anyone could beat his father in chess, but Ary was more the expert than he was. Al had learned all the strategies and knew them as well as anyone, but when it came down to it—he played too defensively. He didn’t like losing pieces, sacrificing them for the larger gain. It just wasn’t how his mind worked. While he was very good at coming up with new ways to lose as few as possible, all it could really do was prolong a game. He could beat Keir, most of the time, but he only very rarely managed to draw a game out long enough to beat Aryan. This was something he’d accepted about himself; he didn’t have to be the best at everything, he just had to be able to do what he needed to.
“Uh… I mean, I’m pretty sure we’re all pleased to be around each other, right?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t help the weird connection his brain made between a seemingly innocuous comment and the recent… weirdness he’d been feeling around his cousin. His facial expression, however, was pretty much the same one he always wore when vaguely perplexed by his brother’s angle. Wisdom did come to Balthasar in time, and intelligence was always a property of his. But… he certainly had a fair number of blind spots. This was one of them.
“Oh!” he said, snapping his fingers as if suddenly recalling something. “How did that problem you were having work out? You know, the one about Helen?” He hadn’t run into her much over the seven year period, and Aryan even less, and obviously all of them had had more dire matters on their minds at the time. That did not mean he’d just forgotten about it. Anything that could fluster Ary was well worth keeping track of, for big-brother reasons if no others.
Aryan had to fight not to sigh. His brother's obliviousness never ceased to amaze him. No matter how obvious it was to everyone else, Balthasar simply did not see it. He shook his head slightly, choosing to drop the subject for now. At least, he had planned to, but his brother seemed to have other matters, as his next question cause Aryan's half-closed eyes to snap back open, a look of surprise on his face.
Aryan always had a way of speaking, and could easily and smoothly talk his way out of situations, however; his brother seemed to have an uncanny knack to simply throw him for a loop. For a second, Aryan struggled with his words, and much to his chagrin, a slight blush creeped across his face. He scowled slightly. "That...is a complicated situation, Balthasar."
The slow smile that spread over Balthasar’s place would have looked more at home on his brother’s, but somehow, it worked with the von Nacht features quite naturally. “Complicated, huh? Looks pretty simple from over here, Ary. I think I’ve seen you blush maybe three times in your life, and two of those instances have been when the topic of conversation was her.” It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, not even for him. What had been a sneaking suspicion was now blatantly obvious.
But he could see how it would be difficult. That Helen was… damaged was a bit of an understatement. Still, if anyone could handle something like that with the required delicacy, it would be his brother. “Do you have any read on how she feels about you?”
Aryan sighed through his nose softly. He supposed he deserved this, really. He had suspicions, of course, as some of Helen's requests of him would not be what one considered in the normal realm of friendship, however; it was hard to discern, as she herself would not understand what she felt. Aryan was not willing to risk further damage by pushing matters; he'd been calm enough on the outside when she'd been shot protecting him, but he'd very nearly had a mental breakdown watching her bleed.
"I do not, and unless she herself decides to voice them, I have no intention of pushing the matter. There are outside factors that make this situation more delicate than most." He was referring, of course, to Theodor's plans for her, not just the state of her mind. Not that Balthasar would know that, of course.
Balthasar could understand that, of course, and so he only nodded simply. “Seems wise,” he agreed with a rueful sigh, and his look was surprisingly knowing somehow. “Doesn’t make it easy, I expect. But I think it’ll work out all right, for whatever that’s worth. Helen’s stronger than she thinks she is, and you’re kinder than you suppose you are, so…” he trailed off and shrugged.
“Wanna kick my ass in chess?”
Bryer let out a soft sigh. It had been two months since his mother had died, and a month and a half since his talk with his uncle. His father had tried numerous times to talk about what had happened, but Bryer was aware that his father did not know what his part in it had been exactly, and he did not relish telling his father what he had done. He didn't want his father to hate him, even though some nagging part of him told him that would not be the case. Diya didn't, and she had seen the whole thing. But his sister was not his father. He was so terrified that his father would hate him, revile him, and he wouldn't be able to handle losing both of his parents. Even so, his grandmother had the right of it. He needed to tell his father, even if it was only minor details.
This was precisely the reason that Bryer now sought out his father. The little boy poked his snow-white head around the door-frame of his father's room. The man was gazing out the window. If he had a mind to worry about that sort of thing, Bryer probably would have winced at how small his voice sounded. "Dad?"
Zero lay in his bed, an arm draped over his face, the other hanging off the side of the bed. It had been two months since Yuki's death, and each day was becoming a bit more bearable without her. Odd, he though it would have been harder without her. He had thought that he would have lost his meaning of life without her in it, however; he had a reason, a meaning to continue living for her. He had two: Diya and Bryer. Their children were his reason to continue on with his life. It took him a while to remember that, but he was glad that he had. He couldn't lose himself lest he wanted his children to suffer more than they already were.
He sat up, removing himself from his bed and walked over towards the window, gazing outside. A small voice caused him to turn his head towards the door. A smile fluttered across his lips as he spotted Bryer. "How's little Ary?" he spoke, teasing his son in the process. He had taken to calling him that after it was apparent at how intelligent his son had proven to be at the age of six.
While Bryer had never really understood the nickname his father had given him, he did not mind it, either. He certainly preferred it over "Bry", though he would never tell his sister that. She'd probably cry, and he had no intention of making her cry. Even so, the barest flicker of a smile passed over the little boy's face in response to his father's. He could only hope that it would not turn into fear, or something worse.
He slowly crossed the room, coming to a stop in front of Zero, which of course forced him to look up, seeing as the six year old just barely pushed past three feet tall, and his father was over six foot. While it was much less obvious than what it had been two months, or even two weeks, prior, there was still that visage of guilt laced in his red eyes.
"Did Grandma tell you what happened that night? What...what I did?" The hesitation and uncertainty in his voice was not hard to miss.
Zero frowned slightly. Nikki had not told him exactly what happened, however; she did tell him that Yuki died protecting her children. That was it, and that was all he needed to know. He, however, tilted his head when Bryer spoke. "What you did? Bryer, you didn't do anything," he spoke, falling to his knees softly and bringing his son into a warm embrace. He frowned, trying to wrap his head around what his son meant. How could Yuki's death possibly be Bryer's fault?
Bryer buried his head in his father's shoulder when he hugged him. If only he could simply believe that, that he'd done nothing. But he had, and no matter how justified it seemed, it didn't make it feel any better. He shook his head a few times. "Yes I did. I...I killed her, Dad." His voice was muffled as he spoke, still facing his father's shoulder. "She killed Mom, she was going to kill Grandma...and I killed her."
He sighed softly, wrapping his arms tighter against his son. He understood now, why his son looked, and was acting the way he had. His son, at six years old, had killed someone, in defense of his Grandmother, his aunt. "You did nothing wrong Bryer. You are young, you should never have experienced that in the first place, but if you had not, your mother would not have been the only one who died. Your grandmother could have died, your sister, you," he began, sighing softly as he leaned into his son's shoulder.
"I am sorry, Bryer," he spoke. "I am so sorry I wasn't there to protect you, your mother," he apologized to his son. If he had not been so hurt, if he had not passed out, he could have saved Yuki. He could have saved his son from this guilt that he was carrying, and his family would not grieve as they had.
No, that wasn't even the half of it. Killing Naya was something he was already learning to live with. It was how he killed her that he wasn't sure he would ever be able to forgive himself for. He hadn't realized that he'd started crying until he tried to speak, and he had to swallow before he was able to.
"That's not all I did, though...Dad, I..." His mouth didn't want to form the words, and for a second he struggled to say anything at all. And then, like a dam, everything just came loose all at once. The guilt, the anger, the pain. His father was right, he was only six. He should be dealing with this in the first place.
"I don't know what I did but I brought her back...I brought Mom back and, and--" He was shaking, a part of him terrified of what his father would think of him. "I used her to kill Naya and then she made me let her go and I didn't want to and I'm sorry..."
Zero pulled back from his son, staring down at him with a baffled look upon his face. Bryer... brought Yuki back? He brought her back? His face turned into one of confusion before his eyes softened greatly. He brought Bryer back into an embrace, his head leaning against his son's shoulder as he tried to contain the sorrow that shivered down his spine. His son was bearing a great deal of guilt, and there wasn't much Zero could do to lift it from him. And he wanted to. His son shouldn't be feeling this way, it wasn't his fault.
"But you did, Bryer. You let her go. That takes a great deal of courage, and if it were I in your shoes, I do not know if I could have let her go. She would have suffered, greatly so. She wouldn't have been your mother if you hadn't let her go. It is hard, and no one ever wants to lose the ones they love, especially your parents, but... I am proud of you Bryer. I am so very proud of you," he spoke, his voice quieting with each word he spoke. It took a great deal of courage for his son to release Yuki, and he would not fault his son for doing what he did.
It wasn't Bryer's fault, and it never would be. He hoped his son could see that. "I am proud of you, for letting her go," he continued, unable to contain his own sorrow as his shoulders shook lightly.
This was precisely the reason that Bryer now sought out his father. The little boy poked his snow-white head around the door-frame of his father's room. The man was gazing out the window. If he had a mind to worry about that sort of thing, Bryer probably would have winced at how small his voice sounded. "Dad?"
Zero lay in his bed, an arm draped over his face, the other hanging off the side of the bed. It had been two months since Yuki's death, and each day was becoming a bit more bearable without her. Odd, he though it would have been harder without her. He had thought that he would have lost his meaning of life without her in it, however; he had a reason, a meaning to continue living for her. He had two: Diya and Bryer. Their children were his reason to continue on with his life. It took him a while to remember that, but he was glad that he had. He couldn't lose himself lest he wanted his children to suffer more than they already were.
He sat up, removing himself from his bed and walked over towards the window, gazing outside. A small voice caused him to turn his head towards the door. A smile fluttered across his lips as he spotted Bryer. "How's little Ary?" he spoke, teasing his son in the process. He had taken to calling him that after it was apparent at how intelligent his son had proven to be at the age of six.
While Bryer had never really understood the nickname his father had given him, he did not mind it, either. He certainly preferred it over "Bry", though he would never tell his sister that. She'd probably cry, and he had no intention of making her cry. Even so, the barest flicker of a smile passed over the little boy's face in response to his father's. He could only hope that it would not turn into fear, or something worse.
He slowly crossed the room, coming to a stop in front of Zero, which of course forced him to look up, seeing as the six year old just barely pushed past three feet tall, and his father was over six foot. While it was much less obvious than what it had been two months, or even two weeks, prior, there was still that visage of guilt laced in his red eyes.
"Did Grandma tell you what happened that night? What...what I did?" The hesitation and uncertainty in his voice was not hard to miss.
Zero frowned slightly. Nikki had not told him exactly what happened, however; she did tell him that Yuki died protecting her children. That was it, and that was all he needed to know. He, however, tilted his head when Bryer spoke. "What you did? Bryer, you didn't do anything," he spoke, falling to his knees softly and bringing his son into a warm embrace. He frowned, trying to wrap his head around what his son meant. How could Yuki's death possibly be Bryer's fault?
Bryer buried his head in his father's shoulder when he hugged him. If only he could simply believe that, that he'd done nothing. But he had, and no matter how justified it seemed, it didn't make it feel any better. He shook his head a few times. "Yes I did. I...I killed her, Dad." His voice was muffled as he spoke, still facing his father's shoulder. "She killed Mom, she was going to kill Grandma...and I killed her."
He sighed softly, wrapping his arms tighter against his son. He understood now, why his son looked, and was acting the way he had. His son, at six years old, had killed someone, in defense of his Grandmother, his aunt. "You did nothing wrong Bryer. You are young, you should never have experienced that in the first place, but if you had not, your mother would not have been the only one who died. Your grandmother could have died, your sister, you," he began, sighing softly as he leaned into his son's shoulder.
"I am sorry, Bryer," he spoke. "I am so sorry I wasn't there to protect you, your mother," he apologized to his son. If he had not been so hurt, if he had not passed out, he could have saved Yuki. He could have saved his son from this guilt that he was carrying, and his family would not grieve as they had.
No, that wasn't even the half of it. Killing Naya was something he was already learning to live with. It was how he killed her that he wasn't sure he would ever be able to forgive himself for. He hadn't realized that he'd started crying until he tried to speak, and he had to swallow before he was able to.
"That's not all I did, though...Dad, I..." His mouth didn't want to form the words, and for a second he struggled to say anything at all. And then, like a dam, everything just came loose all at once. The guilt, the anger, the pain. His father was right, he was only six. He should be dealing with this in the first place.
"I don't know what I did but I brought her back...I brought Mom back and, and--" He was shaking, a part of him terrified of what his father would think of him. "I used her to kill Naya and then she made me let her go and I didn't want to and I'm sorry..."
Zero pulled back from his son, staring down at him with a baffled look upon his face. Bryer... brought Yuki back? He brought her back? His face turned into one of confusion before his eyes softened greatly. He brought Bryer back into an embrace, his head leaning against his son's shoulder as he tried to contain the sorrow that shivered down his spine. His son was bearing a great deal of guilt, and there wasn't much Zero could do to lift it from him. And he wanted to. His son shouldn't be feeling this way, it wasn't his fault.
"But you did, Bryer. You let her go. That takes a great deal of courage, and if it were I in your shoes, I do not know if I could have let her go. She would have suffered, greatly so. She wouldn't have been your mother if you hadn't let her go. It is hard, and no one ever wants to lose the ones they love, especially your parents, but... I am proud of you Bryer. I am so very proud of you," he spoke, his voice quieting with each word he spoke. It took a great deal of courage for his son to release Yuki, and he would not fault his son for doing what he did.
It wasn't Bryer's fault, and it never would be. He hoped his son could see that. "I am proud of you, for letting her go," he continued, unable to contain his own sorrow as his shoulders shook lightly.
His wife wasn’t talking to him.
Well, it wasn’t that she wasn’t speaking to him at all, only that there was something that was bothering her that she would not speak about. He had gathered enough information on their daughter’s death to have a fair guess about what troubled her, but he wanted to hear it from her before he jumped to any conclusions, and that meant seeking her out and persuading her to talk to him. Which was how he presently found himself stalking through the halls of his own home, following the instinctive sense that always told him where she was, even before smell or hearing would do the same. He’d tracked her to the roof, actually, and presently climbed the stairs that let out onto it through the attic.
It was not typically assumed of him, but Jasper von Nacht was actually a creative man, in many senses of the word, and time had given to him rather than taken away a certain sense of spontaneity. It gave him the distinct advantage of sometimes being able to quite thoroughly surprise people. So while she had probably expected him to seek her out eventually, she likely would not have expected what came next, and as soon as he spotted her on the roof, he applied his speed, appearing beside her in an instant and scooping her up easily into his arms, hurling them both off the top of the fifth floor with absolutely no care for the distance they were to fall. If he’d wished, he could have landed, catlike, on the ground beneath and kept running, but he did something else instead.
No more than two stories down, gravity abruptly stopped working and for a moment, they were simply suspended in place, everything from their clothes to their individual hairs floating freely rather than being compelled in any one direction. But then Jazz generated another field, and they were flying. He held his beloved to himself, as though she were something infinitely more precious than, well, anything, and to him, she most certainty was. Glancing down at her, he pressed a chaste kiss to her temple, and though he’d been smiling, it faded to something softer and sympathetic. “Now that we are free of telepaths, distractions, and work, is there something you would like to speak about, Nikki?”
She perhaps should have expected it, really. One could not hide things from a man such as Jasper, even less when he was the man with which you were in love with, and time had not diminished that. Even so, Nikki was not quite expecting him to quite literally sweep her off of her feet. They had, of course, done things like this before, though perhaps not quite for this reason. She sighed slightly, smiling up at him softly. No, she really did not want to talk about it. But he did have a right to know, she supposed.
She took a moment, to try and compose her thoughts. There was no easy way to go about saying this, as she herself was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her sister had been alive. "Like Morgan and myself, Naya also did not die on that night, all those years ago. Only...we thought she did, I thought she did, up until she showed up two months ago with...with puppets of our parents. I...she was not the same person, and the more that I think about it, the more I've begun to wonder if she was always this way, and I just didn't see it. She was after Bryer, and from what she insinuated..." She had to pause. There was simply too much to say all at once.
He was not a genius strategist for nothing, and he could guess where this was going. The part about Naya’s identity, he’d already learned from Morgan, and he’d actually had a conversation with Leora regarding the sequence of events, and so he understood some things regarding the puppets, and would understand more soon, when he and his nephew Alden attempted to help his grandson sort through the strange ability he’d been granted by his blood. An ability that thus far, had only one known other practitioner. That was a fact that he did not take to be meaningless, and given the other considerations at work, such as Yuki’s biological father… well, he at least did not find the logic difficult to work through.
“She insinuated that it was she, and not you, who was Yuki’s mother, and therefore Bryer’s grandmother,” he said gently, raising their altitude slightly to skim over a copse of trees. The breeze of their passage blew their hair back from their faces, but he was not propelling them so fast that their ability to hear each other was impaired. He could understand her reluctance to speak of this—the fact that her parents’ bodies had been used in such a way, and by the sister she’d loved so dearly, then presumed dead… that alone would have been too much, but adding in their daughter’s death… if there had been any use in anger, Jasper would have been enraged. As it was, he simply felt… grief.
“You understand that this isn’t true, don’t you?” he asked softly, cradling her a little closer. “She wasn’t Yuki’s mother any more than Kisuke was her father. You were her mother, and she was your daughter. Ours.” Jasper banked slightly, landing lightly on the soft grass beneath his feet. This was his favorite spot on the property, though it was a bit of a distance from the house. The clearing was almost invisible from the sky, but it contained a small tumble of water, which cascaded down into an exceedingly-clear spring, the bottom lined with granite stone. It smelled fresh and clean, with hints of vegetation and flowers, the last of which bloomed in profusion here, all kinds of colors and types, without the interference of a gardener. This close to nightfall, fireflies floated around the edges of the spring, throwing little bits of illumination on this or that flower petal or stone.
He gently set her down on her feet, though he kept hold of one of her hands, lacing their fingers together.
She allowed herself the comfort of his embrace, the slight smile returning as they landed. She nodded slowly, reveling in the feel of her hand in his. "I know, and I would never think otherwise. I just cannot help but wonder...if somehow I'd have just known..." She sighed again, leaning into him as she closer her eyes. "I'm doing it again, aren't I?" Perhaps it was what came from being a mother, the need to try and handle every little matter that hurt her children and grandchildren, and fret over what might have been.
"I'm worried about Bryer, though. Losing his mother was bad enough, I can only imagine how he feels about what he did..."
“You are,” he replied simply, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards as she leaned into him, “but I find this reassuring. I would be more worried if you ceased to.” Which was true, in its own way. Nikki’s tendency to mother was very natural for her, and though it could sometimes damage her sense of calm or serenity, it was simply part of who she was. Her concern was quite justifiable, and he sought to set her at ease as much as he could, shifting so that he wrapped both arms around her waist from behind and buried his nose in the crook of her neck, laying a kiss on her warm skin.
“Time will balm the guilt, as it did for Balthasar. What he cannot let go will become a part of him, yes, but not all such formative experiences are bad. It will give him a healthy respect for what his abilities can do, and remind him of the care that must be taken with them. In the meantime, Alden and I will do what we can to learn of his capabilities and make his mastery of them as smooth as possible. He will heal. We will all heal. It will simply take time, as it always does.” He head dealt with enough loss and death in his life to understand that much.
Nikki smiled slightly. It had taken a fair amount of time, and she was well aware that her son had still not quite forgiven himself over that incident, but he had learned. She had to trust that she, and the rest of the family, would be able to help Bryer do the same. She smiled as she felt his lips on her skin. He always knew what to say to set her mind at ease. Her arms slid around his shoulders as she smiled. "Yes, you're right. He's a strong boy, he'll get through this, just as we all will. What would I do without you?"
“Hm…” Jasper pretended to mull over the question. “You’d be fine, my love, but I like to think you’d miss me,” his tone was playful rather than solemn, as at present, there was nothing more to be said on the more grave matters. Things would resolve themselves with time and effort; this was simply the way of the world. Jasper nipped lightly at the skin of her neck, not breaking it, but his thoughts turning in a distinctly different direction. There was something to be said for being away from work, distractions, and telepaths, after all.
Well, it wasn’t that she wasn’t speaking to him at all, only that there was something that was bothering her that she would not speak about. He had gathered enough information on their daughter’s death to have a fair guess about what troubled her, but he wanted to hear it from her before he jumped to any conclusions, and that meant seeking her out and persuading her to talk to him. Which was how he presently found himself stalking through the halls of his own home, following the instinctive sense that always told him where she was, even before smell or hearing would do the same. He’d tracked her to the roof, actually, and presently climbed the stairs that let out onto it through the attic.
It was not typically assumed of him, but Jasper von Nacht was actually a creative man, in many senses of the word, and time had given to him rather than taken away a certain sense of spontaneity. It gave him the distinct advantage of sometimes being able to quite thoroughly surprise people. So while she had probably expected him to seek her out eventually, she likely would not have expected what came next, and as soon as he spotted her on the roof, he applied his speed, appearing beside her in an instant and scooping her up easily into his arms, hurling them both off the top of the fifth floor with absolutely no care for the distance they were to fall. If he’d wished, he could have landed, catlike, on the ground beneath and kept running, but he did something else instead.
No more than two stories down, gravity abruptly stopped working and for a moment, they were simply suspended in place, everything from their clothes to their individual hairs floating freely rather than being compelled in any one direction. But then Jazz generated another field, and they were flying. He held his beloved to himself, as though she were something infinitely more precious than, well, anything, and to him, she most certainty was. Glancing down at her, he pressed a chaste kiss to her temple, and though he’d been smiling, it faded to something softer and sympathetic. “Now that we are free of telepaths, distractions, and work, is there something you would like to speak about, Nikki?”
She perhaps should have expected it, really. One could not hide things from a man such as Jasper, even less when he was the man with which you were in love with, and time had not diminished that. Even so, Nikki was not quite expecting him to quite literally sweep her off of her feet. They had, of course, done things like this before, though perhaps not quite for this reason. She sighed slightly, smiling up at him softly. No, she really did not want to talk about it. But he did have a right to know, she supposed.
She took a moment, to try and compose her thoughts. There was no easy way to go about saying this, as she herself was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her sister had been alive. "Like Morgan and myself, Naya also did not die on that night, all those years ago. Only...we thought she did, I thought she did, up until she showed up two months ago with...with puppets of our parents. I...she was not the same person, and the more that I think about it, the more I've begun to wonder if she was always this way, and I just didn't see it. She was after Bryer, and from what she insinuated..." She had to pause. There was simply too much to say all at once.
He was not a genius strategist for nothing, and he could guess where this was going. The part about Naya’s identity, he’d already learned from Morgan, and he’d actually had a conversation with Leora regarding the sequence of events, and so he understood some things regarding the puppets, and would understand more soon, when he and his nephew Alden attempted to help his grandson sort through the strange ability he’d been granted by his blood. An ability that thus far, had only one known other practitioner. That was a fact that he did not take to be meaningless, and given the other considerations at work, such as Yuki’s biological father… well, he at least did not find the logic difficult to work through.
“She insinuated that it was she, and not you, who was Yuki’s mother, and therefore Bryer’s grandmother,” he said gently, raising their altitude slightly to skim over a copse of trees. The breeze of their passage blew their hair back from their faces, but he was not propelling them so fast that their ability to hear each other was impaired. He could understand her reluctance to speak of this—the fact that her parents’ bodies had been used in such a way, and by the sister she’d loved so dearly, then presumed dead… that alone would have been too much, but adding in their daughter’s death… if there had been any use in anger, Jasper would have been enraged. As it was, he simply felt… grief.
“You understand that this isn’t true, don’t you?” he asked softly, cradling her a little closer. “She wasn’t Yuki’s mother any more than Kisuke was her father. You were her mother, and she was your daughter. Ours.” Jasper banked slightly, landing lightly on the soft grass beneath his feet. This was his favorite spot on the property, though it was a bit of a distance from the house. The clearing was almost invisible from the sky, but it contained a small tumble of water, which cascaded down into an exceedingly-clear spring, the bottom lined with granite stone. It smelled fresh and clean, with hints of vegetation and flowers, the last of which bloomed in profusion here, all kinds of colors and types, without the interference of a gardener. This close to nightfall, fireflies floated around the edges of the spring, throwing little bits of illumination on this or that flower petal or stone.
He gently set her down on her feet, though he kept hold of one of her hands, lacing their fingers together.
She allowed herself the comfort of his embrace, the slight smile returning as they landed. She nodded slowly, reveling in the feel of her hand in his. "I know, and I would never think otherwise. I just cannot help but wonder...if somehow I'd have just known..." She sighed again, leaning into him as she closer her eyes. "I'm doing it again, aren't I?" Perhaps it was what came from being a mother, the need to try and handle every little matter that hurt her children and grandchildren, and fret over what might have been.
"I'm worried about Bryer, though. Losing his mother was bad enough, I can only imagine how he feels about what he did..."
“You are,” he replied simply, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards as she leaned into him, “but I find this reassuring. I would be more worried if you ceased to.” Which was true, in its own way. Nikki’s tendency to mother was very natural for her, and though it could sometimes damage her sense of calm or serenity, it was simply part of who she was. Her concern was quite justifiable, and he sought to set her at ease as much as he could, shifting so that he wrapped both arms around her waist from behind and buried his nose in the crook of her neck, laying a kiss on her warm skin.
“Time will balm the guilt, as it did for Balthasar. What he cannot let go will become a part of him, yes, but not all such formative experiences are bad. It will give him a healthy respect for what his abilities can do, and remind him of the care that must be taken with them. In the meantime, Alden and I will do what we can to learn of his capabilities and make his mastery of them as smooth as possible. He will heal. We will all heal. It will simply take time, as it always does.” He head dealt with enough loss and death in his life to understand that much.
Nikki smiled slightly. It had taken a fair amount of time, and she was well aware that her son had still not quite forgiven himself over that incident, but he had learned. She had to trust that she, and the rest of the family, would be able to help Bryer do the same. She smiled as she felt his lips on her skin. He always knew what to say to set her mind at ease. Her arms slid around his shoulders as she smiled. "Yes, you're right. He's a strong boy, he'll get through this, just as we all will. What would I do without you?"
“Hm…” Jasper pretended to mull over the question. “You’d be fine, my love, but I like to think you’d miss me,” his tone was playful rather than solemn, as at present, there was nothing more to be said on the more grave matters. Things would resolve themselves with time and effort; this was simply the way of the world. Jasper nipped lightly at the skin of her neck, not breaking it, but his thoughts turning in a distinctly different direction. There was something to be said for being away from work, distractions, and telepaths, after all.
Violet sighed to himself, watching in the mirror as his form shifted, brown hair turning purple, eyes of brilliant blue shifting until they were caught somewhere between scarlet and the color he was nicknamed for. His frame gained a couple of inches and a fair few pounds, to say nothing of musculature, which on this body was lean, but decidedly more… cut, was the word, than it had been on the last. He rolled his shoulders, padding barefoot to his closet and throwing on a t-shirt and a loose oatmeal colored cardigan, sliding the unnecessary but familiar glasses back onto his face and tailing his slightly-too-long hair.
It was decidedly weird, he thought, that he was beginning to think of this skin as him. None of them were him, because he wasn’t anyone in particular. He was everyone, or at least he could be, and he wore so many faces that he’d rather forgotten what it was like to be particularly committed to any of them. But… strange as it was, this had become his guise, and when he wore it, he felt… almost like he belonged in it. Almost like he was home.
“Tch,” he scoffed at himself, shaking his head. A few of his bangs fell loose of the tail, but it definitely fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t really care. It wasn’t like he needed his eyes to see. What a ridiculous thought, that he could be at home somewhere as someone in particular. Just where had it come from? It didn’t matter—a mind as active as his was bound to have the occasional extraneous thought.
Six months. Since he’d left, another two since the death. They seemed to mark their lives by it now. Well, except him, who could afford to do no such thing. His work had never ceased—that he’d even had the two months to be with his family had taken a lot of work to arrange, and he’d paid for it later, juggling four identities at once instead of the usual three, and that was only the active ones. Still more pseudonyms answered emails and video calls and drew up contracts and made overtures to certain organizations and whatever else looked promising at the time… it was hardly a wonder that there was no space or time left for him to just be Alden. That man had disappeared as a result. At least… he’d always thought he had.
A knock at the door brought him from his thoughts, though of course he’d known it was coming. He also knew who it was, and the half-smile that adorned his face, every bit as wicked as the best one Ary had and then some, perhaps gave away his thoughts on that with some considerable eloquence. Rolling his eyes, he crossed to the door and pulled it open, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the frame for a moment. “Emrys. Long time, no see. You really don’t need to bother knocking, you know. Consider yourself to have an open invitation to enter.” He raised a finely-arched brow, stepping back from the doorway enough to allow his cousin in. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? His tone dipped just subtly on the word pleasure drawing it out a smidge longer than ordinary emphasis would.
Emrys sighed through his nose, his hand hovering right in front of the door, hesitating before finally knocking. He truly had no idea why he was even here. Well, actually, that was a lie. Both himself and Vi had been very busy over the last few months, and they had returned to their work, despite still grieving, each in their own way. Emrys was still there when Aryan needed him, but he'd also returned to the battlefield from time to time, and had a few new scars to show for it. None perhaps quite as showy as his younger brother's, but should anyone get him out of his shirt, they'd find a rather large one on his right side stretching around to his back. That had been an experience he was not eager to repeat.
He rose his eye brow slightly after his cousin answered, and he followed him inside, lounging out on the sofa rather languidly, looking rather like a feline. "So, what, I simply have leave to enter whenever I feel like it? Doesn't that give one an odd sense of over-familiarity?" To his other question, he merely shrugged. "It's been a while since I've seen you, Vi. That's all." That was decidedly not all, though Emrys was not inclined to admit it. He had wanted to see Alden.
Violet let out a chuckle under his breath. It was really quite endearing, that Emrys thought he could hide things from a telepath simply by not speaking about them. Even if he’d been inclined to give his cousin the privacy of his own thoughts, he wouldn’t be able to. Powers like his never shut off, not unless he wanted to establish a mental link with Balthasar or his Uncle Jasper. Actually, he did the latter with some frequency, where possible. He’d just sit somewhere near his uncle, connected mentally but closed off, and savor the silence.
But not here. And he didn’t particularly desire to stop hearing Em’s thoughts, as they were quite entertaining. “Over-familiarity?” he repeated, letting just a little incredulity creep into his tone. “I don’t think there could be such a thing, cousin. Not between you and I.” That was all, was it? Oh no, Violet thought not. With deceptive swiftness that seemed a bit at odds with his usually lazy nature, Alden moved, looming over his cousin for a moment, a hand braced on either side of Emrys’s head, his eyes half-lidded in a vaguely serpentine way, that damnable half-smile still firmly in place.
“You’re lying to me, Emrys,” the Spider said lowly, leaning down to exhale on the shell of the other man’s ear. “This closet of yours is proving oddly challenging for you. Perhaps I should point out the door?” He used the flat of his tongue to lick a stripe from the hollow of Em’s throat to the base of his ear, then blew a cool jet of air on it, a distinctly-predatory glint to his eyes. One could only attempt to lie to oneself for so long—and it was just about time that Em stopped attempting.
Well. That had been rather unexpected. Or perhaps not. He did not even attempt to hide the shudder that rippled through him at his touch. This was dangerous, and this was stupid. It was one thing to be on familiar terms with someone, it was entirely another to be in love with them. Love got you hurt. Look at his father, look at his brother, at Zero. He didn't want to risk that. That was what he told himself.
Apparently fate had other ideas. Or his body did. His arms snaked around Alden's neck, his mouth finding his. No, the closet wasn't challenging. He just simply had refused to acknowledge he was in it. To hell with it, to hell with it all. Even so, he pulled away from him, a dark look in his crimson eyes.
"I can't do this, Alden."
He could push, and Emrys would be entirely at his mercy. It was what he usually did when people were showing reluctance—it was a simple matter to dig around in someone’s mind, find the things that would make them incoherent and weak at the knees, and do said things. But he found that he had no particular desire to push. This was not to say, however, that he had no desire at all. Alden cocked his head to the side—this predicament was a bit unusual for him as well, as honestly? There weren’t usually any real feelings involved in this sort of arrangement for him.
He found that it served to make his approach more delicate than it would usually be, but also to interfere with his usual calculating intellect, muddle his mind with emotion. Academically, he could identify this as a more permanent form of affection, which, underlying simple lust, formed a sort of attachment that he was not terribly accustomed to. His cousin’s mind bandied about the word love, and Alden supposed that it maybe as close to such a thing as someone like him could feel. His last few seductions had left him feeling vaguely ill and guilty, something they had not done since his early days as a practitioner of the craft, so to speak. One learned to dissociate anything meaningful from the act. Some of it had been re-associated, however, and the man underneath him was responsible for that.
“Can’t?” he asked quietly. “Or won’t? If you will not be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.” His words were blunt as ever, but he backed off, taking up a spot on the other end of the couch, crossing his legs underneath him and pushing his glasses up his nose. For a few long moments, he simply regarded his cousin, as though he were studying something at once new and fascinating with all the cutting, intense precision of a scientist. “If you asked Rocchan if it was worth it, to have loved her only to lose her, he would not hesitate to tell you that it was. You can put the question to him yourself, if you like.” Keir and his sister were a disaster, something that he intended to do his own part to rectify very soon. As for uncle Morgan, well. It had all worked out for him in the end.
“Fear is a common enough reaction to such circumstances. If it helps, I will confess to some anxiety of my own. I am not often… attached to others in such a fashion. Entering into an arrangement of this kind with me may often leave you quite uncertain of who you’re dealing with. I am a stranger in my own skin, Emrys.” Several realizations clicked into place for him then, and he saw no particular need to keep them to himself, raising his shoulders in a lazy shrug.
“But you make me feel like I’m home.”
It may not have been the most appropriate time for it, but if he was being completely honest with himself, nothing about this relationship was appropriate for them. He couldn't help it either, and he laughed. The last thing he had expected was to hear that he made Alden feel like he was home. But then, when one was in such a profession as his, Emrys supposed one would be in constant danger of losing oneself. It was ironic, really, that he would help Alden find himself while Alden did the opposite of himself. It was never a question of knowing who he was dealing with.
It was a question of knowing himself, and the more he dug, the more he got confused. But in the end, Alden was right. He needed to stop lying to himself. He'd been doing so for almost eight years now, and frankly, he was getting sick of it. He sighed heavily. "I really do hate the fact that you're a telepath sometimes, but then, you knew that already." His crimson eyes slid over to his purple-haired cousin. Fear was not quite the word he would have used, because it was more akin to terror. He didn't think he'd be able to handle losing Alden, and he knew that he certainly wouldn't take it as well as Zero had Yuki, and that had not gone over well.
He looked up at the ceiling. considered saying something, but then, that was perhaps the one upside. Alden already knew the question. What the hell did they do now?
A question asked to his mind received and answer from it. Alden had a sense of symmetry that way, and so, as it turned out, though he shook his head slightly, a familiar glimmer returned to his eyes, and he arched a brow. You really have to ask? He inquired with obvious amusement. I calculate, you capitulate, and we learn how to make it work for us. It was not going to be an uncomplicated road, because, much as Emrys was helping, Violet still had major identity issues, and willing to take the risk or not, Em was still petrified of what might happen, and not without justification. There was also the matter of their respective occupations: they both risked their lives, and more than that, sex was a weapon in the Spider’s arsenal that he could not afford to relinquish.
It was certainly not going to be simple, but then… what was, anymore? At the very least… he promised himself that he wouldn’t push, not too much. There was a vast gulf between their respective levels of experience with certain things, and while Vi was comfortable with pretty much anything physical, Emrys was far from it. So, the slower runner set the pace, and that was fine by him. But if you meant right this moment… that’s up to you. I can think of a few things…
It was Emrys's turn to be amused. While he certainly did not have the amount of experience in such matters as Alden wielded, he was not oblivious to all of it, either. He turned his head to regard his cousin silently for a second before beckoning him with a finger.
Show me.
It was decidedly weird, he thought, that he was beginning to think of this skin as him. None of them were him, because he wasn’t anyone in particular. He was everyone, or at least he could be, and he wore so many faces that he’d rather forgotten what it was like to be particularly committed to any of them. But… strange as it was, this had become his guise, and when he wore it, he felt… almost like he belonged in it. Almost like he was home.
“Tch,” he scoffed at himself, shaking his head. A few of his bangs fell loose of the tail, but it definitely fit his aesthetic, so he didn’t really care. It wasn’t like he needed his eyes to see. What a ridiculous thought, that he could be at home somewhere as someone in particular. Just where had it come from? It didn’t matter—a mind as active as his was bound to have the occasional extraneous thought.
Six months. Since he’d left, another two since the death. They seemed to mark their lives by it now. Well, except him, who could afford to do no such thing. His work had never ceased—that he’d even had the two months to be with his family had taken a lot of work to arrange, and he’d paid for it later, juggling four identities at once instead of the usual three, and that was only the active ones. Still more pseudonyms answered emails and video calls and drew up contracts and made overtures to certain organizations and whatever else looked promising at the time… it was hardly a wonder that there was no space or time left for him to just be Alden. That man had disappeared as a result. At least… he’d always thought he had.
A knock at the door brought him from his thoughts, though of course he’d known it was coming. He also knew who it was, and the half-smile that adorned his face, every bit as wicked as the best one Ary had and then some, perhaps gave away his thoughts on that with some considerable eloquence. Rolling his eyes, he crossed to the door and pulled it open, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the frame for a moment. “Emrys. Long time, no see. You really don’t need to bother knocking, you know. Consider yourself to have an open invitation to enter.” He raised a finely-arched brow, stepping back from the doorway enough to allow his cousin in. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? His tone dipped just subtly on the word pleasure drawing it out a smidge longer than ordinary emphasis would.
Emrys sighed through his nose, his hand hovering right in front of the door, hesitating before finally knocking. He truly had no idea why he was even here. Well, actually, that was a lie. Both himself and Vi had been very busy over the last few months, and they had returned to their work, despite still grieving, each in their own way. Emrys was still there when Aryan needed him, but he'd also returned to the battlefield from time to time, and had a few new scars to show for it. None perhaps quite as showy as his younger brother's, but should anyone get him out of his shirt, they'd find a rather large one on his right side stretching around to his back. That had been an experience he was not eager to repeat.
He rose his eye brow slightly after his cousin answered, and he followed him inside, lounging out on the sofa rather languidly, looking rather like a feline. "So, what, I simply have leave to enter whenever I feel like it? Doesn't that give one an odd sense of over-familiarity?" To his other question, he merely shrugged. "It's been a while since I've seen you, Vi. That's all." That was decidedly not all, though Emrys was not inclined to admit it. He had wanted to see Alden.
Violet let out a chuckle under his breath. It was really quite endearing, that Emrys thought he could hide things from a telepath simply by not speaking about them. Even if he’d been inclined to give his cousin the privacy of his own thoughts, he wouldn’t be able to. Powers like his never shut off, not unless he wanted to establish a mental link with Balthasar or his Uncle Jasper. Actually, he did the latter with some frequency, where possible. He’d just sit somewhere near his uncle, connected mentally but closed off, and savor the silence.
But not here. And he didn’t particularly desire to stop hearing Em’s thoughts, as they were quite entertaining. “Over-familiarity?” he repeated, letting just a little incredulity creep into his tone. “I don’t think there could be such a thing, cousin. Not between you and I.” That was all, was it? Oh no, Violet thought not. With deceptive swiftness that seemed a bit at odds with his usually lazy nature, Alden moved, looming over his cousin for a moment, a hand braced on either side of Emrys’s head, his eyes half-lidded in a vaguely serpentine way, that damnable half-smile still firmly in place.
“You’re lying to me, Emrys,” the Spider said lowly, leaning down to exhale on the shell of the other man’s ear. “This closet of yours is proving oddly challenging for you. Perhaps I should point out the door?” He used the flat of his tongue to lick a stripe from the hollow of Em’s throat to the base of his ear, then blew a cool jet of air on it, a distinctly-predatory glint to his eyes. One could only attempt to lie to oneself for so long—and it was just about time that Em stopped attempting.
Well. That had been rather unexpected. Or perhaps not. He did not even attempt to hide the shudder that rippled through him at his touch. This was dangerous, and this was stupid. It was one thing to be on familiar terms with someone, it was entirely another to be in love with them. Love got you hurt. Look at his father, look at his brother, at Zero. He didn't want to risk that. That was what he told himself.
Apparently fate had other ideas. Or his body did. His arms snaked around Alden's neck, his mouth finding his. No, the closet wasn't challenging. He just simply had refused to acknowledge he was in it. To hell with it, to hell with it all. Even so, he pulled away from him, a dark look in his crimson eyes.
"I can't do this, Alden."
He could push, and Emrys would be entirely at his mercy. It was what he usually did when people were showing reluctance—it was a simple matter to dig around in someone’s mind, find the things that would make them incoherent and weak at the knees, and do said things. But he found that he had no particular desire to push. This was not to say, however, that he had no desire at all. Alden cocked his head to the side—this predicament was a bit unusual for him as well, as honestly? There weren’t usually any real feelings involved in this sort of arrangement for him.
He found that it served to make his approach more delicate than it would usually be, but also to interfere with his usual calculating intellect, muddle his mind with emotion. Academically, he could identify this as a more permanent form of affection, which, underlying simple lust, formed a sort of attachment that he was not terribly accustomed to. His cousin’s mind bandied about the word love, and Alden supposed that it maybe as close to such a thing as someone like him could feel. His last few seductions had left him feeling vaguely ill and guilty, something they had not done since his early days as a practitioner of the craft, so to speak. One learned to dissociate anything meaningful from the act. Some of it had been re-associated, however, and the man underneath him was responsible for that.
“Can’t?” he asked quietly. “Or won’t? If you will not be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.” His words were blunt as ever, but he backed off, taking up a spot on the other end of the couch, crossing his legs underneath him and pushing his glasses up his nose. For a few long moments, he simply regarded his cousin, as though he were studying something at once new and fascinating with all the cutting, intense precision of a scientist. “If you asked Rocchan if it was worth it, to have loved her only to lose her, he would not hesitate to tell you that it was. You can put the question to him yourself, if you like.” Keir and his sister were a disaster, something that he intended to do his own part to rectify very soon. As for uncle Morgan, well. It had all worked out for him in the end.
“Fear is a common enough reaction to such circumstances. If it helps, I will confess to some anxiety of my own. I am not often… attached to others in such a fashion. Entering into an arrangement of this kind with me may often leave you quite uncertain of who you’re dealing with. I am a stranger in my own skin, Emrys.” Several realizations clicked into place for him then, and he saw no particular need to keep them to himself, raising his shoulders in a lazy shrug.
“But you make me feel like I’m home.”
It may not have been the most appropriate time for it, but if he was being completely honest with himself, nothing about this relationship was appropriate for them. He couldn't help it either, and he laughed. The last thing he had expected was to hear that he made Alden feel like he was home. But then, when one was in such a profession as his, Emrys supposed one would be in constant danger of losing oneself. It was ironic, really, that he would help Alden find himself while Alden did the opposite of himself. It was never a question of knowing who he was dealing with.
It was a question of knowing himself, and the more he dug, the more he got confused. But in the end, Alden was right. He needed to stop lying to himself. He'd been doing so for almost eight years now, and frankly, he was getting sick of it. He sighed heavily. "I really do hate the fact that you're a telepath sometimes, but then, you knew that already." His crimson eyes slid over to his purple-haired cousin. Fear was not quite the word he would have used, because it was more akin to terror. He didn't think he'd be able to handle losing Alden, and he knew that he certainly wouldn't take it as well as Zero had Yuki, and that had not gone over well.
He looked up at the ceiling. considered saying something, but then, that was perhaps the one upside. Alden already knew the question. What the hell did they do now?
A question asked to his mind received and answer from it. Alden had a sense of symmetry that way, and so, as it turned out, though he shook his head slightly, a familiar glimmer returned to his eyes, and he arched a brow. You really have to ask? He inquired with obvious amusement. I calculate, you capitulate, and we learn how to make it work for us. It was not going to be an uncomplicated road, because, much as Emrys was helping, Violet still had major identity issues, and willing to take the risk or not, Em was still petrified of what might happen, and not without justification. There was also the matter of their respective occupations: they both risked their lives, and more than that, sex was a weapon in the Spider’s arsenal that he could not afford to relinquish.
It was certainly not going to be simple, but then… what was, anymore? At the very least… he promised himself that he wouldn’t push, not too much. There was a vast gulf between their respective levels of experience with certain things, and while Vi was comfortable with pretty much anything physical, Emrys was far from it. So, the slower runner set the pace, and that was fine by him. But if you meant right this moment… that’s up to you. I can think of a few things…
It was Emrys's turn to be amused. While he certainly did not have the amount of experience in such matters as Alden wielded, he was not oblivious to all of it, either. He turned his head to regard his cousin silently for a second before beckoning him with a finger.
Show me.
Bryer. shilta wux nymuer ve?
Either the voices had begun to learn, or Bryer was beginning to really go insane. They had started using his name about a week ago. There was nothing else that he could understand, but his name was definitely in there. It wasn't always there, but every once in a while, he would hear it, and that particular voice would pry for a bit, and then move on. It was hard to explain, since every voice sounded the same, but yet, there was a subtle difference to each one.
His grandfather and uncle thought they might be able to help him with this. Bryer wasn't so sure, but he was willing to try. While he did want the voices to go away, there was a certain nagging curiosity to find out what they were as well. Why was he the only one who could hear them? Why did they suddenly go away when a telepathic link with his uncle Balthasar or his grandfather was formed? He had as more questions than he had answers, and it was time that situation was rectified. So, he found himself sitting in one of them many studies, across from Jasper and Alden. Perhaps if he'd been so inclined, he'd have thought it looked much like the memory he'd seen from his mother, but he rarely thought about his mother lately, and even if he did, he tended to shy away from memories that were not his.
Jasper had spent the last few days finding everything he could on what his grandson was apparently able to do. Alden had spent a bit of time in the child’s company, and had transliterated some of the voices into readable words. Though the exact nature of the puppetry was not something he could find any record of, he was able to track down a primitive lexicon of the language, actually through some previous recollections of human shamans, and others who claimed to be able to communicate with the Otherword, or the realm of souls. Being who he was, the primitive lexicon and the data he received from Alden soon expanded and filled the blank pages of an entire book, and Jasper had deciphered the grammatical structure as well as the meanings of all the words he had information about into a stable, coherent linguistics of the dead.
He wasn’t sure if it would do any good, but it would at least help to be able to know what the voices were telling the child. He’d memorized what he’d written, but he brought the book for Bryer, hoping that if they accomplished nothing else useful today, he would be able to at least make the whispers in his mind make sense. Mayhap they would be able to say more, as the initial statements they had made to Bryer upon Naya’s appearance had been a warning: she is coming. That implied a certain level of benevolence for the child, at least comparatively. If he could learn to ask questions of them, he might come to an accord with his abilities faster.
So when he entered and sat, he turned the book over so that it was facing Bryer, smiling softly and pushing it towards him with the fingers of his left hand. “It is not much,” he said, “but it is a start. If possible, Bryer, I would like to have a conversation with your voices. Alden is going to establish a link between my mind and yours, but it won’t be quiet like it usually is. If possible, I would like all of us to talk to them together, so that we can understand what it is that you do. So if there is anything you wish to say to them, you can tell me, and I will translate for you.” He did not know if the spirits could understand languages not their own, but they seemed to be incapable of speaking anything else, so at the very least, he would have to translate in that direction.
Bryer cocked his head to the side, wondering if that could even be done, but he nodded all the same. Maybe if he could understand what the voices wanted, he could help them, instead of fearing them.
Bryer. Jasper, Alden, letoclo jacion. petranas.
He cocked his head to the side, confusion laced through his features. That was...odd. That voice knew their names, all of their names. And seemed to be speaking...directly to his grandfather and uncle, at least insofar as it could. He hadn't been aware that the voices were perhaps aware of what went on around him, but it would appear that they were.
"At least one of them knows that you are here...and I think it wants to talk to you, too."
And so the link between his mind and his grandfather's was established. It was a bit of an odd feeling for Bryer, having this connection without the resounding silence he'd grown accustomed to, but that one particular voice, the one who had named them...seemed almost happy. It was odd, really, as here had always been a sense of sadness to the voices, Bryer had paid it little heed. He hadn't realized that there were other things that they could portray.
There were many voices floating around in his head, each one saying something different, but one in particular stood out. Bryer was used to its pushing by now, but he was surprised when it didn't reach out for him. It reached out for Jasper.
"Si tepoha missed wux, opsola. Si mi saeuth wux re tenpiswo."
Bryer cocked his head again, but waited silently.
Alden wasn’t caught up in this language, but his connection to his uncle’s mind allowed him to hear the translations as soon as Jasper completed them, and he blinked his surprise at the being’s words. Jasper for a moment, too, was shocked, but then a slow smile spread across his face, and as he had once done in his daughter’s mind, he manifested in his grandson’s. This time, he did not believe it would be necessary to use his powers, and so the mental strain on the host mind was negligible—nonexistent with Alden’s interference. His nephew manifested as well, and pulled his grandson inwards with him, so that in some sense all three of them were standing together in the same place, though in the physical world, they still sat.
sia hianag. yth geou letoclo jacion, shar yth rigluin ekess kampiun svanoa. svabol ui coi batobot yth ought ekess vucot? Prototypically himself, Jazz spoke without a hint of accent of any kind, as though he were but one of the voices, only his mental tone was as gentle and warm as it always was.
Alden rested a hand briefly on his nephew’s crown. He’s talking to your mother, Bry. He’s asking her how we can help you, what it is that you need to know to control your abilities.
Something akin to shock passed over Bryer's face. His mother was here? He...supposed that made sense, but even so...from what little information he had on the Otherworld, there were literally a countless number of souls there, and for one in particular to find its way to him...well, he was amazed, to say the least, and undeniably happy that it was her.
If a transient manifestation of a soul could smile, Yuki would have in that moment. As it were, she could not, she could only speak. So that was what she did. "Wux ornla yor hesi xanalre zyak quickly. Bryer zklaen yor svanoa ekess trelk stoda jacida ricin, vur nif coi sva geou. Nomeno jahus creolnali Naya nurti yora, vur lae mishun, coi drove jacioniv pazien. Coi geou tawura kiarf wer diieson lae tikil tsirar." There was a pause, and Bryer felt something on his cheek, like a finger. "lyrik loupon batobot, jaci banprivi rigluinic ekess yor hesi xanalre. throdenilti di udoka re woari, vur confused. throden tir ti realize astahii re loex. astahii re instinctively drawn ekess jacion tagoa di jacida connection ekess wer treskri astahii huena vucata, tangis sjek astahii astaha tir ti kampiun nomeno. creol jatil jacion levnim, shar throdenilti re levnim nuri. shar jaci zklaen yor ekess trelk jacida ricin stoda. si mi ti wer ergriff sepa svaust confna tenpiswo batobot thurkear, vur Naya tepohaic ti taken marfedelom algbo."
Jasper’s smile was small, but still present, at least until the last part, and then he nodded solemnly, glancing over at the manifestation of Alden. Do you think you can help him with that?
Violet’s brow quirked, and his own smile had a fair bit more mischief to it. Of course. Telepathic blocks are not particularly difficult, even if I don’t use them. It was a matter of personal preference. While Alden did not employ them, believing instead that it was better to leave them open and thus hear everything going on around them, he did know how to put one up, and could easily teach Bryer to do so as well. He’d been born a telepath, and this was a skill he’d mastered by well before the boy’s age, before he’d decided to eschew the block in favor of an open web of thought.
si kampiun, Yuki. yth geou tir svabol rigluinic ekess qe authot. yth geou troth jacion. si mourn wux, danthe hianag, vur si huven yth tiliw zexenuma drongilt, vur renthisj. shar coi ui desta sjek yth tir ti frinkl jacida ricin tikil drongilt loupon yth zklaen. ui mobi creolnali wux ornla tepoha ve visp jacion? usv tikilvi else? It was hard not to reach for her, even now, but he knew that his hand would only pass right through.
While she really expected no less, it eased her to hear the words themselves. There was so much she wished she could say, but she had not the time nor the words to do so. But this was not a final parting, either. She had an eternity here, and if her son sought her out, she would go to him. With a power like Bryer's, not even death could sever that.
"Filki visp fronah batobot si llewarin astahi, vur batobot si itov astahi. Visp Diya ekess quo'quegl. Visp Bryer..." She paused. No, this one she could do on her own.
"Si itov wux, Bryer."
The little boy smiled a little sadly. "Si itov wux, kiri, dask." Sometimes love didn't need a translation.
Alden flipped the file closed, tossing it onto the bedside table with a roll of his eyes. It was funny, how some people’s thoughts got louder when they were engaged in something violent. Other people got oddly quiet, like Helen, who really stopped thinking much at all and just moved, he’d noticed. Perhaps it was simply because his cousin was preoccupied. The Spider had no particular desire to crawl out of bed, especially considering that it was currently exceptionally warm and comfortable given Emrys’s presence in it, but his irritation with this ongoing farce between his sister and his cousin was reaching the point where he had to do his part to fix it or kill them both in their sleep, and though the latter might occasionally be tempting, he would never do it. Leora, he loved too much, and Keir, well… he loved his cousin, too, but more than that, he was Leo’s best shot at what she deserved.
So he leaned over to place a kiss to his sleeping lover’s neck, then slid out from under the covers and threw on some clothes, running his fingers through his hair enough times for it to gain some semblance of respectability but little more. Sliding on his glasses, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans and padded down the hall of the von Nacht estate, following his mind rather than his nose outside. Keir and Uncle Morgan were in the practice yard, of course, currently in the process of tearing the place up. Of course, it was designed to be Uncle Jazz-proof as much as it could be, so it was holding up pretty well despite the ridiculous amount of destruction going on. For a moment, Violet’s nose crinkled in distaste—he was not excessively fond of such pursuits, even if he had some talent for them.
He stood on the edges of the field, knowing that both men were aware of his presence, but allowing them to choose when to react to it. They were, after all, rather occupied at the moment. Nothing was more patient than a spider waiting to entangle a fly, after all.
Well, it was more or less like Keir was intent on tearing his father to shreds, and Morgan was having less trouble avoiding him than usual. Not that Morgan could completely blame him, but if Keir didn't fix this soon, it was going to get him killed. Keir had always preferred diving in head-first and going for the kill, and this usually worked for him, but he also never left himself quite so open and unprotected as he was now.
Morgan's crimson eyes slid over to where Violet stood, a slight smirk crossing his features. Well, if anyone could talk sense into his youngest son, perhaps it was the man who had captured the affections of his oldest son. With that in mind, Morgan grabbed a hold of his son's wrist, and flipped him, laying him rather solidly out on his back instead of just dodging. There was a harsh look to his face as he frowned down at Keir.
"You're distracted and you're more reckless than normal. Get your head on straight, or you're going to wind up dead, Keir."
Keir only scoffed, rolling to stand as Morgan sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, glancing over at Alden before he left. "Well, as per usual he's not listening to me. You have a crack at him, maybe you can get him to see sense." The eldest Alistair did smile slightly, not missing the lingering scent of Emrys, and shook his head once before leaving.
“I’d have better luck teaching a fish to fly, but I’ll see what I can do,” Alden replied in a deadpan, blinking slowly and raising a brow in the general direction of his cousin. Inwardly, he sighed a little. This was going to be irritatingly difficult—Keir was not the kind of person who appreciated free advice, even when given by the person who had literally the absolute best handle on the situation. For all that he was a third party, Alden knew the lay of things better than anyone. Which was why he was choosing to intervene at all, really. Well… that and the fact that he had an undisguised soft spot for his sister.
Red purple eyes fixed unwaveringly on his youngest cousin, and Alden canted his head a bit to the side. “You can pretend to not hear me if it’s easier for you, but there’s something you need to know about Leo, and I am going to tell you, so you might as well get comfortable. It’s unpleasant and it will make you probably madder than you are right now.” As usual, he did not spare feelings by concealing the truth, and his words were delivered in a blunt, monotone fashion. He’d made up his mind about this, and if he had to plant the words directly in the other man’s mind, he would do it.
But he shouldn’t have to work that hard to give the guy information that would help him, and if Keir had half a brain cell left after all that knocking around he’d been getting, he’d know to listen. Alden was not in the habit of just giving away what he knew, and every word he chose had a point.
Keir did not, to a point, feel like talking to the man who had been, and would be in the future, screwing his older brother. Not that Emrys's sexuality made any difference to him, as he couldn't care one whit either way, it was more or less the fact that it was Alden, her brother, that bothered him.
Alden was right, he didn't want to hear it. There was nothing more to say on the matter, and nothing was going to change that fact. Not new information or something about Leora's past or anything. It was done, it was over, and it just hurt, damnit, and he wished people would leave the matter be.
"She made her decision, Alden. Nothing is going to change that."
Stubborn fool. “Oh? And what if I told you that you were wrong? I’ve been in my sister’s head, Keir. I’ve known her since she was an infant. Her well-being is one of the few things in life that I actually care about. You think I’d bother coming all the way over here to talk to you about this if I didn’t believe her mind could be changed?” His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he switched tactics, setting his jaw firmly. “I know I have not misjudged her, but perhaps I’ve misjudged you. I didn’t realize that you gave up so easily on what I thought was just as important to you as it is to me. Am I wrong about you, cousin? Will you stare a chance to save her from herself in the face and then turn your back to it?”
The Kuragari shrugged with a casual air he did not feel. But he was, after all, the consummate actor. There was no mistaking that the youngest Alistair male was perhaps the most stubborn member of the entire family, and that included his own mother. Alden intended to use that stubbornness, but first, he had to focus it on the right thing. To give up after Leo had moved herself to arms’ length once was rather unexpected, especially since she didn’t do it from lack of the right feelings. “Some scars can be healed. But I suppose if you don’t want to help her do it, I’ll have to find some other way.” Raising a brow in a clear challenge, he shook his head faintly and turned, making for the door back inside.
Keir could take a lot of things, and usually Alden's goading was one of them. But not like this, not here, not now. Not when it was about her. Something in his mind and his chest shattered simultaneously, and when he spoke, he sounded broken, entirely uncharacteristic of him.
"She turned her back on me, Alden. What am I supposed to do with that?"
Finally, he was getting somewhere. The misery brought him no joy to see, but he’d been hearing it in his head from both of them for far too long now, and if this was what it took to bring them both through it happier, then he would do it. Sometimes, the good things in life took a little pain to reach. Or a lot of pain, as the case may be. There was something sympathetic in his expression, and he sighed quietly. “It isn’t going to be easy,” he said, his tone of voice milder, now, and less brittle. “But it is going to be worth it. As for what you do with that…” He shook his head for a moment.
“Right now, you sit down. There are some things you need to know. Things that, at present, only myself, my mother, and Rica know. And even your sister doesn’t have the whole story, but I’m going to tell it to you because I think you can do what myself and mom have so far been unable to do.” Following his own advice, Alden took a seat on the grass at the edge of the practice field. From his sleeve, he materialized a package of licorice wands and bit half off of one and swallowed before he spoke again. He would have offered, but Keir wasn’t in the mood, so he didn’t.
The story wasn’t easy for him to tell, because it represented not only a great deal of heartache for his sister, but also what Alden considered to be his primary failing as a brother in more than sixty years of being one. Granted, he hadn’t been there, but that was exactly the point. He should have been. “When Leo was fifteen, the lot of you were first years at Cross. I’m sure you remember, but she was much more open back then, more expressive of her actual feelings and more inclined to trust and make friends with people outside of our family.” That she was currently otherwise was mostly his doing, actually. Violet had helped her construct and craft her current persona from necessity and by request. He’d taught her no few of his own tricks, and in doing so, he’d given her weapons against incidents like the one he was about to describe. Unfortunately, while he may have been able to help her prevent further manipulation, he had not been able to heal the damage done by the first one, and that was something that still ate at him.
“Unbeknownst to anyone, really, she made friends with a boy in her class, one Alexander Gregory. Look him up if you want to, but you won’t find his current location. I know where he is, but she made me promise not to kill him.” The very fact that Violet sounded bitter about that was quite telling, as he usually did not care enough to wish death on anyone in particular. Even when he did, he preferred to let other people do the actual slaying, but that one, he would not have minded having a go at. More likely than not, he would have messed with his mind rather than killing him and left him to live an insane, gibbering invalid, but that was rather beside the point, and he was sidetracking himself. Damn, he still hated this story.
“He looked and claimed to be seventeen. He’s currently three hundred and twelve, plus or minus a month or so. She showed me some of the memories—he was witty and charming and chivalrous and kind. A girl her age, entirely unprepared for it and naïve, wouldn’t have stood a chance. It wasn’t long before they were an item, if you can call it that, and he made some very delicate overtures regarding sex and suchlike. She was unsure, and resolute in her refusal to share blood, at least before he’d met the family and everything was official. He convinced her to meet his family first.” The expression on Alden’s face grew slowly dark, like gathering thunderclouds.
“The bastard told her he loved her. And then he convinced her that she owed him something for that. I trust I do not need to describe what happened in detail, but he got everything he wanted that wasn’t the Aegis. She still knew enough to protect that, and when he understood that it wasn’t to be forthcoming, he tried to take it. She fought him off, and left.” She’d also run all the way to the nearest family home, where he happened to be stopping in for a short break, and he had of course known everything almost immediately. It had taken everything he had not to go rip the bastard to pieces right then, but she’d needed him more.
Alden sighed. “Leora, being who she is, has largely managed to forgive him for this. She has not, however, managed to forgive herself. The incident, along with some very strange ideas about love and what is deserved, has managed to convince her that she doesn’t get to have it. Usually, in such a situation, a teenaged girl has enough reason to feel horrible—she has been objectified to the level of a desirable thing because she is pretty. Leo didn’t even get that—she was a desirable thing because she was the Aegis, and none of her other qualities mattered at all.” It had bled over into how she saw herself, even if she didn’t realize it.
“She knows she is attractive, and she knows she smells… like that, but she is incapable of seeing her inherent worth as a person, because all anyone outside of her relatives have ever seen her to be is the Aegis. Naturally, she believes that someone like you, whom she cares deeply for and has admired since childhood, deserves quite a lot more than she can offer. Convincing her otherwise may not be easy, but you can see why you are the person that must do so, if she is to come to believe it.”
Keir was a naturally expressive person. He knew that, his family knew that, and it was obvious to people who didn't know him that he wore his emotions on his sleeve. Hiding things was not in his nature, and was almost physically impossible for him to do so. Like Alden, he too, had sat, his posture largely relaxed, though the longer Alden spoke, the more tense he became, until there was blood running down his legs from where he'd buried his own claws into the flesh of his thighs.
The veins in his forehead stood out profusely, and his eyes went from their normal pale, ice blue to a deep, blood-red crimson. He grit his teeth, taking a considerable amount of effort to not burn the very air around him, and even with that effort, it was still very uncomfortable to be around him, and if you were close enough, it would be painful, even.
That was how she saw herself? That was why she'd rejected him? His eyes narrowed to slits, his anger only deepening as he thought it over. He himself had, honestly, forgotten that she had the Aegis in her blood. He never thought about it, because it didn't matter. It wasn't who she was, just as the creature he became when using his ability wasn't who he was. As it were, this creature roiled just underneath his skin, and he was no longer inclined to keep it restrained. Keir stood up, the patches of scales slowly expanding as they began to cover him. He had no wish to harm his cousin, so for the moment, he was holding back. But his rage wouldn't let him do that for much longer.
"Alden. Leave."
The tang of blood was sharp on the air, but Alden was able to ignore it. Instead, he climbed to his feat with deliberateness, dusting himself off and blinking lazily at his cousin. Honestly, he was less than surprised by Keir’s current state—he’d been expecting something more or less like this. Even Violet himself had been basically apoplectic with rage the first time he’d heard the story, and he was not an expressive man in that sense. “Just remember that I told you this for a reason, cousin.” With that, he walked off the field, returning into the house. Ugly as it was, that had been necessary. He hoped his sister would forgive him for it, one day.
So he leaned over to place a kiss to his sleeping lover’s neck, then slid out from under the covers and threw on some clothes, running his fingers through his hair enough times for it to gain some semblance of respectability but little more. Sliding on his glasses, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans and padded down the hall of the von Nacht estate, following his mind rather than his nose outside. Keir and Uncle Morgan were in the practice yard, of course, currently in the process of tearing the place up. Of course, it was designed to be Uncle Jazz-proof as much as it could be, so it was holding up pretty well despite the ridiculous amount of destruction going on. For a moment, Violet’s nose crinkled in distaste—he was not excessively fond of such pursuits, even if he had some talent for them.
He stood on the edges of the field, knowing that both men were aware of his presence, but allowing them to choose when to react to it. They were, after all, rather occupied at the moment. Nothing was more patient than a spider waiting to entangle a fly, after all.
Well, it was more or less like Keir was intent on tearing his father to shreds, and Morgan was having less trouble avoiding him than usual. Not that Morgan could completely blame him, but if Keir didn't fix this soon, it was going to get him killed. Keir had always preferred diving in head-first and going for the kill, and this usually worked for him, but he also never left himself quite so open and unprotected as he was now.
Morgan's crimson eyes slid over to where Violet stood, a slight smirk crossing his features. Well, if anyone could talk sense into his youngest son, perhaps it was the man who had captured the affections of his oldest son. With that in mind, Morgan grabbed a hold of his son's wrist, and flipped him, laying him rather solidly out on his back instead of just dodging. There was a harsh look to his face as he frowned down at Keir.
"You're distracted and you're more reckless than normal. Get your head on straight, or you're going to wind up dead, Keir."
Keir only scoffed, rolling to stand as Morgan sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, glancing over at Alden before he left. "Well, as per usual he's not listening to me. You have a crack at him, maybe you can get him to see sense." The eldest Alistair did smile slightly, not missing the lingering scent of Emrys, and shook his head once before leaving.
“I’d have better luck teaching a fish to fly, but I’ll see what I can do,” Alden replied in a deadpan, blinking slowly and raising a brow in the general direction of his cousin. Inwardly, he sighed a little. This was going to be irritatingly difficult—Keir was not the kind of person who appreciated free advice, even when given by the person who had literally the absolute best handle on the situation. For all that he was a third party, Alden knew the lay of things better than anyone. Which was why he was choosing to intervene at all, really. Well… that and the fact that he had an undisguised soft spot for his sister.
Red purple eyes fixed unwaveringly on his youngest cousin, and Alden canted his head a bit to the side. “You can pretend to not hear me if it’s easier for you, but there’s something you need to know about Leo, and I am going to tell you, so you might as well get comfortable. It’s unpleasant and it will make you probably madder than you are right now.” As usual, he did not spare feelings by concealing the truth, and his words were delivered in a blunt, monotone fashion. He’d made up his mind about this, and if he had to plant the words directly in the other man’s mind, he would do it.
But he shouldn’t have to work that hard to give the guy information that would help him, and if Keir had half a brain cell left after all that knocking around he’d been getting, he’d know to listen. Alden was not in the habit of just giving away what he knew, and every word he chose had a point.
Keir did not, to a point, feel like talking to the man who had been, and would be in the future, screwing his older brother. Not that Emrys's sexuality made any difference to him, as he couldn't care one whit either way, it was more or less the fact that it was Alden, her brother, that bothered him.
Alden was right, he didn't want to hear it. There was nothing more to say on the matter, and nothing was going to change that fact. Not new information or something about Leora's past or anything. It was done, it was over, and it just hurt, damnit, and he wished people would leave the matter be.
"She made her decision, Alden. Nothing is going to change that."
Stubborn fool. “Oh? And what if I told you that you were wrong? I’ve been in my sister’s head, Keir. I’ve known her since she was an infant. Her well-being is one of the few things in life that I actually care about. You think I’d bother coming all the way over here to talk to you about this if I didn’t believe her mind could be changed?” His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he switched tactics, setting his jaw firmly. “I know I have not misjudged her, but perhaps I’ve misjudged you. I didn’t realize that you gave up so easily on what I thought was just as important to you as it is to me. Am I wrong about you, cousin? Will you stare a chance to save her from herself in the face and then turn your back to it?”
The Kuragari shrugged with a casual air he did not feel. But he was, after all, the consummate actor. There was no mistaking that the youngest Alistair male was perhaps the most stubborn member of the entire family, and that included his own mother. Alden intended to use that stubbornness, but first, he had to focus it on the right thing. To give up after Leo had moved herself to arms’ length once was rather unexpected, especially since she didn’t do it from lack of the right feelings. “Some scars can be healed. But I suppose if you don’t want to help her do it, I’ll have to find some other way.” Raising a brow in a clear challenge, he shook his head faintly and turned, making for the door back inside.
Keir could take a lot of things, and usually Alden's goading was one of them. But not like this, not here, not now. Not when it was about her. Something in his mind and his chest shattered simultaneously, and when he spoke, he sounded broken, entirely uncharacteristic of him.
"She turned her back on me, Alden. What am I supposed to do with that?"
Finally, he was getting somewhere. The misery brought him no joy to see, but he’d been hearing it in his head from both of them for far too long now, and if this was what it took to bring them both through it happier, then he would do it. Sometimes, the good things in life took a little pain to reach. Or a lot of pain, as the case may be. There was something sympathetic in his expression, and he sighed quietly. “It isn’t going to be easy,” he said, his tone of voice milder, now, and less brittle. “But it is going to be worth it. As for what you do with that…” He shook his head for a moment.
“Right now, you sit down. There are some things you need to know. Things that, at present, only myself, my mother, and Rica know. And even your sister doesn’t have the whole story, but I’m going to tell it to you because I think you can do what myself and mom have so far been unable to do.” Following his own advice, Alden took a seat on the grass at the edge of the practice field. From his sleeve, he materialized a package of licorice wands and bit half off of one and swallowed before he spoke again. He would have offered, but Keir wasn’t in the mood, so he didn’t.
The story wasn’t easy for him to tell, because it represented not only a great deal of heartache for his sister, but also what Alden considered to be his primary failing as a brother in more than sixty years of being one. Granted, he hadn’t been there, but that was exactly the point. He should have been. “When Leo was fifteen, the lot of you were first years at Cross. I’m sure you remember, but she was much more open back then, more expressive of her actual feelings and more inclined to trust and make friends with people outside of our family.” That she was currently otherwise was mostly his doing, actually. Violet had helped her construct and craft her current persona from necessity and by request. He’d taught her no few of his own tricks, and in doing so, he’d given her weapons against incidents like the one he was about to describe. Unfortunately, while he may have been able to help her prevent further manipulation, he had not been able to heal the damage done by the first one, and that was something that still ate at him.
“Unbeknownst to anyone, really, she made friends with a boy in her class, one Alexander Gregory. Look him up if you want to, but you won’t find his current location. I know where he is, but she made me promise not to kill him.” The very fact that Violet sounded bitter about that was quite telling, as he usually did not care enough to wish death on anyone in particular. Even when he did, he preferred to let other people do the actual slaying, but that one, he would not have minded having a go at. More likely than not, he would have messed with his mind rather than killing him and left him to live an insane, gibbering invalid, but that was rather beside the point, and he was sidetracking himself. Damn, he still hated this story.
“He looked and claimed to be seventeen. He’s currently three hundred and twelve, plus or minus a month or so. She showed me some of the memories—he was witty and charming and chivalrous and kind. A girl her age, entirely unprepared for it and naïve, wouldn’t have stood a chance. It wasn’t long before they were an item, if you can call it that, and he made some very delicate overtures regarding sex and suchlike. She was unsure, and resolute in her refusal to share blood, at least before he’d met the family and everything was official. He convinced her to meet his family first.” The expression on Alden’s face grew slowly dark, like gathering thunderclouds.
“The bastard told her he loved her. And then he convinced her that she owed him something for that. I trust I do not need to describe what happened in detail, but he got everything he wanted that wasn’t the Aegis. She still knew enough to protect that, and when he understood that it wasn’t to be forthcoming, he tried to take it. She fought him off, and left.” She’d also run all the way to the nearest family home, where he happened to be stopping in for a short break, and he had of course known everything almost immediately. It had taken everything he had not to go rip the bastard to pieces right then, but she’d needed him more.
Alden sighed. “Leora, being who she is, has largely managed to forgive him for this. She has not, however, managed to forgive herself. The incident, along with some very strange ideas about love and what is deserved, has managed to convince her that she doesn’t get to have it. Usually, in such a situation, a teenaged girl has enough reason to feel horrible—she has been objectified to the level of a desirable thing because she is pretty. Leo didn’t even get that—she was a desirable thing because she was the Aegis, and none of her other qualities mattered at all.” It had bled over into how she saw herself, even if she didn’t realize it.
“She knows she is attractive, and she knows she smells… like that, but she is incapable of seeing her inherent worth as a person, because all anyone outside of her relatives have ever seen her to be is the Aegis. Naturally, she believes that someone like you, whom she cares deeply for and has admired since childhood, deserves quite a lot more than she can offer. Convincing her otherwise may not be easy, but you can see why you are the person that must do so, if she is to come to believe it.”
Keir was a naturally expressive person. He knew that, his family knew that, and it was obvious to people who didn't know him that he wore his emotions on his sleeve. Hiding things was not in his nature, and was almost physically impossible for him to do so. Like Alden, he too, had sat, his posture largely relaxed, though the longer Alden spoke, the more tense he became, until there was blood running down his legs from where he'd buried his own claws into the flesh of his thighs.
The veins in his forehead stood out profusely, and his eyes went from their normal pale, ice blue to a deep, blood-red crimson. He grit his teeth, taking a considerable amount of effort to not burn the very air around him, and even with that effort, it was still very uncomfortable to be around him, and if you were close enough, it would be painful, even.
That was how she saw herself? That was why she'd rejected him? His eyes narrowed to slits, his anger only deepening as he thought it over. He himself had, honestly, forgotten that she had the Aegis in her blood. He never thought about it, because it didn't matter. It wasn't who she was, just as the creature he became when using his ability wasn't who he was. As it were, this creature roiled just underneath his skin, and he was no longer inclined to keep it restrained. Keir stood up, the patches of scales slowly expanding as they began to cover him. He had no wish to harm his cousin, so for the moment, he was holding back. But his rage wouldn't let him do that for much longer.
"Alden. Leave."
The tang of blood was sharp on the air, but Alden was able to ignore it. Instead, he climbed to his feat with deliberateness, dusting himself off and blinking lazily at his cousin. Honestly, he was less than surprised by Keir’s current state—he’d been expecting something more or less like this. Even Violet himself had been basically apoplectic with rage the first time he’d heard the story, and he was not an expressive man in that sense. “Just remember that I told you this for a reason, cousin.” With that, he walked off the field, returning into the house. Ugly as it was, that had been necessary. He hoped his sister would forgive him for it, one day.
The clacking sound of computer keys being struck at a rapid pace was the only one in the silence, at least until it stopped, and Jasper leaned forward slightly, catching his jawline in his hand and glancing over what he’d written. He was actually codifying the spirit language. While the book he’d given to Bryer for his use was more like a learning text than anything, it was also something that he thought deserved a more formal write-up, and an introduction into his own family library, if nothing else. As such, it had become the thing he worked on in whatever spare time he had between plans and battles for the war, and actually teaching his grandson the language he needed to know. Alden was working on establishing the child’s mental barriers, and had put temporary ones in place until such time as Bryer learned to maintain them on his own.
He should probably go back to that write-up of his last confrontation for Morgan’s files, but part of Jasper would always be a scholar, and that there was something he had not known anything about and could now introduce in a more complete fashion to the stores of knowledge in the world, well… it felt nicer than simply trying to make plans for the next time he had to go kill people in defense of other people. For his own personal tasks, the plans and reports always boiled down to the same few dry facts anyway. He went, he destroyed, and he returned, usually without a scratch on his person, but a new wound somewhere on his heart. He had not hardened it to these realities, because that ache, that pain he endured every time he took a life, was his form of penance. He must always value life, because if he did not… he risked becoming something even worse than his grandfather.
Like his son, he could feel it there, under his skin and waiting, like a dark pool that could be sunk into, but never returned from. He would not allow himself to do that, and so he had to remind himself, always, that every life he destroyed was precious in some way, just as every life he protected or managed to save was precious. He was not a god, but he had been given the power of gods. As had many of the people he knew best. The Pantheon had not been given its name thoughtlessly, either, even if he would never have presumed such a thing himself. His grandfather had been a wicked, horrible, disgusting person, but he had not been wholly wrong in his observations. It was with such heavy thought that he burdened himself, before he sighed softly through his nose and went back to typing.
Diya felt slightly better after talking with her father's father. There was just something about the man that made her feel safe. That was not to say, of course, that the rest of her family made her feel anything but safe, but there was simply something...different about Vincent. While she felt better, she was, at the moment, slightly bored. It was partially the reason she sought out her other grandfather. Much like she did with Vincent, she poked her head around the doorframe, though she was not frowning this time.
She also did not wait to be beckoned over, but rather skipped in, staring up at the computer screen, cocking her head to the side, her brows furrowing.
"Those look like the funny words in the book you gave Bry. What are they, Pepa?"
Jasper was not precisely unused to being visited by his youngest relatives, but it still did tend to perplex him a bit when Diya showed up. She was a very vibrant child, and he was usually doing things that would bore vibrant children. Sometimes, he supposed that might just be him—there wasn’t honestly much he did do that would amuse or interest a child, which probably made him rather boring in the long run. He smiled down at his granddaughter, though, and shook his head. The nickname never failed to make him smile, even if it was just a little.
“It’s a different language,” he explained, “one that Bryer is learning.” He was always kind and considerate in his explanations of things to his grandchildren, but like he’d done with his children, he did not try to dumb things down for them, generally speaking, and he did not lie to them. This was the way he’d raised both of his sons and his daughter to the extent that she’d been raised by anyone but herself, and he found that the results were more than he ever could have expected, so he saw no reason to do otherwise. Children often understood more than adults gave them credit for—Ava had taught him this in her own youth.
“And what brings you to visit Pepa today, Diya?” he inquired pleasantly, halting in his work for the moment to give her his full attention. That, too, he had done for all of his own children. His family was the one thing for which he would always make time, after all.
She grinned, her eyes lighting up as she did so. She giggled slightly, and then replied, "Papa Vivi told me to show everyone my smile, so I am! Besides," She crossed her arms and scowled for a second before crawling up into Jasper's lap. She stood there and then, using her two index fingers, she pushed up at the corners of her grandfather's mouth.
"There! Much better. I'm already smiling for Daddy, Bry, and Papa Vivi, I can't smile for everybody, so Pepa needs to smile more!"
It might seem a bit odd, but Jasper could absolutely believe that Vincent would say something like that. The man’s weaknesses, such as they were, happened to be few but extraordinarily obvious. He patiently steadied his granddaughter as she clambered up onto him, and while he was hardly surprised that she’d decided to use this method to get him to smile, he did blink owlishly for a few moments before puffing out a gust of air in an amused sound that was almost, but not quite, a chuckle.
“Hmm,” he said solemnly, pretending to contemplate the request. “But Pepa’s smile is not as pretty or bright as Diya’s,” he pointed out, laying a hand on the little girl’s head and ruffling her hair gently. “I’ll try anyway. You don't have to worry about smiling for me, Diya. Because I haven’t lost mine. I know that to find it, all I have to do is think about the things I still have, and the people I love.” As if in proof of his point, his smile, subtle as it was, appeared naturally on his face, and he stood, setting the little girl easily on his shoulders.
“Well, little princess, where are we going next? Your faithful servant will take you anywhere you’d like to go.” He could use the break, anyway.
Diya giggled softly. "Good, cause apparently it's hard to find your smile if you've lost it. Hm...maybe I should go looking for Bry's..." She looked thoughtful for a few seconds, laughter bubbling from her as her grandfahter swung her up to sit on his shoulders. She liked it when he did this; Pepa was one of the tallest members of the family, and she liked being up high.
"To Daddy! I think his smile will be easier to find than Bry's right now."
He should probably go back to that write-up of his last confrontation for Morgan’s files, but part of Jasper would always be a scholar, and that there was something he had not known anything about and could now introduce in a more complete fashion to the stores of knowledge in the world, well… it felt nicer than simply trying to make plans for the next time he had to go kill people in defense of other people. For his own personal tasks, the plans and reports always boiled down to the same few dry facts anyway. He went, he destroyed, and he returned, usually without a scratch on his person, but a new wound somewhere on his heart. He had not hardened it to these realities, because that ache, that pain he endured every time he took a life, was his form of penance. He must always value life, because if he did not… he risked becoming something even worse than his grandfather.
Like his son, he could feel it there, under his skin and waiting, like a dark pool that could be sunk into, but never returned from. He would not allow himself to do that, and so he had to remind himself, always, that every life he destroyed was precious in some way, just as every life he protected or managed to save was precious. He was not a god, but he had been given the power of gods. As had many of the people he knew best. The Pantheon had not been given its name thoughtlessly, either, even if he would never have presumed such a thing himself. His grandfather had been a wicked, horrible, disgusting person, but he had not been wholly wrong in his observations. It was with such heavy thought that he burdened himself, before he sighed softly through his nose and went back to typing.
Diya felt slightly better after talking with her father's father. There was just something about the man that made her feel safe. That was not to say, of course, that the rest of her family made her feel anything but safe, but there was simply something...different about Vincent. While she felt better, she was, at the moment, slightly bored. It was partially the reason she sought out her other grandfather. Much like she did with Vincent, she poked her head around the doorframe, though she was not frowning this time.
She also did not wait to be beckoned over, but rather skipped in, staring up at the computer screen, cocking her head to the side, her brows furrowing.
"Those look like the funny words in the book you gave Bry. What are they, Pepa?"
Jasper was not precisely unused to being visited by his youngest relatives, but it still did tend to perplex him a bit when Diya showed up. She was a very vibrant child, and he was usually doing things that would bore vibrant children. Sometimes, he supposed that might just be him—there wasn’t honestly much he did do that would amuse or interest a child, which probably made him rather boring in the long run. He smiled down at his granddaughter, though, and shook his head. The nickname never failed to make him smile, even if it was just a little.
“It’s a different language,” he explained, “one that Bryer is learning.” He was always kind and considerate in his explanations of things to his grandchildren, but like he’d done with his children, he did not try to dumb things down for them, generally speaking, and he did not lie to them. This was the way he’d raised both of his sons and his daughter to the extent that she’d been raised by anyone but herself, and he found that the results were more than he ever could have expected, so he saw no reason to do otherwise. Children often understood more than adults gave them credit for—Ava had taught him this in her own youth.
“And what brings you to visit Pepa today, Diya?” he inquired pleasantly, halting in his work for the moment to give her his full attention. That, too, he had done for all of his own children. His family was the one thing for which he would always make time, after all.
She grinned, her eyes lighting up as she did so. She giggled slightly, and then replied, "Papa Vivi told me to show everyone my smile, so I am! Besides," She crossed her arms and scowled for a second before crawling up into Jasper's lap. She stood there and then, using her two index fingers, she pushed up at the corners of her grandfather's mouth.
"There! Much better. I'm already smiling for Daddy, Bry, and Papa Vivi, I can't smile for everybody, so Pepa needs to smile more!"
It might seem a bit odd, but Jasper could absolutely believe that Vincent would say something like that. The man’s weaknesses, such as they were, happened to be few but extraordinarily obvious. He patiently steadied his granddaughter as she clambered up onto him, and while he was hardly surprised that she’d decided to use this method to get him to smile, he did blink owlishly for a few moments before puffing out a gust of air in an amused sound that was almost, but not quite, a chuckle.
“Hmm,” he said solemnly, pretending to contemplate the request. “But Pepa’s smile is not as pretty or bright as Diya’s,” he pointed out, laying a hand on the little girl’s head and ruffling her hair gently. “I’ll try anyway. You don't have to worry about smiling for me, Diya. Because I haven’t lost mine. I know that to find it, all I have to do is think about the things I still have, and the people I love.” As if in proof of his point, his smile, subtle as it was, appeared naturally on his face, and he stood, setting the little girl easily on his shoulders.
“Well, little princess, where are we going next? Your faithful servant will take you anywhere you’d like to go.” He could use the break, anyway.
Diya giggled softly. "Good, cause apparently it's hard to find your smile if you've lost it. Hm...maybe I should go looking for Bry's..." She looked thoughtful for a few seconds, laughter bubbling from her as her grandfahter swung her up to sit on his shoulders. She liked it when he did this; Pepa was one of the tallest members of the family, and she liked being up high.
"To Daddy! I think his smile will be easier to find than Bry's right now."
Zero walked, hands laced behind his head, in no particular direction. He had been feeling a little better after his talk with his mother and son. It still bothered him that his son had felt the way he had, and a bit disappointed that no one had bothered to tell him what had happened. Yuki was his wife, and Bryer was his son. Did they not think he could handle the news? Were they trying to protect him from something? Shaking his head, dislodging a few locks of hair, the sound of someone sparring caught his attention. A smirk wormed its way onto his face as he came face to face with Emrys pummeling Keir. The younger Alistair child had already sported a few bruises, and he could only guess that Keir must have said something to set the older Alistair off.
"You're not wrong, if you're thinking Keir said something. Keir always says something," Alarica stated as Zero leaned on the rock she was currently perched on. He rose a brow at this before turning back to the other two Alistair males. "Alright, Em, I think Keir's learned his lesson," she stated, sliding off the rock as she walked towards her brothers. She linked an arm around Keir, grabbed his other one, and hoisted him up so that he was leaning on her for support. She shot Zero a smirk as she walked away with Keir in tow. Her oldest brother didn't exactly know the word mercy, but then again...they were Alistair's, and the offspring of one Erys Alistair.
"I take it Keir said something," he repeated the words Alarica spoke moments ago, sending Emrys a questioning look. "And I take it had something to do with you and Vi, because you smell like him. If you and Vi want to keep it on the down low, I'd suggest learning not to smell like him, otherwise it won't just be Keir talking," he spoke, a smirk covering his face as he moved around the rock he was behind, and sat cross-legged on top of it.
Emrys popped his neck, the scowl still present on his face as he did so, though it did lighten slightly after watching his best friend for a few seconds. He didn't look as good as he'd used to, but he certainly didn't look like the walking dead anymore, and that was good. He sighed, though, at Zero's comment. He rolled his shoulders out, stretching things as he walked over to the rock, leaning on his stomach as he looked up at Zero.
"I don't really give a rat's ass if people talk, what I do care about is my little brother making some snarky comment about my sex life when he can't even figure out his own. What's between me and Vi has been and probably will be rather obvious. If he wants to not broadcast it, then so be it. I really don't care either way." He flashed Zero a grin. "Good to see you back on your feet again." Well, Zero had never been off of them, so to speak, but he knew what Emrys meant.
"Well, that's what little brothers are for. They try to make your life miserable, but you know he doesn't really mean anything about it. And Keir has a sex life? I wasn't even aware the kid had a life like that," he responded, the usual tease to his voice prominent. Trust his younger brother to do something like that, but Zero wasn't going to judge. His brother could do whatever he wanted to with whomever he wanted. Besides, he wouldn't admit it, but Zero was glad that Alden had found someone to attach himself to. Who knows, it might turn out good for the both of them.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he replied, sighing heavily and running a hand through his hair. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, running his hand through his hair. She used to do it in such a subtle way, that it caused a faint smile to appear back on his lips. "I still have a lot to do before I can fully stand back on my feet, but it seems I don't have to go it alone. I have an awesome family," he spoke, shooting Emrys a grin in the process.
"So," he began, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Who's the one on top?" he spoke, trying to contain the laughter that was spreading through his chest.
Perhaps thirty seconds later, Jasper, his granddaughter still astride his shoulders, came upon the sight of Emrys with the girl’s father in a headlock. The latter seemed to be taking this in good humor, judging from the uproarious laughter currently filling the air. The eldest member of the family blinked, shaking his head minutely, but with a similar good humor. “It would appear that your father has put his foot in his mouth again, so to speak,” he informed his granddaughter mildly, waiting patiently for their presence to be acknowledged by the other two.
Diya cocked her head, looking a bit confused. "Daddy shouldn't put his foot in his mouth. I would think that would taste bad..." Even so, she silently watched as her father and her uncle struggled a bit. Her father was laughing, and that was good. You couldn't laugh without smiling first, so now she only had her little brother to deal with.
Emrys let Zero go, the scowl softening, and then vanishing when he spotted his uncle Jasper with his niece. Well, she was more like a second cousin, but whatever. She called him uncle, anyway. Or rather, she did...
"Hi Daddy! Hi Aunt Rits." She giggled at them. Emrys drew a hand down his face. "Can I ask where you get Aunt from, Kitten?" Diya stuck her tongue out at him. "Silly, because of Uncle Ollie! You can't both be the guy, so one of you has to be the girl."
Something like a tired smile wormed its way onto Emrys's face as he turned to Zero. "You did this, didn't you?"
Zero couldn't help the laughter that spilled from his lips when Emrys attacked him. Honestly, he had that one coming, and he knew it. He knew the relationship status of his brother, and that his little brother would never be on bottom. He didn't care about that anyways, he had succeeded in doing something positive for his cousin though. He made Emrys something other than upset or angry. And that was all that really mattered. Even when his uncle, Jasper, and his daughter, Diya, approached, he couldn't contain the laughter and just continued to hold his sides.
He greeted his uncle and daughter, making to scoop her up into his arms when he was stopped in his tracks. He blinked a few times, turning to stare at Emrys, and placed a hand over his mouth. His daughter just called Emrys, Aunt Rits, and the logic she made of the reason caused him to lose his control. He laughed, doubling over as he clutched his sides. Emrys asked if it was his doing, however; he was too busy laughing that he barely caught the statement. Once he collected himself, wiping away a few tears that collected in his eyes, he turned to face Emrys.
"Do what, dear cousin? Tell Diya that you are now considered Aunt?" he questioned, his lips slowly pulling into a sly smirk. He tapped his chin thoughtfully for a second. "Perhaps, perhaps not. But look at it this way, at least one of you likes playing for the bottom team," he spoke before taking off with as much speed as he could muster. Jasper could look after Diya for a bit. He had to hide from an angry Emrys at the moment, and an angry Emrys was only half the equivalent to an angry Erys. Perhaps just a smidge.
"You're not wrong, if you're thinking Keir said something. Keir always says something," Alarica stated as Zero leaned on the rock she was currently perched on. He rose a brow at this before turning back to the other two Alistair males. "Alright, Em, I think Keir's learned his lesson," she stated, sliding off the rock as she walked towards her brothers. She linked an arm around Keir, grabbed his other one, and hoisted him up so that he was leaning on her for support. She shot Zero a smirk as she walked away with Keir in tow. Her oldest brother didn't exactly know the word mercy, but then again...they were Alistair's, and the offspring of one Erys Alistair.
"I take it Keir said something," he repeated the words Alarica spoke moments ago, sending Emrys a questioning look. "And I take it had something to do with you and Vi, because you smell like him. If you and Vi want to keep it on the down low, I'd suggest learning not to smell like him, otherwise it won't just be Keir talking," he spoke, a smirk covering his face as he moved around the rock he was behind, and sat cross-legged on top of it.
Emrys popped his neck, the scowl still present on his face as he did so, though it did lighten slightly after watching his best friend for a few seconds. He didn't look as good as he'd used to, but he certainly didn't look like the walking dead anymore, and that was good. He sighed, though, at Zero's comment. He rolled his shoulders out, stretching things as he walked over to the rock, leaning on his stomach as he looked up at Zero.
"I don't really give a rat's ass if people talk, what I do care about is my little brother making some snarky comment about my sex life when he can't even figure out his own. What's between me and Vi has been and probably will be rather obvious. If he wants to not broadcast it, then so be it. I really don't care either way." He flashed Zero a grin. "Good to see you back on your feet again." Well, Zero had never been off of them, so to speak, but he knew what Emrys meant.
"Well, that's what little brothers are for. They try to make your life miserable, but you know he doesn't really mean anything about it. And Keir has a sex life? I wasn't even aware the kid had a life like that," he responded, the usual tease to his voice prominent. Trust his younger brother to do something like that, but Zero wasn't going to judge. His brother could do whatever he wanted to with whomever he wanted. Besides, he wouldn't admit it, but Zero was glad that Alden had found someone to attach himself to. Who knows, it might turn out good for the both of them.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he replied, sighing heavily and running a hand through his hair. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, running his hand through his hair. She used to do it in such a subtle way, that it caused a faint smile to appear back on his lips. "I still have a lot to do before I can fully stand back on my feet, but it seems I don't have to go it alone. I have an awesome family," he spoke, shooting Emrys a grin in the process.
"So," he began, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Who's the one on top?" he spoke, trying to contain the laughter that was spreading through his chest.
Perhaps thirty seconds later, Jasper, his granddaughter still astride his shoulders, came upon the sight of Emrys with the girl’s father in a headlock. The latter seemed to be taking this in good humor, judging from the uproarious laughter currently filling the air. The eldest member of the family blinked, shaking his head minutely, but with a similar good humor. “It would appear that your father has put his foot in his mouth again, so to speak,” he informed his granddaughter mildly, waiting patiently for their presence to be acknowledged by the other two.
Diya cocked her head, looking a bit confused. "Daddy shouldn't put his foot in his mouth. I would think that would taste bad..." Even so, she silently watched as her father and her uncle struggled a bit. Her father was laughing, and that was good. You couldn't laugh without smiling first, so now she only had her little brother to deal with.
Emrys let Zero go, the scowl softening, and then vanishing when he spotted his uncle Jasper with his niece. Well, she was more like a second cousin, but whatever. She called him uncle, anyway. Or rather, she did...
"Hi Daddy! Hi Aunt Rits." She giggled at them. Emrys drew a hand down his face. "Can I ask where you get Aunt from, Kitten?" Diya stuck her tongue out at him. "Silly, because of Uncle Ollie! You can't both be the guy, so one of you has to be the girl."
Something like a tired smile wormed its way onto Emrys's face as he turned to Zero. "You did this, didn't you?"
Zero couldn't help the laughter that spilled from his lips when Emrys attacked him. Honestly, he had that one coming, and he knew it. He knew the relationship status of his brother, and that his little brother would never be on bottom. He didn't care about that anyways, he had succeeded in doing something positive for his cousin though. He made Emrys something other than upset or angry. And that was all that really mattered. Even when his uncle, Jasper, and his daughter, Diya, approached, he couldn't contain the laughter and just continued to hold his sides.
He greeted his uncle and daughter, making to scoop her up into his arms when he was stopped in his tracks. He blinked a few times, turning to stare at Emrys, and placed a hand over his mouth. His daughter just called Emrys, Aunt Rits, and the logic she made of the reason caused him to lose his control. He laughed, doubling over as he clutched his sides. Emrys asked if it was his doing, however; he was too busy laughing that he barely caught the statement. Once he collected himself, wiping away a few tears that collected in his eyes, he turned to face Emrys.
"Do what, dear cousin? Tell Diya that you are now considered Aunt?" he questioned, his lips slowly pulling into a sly smirk. He tapped his chin thoughtfully for a second. "Perhaps, perhaps not. But look at it this way, at least one of you likes playing for the bottom team," he spoke before taking off with as much speed as he could muster. Jasper could look after Diya for a bit. He had to hide from an angry Emrys at the moment, and an angry Emrys was only half the equivalent to an angry Erys. Perhaps just a smidge.
When confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon, Helen had long ago learned, it was best to form the most likely hypothesis and then test for validity via experimentation.
She was not a scientist in the same way her sister was or Yuki had been—it had simply never interested her overmuch. She was an assassin, and that was what she did instead, what she trained and honed her skills to be good at. First at the direction of another, and then because it was the only thing she knew, and served the greater good that these people she cared about aimed for. An assassin, however, had no particular need to be able to name or explain her own emotions, and so it was perhaps natural that Helen had never learned to do this, and that they therefore sometimes mystified her. As now.
Helen was confused because she could not longer fit her feelings into the categories she had come to understand: friendship, dislike, ambivalence, and familial affection. She was ambivalent to most people. She disliked the Pantheon and most of the Council. She liked and felt a measure of friendship for most of the large family in whose company she spent most of her days. She would, perhaps, confess to some affection for her sister and her godchildren and perhaps Alarica and Leora. She had a deep respect for Jasper von Nacht, and for Alden Kuragari and Emrys Alistair, both of whom she’d worked with multiple times over the last seven years.
None of these categories adequately captured the nature of whatever it was she felt for Aryan. None of them included the way something in her chest tightened whenever she laid eyes on him, nor the way her pulse seemed to increase, almost as though his mere presence provoked an adrenaline response. It was closest to the fight-or-flight instinct brought on by what she recognized as danger, but the cadence of it was wrong. Her heart picked up speed, yes, and some strange kind of pinprick sensation seemed to come alive under her skin, but it was not the same. So, unsure how else to handle the situation, Helen had conducted research and formed a hypothesis. This had led her to suppose, for the moment at least, that she might be feeling what was labeled as attraction or desire. Though part of her wanted to scoff at the very notion—assassins did not have such feelings, and she believed herself fundamentally incapable of them—she could not deny that from the data available, it was the best hypothesis there was.
When it came to devising an experiment to test the hypothesis, however, the psychology and neuroscience literature she borrowed from her sister had proven inadequate, and Freya, with some trace of amusement, had recommended she attempt to find the best experimental design in an unlikely place—literature. So she had read a number of classic texts on the subject of desire: Shakespeare, Bronte, Austen, and similar human authors. And then she’d read some less-conventional literature that Alden seemed to think would help… and found herself red-faced and wide-eyed. It was perhaps better to stick with the classics for the design of her own experiment, lest she be incapable of actually going through with it. Doing this was going to be difficult already, and she had honestly no idea what the result was going to be.
But Helen had to know. It was important for her to understand if she were emotionally compromised, and it would be irresponsible of her to simply assume that she was not because it seemed improbable. So she presently found herself walking up the staircase to one of the more removed studies in the von Nacht home, this one quite near Aryan’s rooms. He was usually within, and today proved to be no exception. Entering quietly, she allowed the door to close this time—propriety was already about to be abandoned, at least on her part. She had little desire for anyone else to accidentally see that. Taking a deep breath to bolster her courage, she came to stand in front of his desk, folding her hands together behind her back.
“Aryan. There is… something I would tell you, if you have some time.” She suddenly didn’t want this to take place here. The study was too familiar a setting. She wasn't sure if that bothered her because she didn’t want to be reminded of this later or because she was hoping the experiment would not have a mundane result and therefore did not want it to occur in a mundane place. Perhaps more than anything, however, she felt a little… suffocated. “Perhaps you would consent to accompany me out-of-doors?” She felt a little awkward, asking, as it was probably an inconvenience, but… she needed to all the same.
For the most part, Aryan had caught up on his paperwork. At the moment, he was actually going through the book that his father had made up for his god-son. It was...interesting, to say the very least. While Aryan would never have any sort of reason to speak to the dead or know their language, it was an interesting tidbit of information, and Aryan had always had an insatiable curiosity. Besides, he might be able to help Bryer himself, if he, too, knew the language. Already he could speak complete sentences and he'd only picked up the book two hours ago.
His attention was arrested, however, with Helen's entrance. As always, he had to remind himself to breathe when he saw her. It truly was a curious feeling, that prickling just under his skin that told him she was near even before he would spot her. As it were, there seemed to be something on her mind, and she voiced as much. While her question was an odd one, it was nothing he couldn't oblige; he wasn't working, anyhow.
"Of course. Please don't ever think I do not have time, Helen. I will make it." That was largely true for all of his family, he wouldn't simply turn them away only because he was busy. He closed the book, standing up fluidly as the two of them ventured outside. They were walking through the apple orchard his mother had started the year Balthasar had been born when Aryan finally looked at her sideways, breaking the silence.
"There was something you wished to tell me?"
The orchard was really quite something, and at this time of year, the fruits were starting to ripen on the trees. She would not be surprised if Alarica was out here in a couple more weeks, picking apples fresh off the tree to eat. She really seemed to enjoy them. Helen wasn’t sure she could recall ever enjoying anything that much. Certainly not something so simple. It was something she might have envied, if she was really capable of envy as such.
But his voice broke her from her thoughts, and she was uncomfortably reminded of what she’d decided to do. It was funny—the scientific method was the process perhaps most divorced from emotion of all of them. She was unsure how well it would work when she was applying it to emotion, but it was all she had. Even so, she felt… somewhat obliged to actually say something about this, though honestly she had no idea what she was going to say until she was already speaking. “You are very kind to me,” she started, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of her as they walked. “After all this time, I should be accustomed to kindness. But I am not.”
A pause. “I am afraid that if you are always kind to me, I will begin to think things that I should not. Perhaps I already have.” Helen stopped walking, staring at the ground for a long moment and taking a deep breath. Swallowing thickly, she took a half-step to the side so as to be directly in front of him, much closer than she generally got to anyone. There was, in fact, less than a foot of distance between them, a fact she noted with some unease that she subsequently chose to ignore. If she was safe with anyone, she was safe with him. At least for the next few seconds.
Tilting her head, she met his eyes as well as she could. “Forgive me for this, but… there is something I must know.” Reaching upwards, slowly enough for him to back away if he so chose, she wrapped her fingers in the collar of his shirt and tugged downwards, raising herself onto her toes. There was a considerable amount of distance to be compensated for here—she barely reached the level of his chest when they were standing on level ground. But the distance was adequately covered, and with a final stretch, Helen pressed her lips with great gentleness to Aryan’s, her fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt.
It took Aryan a great effort not to raise an eyebrow in her general direction, and even so, the look on his face did give way to some confusion. He simply could not fathom what she meant by 'things she should not think'. What could she possibly mean? He found it hard to assume that she meant what he wanted her to mean, that possibly her feelings had begun, at least minutely, to equate with his. He didn't want to dare to assume that.
But then, his thoughts and musing were interrupted as she stepped up to him. She'd never been this close to him before, aside from the time he'd fallen asleep with his head in her lap. Oh dear, why was he thinking about that? And why did it make him want to blush and grin madly like Keir did when he thought of killing something?
Everything in his brain got derailed completely, however, when Helen hooked two fingers into the collar of his shirt, tugging him downward. He never would have guessed that this was her plan, and his eyes went wide as she kissed him. For a split second, everything just sort of stopped. He didn't breathe, or blink, or think. He just froze, his eyes finally slipping closed and his hands finding her shoulders. When they separated, his face split into that ridiculous grin he only seemed to possess when he was around her alone.
"Well...do I get to know what you found out?"
The kiss had been completely chaste—this was the word she’d learned for it. Even so, it had managed to ratchet her heartbeat up from slightly elevated to thundering in her chest. She almost couldn’t hear anything else around it, and that was something she’d not expected. Even something as simple as his hands on her shoulders or the smile on his face stoked the warm feeling building in her abdomen, and she felt a funny little flutter moving from her chest to her throat. She knew her face was quite red—the heat was obvious to feel.
Clearing her throat, she gently released his collar and nodded succinctly, glancing down and to the side. “I… am presently emotionally compromised with regards to you, Aryan.” it would seem she had more to apologize for that her actions—for the results had been even worse than she’d thought to anticipate. Even now, she had to fight to keep her hands at her sides as they were. She wanted with a fervency she had not believed herself capable of to kiss him again… and not chastely, either. “I understand if you do not wish me to serve as your assistant or a bodyguard anymore, considering.” What she could not and did not mention was that she also half-expected him to be upset with her for allowing this to happen. It would be entirely justifiable.
Helen had never felt her lack of emotional intelligence quite as keenly as she did in this moment.
Most people probably would have been quite confused with Helen's choice of words. Aryan, of course, was not. He'd been around her for far too long to be confused by something so simple as her manner of speaking. He did not straighten as she released him, though his hands did stay positioned on her shoulders.
His face pulled into a slight frown following what she said, and he knelt, so that he was closer to her level, and not hunched over her. He found himself wondering vaugely if this was how his father felt with his mother. He thought over his words before speaking. "Well...if that is truly what you wish, I can have it arranged, however; I would be very sorry to see you leave, Helen. You see..."
He smiled gently, his eyes a deep purple. "I have found myself emotionally compromised in regards to you, as well, my Dear." Frankly, he was quite glad she had said so, he probably never would have admitted it otherwise.
Whatever she had been expecting, it was not that.
Helen’s lips were parting to speak, though she knew not exactly what she planned to say, when a familiar and unwelcome scent hit her nose. Stiffening, her eyes widened, and she reached to her waist for her sword—which she realized with trepidation that she was not carrying. The venture outside had been unplanned, else she’d never have left without it, but now… fear flashed behind her eyes. “Aryan, you have to go get the others. He’s coming.” She knew he was not an aggressor by his nature, and she could not help but want to keep him as far from Baldr as possible.
But she was also incapable of killing Baldr on her own, especially unarmed. Even so, she didn’t know why he was here, and there was no mistaking that they’d need help-- “I am rather afraid that he is already present, dear child,” the head of the Pantheon’s tones were smooth, cordial, even a trace apologetic, but there was no mistaking that malice in his eyes, and she swung round to face him, setting her jaw firmly. This seemed to amuse the man, and he shook his head slightly. “You know what I could do to you with a simple touch, and yet you stand rather than run. I suppose I should expect no less, from the Queen.”
Helen’s brows drew together—she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d never been Queen of anything, nor did she have any desire to be such. But Baldr was ignoring her now, speaking over her shoulder to Aryan. “Ah, the youngest one. A shame, about your inheritance. Noble blood will do that, sometimes. I was rather hoping to test myself against your father, or perhaps your brother, but it is best I do not for now. Step aside from the Queen, please—she is coming with me.”
Aryan had stood abruptly when the scent hit his nose, his eyes narrowing dangerously. He, of course, knew exactly what Baldr meant by saying 'Queen'. He'd read her file times beyond count in the last seven years, still with more questions than answers. He also did not miss the slight against the family, though it was the slight against his mother in particular that angered him. He had heard Helen's request, that he get the others, but...
He couldn't just leave her, he wouldn't leave her. Even so, he was no fighter, and she was unarmed. This quite possibly could not get much worse. Where was Alden when you needed him? Shadows had begun to wind themselves around Aryan's immediate vicinity. Had he been looking in a mirror, he also would have noticed that his eyes began glowing, something that did not usually happen. As it were, he was not, so he was quite unaware of the occurance.
"I think not."
Baldr tilted his head slightly to one side, regarding Aryan with something like mild interest, as one might examine a bug on a glass slide. “You’ve consumed it,” he said simply, with a trace of amusement. “Milord won’t like that much—he is rather… possessive. Alas. I would be interested in the results, but there simply is no time.” Vanishing suddenly, Baldr appeared right in front of Aryan, reaching out with both his index and middle digits, laying the tips of the gloved fingers on the youngest von Nacht’s forehead. “I’ll contact you when he permits you to try and retrieve her.”
The best way to describe the next sensation would have been something like an electrical shock directly the brain: agony for a split second, and then only blessed oblivion, and Aryan fell to the ground. Or he would have, if Helen had not reacted and caught him, lowering him carefully. “You have a choice, Hel. You come with me now, or I kill him. You know I’m capable of it, and you know you could not stop me.” She still looked like she wanted to fight him, and so he took another step towards Aryan, smirking when she placed her body between them.
“You will not touch him again,” she promised, and Baldr raised a brow.
“As you wish, my Queen,” the cold malice underneath the cordiality disturbed her, and he knew it. But he had no need to kill the young one—he’d be responsible for delivering the message, after all. He started to walk away, but paused when she did not immediately follow. She had knelt beside the prone man, tugging the ribbon from her hair and tying it quickly around his wrist. He would confess to some amusement at the fact that she wept when she did it. It seemed Theodor’s little puppet had discovered her heart after all.
It was really too bad there would be nothing left of it by the time they saw her next.
She was not a scientist in the same way her sister was or Yuki had been—it had simply never interested her overmuch. She was an assassin, and that was what she did instead, what she trained and honed her skills to be good at. First at the direction of another, and then because it was the only thing she knew, and served the greater good that these people she cared about aimed for. An assassin, however, had no particular need to be able to name or explain her own emotions, and so it was perhaps natural that Helen had never learned to do this, and that they therefore sometimes mystified her. As now.
Helen was confused because she could not longer fit her feelings into the categories she had come to understand: friendship, dislike, ambivalence, and familial affection. She was ambivalent to most people. She disliked the Pantheon and most of the Council. She liked and felt a measure of friendship for most of the large family in whose company she spent most of her days. She would, perhaps, confess to some affection for her sister and her godchildren and perhaps Alarica and Leora. She had a deep respect for Jasper von Nacht, and for Alden Kuragari and Emrys Alistair, both of whom she’d worked with multiple times over the last seven years.
None of these categories adequately captured the nature of whatever it was she felt for Aryan. None of them included the way something in her chest tightened whenever she laid eyes on him, nor the way her pulse seemed to increase, almost as though his mere presence provoked an adrenaline response. It was closest to the fight-or-flight instinct brought on by what she recognized as danger, but the cadence of it was wrong. Her heart picked up speed, yes, and some strange kind of pinprick sensation seemed to come alive under her skin, but it was not the same. So, unsure how else to handle the situation, Helen had conducted research and formed a hypothesis. This had led her to suppose, for the moment at least, that she might be feeling what was labeled as attraction or desire. Though part of her wanted to scoff at the very notion—assassins did not have such feelings, and she believed herself fundamentally incapable of them—she could not deny that from the data available, it was the best hypothesis there was.
When it came to devising an experiment to test the hypothesis, however, the psychology and neuroscience literature she borrowed from her sister had proven inadequate, and Freya, with some trace of amusement, had recommended she attempt to find the best experimental design in an unlikely place—literature. So she had read a number of classic texts on the subject of desire: Shakespeare, Bronte, Austen, and similar human authors. And then she’d read some less-conventional literature that Alden seemed to think would help… and found herself red-faced and wide-eyed. It was perhaps better to stick with the classics for the design of her own experiment, lest she be incapable of actually going through with it. Doing this was going to be difficult already, and she had honestly no idea what the result was going to be.
But Helen had to know. It was important for her to understand if she were emotionally compromised, and it would be irresponsible of her to simply assume that she was not because it seemed improbable. So she presently found herself walking up the staircase to one of the more removed studies in the von Nacht home, this one quite near Aryan’s rooms. He was usually within, and today proved to be no exception. Entering quietly, she allowed the door to close this time—propriety was already about to be abandoned, at least on her part. She had little desire for anyone else to accidentally see that. Taking a deep breath to bolster her courage, she came to stand in front of his desk, folding her hands together behind her back.
“Aryan. There is… something I would tell you, if you have some time.” She suddenly didn’t want this to take place here. The study was too familiar a setting. She wasn't sure if that bothered her because she didn’t want to be reminded of this later or because she was hoping the experiment would not have a mundane result and therefore did not want it to occur in a mundane place. Perhaps more than anything, however, she felt a little… suffocated. “Perhaps you would consent to accompany me out-of-doors?” She felt a little awkward, asking, as it was probably an inconvenience, but… she needed to all the same.
For the most part, Aryan had caught up on his paperwork. At the moment, he was actually going through the book that his father had made up for his god-son. It was...interesting, to say the very least. While Aryan would never have any sort of reason to speak to the dead or know their language, it was an interesting tidbit of information, and Aryan had always had an insatiable curiosity. Besides, he might be able to help Bryer himself, if he, too, knew the language. Already he could speak complete sentences and he'd only picked up the book two hours ago.
His attention was arrested, however, with Helen's entrance. As always, he had to remind himself to breathe when he saw her. It truly was a curious feeling, that prickling just under his skin that told him she was near even before he would spot her. As it were, there seemed to be something on her mind, and she voiced as much. While her question was an odd one, it was nothing he couldn't oblige; he wasn't working, anyhow.
"Of course. Please don't ever think I do not have time, Helen. I will make it." That was largely true for all of his family, he wouldn't simply turn them away only because he was busy. He closed the book, standing up fluidly as the two of them ventured outside. They were walking through the apple orchard his mother had started the year Balthasar had been born when Aryan finally looked at her sideways, breaking the silence.
"There was something you wished to tell me?"
The orchard was really quite something, and at this time of year, the fruits were starting to ripen on the trees. She would not be surprised if Alarica was out here in a couple more weeks, picking apples fresh off the tree to eat. She really seemed to enjoy them. Helen wasn’t sure she could recall ever enjoying anything that much. Certainly not something so simple. It was something she might have envied, if she was really capable of envy as such.
But his voice broke her from her thoughts, and she was uncomfortably reminded of what she’d decided to do. It was funny—the scientific method was the process perhaps most divorced from emotion of all of them. She was unsure how well it would work when she was applying it to emotion, but it was all she had. Even so, she felt… somewhat obliged to actually say something about this, though honestly she had no idea what she was going to say until she was already speaking. “You are very kind to me,” she started, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of her as they walked. “After all this time, I should be accustomed to kindness. But I am not.”
A pause. “I am afraid that if you are always kind to me, I will begin to think things that I should not. Perhaps I already have.” Helen stopped walking, staring at the ground for a long moment and taking a deep breath. Swallowing thickly, she took a half-step to the side so as to be directly in front of him, much closer than she generally got to anyone. There was, in fact, less than a foot of distance between them, a fact she noted with some unease that she subsequently chose to ignore. If she was safe with anyone, she was safe with him. At least for the next few seconds.
Tilting her head, she met his eyes as well as she could. “Forgive me for this, but… there is something I must know.” Reaching upwards, slowly enough for him to back away if he so chose, she wrapped her fingers in the collar of his shirt and tugged downwards, raising herself onto her toes. There was a considerable amount of distance to be compensated for here—she barely reached the level of his chest when they were standing on level ground. But the distance was adequately covered, and with a final stretch, Helen pressed her lips with great gentleness to Aryan’s, her fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt.
It took Aryan a great effort not to raise an eyebrow in her general direction, and even so, the look on his face did give way to some confusion. He simply could not fathom what she meant by 'things she should not think'. What could she possibly mean? He found it hard to assume that she meant what he wanted her to mean, that possibly her feelings had begun, at least minutely, to equate with his. He didn't want to dare to assume that.
But then, his thoughts and musing were interrupted as she stepped up to him. She'd never been this close to him before, aside from the time he'd fallen asleep with his head in her lap. Oh dear, why was he thinking about that? And why did it make him want to blush and grin madly like Keir did when he thought of killing something?
Everything in his brain got derailed completely, however, when Helen hooked two fingers into the collar of his shirt, tugging him downward. He never would have guessed that this was her plan, and his eyes went wide as she kissed him. For a split second, everything just sort of stopped. He didn't breathe, or blink, or think. He just froze, his eyes finally slipping closed and his hands finding her shoulders. When they separated, his face split into that ridiculous grin he only seemed to possess when he was around her alone.
"Well...do I get to know what you found out?"
The kiss had been completely chaste—this was the word she’d learned for it. Even so, it had managed to ratchet her heartbeat up from slightly elevated to thundering in her chest. She almost couldn’t hear anything else around it, and that was something she’d not expected. Even something as simple as his hands on her shoulders or the smile on his face stoked the warm feeling building in her abdomen, and she felt a funny little flutter moving from her chest to her throat. She knew her face was quite red—the heat was obvious to feel.
Clearing her throat, she gently released his collar and nodded succinctly, glancing down and to the side. “I… am presently emotionally compromised with regards to you, Aryan.” it would seem she had more to apologize for that her actions—for the results had been even worse than she’d thought to anticipate. Even now, she had to fight to keep her hands at her sides as they were. She wanted with a fervency she had not believed herself capable of to kiss him again… and not chastely, either. “I understand if you do not wish me to serve as your assistant or a bodyguard anymore, considering.” What she could not and did not mention was that she also half-expected him to be upset with her for allowing this to happen. It would be entirely justifiable.
Helen had never felt her lack of emotional intelligence quite as keenly as she did in this moment.
Most people probably would have been quite confused with Helen's choice of words. Aryan, of course, was not. He'd been around her for far too long to be confused by something so simple as her manner of speaking. He did not straighten as she released him, though his hands did stay positioned on her shoulders.
His face pulled into a slight frown following what she said, and he knelt, so that he was closer to her level, and not hunched over her. He found himself wondering vaugely if this was how his father felt with his mother. He thought over his words before speaking. "Well...if that is truly what you wish, I can have it arranged, however; I would be very sorry to see you leave, Helen. You see..."
He smiled gently, his eyes a deep purple. "I have found myself emotionally compromised in regards to you, as well, my Dear." Frankly, he was quite glad she had said so, he probably never would have admitted it otherwise.
Whatever she had been expecting, it was not that.
Helen’s lips were parting to speak, though she knew not exactly what she planned to say, when a familiar and unwelcome scent hit her nose. Stiffening, her eyes widened, and she reached to her waist for her sword—which she realized with trepidation that she was not carrying. The venture outside had been unplanned, else she’d never have left without it, but now… fear flashed behind her eyes. “Aryan, you have to go get the others. He’s coming.” She knew he was not an aggressor by his nature, and she could not help but want to keep him as far from Baldr as possible.
But she was also incapable of killing Baldr on her own, especially unarmed. Even so, she didn’t know why he was here, and there was no mistaking that they’d need help-- “I am rather afraid that he is already present, dear child,” the head of the Pantheon’s tones were smooth, cordial, even a trace apologetic, but there was no mistaking that malice in his eyes, and she swung round to face him, setting her jaw firmly. This seemed to amuse the man, and he shook his head slightly. “You know what I could do to you with a simple touch, and yet you stand rather than run. I suppose I should expect no less, from the Queen.”
Helen’s brows drew together—she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d never been Queen of anything, nor did she have any desire to be such. But Baldr was ignoring her now, speaking over her shoulder to Aryan. “Ah, the youngest one. A shame, about your inheritance. Noble blood will do that, sometimes. I was rather hoping to test myself against your father, or perhaps your brother, but it is best I do not for now. Step aside from the Queen, please—she is coming with me.”
Aryan had stood abruptly when the scent hit his nose, his eyes narrowing dangerously. He, of course, knew exactly what Baldr meant by saying 'Queen'. He'd read her file times beyond count in the last seven years, still with more questions than answers. He also did not miss the slight against the family, though it was the slight against his mother in particular that angered him. He had heard Helen's request, that he get the others, but...
He couldn't just leave her, he wouldn't leave her. Even so, he was no fighter, and she was unarmed. This quite possibly could not get much worse. Where was Alden when you needed him? Shadows had begun to wind themselves around Aryan's immediate vicinity. Had he been looking in a mirror, he also would have noticed that his eyes began glowing, something that did not usually happen. As it were, he was not, so he was quite unaware of the occurance.
"I think not."
Baldr tilted his head slightly to one side, regarding Aryan with something like mild interest, as one might examine a bug on a glass slide. “You’ve consumed it,” he said simply, with a trace of amusement. “Milord won’t like that much—he is rather… possessive. Alas. I would be interested in the results, but there simply is no time.” Vanishing suddenly, Baldr appeared right in front of Aryan, reaching out with both his index and middle digits, laying the tips of the gloved fingers on the youngest von Nacht’s forehead. “I’ll contact you when he permits you to try and retrieve her.”
The best way to describe the next sensation would have been something like an electrical shock directly the brain: agony for a split second, and then only blessed oblivion, and Aryan fell to the ground. Or he would have, if Helen had not reacted and caught him, lowering him carefully. “You have a choice, Hel. You come with me now, or I kill him. You know I’m capable of it, and you know you could not stop me.” She still looked like she wanted to fight him, and so he took another step towards Aryan, smirking when she placed her body between them.
“You will not touch him again,” she promised, and Baldr raised a brow.
“As you wish, my Queen,” the cold malice underneath the cordiality disturbed her, and he knew it. But he had no need to kill the young one—he’d be responsible for delivering the message, after all. He started to walk away, but paused when she did not immediately follow. She had knelt beside the prone man, tugging the ribbon from her hair and tying it quickly around his wrist. He would confess to some amusement at the fact that she wept when she did it. It seemed Theodor’s little puppet had discovered her heart after all.
It was really too bad there would be nothing left of it by the time they saw her next.
Aryan von Nacht had never experienced pain quite like the needle-sharp, electrifying one he felt in his head. He'd been in darkness for a while, but now, he seemed to be coming to. There was a nagging sensation that something was wrong. It was a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling, and he simply couldn't put his finger on it. Suddenly, the pain in his head surged, and he remembered. Helen, the orchard, Baldr. He was taking her. He couldn't let her go.
While he was not quite conscious, but certainly beginning to stir, the orchard, once peaceful, suddenly surged with shadows, the dark tentacles writhing in anger and fear. For a moment, they all simply wriggled around madly, but then, sensing the presence near that was not their master, they did what they knew: they attacked, surging on the presence with enough force to throw them into the wall.
Within mere fractions of a second, Aryan was up and in front of them, his normally calm purple eyes a very dangerous shade of crimson, glowing. His face twisted into one of pure, unadultered rage, his hand at the other's throat. It was something wholly unlike him.
Balthasar had intended nothing more malicious than taking a walk in the orchard, mostly to check on this year’s apples, but when he had scented his brother strongly, and Helen and someone he did not know more weakly, he diverted his original course to meet up with them, curious as to what was going on. If it had been just the two he knew alone, he would have left them be, of course, but the presence of someone he did not know made him wary.
He was perhaps not paying the utmost attention to his surroundings, however, too absorbed in his thoughts, and so when the shadowy tendrils formed around him, he was caught completely off-guard and thrown into the nearest wall of the house. “What the—?” he was prevented from completing the sentence by his brother, who appeared in front of him, winding his fingers around Balthasar’s throat, his eyes a deep red and alight with murderous intent. That, more than anything, was what shocked Balthasar—Aryan was quite possibly the least violent person he knew, with the exception of Aunt Ava.
“Ary? What’s wrong?” Never in his life would he ever believe that his brother would mean him such harm if he were within his right mind, so the obvious conclusion was that Aryan was not in his right mind at all. Balthasar’s left hand closed over his brother’s wrist, forcing the hand back and away from his throat as gently as he possibly could while still actually achieving the result. His palm had closed over something soft, something that felt like… velvet? Why was that so familiar?
It clicked, and Balthasar’s eyes widened. “What happened to Helen? Where is she? Who else was here?”
Pain. Rage. Fear. These were the things surging through Aryan's mind, not rational thought. His brother's words barely registered in his mind, nor his touch. Indeed, it was her name that seemed to snap him back into reality, and he blinked rapidly before a pandemonium of emotions played across his face and his eyes. Shock, pain, fear, and above all, a look that spoke highly of defeat. It was one that did not suit him.
He registered his brother's question, however; he found himself unable to speak as the events replayed in his mind. It was then that he realized that there was something pressing into the skin of his wrist where Balthasar still held it. It felt oddly familiar. His eyes widened slightly as he realized that it was her hair ribbon.
All light went out of his eyes then, they that were normally such a vibrant purple, dulled and flattened into a whiteish grey, utterly lifeless. She was gone. She was gone, and she'd left willingly. There was a strange, burning sensation behind his eyeballs as Aryan sank to his knees, and he shut them tightly, as if to shut out the reality that he did not want to face.
Aryan had only cried perhaps five times in his natural life, and none of the occurences had been in the presence of his elder brother. This was not the current case. Had it been some other situation, he might have tried to hide the fact that tears were streaming down his face, however; it would have been impossible. If the heaving of his shoulders had not given it away, the fact that he was barely able to speak between gasping breaths would have.
"She's gone. Baldr took her."
Balthasar’s back hit the wall again, and he slid down it so that he was sitting on the ground, his knees angled upwards and something of a shell-shocked look passing over his face. It was partly just the overt display of raw emotion from Aryan, who was not given to them. The fact that he was reduced to this was unsettling for his brother, who felt himself oddly useless and unable to help, which just made him angry. And it was the anger that built. Someone had hurt his brother. Someone had taken Helen, a person he and the rest all considered to be a member or the family. And all he could think was not again.
Baldr. The name didn’t ring any bells, aside from the obvious mythology reference marking him as Pantheon. But the smell—now that he actually took a second, he recognized the scent—dimly, from almost a year ago, at that battle in Paris. He’d been the one who approached with the clone of himself. It didn’t make any sense. What on earth would the Pantheon want with Helen now? They hadn’t made any obvious efforts to recapture either her or Freya in a hundred-some years since they’d first left.
Leaning his head back against the wall, Balthsar exhaled a frustrated breath. “Fuck.” It was not often that the von Nacht heir saw reason to swear, but if anytime was appropriate, this was it. What were they supposed to do? He was willing to bet the scent trail disappeared not far from here—if Baldr was smart, and he certainly seemed to be, he would have had Freyr waiting to vanish all three of them. The chances of finding her were slim to none. A muscle in his jaw jumped, and he lowered his gaze to his brother, his heart aching for Aryan’s obvious pain. If someone had taken the woman he loved… Balthasar was pretty sure he’d be in a similar state.
Abruptly, he stood, stooping to grasp his brother gently by the upper arm and help him stand, too. It didn’t matter if he was standing on his own or almost entirely leaning on Balthasar—this kind of thing was what family was for. He made eye contact, trying not to flinch at the fact that all the vibrant color had drained right from Aryan’s, and when he spoke, it was firmly. “Then we take her back,” he said, fighting to keep his tone level. “We find her, and we take her back, Ary. Helen’s strong, you know that. She can hold out until we find her. And we will find her.”
Aryan had managed to at least regain control of his body enough to stand on his own feet when Balthasar pulled him up, though his eyes and face still held that dead look, one that almost matched the one Zero had worn in the months after Yuki had died. He heard his brother's words, and he wanted desperately to believe him. No, he had to believe him. They would get Helen back. He couldn't fathom the reality otherwise. But in order to do so, he would need to get stronger, and for that, he needed help.
Something, some slight spark of his usual self seemed to flash behind his eyes as he remembered something, something Baldr had said to him before he had blacked out completely. "He told me that he would contact us when we were permitted to retrieve her." His voice was flat. "We need to find her before then."
That… didn’t sound promising at all, actually. Permitted to retrieve her? Just what state would she be in by then? Knowing that these thoughts would not help his brother at all, Balthasar nodded his agreement instead. “Right. We’ll get Alden and Uncle Morgan right on it—they can find anyone, even the ones that don’t want to be found.” As naturally as he could, he guided his brother inside. He probably needed to rest still—and Balthasar needed to do what every confused son or daughter did when things got to be a bit too much to handle on their own—he needed to ask his parents.
While he was not quite conscious, but certainly beginning to stir, the orchard, once peaceful, suddenly surged with shadows, the dark tentacles writhing in anger and fear. For a moment, they all simply wriggled around madly, but then, sensing the presence near that was not their master, they did what they knew: they attacked, surging on the presence with enough force to throw them into the wall.
Within mere fractions of a second, Aryan was up and in front of them, his normally calm purple eyes a very dangerous shade of crimson, glowing. His face twisted into one of pure, unadultered rage, his hand at the other's throat. It was something wholly unlike him.
Balthasar had intended nothing more malicious than taking a walk in the orchard, mostly to check on this year’s apples, but when he had scented his brother strongly, and Helen and someone he did not know more weakly, he diverted his original course to meet up with them, curious as to what was going on. If it had been just the two he knew alone, he would have left them be, of course, but the presence of someone he did not know made him wary.
He was perhaps not paying the utmost attention to his surroundings, however, too absorbed in his thoughts, and so when the shadowy tendrils formed around him, he was caught completely off-guard and thrown into the nearest wall of the house. “What the—?” he was prevented from completing the sentence by his brother, who appeared in front of him, winding his fingers around Balthasar’s throat, his eyes a deep red and alight with murderous intent. That, more than anything, was what shocked Balthasar—Aryan was quite possibly the least violent person he knew, with the exception of Aunt Ava.
“Ary? What’s wrong?” Never in his life would he ever believe that his brother would mean him such harm if he were within his right mind, so the obvious conclusion was that Aryan was not in his right mind at all. Balthasar’s left hand closed over his brother’s wrist, forcing the hand back and away from his throat as gently as he possibly could while still actually achieving the result. His palm had closed over something soft, something that felt like… velvet? Why was that so familiar?
It clicked, and Balthasar’s eyes widened. “What happened to Helen? Where is she? Who else was here?”
Pain. Rage. Fear. These were the things surging through Aryan's mind, not rational thought. His brother's words barely registered in his mind, nor his touch. Indeed, it was her name that seemed to snap him back into reality, and he blinked rapidly before a pandemonium of emotions played across his face and his eyes. Shock, pain, fear, and above all, a look that spoke highly of defeat. It was one that did not suit him.
He registered his brother's question, however; he found himself unable to speak as the events replayed in his mind. It was then that he realized that there was something pressing into the skin of his wrist where Balthasar still held it. It felt oddly familiar. His eyes widened slightly as he realized that it was her hair ribbon.
All light went out of his eyes then, they that were normally such a vibrant purple, dulled and flattened into a whiteish grey, utterly lifeless. She was gone. She was gone, and she'd left willingly. There was a strange, burning sensation behind his eyeballs as Aryan sank to his knees, and he shut them tightly, as if to shut out the reality that he did not want to face.
Aryan had only cried perhaps five times in his natural life, and none of the occurences had been in the presence of his elder brother. This was not the current case. Had it been some other situation, he might have tried to hide the fact that tears were streaming down his face, however; it would have been impossible. If the heaving of his shoulders had not given it away, the fact that he was barely able to speak between gasping breaths would have.
"She's gone. Baldr took her."
Balthasar’s back hit the wall again, and he slid down it so that he was sitting on the ground, his knees angled upwards and something of a shell-shocked look passing over his face. It was partly just the overt display of raw emotion from Aryan, who was not given to them. The fact that he was reduced to this was unsettling for his brother, who felt himself oddly useless and unable to help, which just made him angry. And it was the anger that built. Someone had hurt his brother. Someone had taken Helen, a person he and the rest all considered to be a member or the family. And all he could think was not again.
Baldr. The name didn’t ring any bells, aside from the obvious mythology reference marking him as Pantheon. But the smell—now that he actually took a second, he recognized the scent—dimly, from almost a year ago, at that battle in Paris. He’d been the one who approached with the clone of himself. It didn’t make any sense. What on earth would the Pantheon want with Helen now? They hadn’t made any obvious efforts to recapture either her or Freya in a hundred-some years since they’d first left.
Leaning his head back against the wall, Balthsar exhaled a frustrated breath. “Fuck.” It was not often that the von Nacht heir saw reason to swear, but if anytime was appropriate, this was it. What were they supposed to do? He was willing to bet the scent trail disappeared not far from here—if Baldr was smart, and he certainly seemed to be, he would have had Freyr waiting to vanish all three of them. The chances of finding her were slim to none. A muscle in his jaw jumped, and he lowered his gaze to his brother, his heart aching for Aryan’s obvious pain. If someone had taken the woman he loved… Balthasar was pretty sure he’d be in a similar state.
Abruptly, he stood, stooping to grasp his brother gently by the upper arm and help him stand, too. It didn’t matter if he was standing on his own or almost entirely leaning on Balthasar—this kind of thing was what family was for. He made eye contact, trying not to flinch at the fact that all the vibrant color had drained right from Aryan’s, and when he spoke, it was firmly. “Then we take her back,” he said, fighting to keep his tone level. “We find her, and we take her back, Ary. Helen’s strong, you know that. She can hold out until we find her. And we will find her.”
Aryan had managed to at least regain control of his body enough to stand on his own feet when Balthasar pulled him up, though his eyes and face still held that dead look, one that almost matched the one Zero had worn in the months after Yuki had died. He heard his brother's words, and he wanted desperately to believe him. No, he had to believe him. They would get Helen back. He couldn't fathom the reality otherwise. But in order to do so, he would need to get stronger, and for that, he needed help.
Something, some slight spark of his usual self seemed to flash behind his eyes as he remembered something, something Baldr had said to him before he had blacked out completely. "He told me that he would contact us when we were permitted to retrieve her." His voice was flat. "We need to find her before then."
That… didn’t sound promising at all, actually. Permitted to retrieve her? Just what state would she be in by then? Knowing that these thoughts would not help his brother at all, Balthasar nodded his agreement instead. “Right. We’ll get Alden and Uncle Morgan right on it—they can find anyone, even the ones that don’t want to be found.” As naturally as he could, he guided his brother inside. He probably needed to rest still—and Balthasar needed to do what every confused son or daughter did when things got to be a bit too much to handle on their own—he needed to ask his parents.
Nikki let out a soft sigh, running a hand through her hair, pulling it back and up into a ponytail in the process. A few locks from her bangs escaped instantly, and she left them there. She could never do anything with them, and she'd long since given up on trying. It had been a month since Baldr had attacked her youngest son and taken Helen. For the first few days, Nikki had been rather worried that she would lose her son, however; he had soon re-emerged. While he was not himself, he was at least communicating with the rest of the family. Nikki did not have to guess at what her son was going through; she had gone through the same thing when Jasper had left with Theodor over a century ago. It caused immense heartache, suffering, and a deep feeling of uselessness. They did it to protect them, just as Yuki had left to protect Zero. It seemed the entire family was hopeless. Nikki could only hope that her son did not become as cold and reckless as she had.
It seemed she worried for nothing. Now, he seemed to actually be coming back to them, and would actually smile in the presence of Bryer and Diya, though a part of Nikki felt this was only because Diya seemed to have taken Vincent's statement to heart; the little girl insisted that she had to smile for everyone who wasn't. Nikki had found this quite amusing. She had also been a little surprised by Aryan, who, a week ago, had come into Jasper's study and asked his help, to train. There had been...a very strong look of resolve on the young man's face when he'd asked. Nikki smiled softly at the memory.
Today was the day, as it were, and the von Nacht female found herself positioned on top of the very same boulder Alarica normally sat on, her chin propped in her hand as a faint smile lighted her face, watching her husband and her two sons out on the practice field. There was something...oddly comforting about it, really, watching the three of them together. She could not recall ever having seen such, unless you counted when Aryan helped them train. Now, it was the elder two helping the younger, the one who hated fighting, yet now understood the importance of it, of strength, and of being there for the ones you loved most. It made her immensely proud.
“Better,” Jasper said, his tone threaded with subtle approval. For one who was generally not disposed to violence, Aryan was learning quickly. Well, part of that was because his father’s training methods were rather brutal, all things considered. Knowing that his son had a lot to learn in a very short time, Jasper had emulated Tyr’s approach to training, what was to put the life of the student in very real danger until he learned to adjust. He knew how much Aryan could handle, and he nor Balthasar never used so much force as to overwhelm him completely, but they used enough that his only choices were get stronger or get painfully injured. It brought him no pleasure to do so, and he hated seeing Aryan suffer, but the fact was, Aryan was suffering regardless of what happened to him on the practice field. At least this way, there was a chance it would end in the successful rescue of Helen.
Freya was devastated, and had taken to lending her talents and knowledge to Alden, who was surprisingly enraged himself, and Morgan to find the girl before they were allowed to. But this was something tangible that Jasper and equally importantly Balthasar could do to help, and therefore they spent as many hours a day doing it as Aryan could tolerate, and a few more planning what they needed to do next in the regimen. Balthasar was just as serious about helping his brother as Jasper was about assisting his son, and he let his elder do most of the sparring practice, as now. Aryan’s swordsmanship was improving rapidly, but he was teaching it mostly as a method of teaching combat movement and reflexes. As with all the male members of their family, his primary asset in any combat situation would be his powers, not mere weaponry.
That was the signal to stop, and Balthasar disengaged, stepping back with a smile and inclining his torso in the martial artists’ gesture of respect. The older von Nacht’s sword slid home in its sheath with a gentle rasp, and he turned an enquiring glance to his father. Usually they were at this for a few more hours at least, but Jasper shook his head. “Today we’re going to do something a little different.” He’d spoken with Freya after he got the full story from Aryan regarding everything Baldr had said, and a conversation with Alden had given him an interesting hypothesis. Baldr had apparently been amused that Aryan had consumed it, and given that the only thing vampires regularly consumed was blood, it made sense that he was talking about that, especially in light of his reference to possessiveness on the part of whomever his lord was. Alden had pointed out that at one point, Aryan had needed blood to survive and Helen had volunteered it, though his son had been half dead at the time and might not remember very well.
That had put a thoughtful look on Freya’s face, and after a few minutes staring at a few of Helen’s medical charts, she admitted that it was impossible to tell from the data she had whether or not the girl’s blood had some unusual property. He presumed it would not be anything like the Aegis, because the effects would have long worn off by now if so, and Baldr had seemed interested in the ‘results,’ as he’d put it. So Jasper decided that he might as well try himself. If it was nothing, it was nothing. Either way, what they were about to do would be a useful exercise.
“I think it’s about time to find your upper limit, Aryan,” he said thoughtfully. “Gravity first. Create the strongest field you can on Balthasar.” His eldest grinned at that, rolling his shoulders and unstrapping his sword from his back, tossing it to his father, who caught it in one hand and laid it down on the grass outside of the impact zone. Both he and Balthasar were capable of breaking such objects with gravity fields; he suspected that with effort, Aryan would be no different in this respect.
The motion of rolling out his shoulders was one Aryan mirrored, though for probably different reasons. After the first few days, he'd actually been sore. He hadn't even been aware that vampires could be sore, though it probably had not helped that he'd been neglecting himself, either. No longer, however; his mother had seen to that. At least this was doing something, accomplishing something, and he was no longer simply sitting there.
When his father told him to create a gravity field on his brother, he exhaled slightly. Gravity had never been his strongest suit, though it had come rather naturally to him. In battle, however, he preffered his shadows more than anything. Even so, he was not one to simply blatantly refuse, so silently, he turned to Balthasar, and did as he was told. The effect, on both himself and his brother, was almost instantaneous.
Nikki pulled her head up, surprise lacing through her features. She'd watched both her husband and her eldest son use their control over gravity a million times a piece, yet it had never quite produced that effect on the caster. At least, not that she could remember. Aryan's eyes were glowing, and as far as she could tell, the gravatic field that he produced was much stronger than he intended it to be, or at least, stronger than he thought he was capable of.
Balthasar’s eyes went wide, and he was so surprised by the sudden strength of the field that he actually fell over, his uncentered balance tipping him to the left. Fortunately, he just managed to avoid plastering his face to the ground by catching himself with his arms, both of which left dents up to his elbows in the dirt beneath him. That was a hell of a gravity field, for someone who never used them. Using one of his own to alleviate the pressure, he stood back up, this time centering himself better, though his feet still left deeper prints than his weight warranted.
“Ha, that’s awesome!” he said with a grin, genuinely delighted that his brother was doing so well. “How much more have you got, Ary? If you can dish it, I can take it,” he said, the vaguest hint of challenge in his tone.
Jasper sighed through his nose, shaking his head good-naturedly. It was just like Balthasar to take something like this with so much enthusiasm. He’d always taken great joy in watching other people flourish. Jasper was not unhappy, either, but he was somewhat concerned, largely because Aryan did not seem to have planned to use so much force initially. The oldest von Nacht was well aware of the physics of gravity—he’d had to learn it to avoid killing himself with his powers, but he wondered…
“Aryan. Make the field as small and compressed as you can, over there,” he pointed to the space to Balthasar’s left. Folding both hands behind his back, he ran some quick mental math, then decided the best description he could give would be the more metaphorical one. “Give it all the force you have, and then weave it with your umbrakinesis. Focus both on the same spot.” Aryan’s mix of powers was unique, and as a result, he might be able to combine them in a way that nobody else could. If so, it may well be the edge he needed to survive, and to protect the people he loved. Jasper would do everything he could to give his son that edge.
Aryan raised an eyebrow at his brother, shaking his own head. Really, Balthasar was just...too enthusiastic about some things. Still, he had surprised himself. Almost forcing Balthasar over and off of his feet was no easy task, even catching him off guard. When his father spoke again, however, his eyebrows furrowed. That...was an odd request, though he nonetheless did as he was told.
The concentrated gravatic field was easy enough, it was combining it with the shadows that he wasn't sure about. It would seem that he didn't have to, though, the shadows seemed to know what they were doing all on their own as the field became visible, turning an inky black, and expanding. That caught Aryan off-gaurd, and he blinked rapidly. He was not entirely sure what he had created, and he didn't have time to figure it out, either.
His mind gave out on him then, the combined exaughstion of both sparring with his brother and then doing what he'd done with his powers was just slightly too much at that point, and Nikki moved, catching her youngest before he hit the ground. Her own face was a mixture of concern and confusion; what her son had created looked, oddly, like a black hole. She looked down at Aryan as she lowered him gently, and then back at the hole again, which, at the moment, seemed to be getting bigger. "Jasper..." she warned.
Jasper’s face flickered in concern when Aryan passed out, but he noted that Nikki caught him, and returned his attention to the expanding gravatic singularity. So it was possible, then. Interesting. He could even see space beginning to warp just around the edges of it. It was, of course, the nature of such things to expand, and without Aryan’s will to hold it at a certain size, it would continue to do so. Perhaps, given some practice, his son might even be granted some control over time, if he could create a space under the combined influence of several…
“Is that… what I think it is?” Balthasar asked, standing beside his father and folding his hands behind his back in an unconscious mirror of Jasper’s posture. He could feel the tug of the gravatic field, pulling him towards it, but both he and his sire maintained their footing. A few nearby pieces of debris were not so lucky, and were sucked towards the shadowy mass and crushed.
“Yes,” Jasper replied evenly. “That is a black hole.” He watched the edges of it waver, unstable and not meant to stay long in this world. Granted, it wasn’t exactly the same as a black hole in space, as honestly those were just gravity, but though vampiric powers could approximate natural phenomena, they often ended up fundamentally different, as now. They were all tied to the will, for one. “Dispel it, Balthasar.” This would be good practice for his other son, and Jasper took a step backwards to allow him the room to maneuver as necessary.
Blinking owlishly for a moment, Balthasar looked like he was about to argue, but… gentle as his father was, one did not argue when he told you to do something. Because he always had a reason, and chances were it was much better thought out than your own reasons for wanting to do something else. So he focused intently for a moment, his eyes gaining a bright, metallic silver sheen that drowned out the blue in them, but they stopped just short of turning white, or worse, black. Slowly, the disturbance collapsed in on itself, then vanished altogether. Relaxing the tension from his body, Balthasar turned back around to check on his brother.
“Looks like we’re going to need a new training schedule,” he pointed out wryly, and his father’s lips twitched momentarily. First, though, Ary needed some serious rest, from the looks of things. Still, though… he couldn’t help but feel that this was a major step in the right direction for his brother.
It seemed she worried for nothing. Now, he seemed to actually be coming back to them, and would actually smile in the presence of Bryer and Diya, though a part of Nikki felt this was only because Diya seemed to have taken Vincent's statement to heart; the little girl insisted that she had to smile for everyone who wasn't. Nikki had found this quite amusing. She had also been a little surprised by Aryan, who, a week ago, had come into Jasper's study and asked his help, to train. There had been...a very strong look of resolve on the young man's face when he'd asked. Nikki smiled softly at the memory.
Today was the day, as it were, and the von Nacht female found herself positioned on top of the very same boulder Alarica normally sat on, her chin propped in her hand as a faint smile lighted her face, watching her husband and her two sons out on the practice field. There was something...oddly comforting about it, really, watching the three of them together. She could not recall ever having seen such, unless you counted when Aryan helped them train. Now, it was the elder two helping the younger, the one who hated fighting, yet now understood the importance of it, of strength, and of being there for the ones you loved most. It made her immensely proud.
“Better,” Jasper said, his tone threaded with subtle approval. For one who was generally not disposed to violence, Aryan was learning quickly. Well, part of that was because his father’s training methods were rather brutal, all things considered. Knowing that his son had a lot to learn in a very short time, Jasper had emulated Tyr’s approach to training, what was to put the life of the student in very real danger until he learned to adjust. He knew how much Aryan could handle, and he nor Balthasar never used so much force as to overwhelm him completely, but they used enough that his only choices were get stronger or get painfully injured. It brought him no pleasure to do so, and he hated seeing Aryan suffer, but the fact was, Aryan was suffering regardless of what happened to him on the practice field. At least this way, there was a chance it would end in the successful rescue of Helen.
Freya was devastated, and had taken to lending her talents and knowledge to Alden, who was surprisingly enraged himself, and Morgan to find the girl before they were allowed to. But this was something tangible that Jasper and equally importantly Balthasar could do to help, and therefore they spent as many hours a day doing it as Aryan could tolerate, and a few more planning what they needed to do next in the regimen. Balthasar was just as serious about helping his brother as Jasper was about assisting his son, and he let his elder do most of the sparring practice, as now. Aryan’s swordsmanship was improving rapidly, but he was teaching it mostly as a method of teaching combat movement and reflexes. As with all the male members of their family, his primary asset in any combat situation would be his powers, not mere weaponry.
That was the signal to stop, and Balthasar disengaged, stepping back with a smile and inclining his torso in the martial artists’ gesture of respect. The older von Nacht’s sword slid home in its sheath with a gentle rasp, and he turned an enquiring glance to his father. Usually they were at this for a few more hours at least, but Jasper shook his head. “Today we’re going to do something a little different.” He’d spoken with Freya after he got the full story from Aryan regarding everything Baldr had said, and a conversation with Alden had given him an interesting hypothesis. Baldr had apparently been amused that Aryan had consumed it, and given that the only thing vampires regularly consumed was blood, it made sense that he was talking about that, especially in light of his reference to possessiveness on the part of whomever his lord was. Alden had pointed out that at one point, Aryan had needed blood to survive and Helen had volunteered it, though his son had been half dead at the time and might not remember very well.
That had put a thoughtful look on Freya’s face, and after a few minutes staring at a few of Helen’s medical charts, she admitted that it was impossible to tell from the data she had whether or not the girl’s blood had some unusual property. He presumed it would not be anything like the Aegis, because the effects would have long worn off by now if so, and Baldr had seemed interested in the ‘results,’ as he’d put it. So Jasper decided that he might as well try himself. If it was nothing, it was nothing. Either way, what they were about to do would be a useful exercise.
“I think it’s about time to find your upper limit, Aryan,” he said thoughtfully. “Gravity first. Create the strongest field you can on Balthasar.” His eldest grinned at that, rolling his shoulders and unstrapping his sword from his back, tossing it to his father, who caught it in one hand and laid it down on the grass outside of the impact zone. Both he and Balthasar were capable of breaking such objects with gravity fields; he suspected that with effort, Aryan would be no different in this respect.
The motion of rolling out his shoulders was one Aryan mirrored, though for probably different reasons. After the first few days, he'd actually been sore. He hadn't even been aware that vampires could be sore, though it probably had not helped that he'd been neglecting himself, either. No longer, however; his mother had seen to that. At least this was doing something, accomplishing something, and he was no longer simply sitting there.
When his father told him to create a gravity field on his brother, he exhaled slightly. Gravity had never been his strongest suit, though it had come rather naturally to him. In battle, however, he preffered his shadows more than anything. Even so, he was not one to simply blatantly refuse, so silently, he turned to Balthasar, and did as he was told. The effect, on both himself and his brother, was almost instantaneous.
Nikki pulled her head up, surprise lacing through her features. She'd watched both her husband and her eldest son use their control over gravity a million times a piece, yet it had never quite produced that effect on the caster. At least, not that she could remember. Aryan's eyes were glowing, and as far as she could tell, the gravatic field that he produced was much stronger than he intended it to be, or at least, stronger than he thought he was capable of.
Balthasar’s eyes went wide, and he was so surprised by the sudden strength of the field that he actually fell over, his uncentered balance tipping him to the left. Fortunately, he just managed to avoid plastering his face to the ground by catching himself with his arms, both of which left dents up to his elbows in the dirt beneath him. That was a hell of a gravity field, for someone who never used them. Using one of his own to alleviate the pressure, he stood back up, this time centering himself better, though his feet still left deeper prints than his weight warranted.
“Ha, that’s awesome!” he said with a grin, genuinely delighted that his brother was doing so well. “How much more have you got, Ary? If you can dish it, I can take it,” he said, the vaguest hint of challenge in his tone.
Jasper sighed through his nose, shaking his head good-naturedly. It was just like Balthasar to take something like this with so much enthusiasm. He’d always taken great joy in watching other people flourish. Jasper was not unhappy, either, but he was somewhat concerned, largely because Aryan did not seem to have planned to use so much force initially. The oldest von Nacht was well aware of the physics of gravity—he’d had to learn it to avoid killing himself with his powers, but he wondered…
“Aryan. Make the field as small and compressed as you can, over there,” he pointed to the space to Balthasar’s left. Folding both hands behind his back, he ran some quick mental math, then decided the best description he could give would be the more metaphorical one. “Give it all the force you have, and then weave it with your umbrakinesis. Focus both on the same spot.” Aryan’s mix of powers was unique, and as a result, he might be able to combine them in a way that nobody else could. If so, it may well be the edge he needed to survive, and to protect the people he loved. Jasper would do everything he could to give his son that edge.
Aryan raised an eyebrow at his brother, shaking his own head. Really, Balthasar was just...too enthusiastic about some things. Still, he had surprised himself. Almost forcing Balthasar over and off of his feet was no easy task, even catching him off guard. When his father spoke again, however, his eyebrows furrowed. That...was an odd request, though he nonetheless did as he was told.
The concentrated gravatic field was easy enough, it was combining it with the shadows that he wasn't sure about. It would seem that he didn't have to, though, the shadows seemed to know what they were doing all on their own as the field became visible, turning an inky black, and expanding. That caught Aryan off-gaurd, and he blinked rapidly. He was not entirely sure what he had created, and he didn't have time to figure it out, either.
His mind gave out on him then, the combined exaughstion of both sparring with his brother and then doing what he'd done with his powers was just slightly too much at that point, and Nikki moved, catching her youngest before he hit the ground. Her own face was a mixture of concern and confusion; what her son had created looked, oddly, like a black hole. She looked down at Aryan as she lowered him gently, and then back at the hole again, which, at the moment, seemed to be getting bigger. "Jasper..." she warned.
Jasper’s face flickered in concern when Aryan passed out, but he noted that Nikki caught him, and returned his attention to the expanding gravatic singularity. So it was possible, then. Interesting. He could even see space beginning to warp just around the edges of it. It was, of course, the nature of such things to expand, and without Aryan’s will to hold it at a certain size, it would continue to do so. Perhaps, given some practice, his son might even be granted some control over time, if he could create a space under the combined influence of several…
“Is that… what I think it is?” Balthasar asked, standing beside his father and folding his hands behind his back in an unconscious mirror of Jasper’s posture. He could feel the tug of the gravatic field, pulling him towards it, but both he and his sire maintained their footing. A few nearby pieces of debris were not so lucky, and were sucked towards the shadowy mass and crushed.
“Yes,” Jasper replied evenly. “That is a black hole.” He watched the edges of it waver, unstable and not meant to stay long in this world. Granted, it wasn’t exactly the same as a black hole in space, as honestly those were just gravity, but though vampiric powers could approximate natural phenomena, they often ended up fundamentally different, as now. They were all tied to the will, for one. “Dispel it, Balthasar.” This would be good practice for his other son, and Jasper took a step backwards to allow him the room to maneuver as necessary.
Blinking owlishly for a moment, Balthasar looked like he was about to argue, but… gentle as his father was, one did not argue when he told you to do something. Because he always had a reason, and chances were it was much better thought out than your own reasons for wanting to do something else. So he focused intently for a moment, his eyes gaining a bright, metallic silver sheen that drowned out the blue in them, but they stopped just short of turning white, or worse, black. Slowly, the disturbance collapsed in on itself, then vanished altogether. Relaxing the tension from his body, Balthasar turned back around to check on his brother.
“Looks like we’re going to need a new training schedule,” he pointed out wryly, and his father’s lips twitched momentarily. First, though, Ary needed some serious rest, from the looks of things. Still, though… he couldn’t help but feel that this was a major step in the right direction for his brother.
Leora fought not to sigh. Six months, and they’d still not been able to find the barest trace of Helen. She missed the girl, actually—it was fun having her around, and over time, she’d grown to become a part of the family, a sibling to Leo in the same way Rica was. It hurt her heart to watch Ary these days; he was good at looking like himself again, but there was no mistaking what was really going on there. In some sense, it almost made her own problems seem… trivial. She may never get to have him, but at least the person she cared for was around. At least she got to confirm every day that he was alive and breathing and whole as any of them were anymore, what with the pieces constantly being broken off.
She’d been spending a lot of her free time with Rica, Zero, and the kids. Alden when he was around, but she also gave him space to be with Emrys. She was wise to what was really going on there, and while her silly brother might be inclined to tease them for it, Leora and her mother both could see how Emrys was slowly succeeding in doing what neither of them had quite been able to do: he was grounding Violet, giving him something to go back to, and go back to being, whenever he returned from his assignments. Home-Alden wasn’t just another role to play anymore, it was becoming who he was, and everything else was really just things he had to do again. She was so happy for him that she couldn’t even summon the ability to be envious. He deserved that; they both did, so much.
Presently she lay, spread-eagled, in a knot of soft grass, just staring up at the sky overhead. It was full dark and had been for a few hours, and she’d just sort of… stopped here after her run, rolling into this position and disinclined to move again. She found her constellation easily. It was kind of funny, that her mother was named after the stars, and that her own name was a variant both on the meaning of light and also obviously shortened to refer to a specific set of stars. Alden was right—their parents had put way too much thought into the meaning of their names. Though… she kind of liked it. It made her feel connected to them, in some strange way. It had been her dad who picked her name, she knew, and he who taught her to spot Leo the constellation.
She counted the stars absently, her eyes flickering from one to the next, but she didn’t say the numbers out loud. It was pleasantly silent at present, and she had no particular need to interfere with that at just this moment. Feeling a bit of discomfort, she reached back and pulled out her ponytail before allowing her head to fall back on the grass again. For a little while, she stopped wearing her father’s business face, and donned her own, her expression softening and inflected with the slightest bit of wonder as she considered she sheer majesty of the visible universe. It was enough to make anyone feel small.
Keir did sigh, not bothering to try and hold it in. He still had not done much in regards to Leora, and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it. He was curently situated on top of the roof. He was aware of where she was, but for the longest time, he didn't move. He could only imagine what Aryan was going through, at least Leora was around, even if she wasn't his.
He ran a hand through his hair, his eyebrows raising slightly. His hair was getting longer than he was used to. He stood up, stretching his muscles back into place. He'd been sitting in the same spot for fourteen hours. His intention was to go back inside, however; he found himself drawn to her. So, he found himself approaching, but he did at least, keep his distance, his eyes glowing almost silver in the darkness. "Hey." He said softly.
She’d smelled him, but had assumed that, as with every other time she smelled him, he was simply gong to go around her to get wherever he actually wanted to be. Which meant that she was quite surprised to hear his voice, and for a moment, the languid relaxation she’d been enjoying disappeared, her muscles stiffening as she abruptly moved up into a sitting position, turning her head to meet his eyes over her shoulder. Her own were wide, almost alarmed, but then his tone registered, and she consciously eased, her expression softening to match. She wasn’t sure why he was here, but—gods have mercy—she was glad of it. In the aftermath of their last actual conversation, she’d spent the past almost-year operating under the assumption that he now hated her, which was probably nothing less than she deserved.
So if this was at least an opportunity to ease that, she would take it. Leo’s lips tilted into a small, melancholy smile. “Hey, yourself,” she replied, with a tentative gentleness. She wasn’t sure exactly where to go from there, and there was no elegant way she could think of to proceed at all, so the words were ungainly, but she used them anyway, because they were the only ones she had. “You can… you’re welcome to sit, if you want to.” She patted the patch of grass next to her. Whatever else they had almost been or could not be, he was still her cousin, and she missed him. But she wouldn’t insist—that wasn’t something she had any right to do. So she turned back to face forward, her hands fidgeting slightly in her lap.
Keir hated this. He hated not knowing what to do or what to say. It was unnatural for him, especially around her. The problem was, the whole Alexander situation kept popping into his head, and he wasn't about to say anything about that. Not right now, at least. What could he say, anyway? No amount of apologizing was going to make that go away for her. So instead, of speaking, he sat, well aware of the close proximity to her, closer than they had been in months, yet not physically touching.
It was taking quite literally everything he had not to pull her into his lap. He wanted to, gods above he did, but no. Not yet. She needed to come to him. He sighed softly through his nose, for a second, simply sitting there in the resounding silence with her. The scar on his face was illuminated by the weak light the stars and moon gave off, a stark white in comparison to the dark shadows cast on his face.
"I've heard you at night, you know. You're not the only one who can't sleep." He said slowly. It wasn't entirely her fault he heard, either. He was rather acutely in tune to her; he knew where she was before he smelled her, he could hear her better than the others, and it was slowly driving him mad, hearing her cry herself to sleep, and then laying there listening to the silence afterwards. Keir hadn't actually slept in years. He slept of course, but not without waking up in a cold sweat to the visions of the faces, of people he'd killed, of those he'd been unable to save. He understood now, what had happened to his brother.
Leora swallowed. The silence after was worse than the crying, because in those moments, it felt like she’d never be able to feel anything again. She was just numb, and it was not the blessing she’d once thought it would be. Because even then, little lances of misery still crept in, she just lacked the tears to cope even a little. What was she supposed to say? That she was sorry that she sobbed at night? Of course she was, but… more than anything she was just sorry. Constantly. Even during the day when she was adequately distracted it felt like she was weighed down by something. By lots of things. By what she’d done. By what seven years had done to her, done to the rest of them. By how she almost felt about him, and what she’d done to him. By the lingering suspicion that she would never be free of any of these things.
She chose to say none of this, however. Instead, she lay back on the grass, because she felt a little more like herself when she was looking up at the sky. “The scar,” she said quietly, her usually smoothly-musical voice roughened by some emotion she could not name, “The one I can see. How did you get it? ….You can talk about the ones I can’t see, too, if you like.” She’d known, she’d always known, that that seven years hadn’t left him unscathed either, but she’d not had the opportunity to ask him about it, until now. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. I’d understand.”
Keir chuckled slightly. He wondered when she was going to ask. Everyone else had by now, save for those who where there when he'd gotten it. Much like her, he relaxed backwards, laying next to her. "Sorry, I don't have some glorious tale to tell about some great evil I overcame. Really, it was about three years out, and I was distracted, wasn't paying attention. We were a bit close to a small village out in rural France, farming country. Some kid had somehow managed to find her way out onto the battlefield, looking for her parents."
His face darkened slightly as his eyebrows drew together. Only Rica and his mother knew the actual story. He hadn't been able to tell the others, how he'd failed, what he'd had to do. "I noticed her too late, and my opponent took the opportunity to swipe at me, being a level C, he was actually pretty coordinated. I took his head off and made for the girl, but..." he stopped, swallowing before closing his eyes. Her face flashed in front of him, dark hair and bright green eyes. She'd looked so scared, so frightened, and of him. That had startled him enough that he'd hesitated, and she'd paid for it with her life. "Eventually my eye healed and I got my sight back, but Dhampirs scar a bit more easily than pure-bloods or nobles."
Leo was silent for a long time, processing what he’d said. It seemed that, at least in this case, the scar she could see and the one she couldn’t were the same. Something in her chest clenched, and her dying heart stuttered to life again for just long enough to remind her how much it hurt, and she rolled over into her side to face him. It took everything she had not to touch him, not to at least hold his hand, but she reminded herself firmly that this was a right she did not have, would never have. So she laid her head on one arm and tucked the other underneath her to stave off the temptation. Closing her eyes for a moment, she cracked them open again and sighed softly.
“The Council started making children into Level E’s, when we were in India,” she said. Actually, a lot of that she’d had to deal with by herself, because it was at about the time that Zero and Yuki were building their home. If her aunt Nikki hadn’t been there, Leo knew she wouldn’t have survived. She’d probably have let herself die. But the presence of a family member had reminded her why she had to live, and had given her… whatever she needed to be able to put them out of their misery. “They were so small, Keir… their hands were so small, and their faces…” She couldn’t think about it, even all this time later, without weeping, and almost from reflex, the tears sprang to her eyes.
Over the back of her mind, she could see them—the faces and bodies of children, empty of the life and vibrancy she saw in her niece and nephew, void of everything but the primal need to consume and destroy. She’d never wished more that she’d taken up a weapon, because she had to kill each and every one of them with her bare hands or her powers. Their blood was on her knuckles and her fingers and her palms, and no matter how much she washed them, no matter how hard she scrubbed, it was always there. She could see it, she could smell it. “I killed children, and I…” Leora lost the ability to speak, because a wretched sob tore from her instead.
This was what Alden and Emrys meant by the toll, and it was steep.
To hell with it all. The war, the Council, the Pantheon; they could all go crawl into a hole and die and Keir wouldn't give two shits if only he could stop her from feeling like this. Keir sat up, fighting to keep the anger off of his face. It wasn't easy. He slid a hand under her elbow and tugged her into a sitting position, drawing her to him and wrapping his arms around her as he embraced her, cradling her head on his shoulder. Damn them all., he thought. She shouldn't have to feel this, to suffer for this.
Telling her it wasn't her fault, that she'd done what she had to do would do no good, just as it had done no good for him. So instead, he said something else, and he murmured, "It was only thought of you that kept me going, that allowed me to survive, you know. I never would have made it otherwise." He wanted to say something else, but at the moment, he couldn't. Not yet, anyhow.
Leo’s hands fisted in the material of his shirt, as though to let go would carry her away from this place and to somewhere far darker, where there were no longer any stars to see by. She knew on some level that she should not be allowing this, that it wasn’t good for either of them to be so close, but it was not nearly strong enough a thought to keep her from collapsing against him, the faces of those children playing in front of her closed eyes like they did every night, and the sound of their feral, savage growling. And then the silence that came after, somehow the worst sound of all.
His words cut through that silence, and they just brought her a fresh wave of tears. Oh, but they were both so damned, weren’t they? She to want what she couldn’t have, to an eternity of nightmares and things she could not escape, and to the knowledge that denying herself was the only good deed of which she was any longer capable. And he to some kind of unshakeable delusion about her, that let him see something to be desired in someone like her, to find a source of strength where there was only weakness. They were hopelessly, wickedly doomed, and nobody would ever emerge from this happy, much less with what they really wanted.
It was just so unfair, all of it. He didn’t deserve this, and she couldn’t bear it, deserved or not. But what else was there to do? Even the eventual resolution of one problem would not assuage the other, and so they were to be pulled forever in circles, eddies and vortexes of misery, down, down, down. The world would be kinder if she just drowned, but his presence forced her to breathe again, to carry on hoping for something impossible, only to be submerged again as soon as she properly remembered who they were and what she’d done and what he deserved.
So she clung, and she cried, and she reminded herself that she could not speak.
She’d been spending a lot of her free time with Rica, Zero, and the kids. Alden when he was around, but she also gave him space to be with Emrys. She was wise to what was really going on there, and while her silly brother might be inclined to tease them for it, Leora and her mother both could see how Emrys was slowly succeeding in doing what neither of them had quite been able to do: he was grounding Violet, giving him something to go back to, and go back to being, whenever he returned from his assignments. Home-Alden wasn’t just another role to play anymore, it was becoming who he was, and everything else was really just things he had to do again. She was so happy for him that she couldn’t even summon the ability to be envious. He deserved that; they both did, so much.
Presently she lay, spread-eagled, in a knot of soft grass, just staring up at the sky overhead. It was full dark and had been for a few hours, and she’d just sort of… stopped here after her run, rolling into this position and disinclined to move again. She found her constellation easily. It was kind of funny, that her mother was named after the stars, and that her own name was a variant both on the meaning of light and also obviously shortened to refer to a specific set of stars. Alden was right—their parents had put way too much thought into the meaning of their names. Though… she kind of liked it. It made her feel connected to them, in some strange way. It had been her dad who picked her name, she knew, and he who taught her to spot Leo the constellation.
She counted the stars absently, her eyes flickering from one to the next, but she didn’t say the numbers out loud. It was pleasantly silent at present, and she had no particular need to interfere with that at just this moment. Feeling a bit of discomfort, she reached back and pulled out her ponytail before allowing her head to fall back on the grass again. For a little while, she stopped wearing her father’s business face, and donned her own, her expression softening and inflected with the slightest bit of wonder as she considered she sheer majesty of the visible universe. It was enough to make anyone feel small.
Keir did sigh, not bothering to try and hold it in. He still had not done much in regards to Leora, and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it. He was curently situated on top of the roof. He was aware of where she was, but for the longest time, he didn't move. He could only imagine what Aryan was going through, at least Leora was around, even if she wasn't his.
He ran a hand through his hair, his eyebrows raising slightly. His hair was getting longer than he was used to. He stood up, stretching his muscles back into place. He'd been sitting in the same spot for fourteen hours. His intention was to go back inside, however; he found himself drawn to her. So, he found himself approaching, but he did at least, keep his distance, his eyes glowing almost silver in the darkness. "Hey." He said softly.
She’d smelled him, but had assumed that, as with every other time she smelled him, he was simply gong to go around her to get wherever he actually wanted to be. Which meant that she was quite surprised to hear his voice, and for a moment, the languid relaxation she’d been enjoying disappeared, her muscles stiffening as she abruptly moved up into a sitting position, turning her head to meet his eyes over her shoulder. Her own were wide, almost alarmed, but then his tone registered, and she consciously eased, her expression softening to match. She wasn’t sure why he was here, but—gods have mercy—she was glad of it. In the aftermath of their last actual conversation, she’d spent the past almost-year operating under the assumption that he now hated her, which was probably nothing less than she deserved.
So if this was at least an opportunity to ease that, she would take it. Leo’s lips tilted into a small, melancholy smile. “Hey, yourself,” she replied, with a tentative gentleness. She wasn’t sure exactly where to go from there, and there was no elegant way she could think of to proceed at all, so the words were ungainly, but she used them anyway, because they were the only ones she had. “You can… you’re welcome to sit, if you want to.” She patted the patch of grass next to her. Whatever else they had almost been or could not be, he was still her cousin, and she missed him. But she wouldn’t insist—that wasn’t something she had any right to do. So she turned back to face forward, her hands fidgeting slightly in her lap.
Keir hated this. He hated not knowing what to do or what to say. It was unnatural for him, especially around her. The problem was, the whole Alexander situation kept popping into his head, and he wasn't about to say anything about that. Not right now, at least. What could he say, anyway? No amount of apologizing was going to make that go away for her. So instead, of speaking, he sat, well aware of the close proximity to her, closer than they had been in months, yet not physically touching.
It was taking quite literally everything he had not to pull her into his lap. He wanted to, gods above he did, but no. Not yet. She needed to come to him. He sighed softly through his nose, for a second, simply sitting there in the resounding silence with her. The scar on his face was illuminated by the weak light the stars and moon gave off, a stark white in comparison to the dark shadows cast on his face.
"I've heard you at night, you know. You're not the only one who can't sleep." He said slowly. It wasn't entirely her fault he heard, either. He was rather acutely in tune to her; he knew where she was before he smelled her, he could hear her better than the others, and it was slowly driving him mad, hearing her cry herself to sleep, and then laying there listening to the silence afterwards. Keir hadn't actually slept in years. He slept of course, but not without waking up in a cold sweat to the visions of the faces, of people he'd killed, of those he'd been unable to save. He understood now, what had happened to his brother.
Leora swallowed. The silence after was worse than the crying, because in those moments, it felt like she’d never be able to feel anything again. She was just numb, and it was not the blessing she’d once thought it would be. Because even then, little lances of misery still crept in, she just lacked the tears to cope even a little. What was she supposed to say? That she was sorry that she sobbed at night? Of course she was, but… more than anything she was just sorry. Constantly. Even during the day when she was adequately distracted it felt like she was weighed down by something. By lots of things. By what she’d done. By what seven years had done to her, done to the rest of them. By how she almost felt about him, and what she’d done to him. By the lingering suspicion that she would never be free of any of these things.
She chose to say none of this, however. Instead, she lay back on the grass, because she felt a little more like herself when she was looking up at the sky. “The scar,” she said quietly, her usually smoothly-musical voice roughened by some emotion she could not name, “The one I can see. How did you get it? ….You can talk about the ones I can’t see, too, if you like.” She’d known, she’d always known, that that seven years hadn’t left him unscathed either, but she’d not had the opportunity to ask him about it, until now. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. I’d understand.”
Keir chuckled slightly. He wondered when she was going to ask. Everyone else had by now, save for those who where there when he'd gotten it. Much like her, he relaxed backwards, laying next to her. "Sorry, I don't have some glorious tale to tell about some great evil I overcame. Really, it was about three years out, and I was distracted, wasn't paying attention. We were a bit close to a small village out in rural France, farming country. Some kid had somehow managed to find her way out onto the battlefield, looking for her parents."
His face darkened slightly as his eyebrows drew together. Only Rica and his mother knew the actual story. He hadn't been able to tell the others, how he'd failed, what he'd had to do. "I noticed her too late, and my opponent took the opportunity to swipe at me, being a level C, he was actually pretty coordinated. I took his head off and made for the girl, but..." he stopped, swallowing before closing his eyes. Her face flashed in front of him, dark hair and bright green eyes. She'd looked so scared, so frightened, and of him. That had startled him enough that he'd hesitated, and she'd paid for it with her life. "Eventually my eye healed and I got my sight back, but Dhampirs scar a bit more easily than pure-bloods or nobles."
Leo was silent for a long time, processing what he’d said. It seemed that, at least in this case, the scar she could see and the one she couldn’t were the same. Something in her chest clenched, and her dying heart stuttered to life again for just long enough to remind her how much it hurt, and she rolled over into her side to face him. It took everything she had not to touch him, not to at least hold his hand, but she reminded herself firmly that this was a right she did not have, would never have. So she laid her head on one arm and tucked the other underneath her to stave off the temptation. Closing her eyes for a moment, she cracked them open again and sighed softly.
“The Council started making children into Level E’s, when we were in India,” she said. Actually, a lot of that she’d had to deal with by herself, because it was at about the time that Zero and Yuki were building their home. If her aunt Nikki hadn’t been there, Leo knew she wouldn’t have survived. She’d probably have let herself die. But the presence of a family member had reminded her why she had to live, and had given her… whatever she needed to be able to put them out of their misery. “They were so small, Keir… their hands were so small, and their faces…” She couldn’t think about it, even all this time later, without weeping, and almost from reflex, the tears sprang to her eyes.
Over the back of her mind, she could see them—the faces and bodies of children, empty of the life and vibrancy she saw in her niece and nephew, void of everything but the primal need to consume and destroy. She’d never wished more that she’d taken up a weapon, because she had to kill each and every one of them with her bare hands or her powers. Their blood was on her knuckles and her fingers and her palms, and no matter how much she washed them, no matter how hard she scrubbed, it was always there. She could see it, she could smell it. “I killed children, and I…” Leora lost the ability to speak, because a wretched sob tore from her instead.
This was what Alden and Emrys meant by the toll, and it was steep.
To hell with it all. The war, the Council, the Pantheon; they could all go crawl into a hole and die and Keir wouldn't give two shits if only he could stop her from feeling like this. Keir sat up, fighting to keep the anger off of his face. It wasn't easy. He slid a hand under her elbow and tugged her into a sitting position, drawing her to him and wrapping his arms around her as he embraced her, cradling her head on his shoulder. Damn them all., he thought. She shouldn't have to feel this, to suffer for this.
Telling her it wasn't her fault, that she'd done what she had to do would do no good, just as it had done no good for him. So instead, he said something else, and he murmured, "It was only thought of you that kept me going, that allowed me to survive, you know. I never would have made it otherwise." He wanted to say something else, but at the moment, he couldn't. Not yet, anyhow.
Leo’s hands fisted in the material of his shirt, as though to let go would carry her away from this place and to somewhere far darker, where there were no longer any stars to see by. She knew on some level that she should not be allowing this, that it wasn’t good for either of them to be so close, but it was not nearly strong enough a thought to keep her from collapsing against him, the faces of those children playing in front of her closed eyes like they did every night, and the sound of their feral, savage growling. And then the silence that came after, somehow the worst sound of all.
His words cut through that silence, and they just brought her a fresh wave of tears. Oh, but they were both so damned, weren’t they? She to want what she couldn’t have, to an eternity of nightmares and things she could not escape, and to the knowledge that denying herself was the only good deed of which she was any longer capable. And he to some kind of unshakeable delusion about her, that let him see something to be desired in someone like her, to find a source of strength where there was only weakness. They were hopelessly, wickedly doomed, and nobody would ever emerge from this happy, much less with what they really wanted.
It was just so unfair, all of it. He didn’t deserve this, and she couldn’t bear it, deserved or not. But what else was there to do? Even the eventual resolution of one problem would not assuage the other, and so they were to be pulled forever in circles, eddies and vortexes of misery, down, down, down. The world would be kinder if she just drowned, but his presence forced her to breathe again, to carry on hoping for something impossible, only to be submerged again as soon as she properly remembered who they were and what she’d done and what he deserved.
So she clung, and she cried, and she reminded herself that she could not speak.
Well. He supposed things could have gone worse. Not much worse, but it was something, anyway.
Alden limped back to his house, his wounds still healing. He was definitely going to be in need of some blood, given the amount he’d lost at the facility, but right now, the only thing that could provide it was almost as weak as he was, and he wasn’t going to feed from a little kid, besides. So he swallowed his hunger, putting it from his mind in a show of discipline not generally expected from him of all people. It was far from easy, but they’d made it this far.
There was a gentle, inquiring brush against his mind, and the child’s worry seeped through clearly. Alden returned a soothing, reassuring sensation, or as much of one as he could muster right now. Everything was going to be fine—the house was coming into sight, and they had not been followed. Not that he thought there was anyone left to follow them… he’d made quite sure of that. Violet grimaced. Explosions were more in the Alistair style of doing things than his own, but… those people had deserved nothing less. Adjusting his grip on the boy, whose arms were looped around his neck, he trudged until he was within range, then immediately reached out for his mother and Emrys, telling them to meet him in he infirmary as soon as possible.
By the time he got here, Ava already had a bed and an examination table ready. He put Vali, as the child had said he was called, on the former, then collapsed into one of the chairs. It was taking all he had not to try for his mother’s blood at the moment, but that’s why he’d called Em in the first place. His injuries were healing slowly, and that was because he’d discharged more of his power than he ever had at once before. It had taken a lot out of him, and since he couldn’t really shut off his abilities, he felt like the last of what he had was slowly being drained out of him.
His mother gave him a concerned look, but before she could speak, he shook his head. “Make sure he’s okay,” he said. At first, the child seemed wary, but as all children did in his mother’s soothing presence, he calmed quickly, and let her check him over and heal his few remaining scrapes. The kid had been practically starving—Violet had seen to that, but it meant he was in even worse shape, and he could tell that his mom knew. Lifting the child, who could not have been more than nine or ten, she helped him into some clean clothes and tucked him into the infirmary bed before she made her way over to Alden, a healing sphere floating above and to the left of her head.
“What happened to you, Violet?” she asked, using the sphere to close his major wounds. Alden groaned a little, from a mixture of lingering discomfort and the soothing relief that the little orbs of light produced.
“Long story,” he replied.
Emrys had actually been asleep, but the moment he'd felt the nudge in his mind, he woke up instantly. He shook himself, pulling himself up and throwing the first articles of clothing he could find, making his way directly to the infirmary. When he got there, Ava was already healing Alden, and concern laced itself onto Emrys's face. This was only supposed to be recon; what the hell had happened.
His crimson eyes slid over to the young boy, who had since fallen asleep. His eyebrows rose slightly. He could only guess that he was a part of the story. Emrys waited as patiently as he could as Ava healed her son; which was more than most gave Em credit for, patience was not his strongest suit. As she stepped away from him, he stepped up, taking a seat next to him and tugging him over, exposing the side of his neck in the process. "What happened, Vi?" He murmured, his arms winding around his shoulders, idling tracing circles on his back in the process.
With a sigh of relief, Alden sank his teeth into Emrys’s neck, relaxing heavily against his lover as the enforced tension drained from his system. Licking the last few drops from Em’s skin, he pulled back, feeling the last of the damage subside as his thirst stabilized. He shook his head slightly, glancing over at the child, who had fallen half asleep. Ava was sitting on the bed next to him, running her fingers soothingly through his hair, so it probably wouldn’t be long before he was the rest of the way there.
“It was supposed to be recon,” he admitted slowly, his eyes leaving the half-lidded green ones the little boy sported and meeting Emrys’s bright red ones. “I had a tip from an informant that someone matching Helen’s description had visited a particular Pantheon facility, and so I assumed the identity of one of the grunt-level scientists. But the stuff they were working on…” Much to his own chagrin, Alden actually shuddered with the memory. “The kid’s name is Vali, apparently. The latest project.” It would have been impossible to keep the snarl out of is voice, and he didn’t even try. For Violet, that was really saying something.
“I can ignore a lot of shit, Em, but… he’s a raw telepath, and he showed me everything.” There just hadn’t been any option after that. He had to rescue the kid, and he had to do it then. “Admittedly, blowing the facility to smithereens was a bit more Alistair style than Kuragari, but I guess there's something in the water.”
Emrys's eyebrows drew together. Vali, Son of Loki. He was well aware that the Pantheon were some twisted freaks, so this probably was to be expected, but even so...one arm was still wrapped around Violet's shoulders, so Em felt him shudder, and that alone was enough to win Em over, if he'd needed to be at all. Much like Vi, he'd learned to ignore a lot over the years; but a child, he could not, raw telepath or not.
Sure, it had been reckless, and perhaps that was not Vi's quid pro quo, so to speak, but Emrys didn't have to think twice and wonder if he'd done the right thing. Even Em had to surpress a shudder looking at the boys vivid green eyes. He could only be abut nine, and the resounding sadness Emrys saw reflected in that gaze spoke of horrors no child should have to face period, let alone alone in some cage.
Considering where Violet had found him, that probably meant the child no longer had any family, or if he did, they thought he was dead. Emrys let out a soft sigh, leaning his head against Vi's. "Well, we Alistairs do have a knack for mass destruction, you know. Still...I suppose the family just grew by one more, unless he somehow has some relative somewhere. Though we're going to have to find a better name than Vali. Even I wouldn't wish that name on my enemy, and they have them already."
Violet shook his head slightly. “No family. Most of the Pantheon came from test tubes and petri dishes anyway. He had a sister… but he doesn’t anymore.” They’d starved her to death, and her system hadn’t been able to survive it for as long as Vali’s had. She was unstable, like Yuki, almost, or the Pantheon member once called Jormungandr, but her instability had been her undoing much sooner. He chose not to add for the moment that before he’d blown up the facility, he’d put a very Kuragari flourish on the Alistair explosion by ripping every last one of the scientists’ minds apart from the inside. Alden rarely used his powers for such raw brutality, but there was no denying that, like his father and most of his brothers, there was a streak of very destructive sadism in him, especially when he was angry. It was one of many reasons he did not generally allow himself to become angry. He’d talk to Em about it later, but he didn’t really want his mother to know.
The comment about the name drew a breathy chuckle from him. “I think they’re running out of names that sound reasonable. His sister was Narfi. Traditionally Vali’s older brother, but not something I’d ever name a kid.” He could feel the boy’s mind slipping deeper into a restful sleep, and it eased the pressure on his own a bit. The constant telepathic link, which the child had established almost unknowingly and would not let go of, wasn’t something that Violet had the heart to break from his end.
“Well,” Ava said, standing from the bed as the boy fell asleep for truth. “Then what do you want to call him?” She smiled at the both of them, knowing without needing to ask that they would be the child’s parents. She had not Alden’s telepathy, but she could read the look on his face, and on Emrys’s.
Emrys kept silent for a moment, rattling off a bunch of names in his head. He'd never really understood why his father had thought it so important he learned name geneology as a child, though now it made a little more sense. You thought about it more when you were actually naming a kid. For some reason, perhaps because of how well the kid had survived, Emrys kept coming back to the meaning brave. A few flickered through his mind, and for some reason, he settled on one in particular. Well, actually two, but he chose the second one to speak.
"What about Emerson?"
Alden blinked, the look on his face flattening out into something much more wry and very typical of him. “Right. And I’m sure his nickname would be Em. How does that massive ego of yours fit through the door, lover?” He asked with a snort and a shake of his head. Glancing over at the kid, Violet tilted his head slightly to the side, pursing his lips in thought. “I like the other one, though. Andrick suits him well. Andy, for the nicknamers among us.”
With a grin and roll of his eyes, Em nodded once. Andrick worked well. "My ego fits quite well, thank you. You should know, I am the fly in your web, after all." He turned his head slightly, pressing his lips to Vi's temple. It was a bit of an odd thought, thinking they were going to be parents of an orphan. Still, the kid could have gotten hung up with a family worse than them he supposed. And it wasn't like he'd be alone, either, Bryer and Diya were only a little bit younger than he was, and if anyone could get the boy out of the shell the Pantheon had undoubtedly formed around him, it was Diya. Unless of course she scared him shitless first, that was always a possibility.
Emrys stood up, tugging at Vi's hand. "Come on, Andy's not the only one who needs sleep."
Alden limped back to his house, his wounds still healing. He was definitely going to be in need of some blood, given the amount he’d lost at the facility, but right now, the only thing that could provide it was almost as weak as he was, and he wasn’t going to feed from a little kid, besides. So he swallowed his hunger, putting it from his mind in a show of discipline not generally expected from him of all people. It was far from easy, but they’d made it this far.
There was a gentle, inquiring brush against his mind, and the child’s worry seeped through clearly. Alden returned a soothing, reassuring sensation, or as much of one as he could muster right now. Everything was going to be fine—the house was coming into sight, and they had not been followed. Not that he thought there was anyone left to follow them… he’d made quite sure of that. Violet grimaced. Explosions were more in the Alistair style of doing things than his own, but… those people had deserved nothing less. Adjusting his grip on the boy, whose arms were looped around his neck, he trudged until he was within range, then immediately reached out for his mother and Emrys, telling them to meet him in he infirmary as soon as possible.
By the time he got here, Ava already had a bed and an examination table ready. He put Vali, as the child had said he was called, on the former, then collapsed into one of the chairs. It was taking all he had not to try for his mother’s blood at the moment, but that’s why he’d called Em in the first place. His injuries were healing slowly, and that was because he’d discharged more of his power than he ever had at once before. It had taken a lot out of him, and since he couldn’t really shut off his abilities, he felt like the last of what he had was slowly being drained out of him.
His mother gave him a concerned look, but before she could speak, he shook his head. “Make sure he’s okay,” he said. At first, the child seemed wary, but as all children did in his mother’s soothing presence, he calmed quickly, and let her check him over and heal his few remaining scrapes. The kid had been practically starving—Violet had seen to that, but it meant he was in even worse shape, and he could tell that his mom knew. Lifting the child, who could not have been more than nine or ten, she helped him into some clean clothes and tucked him into the infirmary bed before she made her way over to Alden, a healing sphere floating above and to the left of her head.
“What happened to you, Violet?” she asked, using the sphere to close his major wounds. Alden groaned a little, from a mixture of lingering discomfort and the soothing relief that the little orbs of light produced.
“Long story,” he replied.
Emrys had actually been asleep, but the moment he'd felt the nudge in his mind, he woke up instantly. He shook himself, pulling himself up and throwing the first articles of clothing he could find, making his way directly to the infirmary. When he got there, Ava was already healing Alden, and concern laced itself onto Emrys's face. This was only supposed to be recon; what the hell had happened.
His crimson eyes slid over to the young boy, who had since fallen asleep. His eyebrows rose slightly. He could only guess that he was a part of the story. Emrys waited as patiently as he could as Ava healed her son; which was more than most gave Em credit for, patience was not his strongest suit. As she stepped away from him, he stepped up, taking a seat next to him and tugging him over, exposing the side of his neck in the process. "What happened, Vi?" He murmured, his arms winding around his shoulders, idling tracing circles on his back in the process.
With a sigh of relief, Alden sank his teeth into Emrys’s neck, relaxing heavily against his lover as the enforced tension drained from his system. Licking the last few drops from Em’s skin, he pulled back, feeling the last of the damage subside as his thirst stabilized. He shook his head slightly, glancing over at the child, who had fallen half asleep. Ava was sitting on the bed next to him, running her fingers soothingly through his hair, so it probably wouldn’t be long before he was the rest of the way there.
“It was supposed to be recon,” he admitted slowly, his eyes leaving the half-lidded green ones the little boy sported and meeting Emrys’s bright red ones. “I had a tip from an informant that someone matching Helen’s description had visited a particular Pantheon facility, and so I assumed the identity of one of the grunt-level scientists. But the stuff they were working on…” Much to his own chagrin, Alden actually shuddered with the memory. “The kid’s name is Vali, apparently. The latest project.” It would have been impossible to keep the snarl out of is voice, and he didn’t even try. For Violet, that was really saying something.
“I can ignore a lot of shit, Em, but… he’s a raw telepath, and he showed me everything.” There just hadn’t been any option after that. He had to rescue the kid, and he had to do it then. “Admittedly, blowing the facility to smithereens was a bit more Alistair style than Kuragari, but I guess there's something in the water.”
Emrys's eyebrows drew together. Vali, Son of Loki. He was well aware that the Pantheon were some twisted freaks, so this probably was to be expected, but even so...one arm was still wrapped around Violet's shoulders, so Em felt him shudder, and that alone was enough to win Em over, if he'd needed to be at all. Much like Vi, he'd learned to ignore a lot over the years; but a child, he could not, raw telepath or not.
Sure, it had been reckless, and perhaps that was not Vi's quid pro quo, so to speak, but Emrys didn't have to think twice and wonder if he'd done the right thing. Even Em had to surpress a shudder looking at the boys vivid green eyes. He could only be abut nine, and the resounding sadness Emrys saw reflected in that gaze spoke of horrors no child should have to face period, let alone alone in some cage.
Considering where Violet had found him, that probably meant the child no longer had any family, or if he did, they thought he was dead. Emrys let out a soft sigh, leaning his head against Vi's. "Well, we Alistairs do have a knack for mass destruction, you know. Still...I suppose the family just grew by one more, unless he somehow has some relative somewhere. Though we're going to have to find a better name than Vali. Even I wouldn't wish that name on my enemy, and they have them already."
Violet shook his head slightly. “No family. Most of the Pantheon came from test tubes and petri dishes anyway. He had a sister… but he doesn’t anymore.” They’d starved her to death, and her system hadn’t been able to survive it for as long as Vali’s had. She was unstable, like Yuki, almost, or the Pantheon member once called Jormungandr, but her instability had been her undoing much sooner. He chose not to add for the moment that before he’d blown up the facility, he’d put a very Kuragari flourish on the Alistair explosion by ripping every last one of the scientists’ minds apart from the inside. Alden rarely used his powers for such raw brutality, but there was no denying that, like his father and most of his brothers, there was a streak of very destructive sadism in him, especially when he was angry. It was one of many reasons he did not generally allow himself to become angry. He’d talk to Em about it later, but he didn’t really want his mother to know.
The comment about the name drew a breathy chuckle from him. “I think they’re running out of names that sound reasonable. His sister was Narfi. Traditionally Vali’s older brother, but not something I’d ever name a kid.” He could feel the boy’s mind slipping deeper into a restful sleep, and it eased the pressure on his own a bit. The constant telepathic link, which the child had established almost unknowingly and would not let go of, wasn’t something that Violet had the heart to break from his end.
“Well,” Ava said, standing from the bed as the boy fell asleep for truth. “Then what do you want to call him?” She smiled at the both of them, knowing without needing to ask that they would be the child’s parents. She had not Alden’s telepathy, but she could read the look on his face, and on Emrys’s.
Emrys kept silent for a moment, rattling off a bunch of names in his head. He'd never really understood why his father had thought it so important he learned name geneology as a child, though now it made a little more sense. You thought about it more when you were actually naming a kid. For some reason, perhaps because of how well the kid had survived, Emrys kept coming back to the meaning brave. A few flickered through his mind, and for some reason, he settled on one in particular. Well, actually two, but he chose the second one to speak.
"What about Emerson?"
Alden blinked, the look on his face flattening out into something much more wry and very typical of him. “Right. And I’m sure his nickname would be Em. How does that massive ego of yours fit through the door, lover?” He asked with a snort and a shake of his head. Glancing over at the kid, Violet tilted his head slightly to the side, pursing his lips in thought. “I like the other one, though. Andrick suits him well. Andy, for the nicknamers among us.”
With a grin and roll of his eyes, Em nodded once. Andrick worked well. "My ego fits quite well, thank you. You should know, I am the fly in your web, after all." He turned his head slightly, pressing his lips to Vi's temple. It was a bit of an odd thought, thinking they were going to be parents of an orphan. Still, the kid could have gotten hung up with a family worse than them he supposed. And it wasn't like he'd be alone, either, Bryer and Diya were only a little bit younger than he was, and if anyone could get the boy out of the shell the Pantheon had undoubtedly formed around him, it was Diya. Unless of course she scared him shitless first, that was always a possibility.
Emrys stood up, tugging at Vi's hand. "Come on, Andy's not the only one who needs sleep."
As matters turned out, Andrick had seen Helen, or someone matching her description, and with a little work, Alden was able to pull up the memory and confirm that it was her. He chose not to mention how awful she looked, as considering how angry it made him, there were certain parties who did not need to be aware right now. They’d find out eventually anyway. The sighting was enough of a lead, and from there, he and his uncle Morgan were able to trace her most likely location. It was remote, but it seemed about right. The house was deep in the Bulgarian countryside, more a small castle than anything, but it seemed the right sort of place for the Pantheon to be keeping her.
Unfortunately, even as they prepared to extract her, they received word that the Council’s army, with some nominal support from the Pantheon (who were as always doing only what served their own ends), was moving in on St. Petersburg, one of the most populous cities left in the world. They’d overwhelm the garrison there if it was not reinforced, and so the family had no choice but to split itself, at least for this particular few days. The main body of the group was going after Helen, knowing that the Pantheon presence was likely to be very strong wherever they were keeping her. But Erys, Balthasar, Keir, Leora, and Alarica were headed to Russia.
It was no more than a day after they arrived that the promised attack came, a horde of modified Level E’s that the garrison would have to handle by itself and no less than three members of the Pantheon—spearheading the army were Thor, Sigyn, and Balthasar’s double. He looked a little less like his genetic twin than he had before, having adopted a slightly darker aesthetic and being somewhat more slender. Of course, this did not mean he was any weaker. He may have lacked the Blood of the King, but his other powers were the same, and he seemed to be just as competent with weaponry, this time as before wielding a two-handed sword in just one.
The Pantheon split up upon sight of the family, Sigyn vanishing and appearing again directly in front of the original Balthasar. “Hello, lover,” she purred, grabbing the understandably surprised von Nacht by the throat. “It’s been too long.” She tossed him back into the nearest line of trees, then bounded after him. Thor, on the other hand, swept his eyes over the remaining targets and selected Keir, the only indication of this the fact that his hammer went flying for the man with blinding speed. Leo was quickly set upon by dozens of Level E’s, their thirst evident—but they were not children this time, and she thanked whatever gods there may be for that.
The darker Balthsasar was a bit more leisurely, shifting his grip on his sword with seeming nonchalance and regarding mother and daughter with silver-blue eyes, an exact match for his original’s. The pressure increased around them, gravity pulling down on them, but he did not create a field such that it would crush them, and the malicious smile that tilted his lips was an indication of the reason: he was going to have some fun, first. “Come, then,” he drawled, and even his voice was exceedingly similar. “And try me.”
Erys chose to go where her two youngest were going: to deal with the attack in St. Petersburg. Emrys would be safe with Jasper and her brother, it was the two youngest she was worried about. Not only them, but for her niece and nephew, Leora and Balthasar. Though they trained, Erys was not sure if they could handle this attack on their own. She might be over a century old now, but she still was not as strong as she could be. She could handle a battlefield on her own, but against Pantheon members? She recalled how difficult it had been long ago, and it was still difficult now.
Alarica, on the other hand, was abnormally calm. She couldn't understand the chill that crawled underneath her skin at the family being separated as they were, however; she chose to ignore the feeling...for now. It wouldn't do her much good to become distracted when they were going up against Pantheon members. It was only a couple of them, two or three at max, and Alarica couldn't help but feel nervous. It wasn't the battle ready nervous, more-so, it was the something is going to go wrong nervousness that plagued her.
A day after arriving, the attack came. She and her family gathered upon the battle field, her eyes scanning the area as her mother did the same. Erys spoke not a word as she watched the modified level E's scramble across the field, watching as Leora quickly went for them, and her son being attacked by the one she recalled as Thor. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the white haired male, however; her attention was snapped back to the one who looked like her nephew. The gravity around both her and Alarica intensified, causing both women to tremble upon their knees.
Alarica bit back a snarl as she pulled Ulrik from his holster, Erys mimicking her daughter while pulling out her own weapon. His ability was one that neither of them could negate, and it was with this in mind that they both nodded towards each other. "Sorry, but you are not my type. Trying you, I'm afraid, will just leave a bitter taste behind," Alarica retorted, matching his malicious smile with a wicked smirk of her own. Her fortitude would only last her so long, but it would be nothing if this look-alike chose to exert his full abilities. With that in mind, mother and daughter charged.
The corner of the man’s mouth turned up, and it was suddenly obvious what leering would look like on Balthasar’s face, though of course the original one had never and would never wear such an expression. He raised a brow, fending off both attacks with an easy grace. The gravity was weighing them down, and he increased it, just enough to make it difficult for them to stand. Even if he hadn’t done so, his speed and strength were far superior, and he knew this with a certain kind of confidence that only seemed to further darken his face.
“Are you so sure about that, Rica?” he asked, his tone a perfect match to Balthasar’s usual concerned questioning variety. He even shifted his expression, so that he wore a typically-soft one. He’d been informed quite thoroughly of exactly what kind of fool his genetic source was, and it made him sneer to understand just how soft the man acted, especially around this girl. Unlike the actual Balthasar, it wasn’t hard for him to guess at the feelings this girl had for him, even if Sigyn hadn’t outright told him she was in love. Another attack came in from the side—the mother, but he blocked it without looking, bringing the pommel of his sword down on the back of her head and sending her crumpling to the floor, unconscious but not dead. His eyes, however, never left Alarica’s.
“Because, sometimes, I…” he trailed off, still wearing Balthasar’s typical expression, adding a small touch of uncertainty to it. “You’re important to me, Rica, and I don’t really understand it, but… I think I might…” He’d been advancing on her, pinning her in place with his gravity, and as soon as he was close enough to lean down, he did, precariously close to her face, as though he were going to kiss her. At the last moment, though, he moved slightly to the side, the innocence sliding right off his face and revealing that same underlying malice, and he bit—hard—into the junction between her neck and shoulder, his fangs sinking into her skin.
Alarica had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. He might look like Balthasar, but he wasn't Balthasar. He may be the same genetic material, but she knew better. "Positive," she retorted as he spoke. He continued to dodge and block her attacks, along with her mother's, however; her eyes went slightly wide when he knocked Erys unconscious. "Mom!" she nearly shouted, making to move for her mother, but found herself rooted to the spot. Her eyes swiveled towards the look alike, and her eyes hardened.
She could feel the pressure he placed upon her with his ability, and it took every ounce of strength she had to not kneel to the pressure. His voice, though it matched Balthasar's almost perfectly, caused her to cringe as he spoke. She didn't like his expression, the way he toyed with his face to match Balthasar's as if it were Balthasar speaking to her, however; it only caused her blood to boil. This man, whoever he was, needed to disappear. He needed to die, to do something besides saunter closer to her. She didn't like the way he said her name either. It sounded...horrible.
"Go to hell, asshole," she merely retorted as he stood in front of her. She could feel her heartbeat rising as he took closer steps to her until they were merely centimeters apart. If she could have moved, she would have bit his face for being so close to hers, however; she was entirely unprepared for his next move. She felt something pierce her neck, something terrible and painful, however; she did nothing. Her eyes merely wide with surprise as she tried to find her voice. She couldn't even scream.
Her spirit was amusing, certainly, and taunting her was funny to him, but he was, in the end, simply wasting time. He was here to kill the original version of himself, though Sigyn had rather delayed that plan by being stupid. She was a fool if she thought she could beat him, but it would give him enough time to do quite a lot of damage. Her blood flooded over his tongue, and he did not bother to measure his intake, his eyes taking on the typical vermilion hue of one who fed. He’d leave her weak enough that even her system could not recover from what he inflicted, as he understood she possessed a greater-than-average ability to heal.
She was positively anemic by the time he bothered plunging his sword into her chest, puncturing a lung but only just nicking her heart. It was an unmistakably fatal wound, but it would kill her slowly. “And now, Alarica Alistair, you get to watch me kill the rest.” He fit his mouth over hers in something less a kiss and more an act of brutality, but then he stepped back, releasing his grip on her and letting her fall to the ground, sliding off the blade with a wet sound. Not far off, her twin was collapsing, too—how interesting. Thor actually looked vaguely perturbed, but even as the Aegis yelled something to the original, inferior Balthasar, the clone hefted his sword over his shoulders.
He’d start with the girl who smelled like indulgence, and go from there.
Unfortunately, even as they prepared to extract her, they received word that the Council’s army, with some nominal support from the Pantheon (who were as always doing only what served their own ends), was moving in on St. Petersburg, one of the most populous cities left in the world. They’d overwhelm the garrison there if it was not reinforced, and so the family had no choice but to split itself, at least for this particular few days. The main body of the group was going after Helen, knowing that the Pantheon presence was likely to be very strong wherever they were keeping her. But Erys, Balthasar, Keir, Leora, and Alarica were headed to Russia.
It was no more than a day after they arrived that the promised attack came, a horde of modified Level E’s that the garrison would have to handle by itself and no less than three members of the Pantheon—spearheading the army were Thor, Sigyn, and Balthasar’s double. He looked a little less like his genetic twin than he had before, having adopted a slightly darker aesthetic and being somewhat more slender. Of course, this did not mean he was any weaker. He may have lacked the Blood of the King, but his other powers were the same, and he seemed to be just as competent with weaponry, this time as before wielding a two-handed sword in just one.
The Pantheon split up upon sight of the family, Sigyn vanishing and appearing again directly in front of the original Balthasar. “Hello, lover,” she purred, grabbing the understandably surprised von Nacht by the throat. “It’s been too long.” She tossed him back into the nearest line of trees, then bounded after him. Thor, on the other hand, swept his eyes over the remaining targets and selected Keir, the only indication of this the fact that his hammer went flying for the man with blinding speed. Leo was quickly set upon by dozens of Level E’s, their thirst evident—but they were not children this time, and she thanked whatever gods there may be for that.
The darker Balthsasar was a bit more leisurely, shifting his grip on his sword with seeming nonchalance and regarding mother and daughter with silver-blue eyes, an exact match for his original’s. The pressure increased around them, gravity pulling down on them, but he did not create a field such that it would crush them, and the malicious smile that tilted his lips was an indication of the reason: he was going to have some fun, first. “Come, then,” he drawled, and even his voice was exceedingly similar. “And try me.”
Erys chose to go where her two youngest were going: to deal with the attack in St. Petersburg. Emrys would be safe with Jasper and her brother, it was the two youngest she was worried about. Not only them, but for her niece and nephew, Leora and Balthasar. Though they trained, Erys was not sure if they could handle this attack on their own. She might be over a century old now, but she still was not as strong as she could be. She could handle a battlefield on her own, but against Pantheon members? She recalled how difficult it had been long ago, and it was still difficult now.
Alarica, on the other hand, was abnormally calm. She couldn't understand the chill that crawled underneath her skin at the family being separated as they were, however; she chose to ignore the feeling...for now. It wouldn't do her much good to become distracted when they were going up against Pantheon members. It was only a couple of them, two or three at max, and Alarica couldn't help but feel nervous. It wasn't the battle ready nervous, more-so, it was the something is going to go wrong nervousness that plagued her.
A day after arriving, the attack came. She and her family gathered upon the battle field, her eyes scanning the area as her mother did the same. Erys spoke not a word as she watched the modified level E's scramble across the field, watching as Leora quickly went for them, and her son being attacked by the one she recalled as Thor. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the white haired male, however; her attention was snapped back to the one who looked like her nephew. The gravity around both her and Alarica intensified, causing both women to tremble upon their knees.
Alarica bit back a snarl as she pulled Ulrik from his holster, Erys mimicking her daughter while pulling out her own weapon. His ability was one that neither of them could negate, and it was with this in mind that they both nodded towards each other. "Sorry, but you are not my type. Trying you, I'm afraid, will just leave a bitter taste behind," Alarica retorted, matching his malicious smile with a wicked smirk of her own. Her fortitude would only last her so long, but it would be nothing if this look-alike chose to exert his full abilities. With that in mind, mother and daughter charged.
The corner of the man’s mouth turned up, and it was suddenly obvious what leering would look like on Balthasar’s face, though of course the original one had never and would never wear such an expression. He raised a brow, fending off both attacks with an easy grace. The gravity was weighing them down, and he increased it, just enough to make it difficult for them to stand. Even if he hadn’t done so, his speed and strength were far superior, and he knew this with a certain kind of confidence that only seemed to further darken his face.
“Are you so sure about that, Rica?” he asked, his tone a perfect match to Balthasar’s usual concerned questioning variety. He even shifted his expression, so that he wore a typically-soft one. He’d been informed quite thoroughly of exactly what kind of fool his genetic source was, and it made him sneer to understand just how soft the man acted, especially around this girl. Unlike the actual Balthasar, it wasn’t hard for him to guess at the feelings this girl had for him, even if Sigyn hadn’t outright told him she was in love. Another attack came in from the side—the mother, but he blocked it without looking, bringing the pommel of his sword down on the back of her head and sending her crumpling to the floor, unconscious but not dead. His eyes, however, never left Alarica’s.
“Because, sometimes, I…” he trailed off, still wearing Balthasar’s typical expression, adding a small touch of uncertainty to it. “You’re important to me, Rica, and I don’t really understand it, but… I think I might…” He’d been advancing on her, pinning her in place with his gravity, and as soon as he was close enough to lean down, he did, precariously close to her face, as though he were going to kiss her. At the last moment, though, he moved slightly to the side, the innocence sliding right off his face and revealing that same underlying malice, and he bit—hard—into the junction between her neck and shoulder, his fangs sinking into her skin.
Alarica had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. He might look like Balthasar, but he wasn't Balthasar. He may be the same genetic material, but she knew better. "Positive," she retorted as he spoke. He continued to dodge and block her attacks, along with her mother's, however; her eyes went slightly wide when he knocked Erys unconscious. "Mom!" she nearly shouted, making to move for her mother, but found herself rooted to the spot. Her eyes swiveled towards the look alike, and her eyes hardened.
She could feel the pressure he placed upon her with his ability, and it took every ounce of strength she had to not kneel to the pressure. His voice, though it matched Balthasar's almost perfectly, caused her to cringe as he spoke. She didn't like his expression, the way he toyed with his face to match Balthasar's as if it were Balthasar speaking to her, however; it only caused her blood to boil. This man, whoever he was, needed to disappear. He needed to die, to do something besides saunter closer to her. She didn't like the way he said her name either. It sounded...horrible.
"Go to hell, asshole," she merely retorted as he stood in front of her. She could feel her heartbeat rising as he took closer steps to her until they were merely centimeters apart. If she could have moved, she would have bit his face for being so close to hers, however; she was entirely unprepared for his next move. She felt something pierce her neck, something terrible and painful, however; she did nothing. Her eyes merely wide with surprise as she tried to find her voice. She couldn't even scream.
Her spirit was amusing, certainly, and taunting her was funny to him, but he was, in the end, simply wasting time. He was here to kill the original version of himself, though Sigyn had rather delayed that plan by being stupid. She was a fool if she thought she could beat him, but it would give him enough time to do quite a lot of damage. Her blood flooded over his tongue, and he did not bother to measure his intake, his eyes taking on the typical vermilion hue of one who fed. He’d leave her weak enough that even her system could not recover from what he inflicted, as he understood she possessed a greater-than-average ability to heal.
She was positively anemic by the time he bothered plunging his sword into her chest, puncturing a lung but only just nicking her heart. It was an unmistakably fatal wound, but it would kill her slowly. “And now, Alarica Alistair, you get to watch me kill the rest.” He fit his mouth over hers in something less a kiss and more an act of brutality, but then he stepped back, releasing his grip on her and letting her fall to the ground, sliding off the blade with a wet sound. Not far off, her twin was collapsing, too—how interesting. Thor actually looked vaguely perturbed, but even as the Aegis yelled something to the original, inferior Balthasar, the clone hefted his sword over his shoulders.
He’d start with the girl who smelled like indulgence, and go from there.
Thor himself followed the trajectory of his warhammer, the object returning to his hand as soon as it had actually made impact, and the crater it left in the ground was truly massive, creating a patch of earth bare of snow or grass or anything of the sort. As he usually did, he’d challenged what he perceived to be the strongest available person on the field, which, given that he was not permitted to try his hand at the son of the man who’d quite nearly killed him a year ago, was likely to be this one. Cracking his neck to either side, the man allowed Keir to regain his feet, but he was in his face again shortly afterward, swinging downwards for his shoulder with the hammer, the lightning blast in his other hand aimed square for the Alistair’s chest.
Keir rolled out his shoulders, restless. Like his twin, he had an underlying feeling that somthing was just...wrong, and he couldn't shake it. Even so, as they came to the battlefield, his ice blue eyes scanned the horizon. He was not at all surprised to see three Pantheon members, nor that he knew all of them. He remained silent as the party split up, each zoning in on their intended targets.
Thor picked him. The moment the hammer came flying for him, he jumped, the scales already up to his neck by this point. Thor's next blow, aimed for his shoulder, merely glanced off. The electrical attack, however, was a direct hit, though it appeared to do no damage. Keir grinned slightly, though it was nothing like his usual managiere. "You're not as fun as the pixie woman. It's a shame she didn't show. Tell me, did her tongue grow back? I did quite enjoy ripping it from her mouth." He side-stepped Thor's next blow, intent on landing a blow of his own when the pain stopped him.
Sharp and surreal, he could feel it, in his neck and in his chest, like a white-hot blade being thrust through it. His vision swam, and he reeled, his eyes searching desprately for his sister. Where he found her was far from pleasing. At first, he couldn't make sense of what he saw as he stared at his sister. Why was Balthasar...
He sank to his knees, the information finally clicking. It was his cousin's clone. He could feel the blood leaking from his body from the wound that had opened in his chest from his connection to his sister. He slumped forward, one word escaping his lips. "Alarica..."
Thor looked somewhat confused when his opponent simply dropped, but he made no move to go finish the man off. There was a shout, from the Aegis-woman, apparently imploring the von Nacht son to do something, and the electric blue eyes of the Pantheon member scanned over the area, and when he spotted the collapsed Sigyn, he decided he would be best served peeling her off the ground and departing. The fool should not have confronted Balthasar alone, but what was done was done. The clone, they were not instructed to save, and he cared not what became of it. It was useless to them without the Blood of the King anyway.
Without dealing a deathblow to Keir—he seemed to be dying anyway, but Thor would not strike an opponent in such a dishonorable fashion—the blue-eyed man made his way over to Sigyn, who seemed to be in the middle of some rather unfortunate episode. There was a lot of blood on the ground, but he didn’t smell hers. It all seemed to belong to the von Nacht. He had difficulty believing she could overpower him in such a way. Whatever had happened, it was not that, but he didn’t trouble himself overmuch about what it was, picking the girl up and ignoring the violent protestations she made, beating her fists on his back as he slung her over a shoulder. It wasn’t like she could hurt him with such attempts anyway.
“We’re leaving,” he said decisively, and the fight seemed to go out of her. She went limp, and he felt rather than saw her nod. Heading in the opposite direction of the disaster that was slowly coalescing around the clone and the two fallen Alistairs, Thor broke into a run, carrying Sigyn along with him as they departed the scene.
Keir rolled out his shoulders, restless. Like his twin, he had an underlying feeling that somthing was just...wrong, and he couldn't shake it. Even so, as they came to the battlefield, his ice blue eyes scanned the horizon. He was not at all surprised to see three Pantheon members, nor that he knew all of them. He remained silent as the party split up, each zoning in on their intended targets.
Thor picked him. The moment the hammer came flying for him, he jumped, the scales already up to his neck by this point. Thor's next blow, aimed for his shoulder, merely glanced off. The electrical attack, however, was a direct hit, though it appeared to do no damage. Keir grinned slightly, though it was nothing like his usual managiere. "You're not as fun as the pixie woman. It's a shame she didn't show. Tell me, did her tongue grow back? I did quite enjoy ripping it from her mouth." He side-stepped Thor's next blow, intent on landing a blow of his own when the pain stopped him.
Sharp and surreal, he could feel it, in his neck and in his chest, like a white-hot blade being thrust through it. His vision swam, and he reeled, his eyes searching desprately for his sister. Where he found her was far from pleasing. At first, he couldn't make sense of what he saw as he stared at his sister. Why was Balthasar...
He sank to his knees, the information finally clicking. It was his cousin's clone. He could feel the blood leaking from his body from the wound that had opened in his chest from his connection to his sister. He slumped forward, one word escaping his lips. "Alarica..."
Thor looked somewhat confused when his opponent simply dropped, but he made no move to go finish the man off. There was a shout, from the Aegis-woman, apparently imploring the von Nacht son to do something, and the electric blue eyes of the Pantheon member scanned over the area, and when he spotted the collapsed Sigyn, he decided he would be best served peeling her off the ground and departing. The fool should not have confronted Balthasar alone, but what was done was done. The clone, they were not instructed to save, and he cared not what became of it. It was useless to them without the Blood of the King anyway.
Without dealing a deathblow to Keir—he seemed to be dying anyway, but Thor would not strike an opponent in such a dishonorable fashion—the blue-eyed man made his way over to Sigyn, who seemed to be in the middle of some rather unfortunate episode. There was a lot of blood on the ground, but he didn’t smell hers. It all seemed to belong to the von Nacht. He had difficulty believing she could overpower him in such a way. Whatever had happened, it was not that, but he didn’t trouble himself overmuch about what it was, picking the girl up and ignoring the violent protestations she made, beating her fists on his back as he slung her over a shoulder. It wasn’t like she could hurt him with such attempts anyway.
“We’re leaving,” he said decisively, and the fight seemed to go out of her. She went limp, and he felt rather than saw her nod. Heading in the opposite direction of the disaster that was slowly coalescing around the clone and the two fallen Alistairs, Thor broke into a run, carrying Sigyn along with him as they departed the scene.
Balthasar’s back hit a tree, the wood splintering and cracking under the force of the blow. He landed awkwardly on the ground as the tree fell over, rolling back to his feet and shaking off the negligible effects of such a blow. It had been meant to get his attention more than anything, and in this, it had succeeded. He was certainly paying attention now, watching warily as the woman stalked towards him, very aware of the predatory gleam in her reddened eyes. Something inside him tightened, and he was suddenly very sad. Elizabeth had been his friend, and for it to come to this… he’d never wanted that, not even after he found out what she really was.
Maybe… maybe there was still a chance that it didn’t have to. She was young, and she’d probably known nothing but the Pantheon and their conditions her entire life. Wasn’t it only fair to give her a chance to know something else? “Elizabeth… you don’t have to do this. We don’t have to be enemies.” Her eyes narrowed precipitously, her body language registering as malice, and he didn’t really understand why. He’d never done anything to her, had he? It wasn’t like he’d asked her to betray him; all he’d done was forgive her for it as well as he could.
He blinked, and she was suddenly in his face again, yanking the front of his shirt until their eyes were level. “Unless that’s an offer to join the Pantheon, lover, we most certainly do.” She didn’t understand it, the way his eyes went soft when she said that, the way he looked at her like he understood something. It enraged her, because the only other option was to acknowledge the one thing she could not—that somewhere along the way, she’d found herself remembering what it was like to be near him, someone who seemed genuinely interested in her because of the person she was. Even if that person had only been a fabrication designed to entrap him. She didn’t want his kindness, because it reminded her just how low she was for betraying him in the first place.
So she hated him instead, because it was remarkably simple to do, to look at him and see his concern and read it as pity and morph the strange feeling in her heart until it was just loathing rather than what it really was. He looked like he was about to speak again, and though she could withstand a lot, she wasn’t sure she could take whatever merciful things he was about to tell her. Because she knew, somewhere inside herself, that if he spoke to her for long enough, she would start to believe him. And that was something she did not want to do. She hated herself almost as much as she hated him when she did it, but Sigyn drew a weapon from thin air, a manifestation of her power, and plunged it into the side of his abdomen.
Balthasar grunted with the entrance of the six-inch blade into his kidney, and the twist was not comfortable, but he was used to worse, and even as she stepped away, he pulled it from his side, staring down at the way his own blood darkly-coated the steel, running in little rivulets to the ground. His blood. How many lives had been lost because of what was in it? How many children had been created and raised as she was, as Helen had been, for this power that he didn’t even want? How many more would die because he’d dared to exist, to try and change the destiny that his grandfather had laid out for him? “I’m sorry,” he said mournfully, letting the dagger fall to the ground. It stuck in the red snow at his feet. “It’s my fault, Elizabeth, and I’m sorry.”
Something stricken flashed over her face. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but that look—she did not often feel guilt, but she was feeling it now. Maybe it was just a visceral reaction to the fact that he looked so guilty. Whatever the case, she didn’t understand it, and she hated the way it made something in her feel like it was breaking. “But I can make it better, at least a little,” he was saying, looking like he desperately wanted her to believe it. Or maybe he just wanted himself to believe it. “You don’t have to do this. Just… just come with us. Be my friend again, like you were. Because I don’t believe you were pretending, Elizabeth, I really don’t.”
Sigyn’s jaw clenched a little tighter every time he called her by that name. Didn’t think she was pretending? How foolish was he? Older than her by half a century and then some, but so much like a child, if he was capable of believing that. “I am always pretending, Balthasar,” she said tonelessly, a wide circle of knives materializing around her like the rings of Saturn or rows of shark-teeth. They hovered in the air, apparently immune to gravity, bound onto this plane by her will alone. Two of them lanced forward, impaling his hands to the nearest tree. He didn’t fight it, looking at them with something unreadable in his expression. “You can’t save me. You can’t help me. There is nothing to be saved or helped.”
“Elizabeth—”
“That is not my name!” Several more knives swung towards him, leaving a criss-cross of bloody gashes over his chest, and still, he did not resist, did not try to dodge, did not even move. He just looked at her, and she was half-set on taking his eyes next, so that she could not feel the way they tore at something in her. But she couldn’t aim properly—something was blurring her vision. Something hot and pricking.
“Why won’t you fight me?!” she wailed, emptying the rest of her knives into his person. His natural ability to heal was pushing them out again and mending the wounds the instant she did, but the smell of his blood was thick on the air, and it went to her head the way liquor was supposed to, fogging her thoughts and making her feel sluggish and euphoric. It was a testament to the intensity of her anger that she was even able to keep her focus. “Fight me, Balthasar!” Hurt me, like I deserve for what I did. Hurt me so I can hate you. So I don’t have to feel this way anymore.
His lips twitched into a smile, a thin ribbon of his own blood trailing from the corner of his mouth, and shook his head. “It is your name. And I don’t hurt my friends, Elizabeth. I can’t.” She was weeping, and she didn’t know why. At least, not exactly. The stinging became heat, sliding down her face to hit the snow. Like his blood, from the wounds she’d dealt him.
“You’re such a fool,” she whispered, “and I’m a fool, too.” Why hadn't she just stayed? She could have been Elizabeth Snowe forever, and nobody would have had to know the difference. His family could have protected her from the Pantheon. Looking at him, bleeding because of her, slowly removing the knives that held him to the tree, convinced her of that. He would have fought for her. He would have protected her, because he called himself her friend. But it was too late now. There was no going back.
The realization brought her to her knees, and she sank back onto her legs. Balthasar was halfway to her, for what purpose she knew not, when a cry cut through the air. It was desperate, as if hoping for an impossible solution. “Al! It’s Rica—you have to help her!” His eyes went wide, and it was for the barest moment as though the breath had left his body. Sigyn knew what that look meant. It crushed her all over again.
“Go,” she said quietly. “I won’t stop you.” He spared her one last glance, but then the smell of his cousin’s blood hit his nose, and he was off like a shot. For all her strength, all her power, Sigyn had never felt so weak and so helpless in all her life. Slowly, she tipped sideways, collapsing into the snow, curling in on herself and closing her eyes.
“I’m a fool, I’m a fool, I’m such a fool…”
Maybe… maybe there was still a chance that it didn’t have to. She was young, and she’d probably known nothing but the Pantheon and their conditions her entire life. Wasn’t it only fair to give her a chance to know something else? “Elizabeth… you don’t have to do this. We don’t have to be enemies.” Her eyes narrowed precipitously, her body language registering as malice, and he didn’t really understand why. He’d never done anything to her, had he? It wasn’t like he’d asked her to betray him; all he’d done was forgive her for it as well as he could.
He blinked, and she was suddenly in his face again, yanking the front of his shirt until their eyes were level. “Unless that’s an offer to join the Pantheon, lover, we most certainly do.” She didn’t understand it, the way his eyes went soft when she said that, the way he looked at her like he understood something. It enraged her, because the only other option was to acknowledge the one thing she could not—that somewhere along the way, she’d found herself remembering what it was like to be near him, someone who seemed genuinely interested in her because of the person she was. Even if that person had only been a fabrication designed to entrap him. She didn’t want his kindness, because it reminded her just how low she was for betraying him in the first place.
So she hated him instead, because it was remarkably simple to do, to look at him and see his concern and read it as pity and morph the strange feeling in her heart until it was just loathing rather than what it really was. He looked like he was about to speak again, and though she could withstand a lot, she wasn’t sure she could take whatever merciful things he was about to tell her. Because she knew, somewhere inside herself, that if he spoke to her for long enough, she would start to believe him. And that was something she did not want to do. She hated herself almost as much as she hated him when she did it, but Sigyn drew a weapon from thin air, a manifestation of her power, and plunged it into the side of his abdomen.
Balthasar grunted with the entrance of the six-inch blade into his kidney, and the twist was not comfortable, but he was used to worse, and even as she stepped away, he pulled it from his side, staring down at the way his own blood darkly-coated the steel, running in little rivulets to the ground. His blood. How many lives had been lost because of what was in it? How many children had been created and raised as she was, as Helen had been, for this power that he didn’t even want? How many more would die because he’d dared to exist, to try and change the destiny that his grandfather had laid out for him? “I’m sorry,” he said mournfully, letting the dagger fall to the ground. It stuck in the red snow at his feet. “It’s my fault, Elizabeth, and I’m sorry.”
Something stricken flashed over her face. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but that look—she did not often feel guilt, but she was feeling it now. Maybe it was just a visceral reaction to the fact that he looked so guilty. Whatever the case, she didn’t understand it, and she hated the way it made something in her feel like it was breaking. “But I can make it better, at least a little,” he was saying, looking like he desperately wanted her to believe it. Or maybe he just wanted himself to believe it. “You don’t have to do this. Just… just come with us. Be my friend again, like you were. Because I don’t believe you were pretending, Elizabeth, I really don’t.”
Sigyn’s jaw clenched a little tighter every time he called her by that name. Didn’t think she was pretending? How foolish was he? Older than her by half a century and then some, but so much like a child, if he was capable of believing that. “I am always pretending, Balthasar,” she said tonelessly, a wide circle of knives materializing around her like the rings of Saturn or rows of shark-teeth. They hovered in the air, apparently immune to gravity, bound onto this plane by her will alone. Two of them lanced forward, impaling his hands to the nearest tree. He didn’t fight it, looking at them with something unreadable in his expression. “You can’t save me. You can’t help me. There is nothing to be saved or helped.”
“Elizabeth—”
“That is not my name!” Several more knives swung towards him, leaving a criss-cross of bloody gashes over his chest, and still, he did not resist, did not try to dodge, did not even move. He just looked at her, and she was half-set on taking his eyes next, so that she could not feel the way they tore at something in her. But she couldn’t aim properly—something was blurring her vision. Something hot and pricking.
“Why won’t you fight me?!” she wailed, emptying the rest of her knives into his person. His natural ability to heal was pushing them out again and mending the wounds the instant she did, but the smell of his blood was thick on the air, and it went to her head the way liquor was supposed to, fogging her thoughts and making her feel sluggish and euphoric. It was a testament to the intensity of her anger that she was even able to keep her focus. “Fight me, Balthasar!” Hurt me, like I deserve for what I did. Hurt me so I can hate you. So I don’t have to feel this way anymore.
His lips twitched into a smile, a thin ribbon of his own blood trailing from the corner of his mouth, and shook his head. “It is your name. And I don’t hurt my friends, Elizabeth. I can’t.” She was weeping, and she didn’t know why. At least, not exactly. The stinging became heat, sliding down her face to hit the snow. Like his blood, from the wounds she’d dealt him.
“You’re such a fool,” she whispered, “and I’m a fool, too.” Why hadn't she just stayed? She could have been Elizabeth Snowe forever, and nobody would have had to know the difference. His family could have protected her from the Pantheon. Looking at him, bleeding because of her, slowly removing the knives that held him to the tree, convinced her of that. He would have fought for her. He would have protected her, because he called himself her friend. But it was too late now. There was no going back.
The realization brought her to her knees, and she sank back onto her legs. Balthasar was halfway to her, for what purpose she knew not, when a cry cut through the air. It was desperate, as if hoping for an impossible solution. “Al! It’s Rica—you have to help her!” His eyes went wide, and it was for the barest moment as though the breath had left his body. Sigyn knew what that look meant. It crushed her all over again.
“Go,” she said quietly. “I won’t stop you.” He spared her one last glance, but then the smell of his cousin’s blood hit his nose, and he was off like a shot. For all her strength, all her power, Sigyn had never felt so weak and so helpless in all her life. Slowly, she tipped sideways, collapsing into the snow, curling in on herself and closing her eyes.
“I’m a fool, I’m a fool, I’m such a fool…”
No sooner had she shouted for Balthasar than Leo watched out of the corner of her eye as Keir fell too. Oh no—not this. She’d almost managed to forget the way damage to one of them translated to damage to the other. She could smell heartsblood—his heartsblood—and knew that, like Rica, he was not long for this world. The wounds were fatal, she suspected Balthasar’s clone had known exactly where to place the injury so that it would be a slow, lingering death. With a cry of frustration, Leo slammed her fist into the jaw of an oncoming Level C so hard that she took his head right off, tearing through them as quickly as the limitations of physics allowed. Over their heads, a storm brewed, dark clouds gathering in reaction to her emotional state.
She let it go, in no mood to bother attempting to control the weather, and thunder cracked with a desperate rapport over their heads, the wind picking up until it lashed her hair into her face, lighter pieces of debris being picked up and tossed around. The air took on a tang of ozone, and glistening bolts of lightning began to strike almost at random, laying waste to the foes before her. She could only reach Keir, but she would reach him, and trust in Balthasar to be able to make the impossible happen for Rica. If anyone could do it, it would be him.
By the time she collapsed to her knees at his side, Leora was breathing heavily, and the rain was coming down hard, plastering her hair to her face and neck, but a vampire’s nose would know that her tears mixed freely with the rain. “Keir,” she choked out, touching his chest gently as if to rouse him from sleep. She froze, eyes wide, the looked down at her fingers, which came back coated in his blood. Why wasn’t he healing? Shouldn’t he be able to—? She hadn’t seen what happened to Alarica, but she could only assume that if he wasn’t healing, she wasn’t either. “No, no, no… Keir, please no. Please don’t.” The mantra was low, desperate, and she honestly wasn’t sure what to do.
She couldn’t lose him, she couldn’t. Leora placed her hands, one still wet with his blood, on either side of his face, pressing her forehead to his. “You can’t die, Keir. You can’t. Don't leave me… please don’t leave me.” She felt sick, weak, as though the barest feeling of his breath on her cheek was the only reason she still breathed. Her muscles, exhausted and trembling, held strong all the same, but if he stopped breathing, she…
Nothing made it to his senses. Not the cold seeping into his very bones, or the rain, or the smell of blood, both his own and his sister's. All he could hear, all he could see, was Alarica. He couldn't let her die. He had to do something. He was dimly aware of someone looming over him, and at first, he was unsure of who it was. The pain was starting to leave his numbing body.
But then te person touched him, and he could smell them. Dull blue eyes tried to focus, Leora's face dimly coming into view as she pressed her forehead to his. He could feel her hands on the side of his face. His face was still being dripped on. She was crying. He was aware that he was dying. But at the moment, that was of little concern to him. Living would mean nothing without his sister; in that strange way that only twins could manage, she was his other half, he could not simply allow her to die.
Despite Leo's words, and her tears, he could not simply tear his thoughts in another direction. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth when he tried to speak. The only thing he managed to get out were their names. "Leora....Rica."
“Stupid…” she said softly, and if her voice shook, well… she felt that it was justified. The man was dying, and all he cared about was other people. She couldn’t do anything for him, or anything for Rica, and she honestly wasn’t sure if Balthasar would be able to, either. They were dying, her cousins were dying, the people she’d grown up with, the person she—it hurt too much to even think, but some traitorous part of her mind completed the thought even so. If only she could be dying instead, if only she could have shielded them from this pain.
All at once, Leora stiffened. There was one thing she could do. It wouldn’t save Rica, but she could save Keir. And who knew… maybe, with the connection they shared… she could do it. Shield them. It was the only thing she had. It was a stupid idea. She’s been warned against it before. It was addictive, it was dangerous, and it was unpredictable. Only her father’s extraordinary level of control allowed him to handle it, that and the fact that he didn’t have to worry about the addiction, because he always had her mother. This was the one thing she had always been told she must never do, no matter the circumstances.
And she didn’t care.
He could have every last drop in her body if that was what it took. The only thing that mattered was that he got to survive this. That they both had a chance to live. Leo would live with the consequences, whatever they may be. Swallowing thickly, she smiled brokenly down at him. “Save her yourself,” she said gently, lowering herself so that she was close enough to reach with very little effort. A hand slid under his head, and she held him to her throat. “Take it, Keir. Let me protect you.”
The pain lanced through him when she slid her arms around him, but in truth, Keir barely felt it. Through the heavy fog in his mind, he could smell her. Oranges and honey and something a little spicy. He knew that smell well. He knew what she asked of him. He didn't want it, he didn't want to survive. Not if his sister wouldn't.
That was what he told himself, but his mind had other ideas. He didn't want to leave her, either. He wasn't aware he'd even moved until he tasted blood in his mouth, and it wasn't his. Even in the fog, one thought rang clearly in his mind: she tasted better than she smelled. It did not take him long to feel his wounds closing, the blood ceasing to flow from the open wounds. He let her go, relaxing back, and then he looked at her.
"You're an idiot. I don't need protecting."
Her brows furrowed slightly, but she supposed she should not have expected anything different. Stubborn man. “Everyone needs protecting somet—” The sentence was cut off as Leo’s eyes went wide, her musculature stiffening as a blade entered her back. While it might have gone right through her and lanced Keir as well, instead it simply could not hit, and the force with which it was thrust bent it, such that the man wielding it had to plant a foot into her back and tear to free it from her flesh. Leora collapsed slightly to the side of Keir, revealing the rather amused face of Balthasar’s clone.
“She’s right, but she should have taken her own advice,” the clone said nonchalantly, tilting his head to the side at Keir. It seemed he’d just barely missed, but there was no reason to tell him that, so he didn’t, inhaling the scent of the Aegis with some surprise. “My, my, that is potent.” Citrus fruits, something sweet, and something a little tangier. “I wonder if I should have a taste?” He smirked wickedly at the prone man, raising a brow. The statement had been made to provoke, though he was in fact quite tempted.
Keir blinked. He could feel her slumped against him. He could see her blood on the end of the blade. He could smell it in the air, heavy and thick. His ice blue eyes widened slowly. He didn't even hear the man's words, all he could hear was his own heart hammering in his ears. It was right there, underneath his skin, crawling, shifting, begging to be released.
There was something that only his immediate family knew about him. The reason was unknown, but it had been speculated to be rooted from when his father had fallen to level E status and then returned. But even that was only speculation. All Keir knew was that there was someone, something else inside of him, something that wanted out, that wanted to kill, to feed. Keir always kept it restrained, always held in check. He did so because he was afraid of what he might do, of what he might become.
He gave no thought to that now. He didn't care what he did, what he would do, who he would hurt. Because right now, he wanted to hurt the man who stood in front of him. He wanted him to suffer, to die. Keir let out a shaky breath, the thin thread holding back the other him snapping.
It was odd, really. He looked terrified one second, and then the next, his face was twisted in a dark, maniacal grin. It was wholly unlike what he normally wore. This one was demented, evil. His teeth seperated as he laughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, unfitting for the mood. The blue scales swarmed madly as Keir shifted his form, the winged, dragon-like creature taking his place. Fanged jowls seperated as his forked tongue slithered out, tasting the air. When he spoke, his voice was entirely different, it was throatier, deeper than Keir's.
"I'm afraid you won't be tasting anything today, unless of course death has a taste. I wouldn't know, I've never tried."
He moved, much faster than he had been before, a clawed hand aimed directly at the clone's heart. "You know, most people would think that I'm doing this because you hurt them, Alarica and Leora. But did you know? I'm doing it simply to watch you bleed. I do so love the sight of it, running from a body as they realize their life is in my hands. You seem fond of it yourself, but do you think you can kill me?" The creature laughed again.
He had been told that he was an unworthy project, a failure. He had manifested his source’s control over gravity, and to some extent, the fire, but there was something fundamentally different about him, something that meant he could not manifest that power that he knew was somewhere under his skin. Baldr had speculated that it must be an environmental factor that made him different from Balthasar, because their genetic codes were identical. He thought differently. He thought that maybe, the power had a mind of its own, that it was somehow able to choose in whom to manifest, and that it had somewhere found him wanting.
But if that was the case, there was always a chance to prove it wrong, to force it to accept him. To force the world to accept him. To give him a name, even. He knew that this was not a situation he would survive if he couldn’t force that acceptance, because this man was on the Aegis, and he’d been told what that meant. It meant his strength and speed were now on par with the very highest class of purebloods. It meant that nothing, physical damage nor vampiric ability, would hurt him. At all. It meant that the only way to overcome his enhancement was to force it away with the power he had never yet been able to claim, or to match it, by also dosing himself with the Aegis.
Seeing as how the man was standing between himself and the girl, he really only had the one option. Dodging the first swing, the clone tossed his blade away, knowing just how useless it would be, following up with a series of piston-quick strikes to the reptilian creature’s midsection, which as predicted did no damage at all. He hit hard enough to feel his knuckles shatter and heal several times, but it was not enough. It could not be enough, against power like this. So instead he focused on blocking and dodging, and both his strength and his speed were on par with the lizardlike man’s. He was, after all, among the highest class of purebloods.
But even so, there was no dodging everything, and it was becoming rapidly apparent that, like the girl, the amount he’d bled already would soon translate into slower recovery rates, as he lost the energy in his system. Still, there was nothing. That thing he was sure he could feel beneath his skin, in the back of his mind, everywhere but nowhere he could reach, was inert. Like it needed some kind of reaction he could not initiate. Like there was a catalyst he was missing. He was growing increasingly desperate, his drawn facial expression betraying the strain he was under. There was only one option left: on the next pass, he grabbed hold of the Alistair’s arm and threw as hard as he could, in to opposite direction from the Aegis. She was still bleeding—he just needed to get there in time.
Except that the Alistair did not let go of him. When the man had grabbed ahold of his arm, Keir had latched onto his forearm, digging in hard enough that his claws drew blood, and continued to use his momentum to swing himself behind the clone. With his free hand, he lashed out, grabbing the man's other arm. The feral grin never left his face.
"What, you won't speak to me, now? You were more fun earlier!" A rumble echoed from his chest. He could feel all the power thrumming through him, and nothing was getting through, not the hits, or abilities, or anything. It was exilirating. He placed a foot square in the other's back, and began to pull. There were some sickening pops as his arms began to be wrenched from their shoulder-sockets. "How well do you think you'll be able to fight if your arms are seperated from your body? At least answer my question...you're very rude, little man. You're rude...and you're weak. I'm disappointed."
“Fuck you,” he replied in a snarl. It was funny, how the certainty of his own death was as meaningless to him as his life had been. “You’re a coward hiding behind a woman’s protection—at least my strength is mine.” He struggled to pull himself from the man’s grip, the claws digging bloody furrows in his arms, and with a growl, he felt one of his arms tear off, but the other came free, and he jumped back, the bleeding stump pouring blood too quickly, scented like but unlike the stuff that belonged to Balthasar. Yes, however much or little it was, this power was his. He hid behind no one and nothing, and he would die the same way. “I still took your sister and your bitch—all you can take from me is my life. I have nothing else to lose. If you count that a victory, come and claim it.”
Keir laughed madly, cackling. "Hiding? I'm not hiding behind anyone little man. This power is just a bonus, and what it took to draw me out. The little Alistair fool keeps me locked up in his head. The only reason I'm fighting you and not them is because you were percieved as stronger than myself, though I seem to have been mistaken." The forked tounge flickered out, running across the head of the ulna sticking from the limb he still held. With as much of a scowl as his face would allow, he tossed the arm to the side.
"You taste revolting, and you're boring me." He moved, this time seizing the clone by his hair, and then taking off, the cobalt-blue and yellow wings carrying them both up into the air. He pulled the man up to his face, his tongue sliding across his cheek before he spoke. "And by the way, you took nothing from me. They're both still alive." He said nothing else, and then dove straight for the ground, throwing all of his weight behind driving the man into the ground head-first. A satisfied smile appeared on his face when he felt the man's head crush underneath his hand. It did not take long for the body to disintegrate.
The only thing following was laughter.
She let it go, in no mood to bother attempting to control the weather, and thunder cracked with a desperate rapport over their heads, the wind picking up until it lashed her hair into her face, lighter pieces of debris being picked up and tossed around. The air took on a tang of ozone, and glistening bolts of lightning began to strike almost at random, laying waste to the foes before her. She could only reach Keir, but she would reach him, and trust in Balthasar to be able to make the impossible happen for Rica. If anyone could do it, it would be him.
By the time she collapsed to her knees at his side, Leora was breathing heavily, and the rain was coming down hard, plastering her hair to her face and neck, but a vampire’s nose would know that her tears mixed freely with the rain. “Keir,” she choked out, touching his chest gently as if to rouse him from sleep. She froze, eyes wide, the looked down at her fingers, which came back coated in his blood. Why wasn’t he healing? Shouldn’t he be able to—? She hadn’t seen what happened to Alarica, but she could only assume that if he wasn’t healing, she wasn’t either. “No, no, no… Keir, please no. Please don’t.” The mantra was low, desperate, and she honestly wasn’t sure what to do.
She couldn’t lose him, she couldn’t. Leora placed her hands, one still wet with his blood, on either side of his face, pressing her forehead to his. “You can’t die, Keir. You can’t. Don't leave me… please don’t leave me.” She felt sick, weak, as though the barest feeling of his breath on her cheek was the only reason she still breathed. Her muscles, exhausted and trembling, held strong all the same, but if he stopped breathing, she…
Nothing made it to his senses. Not the cold seeping into his very bones, or the rain, or the smell of blood, both his own and his sister's. All he could hear, all he could see, was Alarica. He couldn't let her die. He had to do something. He was dimly aware of someone looming over him, and at first, he was unsure of who it was. The pain was starting to leave his numbing body.
But then te person touched him, and he could smell them. Dull blue eyes tried to focus, Leora's face dimly coming into view as she pressed her forehead to his. He could feel her hands on the side of his face. His face was still being dripped on. She was crying. He was aware that he was dying. But at the moment, that was of little concern to him. Living would mean nothing without his sister; in that strange way that only twins could manage, she was his other half, he could not simply allow her to die.
Despite Leo's words, and her tears, he could not simply tear his thoughts in another direction. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth when he tried to speak. The only thing he managed to get out were their names. "Leora....Rica."
“Stupid…” she said softly, and if her voice shook, well… she felt that it was justified. The man was dying, and all he cared about was other people. She couldn’t do anything for him, or anything for Rica, and she honestly wasn’t sure if Balthasar would be able to, either. They were dying, her cousins were dying, the people she’d grown up with, the person she—it hurt too much to even think, but some traitorous part of her mind completed the thought even so. If only she could be dying instead, if only she could have shielded them from this pain.
All at once, Leora stiffened. There was one thing she could do. It wouldn’t save Rica, but she could save Keir. And who knew… maybe, with the connection they shared… she could do it. Shield them. It was the only thing she had. It was a stupid idea. She’s been warned against it before. It was addictive, it was dangerous, and it was unpredictable. Only her father’s extraordinary level of control allowed him to handle it, that and the fact that he didn’t have to worry about the addiction, because he always had her mother. This was the one thing she had always been told she must never do, no matter the circumstances.
And she didn’t care.
He could have every last drop in her body if that was what it took. The only thing that mattered was that he got to survive this. That they both had a chance to live. Leo would live with the consequences, whatever they may be. Swallowing thickly, she smiled brokenly down at him. “Save her yourself,” she said gently, lowering herself so that she was close enough to reach with very little effort. A hand slid under his head, and she held him to her throat. “Take it, Keir. Let me protect you.”
The pain lanced through him when she slid her arms around him, but in truth, Keir barely felt it. Through the heavy fog in his mind, he could smell her. Oranges and honey and something a little spicy. He knew that smell well. He knew what she asked of him. He didn't want it, he didn't want to survive. Not if his sister wouldn't.
That was what he told himself, but his mind had other ideas. He didn't want to leave her, either. He wasn't aware he'd even moved until he tasted blood in his mouth, and it wasn't his. Even in the fog, one thought rang clearly in his mind: she tasted better than she smelled. It did not take him long to feel his wounds closing, the blood ceasing to flow from the open wounds. He let her go, relaxing back, and then he looked at her.
"You're an idiot. I don't need protecting."
Her brows furrowed slightly, but she supposed she should not have expected anything different. Stubborn man. “Everyone needs protecting somet—” The sentence was cut off as Leo’s eyes went wide, her musculature stiffening as a blade entered her back. While it might have gone right through her and lanced Keir as well, instead it simply could not hit, and the force with which it was thrust bent it, such that the man wielding it had to plant a foot into her back and tear to free it from her flesh. Leora collapsed slightly to the side of Keir, revealing the rather amused face of Balthasar’s clone.
“She’s right, but she should have taken her own advice,” the clone said nonchalantly, tilting his head to the side at Keir. It seemed he’d just barely missed, but there was no reason to tell him that, so he didn’t, inhaling the scent of the Aegis with some surprise. “My, my, that is potent.” Citrus fruits, something sweet, and something a little tangier. “I wonder if I should have a taste?” He smirked wickedly at the prone man, raising a brow. The statement had been made to provoke, though he was in fact quite tempted.
Keir blinked. He could feel her slumped against him. He could see her blood on the end of the blade. He could smell it in the air, heavy and thick. His ice blue eyes widened slowly. He didn't even hear the man's words, all he could hear was his own heart hammering in his ears. It was right there, underneath his skin, crawling, shifting, begging to be released.
There was something that only his immediate family knew about him. The reason was unknown, but it had been speculated to be rooted from when his father had fallen to level E status and then returned. But even that was only speculation. All Keir knew was that there was someone, something else inside of him, something that wanted out, that wanted to kill, to feed. Keir always kept it restrained, always held in check. He did so because he was afraid of what he might do, of what he might become.
He gave no thought to that now. He didn't care what he did, what he would do, who he would hurt. Because right now, he wanted to hurt the man who stood in front of him. He wanted him to suffer, to die. Keir let out a shaky breath, the thin thread holding back the other him snapping.
It was odd, really. He looked terrified one second, and then the next, his face was twisted in a dark, maniacal grin. It was wholly unlike what he normally wore. This one was demented, evil. His teeth seperated as he laughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, unfitting for the mood. The blue scales swarmed madly as Keir shifted his form, the winged, dragon-like creature taking his place. Fanged jowls seperated as his forked tongue slithered out, tasting the air. When he spoke, his voice was entirely different, it was throatier, deeper than Keir's.
"I'm afraid you won't be tasting anything today, unless of course death has a taste. I wouldn't know, I've never tried."
He moved, much faster than he had been before, a clawed hand aimed directly at the clone's heart. "You know, most people would think that I'm doing this because you hurt them, Alarica and Leora. But did you know? I'm doing it simply to watch you bleed. I do so love the sight of it, running from a body as they realize their life is in my hands. You seem fond of it yourself, but do you think you can kill me?" The creature laughed again.
He had been told that he was an unworthy project, a failure. He had manifested his source’s control over gravity, and to some extent, the fire, but there was something fundamentally different about him, something that meant he could not manifest that power that he knew was somewhere under his skin. Baldr had speculated that it must be an environmental factor that made him different from Balthasar, because their genetic codes were identical. He thought differently. He thought that maybe, the power had a mind of its own, that it was somehow able to choose in whom to manifest, and that it had somewhere found him wanting.
But if that was the case, there was always a chance to prove it wrong, to force it to accept him. To force the world to accept him. To give him a name, even. He knew that this was not a situation he would survive if he couldn’t force that acceptance, because this man was on the Aegis, and he’d been told what that meant. It meant his strength and speed were now on par with the very highest class of purebloods. It meant that nothing, physical damage nor vampiric ability, would hurt him. At all. It meant that the only way to overcome his enhancement was to force it away with the power he had never yet been able to claim, or to match it, by also dosing himself with the Aegis.
Seeing as how the man was standing between himself and the girl, he really only had the one option. Dodging the first swing, the clone tossed his blade away, knowing just how useless it would be, following up with a series of piston-quick strikes to the reptilian creature’s midsection, which as predicted did no damage at all. He hit hard enough to feel his knuckles shatter and heal several times, but it was not enough. It could not be enough, against power like this. So instead he focused on blocking and dodging, and both his strength and his speed were on par with the lizardlike man’s. He was, after all, among the highest class of purebloods.
But even so, there was no dodging everything, and it was becoming rapidly apparent that, like the girl, the amount he’d bled already would soon translate into slower recovery rates, as he lost the energy in his system. Still, there was nothing. That thing he was sure he could feel beneath his skin, in the back of his mind, everywhere but nowhere he could reach, was inert. Like it needed some kind of reaction he could not initiate. Like there was a catalyst he was missing. He was growing increasingly desperate, his drawn facial expression betraying the strain he was under. There was only one option left: on the next pass, he grabbed hold of the Alistair’s arm and threw as hard as he could, in to opposite direction from the Aegis. She was still bleeding—he just needed to get there in time.
Except that the Alistair did not let go of him. When the man had grabbed ahold of his arm, Keir had latched onto his forearm, digging in hard enough that his claws drew blood, and continued to use his momentum to swing himself behind the clone. With his free hand, he lashed out, grabbing the man's other arm. The feral grin never left his face.
"What, you won't speak to me, now? You were more fun earlier!" A rumble echoed from his chest. He could feel all the power thrumming through him, and nothing was getting through, not the hits, or abilities, or anything. It was exilirating. He placed a foot square in the other's back, and began to pull. There were some sickening pops as his arms began to be wrenched from their shoulder-sockets. "How well do you think you'll be able to fight if your arms are seperated from your body? At least answer my question...you're very rude, little man. You're rude...and you're weak. I'm disappointed."
“Fuck you,” he replied in a snarl. It was funny, how the certainty of his own death was as meaningless to him as his life had been. “You’re a coward hiding behind a woman’s protection—at least my strength is mine.” He struggled to pull himself from the man’s grip, the claws digging bloody furrows in his arms, and with a growl, he felt one of his arms tear off, but the other came free, and he jumped back, the bleeding stump pouring blood too quickly, scented like but unlike the stuff that belonged to Balthasar. Yes, however much or little it was, this power was his. He hid behind no one and nothing, and he would die the same way. “I still took your sister and your bitch—all you can take from me is my life. I have nothing else to lose. If you count that a victory, come and claim it.”
Keir laughed madly, cackling. "Hiding? I'm not hiding behind anyone little man. This power is just a bonus, and what it took to draw me out. The little Alistair fool keeps me locked up in his head. The only reason I'm fighting you and not them is because you were percieved as stronger than myself, though I seem to have been mistaken." The forked tounge flickered out, running across the head of the ulna sticking from the limb he still held. With as much of a scowl as his face would allow, he tossed the arm to the side.
"You taste revolting, and you're boring me." He moved, this time seizing the clone by his hair, and then taking off, the cobalt-blue and yellow wings carrying them both up into the air. He pulled the man up to his face, his tongue sliding across his cheek before he spoke. "And by the way, you took nothing from me. They're both still alive." He said nothing else, and then dove straight for the ground, throwing all of his weight behind driving the man into the ground head-first. A satisfied smile appeared on his face when he felt the man's head crush underneath his hand. It did not take long for the body to disintegrate.
The only thing following was laughter.
It didn’t take long for Balthasar to be blocked by a horde of lower-level vampires, but this time he did not even hesitate. He could smell the scent of her death, and that was all that concerned him in this moment, all that he even registered. Balthasar sank into his darkness, and the whites of his eyes turned black. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, bearing distended fangs at the creatures who thought to keep him from what he wished to protect. They would not survive the attempt. It was nothing more than a thought, and the Level E’s simply ceased to exist, everything of a higher level than that sinking to its knees, unable to resist the inexorable pull of power.
For her sake, he would speak in this tongue. He would give into this darkness, this evil, in him as many times as it took. As long as it always carried him to her in time. The gravity field was crushing, and with its activation, everything else in his way burst into dust, the molecules unable to remain in their bonded states with so much force applied. The pressure hollowed out a massive crater, and it was more luck than conscious thought that assured that nobody was in it. He saw his aunt first, unconscious but not dying. He could smell Leora and the dying Keir further away, but for the moment, all that he could really focus on was her.
She was still bleeding sluggishly, her eyes half-glazed over to a dull pink rather than the vibrant sakura they usually were. It tore at him, and made him angry enough to kill something. To kill the one who had done it. His senses were temporarily confused by the fact that he could smell something quite nearly himself on her, but the perpetrator was nowhere around. Good—if he was, he’d be dead, and Balthasar didn’t care about him right now. All he cared about was the snow-haired woman in a pool of her own blood on the frozen ground.
Spearing both of his lances into the ground nearby, Balthasar knelt beside her, swallowing thickly as he brushed a thumb over her cheek, removing a smear of her blood from it. There were two matching puncture marks on her alabaster neck, and he had to fight to keep himself from standing, tracking down his clone, and ripping him apart. That was what the darkness in him wanted to do. But she was more important—the rest of him knew that, and the darkness surrendered to his certainty in this. “Rica…” though he still spoke with the voice of his heritage, the crack in it could only belong to Balthasar, the man, the vulnerable person, her cousin, and someone who had failed her. Not knowing what else to do, he lifted her with utmost care from the snow, holding her to him. The rain from Leora’s thunderstorm fell on him, but the way he was bowed over her kept her mostly dry. Black eyes searched her face, as though looking for some form of hope there, but he must have found none, because his tears were black, too.
“I'm so sorry."
She could feel him draining everything from her. He had no reserves, no qualms about control, and he was taking everything. And she couldn't do anything about it. He kept her in place with his ability, and she had never felt so weak as she did now. It wasn't the loss of blood, but the fact that she couldn't do anything. She wasn't strong like her family was. Even her brother, Keir, was stronger than her. Keir. Was he alright? It was the only thought that crossed her mind, even as the blade entered and pierced her lung.
She took a sharp intake of air as it nicked her heart, barely, and he let her fall. Her vision blurred as she could feel her body go numb. She felt nothing, not even the pain that had entered her when he stabbed her. There was nothing. Slowly, she could feel herself breathing so very slowly. Watch her family die? That was the only thing she could do now. But would she die before them? Would she die before watching her family die? How she hoped so. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she had watched the ones she'd swore to protect, die. It wasn't until something familiar came into her senses that she was able to fight for just a bit longer, because he was there.
"No...no Bally. Don't...don't be sorry," she spoke, trying to force a smile on her face. It wouldn't come. It came out very weak, as if she were trying to frown instead. "I...should be the one...to be sorry," she continued, her face cringing as she could feel her life slowly fading. She could feel the burn at the back of her eyes. He was going to die with her, because of her. Keir did not deserve to die as she was, and she cursed the link between the two of them, even as her hand gently rested against Balthasar's face.
"I should be the one to be sorry," she repeated, the smile finally worming its way through. "I should...because I'm...I'm breaking our promise," she spoke, her voice growing just a bit weaker with each word. This was how it was going to end, her breaking her promise to him. She was going to die, and though she was accepting it now, she was still scared. Scared because she had never told him, and it was taking every ounce of energy she had left to keep herself awake long enough to just be in his presence one last time.
"Hey, don't...cry for me. Smile, please," she continued as she slowly moved her hand from his cheek to wipe at the tears. "Smile for me instead, please. I...don't want you to cry for me. I...I'm sorry I never told you...that...," she paused, her own tears finally falling from her eyes as her face twisted a bit in pain. This was how she was to confess, on her death bed. It seemed so...wrong. But she accepted it. She accepted it that she was going to die, that she would tell him, and that she would die. "Thank you...for...letting me love you from...a...far," she finally stated, her eyes slowly closing. She was so tired.
Her touch on his face burned, like a brand being pressed into his flesh, a mark of the way he’d managed to spectacularly fail in the one thing that mattered most to him in all the world: keeping his family safe. That it was her that he was losing, her that he watched fade away in his arms, was somehow a wrenching twist in the knife that stabbed him through, and Balthasar lost his ability to speak, even to breathe, able to feel nothing but that palm on his face, hear nothing but the dying sound of her voice, and see nothing but the life ebbing from her eyes, and never in his existence had he ever felt so weak as he did in that moment.
It was like he was on the very precipice of falling apart, held together by thin, ragged threads about to snap. Her words didn’t even make sense to him. She was sorry? She had nothing to be sorry for. He was the weak one, unable to do anything but tremble as he held her to him. How could he possibly smile? Her life was slipping away right there in his arms—he didn’t think he’d ever be able to smile again. It was like he was being dragged under the ocean to drown, and there was nothing but dark water and her. The reality of the situation was a set of chains, binding him in place, rendering him helpless and unable to save her, and even her words had stopped making sense to him. He registered only that she said she loved him, but from afar? The three years had been uncomfortable, certainly, but had they not had those before and since? Of course they loved each other—they were family, and Balthasar loved nothing more than his family.
But her eyes slid closed, and something in him rebelled against the idea that this was it, that she was going to die. The darkness stirred, and a latent anger in him woke. This was not the way the world should be. She did not deserve to die. If anyone should die, it should be him, because this was all his fault to begin with. No. Nobody died for him. Nobody else he loved died at all. He’d lost his sister, he would not lose his Rica. The power rose to the surface, like black-and-white lightning crackling over the surface of his skin, and though his sclera remained black, his irises faded to a bright white, and he placed his free hand on the side of her face, turning her head towards him.
“No, Alarica,” he said softly, but there was no mistaking that, however gentle, there was compulsion behind the words. The chains holding him, causing him to sink deeper and deeper in the dark water, groaned and creaked as he tore against them with all his strength.
His bonds snapped. The command, for that was what it was, reached into the space between life and death and reclaimed her, with what felt like strong arms winding around her from behind, and though he knew not how he did it or what was happening, he kept tugging, as gently as he could but inexorably all the same, seeking what was her and bringing it back from the void between worlds. Her wounds did not simply close—they vanished, as though they had never been there at all, but he needed to know—he had to know she was alive. “Rica. Rica, wake up.”
It was warm, and dark. She was tired, and she could finally sleep. That was all she wanted to do was sleep. She was tired, she was dying, and she just wanted to let go. And she could. She finally could. There was nothing left for her. She could finally go in peace, and it was a peace she had come to terms with. Though she was saddened at leaving his side, she knew that he would move on without her. She would be forgotten eventually, in time perhaps, but nonetheless, forgotten. And it was for the best. She didn't want them to mourn her death. She didn't want them to mourn her.
That was something she could never ask of them. And so, it was with this in mind, that she allowed herself to drift away. She was...happy? Yes? Perhaps? She told him she loved him, though she wasn't entirely sure he'd understand. He was Balthasar after all, and if she could have, she would have smiled and shook her head. Instead, all she did was float. Whatever was left of her floated in wherever it was they went to when they died. It was then she felt something. She couldn't describe it, and her brows furrowed into a knot of confusion.
What was it? What was this feeling of being wrapped in something so familiar? She was gone, floating into nothingness where she belonged, but something was compelling her to come back. Go back to where though? There was nothing to go back to...right? Her brows furrowed further as she felt herself being brought back somewhere. She could hear someone calling her name. She knew that voice. It was his. Why could she still hear his voice? She was dead. She shouldn't be able to hear anything, unless this was some sick, twisted heaven she was in. But she was breathing, her heart beat was slow and steady.
"Bal...thasar?" her voice came out so soft that it could barely be registered as a whisper. She was alive, how was that even possible? Her eyes remained closed, afraid to open them for she may be dreaming. It was a cruel joke, this dream. She was supposed to be dead. She wasn't supposed to live. They were supposed to forget her, and move on. Why was she alive? This was wrong. She should be dead, but a part of her was happy. She was happy to be alive. Her eyes slowly peeled open, amaranth meeting silvery-blue hues, and she smiled. It was soft, her smile, and her hand reached up to his face again. She was alive.
Slowly, her fingers combed his bangs from his face, allowing them to be removed temporarily so she could see his face fully. She was alive. Her hand slipped behind the back of his neck, pulling him slowly down. She was alive. She stopped, keeping their faces merely inches apart. She was alive. "I'm sorry," were the only words she spoke, pulling him further down and allowing her lips to slowly press to his. And she cried. And she was alive.
The effort to unmake a death had taken a lot out of him—and she had been dead, for a moment. But he heard it when her heart started again, stuttering at first, and then more steadily. The sense of relief that washed over him was indescribable and consuming, and soft as it was, his name on her lips flooded him with a warmth he could not name. She was alive. Rica was alive, and that meant Keir would surely live too. They were going to be okay. She was going to be okay. The tension that had coiled his muscles tightly slowly relaxed, and his eyes faded back into their usual color as he released his hold on the darkness. It was still there—it was always there, and closer every time. But today at least, he had used it for something good. He’d helped her.
It was perhaps not until he was an inch from her face that he realized what she was about to do, and even then, he didn’t quite believe it until her lips were on his, his eyes rounding with surprise. She’d apologized… and now she was crying… and kissing him? He didn’t have the widest range of experience with such things, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to be crying if she was kissing… oh. Oh. She was…
He’d definitely be putting this down to an overemotional reaction to being alive later. But for the moment, he was rather unable to think straight, and his eyes slid closed, his arms tightening just fractionally around her even as his face heated to a rather pink hue that it did not generally take on. It was he who drew back first, fumbling for words he did not have, unsure what that meant or what he should do now. He couldn’t, however, ignore the fact that his heart was thundering in his chest with the force of a mad drummer, and for all that people usually said he was emotionally retarded, he knew what it meant. He knew what it meant that his face was the color of her eyes, and he knew what it meant that something tight in his chest made it hard to breathe when he remembered that he was putting this down to overreaction on her part.
Still, he managed a smile, but was prevented from saying anything (not that he knew what he would have said) by a stirring from somewhere to their left. It seemed that Aunt Erys was coming to, and Balthasar stood, choosing not to put Rica down, because alive or no, she’d lost a lot of blood, and he wasn’t comfortable letting her walk anywhere on her own just yet. He could smell his clone’s blood, and Keir just as whole as Rica was, and Leora—bleeding copiously, but thankfully not fatally. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to drag a second person back from death today. He, however, managed to keep his feet. It was time to collect their relatives, and go home.
For her sake, he would speak in this tongue. He would give into this darkness, this evil, in him as many times as it took. As long as it always carried him to her in time. The gravity field was crushing, and with its activation, everything else in his way burst into dust, the molecules unable to remain in their bonded states with so much force applied. The pressure hollowed out a massive crater, and it was more luck than conscious thought that assured that nobody was in it. He saw his aunt first, unconscious but not dying. He could smell Leora and the dying Keir further away, but for the moment, all that he could really focus on was her.
She was still bleeding sluggishly, her eyes half-glazed over to a dull pink rather than the vibrant sakura they usually were. It tore at him, and made him angry enough to kill something. To kill the one who had done it. His senses were temporarily confused by the fact that he could smell something quite nearly himself on her, but the perpetrator was nowhere around. Good—if he was, he’d be dead, and Balthasar didn’t care about him right now. All he cared about was the snow-haired woman in a pool of her own blood on the frozen ground.
Spearing both of his lances into the ground nearby, Balthasar knelt beside her, swallowing thickly as he brushed a thumb over her cheek, removing a smear of her blood from it. There were two matching puncture marks on her alabaster neck, and he had to fight to keep himself from standing, tracking down his clone, and ripping him apart. That was what the darkness in him wanted to do. But she was more important—the rest of him knew that, and the darkness surrendered to his certainty in this. “Rica…” though he still spoke with the voice of his heritage, the crack in it could only belong to Balthasar, the man, the vulnerable person, her cousin, and someone who had failed her. Not knowing what else to do, he lifted her with utmost care from the snow, holding her to him. The rain from Leora’s thunderstorm fell on him, but the way he was bowed over her kept her mostly dry. Black eyes searched her face, as though looking for some form of hope there, but he must have found none, because his tears were black, too.
“I'm so sorry."
She could feel him draining everything from her. He had no reserves, no qualms about control, and he was taking everything. And she couldn't do anything about it. He kept her in place with his ability, and she had never felt so weak as she did now. It wasn't the loss of blood, but the fact that she couldn't do anything. She wasn't strong like her family was. Even her brother, Keir, was stronger than her. Keir. Was he alright? It was the only thought that crossed her mind, even as the blade entered and pierced her lung.
She took a sharp intake of air as it nicked her heart, barely, and he let her fall. Her vision blurred as she could feel her body go numb. She felt nothing, not even the pain that had entered her when he stabbed her. There was nothing. Slowly, she could feel herself breathing so very slowly. Watch her family die? That was the only thing she could do now. But would she die before them? Would she die before watching her family die? How she hoped so. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she had watched the ones she'd swore to protect, die. It wasn't until something familiar came into her senses that she was able to fight for just a bit longer, because he was there.
"No...no Bally. Don't...don't be sorry," she spoke, trying to force a smile on her face. It wouldn't come. It came out very weak, as if she were trying to frown instead. "I...should be the one...to be sorry," she continued, her face cringing as she could feel her life slowly fading. She could feel the burn at the back of her eyes. He was going to die with her, because of her. Keir did not deserve to die as she was, and she cursed the link between the two of them, even as her hand gently rested against Balthasar's face.
"I should be the one to be sorry," she repeated, the smile finally worming its way through. "I should...because I'm...I'm breaking our promise," she spoke, her voice growing just a bit weaker with each word. This was how it was going to end, her breaking her promise to him. She was going to die, and though she was accepting it now, she was still scared. Scared because she had never told him, and it was taking every ounce of energy she had left to keep herself awake long enough to just be in his presence one last time.
"Hey, don't...cry for me. Smile, please," she continued as she slowly moved her hand from his cheek to wipe at the tears. "Smile for me instead, please. I...don't want you to cry for me. I...I'm sorry I never told you...that...," she paused, her own tears finally falling from her eyes as her face twisted a bit in pain. This was how she was to confess, on her death bed. It seemed so...wrong. But she accepted it. She accepted it that she was going to die, that she would tell him, and that she would die. "Thank you...for...letting me love you from...a...far," she finally stated, her eyes slowly closing. She was so tired.
Her touch on his face burned, like a brand being pressed into his flesh, a mark of the way he’d managed to spectacularly fail in the one thing that mattered most to him in all the world: keeping his family safe. That it was her that he was losing, her that he watched fade away in his arms, was somehow a wrenching twist in the knife that stabbed him through, and Balthasar lost his ability to speak, even to breathe, able to feel nothing but that palm on his face, hear nothing but the dying sound of her voice, and see nothing but the life ebbing from her eyes, and never in his existence had he ever felt so weak as he did in that moment.
It was like he was on the very precipice of falling apart, held together by thin, ragged threads about to snap. Her words didn’t even make sense to him. She was sorry? She had nothing to be sorry for. He was the weak one, unable to do anything but tremble as he held her to him. How could he possibly smile? Her life was slipping away right there in his arms—he didn’t think he’d ever be able to smile again. It was like he was being dragged under the ocean to drown, and there was nothing but dark water and her. The reality of the situation was a set of chains, binding him in place, rendering him helpless and unable to save her, and even her words had stopped making sense to him. He registered only that she said she loved him, but from afar? The three years had been uncomfortable, certainly, but had they not had those before and since? Of course they loved each other—they were family, and Balthasar loved nothing more than his family.
But her eyes slid closed, and something in him rebelled against the idea that this was it, that she was going to die. The darkness stirred, and a latent anger in him woke. This was not the way the world should be. She did not deserve to die. If anyone should die, it should be him, because this was all his fault to begin with. No. Nobody died for him. Nobody else he loved died at all. He’d lost his sister, he would not lose his Rica. The power rose to the surface, like black-and-white lightning crackling over the surface of his skin, and though his sclera remained black, his irises faded to a bright white, and he placed his free hand on the side of her face, turning her head towards him.
“No, Alarica,” he said softly, but there was no mistaking that, however gentle, there was compulsion behind the words. The chains holding him, causing him to sink deeper and deeper in the dark water, groaned and creaked as he tore against them with all his strength.
“You will not die. You will live.”
His bonds snapped. The command, for that was what it was, reached into the space between life and death and reclaimed her, with what felt like strong arms winding around her from behind, and though he knew not how he did it or what was happening, he kept tugging, as gently as he could but inexorably all the same, seeking what was her and bringing it back from the void between worlds. Her wounds did not simply close—they vanished, as though they had never been there at all, but he needed to know—he had to know she was alive. “Rica. Rica, wake up.”
It was warm, and dark. She was tired, and she could finally sleep. That was all she wanted to do was sleep. She was tired, she was dying, and she just wanted to let go. And she could. She finally could. There was nothing left for her. She could finally go in peace, and it was a peace she had come to terms with. Though she was saddened at leaving his side, she knew that he would move on without her. She would be forgotten eventually, in time perhaps, but nonetheless, forgotten. And it was for the best. She didn't want them to mourn her death. She didn't want them to mourn her.
That was something she could never ask of them. And so, it was with this in mind, that she allowed herself to drift away. She was...happy? Yes? Perhaps? She told him she loved him, though she wasn't entirely sure he'd understand. He was Balthasar after all, and if she could have, she would have smiled and shook her head. Instead, all she did was float. Whatever was left of her floated in wherever it was they went to when they died. It was then she felt something. She couldn't describe it, and her brows furrowed into a knot of confusion.
What was it? What was this feeling of being wrapped in something so familiar? She was gone, floating into nothingness where she belonged, but something was compelling her to come back. Go back to where though? There was nothing to go back to...right? Her brows furrowed further as she felt herself being brought back somewhere. She could hear someone calling her name. She knew that voice. It was his. Why could she still hear his voice? She was dead. She shouldn't be able to hear anything, unless this was some sick, twisted heaven she was in. But she was breathing, her heart beat was slow and steady.
"Bal...thasar?" her voice came out so soft that it could barely be registered as a whisper. She was alive, how was that even possible? Her eyes remained closed, afraid to open them for she may be dreaming. It was a cruel joke, this dream. She was supposed to be dead. She wasn't supposed to live. They were supposed to forget her, and move on. Why was she alive? This was wrong. She should be dead, but a part of her was happy. She was happy to be alive. Her eyes slowly peeled open, amaranth meeting silvery-blue hues, and she smiled. It was soft, her smile, and her hand reached up to his face again. She was alive.
Slowly, her fingers combed his bangs from his face, allowing them to be removed temporarily so she could see his face fully. She was alive. Her hand slipped behind the back of his neck, pulling him slowly down. She was alive. She stopped, keeping their faces merely inches apart. She was alive. "I'm sorry," were the only words she spoke, pulling him further down and allowing her lips to slowly press to his. And she cried. And she was alive.
The effort to unmake a death had taken a lot out of him—and she had been dead, for a moment. But he heard it when her heart started again, stuttering at first, and then more steadily. The sense of relief that washed over him was indescribable and consuming, and soft as it was, his name on her lips flooded him with a warmth he could not name. She was alive. Rica was alive, and that meant Keir would surely live too. They were going to be okay. She was going to be okay. The tension that had coiled his muscles tightly slowly relaxed, and his eyes faded back into their usual color as he released his hold on the darkness. It was still there—it was always there, and closer every time. But today at least, he had used it for something good. He’d helped her.
It was perhaps not until he was an inch from her face that he realized what she was about to do, and even then, he didn’t quite believe it until her lips were on his, his eyes rounding with surprise. She’d apologized… and now she was crying… and kissing him? He didn’t have the widest range of experience with such things, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to be crying if she was kissing… oh. Oh. She was…
He’d definitely be putting this down to an overemotional reaction to being alive later. But for the moment, he was rather unable to think straight, and his eyes slid closed, his arms tightening just fractionally around her even as his face heated to a rather pink hue that it did not generally take on. It was he who drew back first, fumbling for words he did not have, unsure what that meant or what he should do now. He couldn’t, however, ignore the fact that his heart was thundering in his chest with the force of a mad drummer, and for all that people usually said he was emotionally retarded, he knew what it meant. He knew what it meant that his face was the color of her eyes, and he knew what it meant that something tight in his chest made it hard to breathe when he remembered that he was putting this down to overreaction on her part.
Still, he managed a smile, but was prevented from saying anything (not that he knew what he would have said) by a stirring from somewhere to their left. It seemed that Aunt Erys was coming to, and Balthasar stood, choosing not to put Rica down, because alive or no, she’d lost a lot of blood, and he wasn’t comfortable letting her walk anywhere on her own just yet. He could smell his clone’s blood, and Keir just as whole as Rica was, and Leora—bleeding copiously, but thankfully not fatally. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to drag a second person back from death today. He, however, managed to keep his feet. It was time to collect their relatives, and go home.
How long had it been?
She’d found that she could no longer grasp time properly. Perhaps that was to be expected; one did not enter his presence and remain unscathed. Especially not when one fought it as hard as she had. She remembered vaguely being told what she was meant to do, and then attempting to take her own life to prevent doing it. Because it was such a terrible thing that no life was worth letting it happen, especially not hers. But they’d stopped her, and then they’d made everything happen faster, so that she would not have the chance to try again. They hadn’t been fast enough to stop her attempts, but the damnable blood in her body, her power, kept her from succeeding all the same. She was dangerous even when caged and weaponless—they’d learned that the hard way.
But she wasn’t nearly as dangerous as him. This, she had learned the hard way. They’d brought her to a sepulcher, a tomb underneath the castle she was in, and one of them had moved the lid off a sarcophagus. There was a man sleeping inside, and her reaction had been immediate. She—she couldn’t remember her name anymore, but she knew she’d still had one, back then—had immediately reacted, something in her mind triggering a response she could not control. It was like, in one moment, everything that she had been for the past hundred and some years had just… gone away. Every effort to build herself an identity, a self independent of Theodor’s intent, had simply been swept aside like it was nothing.
Her memories hadn’t disappeared, exactly. She still knew all the things she’d done, all the people she’d met, and even that she’d come to care about them. It just utterly ceased to matter. Everything had. The light in her eyes had died, flattening them to hazy disks of violet-grey, and she’d simply walked forward, taking the knife her brother had handed her and drawing it across her throat, climbing into the sarcophagus and letting the blood from her vital artery spill onto his lips. As if by some darkly-twisted kind of magic, his eyes had opened, and there was no trace of color to be found in them at all—they were only white. She knew them, knew them as the stuff of her darkest nightmares, and everything clicked together in a moment that left her paralyzed with fear. For all her power, for all her training, for all her cool, logical mentality, Helen was nothing before this person, and she felt it keenly just by looking at him.
The eyes had narrowed, a tongue darting out to taste the fluid on his lips, and he had smiled. He looked like them, like the male von Nachts, and yet at the same time, utterly unlike them. He was perfect, aesthetically, not a single flaw anywhere on his person. Even the crimson stain of her blood on his mouth just served to accent the marble of his skin, an artistic detail that was neither necessary nor truly superfluous. Taking advantage of her stillness, not that he needed it, he had attached himself to her neck, until she was so weak from blood loss that she’d collapsed against him, drawing a dark chuckle from him. The last thing she remembered on that day was the feeling of being lifted almost gently as the man rose from his sarcophagus, and two murmured words that had sent chills down her spine.
She had learned since that this position, this thing she had been created to be, was not something she would ever enjoy, but she was simply unable to resist. He compelled her with nothing more than a thought, and if she’d believed what Theodor had done to her inescapable and cruel, his father was infinitely worse in both respects. She retained her mind and her memories, just not her name or free will. She came when he beckoned, answered to whatever designation he gave her, but there was simply no option other than to obey. He was in her mind, always, digging through it with no gentleness and uncovering all the things Theodor had left there—things she had never even guessed were present.
She’d been right—she was a repository for his use. But she was more than that; she was a source of food, a decorative item, and… she shuddered. She dare not linger on the thoughts. She knew he would hear them, knew what it would mean. So as she always did when she wanted him to ignore her, she distracted herself with a mindless recitation of facts, of names and places. Targets, people she’d killed, birthdays, anything she could list to keep even a tiny hold on sanity. She was a prisoner in her own mind, and her body was no longer hers to control. If there was anything worse to be, she could no longer recall it, because she would rather be dead.
But he would not allow her to die.
Baldr waited at the drawbridge of the castle, unsurprised to see the group making their way over to him at considerable speed. He wondered if they could feel it yet, the dread that his presence evoked. They would be able to feel it soon—he was willing to bet the telepath especially would not have an easy time of it. Being in his presence for any length of time tended to make even a pureblood feel weak and drained; it would have a more pronounced and quicker effect on those of lesser blood. He wasn’t sure how the Queen could survive it, but then… it was the purpose for which she had been created.
Regardless, all of them, even his great-grandson, would be subject to his will. They simply did not realize it yet. They arrived, Jasper at the head of the procession, the others fanned out behind him. He noted the presence of the Aegis with a disdainful sneer. Perhaps his lord would do him a favor and kill her today, perhaps not. It was not for him to know his master’s plans. And master he was, in a way Theodor could never have hoped to match. But then, at least Theodor had known this. They would all know it, eventually.
He eyed them all for a moment, unsurprised that some were missing. Though the absence of the young prince was inconvenient, his father would serve for the making of the point, perhaps even more poignantly. He was sure that somewhere, Sigyn was enjoying herself at this very moment. “King Malkior will see you now,” he told them simply, turning and leading the way through a series of corridors until they hit the throne room. Ushering them through, he stepped in behind them and closed the door. What choice did they have? Their precious Helen was in here, as was the man they needed to kill to end this farce of a war.
He sat the throne, attired entirely in black. His silvery eyes, flecked with the faintest traces of metallic blue, were eerily similar to his great-grandson’s, as was his dark hair, his height, though he had an extra inch, and even down to the features of his face. The resemblance was so strong that the men could have been twins, or a mirrored reflection of one another, save that there was something about Malkior that Jasper lacked. What that something was could not be said, at least not in any words that Baldr knew, and he was a very learned man.
Beside him and to the right, unarmed, stood Helen. She too wore nothing but black, hers a long velvet gown that brushed the floor. Her silver hair was a glittering cascade, falling from her head and spilling forward over her shoulders and down her back to her thighs. She looked quite well-kept, save for the fact that her eyes were dull. She showed no visible reaction to their presence, simply staring straight ahead, but there was one person in the room who knew exactly how false that impression was. Just touching her mind was enough to send Alden reeling, and he backed off immediately, unsure he could cope with what was in there. It wasn’t just the memories or the feelings or the fact that she was caged, but he was inside there, too, and even the barest brush against his mind had the telepath doubled over, bleeding from his nose.
He managed to straighten, though, when they were addressed. “So,” Malkior spoke, his syllables at once infused with so much power it almost hurt to hear and so little emotion it left Alden feeling strangely hollowed out. “These are the rebels.”
She’d found that she could no longer grasp time properly. Perhaps that was to be expected; one did not enter his presence and remain unscathed. Especially not when one fought it as hard as she had. She remembered vaguely being told what she was meant to do, and then attempting to take her own life to prevent doing it. Because it was such a terrible thing that no life was worth letting it happen, especially not hers. But they’d stopped her, and then they’d made everything happen faster, so that she would not have the chance to try again. They hadn’t been fast enough to stop her attempts, but the damnable blood in her body, her power, kept her from succeeding all the same. She was dangerous even when caged and weaponless—they’d learned that the hard way.
But she wasn’t nearly as dangerous as him. This, she had learned the hard way. They’d brought her to a sepulcher, a tomb underneath the castle she was in, and one of them had moved the lid off a sarcophagus. There was a man sleeping inside, and her reaction had been immediate. She—she couldn’t remember her name anymore, but she knew she’d still had one, back then—had immediately reacted, something in her mind triggering a response she could not control. It was like, in one moment, everything that she had been for the past hundred and some years had just… gone away. Every effort to build herself an identity, a self independent of Theodor’s intent, had simply been swept aside like it was nothing.
Her memories hadn’t disappeared, exactly. She still knew all the things she’d done, all the people she’d met, and even that she’d come to care about them. It just utterly ceased to matter. Everything had. The light in her eyes had died, flattening them to hazy disks of violet-grey, and she’d simply walked forward, taking the knife her brother had handed her and drawing it across her throat, climbing into the sarcophagus and letting the blood from her vital artery spill onto his lips. As if by some darkly-twisted kind of magic, his eyes had opened, and there was no trace of color to be found in them at all—they were only white. She knew them, knew them as the stuff of her darkest nightmares, and everything clicked together in a moment that left her paralyzed with fear. For all her power, for all her training, for all her cool, logical mentality, Helen was nothing before this person, and she felt it keenly just by looking at him.
The eyes had narrowed, a tongue darting out to taste the fluid on his lips, and he had smiled. He looked like them, like the male von Nachts, and yet at the same time, utterly unlike them. He was perfect, aesthetically, not a single flaw anywhere on his person. Even the crimson stain of her blood on his mouth just served to accent the marble of his skin, an artistic detail that was neither necessary nor truly superfluous. Taking advantage of her stillness, not that he needed it, he had attached himself to her neck, until she was so weak from blood loss that she’d collapsed against him, drawing a dark chuckle from him. The last thing she remembered on that day was the feeling of being lifted almost gently as the man rose from his sarcophagus, and two murmured words that had sent chills down her spine.
“My Queen.”
She had learned since that this position, this thing she had been created to be, was not something she would ever enjoy, but she was simply unable to resist. He compelled her with nothing more than a thought, and if she’d believed what Theodor had done to her inescapable and cruel, his father was infinitely worse in both respects. She retained her mind and her memories, just not her name or free will. She came when he beckoned, answered to whatever designation he gave her, but there was simply no option other than to obey. He was in her mind, always, digging through it with no gentleness and uncovering all the things Theodor had left there—things she had never even guessed were present.
She’d been right—she was a repository for his use. But she was more than that; she was a source of food, a decorative item, and… she shuddered. She dare not linger on the thoughts. She knew he would hear them, knew what it would mean. So as she always did when she wanted him to ignore her, she distracted herself with a mindless recitation of facts, of names and places. Targets, people she’d killed, birthdays, anything she could list to keep even a tiny hold on sanity. She was a prisoner in her own mind, and her body was no longer hers to control. If there was anything worse to be, she could no longer recall it, because she would rather be dead.
But he would not allow her to die.
Baldr waited at the drawbridge of the castle, unsurprised to see the group making their way over to him at considerable speed. He wondered if they could feel it yet, the dread that his presence evoked. They would be able to feel it soon—he was willing to bet the telepath especially would not have an easy time of it. Being in his presence for any length of time tended to make even a pureblood feel weak and drained; it would have a more pronounced and quicker effect on those of lesser blood. He wasn’t sure how the Queen could survive it, but then… it was the purpose for which she had been created.
Regardless, all of them, even his great-grandson, would be subject to his will. They simply did not realize it yet. They arrived, Jasper at the head of the procession, the others fanned out behind him. He noted the presence of the Aegis with a disdainful sneer. Perhaps his lord would do him a favor and kill her today, perhaps not. It was not for him to know his master’s plans. And master he was, in a way Theodor could never have hoped to match. But then, at least Theodor had known this. They would all know it, eventually.
He eyed them all for a moment, unsurprised that some were missing. Though the absence of the young prince was inconvenient, his father would serve for the making of the point, perhaps even more poignantly. He was sure that somewhere, Sigyn was enjoying herself at this very moment. “King Malkior will see you now,” he told them simply, turning and leading the way through a series of corridors until they hit the throne room. Ushering them through, he stepped in behind them and closed the door. What choice did they have? Their precious Helen was in here, as was the man they needed to kill to end this farce of a war.
He sat the throne, attired entirely in black. His silvery eyes, flecked with the faintest traces of metallic blue, were eerily similar to his great-grandson’s, as was his dark hair, his height, though he had an extra inch, and even down to the features of his face. The resemblance was so strong that the men could have been twins, or a mirrored reflection of one another, save that there was something about Malkior that Jasper lacked. What that something was could not be said, at least not in any words that Baldr knew, and he was a very learned man.
Beside him and to the right, unarmed, stood Helen. She too wore nothing but black, hers a long velvet gown that brushed the floor. Her silver hair was a glittering cascade, falling from her head and spilling forward over her shoulders and down her back to her thighs. She looked quite well-kept, save for the fact that her eyes were dull. She showed no visible reaction to their presence, simply staring straight ahead, but there was one person in the room who knew exactly how false that impression was. Just touching her mind was enough to send Alden reeling, and he backed off immediately, unsure he could cope with what was in there. It wasn’t just the memories or the feelings or the fact that she was caged, but he was inside there, too, and even the barest brush against his mind had the telepath doubled over, bleeding from his nose.
He managed to straighten, though, when they were addressed. “So,” Malkior spoke, his syllables at once infused with so much power it almost hurt to hear and so little emotion it left Alden feeling strangely hollowed out. “These are the rebels.”
The closer they got to their destination, the worse Nikki felt. She could not explain it, other than a sinking feeling of pure dread. By the time they entered, she was amazed she was still on her feet at all. Being in the same room as Malkior was affecting her greatly, if the subtle tremble of her limbs was any indication. She positioned her arms in front of herself, one hand clenched to her chest in that old gesture, one she had not made in decades. It was as if she were trying to shield herself from the man in front of her, the man who looked uncannily like her husband, but unlike him in every way.
Her eyes flickered to Helen. Even in the state she was in, drowning in the darkness, the pain, the fear, she still knew why they were here. She almost flinched at what she saw. She could only imagine what the woman had been through, and she didn't want to. She did flinch, however, when Malkior spoke. It actually hurt to hear his voice, and his eyes...a tremor ran down her spine. They were the same, and yet wholly different, as Jasper's.
Emrys was faring worse than his Aunt, but was holding himself together slightly better, at least for now. His gut felt like it was churning, and he felt ill, though he reflexively turned to Alden when the other man doubled over, his hands on his shoulders. His face twisted into one of anger as Malkior spoke. Aryan wanted nothing more than to go to Helen, but his feet remained rooted to where they were, his purple eyes going back and forth between her and Malkior. He was stunned at how much alike the man looked to his father. At the moment, however, all he could do was look at Helen, his heart constricting inside his chest.
He couldn't tell if she didn't recognize them, or if she was doing it out of self-preservation. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He didn't want to believe that everything he'd done, all they had worked for to get Helen back to being Helen, had been for nothing. He wouldn't believe that. His jaw clenched as Malkior spoke. Odd choice of words, really.
They had finally found Helen, or at least his son had. Vincent was not one to doubt his son's abilities, none of them, and it was through Alden and Andrick that they were able to find Helen in the first place. Without much hesitance, the family was off to retrieve Helen, however; there were certain things that needed to be attended to. His sister and his niece and nephews, even his own daughter, left to take care of the situation in St. Petersburg, and he trusted them all enough that they would be well. He trusted that they would all watch over each other and protect each other until they could return home. All of them.
Even as they approached their destination, this thought was the only thing going through Vincent's mind. He was worried for his daughter, and for good reason. She had inherited her mother's ability. He would always be worried for her. They were greeted by Baldr, a man Vincent did not know, nor did he care to. They were here for one purpose, and that was to retrieve Helen. This man was nothing more than an obstacle that would be removed if he stood in the way. Vincent was not one to overestimate a person because he had his strength as a pure-blood, nor the fact that he had the Aegis. He was not so shallow a thinker to believe himself invincible.
Everything had limits, even the Aegis. Regardless, they all stood in front of another man, that for a split second, Zero thought him to be Jasper's twin. There were small, hardly noticeable, differences between the two men, however; it was apparent to Zero, that the man they were staring at was nothing like his uncle. This man, from his appearance, to the sound of his voice, spoke and commanded a lot of respect. It commanded power, one that Zero could feel a faint fear from. Who was this man? Zero couldn't recall any conversations about a man named Malkior, or who he even was. At least not any he could remember to be important enough.
He watched as his brother doubled over, blood spilling from his nose as he furrowed his brows. It was his father who spoke first. "We have many names. Rebels is but a one of the many moniker's bestowed upon us," he spoke, his voice erieely calm, though he too could feel the abnormal power rolling off of the man. He could only safely guess who this King was. And if he was right, that could not be a good thing. They were going to need a lot more help if they intended to survive this. But who could help them when their opponent may very well be the very first of their kind?
Malkior honestly wasn’t particularly interested in their answers to his assertions—it was much more interesting to watch what their bodies and their faces gave away. He noted with some amusement the way that several pairs of eyes would occasionally flicker to his Queen. He’d seen her memories, of course—he understood better than she did just how precious these people were to her, and what was more, how important she was to them. He draped an arm out to the side of the throne he sat on, the chair itself cut from a solid slab of obsidian. With a single index digit, he beckoned her forward, and compelled her to answer the summons. “Lovely, is she not? Theodor was a useless son, in many ways, but he did know some things. And when he set his mind to something, no detail was spared. Such a dutiful child, remembering my tastes.” The smile that spread across his face was wicked, and he scanned over the faces in the room.
“Of course, if he were still alive, I’d kill him. My awakening is not the stuff of back-up plans.” His eyes flashed for a moment, and everyone in the room felt a sudden spike in the pressure of his mind on theirs. His eyes moved back to Helen, whose body shuddered visibly, but she advanced forward all the same, climbing into Malkior’s lap and tilting her head to one side. Pushing back what hair remained in the way, he sank his teeth into her throat and drank for a moment, exhaling almost in a sigh as he pulled away and placing a kiss to her forehead before he let her go again. He seemed to have no care for the fact that there were other people in the room, and only after a few more heartbeats did he turn his attention back to them.
“But I understand not all of my heirs are as useless as he. You, boy—you are his grandson.” Jasper’s eyes only narrowed further at being addressed as such, and that drew a dark chuckle from Malkior. “And you carry with you a shadow of my power. I admit I did not foresee its appearance in any but I, but perhaps the world is simply never meant to be without it forever.” A pause, and then he stood, the dais that he was on and his own towering height sufficient to loom over them, casting a long shadow. The color bled from his eyes, and his power swept over the room like an onrushing tide, crushing and fathomless.
And each and every one of them did. There was no other choice. Slowly, Malkior descended the stairs, pausing for a moment when he felt a bit of pushback from Jasper, struggling valiantly to overcome the compulsion, his own eyes losing their own color as well. But the First’s footsteps continued, and he walked among them, stopping occasionally as if to examine his handiwork, or admire the look of particular rage or hatred upon someone’s face. When he reached Ava, he placed a fingertip at the crown of her head, his expression clearly one of amusement. “So you are the Aegis. He was so very proud of you.” He lifted a long strand of her hair, bending slightly so as to smell it. “It is not difficult to guess why.” It was really too bad that no shield was of any use against him, else they might have stood a chance after all.
“A spider in his web,” he murmured to Alden, chuckling darkly. “A shame you wouldn’t use those talents for me—I am rather bereft of those skilled in the collection of information, else I’d have prepared more extravagant welcome.” Whether he was lying or telling the truth was something Alden could not tell—he was too busy trying not to die.
When he reached Aryan, he actually bent so as to meet the man’s amethyst-colored eyes. “The Queen was fond of you,” he said, his voice as smooth and venomous as snake-oil. His use of the past tense was quite intentional, of course, and he straightened, folding his hands behind his back and sighing as if in resignation. “Well, it isn’t much,” he said dismissively, “a handful of knights and a pretender to a throne. But it’s been so long since anyone had been even this much of a challenge. I do miss being able to go all out. So, rebels, I will make you a bargain. Leave now, and I’ll even give you my Queen as hostage. She will be in your care for one year, and then I shall come for her. Prepare well, valiant knights, and see if you have it in you to resist the easy solution.”
He allowed Helen to stand and make her way past him, their paths crossing as he ascended back to his throne, resuming his seat even as he lifted the compulsion upon them. “I should like to see what happens when you are thrown against I and my Pantheon of gods. Do try not to disappoint me. Baldr, show them out.”
Her eyes flickered to Helen. Even in the state she was in, drowning in the darkness, the pain, the fear, she still knew why they were here. She almost flinched at what she saw. She could only imagine what the woman had been through, and she didn't want to. She did flinch, however, when Malkior spoke. It actually hurt to hear his voice, and his eyes...a tremor ran down her spine. They were the same, and yet wholly different, as Jasper's.
Emrys was faring worse than his Aunt, but was holding himself together slightly better, at least for now. His gut felt like it was churning, and he felt ill, though he reflexively turned to Alden when the other man doubled over, his hands on his shoulders. His face twisted into one of anger as Malkior spoke. Aryan wanted nothing more than to go to Helen, but his feet remained rooted to where they were, his purple eyes going back and forth between her and Malkior. He was stunned at how much alike the man looked to his father. At the moment, however, all he could do was look at Helen, his heart constricting inside his chest.
He couldn't tell if she didn't recognize them, or if she was doing it out of self-preservation. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He didn't want to believe that everything he'd done, all they had worked for to get Helen back to being Helen, had been for nothing. He wouldn't believe that. His jaw clenched as Malkior spoke. Odd choice of words, really.
They had finally found Helen, or at least his son had. Vincent was not one to doubt his son's abilities, none of them, and it was through Alden and Andrick that they were able to find Helen in the first place. Without much hesitance, the family was off to retrieve Helen, however; there were certain things that needed to be attended to. His sister and his niece and nephews, even his own daughter, left to take care of the situation in St. Petersburg, and he trusted them all enough that they would be well. He trusted that they would all watch over each other and protect each other until they could return home. All of them.
Even as they approached their destination, this thought was the only thing going through Vincent's mind. He was worried for his daughter, and for good reason. She had inherited her mother's ability. He would always be worried for her. They were greeted by Baldr, a man Vincent did not know, nor did he care to. They were here for one purpose, and that was to retrieve Helen. This man was nothing more than an obstacle that would be removed if he stood in the way. Vincent was not one to overestimate a person because he had his strength as a pure-blood, nor the fact that he had the Aegis. He was not so shallow a thinker to believe himself invincible.
Everything had limits, even the Aegis. Regardless, they all stood in front of another man, that for a split second, Zero thought him to be Jasper's twin. There were small, hardly noticeable, differences between the two men, however; it was apparent to Zero, that the man they were staring at was nothing like his uncle. This man, from his appearance, to the sound of his voice, spoke and commanded a lot of respect. It commanded power, one that Zero could feel a faint fear from. Who was this man? Zero couldn't recall any conversations about a man named Malkior, or who he even was. At least not any he could remember to be important enough.
He watched as his brother doubled over, blood spilling from his nose as he furrowed his brows. It was his father who spoke first. "We have many names. Rebels is but a one of the many moniker's bestowed upon us," he spoke, his voice erieely calm, though he too could feel the abnormal power rolling off of the man. He could only safely guess who this King was. And if he was right, that could not be a good thing. They were going to need a lot more help if they intended to survive this. But who could help them when their opponent may very well be the very first of their kind?
Malkior honestly wasn’t particularly interested in their answers to his assertions—it was much more interesting to watch what their bodies and their faces gave away. He noted with some amusement the way that several pairs of eyes would occasionally flicker to his Queen. He’d seen her memories, of course—he understood better than she did just how precious these people were to her, and what was more, how important she was to them. He draped an arm out to the side of the throne he sat on, the chair itself cut from a solid slab of obsidian. With a single index digit, he beckoned her forward, and compelled her to answer the summons. “Lovely, is she not? Theodor was a useless son, in many ways, but he did know some things. And when he set his mind to something, no detail was spared. Such a dutiful child, remembering my tastes.” The smile that spread across his face was wicked, and he scanned over the faces in the room.
“Of course, if he were still alive, I’d kill him. My awakening is not the stuff of back-up plans.” His eyes flashed for a moment, and everyone in the room felt a sudden spike in the pressure of his mind on theirs. His eyes moved back to Helen, whose body shuddered visibly, but she advanced forward all the same, climbing into Malkior’s lap and tilting her head to one side. Pushing back what hair remained in the way, he sank his teeth into her throat and drank for a moment, exhaling almost in a sigh as he pulled away and placing a kiss to her forehead before he let her go again. He seemed to have no care for the fact that there were other people in the room, and only after a few more heartbeats did he turn his attention back to them.
“But I understand not all of my heirs are as useless as he. You, boy—you are his grandson.” Jasper’s eyes only narrowed further at being addressed as such, and that drew a dark chuckle from Malkior. “And you carry with you a shadow of my power. I admit I did not foresee its appearance in any but I, but perhaps the world is simply never meant to be without it forever.” A pause, and then he stood, the dais that he was on and his own towering height sufficient to loom over them, casting a long shadow. The color bled from his eyes, and his power swept over the room like an onrushing tide, crushing and fathomless.
“Kneel.”
And each and every one of them did. There was no other choice. Slowly, Malkior descended the stairs, pausing for a moment when he felt a bit of pushback from Jasper, struggling valiantly to overcome the compulsion, his own eyes losing their own color as well. But the First’s footsteps continued, and he walked among them, stopping occasionally as if to examine his handiwork, or admire the look of particular rage or hatred upon someone’s face. When he reached Ava, he placed a fingertip at the crown of her head, his expression clearly one of amusement. “So you are the Aegis. He was so very proud of you.” He lifted a long strand of her hair, bending slightly so as to smell it. “It is not difficult to guess why.” It was really too bad that no shield was of any use against him, else they might have stood a chance after all.
“A spider in his web,” he murmured to Alden, chuckling darkly. “A shame you wouldn’t use those talents for me—I am rather bereft of those skilled in the collection of information, else I’d have prepared more extravagant welcome.” Whether he was lying or telling the truth was something Alden could not tell—he was too busy trying not to die.
When he reached Aryan, he actually bent so as to meet the man’s amethyst-colored eyes. “The Queen was fond of you,” he said, his voice as smooth and venomous as snake-oil. His use of the past tense was quite intentional, of course, and he straightened, folding his hands behind his back and sighing as if in resignation. “Well, it isn’t much,” he said dismissively, “a handful of knights and a pretender to a throne. But it’s been so long since anyone had been even this much of a challenge. I do miss being able to go all out. So, rebels, I will make you a bargain. Leave now, and I’ll even give you my Queen as hostage. She will be in your care for one year, and then I shall come for her. Prepare well, valiant knights, and see if you have it in you to resist the easy solution.”
He allowed Helen to stand and make her way past him, their paths crossing as he ascended back to his throne, resuming his seat even as he lifted the compulsion upon them. “I should like to see what happens when you are thrown against I and my Pantheon of gods. Do try not to disappoint me. Baldr, show them out.”
She’d been in the infirmary since she got back, along with Leora, who still hadn’t quite managed to recover from the blood loss she’d endured on the battlefield. Part of Helen felt guilty about that, because she was the reason the family had been split again. It felt uncomfortable, and though she put up with being in the room for three days, allowing Ava to tend to her as necessary and being fussed over by Freya, she was quite certain she could take no more of it. Of course… it was the middle of the day, meaning that everyone was asleep, and she herself had woken from another nightmare… though woken and nightmare weren’t really the right words. It was more like… the thoughts of him had released her for a moment, loosened their hold enough that she almost felt like the only person in her mind and her skin again.
It wouldn’t last. It never did.
In an odd reversal, the people that it had once been most difficult to be around, the von Nacht males, now felt the most comfortable. She could only assume that it was because their influence muted his, at least a little. She’d never seen Balthasar look quite so surprised as when she’d asked him to keep her company for a while longer after he’d come by to check on she and Leora, but there it was. Nothing chased him away for long, though, and after he or his father left, it was like he came down on her twice as hard in retaliation. He wasn’t actually there, she knew that. Not like he had been, anyway. But she could still feel him in there, feel his teeth in her skin, his hands on her face, trailing down her spine… Helen shuddered violently, sitting up in her infirmary bed and throwing off the covers.
She didn’t know where she was going to go, but she couldn’t stay here. Jasper was still up at this time quite often, perhaps he would let her just sit in the same room as him for a while. He did it for Alden, and he was very kind, she knew. But try as she might, she couldn’t scent him anywhere, and Balthasar was fast asleep, as most people should be. Helen paused, her bare feet stilling on the carpet, and she curled her toes into it. She knew what she wanted to do, but… it had been a year. A lot could change in a year. She had changed, and not for the better. Would he still…?
Helen swallowed, smoothing unconsciously the skirt of the knee-length dress she’d pulled from her closet. Someone had kept her things clean—she suspected this was Ava’s doing. Regardless of her thoughts on the matter, her feet seemed to have their own ideas, and they led her to where he was. She could hear the sound of steady breathing from within, and she paused for a long moment at the door. This… what she was considering was a violation of his privacy, his space, and probably her own better reason, but she could not shake the need she felt to do it. She was damned anyway—they all were. Curling her slender fingers against her palm, she opened the door with the other hand and stepped inside. Curtains blacked out most of the room, to make sleeping easier for those honestly not much inclined to it.
Noiselessly, Helen padded over to the bed, hesitating for a moment. If she had ever had a childhood, she might have thought this action very childish of her, to seek such comfort. But she had not, and she knew only that it was something she felt compelled to do. She was sick and tired of compulsion, but this at least was of a very different kind. Crawling up onto the bed, she settled on top of the covers, rolling onto her side to face him. She could not bring herself to touch him, however, and so she remained like that, slightly curled atop the blankets at the edge, and forced her eyes to close. Maybe, if she was lucky, she would dream of anything but him.
It really was a wonder Aryan had been able to fall asleep at all. He hadn't slept very well since they'd gotten back, his mind's eye always showing him things he did not want to see. Malkior, his eyes, and watching helplessly as he drank from Helen. His mind would twist things, and instead of letting her go, he would kill her. But then it wasn't Malkior's face, it was his own.
Something drew his mind out of slumber, and he lay still while he tried to figure out what had awoken him. It had been something outside of his own mind, of that he was sure, because he wasn't in the cold sweat like he usually was. It was then that he realized someone was in his room. It only took one breath to know who it was. His purple eyes snapped open, and he turned his head to the side, looking at her. He felt the urge to pull her to him, to hold her, but he kept his arms still. He still wasn't sure just how much damage she'd undergone; he didn't want to further it. Still, the fact that she was even here...
"Helen? What's wrong?"
She wasn’t sure how to answer. Tentatively, Helen cracked one eye open, seeking and finding Aryan’s, and then followed it with the other, reflexively curling a little tighter around herself. She had always been a short person, but she had never felt so small as she’d learned to feel in the past year, like a porcelain doll on a shelf, breakable and fragile and helpless. Taken down and manipulated at someone else’s leisure, but not once thought to have a mind of her own, feelings of her own. Or… he had known, really. He must have known, being in her mind like he was. He just hadn’t cared.
It might have been shorter to list all the things that currently were not wrong in her life, because at present, it was one item long. And the only thing on it was him. Hel pulled her lower lip in between her teeth to stop it from trembling, shaking her head and trying to find the words to say this and everything else she wanted to. But at the moment it was simply too difficult, and she’d never been good with them anyway. She had to say something, though, and what came out was a fragile whisper, a hollow sound like a ghost might make if it could speak. It was, nevertheless, true, but only the very surface of the truth.
“I missed you.”
Aryan watched as she looked at him, his heart aching. He didn't know what to do, and even worse, what to say. Being without words left him floundering, and he hated it. He wanted to help her, he needed to help her. But he didn't know how. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached up, his thumb brushing her cheek softly. He still had the fear that this wasn't real, that she was still gone.
Being able to touch her at least proved otherwise. "I missed you, too. I'm so sorry it took me so long to find you." He hadn't realized he'd singled himself out until after he'd spoken.
As if by some unnamable magic, his touch unraveled her. Just the barest brush, and she lost all hold on her composure. For someone like Helen, who had once been nothing other than composure and a certain kind of defensive neutrality, this was at one terrifying and unexpected. Her eyes welled with tears, and she tried with little success to blink them away. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured brokenly. “None of this is your fault. I’m the one who woke him, I…” She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered, the involuntary spasm wracking her light frame. She had brought him back into this world, and they were going to pay for it.
Because he would keep her alive. She knew he would. She was no threat to him, though she had been made to endure his presence longer than any of the other members of the Pantheon could. But them… he’d kill them. He’d kill Aryan. And it would be all her fault. In the end, for all that she thought she fought what Theodor had conditioned into her, her reaction to seeing him there, in that tomb, had been absolutely, irrevocably automatic, and there had been nothing she could do to stop herself. And that… her weakness, it was going to kill them all.
“I’m the one who is sorry.” She shouldn’t even be here. She did not deserve this solace, the sense of safety his presence brought her. Because she wasn’t safe. And she never would be again. Not so long as she was his—and that, she knew, was what she’d been made to be all along. Helen knew she had no right, but she couldn’t help herself now any more than she could then, and she reached for him, taking hold of the hand he’d used to brush her cheek. She held it between hers—smaller, but roughened from centuries of work with a blade. Her vision was still blurry, but she knew these hands by heart—she had observed them writing official letters, moving chess pieces, folded under his chin in thought, and even once at an instrument. His fingers were long and pale and elegant, his palms soft and warm. She traced them with the tip of her own index digit, then trailed it down from his palm and over the skin of his wrist. It made her feel centered, like she was really here. She just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“He’s… he’s going to come retrieve me,” she said. He’d said as much into her mind, just before he’d withdrawn and relinquished control of her person back to her. “If… if I go, you might have more time.” She didn’t know for sure, but this pittance was all she had to offer in penance for the fact that she’d just condemned them all to death. She would miss him again—so very much. But she would do this thing, so that he and they could have as much time as possible. It would break her, once and for all, but she would do it, for him.
That...had not been what Aryan expected. He swallowed thickly, the contact of his hand in hers sending sparks shooting up his arm. But it was her words that made him feel as if he were suffocating. She couldn't just leave, not again. He wouldn't be able to take it. He moved, closing the distance that was between them, his forehead touching hers as his eyes closed. When he spoke, he sounded almost broken. He would not stop her, if she truly did want to leave, but...he was selfish enough to speak the denial.
"No...you can't leave me. Not again, Helen. All the time in the world would mean nothing without you by my side, because I would already be dead in all but body. Please...do not do that to me."
Helen’s heart gave a strange little stuttering in her chest. She hurt, so badly, and not for the usual reasons. She hurt because they had a year. He had a year, and then… she could not bear to think of the eternity after, without him in the world. Such a world… Hel did not believe it would be worth living in. Swallowing thickly, she squeezed her eyes shut, somewhere between savoring the two points at which they were connected and desiring more of them. This was it, she understood. This was that feeling she’d always been able to observe, but never understand. This was the resolution of the hypothesis, the confirmation of an educated guess, and it was nothing like she’d expected at all.
She had always supposed it would be a pleasant thing, something light and gentle. This, though… this was soul-deep, and it tugged at her very being so hard she felt that everything she was magnetized towards him. It was the knowing where he was even without any of her senses. It was the fact that she couldn’t not look up when he entered the room. It was the way every time he touched her, she was anything but indifferent, anything but stoic. It was the fact that every hour she had passed without him for the last year ached worse than any physical pain, more than anything Theodor or his father could ever contrive for her. It was the way that now, when she knew she was too weak to leave him, she hated herself for it.
It was impossible to look at him and say it, so she kept her eyes closed, steadying her breathing as much as she could, given the fact that his fanned over her neck and jaw, they were so close. It was almost enough to make her forget that she was a horrible person for what she was about to say. Blindly but with no hesitation, as though she knew exactly where he was relative to her, she moved one of her hands to his cheek, running it back slightly to thread her fingers into his hair. She would have hoped that whatever gods were out there would forgive her for this, but she cared not for gods. She cared only for him.
“I love you, Aryan.” Her breath hitched at her own admission, and she chanced opening her eyes again after a few seconds, hoping past any reasonable hope that it might be all right by him, that she did.
He was hopeless, really. Aryan von Nacht hated being compared to his father, realizing that he was, in some ways, like him. But when it came to certain things, to the important things, he was exactly like the man. He understood it now, that connection that his parents shared, that odd little look of surprised happiness whenever his mother told him she loved him. He was fairly certain that he had the same look plastered onto his face right this moment.
He'd hoped, but he'd never really expected it to happen. But then, you never did, really. He felt his breath catch, and his free hand found its way to her face, brushing the few stray locks of hair that obscured it out of the way. Amythest eyes gazed into lavender. "I love you, too, Helen." He whispered, because he was afraid. He was afraid of waking up, that this would be a dream.
She was having almost the exact same thought, really, which perhaps explained her need to prove to herself that it wasn’t. She wasn’t sure what would do it, but dream or not, there was something she was going to do. Closing the gap between them, no more than scant inches by this point, Helen pressed her lips to his, sliding her hand back and around so that her fingers trailed over the nape of his neck. The contact was soft and delicate, and brief, after which she pulled back a little and buried her face in the crook of his neck, snuggling as close as the blankets would allow. She sighed softly, laying her head against his chest.
“If I go to sleep now,” she asked in a soft whisper, “will you still be here when I wake up?” She needed sleep, but not as much as she needed that reassurance. Here, with him, right now, he was gone, and she would not be able to rest if there was a chance that safety would leave her in the early hours.
Aryan's arms wrapped around her, stroking her hair gently. He pressed his lips to her temple before speaking. "I'm not going anywhere, Helen. I promise."
It wouldn’t last. It never did.
In an odd reversal, the people that it had once been most difficult to be around, the von Nacht males, now felt the most comfortable. She could only assume that it was because their influence muted his, at least a little. She’d never seen Balthasar look quite so surprised as when she’d asked him to keep her company for a while longer after he’d come by to check on she and Leora, but there it was. Nothing chased him away for long, though, and after he or his father left, it was like he came down on her twice as hard in retaliation. He wasn’t actually there, she knew that. Not like he had been, anyway. But she could still feel him in there, feel his teeth in her skin, his hands on her face, trailing down her spine… Helen shuddered violently, sitting up in her infirmary bed and throwing off the covers.
She didn’t know where she was going to go, but she couldn’t stay here. Jasper was still up at this time quite often, perhaps he would let her just sit in the same room as him for a while. He did it for Alden, and he was very kind, she knew. But try as she might, she couldn’t scent him anywhere, and Balthasar was fast asleep, as most people should be. Helen paused, her bare feet stilling on the carpet, and she curled her toes into it. She knew what she wanted to do, but… it had been a year. A lot could change in a year. She had changed, and not for the better. Would he still…?
Helen swallowed, smoothing unconsciously the skirt of the knee-length dress she’d pulled from her closet. Someone had kept her things clean—she suspected this was Ava’s doing. Regardless of her thoughts on the matter, her feet seemed to have their own ideas, and they led her to where he was. She could hear the sound of steady breathing from within, and she paused for a long moment at the door. This… what she was considering was a violation of his privacy, his space, and probably her own better reason, but she could not shake the need she felt to do it. She was damned anyway—they all were. Curling her slender fingers against her palm, she opened the door with the other hand and stepped inside. Curtains blacked out most of the room, to make sleeping easier for those honestly not much inclined to it.
Noiselessly, Helen padded over to the bed, hesitating for a moment. If she had ever had a childhood, she might have thought this action very childish of her, to seek such comfort. But she had not, and she knew only that it was something she felt compelled to do. She was sick and tired of compulsion, but this at least was of a very different kind. Crawling up onto the bed, she settled on top of the covers, rolling onto her side to face him. She could not bring herself to touch him, however, and so she remained like that, slightly curled atop the blankets at the edge, and forced her eyes to close. Maybe, if she was lucky, she would dream of anything but him.
It really was a wonder Aryan had been able to fall asleep at all. He hadn't slept very well since they'd gotten back, his mind's eye always showing him things he did not want to see. Malkior, his eyes, and watching helplessly as he drank from Helen. His mind would twist things, and instead of letting her go, he would kill her. But then it wasn't Malkior's face, it was his own.
Something drew his mind out of slumber, and he lay still while he tried to figure out what had awoken him. It had been something outside of his own mind, of that he was sure, because he wasn't in the cold sweat like he usually was. It was then that he realized someone was in his room. It only took one breath to know who it was. His purple eyes snapped open, and he turned his head to the side, looking at her. He felt the urge to pull her to him, to hold her, but he kept his arms still. He still wasn't sure just how much damage she'd undergone; he didn't want to further it. Still, the fact that she was even here...
"Helen? What's wrong?"
She wasn’t sure how to answer. Tentatively, Helen cracked one eye open, seeking and finding Aryan’s, and then followed it with the other, reflexively curling a little tighter around herself. She had always been a short person, but she had never felt so small as she’d learned to feel in the past year, like a porcelain doll on a shelf, breakable and fragile and helpless. Taken down and manipulated at someone else’s leisure, but not once thought to have a mind of her own, feelings of her own. Or… he had known, really. He must have known, being in her mind like he was. He just hadn’t cared.
It might have been shorter to list all the things that currently were not wrong in her life, because at present, it was one item long. And the only thing on it was him. Hel pulled her lower lip in between her teeth to stop it from trembling, shaking her head and trying to find the words to say this and everything else she wanted to. But at the moment it was simply too difficult, and she’d never been good with them anyway. She had to say something, though, and what came out was a fragile whisper, a hollow sound like a ghost might make if it could speak. It was, nevertheless, true, but only the very surface of the truth.
“I missed you.”
Aryan watched as she looked at him, his heart aching. He didn't know what to do, and even worse, what to say. Being without words left him floundering, and he hated it. He wanted to help her, he needed to help her. But he didn't know how. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached up, his thumb brushing her cheek softly. He still had the fear that this wasn't real, that she was still gone.
Being able to touch her at least proved otherwise. "I missed you, too. I'm so sorry it took me so long to find you." He hadn't realized he'd singled himself out until after he'd spoken.
As if by some unnamable magic, his touch unraveled her. Just the barest brush, and she lost all hold on her composure. For someone like Helen, who had once been nothing other than composure and a certain kind of defensive neutrality, this was at one terrifying and unexpected. Her eyes welled with tears, and she tried with little success to blink them away. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured brokenly. “None of this is your fault. I’m the one who woke him, I…” She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered, the involuntary spasm wracking her light frame. She had brought him back into this world, and they were going to pay for it.
Because he would keep her alive. She knew he would. She was no threat to him, though she had been made to endure his presence longer than any of the other members of the Pantheon could. But them… he’d kill them. He’d kill Aryan. And it would be all her fault. In the end, for all that she thought she fought what Theodor had conditioned into her, her reaction to seeing him there, in that tomb, had been absolutely, irrevocably automatic, and there had been nothing she could do to stop herself. And that… her weakness, it was going to kill them all.
“I’m the one who is sorry.” She shouldn’t even be here. She did not deserve this solace, the sense of safety his presence brought her. Because she wasn’t safe. And she never would be again. Not so long as she was his—and that, she knew, was what she’d been made to be all along. Helen knew she had no right, but she couldn’t help herself now any more than she could then, and she reached for him, taking hold of the hand he’d used to brush her cheek. She held it between hers—smaller, but roughened from centuries of work with a blade. Her vision was still blurry, but she knew these hands by heart—she had observed them writing official letters, moving chess pieces, folded under his chin in thought, and even once at an instrument. His fingers were long and pale and elegant, his palms soft and warm. She traced them with the tip of her own index digit, then trailed it down from his palm and over the skin of his wrist. It made her feel centered, like she was really here. She just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“He’s… he’s going to come retrieve me,” she said. He’d said as much into her mind, just before he’d withdrawn and relinquished control of her person back to her. “If… if I go, you might have more time.” She didn’t know for sure, but this pittance was all she had to offer in penance for the fact that she’d just condemned them all to death. She would miss him again—so very much. But she would do this thing, so that he and they could have as much time as possible. It would break her, once and for all, but she would do it, for him.
That...had not been what Aryan expected. He swallowed thickly, the contact of his hand in hers sending sparks shooting up his arm. But it was her words that made him feel as if he were suffocating. She couldn't just leave, not again. He wouldn't be able to take it. He moved, closing the distance that was between them, his forehead touching hers as his eyes closed. When he spoke, he sounded almost broken. He would not stop her, if she truly did want to leave, but...he was selfish enough to speak the denial.
"No...you can't leave me. Not again, Helen. All the time in the world would mean nothing without you by my side, because I would already be dead in all but body. Please...do not do that to me."
Helen’s heart gave a strange little stuttering in her chest. She hurt, so badly, and not for the usual reasons. She hurt because they had a year. He had a year, and then… she could not bear to think of the eternity after, without him in the world. Such a world… Hel did not believe it would be worth living in. Swallowing thickly, she squeezed her eyes shut, somewhere between savoring the two points at which they were connected and desiring more of them. This was it, she understood. This was that feeling she’d always been able to observe, but never understand. This was the resolution of the hypothesis, the confirmation of an educated guess, and it was nothing like she’d expected at all.
She had always supposed it would be a pleasant thing, something light and gentle. This, though… this was soul-deep, and it tugged at her very being so hard she felt that everything she was magnetized towards him. It was the knowing where he was even without any of her senses. It was the fact that she couldn’t not look up when he entered the room. It was the way every time he touched her, she was anything but indifferent, anything but stoic. It was the fact that every hour she had passed without him for the last year ached worse than any physical pain, more than anything Theodor or his father could ever contrive for her. It was the way that now, when she knew she was too weak to leave him, she hated herself for it.
It was impossible to look at him and say it, so she kept her eyes closed, steadying her breathing as much as she could, given the fact that his fanned over her neck and jaw, they were so close. It was almost enough to make her forget that she was a horrible person for what she was about to say. Blindly but with no hesitation, as though she knew exactly where he was relative to her, she moved one of her hands to his cheek, running it back slightly to thread her fingers into his hair. She would have hoped that whatever gods were out there would forgive her for this, but she cared not for gods. She cared only for him.
“I love you, Aryan.” Her breath hitched at her own admission, and she chanced opening her eyes again after a few seconds, hoping past any reasonable hope that it might be all right by him, that she did.
He was hopeless, really. Aryan von Nacht hated being compared to his father, realizing that he was, in some ways, like him. But when it came to certain things, to the important things, he was exactly like the man. He understood it now, that connection that his parents shared, that odd little look of surprised happiness whenever his mother told him she loved him. He was fairly certain that he had the same look plastered onto his face right this moment.
He'd hoped, but he'd never really expected it to happen. But then, you never did, really. He felt his breath catch, and his free hand found its way to her face, brushing the few stray locks of hair that obscured it out of the way. Amythest eyes gazed into lavender. "I love you, too, Helen." He whispered, because he was afraid. He was afraid of waking up, that this would be a dream.
She was having almost the exact same thought, really, which perhaps explained her need to prove to herself that it wasn’t. She wasn’t sure what would do it, but dream or not, there was something she was going to do. Closing the gap between them, no more than scant inches by this point, Helen pressed her lips to his, sliding her hand back and around so that her fingers trailed over the nape of his neck. The contact was soft and delicate, and brief, after which she pulled back a little and buried her face in the crook of his neck, snuggling as close as the blankets would allow. She sighed softly, laying her head against his chest.
“If I go to sleep now,” she asked in a soft whisper, “will you still be here when I wake up?” She needed sleep, but not as much as she needed that reassurance. Here, with him, right now, he was gone, and she would not be able to rest if there was a chance that safety would leave her in the early hours.
Aryan's arms wrapped around her, stroking her hair gently. He pressed his lips to her temple before speaking. "I'm not going anywhere, Helen. I promise."
Nikki von Nacht was restless. This seemed to be the norm for her anymore, but ever since they had met Malkior, it had gotten worse. It was a wonder she'd even been able to remain concsious in his presence, it had very nearly killed her. She shook her head, banishing the memory. Now was not the time for this, after all. She and Aryan had a job to do. Alden had recieved information on a rather large level E attack on a village about one hundred miles south of their location. It was speculated they wanted to draw out those they were most interested in, so instead, two would go, two who Malkior and the Pantheon weren't interested in.
Besides, it gave Nikki something to do, as she had literally been going crazy, what with her husband and Balthasar training, Vincent beginning to train Keir, and the others healing. It made her feel more than useless, and she did not like it. Aryan had been loath to leave Helen, but at the same time, he also could not just let his mother go alone. Level E's or not, she was still only a noble. They arrived a few hours before the attack, as it took them a day to reach the location.
Mother and son were standing on top of a small hill, overlooking the valley that approached the hill. The looks on their faces were grim. The army that was approaching was much larger than they had anticipated. Aryan's purple eyes slid over to his mother. "So...what's the plan, Mother?" Benehime slid out of his sheath. "We take out the stragglers. Keep them in a horde." Aryan smiled somewhat, Heniko emerging as well. "And then?"
"I'm still working on that."
Nikki was panting. This was taking too long, and there were far too many for them to handle on their own. But if they retreated, then innocents would die. She could not, would not do that. She glanced over to Aryan. He was holding out better than she was, though wear was starting to show on him as well. Nikki clenched her teeth together. They were running out of options. She didn't want to use that. She'd never used it without Jasper, but...
Aryan had made considerable progress with his abilities ever since they had discovered them a year ago. It was possible that he would be able to keep her from destroying everything. No, it wasn't just possible. He could do it. They didn't have a choice. Nikki spun, creating a wall of fire between them and the main body of the horde, level E's shrieking in pain and terror, most of them slinking away from the flames. They took out the few that were still with them, and then Nikki turned to her son. "Aryan, listen to me. I need you to create a gravatic field around me. When I tell you to, you need to open it, but only to the side facing them. It has to be big, and it's going to take a lot. Do you understand?"
Aryan blinked, slightly confused. "What...are you going to do?"
Nikki's face looked slightly grim, but a wry smile appeared nonetheless. "I'm going to incinerate them. We've only got one shot at this, so we have to get it right the first time. But you have to make sure you hold it back, or else I'll end up killing you and everyone in that village."
Aryan's eyes widened. "But...Mother, I can't--" He was stopped, however, but the look in his mother's eyes. When she spoke, she used that tone. "Yes you can. I know you can, Aryan. Look at me. You are Jasper's son just as much as Balthasar is, don't you ever think otherwise. You can do this. I'll need a bit of time to get this ready, I'll need you to cover me, okay?"
Swallowing thickly, her son nodded slowly. Nikki smiled at him, and then turned back to face the horde. "Alright, kiddo. Let's get this started."
Aryan sank to his knees, blood running from his nose slowly. He wiped it away, only to have it replaced by a fresh wave. His vision swam, but he forced himself back onto his feet. The stench of blood and burning flesh was all around him. He could only dimly wonder how it was his father had managed to restrain that the first time she'd ever done it. He may not have been able to. Calling it Supernova was about as close as you could get to describing what his mother had done. Surrounded by an orb of fire that burned the very air, it was as destructive as it was beautiful, and it had decimated the horde.
Still, it had taken a lot out of Aryan, but he couldn't worry about that now. His eyes scanned the field, looking for his mother. He found her not twenty yards away, unconscious, but unharmed. Aryan released a shaky sigh. There were some stray flames still scattered about, but they would burn themselves out eventually. Right now, he needed to get his mother home.
Aryan let out a sigh of relief when the house came into view. It had taken him three days to get back, making them two days late in returning, but then, when you were carrying your unconscious mother on your back, as well as being rather drained yourself, it wasn't that surprising. Frankly, Aryan was a bit surprised he'd even managed to make it this far.
When they arrived, it was to note that both of the other von Nachts had returned temporarily from their training, which they conducted well away from civilization or family members of any kind. Some things were just too dangerous to take chances with, after all. They were flanked by an anxious-looking Ava, who breathed a palpable sigh of relief as Jasper took Nikki gently into his arms. From the fact that the edges of some of her clothes were singed and both carried a palpable scent of smoke, he could guess what had occurred. “You did well, Aryan,” he said quietly, following his best friend and former assistant into the house. Nikki would need some treatment, and then she would need to feed. That was one need he would allow no one else to provide for.
Balthasar, looking a bit rough around the edges himself, took in the sight of his brother with a grin. “There’s a story here,” he said knowingly, “And you’re going to tell it to me later. Welcome home, Ary.” But he could smell someone else who was even more anxious than Ava had been, and so with a jaunty wave, he left the area, leaving Helen to tend to his brother.
She smiled slightly at him, though her eyes betrayed her worry. She was not as accustomed to this side of Aryan as everyone else was, yet, for she had not been there the year in which it developed. Seeing him return from battle was very new to her, and she swallowed thickly. The grass at her feet faded even as she tread forward on it, her skin taking on that characteristic under-glow, and she reached up to touch a hand to the side of his face, letting the rejuvenating life-energy pass from her to him. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said simply.
Aryan smiled weakly at his brother, shaking his head. Truly, Aryan had a healthy new respect for their mother, and he rued whatever idiot decided to cross her. Noble or not, the woman was powerful. His smile brightened, though, with Helen's approach, and he caught her hand in his before she pulled it away, pressing his lips against her knuckles softly as he intertwined their fingers. "I'm glad to be back."
Besides, it gave Nikki something to do, as she had literally been going crazy, what with her husband and Balthasar training, Vincent beginning to train Keir, and the others healing. It made her feel more than useless, and she did not like it. Aryan had been loath to leave Helen, but at the same time, he also could not just let his mother go alone. Level E's or not, she was still only a noble. They arrived a few hours before the attack, as it took them a day to reach the location.
Mother and son were standing on top of a small hill, overlooking the valley that approached the hill. The looks on their faces were grim. The army that was approaching was much larger than they had anticipated. Aryan's purple eyes slid over to his mother. "So...what's the plan, Mother?" Benehime slid out of his sheath. "We take out the stragglers. Keep them in a horde." Aryan smiled somewhat, Heniko emerging as well. "And then?"
"I'm still working on that."
Nikki was panting. This was taking too long, and there were far too many for them to handle on their own. But if they retreated, then innocents would die. She could not, would not do that. She glanced over to Aryan. He was holding out better than she was, though wear was starting to show on him as well. Nikki clenched her teeth together. They were running out of options. She didn't want to use that. She'd never used it without Jasper, but...
Aryan had made considerable progress with his abilities ever since they had discovered them a year ago. It was possible that he would be able to keep her from destroying everything. No, it wasn't just possible. He could do it. They didn't have a choice. Nikki spun, creating a wall of fire between them and the main body of the horde, level E's shrieking in pain and terror, most of them slinking away from the flames. They took out the few that were still with them, and then Nikki turned to her son. "Aryan, listen to me. I need you to create a gravatic field around me. When I tell you to, you need to open it, but only to the side facing them. It has to be big, and it's going to take a lot. Do you understand?"
Aryan blinked, slightly confused. "What...are you going to do?"
Nikki's face looked slightly grim, but a wry smile appeared nonetheless. "I'm going to incinerate them. We've only got one shot at this, so we have to get it right the first time. But you have to make sure you hold it back, or else I'll end up killing you and everyone in that village."
Aryan's eyes widened. "But...Mother, I can't--" He was stopped, however, but the look in his mother's eyes. When she spoke, she used that tone. "Yes you can. I know you can, Aryan. Look at me. You are Jasper's son just as much as Balthasar is, don't you ever think otherwise. You can do this. I'll need a bit of time to get this ready, I'll need you to cover me, okay?"
Swallowing thickly, her son nodded slowly. Nikki smiled at him, and then turned back to face the horde. "Alright, kiddo. Let's get this started."
Aryan sank to his knees, blood running from his nose slowly. He wiped it away, only to have it replaced by a fresh wave. His vision swam, but he forced himself back onto his feet. The stench of blood and burning flesh was all around him. He could only dimly wonder how it was his father had managed to restrain that the first time she'd ever done it. He may not have been able to. Calling it Supernova was about as close as you could get to describing what his mother had done. Surrounded by an orb of fire that burned the very air, it was as destructive as it was beautiful, and it had decimated the horde.
Still, it had taken a lot out of Aryan, but he couldn't worry about that now. His eyes scanned the field, looking for his mother. He found her not twenty yards away, unconscious, but unharmed. Aryan released a shaky sigh. There were some stray flames still scattered about, but they would burn themselves out eventually. Right now, he needed to get his mother home.
Aryan let out a sigh of relief when the house came into view. It had taken him three days to get back, making them two days late in returning, but then, when you were carrying your unconscious mother on your back, as well as being rather drained yourself, it wasn't that surprising. Frankly, Aryan was a bit surprised he'd even managed to make it this far.
When they arrived, it was to note that both of the other von Nachts had returned temporarily from their training, which they conducted well away from civilization or family members of any kind. Some things were just too dangerous to take chances with, after all. They were flanked by an anxious-looking Ava, who breathed a palpable sigh of relief as Jasper took Nikki gently into his arms. From the fact that the edges of some of her clothes were singed and both carried a palpable scent of smoke, he could guess what had occurred. “You did well, Aryan,” he said quietly, following his best friend and former assistant into the house. Nikki would need some treatment, and then she would need to feed. That was one need he would allow no one else to provide for.
Balthasar, looking a bit rough around the edges himself, took in the sight of his brother with a grin. “There’s a story here,” he said knowingly, “And you’re going to tell it to me later. Welcome home, Ary.” But he could smell someone else who was even more anxious than Ava had been, and so with a jaunty wave, he left the area, leaving Helen to tend to his brother.
She smiled slightly at him, though her eyes betrayed her worry. She was not as accustomed to this side of Aryan as everyone else was, yet, for she had not been there the year in which it developed. Seeing him return from battle was very new to her, and she swallowed thickly. The grass at her feet faded even as she tread forward on it, her skin taking on that characteristic under-glow, and she reached up to touch a hand to the side of his face, letting the rejuvenating life-energy pass from her to him. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said simply.
Aryan smiled weakly at his brother, shaking his head. Truly, Aryan had a healthy new respect for their mother, and he rued whatever idiot decided to cross her. Noble or not, the woman was powerful. His smile brightened, though, with Helen's approach, and he caught her hand in his before she pulled it away, pressing his lips against her knuckles softly as he intertwined their fingers. "I'm glad to be back."
It took five days for Leora to recover from her wounds. She had not the luxury of someone erasing them for her, and though her blood ensured that she healed quite quickly, it had quite nearly killed her, so it was perhaps understandable that she took a while to recover. When she did wake, it was to her mother’s gently-smiling face, and she’d wept a little more then, held in the arms of the woman who’d raised her. Needed or not, emergency or not, she’d still done what she’d always been told not to, and though she couldn’t regret it, she still wasn’t sure how her parents were going to take it. But her mother knew—her mother always knew, and just rubbed her back in gentle, soothing circles and rocked her back and forth as she cried.
When she’d managed to compose herself, she’d nearly cried again, for the fact that though everything had changed, nothing had. Shaking herself out of that, though, she told herself that she was done crying and had sought out Balthasar first, for the story of what happened when she passed out. He’d been strangely hesitant to explain things, which from her usually direct cousin, had thrown her. Of course, when he described what her Aegis had done to Keir, she’d nearly been sick. She’d never intended… why could nothing she ever did work out the way she intended it to?
It was another several hours before she could bring herself to seek him out, and when she did, she was unsurprised to find that he was on the roof. He seemed to favor high places. Not that she was complaining; the sun was just setting, bathing them both in red-gold light, and it wouldn’t be long now before she could see the night sky again. There was no going unnoticed for someone like her, and so she did not attempt to mask her presence as she move to his side, placing a careful foot of distance between them, for whose benefit, she could not say. Probably his—he didn’t need her sobbing all over him again. She said nothing at first, seeing as how it was so difficult to decide what should be said. Maybe he knew, because she certainly did not.
Keir let out a shaky sigh. No one outside of his parents and his siblings had known about his other side. Now his eldest cousin knew, and he was fairly certain Leora knew, too. He had not visited her in the infirmary, for fear she'd be awake or woke up while he was there. He didn't want to see the fear, the revulsion in her eyes. He couldn't take that, he couldn't handle that. He could take his family hating him, fearing him, all of them, except for her.
She didn't speak when she approached, and he wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. He couldn't turn to face her, because he was afraid. So instead, he said the only thing he could think of. "It wasn't your fault, you know. The Aegis...is not what did that to me. It's always there, underneath the surface. I was just too weak this time to hold it back."
She wasn’t really sure what to say to that, honestly. She hadn’t seen what happened. As far as she could tell, Balthasar had been uneasy about it, but it seemed like something more like the fact that his cousin hadn’t been himself than anything. Well… maybe, maybe not, but it certainly didn’t change anything for her. Keir was who he was, dark side and all. Weren’t they all? “It was still irresponsible of me,” she said. There was very little data on what the Aegis could do to people. A sample size of two, actually: her father and the one called Fenrir. Considering that one of those two had wound up more or less a drug addict and then dead, it wasn’t exactly a great track record. “But I’d do it again, because it was the only thing I could do, to help you, and I wasn’t just going to let you die. As long as you can say the same… I guess I just don’t see an issue.”
She sighed, running a hand through her hair. That maybe hadn’t come out right. It was so weird, how she struggled to express herself properly only with him. With anyone else, her words were almost as fluid and precise as Aryan’s, and almost as naturally charismatic as Alden’s. With him… sometimes she felt like she didn’t even know what she was trying to say, let alone anyone else. “What I mean is… everyone has some part of themselves they don’t like out there in the light of day. Yours is just more literal. At least… at least you can use it for something other than making people miserable.” She wasn’t understating his struggle, but what she said was true. The secrets under her skin just made her feel like she was rotting from her heart out.
Leora supposed she would simply have to get used to resisting the urge to touch him, because it caught her then, off-guard and almost unprepared. Perhaps it was actually fortunate that it was near-constant, else she’d have not developed a resistance to it yet. If she even had one. Swallowing thickly, she shook her head. “You’re not weak. Not in any sense of the word I know. It was a desperate situation. We all did things we wouldn’t do normally. And we’re all still alive so… I can’t see those choices as wrong. Not one of them.”
The breeze blew through his white hair. He clenched his jaw, finally turning to face her. His face was tense, but his eyes...they were not angry. The look they held was one of sorrow, of regret. "How is it that you can say that about me when I kill people, when you can't even see past what that asshole did to you? You blame yourself, you hate yourself, when you did nothing. You do realize that in all these years, I've never stopped loving you? Not when you rejected me, not when I found out about him. None of that matters, the Aegis doesn't matter because frankly, I don't give a damn about any of that. I never have and I never will. All that I care about, all that I love, is the same head-strong, independant woman who is stronger than she gives herself credit for, and it tears me apart to see her hate herself when she has no reason to."
She… might have had something to say to the first part of that, but whatever response their was died on her lips when he mentioned him, and Leora’s eyes widened, the citrine ring at the edge of either iris almost luminous in the dying sunlight. “You know about that?” She was going to kill Alden. There was no way her mother had told him, and Rica didn’t know enough to have said that much. But her stupid damn brother was just the kind of person to assume he was helping by going and running his mouth to the man who—
Leo’s heart stopped. For several seconds, it genuinely did not beat at all. She froze in place, and then she sank to the roof under her feet, dropping into a crouch and pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes to stop the inevitable waterworks that threatened. Gods, what was it with her and crying lately? She hadn’t cried so much in her life as she had in the last couple of years, mostly around him. She managed to keep them from running down her face, though she made a low, keening sound of misery somewhere in the back of her throat. “Shit, Keir, do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” She didn’t normally use language of this flavor, but it was certainly warranted here. Her voice cracked on the emphasized word, and while she was not shedding any tears, her voice was shaking like she was about to.
“You don’t get it. I just… you’re this incredible, amazing person, with so much to give, and I… gods, can’t you just go be happy somewhere else? With anyone but me? Because that’s all I want, and I want it so badly it’s killing me. I can’t give you that. Because…” she took a shaky breath, hugging her knees and staring resolutely anywhere but at him. “If it were me, someday you’d wake up, you know? You’d realize that whatever you think I am that makes me worth someone like you... I’m not that. I’m not strong, and I’m not worth you. And that day would kill me.”
Something low and almost feral sounded in his chest as he growled. She was so stubborn. But then, so was he. He walked over to her, and pulled her to her feet, perhaps a little more roughly than was neccessary. His eyes were a deep silvery blue, a passion, a fierceness in his eyes as he looked at her. He did not speak, he simply wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.
"I could never think such of you, Leora. I will never leave, because there is no one else, and there could never be anyone else. I'm just waiting for you to realize that. I've been waiting for the last twenty years of my life."
She couldn’t help herself. Even someone like her had only so much reserve, so much control in them. And he was the hurricane battering at her senses until all she could do was be swept up in him. It was weak of her, and unfair to both of them, but the heat of his touch, the searing contact of his mouth on hers, and the taste of him. She’d missed it, desperately, a fact that was becoming quite apparent from the fact that she was winding her fingers in his hair and pulling herself as close to him as the laws of physics would allow. She wanted to be with him so badly, and it was clear that this was exactly what he wanted as well. But… there was still some part of her that hesitated.
When she needed to breathe, Leora pulled back reluctantly, running her hands down his chest and pressing her forehead into his shoulder. When she spoke, the words where murmured against his neck. “If we do this,” she started, still trying to get used to the idea. She couldn’t stand to lose him, and she knew she risked that. If she was right, if it didn’t work out… she could not have her heart broken twice in such a spectacular fashion, not when the second would be so much worse than the first. But if she didn’t try… wasn’t it like losing him anyway? She was so far gone for him that they might as well try, because it still might kill her not to be with him at all. “It’s my last chance. I won’t love anyone after you. I can’t.”
He may have been waiting twenty years, but even that was nothing next to the span they would have to live with themselves if it didn’t work. Nor the span they would live with each other if it did. She didn’t mean to force him to make promises of forever that were just impractical for them, but… he had to understand this about her. It was him, or it was nobody. Perhaps… perhaps it always had been.
Keir smiled, the expression softening the harsh lines of his face. He chuckled slightly, stroking her hair. "Did I not just say the same thing, little lioness? You are my forever and always."
When she’d managed to compose herself, she’d nearly cried again, for the fact that though everything had changed, nothing had. Shaking herself out of that, though, she told herself that she was done crying and had sought out Balthasar first, for the story of what happened when she passed out. He’d been strangely hesitant to explain things, which from her usually direct cousin, had thrown her. Of course, when he described what her Aegis had done to Keir, she’d nearly been sick. She’d never intended… why could nothing she ever did work out the way she intended it to?
It was another several hours before she could bring herself to seek him out, and when she did, she was unsurprised to find that he was on the roof. He seemed to favor high places. Not that she was complaining; the sun was just setting, bathing them both in red-gold light, and it wouldn’t be long now before she could see the night sky again. There was no going unnoticed for someone like her, and so she did not attempt to mask her presence as she move to his side, placing a careful foot of distance between them, for whose benefit, she could not say. Probably his—he didn’t need her sobbing all over him again. She said nothing at first, seeing as how it was so difficult to decide what should be said. Maybe he knew, because she certainly did not.
Keir let out a shaky sigh. No one outside of his parents and his siblings had known about his other side. Now his eldest cousin knew, and he was fairly certain Leora knew, too. He had not visited her in the infirmary, for fear she'd be awake or woke up while he was there. He didn't want to see the fear, the revulsion in her eyes. He couldn't take that, he couldn't handle that. He could take his family hating him, fearing him, all of them, except for her.
She didn't speak when she approached, and he wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. He couldn't turn to face her, because he was afraid. So instead, he said the only thing he could think of. "It wasn't your fault, you know. The Aegis...is not what did that to me. It's always there, underneath the surface. I was just too weak this time to hold it back."
She wasn’t really sure what to say to that, honestly. She hadn’t seen what happened. As far as she could tell, Balthasar had been uneasy about it, but it seemed like something more like the fact that his cousin hadn’t been himself than anything. Well… maybe, maybe not, but it certainly didn’t change anything for her. Keir was who he was, dark side and all. Weren’t they all? “It was still irresponsible of me,” she said. There was very little data on what the Aegis could do to people. A sample size of two, actually: her father and the one called Fenrir. Considering that one of those two had wound up more or less a drug addict and then dead, it wasn’t exactly a great track record. “But I’d do it again, because it was the only thing I could do, to help you, and I wasn’t just going to let you die. As long as you can say the same… I guess I just don’t see an issue.”
She sighed, running a hand through her hair. That maybe hadn’t come out right. It was so weird, how she struggled to express herself properly only with him. With anyone else, her words were almost as fluid and precise as Aryan’s, and almost as naturally charismatic as Alden’s. With him… sometimes she felt like she didn’t even know what she was trying to say, let alone anyone else. “What I mean is… everyone has some part of themselves they don’t like out there in the light of day. Yours is just more literal. At least… at least you can use it for something other than making people miserable.” She wasn’t understating his struggle, but what she said was true. The secrets under her skin just made her feel like she was rotting from her heart out.
Leora supposed she would simply have to get used to resisting the urge to touch him, because it caught her then, off-guard and almost unprepared. Perhaps it was actually fortunate that it was near-constant, else she’d have not developed a resistance to it yet. If she even had one. Swallowing thickly, she shook her head. “You’re not weak. Not in any sense of the word I know. It was a desperate situation. We all did things we wouldn’t do normally. And we’re all still alive so… I can’t see those choices as wrong. Not one of them.”
The breeze blew through his white hair. He clenched his jaw, finally turning to face her. His face was tense, but his eyes...they were not angry. The look they held was one of sorrow, of regret. "How is it that you can say that about me when I kill people, when you can't even see past what that asshole did to you? You blame yourself, you hate yourself, when you did nothing. You do realize that in all these years, I've never stopped loving you? Not when you rejected me, not when I found out about him. None of that matters, the Aegis doesn't matter because frankly, I don't give a damn about any of that. I never have and I never will. All that I care about, all that I love, is the same head-strong, independant woman who is stronger than she gives herself credit for, and it tears me apart to see her hate herself when she has no reason to."
She… might have had something to say to the first part of that, but whatever response their was died on her lips when he mentioned him, and Leora’s eyes widened, the citrine ring at the edge of either iris almost luminous in the dying sunlight. “You know about that?” She was going to kill Alden. There was no way her mother had told him, and Rica didn’t know enough to have said that much. But her stupid damn brother was just the kind of person to assume he was helping by going and running his mouth to the man who—
Leo’s heart stopped. For several seconds, it genuinely did not beat at all. She froze in place, and then she sank to the roof under her feet, dropping into a crouch and pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes to stop the inevitable waterworks that threatened. Gods, what was it with her and crying lately? She hadn’t cried so much in her life as she had in the last couple of years, mostly around him. She managed to keep them from running down her face, though she made a low, keening sound of misery somewhere in the back of her throat. “Shit, Keir, do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” She didn’t normally use language of this flavor, but it was certainly warranted here. Her voice cracked on the emphasized word, and while she was not shedding any tears, her voice was shaking like she was about to.
“You don’t get it. I just… you’re this incredible, amazing person, with so much to give, and I… gods, can’t you just go be happy somewhere else? With anyone but me? Because that’s all I want, and I want it so badly it’s killing me. I can’t give you that. Because…” she took a shaky breath, hugging her knees and staring resolutely anywhere but at him. “If it were me, someday you’d wake up, you know? You’d realize that whatever you think I am that makes me worth someone like you... I’m not that. I’m not strong, and I’m not worth you. And that day would kill me.”
Something low and almost feral sounded in his chest as he growled. She was so stubborn. But then, so was he. He walked over to her, and pulled her to her feet, perhaps a little more roughly than was neccessary. His eyes were a deep silvery blue, a passion, a fierceness in his eyes as he looked at her. He did not speak, he simply wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.
"I could never think such of you, Leora. I will never leave, because there is no one else, and there could never be anyone else. I'm just waiting for you to realize that. I've been waiting for the last twenty years of my life."
She couldn’t help herself. Even someone like her had only so much reserve, so much control in them. And he was the hurricane battering at her senses until all she could do was be swept up in him. It was weak of her, and unfair to both of them, but the heat of his touch, the searing contact of his mouth on hers, and the taste of him. She’d missed it, desperately, a fact that was becoming quite apparent from the fact that she was winding her fingers in his hair and pulling herself as close to him as the laws of physics would allow. She wanted to be with him so badly, and it was clear that this was exactly what he wanted as well. But… there was still some part of her that hesitated.
When she needed to breathe, Leora pulled back reluctantly, running her hands down his chest and pressing her forehead into his shoulder. When she spoke, the words where murmured against his neck. “If we do this,” she started, still trying to get used to the idea. She couldn’t stand to lose him, and she knew she risked that. If she was right, if it didn’t work out… she could not have her heart broken twice in such a spectacular fashion, not when the second would be so much worse than the first. But if she didn’t try… wasn’t it like losing him anyway? She was so far gone for him that they might as well try, because it still might kill her not to be with him at all. “It’s my last chance. I won’t love anyone after you. I can’t.”
He may have been waiting twenty years, but even that was nothing next to the span they would have to live with themselves if it didn’t work. Nor the span they would live with each other if it did. She didn’t mean to force him to make promises of forever that were just impractical for them, but… he had to understand this about her. It was him, or it was nobody. Perhaps… perhaps it always had been.
Keir smiled, the expression softening the harsh lines of his face. He chuckled slightly, stroking her hair. "Did I not just say the same thing, little lioness? You are my forever and always."
For a few minutes, Nikki did not open her eyes. She was comfortable, and she could smell him, which did not surprise her in the slightest. It had been that way each of the five previous times she'd ended up so. The Supernova took quite a lot out of her, and normally put her out for at least week. As it were, it only took her five days this time, as she'd held back a bit in order to restrain herself so that she wouldn't hurt her son.
Slowly, her eyes opened, lighting on Jasper, and she smiled. she sat up slowly, choosing to ignore the concern she saw in her husband's eyes. That she was here, now, could only mean that they'd succeeded. "Don't give me that look, Jazz. I did what I had to do, and considering that I can still smell him, I can only assume that I didn't kill him?" There was slight humor in her voice. She had to, in order to lighten the situation. It had worked out in the end, and besides, had she killed Aryan, she would have died as well, since he had been the one keeping her power in check.
The look persisted. While, perhaps surprisingly, Jasper had quite a sense of humor about some things, the lives of his family, his wife especially, was not one of those things. Though he was more than capable of restraining the maneuver that put her out like this, he did not enjoy the fact that she used it—and it had been a while, considering how long it had been since he needed assistance killing anything in front of him. He did not take any pride or relish in this. In fact, he hated it. He hated what this war had done to all of them, that she could feel the need to lighten the mood in such a way. There should not be a need. This should have ended weeks ago, at the castle in Romania. It should have ended years ago. If he was supposed to be so mighty, how was it that the one thing he was too weak to do was the one thing they needed most of all?
For a man accustomed to being able to do whatever he needed to, his weakness compared to his ancestor was eating at him, leaving something hollow in his heart, where he kept that part of him that was at least glad to be able to stand in front of them, to weather the lion’s share of the burdens so that his wife and his sons and his friends would not have to. But that day… he had knelt with the rest, and nothing he could do could break that hold Malkior kept over him. He had been useless and he was quickly learning that it was that feeling he detested most of all.
Jasper let his eyes fall closed for a moment, trying to center himself again. It was easier, when she was around, like the edges of the world softened just a little. Things were somehow clearest when they were a bit blurry, such as the lines between he and her. He liked it best when that was indistinct, when one ended where the other began, and they might as well have been the same. He exhaled, the straight, strong line of his shoulders slumping a little bit, and then he opened his eyes again. The look was gone, but it was replaced with something soft and tender and so utterly devoted it bordered just this side of worship. And why should it not? She deserved more than any goddess did.
Alas, he had not so much to give as that, but what he did have was hers for the taking, always. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, wordlessly gathering her to him and positioning her in his lap. He ran a hand through the soft strands of her hair, resisting the urge to shake his head when he encountered a few singed ends. “No battle, no trial, and nothing in the world makes me worry as much as the thought of you doing what you believe you must, Nikki,” he said softly, tilting his head to the side and exposing his neck. It was not only fatigue that set in after her use of her power, but also thirst, after all.
Nikki sighed softly, but said nothing as he gathered her into his lap. She had long since lost any such hesitation when it came to such matters; they belonged to each other, after all. She sank her teeth into his neck, licking the wounds even as they closed. She had taken slightly more than she usually did, and not without reason, though she'd not told him yet. She herself had not been one hundred percent sure, but she was now. She sighed contentedly, her face buried in the crook of his neck.
"Promise me something?"
Jasper didn’t even flinch as her teeth punctured his neck—he had long since grown accustomed to the sensation enough that it was even welcomed, on some level. He did not think of it as a form of pain, really. She drank deeply, but he did not mind. He’d long since made it clear that she was welcome to whatever she wanted from him; there were no reserves he would ever keep from her. The request caused him to blink. He was sensing something coming that she was currently keeping from him, but it didn’t matter, as such. He trusted her implicitly, and more than that, he was at her disposal. Jasper was a man who took his vows of marriage very seriously, after all.
He brought an arm up, using his fingers to trace patterns on her back—though not nonsensically. He was actually sketching out the bars of the Moonlight Sonata, but it was idle, something he didn’t really need to think about in order to do. “You know as well as I do that I’m incapable of denying you anything, my love. What promise would you have from me?”
Nikki smiled softly, recognizing the bars of Moonlight Sonata being traced over her back. She took in a breath, resisting the urge to shake her head. Her husband really was rather predictable. Even so, she was both indescribably happy and utterly terrified. Her arms looped lazily around his neck, her eyes slipping closed. "Promise me that we're all going to get through this, and that you're going to come back to me." She pursed her lips together in a slight smile before continuing. "And the baby."
Jasper’s tracing of the song suddenly halted, and he blinked down at his wife, understandably shocked. Aryan had caught him similarly off-guard, because his family had historically never had many children, and he’d sort of taken it to be routine that he also would only have one as well, plus Yuki of course. But three? He loved being a father like he loved little else in the world, but… sometimes he wondered. Balthasar and Aryan were the best anyone could ask for in sons, but they both had very strongly-independent natures, in their own way. They’d sort of… become themselves, right in front of his eyes. Was now really the time to bring another into the world?
His silence extended longer than it really should have, but then he smiled. It was true that this was hardly the opportune moment, and he did occasionally entertain doubts as to his parenting methods (particularly when he was beating his oldest son to within an inch of his life in the name of making both of them strong enough to do what must be done), but… he could not deny that he would be happy to be father to a fourth.
Leaning forward, he captured his wife’s lips for his own, moving his hands up to cradle her face, his eyes slipping closed as they tasted each other with the sort of slow deliberateness that sets in when the hastiness of initial exploration is over and two people have thoroughly learned one another. And learned what it means to love one another in truth, beyond the fluttery feelings and strange connections. When they learn to love each other more with every passing day, rather than less. “My love, nothing in this world will keep me from you a moment longer than necessary. Nor from our youngest.”
Slowly, her eyes opened, lighting on Jasper, and she smiled. she sat up slowly, choosing to ignore the concern she saw in her husband's eyes. That she was here, now, could only mean that they'd succeeded. "Don't give me that look, Jazz. I did what I had to do, and considering that I can still smell him, I can only assume that I didn't kill him?" There was slight humor in her voice. She had to, in order to lighten the situation. It had worked out in the end, and besides, had she killed Aryan, she would have died as well, since he had been the one keeping her power in check.
The look persisted. While, perhaps surprisingly, Jasper had quite a sense of humor about some things, the lives of his family, his wife especially, was not one of those things. Though he was more than capable of restraining the maneuver that put her out like this, he did not enjoy the fact that she used it—and it had been a while, considering how long it had been since he needed assistance killing anything in front of him. He did not take any pride or relish in this. In fact, he hated it. He hated what this war had done to all of them, that she could feel the need to lighten the mood in such a way. There should not be a need. This should have ended weeks ago, at the castle in Romania. It should have ended years ago. If he was supposed to be so mighty, how was it that the one thing he was too weak to do was the one thing they needed most of all?
For a man accustomed to being able to do whatever he needed to, his weakness compared to his ancestor was eating at him, leaving something hollow in his heart, where he kept that part of him that was at least glad to be able to stand in front of them, to weather the lion’s share of the burdens so that his wife and his sons and his friends would not have to. But that day… he had knelt with the rest, and nothing he could do could break that hold Malkior kept over him. He had been useless and he was quickly learning that it was that feeling he detested most of all.
Jasper let his eyes fall closed for a moment, trying to center himself again. It was easier, when she was around, like the edges of the world softened just a little. Things were somehow clearest when they were a bit blurry, such as the lines between he and her. He liked it best when that was indistinct, when one ended where the other began, and they might as well have been the same. He exhaled, the straight, strong line of his shoulders slumping a little bit, and then he opened his eyes again. The look was gone, but it was replaced with something soft and tender and so utterly devoted it bordered just this side of worship. And why should it not? She deserved more than any goddess did.
Alas, he had not so much to give as that, but what he did have was hers for the taking, always. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, wordlessly gathering her to him and positioning her in his lap. He ran a hand through the soft strands of her hair, resisting the urge to shake his head when he encountered a few singed ends. “No battle, no trial, and nothing in the world makes me worry as much as the thought of you doing what you believe you must, Nikki,” he said softly, tilting his head to the side and exposing his neck. It was not only fatigue that set in after her use of her power, but also thirst, after all.
Nikki sighed softly, but said nothing as he gathered her into his lap. She had long since lost any such hesitation when it came to such matters; they belonged to each other, after all. She sank her teeth into his neck, licking the wounds even as they closed. She had taken slightly more than she usually did, and not without reason, though she'd not told him yet. She herself had not been one hundred percent sure, but she was now. She sighed contentedly, her face buried in the crook of his neck.
"Promise me something?"
Jasper didn’t even flinch as her teeth punctured his neck—he had long since grown accustomed to the sensation enough that it was even welcomed, on some level. He did not think of it as a form of pain, really. She drank deeply, but he did not mind. He’d long since made it clear that she was welcome to whatever she wanted from him; there were no reserves he would ever keep from her. The request caused him to blink. He was sensing something coming that she was currently keeping from him, but it didn’t matter, as such. He trusted her implicitly, and more than that, he was at her disposal. Jasper was a man who took his vows of marriage very seriously, after all.
He brought an arm up, using his fingers to trace patterns on her back—though not nonsensically. He was actually sketching out the bars of the Moonlight Sonata, but it was idle, something he didn’t really need to think about in order to do. “You know as well as I do that I’m incapable of denying you anything, my love. What promise would you have from me?”
Nikki smiled softly, recognizing the bars of Moonlight Sonata being traced over her back. She took in a breath, resisting the urge to shake her head. Her husband really was rather predictable. Even so, she was both indescribably happy and utterly terrified. Her arms looped lazily around his neck, her eyes slipping closed. "Promise me that we're all going to get through this, and that you're going to come back to me." She pursed her lips together in a slight smile before continuing. "And the baby."
Jasper’s tracing of the song suddenly halted, and he blinked down at his wife, understandably shocked. Aryan had caught him similarly off-guard, because his family had historically never had many children, and he’d sort of taken it to be routine that he also would only have one as well, plus Yuki of course. But three? He loved being a father like he loved little else in the world, but… sometimes he wondered. Balthasar and Aryan were the best anyone could ask for in sons, but they both had very strongly-independent natures, in their own way. They’d sort of… become themselves, right in front of his eyes. Was now really the time to bring another into the world?
His silence extended longer than it really should have, but then he smiled. It was true that this was hardly the opportune moment, and he did occasionally entertain doubts as to his parenting methods (particularly when he was beating his oldest son to within an inch of his life in the name of making both of them strong enough to do what must be done), but… he could not deny that he would be happy to be father to a fourth.
Leaning forward, he captured his wife’s lips for his own, moving his hands up to cradle her face, his eyes slipping closed as they tasted each other with the sort of slow deliberateness that sets in when the hastiness of initial exploration is over and two people have thoroughly learned one another. And learned what it means to love one another in truth, beyond the fluttery feelings and strange connections. When they learn to love each other more with every passing day, rather than less. “My love, nothing in this world will keep me from you a moment longer than necessary. Nor from our youngest.”
Aryan was not overly surprised when he heard the news. There was about as much celebration as one could warrant in such dark times, but no one could deny the joy of a new child. It had been the same with Diya and Bryer. Diya herself seemed rather pleased with the news, and had spent the last two days following her grandmother around rambling on about how she was going to dress the child and play with her hair and such. Aryan found this highly amusing, as for the moment, there was no way to even tell whether the child would be male or female.
His father and brother had not resumed their training yet, and as such, Aryan found himself seeking out his sibling, for once. He did it every so often, and with both Balthasar and Jasper throwing themselves into their training as they had, Aryan felt it necessary to once again assume the role of being a little brother and nagging his elder just to be certain he did not work himself to death. There was a bit of an odd little smile on his face.
"So...ready to be an older brother again? I get to be the middle child, now."
Balthasar snorted, looking up from the blank sheet of music he was working on to raise a brow at his brother. “It’s not an enviable position,” he replied with a touch of wry humor. “I seem to recall a lot of getting blamed for things my younger brother did while my older sister was most amused by my misfortune.” It was true that in some ways, he’d been Yuki’s older brother, regardless of their age, but in other ways, he’d still been very much the middle child. He was surprised, but nonetheless glad, to find that it no longer hurt to speak of her. He missed her, of course, but the memories had taken on their own tones now, the happy ones bringing him joy, the funny ones causing him amusement, rather than the universal filter of misery they’d had for at least two years after she’d died.
“So enjoy being able to get away with anything while you still can, brother—someone younger and cuter than you will make you taste your own medicine soon enough, I’m sure.” A smile, and a pause. “Unless she turns out as hapless as me instead. I certainly hope not.” The baby’s gender was as yet still unknown, but Balthasar, like Diya, was strangely confident that it would be a girl.
Aryan looked away pointedly, a wry smile on his lips. "Funny, I have absolutely no idea what you mean, dear brother." He did know, of course. Aryan had spent a great majority of his days as a young child blaming his brother for whatever mischief he could, much to Yuki's amusement. He chuckled slightly, replying, "Yes well, I think we both know that if it turns out to be a girl, father's going to be worse than our uncle is with Leora." That would be amusing. It was clear to everyone just how much Jasper loved his wife, it was not very hard to imagine what he'd be like with a daughter. "Besides, when was the last time I actually tried to pin something on you? The things I get away with we will no longer have much need for once this is all said and done."
Typical of him to deny it. Balthasar shook his head, though, at the last statement. “I think you’re mistaken about that, Ary. When the war is over and done with, it’s diplomats we’ll need the most. There’s a whole world out there that needs to be rebuilt, as fairly and quickly as possible. It’s soldiers who won’t have anything to do anymore…” Balthasar looked back down at his work with a sigh. It was hard to imagine what he was going to do in a world that didn’t need him and people like him to fight for it anymore. He had not his brother’s gifts for words and politics. He wouldn’t fit in a world like that. It would be like trying to use a blunt instrument where delicate machinery was required.
Balthasar knew he was relatively uncomplicated compared to other people he knew. He did what he did, and he did it as well as he could, and for his whole life, there had been a place for that, because people were needed to fight the Council or the Pantheon or whomever. But when it was all over… it was the Aryans and the Aldens they would need the most. It wasn’t that he minded the other members of his family doing more important work than him or anything—he’d never sought the spotlight, nor even wanted it. But what place was there for him when it was done? What would he do? It was hard to imagine.
“It’s not that I don’t want it to end, because I do, I really do, but… I guess I kind of envy you that, Ary. I always have,” he admitted with a rueful smile. His brother’s brand of cleverness was very different from Balthasar’s own, and there was something very admirable about it. He’d always thought so—it was why he’d always wanted to do his job better, so that Aryan was free to develop those talents to their honed perfection. Because Balthasar had always known that it was Aryan, not him, that the world would one day need most of all. “I’m going to be a bit useless, personally.”
Aryan's smile softened, shaking his head slightly. Balthasar really never could see his own potential past that power, and his skill in fighting. Aryan knew very well the motives behind his brother's actions, that he himself had been a prime factor in driving Balthasar to such measures, but even so...Balthasar was the type of man people looked to, to lead them. It was the same with their father.
"See, and that's where I think you are wrong, Balthasar. Yes, the world will have need of the politicians and the people who can speak pretty words. But in the end, that is all that they are, words. The world will need more than that. You may no longer have reason to fight, but you will have plenty of reason to act. To build a better world than the one before it. To make a world where Diya and Bryer and our little sibling and any other child can grow up without the constant fear of losing a parent, a sibling, a friend. I can speak and I can manipulate, persuade, and pull strings. But I'm not a leader."
Purple eyes met silvery-grey. "I have often found that it is the people who doubt themselves the most are the ones who make the best of leaders. The day you become useless will be the day our father dies of old age."
He had to laugh at that. Were it not for the palpable weight on his shoulders, one that Balthasar could feel more and more every day, Jasper would have been able to pass for their older brother. There was no way any of them were dying of old age, at least not as far as he could tell. Even Uncle Morgan and Aunt Erys had seemingly failed to age at all over a century, and that was actually kind of weird. Come to think of it, something weird had to be going on there… but that wasn’t Ary’s point. “There’s something in here about powers behind thrones, I just know it… only, seriously, no thrones. You get called king enough times and it really starts to rub you the wrong way.” He was sure Aryan could sympathize, what with all that “Lord von Nacht” Council business that he hated so much.
Even so, his brother’s words made him feel a lot better. Like at least there was something he could learn to do, even if he wasn’t sure he’d be all that fantastic at it. “Then I guess we handle it like we handle everything else,” he said with a grin. “As a team.” Because, power or not, charisma or no, it was together when they were most effective, and it wasn’t just them. It went for the whole family, and it was the oldest lesson their parents had ever taught them. Trust Ary to remind him of it.
His father and brother had not resumed their training yet, and as such, Aryan found himself seeking out his sibling, for once. He did it every so often, and with both Balthasar and Jasper throwing themselves into their training as they had, Aryan felt it necessary to once again assume the role of being a little brother and nagging his elder just to be certain he did not work himself to death. There was a bit of an odd little smile on his face.
"So...ready to be an older brother again? I get to be the middle child, now."
Balthasar snorted, looking up from the blank sheet of music he was working on to raise a brow at his brother. “It’s not an enviable position,” he replied with a touch of wry humor. “I seem to recall a lot of getting blamed for things my younger brother did while my older sister was most amused by my misfortune.” It was true that in some ways, he’d been Yuki’s older brother, regardless of their age, but in other ways, he’d still been very much the middle child. He was surprised, but nonetheless glad, to find that it no longer hurt to speak of her. He missed her, of course, but the memories had taken on their own tones now, the happy ones bringing him joy, the funny ones causing him amusement, rather than the universal filter of misery they’d had for at least two years after she’d died.
“So enjoy being able to get away with anything while you still can, brother—someone younger and cuter than you will make you taste your own medicine soon enough, I’m sure.” A smile, and a pause. “Unless she turns out as hapless as me instead. I certainly hope not.” The baby’s gender was as yet still unknown, but Balthasar, like Diya, was strangely confident that it would be a girl.
Aryan looked away pointedly, a wry smile on his lips. "Funny, I have absolutely no idea what you mean, dear brother." He did know, of course. Aryan had spent a great majority of his days as a young child blaming his brother for whatever mischief he could, much to Yuki's amusement. He chuckled slightly, replying, "Yes well, I think we both know that if it turns out to be a girl, father's going to be worse than our uncle is with Leora." That would be amusing. It was clear to everyone just how much Jasper loved his wife, it was not very hard to imagine what he'd be like with a daughter. "Besides, when was the last time I actually tried to pin something on you? The things I get away with we will no longer have much need for once this is all said and done."
Typical of him to deny it. Balthasar shook his head, though, at the last statement. “I think you’re mistaken about that, Ary. When the war is over and done with, it’s diplomats we’ll need the most. There’s a whole world out there that needs to be rebuilt, as fairly and quickly as possible. It’s soldiers who won’t have anything to do anymore…” Balthasar looked back down at his work with a sigh. It was hard to imagine what he was going to do in a world that didn’t need him and people like him to fight for it anymore. He had not his brother’s gifts for words and politics. He wouldn’t fit in a world like that. It would be like trying to use a blunt instrument where delicate machinery was required.
Balthasar knew he was relatively uncomplicated compared to other people he knew. He did what he did, and he did it as well as he could, and for his whole life, there had been a place for that, because people were needed to fight the Council or the Pantheon or whomever. But when it was all over… it was the Aryans and the Aldens they would need the most. It wasn’t that he minded the other members of his family doing more important work than him or anything—he’d never sought the spotlight, nor even wanted it. But what place was there for him when it was done? What would he do? It was hard to imagine.
“It’s not that I don’t want it to end, because I do, I really do, but… I guess I kind of envy you that, Ary. I always have,” he admitted with a rueful smile. His brother’s brand of cleverness was very different from Balthasar’s own, and there was something very admirable about it. He’d always thought so—it was why he’d always wanted to do his job better, so that Aryan was free to develop those talents to their honed perfection. Because Balthasar had always known that it was Aryan, not him, that the world would one day need most of all. “I’m going to be a bit useless, personally.”
Aryan's smile softened, shaking his head slightly. Balthasar really never could see his own potential past that power, and his skill in fighting. Aryan knew very well the motives behind his brother's actions, that he himself had been a prime factor in driving Balthasar to such measures, but even so...Balthasar was the type of man people looked to, to lead them. It was the same with their father.
"See, and that's where I think you are wrong, Balthasar. Yes, the world will have need of the politicians and the people who can speak pretty words. But in the end, that is all that they are, words. The world will need more than that. You may no longer have reason to fight, but you will have plenty of reason to act. To build a better world than the one before it. To make a world where Diya and Bryer and our little sibling and any other child can grow up without the constant fear of losing a parent, a sibling, a friend. I can speak and I can manipulate, persuade, and pull strings. But I'm not a leader."
Purple eyes met silvery-grey. "I have often found that it is the people who doubt themselves the most are the ones who make the best of leaders. The day you become useless will be the day our father dies of old age."
He had to laugh at that. Were it not for the palpable weight on his shoulders, one that Balthasar could feel more and more every day, Jasper would have been able to pass for their older brother. There was no way any of them were dying of old age, at least not as far as he could tell. Even Uncle Morgan and Aunt Erys had seemingly failed to age at all over a century, and that was actually kind of weird. Come to think of it, something weird had to be going on there… but that wasn’t Ary’s point. “There’s something in here about powers behind thrones, I just know it… only, seriously, no thrones. You get called king enough times and it really starts to rub you the wrong way.” He was sure Aryan could sympathize, what with all that “Lord von Nacht” Council business that he hated so much.
Even so, his brother’s words made him feel a lot better. Like at least there was something he could learn to do, even if he wasn’t sure he’d be all that fantastic at it. “Then I guess we handle it like we handle everything else,” he said with a grin. “As a team.” Because, power or not, charisma or no, it was together when they were most effective, and it wasn’t just them. It went for the whole family, and it was the oldest lesson their parents had ever taught them. Trust Ary to remind him of it.
Alarica sat, her fingers twined together as she played with her thumbs. She had been hiding from her mother, who was becoming a bit...unbearing at the moment. Erys had been told of what happened, and it only managed to set the Dhampir off. She had destroyed the left wing of the home they currently occupied, but it was made to house such powers from them, and so she only managed a small crack in a wall. Alarica had avoided her mother because the woman was dead set on keeping her youngest child in her sights at all times. It was a bit suffocating, and Alarica had had enough suffocation for one day. She currently chose to reside in one of the Orchard trees, blending in with the scent of apples as best as she could.
"Your mother is looking for you," a voice stirred as Alarica glanced down into bright blue eyes. She shivered a bit at that, causing Angelus to smile (or he'd have smirked if he could have). "You will only make this harder on yourself if you keep away from your mother for too long. And not to mention you will drive everyone crazy," Angelus continued, his tails swaying back and forth as he stared up at his master perched in the orchard tree. Alarica sighed, leaning back on the branch. She allowed herself to fall, her knees wrapping around the branch so that she was now dangling from the tree. She reached down, and scooped Angelus into her arms before pulling herself back up, setting him down in front of her.
"They can handle her," she replied, hooking a single digit around his ear as she rubbed it. She frowned slightly as she stared at her familiar. "I told him, Gel," she stated softly, sighing in the process as she leaned her back against the trunk. "I told him, but I don't think he understood what I said. I'm not sure how I can face him again, especially since I kissed him," she continued, sliding her eyes shut and placing her index finger and thumb against her eyes. She pinched for a bit, taking in a deep breath before releasing it slowly. "I'm...not sure I can even speak to him properly again," she let out a dry chuckle at that.
Angelus shook his head. She was probably right, he would have probably took it in a different direction, and considered it perhaps more of a confession of familial love, and for that, his heart ached just a little for his master, however; a small mischievous glint fluttered across his eyes when he spotted something in the distance. Standing, he rubbed against her knees before jumping out of the tree. "Well, here's your chance at clarity," he spoke, leaving her slightly confused as she watched her familiar walk away.
Balthasar had been intercepted by his father no more than a day after they all arrived back at the mansion, and they’d journeyed into the remoter parts of the mountains to train. Jasper had explained to his son what occurred when they found the progenitor, and the need for them to train harder to bring their powers more fully under their control. Helen’s blood had given Malkior a serious advantage, but they at least were not even considering it an option. The girl had been through far too much, and they had a year to make this work. In the two weeks since, they’d only been back to the house three times: once when Nikki and Ary were late returning from what should have been a routine mission, and once just for a short break to check in with the others and make sure Leo was all right.
This time, though, he was back in something a little closer to shame. He just couldn’t get past something with regard to his abilities, and it meant that every time they sparred, his father was nearly killing him. So a few hours ago, his dad had sat down with him and asked him to explain again in full detail the battle and the aftermath of the encounter with the Pantheon. So Balthasar had told him everything, including things he had divulged to no one, like the full content of his conversation with Elizabeth, and then… just how it had happened that he saved Rica, and what happened afterwards. And because it was his father, Balthasar had also given voice to some of his emotional worry regarding his cousin, and his even greater concern that the dark side of his powers, the one he had been forced to give into, would take over him in the end.
It was there every time he fought his dad, just waiting. He’d even used it, at Jasper’s request, and though he was finally matching his father for strength and speed when he did, it just felt… wrong. He had no idea what was causing it. Though his father had struggled with something similar, Jasper had at least managed to wrest it under his control enough that it never took over. Balthasar didn’t understand what was wrong with him. In the end, though, his father had simply regarded him in that patient, knowing way he had, tilting his head to one side. “We’re going home. Talk to her, and when everything is settled, we will do this again.”
He didn’t like the delay, but he did need to talk to her. He just couldn’t get the memories out of his head. They were driving him to distraction, and no small amount of anxiety cropped up like vines around his lungs whenever he considered what it all might not mean. But Balthasar wasn’t one for what-ifs and maybes and fretting, not usually. If he had a question, he asked it. If there was something that needed to be done, he did it. So he’d decided that today, he was going to ask, because it needed to be done. He needed to know. And if, in the end, he laid it all out there like a fool and it had all meant nothing, well… that would hurt, but he would live with it. At least he would know.
Though Aunt Erys seemed unable to find her at the moment, Balthasar knew exactly where she would be, and headed out to the apple orchard, catching a whiff of her scent and tracking it to a particular tree. He could see her sitting in it, Angelus leaving for elsewhere, he supposed. The von Nacht heir stopped underneath the tree and looked up, canting his head to the side and smiling softly. “Hey Rica. Am I going up, or are you coming down? I’d like to ask you something.”
Frown still etched into her face, Alarica shook her head gently as her familiar left. He was as bad as Mikhail was, and that thought alone caused a small smile to etch back into her features. It has been a while, but the pain of losing Mikhail had finally subsided as she filled it with other things. Though she still missed him, that pain would always be there, she had at least been able to move on. A voice nearly startled her out of the tree, catching herself quickly so as she didn't fall out. How had she not smelled him? Was she that lost in her thoughts? Blinking a bit owlishly, she tilted her head slightly and pursed her lips together. Up or down? Well, if she went down, she wouldn't be shielded by the Orchard scent, but then again...
"I'd rather avoid my mother at the moment, so you'll just have to come up," she stated, nodding her head as if she had just given some sagely advice, and patted the spot next to her. She would murder Angelus later. If he had seen Balthasar, he could have at least told...oh, so that was what he meant. Sneaky little bastard, she thought, Angelus laughing somewhere in the back of her mind. "So, what is it that I can do for you? Or, well rather, what is it that you feel the need to ask me," she stated, both her brows raising slightly.
She had tried to ignore the irregular beat of her heart, something she should have been used to by now. It was only so whenever he was around, and though she knew why it beat so, she wished sometimes it didn't. If she could get her heart to stop this dance, then perhaps she could have moved on by now. Being in love with someone for nearly all her life was something Alarica had found rather painful, and they not knowing, even more so. But she couldn't fault him for that. She had spent three years ignoring him, and then the rest of her life simply trying to be just a cousin, family.
Balthasar had no complaints about that, and swung himself into the tree with no difficulty, settling onto the branch beside her, though he left a couple inches of space between them, because he wasn’t sure if his question would make her uncomfortable or not, and he really didn’t want to do that. “I guess I understand,” he said, shaking his head. Even he’d been thinking that his aunt needed to calm down a little. Rica was alive, wasn’t she? That was the most important thing—there was no need to smother her. She was strong enough to take a lot, and when she wasn’t, well… he kind of hoped that might be what he was for. To help. He still wasn’t exactly sure how he’d done what he did, but he’d do it again in a heartbeat if it became necessary. “But… she’s just worried. I suppose I understand her, too.”
Maybe he was too much like his father, but a part of him would never stop worrying about her, regardless of what happened here. It was weird, if he thought about it—he’d always taken it to be a familial thing, because he really did worry about all of them. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when that had changed, when she somehow became a category all her own, and maybe it hadn’t happened at any one specific moment. Maybe it was just something gradual, something that had crept in between promises and talks and hugs and battles together and the way she smiled at him. He really felt like the only other person in the world when she did, and it was the strangest little high. But thinking these things wasn’t going to help him convey them, so he raked a hand through his hair and sighed through his nose.
Returning his hand to the branch beside him, Balthasar regarded her steadily for a moment, his expression caught somewhere between solemn and gentle. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he confessed. “About you, what you said. What happened, uh… after.” he could feel the heat rising to his face again, and cleared his throat a trifle awkwardly. But he wouldn’t look away. He wasn’t afraid or ashamed of how he felt, and even if she didn’t feel the same, he wanted her to understand that—that someone had cared about her because of who she was, and without feeling any reservations about it. That someone had seen her. It was hard to feel seen, sometimes, with such a large extended family and so many important things that needed doing.
“I just wanted… needed to know if you meant it. When you said you loved me. I mean, uh. Not… not in the cousin kind of way. It’s fine if that is what you meant, don’t get me wrong, I just…” He rubbed at that back of his neck, certain that he was red as a tomato but more concerned with his ineloquent phrasing. “I’m pretty sure I don’t. Feel like you’re just my cousin. Gods, I’m bad at this.” He shook his head for just a moment, then returned his eyes, quicksilver-blue and nearly luminous, to hers. That same strange part of him that was dark stirred, but something else moved with it, and an idea came to him. If he weren’t already blushing, he would be now, but as it was, he plucked up the gumption from somewhere. “Let me try that again.”
This time, instead of tripping over a bunch of words, Balthasar did what Balthasar had always done better: he acted, reaching forward slowly to cradle the side of her face in one of his sword-rough palms, then slid it around to the nape of her neck, catching the soft threads of her hair as he did, and pulling her slightly forward. He met her in the middle, pressing his mouth gently to hers.
Alarica shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, well she needs to stop worrying so much. I am alive right now, though if she keeps this up, I think I just might die of being smothered to death," she replied, shaking her head a bit in the process. Though she had said it in a joking manner, she was quite honestly being a bit serious. Her mother needed to calm down and accept the fact that she had died, but she was alive and well now. "But there is a difference between worrying, and being over worried. I am fine...thanks to you," she spoke, her voice quieting just a fraction at the last three words.
There was silence between them, however; it felt that there was a loud, drumming sound coming from somewhere she could not place. Everything seemed to be drowned out by it, save for the subtle hints of their breathing and her heart beat thrumming faster each second that passed. It was then that the silence was broken, and Alarica couldn't help but frown just a bit. He had said something, however; she didn't fully register it. He couldn't stop thinking about it? What she had said, what she had done? Her eyes widened just a fraction as she thought about it. She had tried to laugh nervously about it, reaching and rubbing her neck nervously, however; she coughed as a way to clear her throat.
He continued speaking, and each word only further caused to confuse her. Until he asked that. "Balthasar," she spoke, the frown still etched upon her face. "Of course I meant it," she stated, but she was cut off when he continued speaking. Not as a cousin? She was slightly confused, but as he continued to fumble over his words, it finally sank in to what he meant. Her eyes, if they could have, would have widened more. Her heart beat faster, feeling her throat constrict and the sudden lack of being able to breathe escaped her. Even as he reached for her, she couldn't register anything other than him.
She opened her mouth to say something, but found herself unable to say anything. Even as his lips were pressed softly to hers, she couldn't say nor do anything. This...was a dream right? He wasn't kissing her, not like this, and he certainly didn't ask her that. So didn't respond at first, instead, her body tensing up at the contact. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. This was not supposed to happen. He didn't feel that way about her. He couldn't feel that way about her. She wasn't...anything to receive something like that. But, she was a selfish person, and she wanted to believe this was true. She finally seemed to regain control of her body, and she slid her arms around his neck.
She pulled him closer to her, deepening the kiss before she pulled back quickly, her face sporting a very red color as she shook her head. "No, no I..." she spoke, her voice cracking ever so lightly. "You shouldn't," she tried again. Shouldn't what? Love her as she loved him? Why? "Because you deserve so much better," she answered her own question. She wanted to be selfish, to believe that this was true and that he had loved her as she loved him. But she didn't deserve him. She had accepted that a long time ago, but she did promise Leora that she wouldn't give up. She was giving up now...wasn't she?
"So much better than I," and he did.
He was confused. This wasn’t exactly unusual for him when it came to the finer points of feelings, but he was fairly sure he’d just gone from crushed to elated to unsure what was even going on anymore. She’d just gone stiff when he kissed her, and he knew quite well that that wasn’t the response of someone who wanted to be kissed, and he felt his heart grow cold, the vines around his lungs tightening with disappointment. He couldn’t regret telling her, because she deserved to know, and he didn’t want to just carry that burden in silence all his life—it wasn’t good for a person, and he had enough self-respect not to want to let that kill him. Even if it meant what it seemed to: that he would be very hurt right now and for the foreseeable future.
He was going to pull back and apologize when her arms wound around his neck, and Balthasar found himself surprised by her response, and if his balance hadn’t been fundamentally good, he might have fallen right out of the tree. He wasn’t necessarily unaware of what to expect—he had had a girlfriend previously, but what floored him was his own reaction, the way something lurched in his stomach and he instinctively moved to wrap his arms around her waist without needing to really think about it. It was so automatic, so natural, and that was something he never thought he’d describe this as.
Which was maybe why he felt like he’d been gobsmacked when she pulled away as though stricken, stammering some kind of denial. For a moment, his heart sank, and honestly, hearing the rest didn’t make it any easier. His brows drew together, and he did not remove his arms from her waist. “Better than you?” he echoed, confused. His expression was almost wounded, and he looked at her intently. “I don’t understand. There is nobody better than you, Rica.” Not as far as he could tell. Still perplexed, he shifted them a little, pulling her gently to sit sideways on his lap. It was easiest, considering the location. With tenderness, he laid her head against his chest, and propped his on her crown.
“Is this why you ignored me for three years?” Balthasar asked quietly, suspecting he knew the answer. This piece had fit the rest of the puzzle together like magic. He suddenly understood what everyone else had always seemed to, and honestly, he was a little bit angry with them. It was one thing for them to laugh at him for being an oblivious idiot, because it was true, and he could take it. But to poke fun at Rica when she already seemed to feel so down on herself—he didn’t appreciate it. It was mean-spirited, and though he knew that none of them would ever have meant to hurt her by doing so… he tightened his hold securely with one arm, stroking gently through her hair with the other, over and over, a repetitive gesture meant to soothe. He’d told her before, hadn’t he? She could tell him anything. He was just sorry he hadn't known what questions to ask.
Alarica stared at Balthasar, unsure of what to say. What could she say? She, the one who had never been afraid to speak her feelings, her thoughts, boldly, was anchored to words she could not say. Her eyes burned slightly, just a bit, before her brows furrowed together. But there was someone better than her. There was someone who could be his, and he theirs, but just not hers. She hesitated, the tension in her muscles building up again as he pulled her to his lap, and laid her head against his chest. Strange, how this was the way she always found comfort in this. Even as a child, when they played the piano together, played together, she always found comfort in his embrace, and her fingers intertwined themselves in his shirt.
Her heart thundered against her rib-cage, the sensation similar to something trying to burst from her chest as she tried to gain control of her breathing. Her hand clutched tighter into his shirt as she tried to keep the sound of his voice out of her ears. Yes, it was partially the reason she had avoided him for those three years. She avoided him because she loved him, and she wanted him. But somewhere down the way, she had developed a sense of unworthiness, of worthlessness. She wanted him to hate her, so that she could move on. And she did it the only way she could think of, by ignoring him, and it hurt. Gods, did it hurt her so much to do so. It felt as if she were dying a slow, painful death, worse than the one she actually had experienced.
"Yes. It is the reason why I ignored you. I thought that... if I did something, something like that, that you would come to hate me. And if you did, then...I would be able to stop," she began, her voice soft, and a bit weak. "I don't know when I began to love you, it just happened. I've loved you since I was old enough to understand just what it was that I had felt. I didn't want to be the one to hold you back though, and I thought that," she paused, the slight crack in her voice startling her just a second. Why was it so hard to tell him still? He knew now. He knew she loved him, and for him to say what he had, even if he hadn't said a word at all, it hurt. It hurt because she had succeeded in doing the one thing she told herself not to do.
"I haven't stopped, and it hurts. It hurts because I told myself that I shouldn't want you in this way. There are so many others...so many that could love you as I do. The Balthasar that is kind, gentle, understanding. The Balthasar that would do anything to protect his family, and who struggles so much to do so. The Balthasar that...hurts because he won't be the one to speak to others about what he feels, of what he is going through," she laid it out for him. She might not have been as smart as the rest of her family, and she might not have been as observant as the rest of them...but these were things she knew. She turned to face him, removing herself momentarily as she stared at him, his silver-blue eyes hypnotizing all the same still.
"I'm sorry," she spoke, placing both hands on the side of his face and pulled him closer to her, leaning her forehead against his in the process. "I'm sorry," she repeated. Why was she sorry though? Because she had not been there for him when he needed her? That...didn't seem right. He didn't need her, not at all. He didn't need her, but she still apologized like a mantra. He had said that she could tell him anything, and that he would listen, and he had. But... she was sorry now. She had never offered the same reprieve, only that one day before they had all been separated. She had told him the same thing, that he could talk to her, and she would listen. Perhaps, she couldn't give out the same advice or words of encouragement as he could, but she would have listened. "I...love you," she spoke, her words still muffled in a whisper.
How? How had all of this managed to develop without him ever realizing it? He was oblivious to a lot of things, he knew, and it was one thing not to have noticed that she had feelings for him. But this massive sense of her own inferiority that she was confessing… where had that come from? If he’d only known, he’d have… what? He’d certainly have told her differently. He didn’t understand what about herself she could possibly find inferior to anyone, least of all him. His heart broke for the obvious distress the words themselves were putting her under, and he fought to keep his own heartbeat steady, no small feat when she was this close. But he wanted to be something she could lean against, something to steady her against the hurt of saying these things.
Balthasar also wanted her to stop believing them. Closing his eyes momentarily against the contact of her forehead with his, he shuddered when she said the words, swallowing thickly and opening his eyes back up to meet hers. The color of vibrant sakura petals—so unique and so beautiful. He breathed a soft exhale. “Alarica,” he said gently, like it was some secret he wouldn’t tell anyone else. “I’m sorry, too. For whatever it is that I did or someone else did that ever made you think that you weren’t good enough. You’re more than good enough, for anyone. You’re funny, and clever, and observant and fierce and so beautiful it’s hard to breathe.” Not breaking the skin-to-skin contact of their brows, he reached a hand up and tucked a lock of silky hair behind her ear. “You make me worry more than anyone else does, and happier to see you than I am to see anyone else.”
He brought the hand forward again, tracing the line of her jaw with feather-light fingers. He really didn’t understand how she’d come to love someone as boring as him, because he wasn’t funny or vibrant or anything like that, anything like her—he’d always just been Balthasar, who found a way to do what had to be done and tried to be there when people needed him. Clearly, for all of his desire to help her, he’d failed miserably, systematically, and for a long time. It crushed him that she’d been thinking this about herself for so long. “I will tell you how amazing and wonderful you are every day for the rest of our lives until you believe it, if that’s what it takes,” he said solemnly, “and I’ll keep doing it afterward, because I want to. It will be my privilege to remind you of this. Because Balthasar whom you seem to think so highly of can only stand in awe of your light and your strength.”
He smiled softly, the gesture bringing a glimmer to his eyes, and moved just a little closer, so that their noses, too, almost touched. “I love you, too. And I will love you for the rest of time, whether or not you want that, because I couldn't stop if I tried. But I… I would be beside you, if you would have me.”
Alarica felt her heart constrict with every word he spoke. She could feel herself struggling for breaths of air as he listed off the things that she was. How was it that he could see those traits in her, but she herself couldn't see them? Even when he said her name, the gentleness behind it, caused a shiver to roll down her spine. She tried to contain the urge to pull him closer to her, and for the most part, she was succeeding. Even as he tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, and traced her jawline with soft fingers, she was succeeding. How could he possibly love her? But somehow, he did, and she couldn't ignore that any longer. She could continue to deny it, continue to berate herself, but she couldn't ignore it.
"Balthasar," she spoke his name in a light, heated tone as she wrapped her arms around his neck, their faces still close together. She still couldn't understand. "That... is all I would ever want. I couldn't stop loving you. I tried... I tried so hard and I failed because I couldn't stop loving you. There is nothing more in this plane of existence that I could ever want than you," she spoke, closing her eyes and allowing a smile to return to her lips. It wasn't a smirk, nor was it a playful smile. It was his smile, the one she wore for him every time they saw each other and made their promises.
"Promise me something," she stated, opening her eyes to stare at him, her fingers combing through his hair. "Promise me you'll stay the night with me, because I know you and Uncle will leave again to train. I..." she paused mid-sentence, her face turning a light shade of pink in the process. She wanted to laugh at herself for the next set of words that would come from her. It was a bit childish really, but she wanted nothing more than for him to just be there with her. She wanted to know that this was real, that she really wasn't dreaming, because she felt so light-headed right now. She couldn't possibly be awake if this was truly as it seemed.
"I don't want to be alone tonight," she murmured, pressing her lips softly against his, once, twice, and on the third time, lingering a bit longer.
Gods, but the way she said his name. If Balthasar had ever entertained doubts as to the power of words, that one alone would have banished them permanently. He was glad he was sitting down, because he might just have lost his ability to remain standing if he weren’t. His heartbeat, something he had fought to keep steady so far, was unavoidably increasing, beating a frenetic tattoo in his chest. That smile—he’d fight a thousand more wars for that smile. The sudden certainty of such a thing, the depth of feeling that had seemingly snuck up on him: these were things Balthasar did not quite understand. He was almost a little afraid of them, the way everything in him—even the dark things—were drawn to her like a moth to an ever-burning flame.
“You won’t be,” he replied. She wouldn’t ever truly be alone again, if he had anything to say about it. He knew he still had a lot of training to do, but that was just about the furthest thing from his mind right now, because she was kissing him, and that seemed infinitely more important. Balthasar’s arms banded around her waist, and he smiled against her mouth on the third pass, following her as she almost drew back again, deepening the contact and sliding his tongue against hers. She tasted like apples and spice, which somehow did not surprise him in the slightest. He was deliberate, thorough, but also gentle and the slightest bit cautious, attenuated to her reactions and ready to stop if he pushed anything too far.
He kissed along the delicate line of her jaw and down the side of her throat, to where he could feel her pulse rushing by under his lips. It gave him a little bit of strange satisfaction, to know that he was the reason it was so fast and short—she was, after all, doing the same thing to him. The fingers in his hair were distracting, honestly, and he made a low sound in his chest, almost a purr of satisfaction, nuzzling into her neck and nipping lightly at the skin over her pulse point. “I promise.”
It felt like her skin was on fire, and he was the flame that was burning her. But it wasn't an unpleasant burn. She was enjoying it, and to say that she wanted it to stop would be telling a lie. She smiled still against his lips, and when he pulled back, trailing along her jaw before stopping along her neck, she couldn't surpress the shudder that racked through her. He promised her. He just promised her that she wouldn't be alone, and for a second, Alarica almost found the thought funny. She had never been truly alone, but in comparison to her other family members...she couldn't help but feel lonely. It was him that had always brought her back from that feeling, and now, he was doing so much more.
"You promise?" she stated, her voice labored and heavy. Her eyes were slightly glazed over, and as he nipped at her neck, another shudder went through her, causing her to shake just a little. "Whatever I can offer, whatever I can give you, take it," she stated. "Whatever it is that you desire, that you want, I will do whatever I can to give it to you, because I love you, and I will give and do anything you ask of me," she declared, taking a deep breath as she tried to control herself. It was taking every ounce of her control to not give into the side of her that was her mother. Gods, how she just wanted to, though.
The declaration sent him reeling, because he had no doubt that every word she spoke, she meant. Rica was like that. He wondered if she understood just how enormous such a promise was. There was so much she had to offer, so much she could give, and for a fleeting moment, he wondered what he could possibly have done to deserve such devotion. But love wasn’t about that you deserved. It was about feeling so deeply for another person that you were blind to things like what was deserved or given. You forgot who gave or took more, because there was no line between what belonged to whom. It was all simply theirs. Balthasar pulled back slightly, smiling softly at her and cocking his head to the left.
“Silly Rica,” he said, his voice laced with his affection and a trace of something playful. “I don’t need anything from you. I just need you.” He leaned down slightly, resting his forehead against hers, the smile still there. The heat of desire had not subsided, but the warmth of his love was greater even than that, and he wanted her to understand this important thing, this crucial thing that he sensed she did not believe. “Because to me, you are perfect.” he breathed gently, letting his eyes close for a moment as he simply relished in the feeling of being so near to her.
“There are many things I would like to share with you, but there is time for that. If there’s something you want now, you need only ask, but… I want you to understand this first. To be beside you, to love you is the only thing I need, and the rest is just details. As long as you let me do that, everything else is yours to decide.”
He needed her. That was all he needed. For a second, Alarica could feel her heart stop beating, but it was just for a fraction of a second. The smile on her face never left, even as he placed his forehead against hers and spoke. Her smile warped into a smirk when he called her silly, and she let out a low chuckle. Perhaps she was, but at least she could admit it to herself now. For, perhaps the third (or fourth, she couldn't keep count) time, Alarica found herself unable to breathe. He spoke of just needing to love her, to be beside her, that if there was something she wanted, she would only have to ask. There was one thing she wanted.
"You make it so very hard to refuse," she spoke, the smirk returning to her lips, wrapping her arms around his neck as she pulled herself a little closer. "You are the only thing I could ever want, Bal," she responded, shaking her head a bit even though it still rested against him. "But...there is one more thing," she spoke, drawing back just a bit so that she could regard him. There were some things that she didn't know about him, however; that still did not stop her from desiring this one thing. If he could do it, she would want nothing more from him, just to be with him.
"Promises can be broken, and sometimes they can be forgotten, so I don't want you to promise me this," she began, pausing as she tried to search for the one word she wanted to say. "I want you to guarantee me that you won't hold back any more. I want you to set yourself free and embrace every thing there is about you, because as I said, I will be here always for you. I will be here, by your side, until the day you got it right, and that includes accepting yourself and every thing that comes with it," she spoke. She had promised him that day, when he had spoken of Elizabeth and she had told him to give it time.
She had told him that she would be there for him until he got it right, and she still meant it. "When this is over, when it is all said and done, I want you to be able to accept yourself, and the things you did because you didn't have to do them, but because you wanted to do them. That is all I want for you. What I want from you, though, is a bit difficult to explain," she stated, a sly smirk worming its way back onto her face. Leaning so that she closed the remaining distance between their lips, she kept going until she trapped him beneath her, pinning him almost, to the branch they sat upon, her kiss deepening as much as she could make it.
"Your mother is looking for you," a voice stirred as Alarica glanced down into bright blue eyes. She shivered a bit at that, causing Angelus to smile (or he'd have smirked if he could have). "You will only make this harder on yourself if you keep away from your mother for too long. And not to mention you will drive everyone crazy," Angelus continued, his tails swaying back and forth as he stared up at his master perched in the orchard tree. Alarica sighed, leaning back on the branch. She allowed herself to fall, her knees wrapping around the branch so that she was now dangling from the tree. She reached down, and scooped Angelus into her arms before pulling herself back up, setting him down in front of her.
"They can handle her," she replied, hooking a single digit around his ear as she rubbed it. She frowned slightly as she stared at her familiar. "I told him, Gel," she stated softly, sighing in the process as she leaned her back against the trunk. "I told him, but I don't think he understood what I said. I'm not sure how I can face him again, especially since I kissed him," she continued, sliding her eyes shut and placing her index finger and thumb against her eyes. She pinched for a bit, taking in a deep breath before releasing it slowly. "I'm...not sure I can even speak to him properly again," she let out a dry chuckle at that.
Angelus shook his head. She was probably right, he would have probably took it in a different direction, and considered it perhaps more of a confession of familial love, and for that, his heart ached just a little for his master, however; a small mischievous glint fluttered across his eyes when he spotted something in the distance. Standing, he rubbed against her knees before jumping out of the tree. "Well, here's your chance at clarity," he spoke, leaving her slightly confused as she watched her familiar walk away.
Balthasar had been intercepted by his father no more than a day after they all arrived back at the mansion, and they’d journeyed into the remoter parts of the mountains to train. Jasper had explained to his son what occurred when they found the progenitor, and the need for them to train harder to bring their powers more fully under their control. Helen’s blood had given Malkior a serious advantage, but they at least were not even considering it an option. The girl had been through far too much, and they had a year to make this work. In the two weeks since, they’d only been back to the house three times: once when Nikki and Ary were late returning from what should have been a routine mission, and once just for a short break to check in with the others and make sure Leo was all right.
This time, though, he was back in something a little closer to shame. He just couldn’t get past something with regard to his abilities, and it meant that every time they sparred, his father was nearly killing him. So a few hours ago, his dad had sat down with him and asked him to explain again in full detail the battle and the aftermath of the encounter with the Pantheon. So Balthasar had told him everything, including things he had divulged to no one, like the full content of his conversation with Elizabeth, and then… just how it had happened that he saved Rica, and what happened afterwards. And because it was his father, Balthasar had also given voice to some of his emotional worry regarding his cousin, and his even greater concern that the dark side of his powers, the one he had been forced to give into, would take over him in the end.
It was there every time he fought his dad, just waiting. He’d even used it, at Jasper’s request, and though he was finally matching his father for strength and speed when he did, it just felt… wrong. He had no idea what was causing it. Though his father had struggled with something similar, Jasper had at least managed to wrest it under his control enough that it never took over. Balthasar didn’t understand what was wrong with him. In the end, though, his father had simply regarded him in that patient, knowing way he had, tilting his head to one side. “We’re going home. Talk to her, and when everything is settled, we will do this again.”
He didn’t like the delay, but he did need to talk to her. He just couldn’t get the memories out of his head. They were driving him to distraction, and no small amount of anxiety cropped up like vines around his lungs whenever he considered what it all might not mean. But Balthasar wasn’t one for what-ifs and maybes and fretting, not usually. If he had a question, he asked it. If there was something that needed to be done, he did it. So he’d decided that today, he was going to ask, because it needed to be done. He needed to know. And if, in the end, he laid it all out there like a fool and it had all meant nothing, well… that would hurt, but he would live with it. At least he would know.
Though Aunt Erys seemed unable to find her at the moment, Balthasar knew exactly where she would be, and headed out to the apple orchard, catching a whiff of her scent and tracking it to a particular tree. He could see her sitting in it, Angelus leaving for elsewhere, he supposed. The von Nacht heir stopped underneath the tree and looked up, canting his head to the side and smiling softly. “Hey Rica. Am I going up, or are you coming down? I’d like to ask you something.”
Frown still etched into her face, Alarica shook her head gently as her familiar left. He was as bad as Mikhail was, and that thought alone caused a small smile to etch back into her features. It has been a while, but the pain of losing Mikhail had finally subsided as she filled it with other things. Though she still missed him, that pain would always be there, she had at least been able to move on. A voice nearly startled her out of the tree, catching herself quickly so as she didn't fall out. How had she not smelled him? Was she that lost in her thoughts? Blinking a bit owlishly, she tilted her head slightly and pursed her lips together. Up or down? Well, if she went down, she wouldn't be shielded by the Orchard scent, but then again...
"I'd rather avoid my mother at the moment, so you'll just have to come up," she stated, nodding her head as if she had just given some sagely advice, and patted the spot next to her. She would murder Angelus later. If he had seen Balthasar, he could have at least told...oh, so that was what he meant. Sneaky little bastard, she thought, Angelus laughing somewhere in the back of her mind. "So, what is it that I can do for you? Or, well rather, what is it that you feel the need to ask me," she stated, both her brows raising slightly.
She had tried to ignore the irregular beat of her heart, something she should have been used to by now. It was only so whenever he was around, and though she knew why it beat so, she wished sometimes it didn't. If she could get her heart to stop this dance, then perhaps she could have moved on by now. Being in love with someone for nearly all her life was something Alarica had found rather painful, and they not knowing, even more so. But she couldn't fault him for that. She had spent three years ignoring him, and then the rest of her life simply trying to be just a cousin, family.
Balthasar had no complaints about that, and swung himself into the tree with no difficulty, settling onto the branch beside her, though he left a couple inches of space between them, because he wasn’t sure if his question would make her uncomfortable or not, and he really didn’t want to do that. “I guess I understand,” he said, shaking his head. Even he’d been thinking that his aunt needed to calm down a little. Rica was alive, wasn’t she? That was the most important thing—there was no need to smother her. She was strong enough to take a lot, and when she wasn’t, well… he kind of hoped that might be what he was for. To help. He still wasn’t exactly sure how he’d done what he did, but he’d do it again in a heartbeat if it became necessary. “But… she’s just worried. I suppose I understand her, too.”
Maybe he was too much like his father, but a part of him would never stop worrying about her, regardless of what happened here. It was weird, if he thought about it—he’d always taken it to be a familial thing, because he really did worry about all of them. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when that had changed, when she somehow became a category all her own, and maybe it hadn’t happened at any one specific moment. Maybe it was just something gradual, something that had crept in between promises and talks and hugs and battles together and the way she smiled at him. He really felt like the only other person in the world when she did, and it was the strangest little high. But thinking these things wasn’t going to help him convey them, so he raked a hand through his hair and sighed through his nose.
Returning his hand to the branch beside him, Balthasar regarded her steadily for a moment, his expression caught somewhere between solemn and gentle. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” he confessed. “About you, what you said. What happened, uh… after.” he could feel the heat rising to his face again, and cleared his throat a trifle awkwardly. But he wouldn’t look away. He wasn’t afraid or ashamed of how he felt, and even if she didn’t feel the same, he wanted her to understand that—that someone had cared about her because of who she was, and without feeling any reservations about it. That someone had seen her. It was hard to feel seen, sometimes, with such a large extended family and so many important things that needed doing.
“I just wanted… needed to know if you meant it. When you said you loved me. I mean, uh. Not… not in the cousin kind of way. It’s fine if that is what you meant, don’t get me wrong, I just…” He rubbed at that back of his neck, certain that he was red as a tomato but more concerned with his ineloquent phrasing. “I’m pretty sure I don’t. Feel like you’re just my cousin. Gods, I’m bad at this.” He shook his head for just a moment, then returned his eyes, quicksilver-blue and nearly luminous, to hers. That same strange part of him that was dark stirred, but something else moved with it, and an idea came to him. If he weren’t already blushing, he would be now, but as it was, he plucked up the gumption from somewhere. “Let me try that again.”
This time, instead of tripping over a bunch of words, Balthasar did what Balthasar had always done better: he acted, reaching forward slowly to cradle the side of her face in one of his sword-rough palms, then slid it around to the nape of her neck, catching the soft threads of her hair as he did, and pulling her slightly forward. He met her in the middle, pressing his mouth gently to hers.
Alarica shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, well she needs to stop worrying so much. I am alive right now, though if she keeps this up, I think I just might die of being smothered to death," she replied, shaking her head a bit in the process. Though she had said it in a joking manner, she was quite honestly being a bit serious. Her mother needed to calm down and accept the fact that she had died, but she was alive and well now. "But there is a difference between worrying, and being over worried. I am fine...thanks to you," she spoke, her voice quieting just a fraction at the last three words.
There was silence between them, however; it felt that there was a loud, drumming sound coming from somewhere she could not place. Everything seemed to be drowned out by it, save for the subtle hints of their breathing and her heart beat thrumming faster each second that passed. It was then that the silence was broken, and Alarica couldn't help but frown just a bit. He had said something, however; she didn't fully register it. He couldn't stop thinking about it? What she had said, what she had done? Her eyes widened just a fraction as she thought about it. She had tried to laugh nervously about it, reaching and rubbing her neck nervously, however; she coughed as a way to clear her throat.
He continued speaking, and each word only further caused to confuse her. Until he asked that. "Balthasar," she spoke, the frown still etched upon her face. "Of course I meant it," she stated, but she was cut off when he continued speaking. Not as a cousin? She was slightly confused, but as he continued to fumble over his words, it finally sank in to what he meant. Her eyes, if they could have, would have widened more. Her heart beat faster, feeling her throat constrict and the sudden lack of being able to breathe escaped her. Even as he reached for her, she couldn't register anything other than him.
She opened her mouth to say something, but found herself unable to say anything. Even as his lips were pressed softly to hers, she couldn't say nor do anything. This...was a dream right? He wasn't kissing her, not like this, and he certainly didn't ask her that. So didn't respond at first, instead, her body tensing up at the contact. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. This was not supposed to happen. He didn't feel that way about her. He couldn't feel that way about her. She wasn't...anything to receive something like that. But, she was a selfish person, and she wanted to believe this was true. She finally seemed to regain control of her body, and she slid her arms around his neck.
She pulled him closer to her, deepening the kiss before she pulled back quickly, her face sporting a very red color as she shook her head. "No, no I..." she spoke, her voice cracking ever so lightly. "You shouldn't," she tried again. Shouldn't what? Love her as she loved him? Why? "Because you deserve so much better," she answered her own question. She wanted to be selfish, to believe that this was true and that he had loved her as she loved him. But she didn't deserve him. She had accepted that a long time ago, but she did promise Leora that she wouldn't give up. She was giving up now...wasn't she?
"So much better than I," and he did.
He was confused. This wasn’t exactly unusual for him when it came to the finer points of feelings, but he was fairly sure he’d just gone from crushed to elated to unsure what was even going on anymore. She’d just gone stiff when he kissed her, and he knew quite well that that wasn’t the response of someone who wanted to be kissed, and he felt his heart grow cold, the vines around his lungs tightening with disappointment. He couldn’t regret telling her, because she deserved to know, and he didn’t want to just carry that burden in silence all his life—it wasn’t good for a person, and he had enough self-respect not to want to let that kill him. Even if it meant what it seemed to: that he would be very hurt right now and for the foreseeable future.
He was going to pull back and apologize when her arms wound around his neck, and Balthasar found himself surprised by her response, and if his balance hadn’t been fundamentally good, he might have fallen right out of the tree. He wasn’t necessarily unaware of what to expect—he had had a girlfriend previously, but what floored him was his own reaction, the way something lurched in his stomach and he instinctively moved to wrap his arms around her waist without needing to really think about it. It was so automatic, so natural, and that was something he never thought he’d describe this as.
Which was maybe why he felt like he’d been gobsmacked when she pulled away as though stricken, stammering some kind of denial. For a moment, his heart sank, and honestly, hearing the rest didn’t make it any easier. His brows drew together, and he did not remove his arms from her waist. “Better than you?” he echoed, confused. His expression was almost wounded, and he looked at her intently. “I don’t understand. There is nobody better than you, Rica.” Not as far as he could tell. Still perplexed, he shifted them a little, pulling her gently to sit sideways on his lap. It was easiest, considering the location. With tenderness, he laid her head against his chest, and propped his on her crown.
“Is this why you ignored me for three years?” Balthasar asked quietly, suspecting he knew the answer. This piece had fit the rest of the puzzle together like magic. He suddenly understood what everyone else had always seemed to, and honestly, he was a little bit angry with them. It was one thing for them to laugh at him for being an oblivious idiot, because it was true, and he could take it. But to poke fun at Rica when she already seemed to feel so down on herself—he didn’t appreciate it. It was mean-spirited, and though he knew that none of them would ever have meant to hurt her by doing so… he tightened his hold securely with one arm, stroking gently through her hair with the other, over and over, a repetitive gesture meant to soothe. He’d told her before, hadn’t he? She could tell him anything. He was just sorry he hadn't known what questions to ask.
Alarica stared at Balthasar, unsure of what to say. What could she say? She, the one who had never been afraid to speak her feelings, her thoughts, boldly, was anchored to words she could not say. Her eyes burned slightly, just a bit, before her brows furrowed together. But there was someone better than her. There was someone who could be his, and he theirs, but just not hers. She hesitated, the tension in her muscles building up again as he pulled her to his lap, and laid her head against his chest. Strange, how this was the way she always found comfort in this. Even as a child, when they played the piano together, played together, she always found comfort in his embrace, and her fingers intertwined themselves in his shirt.
Her heart thundered against her rib-cage, the sensation similar to something trying to burst from her chest as she tried to gain control of her breathing. Her hand clutched tighter into his shirt as she tried to keep the sound of his voice out of her ears. Yes, it was partially the reason she had avoided him for those three years. She avoided him because she loved him, and she wanted him. But somewhere down the way, she had developed a sense of unworthiness, of worthlessness. She wanted him to hate her, so that she could move on. And she did it the only way she could think of, by ignoring him, and it hurt. Gods, did it hurt her so much to do so. It felt as if she were dying a slow, painful death, worse than the one she actually had experienced.
"Yes. It is the reason why I ignored you. I thought that... if I did something, something like that, that you would come to hate me. And if you did, then...I would be able to stop," she began, her voice soft, and a bit weak. "I don't know when I began to love you, it just happened. I've loved you since I was old enough to understand just what it was that I had felt. I didn't want to be the one to hold you back though, and I thought that," she paused, the slight crack in her voice startling her just a second. Why was it so hard to tell him still? He knew now. He knew she loved him, and for him to say what he had, even if he hadn't said a word at all, it hurt. It hurt because she had succeeded in doing the one thing she told herself not to do.
"I haven't stopped, and it hurts. It hurts because I told myself that I shouldn't want you in this way. There are so many others...so many that could love you as I do. The Balthasar that is kind, gentle, understanding. The Balthasar that would do anything to protect his family, and who struggles so much to do so. The Balthasar that...hurts because he won't be the one to speak to others about what he feels, of what he is going through," she laid it out for him. She might not have been as smart as the rest of her family, and she might not have been as observant as the rest of them...but these were things she knew. She turned to face him, removing herself momentarily as she stared at him, his silver-blue eyes hypnotizing all the same still.
"I'm sorry," she spoke, placing both hands on the side of his face and pulled him closer to her, leaning her forehead against his in the process. "I'm sorry," she repeated. Why was she sorry though? Because she had not been there for him when he needed her? That...didn't seem right. He didn't need her, not at all. He didn't need her, but she still apologized like a mantra. He had said that she could tell him anything, and that he would listen, and he had. But... she was sorry now. She had never offered the same reprieve, only that one day before they had all been separated. She had told him the same thing, that he could talk to her, and she would listen. Perhaps, she couldn't give out the same advice or words of encouragement as he could, but she would have listened. "I...love you," she spoke, her words still muffled in a whisper.
How? How had all of this managed to develop without him ever realizing it? He was oblivious to a lot of things, he knew, and it was one thing not to have noticed that she had feelings for him. But this massive sense of her own inferiority that she was confessing… where had that come from? If he’d only known, he’d have… what? He’d certainly have told her differently. He didn’t understand what about herself she could possibly find inferior to anyone, least of all him. His heart broke for the obvious distress the words themselves were putting her under, and he fought to keep his own heartbeat steady, no small feat when she was this close. But he wanted to be something she could lean against, something to steady her against the hurt of saying these things.
Balthasar also wanted her to stop believing them. Closing his eyes momentarily against the contact of her forehead with his, he shuddered when she said the words, swallowing thickly and opening his eyes back up to meet hers. The color of vibrant sakura petals—so unique and so beautiful. He breathed a soft exhale. “Alarica,” he said gently, like it was some secret he wouldn’t tell anyone else. “I’m sorry, too. For whatever it is that I did or someone else did that ever made you think that you weren’t good enough. You’re more than good enough, for anyone. You’re funny, and clever, and observant and fierce and so beautiful it’s hard to breathe.” Not breaking the skin-to-skin contact of their brows, he reached a hand up and tucked a lock of silky hair behind her ear. “You make me worry more than anyone else does, and happier to see you than I am to see anyone else.”
He brought the hand forward again, tracing the line of her jaw with feather-light fingers. He really didn’t understand how she’d come to love someone as boring as him, because he wasn’t funny or vibrant or anything like that, anything like her—he’d always just been Balthasar, who found a way to do what had to be done and tried to be there when people needed him. Clearly, for all of his desire to help her, he’d failed miserably, systematically, and for a long time. It crushed him that she’d been thinking this about herself for so long. “I will tell you how amazing and wonderful you are every day for the rest of our lives until you believe it, if that’s what it takes,” he said solemnly, “and I’ll keep doing it afterward, because I want to. It will be my privilege to remind you of this. Because Balthasar whom you seem to think so highly of can only stand in awe of your light and your strength.”
He smiled softly, the gesture bringing a glimmer to his eyes, and moved just a little closer, so that their noses, too, almost touched. “I love you, too. And I will love you for the rest of time, whether or not you want that, because I couldn't stop if I tried. But I… I would be beside you, if you would have me.”
Alarica felt her heart constrict with every word he spoke. She could feel herself struggling for breaths of air as he listed off the things that she was. How was it that he could see those traits in her, but she herself couldn't see them? Even when he said her name, the gentleness behind it, caused a shiver to roll down her spine. She tried to contain the urge to pull him closer to her, and for the most part, she was succeeding. Even as he tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, and traced her jawline with soft fingers, she was succeeding. How could he possibly love her? But somehow, he did, and she couldn't ignore that any longer. She could continue to deny it, continue to berate herself, but she couldn't ignore it.
"Balthasar," she spoke his name in a light, heated tone as she wrapped her arms around his neck, their faces still close together. She still couldn't understand. "That... is all I would ever want. I couldn't stop loving you. I tried... I tried so hard and I failed because I couldn't stop loving you. There is nothing more in this plane of existence that I could ever want than you," she spoke, closing her eyes and allowing a smile to return to her lips. It wasn't a smirk, nor was it a playful smile. It was his smile, the one she wore for him every time they saw each other and made their promises.
"Promise me something," she stated, opening her eyes to stare at him, her fingers combing through his hair. "Promise me you'll stay the night with me, because I know you and Uncle will leave again to train. I..." she paused mid-sentence, her face turning a light shade of pink in the process. She wanted to laugh at herself for the next set of words that would come from her. It was a bit childish really, but she wanted nothing more than for him to just be there with her. She wanted to know that this was real, that she really wasn't dreaming, because she felt so light-headed right now. She couldn't possibly be awake if this was truly as it seemed.
"I don't want to be alone tonight," she murmured, pressing her lips softly against his, once, twice, and on the third time, lingering a bit longer.
Gods, but the way she said his name. If Balthasar had ever entertained doubts as to the power of words, that one alone would have banished them permanently. He was glad he was sitting down, because he might just have lost his ability to remain standing if he weren’t. His heartbeat, something he had fought to keep steady so far, was unavoidably increasing, beating a frenetic tattoo in his chest. That smile—he’d fight a thousand more wars for that smile. The sudden certainty of such a thing, the depth of feeling that had seemingly snuck up on him: these were things Balthasar did not quite understand. He was almost a little afraid of them, the way everything in him—even the dark things—were drawn to her like a moth to an ever-burning flame.
“You won’t be,” he replied. She wouldn’t ever truly be alone again, if he had anything to say about it. He knew he still had a lot of training to do, but that was just about the furthest thing from his mind right now, because she was kissing him, and that seemed infinitely more important. Balthasar’s arms banded around her waist, and he smiled against her mouth on the third pass, following her as she almost drew back again, deepening the contact and sliding his tongue against hers. She tasted like apples and spice, which somehow did not surprise him in the slightest. He was deliberate, thorough, but also gentle and the slightest bit cautious, attenuated to her reactions and ready to stop if he pushed anything too far.
He kissed along the delicate line of her jaw and down the side of her throat, to where he could feel her pulse rushing by under his lips. It gave him a little bit of strange satisfaction, to know that he was the reason it was so fast and short—she was, after all, doing the same thing to him. The fingers in his hair were distracting, honestly, and he made a low sound in his chest, almost a purr of satisfaction, nuzzling into her neck and nipping lightly at the skin over her pulse point. “I promise.”
It felt like her skin was on fire, and he was the flame that was burning her. But it wasn't an unpleasant burn. She was enjoying it, and to say that she wanted it to stop would be telling a lie. She smiled still against his lips, and when he pulled back, trailing along her jaw before stopping along her neck, she couldn't surpress the shudder that racked through her. He promised her. He just promised her that she wouldn't be alone, and for a second, Alarica almost found the thought funny. She had never been truly alone, but in comparison to her other family members...she couldn't help but feel lonely. It was him that had always brought her back from that feeling, and now, he was doing so much more.
"You promise?" she stated, her voice labored and heavy. Her eyes were slightly glazed over, and as he nipped at her neck, another shudder went through her, causing her to shake just a little. "Whatever I can offer, whatever I can give you, take it," she stated. "Whatever it is that you desire, that you want, I will do whatever I can to give it to you, because I love you, and I will give and do anything you ask of me," she declared, taking a deep breath as she tried to control herself. It was taking every ounce of her control to not give into the side of her that was her mother. Gods, how she just wanted to, though.
The declaration sent him reeling, because he had no doubt that every word she spoke, she meant. Rica was like that. He wondered if she understood just how enormous such a promise was. There was so much she had to offer, so much she could give, and for a fleeting moment, he wondered what he could possibly have done to deserve such devotion. But love wasn’t about that you deserved. It was about feeling so deeply for another person that you were blind to things like what was deserved or given. You forgot who gave or took more, because there was no line between what belonged to whom. It was all simply theirs. Balthasar pulled back slightly, smiling softly at her and cocking his head to the left.
“Silly Rica,” he said, his voice laced with his affection and a trace of something playful. “I don’t need anything from you. I just need you.” He leaned down slightly, resting his forehead against hers, the smile still there. The heat of desire had not subsided, but the warmth of his love was greater even than that, and he wanted her to understand this important thing, this crucial thing that he sensed she did not believe. “Because to me, you are perfect.” he breathed gently, letting his eyes close for a moment as he simply relished in the feeling of being so near to her.
“There are many things I would like to share with you, but there is time for that. If there’s something you want now, you need only ask, but… I want you to understand this first. To be beside you, to love you is the only thing I need, and the rest is just details. As long as you let me do that, everything else is yours to decide.”
He needed her. That was all he needed. For a second, Alarica could feel her heart stop beating, but it was just for a fraction of a second. The smile on her face never left, even as he placed his forehead against hers and spoke. Her smile warped into a smirk when he called her silly, and she let out a low chuckle. Perhaps she was, but at least she could admit it to herself now. For, perhaps the third (or fourth, she couldn't keep count) time, Alarica found herself unable to breathe. He spoke of just needing to love her, to be beside her, that if there was something she wanted, she would only have to ask. There was one thing she wanted.
"You make it so very hard to refuse," she spoke, the smirk returning to her lips, wrapping her arms around his neck as she pulled herself a little closer. "You are the only thing I could ever want, Bal," she responded, shaking her head a bit even though it still rested against him. "But...there is one more thing," she spoke, drawing back just a bit so that she could regard him. There were some things that she didn't know about him, however; that still did not stop her from desiring this one thing. If he could do it, she would want nothing more from him, just to be with him.
"Promises can be broken, and sometimes they can be forgotten, so I don't want you to promise me this," she began, pausing as she tried to search for the one word she wanted to say. "I want you to guarantee me that you won't hold back any more. I want you to set yourself free and embrace every thing there is about you, because as I said, I will be here always for you. I will be here, by your side, until the day you got it right, and that includes accepting yourself and every thing that comes with it," she spoke. She had promised him that day, when he had spoken of Elizabeth and she had told him to give it time.
She had told him that she would be there for him until he got it right, and she still meant it. "When this is over, when it is all said and done, I want you to be able to accept yourself, and the things you did because you didn't have to do them, but because you wanted to do them. That is all I want for you. What I want from you, though, is a bit difficult to explain," she stated, a sly smirk worming its way back onto her face. Leaning so that she closed the remaining distance between their lips, she kept going until she trapped him beneath her, pinning him almost, to the branch they sat upon, her kiss deepening as much as she could make it.
Just like that. Well done, Andrick. You’re picking this up quickly. The boy smiled, a spark of life glimmering in his jewel-green eyes. It was good to know that he was still capable of that; Alden honestly hadn’t been sure. With all the trauma in his memories, he had entertained the thought that this was a lost cause more than once, but thankfully, children were resilient in this way, or at least Andy was. His child. That was a little weird. Theirs was even stranger. Emrys had paternal qualities, sure, but Violet? He wasn’t exactly the parental type, to say the least. But… he seemed to be doing okay.
The kid hadn’t actually talked to anybody yet, but he was replying to Alden in his own mind, at least, the mental connection one he had yet to let go of. It was weird, but Violet didn’t care. He just blocked off parts of his mind and went on with life. Andrick had taken to talking telepathically with a few members of the family, first Emrys, presumably because it was easier to trust him given how often he was around. Alden had the sneaking suspicion that the kid was also an empath, and picking up on the feelings Violet had for his cousin, but that was a big mess that even he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Nevertheless, it was… comfortable. Andy seemed to be quite taken with his mother, and would, when not with himself or Em, trail after Ava as she went about her business. He’d come to retrieve the kid more than once to find him astride his mom’s shoulders or back as she cooked or tidied or tended to the injured. It took all he had not to laugh, and sometimes, he didn’t bother trying not to.
He ruffled the kid’s hair with a hand and decided to give him a break, splitting apart two stuck-together licorice wands and handing one to Andrick, who seemed to like them almost as much as he did. Alden was still working on finding out exactly what the extent of Andy’s powers were, but so far he’d stumbled upon telepathy almost as broad as his had been at that age, possible empathy, and the strange tendency to make plants grow at his feet when he walked outside. Likely some form of terrakinesis, then. It’d require much more work to be certain, but he was taking this slowly and carefully, so as not to cause the child any more harm than he’d already endured. If anything, the sessions were just bringing them closer, and most nights, Andy wormed in between himself and Em to sleep, something which neither of them minded.
A smile of its own wormed its way onto Emrys's face, who was watching from the other end of the room. There was a book in front of him that he kept returning to, but he couldn't help but glance up every now and again. It was good to see the boy smile. His range of powers were interesting, the terrakinesis being something they'd not had in the family previously, at least as far as anyone knew.
Em couldn't help but feel rather comforted by having the child around, either. It was good for both himself and Violet, he'd noted, not just the kid. It gave Vi even more of a sense of self, having something to do, someone to teach, and Em had since stopped having nightmares. While they had been less frequent with Vi, they had stopped altogether once Andy entered the picture. Emrys didn't dwell on it overmuch.
Emrys had stood up, going over to sit next to Vi. Andy had at least gotten comfortable enough with him he didn't have to be so cautious when he approached. The first time Vincent had entered the room, Em had thought the boy was going to faint. Of course, his uncle did tend to have that effect on people. "So I take it from the grin I just saw it's going well?"
Andy, in the middle of eating his licorice, nevertheless looked up from what he was doing and nodded enthusiastically at Em. Mhm! Dad says I’m making really fast progress. I can keep a link stable all by myself now, like this one. He went back to what he was doing, seemingly unconcerned, but Alden, who had also heard the exchange, froze in the middle of the standing motion he was making, blinking with an almost-comically surprised expression on his face. Sure, it had been a few months, but dad? He was pretty sure he’d never expected to be called that in his life, much less at this stage of it.
Well, he told Emrys over a mental connection, There goes any remaining chance I had of not turning into a sap. I suppose you’ll be wanting to look for houses once the war is over? I’m not living anywhere cold, for the record. I practically grew up in Russia, I’m done with that. His body seemed to catch up to his brain, and Violet managed to stand up the rest of the way, laying a hand on Andy’s head and shaking his own for just a moment.
What do you want him to call you? He asked me this morning.
Emrys's eyebrows raised slightly, his amusement betraying itself on his face. Andrick had been utterly nonchalant with it, as if it had been nothing at all, whereas Violet had spent a second looking like he could be knocked over with a feather. It was highly amusing, really. It also pleased him to see Andy looking so...vibrant. He glanced over at Violet. I can totally agree on nowhere cold. But no beaches. Sand drives me batty.
He paused, however, at Violet's last question. He'd never really thought of that. After giving it some thought, he merely shrugged. He can call me anything, really. Hell if I'm going to tell him to call me something specific. He can call me Em for all I care.
“Well,” Alden said aloud, drawing Andrick’s attention temporarily, “Don’t blame me if he decides to call you something ridiculous. Like Aunt Rits.” Violet smirked; when he’d heard about that little incident, he couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes, which of course had been the exact moment Emrys entered the room. That had resulted in another fit, which still occasionally renewed itself when his lover was in the company of his niece.
Andy looked somewhat confused for a second, but he was a bright child, and seemed to catch on to what the conversation had been about. No, he said to both of them simultaneously. He’s Yellow-Dad. You’re Purple-Dad. Aunts have to be girls. Violet’s expression managed to remain impassive, but inwardly, he was grinning like a madman. Purple-Dad, was it? He could get used to that.
“Whatever you say, kid,” Alden replied with a trace of amusement.
Emrys scowled at Violet. He did not need reminding of that particular incident. Two years, and Diya still called him that. However, he wasn't overly bothered by it...much. He sighed, shaking his head, looking slightly surprised when Andy's voice flickered through his head. He looked midly amused, though, much like Violet, he was rather elated. Yellow-Dad? He chuckled lighty. "Whatever works, kiddo, though your cousin Diya would disagree with you on the aunt thing. Or my gender, rather."
The kid hadn’t actually talked to anybody yet, but he was replying to Alden in his own mind, at least, the mental connection one he had yet to let go of. It was weird, but Violet didn’t care. He just blocked off parts of his mind and went on with life. Andrick had taken to talking telepathically with a few members of the family, first Emrys, presumably because it was easier to trust him given how often he was around. Alden had the sneaking suspicion that the kid was also an empath, and picking up on the feelings Violet had for his cousin, but that was a big mess that even he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Nevertheless, it was… comfortable. Andy seemed to be quite taken with his mother, and would, when not with himself or Em, trail after Ava as she went about her business. He’d come to retrieve the kid more than once to find him astride his mom’s shoulders or back as she cooked or tidied or tended to the injured. It took all he had not to laugh, and sometimes, he didn’t bother trying not to.
He ruffled the kid’s hair with a hand and decided to give him a break, splitting apart two stuck-together licorice wands and handing one to Andrick, who seemed to like them almost as much as he did. Alden was still working on finding out exactly what the extent of Andy’s powers were, but so far he’d stumbled upon telepathy almost as broad as his had been at that age, possible empathy, and the strange tendency to make plants grow at his feet when he walked outside. Likely some form of terrakinesis, then. It’d require much more work to be certain, but he was taking this slowly and carefully, so as not to cause the child any more harm than he’d already endured. If anything, the sessions were just bringing them closer, and most nights, Andy wormed in between himself and Em to sleep, something which neither of them minded.
A smile of its own wormed its way onto Emrys's face, who was watching from the other end of the room. There was a book in front of him that he kept returning to, but he couldn't help but glance up every now and again. It was good to see the boy smile. His range of powers were interesting, the terrakinesis being something they'd not had in the family previously, at least as far as anyone knew.
Em couldn't help but feel rather comforted by having the child around, either. It was good for both himself and Violet, he'd noted, not just the kid. It gave Vi even more of a sense of self, having something to do, someone to teach, and Em had since stopped having nightmares. While they had been less frequent with Vi, they had stopped altogether once Andy entered the picture. Emrys didn't dwell on it overmuch.
Emrys had stood up, going over to sit next to Vi. Andy had at least gotten comfortable enough with him he didn't have to be so cautious when he approached. The first time Vincent had entered the room, Em had thought the boy was going to faint. Of course, his uncle did tend to have that effect on people. "So I take it from the grin I just saw it's going well?"
Andy, in the middle of eating his licorice, nevertheless looked up from what he was doing and nodded enthusiastically at Em. Mhm! Dad says I’m making really fast progress. I can keep a link stable all by myself now, like this one. He went back to what he was doing, seemingly unconcerned, but Alden, who had also heard the exchange, froze in the middle of the standing motion he was making, blinking with an almost-comically surprised expression on his face. Sure, it had been a few months, but dad? He was pretty sure he’d never expected to be called that in his life, much less at this stage of it.
Well, he told Emrys over a mental connection, There goes any remaining chance I had of not turning into a sap. I suppose you’ll be wanting to look for houses once the war is over? I’m not living anywhere cold, for the record. I practically grew up in Russia, I’m done with that. His body seemed to catch up to his brain, and Violet managed to stand up the rest of the way, laying a hand on Andy’s head and shaking his own for just a moment.
What do you want him to call you? He asked me this morning.
Emrys's eyebrows raised slightly, his amusement betraying itself on his face. Andrick had been utterly nonchalant with it, as if it had been nothing at all, whereas Violet had spent a second looking like he could be knocked over with a feather. It was highly amusing, really. It also pleased him to see Andy looking so...vibrant. He glanced over at Violet. I can totally agree on nowhere cold. But no beaches. Sand drives me batty.
He paused, however, at Violet's last question. He'd never really thought of that. After giving it some thought, he merely shrugged. He can call me anything, really. Hell if I'm going to tell him to call me something specific. He can call me Em for all I care.
“Well,” Alden said aloud, drawing Andrick’s attention temporarily, “Don’t blame me if he decides to call you something ridiculous. Like Aunt Rits.” Violet smirked; when he’d heard about that little incident, he couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes, which of course had been the exact moment Emrys entered the room. That had resulted in another fit, which still occasionally renewed itself when his lover was in the company of his niece.
Andy looked somewhat confused for a second, but he was a bright child, and seemed to catch on to what the conversation had been about. No, he said to both of them simultaneously. He’s Yellow-Dad. You’re Purple-Dad. Aunts have to be girls. Violet’s expression managed to remain impassive, but inwardly, he was grinning like a madman. Purple-Dad, was it? He could get used to that.
“Whatever you say, kid,” Alden replied with a trace of amusement.
Emrys scowled at Violet. He did not need reminding of that particular incident. Two years, and Diya still called him that. However, he wasn't overly bothered by it...much. He sighed, shaking his head, looking slightly surprised when Andy's voice flickered through his head. He looked midly amused, though, much like Violet, he was rather elated. Yellow-Dad? He chuckled lighty. "Whatever works, kiddo, though your cousin Diya would disagree with you on the aunt thing. Or my gender, rather."
Diya let out a sigh, closing her palm around the flames she held, snuffing them out. She was, in a word, bored. Bryer had his nose buried in his book, as usual, and everyone else was either off training or doing something important. She was only nine, but...she didn't like having nothing to do. She was currently sitting in a tree, her legs dangling from the branch as she idly played with the flames she created. Kami sat at the base of the tree, looking up at her with his big blue eyes.
"I'm bored, Kami..." The fox didn't answer her.
Andrick also had nothing to do, but he wasn’t exactly bored. There was still a lot in this world that was new to him, and he never seemed to tire of exploring everything he ran across. His dads were really patient in explaining these things to him, and so was Ava, whom he now referred to as Nana. He could feel, somehow, that it made her happy, and she was happy a lot. Maybe that was why he liked to spend so much time with her—being around a happy person made him feel happy, too. For all that he was ten years old, Andy hadn’t really known what happiness was until he’d been taken out of his cage by Purple-Dad, and now that he had, he was planning on making the most of it.
So, no, there was nothing in particular that he needed to be doing, so he was making his own amusement, exploring the grounds, climbing trees and making things grow, or trying to, anyway. It was a little bit harder when he was trying to do it, as opposed to when it just happened accidentally. Which was why he was making his way out into the middle of a field right now, sitting himself crosslegged on the ground and staring very hard at a patch of grass. He was trying to grow a flower, but it was being stubborn.
Pursing his lips, he noted that the breeze carried a somewhat familiar smell to him, but he ignored it. Someone was near the apple tree, but he was trying to do what Yellow-Dad said he needed to learn to do and focus, putting all the things he didn’t need out of his mind so that he could get to the thing he did need. He could feel it in there, the part of him that could make the green things grow, make the earth shift under his feet, but it was slippery and hard to hold onto, like water.
Kami let out an odd little bark, his tail wagging as he sudenly took off, something catching his attention. Diya looked after him, yelling, "Kami! Where are you going? Come back! Oh, stupid fox..." She sighed, jumping out of the tree easily, making her way after tha familiar. She cocked her head to the side when she saw that Kami was sitting next to Andrick. Kami was watching whatever it was the boy was doing. So, silently, Diya did, too. She was curious, of course, but she also understood that silence was necessary for certain things, especially something like this. She still needed it every once in a while for her pyrokinesis, after all.
This was the talent that his keepers had been least interested in, of those he knew he had, so he’d received no training in it, not even after he’d awoken to it. So he’d been at this a few months, at best, but he could do this. He could feel it. So intent was Andy’s concentration that he did not notice the appearance of the fox or the girl, because he was beginning to get a grip on that power, like what had once been liquid was somehow solidifying in his mind and allowing him to grasp hold of it. He pictured what he wanted in the center of his mind, and then he directed that power outwards, to make it so.
It was one thing to just cause everything in the area to overgrow. What he was attempting was considerably more delicate. Purple-Dad said control was more important than strength, because he would gain strength as he got older, but control would always be needed. So he tried to make his application of the power as small as he could. Slowly, carefully, he coaxed a blossom from the ground, a single white lily sprouting where his hands, small but already with spindly scholars’ fingers, rested against the grass. The stalk of it came up between his index and middle digits, and when it reached half a foot in height, the flower opened to the moon above his head, and Andrick relaxed back.
It was only then that he came face-to-face with Diya, whom his fathers referred to as his “cousin” because she was the daughter of Purple-Dad’s brother. He hadn’t interacted with her overmuch, because she was chatty and he didn’t really know how to respond to that, but she was here now, and for some reason quiet. He blinked emerald-green eyes at her, withdrawing his hand from the spot where the lily was. For a moment, he glanced over at her familiar—Andy liked animals. But his eyes flickered back towards her, almost as though he were waiting for her to do something. He wasn’t sure what that was going to be, but it wasn’t like he knew what to do.
Diya blinked, watching the flower grow. That was really neat, at least to her. Even so, she managed to contain her excitement. At least until Andrick noticed she was there. She watched as he blinked at her, her face splitting into a huge grin. She laced her hands together behind her back. "Hi Andy. That was really cool, what you did with the flower." As if in agreement, Kami barked, and Diya giggled. "Kami likes it, too."
Unlike most familiars, Kami seemed incapable of actually speaking, something no one really understood, but otherwise did not worry about. "Is this what you do when you come out here alone?"
Whether this was less enthusiastic than she usually was or not, it was quite a lot of input as far as Andrick was concerned, and there was a delay of more than a few seconds that would have been awkward if they were anything other than ten and nine and more or less impervious to awkwardness as such. He was slightly uncomfortable, but that was simply because he still hadn’t really learned how to deal with people yet. Tentatively, he reached for her mind, connecting to it with as much delicacy as he could. Sometimes, he confessed solemnly. Other times, I climb trees or go to the pond. He liked to watch the fish swim around in it, actually.
Andy glanced back down to the flower. Oddly, the things his terrakinesis made were not like normal plants. They didn’t seem to need to remain in the ground to live. They just sort of… stayed. Like he’d made a sculpture rather than something alive. Which was perhaps why he felt no sadness when he plucked the lily from the ground by its stem. It released a gush of fragrance almost as if in response, sweet and light. Pursing his lips together for a moment, he rolled the stem between his fingers, watching the white petals whirl around, more of the pleasant smell issuing into the air. Glancing back up, he extended the hand, proffering the object. If she really thought it was cool, well… he supposed it wouldn’t be bad for her to have it.
Diya watched as Andrick picked the flower. He went to the pond and climbed trees, huh? She liked climbing trees. Even so, she wasn't really expecting him to give her the flower. She looked at for a few seconds, her big blue eyes coming back up to meet his green ones. Carefully, a smile on her face, she reached out and took it. She looked at it a bit more, and then, after a moment's thought, she stuck the lily in her hair, behind her ear. She giggled again, and this time, she answered him in her mind.
Thank you, Andy.
"I'm bored, Kami..." The fox didn't answer her.
Andrick also had nothing to do, but he wasn’t exactly bored. There was still a lot in this world that was new to him, and he never seemed to tire of exploring everything he ran across. His dads were really patient in explaining these things to him, and so was Ava, whom he now referred to as Nana. He could feel, somehow, that it made her happy, and she was happy a lot. Maybe that was why he liked to spend so much time with her—being around a happy person made him feel happy, too. For all that he was ten years old, Andy hadn’t really known what happiness was until he’d been taken out of his cage by Purple-Dad, and now that he had, he was planning on making the most of it.
So, no, there was nothing in particular that he needed to be doing, so he was making his own amusement, exploring the grounds, climbing trees and making things grow, or trying to, anyway. It was a little bit harder when he was trying to do it, as opposed to when it just happened accidentally. Which was why he was making his way out into the middle of a field right now, sitting himself crosslegged on the ground and staring very hard at a patch of grass. He was trying to grow a flower, but it was being stubborn.
Pursing his lips, he noted that the breeze carried a somewhat familiar smell to him, but he ignored it. Someone was near the apple tree, but he was trying to do what Yellow-Dad said he needed to learn to do and focus, putting all the things he didn’t need out of his mind so that he could get to the thing he did need. He could feel it in there, the part of him that could make the green things grow, make the earth shift under his feet, but it was slippery and hard to hold onto, like water.
Kami let out an odd little bark, his tail wagging as he sudenly took off, something catching his attention. Diya looked after him, yelling, "Kami! Where are you going? Come back! Oh, stupid fox..." She sighed, jumping out of the tree easily, making her way after tha familiar. She cocked her head to the side when she saw that Kami was sitting next to Andrick. Kami was watching whatever it was the boy was doing. So, silently, Diya did, too. She was curious, of course, but she also understood that silence was necessary for certain things, especially something like this. She still needed it every once in a while for her pyrokinesis, after all.
This was the talent that his keepers had been least interested in, of those he knew he had, so he’d received no training in it, not even after he’d awoken to it. So he’d been at this a few months, at best, but he could do this. He could feel it. So intent was Andy’s concentration that he did not notice the appearance of the fox or the girl, because he was beginning to get a grip on that power, like what had once been liquid was somehow solidifying in his mind and allowing him to grasp hold of it. He pictured what he wanted in the center of his mind, and then he directed that power outwards, to make it so.
It was one thing to just cause everything in the area to overgrow. What he was attempting was considerably more delicate. Purple-Dad said control was more important than strength, because he would gain strength as he got older, but control would always be needed. So he tried to make his application of the power as small as he could. Slowly, carefully, he coaxed a blossom from the ground, a single white lily sprouting where his hands, small but already with spindly scholars’ fingers, rested against the grass. The stalk of it came up between his index and middle digits, and when it reached half a foot in height, the flower opened to the moon above his head, and Andrick relaxed back.
It was only then that he came face-to-face with Diya, whom his fathers referred to as his “cousin” because she was the daughter of Purple-Dad’s brother. He hadn’t interacted with her overmuch, because she was chatty and he didn’t really know how to respond to that, but she was here now, and for some reason quiet. He blinked emerald-green eyes at her, withdrawing his hand from the spot where the lily was. For a moment, he glanced over at her familiar—Andy liked animals. But his eyes flickered back towards her, almost as though he were waiting for her to do something. He wasn’t sure what that was going to be, but it wasn’t like he knew what to do.
Diya blinked, watching the flower grow. That was really neat, at least to her. Even so, she managed to contain her excitement. At least until Andrick noticed she was there. She watched as he blinked at her, her face splitting into a huge grin. She laced her hands together behind her back. "Hi Andy. That was really cool, what you did with the flower." As if in agreement, Kami barked, and Diya giggled. "Kami likes it, too."
Unlike most familiars, Kami seemed incapable of actually speaking, something no one really understood, but otherwise did not worry about. "Is this what you do when you come out here alone?"
Whether this was less enthusiastic than she usually was or not, it was quite a lot of input as far as Andrick was concerned, and there was a delay of more than a few seconds that would have been awkward if they were anything other than ten and nine and more or less impervious to awkwardness as such. He was slightly uncomfortable, but that was simply because he still hadn’t really learned how to deal with people yet. Tentatively, he reached for her mind, connecting to it with as much delicacy as he could. Sometimes, he confessed solemnly. Other times, I climb trees or go to the pond. He liked to watch the fish swim around in it, actually.
Andy glanced back down to the flower. Oddly, the things his terrakinesis made were not like normal plants. They didn’t seem to need to remain in the ground to live. They just sort of… stayed. Like he’d made a sculpture rather than something alive. Which was perhaps why he felt no sadness when he plucked the lily from the ground by its stem. It released a gush of fragrance almost as if in response, sweet and light. Pursing his lips together for a moment, he rolled the stem between his fingers, watching the white petals whirl around, more of the pleasant smell issuing into the air. Glancing back up, he extended the hand, proffering the object. If she really thought it was cool, well… he supposed it wouldn’t be bad for her to have it.
Diya watched as Andrick picked the flower. He went to the pond and climbed trees, huh? She liked climbing trees. Even so, she wasn't really expecting him to give her the flower. She looked at for a few seconds, her big blue eyes coming back up to meet his green ones. Carefully, a smile on her face, she reached out and took it. She looked at it a bit more, and then, after a moment's thought, she stuck the lily in her hair, behind her ear. She giggled again, and this time, she answered him in her mind.
Thank you, Andy.
Vincent sighed through his nose, a hint of something agitated, and irritation leaking from it. It took nearly his entire restraint to keep from unleashing his energy when the news of what happened to his youngest child reached him. He wasn't entirely sure how he had not lost control like his sister did when she found out about Keir and Alarica. Keir. It was his nephew that exacted retribution for Leora, however; in doing so, he had had a taste of the Aegis. Though he was not entirely upset at his daughter for doing the right thing, he was still a bit troubled by the fact that Keir had had her blood. He knew, as well as anyone really, how addicting it could be, to have a taste of that power coursing through their blood.
Perhaps, he should count himself so fortunate that Keir had not succumbed to the Aegis addiction, and sought Leora out for more. The boy was either more restrained than Vincent gave him credit for, or he was right to be fearful. Shaking his head lightly, he followed his nose, looking for Keir. It wasn't a secret either that his daughter was quite fond of the boy. If she chose him as her life-partner, he would not deny her, he could never deny her. However, there was still the issue of the Aegis. He had heard of how it affected Keir, and that could be extremely reckless, dangerous, and stupid, on Keir's part if he lost control. He could put not only his life in danger, but also Leora's and everyone else's. Vincent was not okay with that.
When it came to his daughter, his only daughter, he would regard her higher than anyone else, save for Ava of course. It wasn't long before he found his nephew, sitting perched much like the felines he seemed to be so fond of. He did not speak at first, instead, choosing to regard his nephew with silence. He glanced at him, a small, ghost-like smile tugging at his lips before it disappeared. He looked so much like his father, and he acted so much like him. Vincent had to hold in a scoff at that thought. He finally cleared his throat, signaling his arrival as he stared at Keir.
"There is a lot you and I must discuss," were the only words that left his lips.
Keir did not bother trying to hold in the sigh that escaped him as his Uncle Vincent approached. He'd expected it. Honestly, he hadn't been able to get what he'd done out of his head, and not without good reason. The first time he'd shifted to that, he'd almost killed his parents. And he'd been five at the time. He could only imagine how much stronger he was now, and to kill Balthasar's clone, Aegis or no, made him shudder. Even now, he could feel it crawling underneath the surface, and he shuddered slightly.
He glanced down at his uncle, sitting perched in the tree, and sighed. He jumped out, landing lightly some twenty feet below him, his hands still laced behind his head. "You know, if you're going to kill me, you may as well do that now, save ourselves a whole mess of trouble, you know?"
Vincent sighed, rubbing his eyes with his index finger and thumb. He had resisted the urge to smack the boy, and leave then and there, but this was an important matter that needed to be dealt with. Though the offer was tempting, he would rather not deal with his sister's wrath. Though he was stronger than her, in more ways than one, an enraged and vengeful Erys was something he'd rather not deal with. Still...the offer was there. Shaking his head softly, he regarded his nephew with a stern look, one that he had often used on Zero.
"I do not know what your father has spoken of me, but I am not here to kill you, Keir," he spoke, his voice calm, and strangely a bit amused. "Though as tempting as the offer is, I do not wish to fear your mother's wrath. There are things you need to know about the Aegis," he continued, pausing momentarily to gauge Keir's reaction. "I cannot, nor will I, change Leora's mind on whom she has chosen. If you are to be hers for as long as she desires, I cannot deny her that," and it was something almost everyone knew.
"I will not be the cause of her suffering, however; I am also not going to allow you to be the cause of her suffering either. Aegis or not, things will always be attracted to her. She, unfortunately, has inherited that from her mother," he spoke, a bit of something dark lingering in the back of his voice. He had not wished that ability upon any of his children, and it had only broken his heart when he learned that Leora had inherited it. "I need to be sure you will not turn out as he did," he finally stated, referring to the man he had killed for Ava, because if Keir did turn out like Fenrir, there would be no hesitation on his part that he would end his nephew's life at the expense of his daughter's feelings. Her safety was priority, always would be.
Keir regarded his uncle blankly for a few seconds. He knew the stories. He knew what the Aegis had done to Fenrir, and frankly, it disgusted him. But not quite so much, perhaps, as he disgusted himself. He pursed his lips together before speaking. "I will not, because even if the symptoms were there, I would be more fearful of myself. I already live in fear of myself because of that..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Vincent didn't know all the details, no one did other than his parents. Yuki had, but she was dead. "That thing, what I became, was drawn out by the Aegis, not a result of it. It's always there, and I've spent the majority of my life keeping it in check. The fact that the Aegis is enough for me to loosen that hold is enough to ensure that I will never seek to use it again, Leora or no."
Vincent sighed softly, something of an understanding shifting through it. He was aware of what happened to Keir, what he did to his parents. It was something Erys had confided in Vincent, and he had taken that to an oath of secrecy. Erys had feared for her son, not of him. She feared for him because, though he had slight control over whatever it was that plagued him, she feared that he may one day hurt the one he came to love. And Erys was no fool. She had known her sons love for her brother's daughter. She wanted to keep them both safe on the off chance that Leora loved Keir too.
"Do you love Leora?" his question was rather direct, and more of a statement than a question, coming from Vincent. "If you love her, as you say you do, then you will not hide from this. This other Keir is just a manifestation of you. It is something that can be controlled. And you will learn this control," he spoke, his voice stern, direct, yet still somewhat soft. If Keir planned on staying with Leora, if he planned on still drinking her blood (a thought that Vincent was still hesitant to entertain), then he would need to learn how to control himself. The Aegis did not bring about the creature hidden beneath the surface of his nephew, it only coaxed it.
"If you do not, you will not only endanger her life, but everyone else you care about. That includes your parents, your cousins, your brother, and your sister. Their safety should be what is most important to you. Keeping something such as that locked will only manage to create something worse for you. It will eventually overtake you, and you will do what you will regret because of it," he continued, his eyes steeling as he regarded his nephew. "You are a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, Keir. You will come to an understanding with this other you, and you will be able to protect the one you love with it," he finished, his eyes softening just a bit.
Had Keir been ten years younger, he probably would have refused, or objected, or made some sort of excuse. But he was not, and he actually knew better. Vincent was right. He needed to learn control. He could learn control.
Keir started. What...was that? That thing, the other Keir...he'd never spoken to him before. What on earth was going on? Drawing in a breath, Keir's eyes narrowed. He returned his gaze to his uncle, his eyes blazing ice. "Alright. When do we start?" In his mind, the voice chuckled.
Vincent allowed a smile to cover his features at his nephew's response. If he was willing to do this, then perhaps there was a chance for him after all. It would not be an easy road, and Vincent knew that he would not hold back; that he could not hold back. If he did, he might not only lose his daughter, but his nephew as well. He wanted neither of those things, not if Keir was willing to do what must be done. He nodded towards his nephew, turning his back on him in the process. There were preparations that needed to be made, things that needed to be done.
"We start in two days time. Get the rest and prepare yourself, this will not be easy, but I believe that you will not disappoint me, Keir," he spoke, leaving his nephew to his own accord. There was one person he needed to speak with, so that she understood that her son may or may not make it through this training, and that he wasn't to blame. He shuddered a bit. His sister did scare him a bit, and that was saying a lot considering who he was. But, then again, he had always been that way, giving in to the women of his family. He shook his head softly.
Perhaps, he should count himself so fortunate that Keir had not succumbed to the Aegis addiction, and sought Leora out for more. The boy was either more restrained than Vincent gave him credit for, or he was right to be fearful. Shaking his head lightly, he followed his nose, looking for Keir. It wasn't a secret either that his daughter was quite fond of the boy. If she chose him as her life-partner, he would not deny her, he could never deny her. However, there was still the issue of the Aegis. He had heard of how it affected Keir, and that could be extremely reckless, dangerous, and stupid, on Keir's part if he lost control. He could put not only his life in danger, but also Leora's and everyone else's. Vincent was not okay with that.
When it came to his daughter, his only daughter, he would regard her higher than anyone else, save for Ava of course. It wasn't long before he found his nephew, sitting perched much like the felines he seemed to be so fond of. He did not speak at first, instead, choosing to regard his nephew with silence. He glanced at him, a small, ghost-like smile tugging at his lips before it disappeared. He looked so much like his father, and he acted so much like him. Vincent had to hold in a scoff at that thought. He finally cleared his throat, signaling his arrival as he stared at Keir.
"There is a lot you and I must discuss," were the only words that left his lips.
Keir did not bother trying to hold in the sigh that escaped him as his Uncle Vincent approached. He'd expected it. Honestly, he hadn't been able to get what he'd done out of his head, and not without good reason. The first time he'd shifted to that, he'd almost killed his parents. And he'd been five at the time. He could only imagine how much stronger he was now, and to kill Balthasar's clone, Aegis or no, made him shudder. Even now, he could feel it crawling underneath the surface, and he shuddered slightly.
He glanced down at his uncle, sitting perched in the tree, and sighed. He jumped out, landing lightly some twenty feet below him, his hands still laced behind his head. "You know, if you're going to kill me, you may as well do that now, save ourselves a whole mess of trouble, you know?"
Vincent sighed, rubbing his eyes with his index finger and thumb. He had resisted the urge to smack the boy, and leave then and there, but this was an important matter that needed to be dealt with. Though the offer was tempting, he would rather not deal with his sister's wrath. Though he was stronger than her, in more ways than one, an enraged and vengeful Erys was something he'd rather not deal with. Still...the offer was there. Shaking his head softly, he regarded his nephew with a stern look, one that he had often used on Zero.
"I do not know what your father has spoken of me, but I am not here to kill you, Keir," he spoke, his voice calm, and strangely a bit amused. "Though as tempting as the offer is, I do not wish to fear your mother's wrath. There are things you need to know about the Aegis," he continued, pausing momentarily to gauge Keir's reaction. "I cannot, nor will I, change Leora's mind on whom she has chosen. If you are to be hers for as long as she desires, I cannot deny her that," and it was something almost everyone knew.
"I will not be the cause of her suffering, however; I am also not going to allow you to be the cause of her suffering either. Aegis or not, things will always be attracted to her. She, unfortunately, has inherited that from her mother," he spoke, a bit of something dark lingering in the back of his voice. He had not wished that ability upon any of his children, and it had only broken his heart when he learned that Leora had inherited it. "I need to be sure you will not turn out as he did," he finally stated, referring to the man he had killed for Ava, because if Keir did turn out like Fenrir, there would be no hesitation on his part that he would end his nephew's life at the expense of his daughter's feelings. Her safety was priority, always would be.
Keir regarded his uncle blankly for a few seconds. He knew the stories. He knew what the Aegis had done to Fenrir, and frankly, it disgusted him. But not quite so much, perhaps, as he disgusted himself. He pursed his lips together before speaking. "I will not, because even if the symptoms were there, I would be more fearful of myself. I already live in fear of myself because of that..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Vincent didn't know all the details, no one did other than his parents. Yuki had, but she was dead. "That thing, what I became, was drawn out by the Aegis, not a result of it. It's always there, and I've spent the majority of my life keeping it in check. The fact that the Aegis is enough for me to loosen that hold is enough to ensure that I will never seek to use it again, Leora or no."
Vincent sighed softly, something of an understanding shifting through it. He was aware of what happened to Keir, what he did to his parents. It was something Erys had confided in Vincent, and he had taken that to an oath of secrecy. Erys had feared for her son, not of him. She feared for him because, though he had slight control over whatever it was that plagued him, she feared that he may one day hurt the one he came to love. And Erys was no fool. She had known her sons love for her brother's daughter. She wanted to keep them both safe on the off chance that Leora loved Keir too.
"Do you love Leora?" his question was rather direct, and more of a statement than a question, coming from Vincent. "If you love her, as you say you do, then you will not hide from this. This other Keir is just a manifestation of you. It is something that can be controlled. And you will learn this control," he spoke, his voice stern, direct, yet still somewhat soft. If Keir planned on staying with Leora, if he planned on still drinking her blood (a thought that Vincent was still hesitant to entertain), then he would need to learn how to control himself. The Aegis did not bring about the creature hidden beneath the surface of his nephew, it only coaxed it.
"If you do not, you will not only endanger her life, but everyone else you care about. That includes your parents, your cousins, your brother, and your sister. Their safety should be what is most important to you. Keeping something such as that locked will only manage to create something worse for you. It will eventually overtake you, and you will do what you will regret because of it," he continued, his eyes steeling as he regarded his nephew. "You are a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, Keir. You will come to an understanding with this other you, and you will be able to protect the one you love with it," he finished, his eyes softening just a bit.
Had Keir been ten years younger, he probably would have refused, or objected, or made some sort of excuse. But he was not, and he actually knew better. Vincent was right. He needed to learn control. He could learn control.
Idiot. You're only just realizing this now?
Keir started. What...was that? That thing, the other Keir...he'd never spoken to him before. What on earth was going on? Drawing in a breath, Keir's eyes narrowed. He returned his gaze to his uncle, his eyes blazing ice. "Alright. When do we start?" In his mind, the voice chuckled.
Don't think I'm going to make it easy on you, little Alistair...
Vincent allowed a smile to cover his features at his nephew's response. If he was willing to do this, then perhaps there was a chance for him after all. It would not be an easy road, and Vincent knew that he would not hold back; that he could not hold back. If he did, he might not only lose his daughter, but his nephew as well. He wanted neither of those things, not if Keir was willing to do what must be done. He nodded towards his nephew, turning his back on him in the process. There were preparations that needed to be made, things that needed to be done.
"We start in two days time. Get the rest and prepare yourself, this will not be easy, but I believe that you will not disappoint me, Keir," he spoke, leaving his nephew to his own accord. There was one person he needed to speak with, so that she understood that her son may or may not make it through this training, and that he wasn't to blame. He shuddered a bit. His sister did scare him a bit, and that was saying a lot considering who he was. But, then again, he had always been that way, giving in to the women of his family. He shook his head softly.
The only noise in Helen’s room was the faint scratching of he charcoal stick on her sketch pad, and the occasional soft sigh as she’d shake her head and rub out some detail, only to try again. Her fingers were smudged with the stuff where she’d used them to blend, and her face bore a horizontal stripe along one cheek, where she had at one point placed her hand there in a gesture of contemplation. She hadn’t noticed she did it, so absorbed was she in her work. The woman was curled in her favorite armchair, bare legs tucked underneath her, the hemline of her skirt brushing her knees. It had not been precisely spared the ardor of her artwork, either, as it bore the occasional graphite mark or eraser shaving, but this as the other things she was presently unaware of.
Helen’s sketches, while technically very accomplished, were more notable for the fact that they seemed to portray some noticeable emotions, ones that she did not outwardly express very often, if ever. It had always been thus, and once, she had not known the names for the feelings. Some of them were still a little beyond her understanding, but she knew more of them now. Of late, there had been new ones, and many of them were simply fear. She drew from memory, because she had learned long ago not to trust herself to keep those impressions for long, and she felt there was something important in remembering just why she was afraid. As though to put the feeling to paper was to crystallize it, to make it real. And real things could be changed, could be affected, not like the nameless, formless phantoms in her mind.
But, surprisingly, the face of fear was not the only thing she drew of late. Because she was learning to do intentionally something she had always done, but not on purpose: to fill her heart with other things, to make those empty places in her have occupants once more. Until she could live for herself, because she wanted to, she would live for the sake of the ones in her heart, and the kindness and affection they had given her. Part of her didn’t understand why she tried; only half a year remained until he would return, and then everything would be over. But… another part of her simply could not think that way, could not imagine the losing of some many precious people. Even the serious consideration of the possibility—the likelihood—threatened to send her into paroxysms of grief. She would surely break when he returned, because if he succeeded, there would be nothing left to remain whole for. Not like there had been last time.
Blowing gently on the paper, she cleared off the excess dust, and her lips turned up tenderly at the corners. For right now, at least, she drew not the face of fear, but the face of love. And it soothed her in ways she did not fully comprehend, but sought all the same.
Aryan blinked, and then sighed, an amused smile appearing on his face as he leaned back in the chair, looking across the board at his God-son. While Bryer had taken to beating him on a regular basis, the boy had not done so quite as thoroughly, until now. "Well done, Bryer. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a few things to attend to." It was brief, but Bryer smiled at him all the same before leaving. Aryan smiled fondly as he watched him leave. The boy was still rather introverted, but actually having a grasp on his powers, and subsequently being able to block out the voices, had done quite a lot for him.
Presently, however, Aryan had a different introvert on his mind, one that he was rather taken with, in fact, no matter how much Alden felt the need to tease him about sleeping with her without sleeping with her. Aryan had merely scowled at him, making some off-hand comment about how the one he loved was more of a man than Emrys, and left it at that. Aryan's love life was none of his business, anyway.
Aryan paused at the door, noticing the vase of violets in the hallway. Absentmindedly, he picked one out, knocking before entering himself. He twirled the flower a bit between his long fingers before speaking. "Hello, Helen." he said softly, that small smile on his face as he did so, and he gently tucked the flower into her hair, behind her ear, the purple off-set by the silver of her hair.
She sensed him coming, and honestly, the knocking was just a formality. She’d never want to keep him out, and that applied to more than just her room. She would never do justice to him on paper, of that she was quite certain, and yet… it was hard not to try. He had a face made for art, really, with all the patrician angles and sharp lines. She liked the way his smile softened it, though, like a secret only she knew. Helen had kept many secrets in her lifetime, and more of them against her will than anything, but it was perhaps this one that was nestled closest to her heart.
“Aryan.” She said the name like the word itself was something precious, and to her, perhaps it was. She wasn’t quite sure she’d ever get used to the way her heart stuttered, when he looked at her like that. It made her feel like something more delicate than she was, but in a better way than she would have thought. Like she was worth protecting, acknowledged and treasured for no other reason than being her. A peculiar sentiment, but not one she’d put past him. He was wonderful that way. She exhaled a breathy huff of amusement when he slid the violet behind her ear—it reminded her strongly of the time her sister had woven lilies into it, on that Christmas day almost a decade ago. How strange, that it felt like yesterday and an eternity ago all at once.
“I was just going to make tea; would you like some?” Gently closing the cover of her sketchbook, she set it on the coffee table and flowed into a stand, brushing herself down and treading the few steps to the small kitchen in the suite of rooms to start the gas stove. She returned thereafter though, standing in front of him contemplatively for a moment before she wrapped her arms around him and hugged, sighing gently against his chest. It just felt nice to touch him.
Aryan smiled, watching her leave, and then he watched with mild amusement as she came back to stand in front of him, the contemplative expression rather obvious. He silently watched her, wondering what it was she would do, and then chuckled slightly as she wrapped her arms around him. He too, wound his arms around her shoulders, on hand resting gently on the back of her hair, stroking it softly. He would never get over how something so simple as touch could make him feel so...alive.
"Someone is in an awfully good mood today, and I for one am rather pleased to see it so."
Helen felt her face heating up at the words. While true in a sense, she still felt a little self-conscious about this sort of thing, and generally had to contemplate a great deal before she took the initiative on something of this nature. She had noticed, however, that he never did. Perhaps it was borne from a sensitivity to her background, but it also made things a little more difficult for her, because she had no sense of what too much or not enough was in a relationship, and could only sort of guess and try not to feel too silly when she managed to say what was on her mind, as now.
“It’s your fault,” she said, the words slightly muffled. “I was having a perfectly ordinary day until you showed up.” If she had been the sort of person to keep mirrors around, and she was not, she probably would have been able to note that she was a rather impressive shade of burning scarlet at present. Partly from what she’d already said and partly from what she was contemplating saying.
Loosening her grip on his person, she took a half-step back and blinked up at him. It was actually a little inconvenient, how tall he was. Or how short she was. She was unsure which of them was further away from their respective gender’s averages. She believed it was about even, at around four inches. The total difference was more than a foot. Taking a breath, she decided to see just how far this little streak of (admittedly very embarrassing) boldness was going to take her. “I would… like to kiss you now, but I am afraid that as we are standing, this will require your foreknowledge and some degree of cooperation.” She’d not exactly asked, the past two instances, but that had been different than this.
Aryan looked down at her, his eyebrows raising slightly. She was certainly surprising him today. Or perhaps she was always surprising him, and he'd only just begun to notice it. Even so, he found it rather pleasant. He could not quite help but point out, "You know, you don't always have to ask, nor is it always necessary that I know, persay. I do understand that fourteen inches is quite a challenge to overcome, but you have other ways of attaining the end result. It would be interesting to see what ideas you come up with."
That was… not on the list of possible responses she’d anticipated, and Helen blinked slowly, canting her head to the side. He wanted her to… do what, exactly? Stand on a chair? She could not make herself taller, and she was not a telekinetic, which precluded simply levitating. She supposed she might be able to develop an aerokinetic solution with enough time. Though, honestly… “The most obvious solution to this conundrum is rather combative,” she pointed out. “I could produce sufficient pressure to the back of your knee and cause you to fall.” She frowned. Surely he was not saying she should do that.
Well… there was one other way to do this. It was perhaps not the most conventional of solutions, but then, if he was after some conventional solution, he would have simply leaned over. Something almost a sigh of resignation passed though Helen’s nose, and she shook her head. She was, as far as it went, about as fleet and flexible as people got, she might as well take advantage. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she raised herself to the balls of her feet and bounced a couple of times, hopping only when she was certain she had gauged the jump just so. From there, it wasn’t terribly difficult to wrap her legs around his waist to keep her in place, nor her arms about his neck. Being pressed this close was a surprisingly-giddy feeling, and the tiny smile she tended to assume in his company grew just a little.
Her nose was only inches from his, and as she’d achieved the desired result, she saw no reason not to take the promised spoils of her solution. “I am unconvinced that interesting is the proper word for this, but if it the one you wish to use, I suppose I can only… attempt to change your mind.” She was still red as a tomato, probably, but this odd little euphoria, the rush of proximity, was coaxing from her a facet she did not know her personality had. His playfulness, veiled though it could be, was returned with a little smidgen of the same, and when she kissed him, it was not with hesitation or reservation or thoughts of what would be in six months from now, but, in fact, only with the desire to wring from him a better adjective than interesting.
Which was, perhaps, what gave her the inclination to nip at his lower lip, and to slide her hands into the soft, feathery strands of his dark hair.
A playful little smile appeared as Aryan watched her, standing still as she placed her hands on his shoulders, and then bounced, for lack of a better term, into his arms, which by reflex, he wrapped around her. He was highly amused by her solution, to say the least, and even more so by the boldness of her kiss. He could see himself getting used to this, chuckling slightly as she pulled on his bottom lip. His eyes sparkled as he looked at her.
"Well, I can think of quite a many different adjectives to describe you. Ravishing, smart, loyal, kind, caring, strong...and highly resourceful, I told you that you could figure something out. You do not disappoint, my Dear." With that, he kissed her again, simply because he could. He had to admit, he liked this, being as close as they were now. Not to mention that the height difference was non-existent for the moment.
An assassin learned the value of a certain level of aggression very early. Not the kind that took hold of you, but the kind that could be used to achieve something you needed to do. She had to admit, she had never thought to apply it to such a situation as this before, but it was surprisingly natural to do so. Only the aggression, such as it was, manifested as forwardness rather than violence. Helen did pause for a moment, though, at his listing of adjectives. It was hard to see how some of them applied to her, but if he thought so, she supposed she could accept that. She didn’t reply with words so much as she did with a different kind of language, using one of her hands to trace delicately the planes of his face with her fingertips, which thankfully did not leave smudges behind. Her touch was feather-light, the expression on her face openly adoring, and the third kiss was much the same—gentle, gossamer-delicate, and light, at least until she channeled that aggression again.
After all, nothing had only one side, they least of all.
Helen’s sketches, while technically very accomplished, were more notable for the fact that they seemed to portray some noticeable emotions, ones that she did not outwardly express very often, if ever. It had always been thus, and once, she had not known the names for the feelings. Some of them were still a little beyond her understanding, but she knew more of them now. Of late, there had been new ones, and many of them were simply fear. She drew from memory, because she had learned long ago not to trust herself to keep those impressions for long, and she felt there was something important in remembering just why she was afraid. As though to put the feeling to paper was to crystallize it, to make it real. And real things could be changed, could be affected, not like the nameless, formless phantoms in her mind.
But, surprisingly, the face of fear was not the only thing she drew of late. Because she was learning to do intentionally something she had always done, but not on purpose: to fill her heart with other things, to make those empty places in her have occupants once more. Until she could live for herself, because she wanted to, she would live for the sake of the ones in her heart, and the kindness and affection they had given her. Part of her didn’t understand why she tried; only half a year remained until he would return, and then everything would be over. But… another part of her simply could not think that way, could not imagine the losing of some many precious people. Even the serious consideration of the possibility—the likelihood—threatened to send her into paroxysms of grief. She would surely break when he returned, because if he succeeded, there would be nothing left to remain whole for. Not like there had been last time.
Blowing gently on the paper, she cleared off the excess dust, and her lips turned up tenderly at the corners. For right now, at least, she drew not the face of fear, but the face of love. And it soothed her in ways she did not fully comprehend, but sought all the same.
"Checkmate."
Aryan blinked, and then sighed, an amused smile appearing on his face as he leaned back in the chair, looking across the board at his God-son. While Bryer had taken to beating him on a regular basis, the boy had not done so quite as thoroughly, until now. "Well done, Bryer. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a few things to attend to." It was brief, but Bryer smiled at him all the same before leaving. Aryan smiled fondly as he watched him leave. The boy was still rather introverted, but actually having a grasp on his powers, and subsequently being able to block out the voices, had done quite a lot for him.
Presently, however, Aryan had a different introvert on his mind, one that he was rather taken with, in fact, no matter how much Alden felt the need to tease him about sleeping with her without sleeping with her. Aryan had merely scowled at him, making some off-hand comment about how the one he loved was more of a man than Emrys, and left it at that. Aryan's love life was none of his business, anyway.
Aryan paused at the door, noticing the vase of violets in the hallway. Absentmindedly, he picked one out, knocking before entering himself. He twirled the flower a bit between his long fingers before speaking. "Hello, Helen." he said softly, that small smile on his face as he did so, and he gently tucked the flower into her hair, behind her ear, the purple off-set by the silver of her hair.
She sensed him coming, and honestly, the knocking was just a formality. She’d never want to keep him out, and that applied to more than just her room. She would never do justice to him on paper, of that she was quite certain, and yet… it was hard not to try. He had a face made for art, really, with all the patrician angles and sharp lines. She liked the way his smile softened it, though, like a secret only she knew. Helen had kept many secrets in her lifetime, and more of them against her will than anything, but it was perhaps this one that was nestled closest to her heart.
“Aryan.” She said the name like the word itself was something precious, and to her, perhaps it was. She wasn’t quite sure she’d ever get used to the way her heart stuttered, when he looked at her like that. It made her feel like something more delicate than she was, but in a better way than she would have thought. Like she was worth protecting, acknowledged and treasured for no other reason than being her. A peculiar sentiment, but not one she’d put past him. He was wonderful that way. She exhaled a breathy huff of amusement when he slid the violet behind her ear—it reminded her strongly of the time her sister had woven lilies into it, on that Christmas day almost a decade ago. How strange, that it felt like yesterday and an eternity ago all at once.
“I was just going to make tea; would you like some?” Gently closing the cover of her sketchbook, she set it on the coffee table and flowed into a stand, brushing herself down and treading the few steps to the small kitchen in the suite of rooms to start the gas stove. She returned thereafter though, standing in front of him contemplatively for a moment before she wrapped her arms around him and hugged, sighing gently against his chest. It just felt nice to touch him.
Aryan smiled, watching her leave, and then he watched with mild amusement as she came back to stand in front of him, the contemplative expression rather obvious. He silently watched her, wondering what it was she would do, and then chuckled slightly as she wrapped her arms around him. He too, wound his arms around her shoulders, on hand resting gently on the back of her hair, stroking it softly. He would never get over how something so simple as touch could make him feel so...alive.
"Someone is in an awfully good mood today, and I for one am rather pleased to see it so."
Helen felt her face heating up at the words. While true in a sense, she still felt a little self-conscious about this sort of thing, and generally had to contemplate a great deal before she took the initiative on something of this nature. She had noticed, however, that he never did. Perhaps it was borne from a sensitivity to her background, but it also made things a little more difficult for her, because she had no sense of what too much or not enough was in a relationship, and could only sort of guess and try not to feel too silly when she managed to say what was on her mind, as now.
“It’s your fault,” she said, the words slightly muffled. “I was having a perfectly ordinary day until you showed up.” If she had been the sort of person to keep mirrors around, and she was not, she probably would have been able to note that she was a rather impressive shade of burning scarlet at present. Partly from what she’d already said and partly from what she was contemplating saying.
Loosening her grip on his person, she took a half-step back and blinked up at him. It was actually a little inconvenient, how tall he was. Or how short she was. She was unsure which of them was further away from their respective gender’s averages. She believed it was about even, at around four inches. The total difference was more than a foot. Taking a breath, she decided to see just how far this little streak of (admittedly very embarrassing) boldness was going to take her. “I would… like to kiss you now, but I am afraid that as we are standing, this will require your foreknowledge and some degree of cooperation.” She’d not exactly asked, the past two instances, but that had been different than this.
Aryan looked down at her, his eyebrows raising slightly. She was certainly surprising him today. Or perhaps she was always surprising him, and he'd only just begun to notice it. Even so, he found it rather pleasant. He could not quite help but point out, "You know, you don't always have to ask, nor is it always necessary that I know, persay. I do understand that fourteen inches is quite a challenge to overcome, but you have other ways of attaining the end result. It would be interesting to see what ideas you come up with."
That was… not on the list of possible responses she’d anticipated, and Helen blinked slowly, canting her head to the side. He wanted her to… do what, exactly? Stand on a chair? She could not make herself taller, and she was not a telekinetic, which precluded simply levitating. She supposed she might be able to develop an aerokinetic solution with enough time. Though, honestly… “The most obvious solution to this conundrum is rather combative,” she pointed out. “I could produce sufficient pressure to the back of your knee and cause you to fall.” She frowned. Surely he was not saying she should do that.
Well… there was one other way to do this. It was perhaps not the most conventional of solutions, but then, if he was after some conventional solution, he would have simply leaned over. Something almost a sigh of resignation passed though Helen’s nose, and she shook her head. She was, as far as it went, about as fleet and flexible as people got, she might as well take advantage. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she raised herself to the balls of her feet and bounced a couple of times, hopping only when she was certain she had gauged the jump just so. From there, it wasn’t terribly difficult to wrap her legs around his waist to keep her in place, nor her arms about his neck. Being pressed this close was a surprisingly-giddy feeling, and the tiny smile she tended to assume in his company grew just a little.
Her nose was only inches from his, and as she’d achieved the desired result, she saw no reason not to take the promised spoils of her solution. “I am unconvinced that interesting is the proper word for this, but if it the one you wish to use, I suppose I can only… attempt to change your mind.” She was still red as a tomato, probably, but this odd little euphoria, the rush of proximity, was coaxing from her a facet she did not know her personality had. His playfulness, veiled though it could be, was returned with a little smidgen of the same, and when she kissed him, it was not with hesitation or reservation or thoughts of what would be in six months from now, but, in fact, only with the desire to wring from him a better adjective than interesting.
Which was, perhaps, what gave her the inclination to nip at his lower lip, and to slide her hands into the soft, feathery strands of his dark hair.
A playful little smile appeared as Aryan watched her, standing still as she placed her hands on his shoulders, and then bounced, for lack of a better term, into his arms, which by reflex, he wrapped around her. He was highly amused by her solution, to say the least, and even more so by the boldness of her kiss. He could see himself getting used to this, chuckling slightly as she pulled on his bottom lip. His eyes sparkled as he looked at her.
"Well, I can think of quite a many different adjectives to describe you. Ravishing, smart, loyal, kind, caring, strong...and highly resourceful, I told you that you could figure something out. You do not disappoint, my Dear." With that, he kissed her again, simply because he could. He had to admit, he liked this, being as close as they were now. Not to mention that the height difference was non-existent for the moment.
An assassin learned the value of a certain level of aggression very early. Not the kind that took hold of you, but the kind that could be used to achieve something you needed to do. She had to admit, she had never thought to apply it to such a situation as this before, but it was surprisingly natural to do so. Only the aggression, such as it was, manifested as forwardness rather than violence. Helen did pause for a moment, though, at his listing of adjectives. It was hard to see how some of them applied to her, but if he thought so, she supposed she could accept that. She didn’t reply with words so much as she did with a different kind of language, using one of her hands to trace delicately the planes of his face with her fingertips, which thankfully did not leave smudges behind. Her touch was feather-light, the expression on her face openly adoring, and the third kiss was much the same—gentle, gossamer-delicate, and light, at least until she channeled that aggression again.
After all, nothing had only one side, they least of all.
Keir yawned, laying back so that he was staring up at the sky. It had been two weeks now, and his uncle had quite literally put him through the ringer. He was tired, having succumbed to that darker side more than half a dozen times, unable to hold the form while restraining the urge to kill. It had become rather clear that Keir, much like Vincent, was not addicted. It was not power that he wanted, it was to protect. As such, the Aegis was the last thing on his mind.
Even so, if he was not training with his Uncle, father, and brother, he was more than likely sleeping. As such, he hadn't really spent all that much time with Leora, at least, not nearly as much as he wanted to. Even now, he was drifting off to sleep just laying there. He yawned again.
Everyone had been training, really, Leora doing so largely with Zero and sometimes Alden or Alarica. Occasionally, Helen would go a round with her, and for all the woman’s tiny size, those bouts left Leo with more bruises than any of the others. Even then, she was pretty sure the former Pantheon member was holding back. It was a bit scary, actually. Leo might be faster by a hairsbreadth, but Helen was so flexible it was basically impossible to hit her anyway. At least she had a new series of stretches to practice now, to make herself as limber as possible. Maybe one day, she’d be able to twist herself like that, but until then, the best she could manage was a backbend, and it would have to be enough. They had time, but not enough.
Nothing really felt like enough anymore, honestly, with a deadline of four more moths looming over their heads like this. But more than anything, the amount of time she was spending with him wasn’t enough, and it seemed she might at last have an opportunity to partially rectify this. She tracked him almost automatically to the field, smiling softly when she saw him lying on the grass. It was an unusual sort for her face, one that was more like her mother’s than anything. But then… she didn’t feel about him like she’d ever felt about anyone else, so why should she show the same expressions? Leo moved to lay beside him, then decided this wasn’t quite enough, and adjusted so that she was half on top of him, her head resting on his chest, letting her legs tangle with his.
“Sleepy?” she asked with a smile in her voice. “I hope dad hasn’t been working you too hard. I’d hate it if there wasn’t any of you left for me.” The teasing note in the declaration was more reminiscent of the days before all this, when they still playfully pushed against one another’s limits and their own better judgement in a challenge the repercussions of which she’d never have been able to guess at. Considering how much happier they’d been then, perhaps this was not such a bad thing to be returning to.
Keir cracked one eye open, a small smile worming it's way on his face as Leora curled up, first next to him, then all but on top of him. He could certainly get used to this. Almost lazily, he looped his arm around her, his hand fixing itself in her hair. "Kazu-mi, if ever such a day comes that I am too tired for you, I give you all right to utterly demolish me. Though I cannot deny this training is probably some of the roughest I have ever been through in my life, and that is saying something when you consider who my mother is."
Just because he could, and because somehow, just being around her seemed to revitalize him, he rolled, trapping her underneath him, as he placed one hand on either side of her head, his white hair curtaining around his head as he grinned down at her. "I love you, Leora." he said simply, before leaning down and pressing his mouth to hers.
Leora laughed, a delighted sound that seemed to surprise her a little for the fact of its rarity of late. It trailed off into a small, but genuine smile. “Utterly demolish, is it? Sounds rather extreme. I think utterly ravish is more our style anyway,” she said, a note of teasing to her voice, but anything else she might have said was halted by a rather abrupt reversal, and she found her back to the ground and her eyes locked with Keir’s, fire-red and ice blue. Well, that was… not precisely unexpected, because honestly, that too was kind of their style. She’d been enjoying just laying there with him, but this, she would probably enjoy even more.
And he did not disappoint. He’d never disappointed her, really—she’d only ever disappointed him. It was something she felt a little guilty about, still, but then his lips met hers, and the time for thinking as such was past. Her fingers threaded into that glorious mane of his, and the smiled against his mouth, opening hers so as to deepen the kiss, swiping her tongue over his lower lip before pulling back. She was a horrible tease, and she knew it. But Leo also knew that he didn’t mind—and could honestly be just as bad, when the mood took him. She blinked up at him; Leo did not mind admitting that she kind of liked being the one less in control of what was happening, to an extent, being enfolded in him and surrounded by him, though she may just flip them for fun at some point. Later, though. She was going to enjoy this first.
“I love you, too,” she breathed, and strangely enough, the admission turned her cheeks a bit pink. Somehow, he’d managed to peel away the layers of confidence that hid her insecurities, and he was slowly helping her shed that, too. She’d at least agreed to allow them the chance to be happy with each other. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t still afraid that he’d wake up some day, but… it was a chance she’d have to take. Being with him was worth it. And what lay underneath the insecurity, she was discovering, was a tender, warm thing, something soft and vulnerable, but something that would bend without breaking. It was strange and alien, but she recognized it. It was the thing her parents had, and she’d almost missed it.
Keir's eyebrows rose slightly, seeing Leora blush was not something he was used to. He was definitely enjoying it, though. Lightly, he trailed a finger from her forehead down, stopping at her waist before sliding his hand back, his fingers resting at the small of her back. He was planning on kissing her again when something stopped him. His heart slammed against his ribcage.
For a split second, he stilled, a mixture of fear and shock on his face. What the hell did he want? With a frustrated growl, he rolled to the side, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Get the hell out of my head. You're not welcome here.
You just love trying to cage me, don't you? I suppose I can understand why you would not trust me. But you also know what happens when you deny me. As if in response, the scaled patches on his arm and chest surged, creeping outward and expanding. Keir grit his teeth, halting their progression. Get out.
It took Leora a little while to decide what exactly was going on. She’d been hurt, momentarily, by the way he went stiff and backed off, but then she’d realized that it really had nothing to do with her. There’d been a little bit of relief, but then a surge of panic as a few things clicked. She’d never witnessed this personally, but what Balthasar and her family had told her made it clear enough what was happening. She was not afraid of Keir, however, but afraid for him. Acting on instinct rather than with any sort of logical thought process, Leora moved quickly, pinning his shoulders to the ground with her hands and searching his face.
“Keir. Keir, it’s okay. If you need to change, it’s all right. You’re not going to hurt me.” She wasn’t sure that was even the best approach to be taking, but she could see how much the struggle was hurting him. She knew she didn’t want that. Maybe it would be possible for him to reconcile with this part of himself. Even if not… if he needed to do this, Leora would stay and accept the consequences. She wanted to help him, she just wasn’t sure how. She did believe in him, though, and believed he would not hurt her, no matter what shape he took.
He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to hurt her. But more than anything, he didn't want her to hate him. It was a stupid reason, perhaps, but that was it nonetheless. Even so he removed his hands from his eyes and looked up at her silently. She couldn't be asking him this. He didn't understand how she could trust him so easily.
That surprised him. It had never called him by name before. Slowly, the scales continued their progression as he sat up, his body changing. All the while, his eyes never left Leora's, even when they shifted to that pure sapphire. His tail flicked out once, coming to rest at his left, the end of it ending behind Leora, his wings curled up against his back. His mouth opened to speak, but not before his tongue flickered out for an instant. There was a deep rumble in his chest. He laughed slightly.
"I suppose I should be thanking the little lion girl, I would have had to overpower him otherwise. No matter, he will learn, in time. I simply wanted to see the reason he was throwing himself at destruction with such vigor, and now I understand. Love can be such a complicated emotion, really. It allows you to trust him even when he is not in control. Believe what you will, he and I are still separate entities within one another. Though you are correct, it is not my intention to hurt you."
As he seemed to say, the creature did not move, other than the slow rise and fall of the scaled chest, his big sapphire eyes gazing at Leora in front of him.
She would not have expected to think so, from the way it was described to her, but she found him strangely beautiful, like this. It was certainly not the same way as she was generally attracted to him, but there it was all the same. Leo eased back so that she was sitting cross-legged, his tail still winding behind her, and placed her hands gently at her knees. Her head canted to the side, and she blinked red eyes at blue. A separate entity? She’d never heard of such a thing, but then… she’d never seen anything like this, either. Leora wondered how this had come about, but then decided that that part was ultimately unimportant.
Propping one of her elbows on her knee, she held her chin in the upright hand, quirking an eyebrow at him. “All right,” she said slowly, seeming to contemplate the words even as she said them. “Then what are your intentions? If you’ve been in there this whole time, you know as much about me as anyone—surely mere curiosity is not the reason you’re here.” There was nothing accusatory in the question; though she would admit it was more than a little strange to have Keir suddenly looking and acting like (and being, if this one was correct) someone else, she was going to keep an open mind about it until she had a reason to do otherwise.
The creature chuckled again. "Is it so hard to believe that I am simply curious? Curiosity is what makes life go on, is it not?" His lips spread in a strange, twisted grin, his tongue flickering out again. He cocked his head to the side, thinking over her question before he answered.
"Actually, little lion, I know rather little. I do not see through the boy's eyes, and usually, I go into a state of hibernation while I am unneeded. That is not to say that I do not understand the connection the two of you share, or his fear of your father -which is quite well warranted, I fear the man- but even so, I am not overly familiar with anyone other than Keir himself. So, yes, mere curiosity is quite what it is."
He seemed to be thoughtful then, and remained quiet for several seconds. "I do thank you, though. For now, and for saving Keir. Dying is not something I wish to do in the near future. But for now, my curiosity is sated, so I shall ask you...is there anything you wish to know of me?" The scales glimmered slightly, his wings rustling as he stretched them out before tucking them in again. "And to the both of you...my name is Sagiv."
Leora blinked for a moment, then shrugged. “If you say so, Sagiv,” She replied, the meaning of the name not lost on her. It was relatively straightforward, actually, which kind of amused her, the expression flashing across the bright red of her eyes before it receded again. “As for knowing, well… not unless there’s anything you want to volunteer. Though… I’m going to have to ask you to make me a deal here. If I were to say that perhaps I’d really like it if you didn’t choose especially private moments to show up, what would your side of the bargain be? Because, while you seem like a perfectly interesting person and all, you are kind of living inside the man I love, and if I were a different kind of girl, I would have been freaking out when that happened a few minutes ago. For more than one reason.” She quirked a brow, smiling a bit.
Sagiv chuckled again, clearly quite amused. "No little lion, there will be no more deals today. It is simply during these private moments that it is easiest for me to surface, and I needed to see you for myself. One does not simply risk their lives for nothing, after all. As to that, I suppose you can say that I am satisfied. I'm impressed the boy managed to find a woman with as much, perhaps even more, spirit than he has. No, more than likely, I will not be appearing again, except in such moments where it is necessary to preserve his life."
Even as he spoke, the scales began to shift, receding back and exposing skin underneath. "Goodbye, Leora Kuragari." was the last thing he said before vanishing altogether, leaving Keir sitting in his place, looking...confused. Letting out an irritated sigh, he shook his head, cracking one eye open to look at Leora. "I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one."
You're a bastard, Sagiv.
A chuckle answered him. Perhaps, but then, so are you.
Leora shrugged, a small smile still playing over her mouth. “It’s not reckless if you know it’ll be fine,” she replied nonchalantly. “Besides,” she continued, a little more solemnly now, and she reached out to place a palm to his cheek. “We don’t fight our battles alone, Keir. Not anymore. Especially when they really don’t need to be fought at all.” She leaned forwards, pressing her lips gently to his.
“Now… I believe we were in the middle of something…”
Even so, if he was not training with his Uncle, father, and brother, he was more than likely sleeping. As such, he hadn't really spent all that much time with Leora, at least, not nearly as much as he wanted to. Even now, he was drifting off to sleep just laying there. He yawned again.
Everyone had been training, really, Leora doing so largely with Zero and sometimes Alden or Alarica. Occasionally, Helen would go a round with her, and for all the woman’s tiny size, those bouts left Leo with more bruises than any of the others. Even then, she was pretty sure the former Pantheon member was holding back. It was a bit scary, actually. Leo might be faster by a hairsbreadth, but Helen was so flexible it was basically impossible to hit her anyway. At least she had a new series of stretches to practice now, to make herself as limber as possible. Maybe one day, she’d be able to twist herself like that, but until then, the best she could manage was a backbend, and it would have to be enough. They had time, but not enough.
Nothing really felt like enough anymore, honestly, with a deadline of four more moths looming over their heads like this. But more than anything, the amount of time she was spending with him wasn’t enough, and it seemed she might at last have an opportunity to partially rectify this. She tracked him almost automatically to the field, smiling softly when she saw him lying on the grass. It was an unusual sort for her face, one that was more like her mother’s than anything. But then… she didn’t feel about him like she’d ever felt about anyone else, so why should she show the same expressions? Leo moved to lay beside him, then decided this wasn’t quite enough, and adjusted so that she was half on top of him, her head resting on his chest, letting her legs tangle with his.
“Sleepy?” she asked with a smile in her voice. “I hope dad hasn’t been working you too hard. I’d hate it if there wasn’t any of you left for me.” The teasing note in the declaration was more reminiscent of the days before all this, when they still playfully pushed against one another’s limits and their own better judgement in a challenge the repercussions of which she’d never have been able to guess at. Considering how much happier they’d been then, perhaps this was not such a bad thing to be returning to.
Keir cracked one eye open, a small smile worming it's way on his face as Leora curled up, first next to him, then all but on top of him. He could certainly get used to this. Almost lazily, he looped his arm around her, his hand fixing itself in her hair. "Kazu-mi, if ever such a day comes that I am too tired for you, I give you all right to utterly demolish me. Though I cannot deny this training is probably some of the roughest I have ever been through in my life, and that is saying something when you consider who my mother is."
Just because he could, and because somehow, just being around her seemed to revitalize him, he rolled, trapping her underneath him, as he placed one hand on either side of her head, his white hair curtaining around his head as he grinned down at her. "I love you, Leora." he said simply, before leaning down and pressing his mouth to hers.
Leora laughed, a delighted sound that seemed to surprise her a little for the fact of its rarity of late. It trailed off into a small, but genuine smile. “Utterly demolish, is it? Sounds rather extreme. I think utterly ravish is more our style anyway,” she said, a note of teasing to her voice, but anything else she might have said was halted by a rather abrupt reversal, and she found her back to the ground and her eyes locked with Keir’s, fire-red and ice blue. Well, that was… not precisely unexpected, because honestly, that too was kind of their style. She’d been enjoying just laying there with him, but this, she would probably enjoy even more.
And he did not disappoint. He’d never disappointed her, really—she’d only ever disappointed him. It was something she felt a little guilty about, still, but then his lips met hers, and the time for thinking as such was past. Her fingers threaded into that glorious mane of his, and the smiled against his mouth, opening hers so as to deepen the kiss, swiping her tongue over his lower lip before pulling back. She was a horrible tease, and she knew it. But Leo also knew that he didn’t mind—and could honestly be just as bad, when the mood took him. She blinked up at him; Leo did not mind admitting that she kind of liked being the one less in control of what was happening, to an extent, being enfolded in him and surrounded by him, though she may just flip them for fun at some point. Later, though. She was going to enjoy this first.
“I love you, too,” she breathed, and strangely enough, the admission turned her cheeks a bit pink. Somehow, he’d managed to peel away the layers of confidence that hid her insecurities, and he was slowly helping her shed that, too. She’d at least agreed to allow them the chance to be happy with each other. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t still afraid that he’d wake up some day, but… it was a chance she’d have to take. Being with him was worth it. And what lay underneath the insecurity, she was discovering, was a tender, warm thing, something soft and vulnerable, but something that would bend without breaking. It was strange and alien, but she recognized it. It was the thing her parents had, and she’d almost missed it.
Keir's eyebrows rose slightly, seeing Leora blush was not something he was used to. He was definitely enjoying it, though. Lightly, he trailed a finger from her forehead down, stopping at her waist before sliding his hand back, his fingers resting at the small of her back. He was planning on kissing her again when something stopped him. His heart slammed against his ribcage.
Let me out, Boy.
For a split second, he stilled, a mixture of fear and shock on his face. What the hell did he want? With a frustrated growl, he rolled to the side, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Get the hell out of my head. You're not welcome here.
You just love trying to cage me, don't you? I suppose I can understand why you would not trust me. But you also know what happens when you deny me. As if in response, the scaled patches on his arm and chest surged, creeping outward and expanding. Keir grit his teeth, halting their progression. Get out.
It took Leora a little while to decide what exactly was going on. She’d been hurt, momentarily, by the way he went stiff and backed off, but then she’d realized that it really had nothing to do with her. There’d been a little bit of relief, but then a surge of panic as a few things clicked. She’d never witnessed this personally, but what Balthasar and her family had told her made it clear enough what was happening. She was not afraid of Keir, however, but afraid for him. Acting on instinct rather than with any sort of logical thought process, Leora moved quickly, pinning his shoulders to the ground with her hands and searching his face.
“Keir. Keir, it’s okay. If you need to change, it’s all right. You’re not going to hurt me.” She wasn’t sure that was even the best approach to be taking, but she could see how much the struggle was hurting him. She knew she didn’t want that. Maybe it would be possible for him to reconcile with this part of himself. Even if not… if he needed to do this, Leora would stay and accept the consequences. She wanted to help him, she just wasn’t sure how. She did believe in him, though, and believed he would not hurt her, no matter what shape he took.
He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to hurt her. But more than anything, he didn't want her to hate him. It was a stupid reason, perhaps, but that was it nonetheless. Even so he removed his hands from his eyes and looked up at her silently. She couldn't be asking him this. He didn't understand how she could trust him so easily.
See? The girl knows, fool. We can continue this game, or you can let me out by choice. What'll it be, Keir?
That surprised him. It had never called him by name before. Slowly, the scales continued their progression as he sat up, his body changing. All the while, his eyes never left Leora's, even when they shifted to that pure sapphire. His tail flicked out once, coming to rest at his left, the end of it ending behind Leora, his wings curled up against his back. His mouth opened to speak, but not before his tongue flickered out for an instant. There was a deep rumble in his chest. He laughed slightly.
"I suppose I should be thanking the little lion girl, I would have had to overpower him otherwise. No matter, he will learn, in time. I simply wanted to see the reason he was throwing himself at destruction with such vigor, and now I understand. Love can be such a complicated emotion, really. It allows you to trust him even when he is not in control. Believe what you will, he and I are still separate entities within one another. Though you are correct, it is not my intention to hurt you."
As he seemed to say, the creature did not move, other than the slow rise and fall of the scaled chest, his big sapphire eyes gazing at Leora in front of him.
She would not have expected to think so, from the way it was described to her, but she found him strangely beautiful, like this. It was certainly not the same way as she was generally attracted to him, but there it was all the same. Leo eased back so that she was sitting cross-legged, his tail still winding behind her, and placed her hands gently at her knees. Her head canted to the side, and she blinked red eyes at blue. A separate entity? She’d never heard of such a thing, but then… she’d never seen anything like this, either. Leora wondered how this had come about, but then decided that that part was ultimately unimportant.
Propping one of her elbows on her knee, she held her chin in the upright hand, quirking an eyebrow at him. “All right,” she said slowly, seeming to contemplate the words even as she said them. “Then what are your intentions? If you’ve been in there this whole time, you know as much about me as anyone—surely mere curiosity is not the reason you’re here.” There was nothing accusatory in the question; though she would admit it was more than a little strange to have Keir suddenly looking and acting like (and being, if this one was correct) someone else, she was going to keep an open mind about it until she had a reason to do otherwise.
The creature chuckled again. "Is it so hard to believe that I am simply curious? Curiosity is what makes life go on, is it not?" His lips spread in a strange, twisted grin, his tongue flickering out again. He cocked his head to the side, thinking over her question before he answered.
"Actually, little lion, I know rather little. I do not see through the boy's eyes, and usually, I go into a state of hibernation while I am unneeded. That is not to say that I do not understand the connection the two of you share, or his fear of your father -which is quite well warranted, I fear the man- but even so, I am not overly familiar with anyone other than Keir himself. So, yes, mere curiosity is quite what it is."
He seemed to be thoughtful then, and remained quiet for several seconds. "I do thank you, though. For now, and for saving Keir. Dying is not something I wish to do in the near future. But for now, my curiosity is sated, so I shall ask you...is there anything you wish to know of me?" The scales glimmered slightly, his wings rustling as he stretched them out before tucking them in again. "And to the both of you...my name is Sagiv."
Leora blinked for a moment, then shrugged. “If you say so, Sagiv,” She replied, the meaning of the name not lost on her. It was relatively straightforward, actually, which kind of amused her, the expression flashing across the bright red of her eyes before it receded again. “As for knowing, well… not unless there’s anything you want to volunteer. Though… I’m going to have to ask you to make me a deal here. If I were to say that perhaps I’d really like it if you didn’t choose especially private moments to show up, what would your side of the bargain be? Because, while you seem like a perfectly interesting person and all, you are kind of living inside the man I love, and if I were a different kind of girl, I would have been freaking out when that happened a few minutes ago. For more than one reason.” She quirked a brow, smiling a bit.
Sagiv chuckled again, clearly quite amused. "No little lion, there will be no more deals today. It is simply during these private moments that it is easiest for me to surface, and I needed to see you for myself. One does not simply risk their lives for nothing, after all. As to that, I suppose you can say that I am satisfied. I'm impressed the boy managed to find a woman with as much, perhaps even more, spirit than he has. No, more than likely, I will not be appearing again, except in such moments where it is necessary to preserve his life."
Even as he spoke, the scales began to shift, receding back and exposing skin underneath. "Goodbye, Leora Kuragari." was the last thing he said before vanishing altogether, leaving Keir sitting in his place, looking...confused. Letting out an irritated sigh, he shook his head, cracking one eye open to look at Leora. "I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one."
You're a bastard, Sagiv.
A chuckle answered him. Perhaps, but then, so are you.
Leora shrugged, a small smile still playing over her mouth. “It’s not reckless if you know it’ll be fine,” she replied nonchalantly. “Besides,” she continued, a little more solemnly now, and she reached out to place a palm to his cheek. “We don’t fight our battles alone, Keir. Not anymore. Especially when they really don’t need to be fought at all.” She leaned forwards, pressing her lips gently to his.
“Now… I believe we were in the middle of something…”
Helen was not precisely sure how it had happened, but she was relatively certain that this was somehow Diya’s fault. She’d probably managed to get her grandmother to help, because the contents of the basket the silver-haired woman now carried were definitely Ava’s doing. Nevertheless, she found herself walking at a sedate pace beside Aryan, Bryer on his other side, and the little girl ranging further ahead of them, urging them all to hurry up. She’d never really heard of anything called a picnic before, but apparently it involved eating food outside.
She was not against this, as such, she just was not certain what the salient difference was between this and eating food inside. Though… the sunshine was nice. Though the children were nobles, it wasn’t full afternoon, so it shouldn’t hurt them at all, nor cause them much if any discomfort. She’d brought a parasol, just in case, and it was tucked under the same arm, because her free hand was in Aryan’s, her fingers threaded through his loosely. She was perfectly content to let the children decide when they stopped walking and selected a spot, but considering the personalities, it would likely be all up to Diya anyway.
In truth, it had actually been Aryan's idea, and he'd just planted the seed in his niece's mind, watching it take root as the little girl began to excitedly plan. He was well aware that Diya was rather fond of her mother's best friend, so any opportunity Diya found to spend with Helen was usually taken upon with the vigor only a nine year old could possess. So, the four of them came to find themselves wandering as such, Aryan's hand intertwined with Helen, Bryer walking calmly next to him, Utheil perched on top of his head, the phoenix taking on the form of a small chickadee.
There was an odd little smile on his uncle's face, Bryer had noted. He had come to understand that this was because of his god-mother. It was obvious that the two shared a strong connection to one another. His red eyes slid back to his sister, who continuously ran ahead and then back, sometimes urging them on, Kami running circles around her. There was a white lily in her hair. Apparently Andrick had given it to her. Without really thinking about it, Bryer reached up, taking hold of his uncle's free hand.
Aryan glanced down, smiling, as he felt Bryer's hand close in his own. The boy had begun to open up, and it was good to be able to get him out of the house every once in a while. Zero had not been wrong to nickname his son "Little Ary", as Bryer acted much the same as Aryan had at his age, books and all. He glanced back up in the direction of his niece. "Diya, don't you think we've gone far enough?"
Diya turned back to her aunt and uncle, her hands looping around behind her back as she clasped them together. She smiled, the expression warm and bright, the flower in her hair catching a bit of the sunlight, making it seem to glow. "Okay! That means we get to eat now, right?"
Helen stopped as the others did, releasing Aryan’s hand and setting the basket down. From it, she removed a blanket, which Ava had told her she should spread on the ground, so with a smart snap, she undid the folds and spread it out, laying the wicker basket on top of it. “If you wish,” she told Diya mildly, though in truth, she too was looking forward to it. Hel had an abiding love of sweet things, and her palate was honestly not that different from a child’s in this respect. Ava, it was well known, made the best sugar-based foods of anyone any member of the family had ever met.
Settling atop the blanket and crossing her legs, she flipped open the lid of the basket again, peering at the contents. It appeared to contain mostly sweets, but there were also what looked like sandwiches and fresh fruits. “I am unfamiliar with this practice,” she admitted, glancing over at Aryan as though for some clue as to what she should do. “Are there rules I should know about?”
"Aunt Halo, rules are for games, not a picnic." Diya smiled, but then looked up at her uncle. He may not have been the oldest, per se, but Aryan perhaps had the most experience with this. With a wry little smile, Aryan spread out the food, offering the three of them various things before taking some for his own.
It was not long before Diya was up again, though this time Aryan stayed put, his back against the tree that shaded them. Bryer seemed to be fascinated by a caterpillar that had chanced upon them, and was now crawling across his hand. Suddenly, the boy turned to his Aunt, saying, "Uncle taught you to play chess, right, Aunt Helen?"
Helen had to admire Ava’s skills in observation. There were freshly-cut strawberries in the basket, and a little packet of sugar, which she used to dust the rim of the fruits before eating them. As such things were wont to do, they turned her lips and tongue a dark red, but she hardly minded. She was sort of beginning to understand why picnics had been invented, rules or not. This was… surprisingly pleasant. Suddenly, she had the desire to remember every detail of this event, as perfectly as possible. Maybe, if she could keep this memory close to herself, protect it and cherish it, it could… well, she knew it would not stand up to him if he really wanted to erase it, but maybe he would let her keep it. A trace of warmth for a cold night.
Her godson’s voice drew her from the dark direction of her thoughts, and she blinked slowly down at him. She wasn’t his aunt, not really, but then… if there was anything these people had taught her, it was not blood that made a bond. It was choice, and acceptance. She accepted this. “He did,” she replied. “But I am not so fast a student as yourself. My intellectual strengths are more related to the storage and recall of information, numbers, and facts. The creativity required for evolving strategy is not as forthcoming.” That had been intentional. She had a strategic mind, in a sense, but it was not at the level of a prodigy, and she did not doubt that this had been intentional on her creator’s part. She was meant to be a piece, not a player.
Bryer regarded her silently for a few seconds, before replying, "Perhaps, but even so, I would enjoy playing you." Aryan watched the two of them for a few seconds before returning his gaze to Diya, who was talking to Kami. A small, knowing smile appeared on his face as he took one of Helen's hands in his own, running his thumb over the back of it as he brought it up to his lips.
"I believe I would like to watch that game." The small smile grew when Diya suddenly came bouncing up to them, a huge smile on her face as she excitedly spat out at them in one breath, "I made you all flower crowns! Come one, come on, you gotta wear them!"
She put the first one on her brother, made from violets and blue peonies, which set nicely in his white hair. He looked blankly at his sister for a few seconds, before breaking out into a slow smile. The then went over and placed one made of orange lilies on Helen's head, and then one of white daisies on Aryan. Her own head was graced by yellow and white daffodills, the white lily that usually adorned her hair in her hand. She smiled again. "There, now we're really on a picnic!" Aryan chuckled, highly amused. His niece's endless energy never ceased to amaze him.
The tiniest of tremors ran down Helen’s spine when Aryan kissed her hand, as it always seemed to when he touched her. She wasn’t exactly used to it by this point, but at least she’d come to expect it, and as such it was unobservable, except perhaps to him, who often appeared to know her better than she knew herself. She nodded mildly in reply to Bryer’s statement—she had no pride such that she would be affronted losing such a game to someone of his age. Genius was genius, and chess a game that required understanding of nothing but the rules. In this sense, anyone could master it, and she saw no reason to be upset that the master was a child. In fact… it brought her some kind of abstract pleasure that he seemed to take so much from it, and she recognized the feeling as a different kind of pride, one not for herself, but for someone else.
If she would have said anything, however, she was stopped from doing so by Diya’s sudden reappearance, and blinked owlishly then the crown of orange lilies was placed on her head. She much preferred it to the circlet she sometimes wore when he was present; there was a fresh scent to it, and it felt soft and light rather than cold and hard on her brow. “Thank you, Diya,” she said quietly, something warm blooming in her chest. She felt… included here, but especially right now. Like she was as much a part of this family as anyone, and it made her feel… strange. It was something she liked, in a curious sort of way.
Was this what it was like, for women who had husbands and children? Helen had never thought of herself as the sort of person who would have those things, and so she had not given the related matters much thought. Now, though… sitting beside someone she loved so much the feeling scared her and her best friend’s children, so strong and bright even after their mother’s death, she could not help but wonder, just for a moment, what it might be like to have that. Somehow, the warmth in her chest translated to her face, giving it a faint pinkness that was probably quite inexplicable to anyone without access to her thoughts. She was suddenly very glad that Alden was not present.
But maybe... one day, if they survived all this. Maybe she would be willing to share those thoughts.
She was not against this, as such, she just was not certain what the salient difference was between this and eating food inside. Though… the sunshine was nice. Though the children were nobles, it wasn’t full afternoon, so it shouldn’t hurt them at all, nor cause them much if any discomfort. She’d brought a parasol, just in case, and it was tucked under the same arm, because her free hand was in Aryan’s, her fingers threaded through his loosely. She was perfectly content to let the children decide when they stopped walking and selected a spot, but considering the personalities, it would likely be all up to Diya anyway.
In truth, it had actually been Aryan's idea, and he'd just planted the seed in his niece's mind, watching it take root as the little girl began to excitedly plan. He was well aware that Diya was rather fond of her mother's best friend, so any opportunity Diya found to spend with Helen was usually taken upon with the vigor only a nine year old could possess. So, the four of them came to find themselves wandering as such, Aryan's hand intertwined with Helen, Bryer walking calmly next to him, Utheil perched on top of his head, the phoenix taking on the form of a small chickadee.
There was an odd little smile on his uncle's face, Bryer had noted. He had come to understand that this was because of his god-mother. It was obvious that the two shared a strong connection to one another. His red eyes slid back to his sister, who continuously ran ahead and then back, sometimes urging them on, Kami running circles around her. There was a white lily in her hair. Apparently Andrick had given it to her. Without really thinking about it, Bryer reached up, taking hold of his uncle's free hand.
Aryan glanced down, smiling, as he felt Bryer's hand close in his own. The boy had begun to open up, and it was good to be able to get him out of the house every once in a while. Zero had not been wrong to nickname his son "Little Ary", as Bryer acted much the same as Aryan had at his age, books and all. He glanced back up in the direction of his niece. "Diya, don't you think we've gone far enough?"
Diya turned back to her aunt and uncle, her hands looping around behind her back as she clasped them together. She smiled, the expression warm and bright, the flower in her hair catching a bit of the sunlight, making it seem to glow. "Okay! That means we get to eat now, right?"
Helen stopped as the others did, releasing Aryan’s hand and setting the basket down. From it, she removed a blanket, which Ava had told her she should spread on the ground, so with a smart snap, she undid the folds and spread it out, laying the wicker basket on top of it. “If you wish,” she told Diya mildly, though in truth, she too was looking forward to it. Hel had an abiding love of sweet things, and her palate was honestly not that different from a child’s in this respect. Ava, it was well known, made the best sugar-based foods of anyone any member of the family had ever met.
Settling atop the blanket and crossing her legs, she flipped open the lid of the basket again, peering at the contents. It appeared to contain mostly sweets, but there were also what looked like sandwiches and fresh fruits. “I am unfamiliar with this practice,” she admitted, glancing over at Aryan as though for some clue as to what she should do. “Are there rules I should know about?”
"Aunt Halo, rules are for games, not a picnic." Diya smiled, but then looked up at her uncle. He may not have been the oldest, per se, but Aryan perhaps had the most experience with this. With a wry little smile, Aryan spread out the food, offering the three of them various things before taking some for his own.
It was not long before Diya was up again, though this time Aryan stayed put, his back against the tree that shaded them. Bryer seemed to be fascinated by a caterpillar that had chanced upon them, and was now crawling across his hand. Suddenly, the boy turned to his Aunt, saying, "Uncle taught you to play chess, right, Aunt Helen?"
Helen had to admire Ava’s skills in observation. There were freshly-cut strawberries in the basket, and a little packet of sugar, which she used to dust the rim of the fruits before eating them. As such things were wont to do, they turned her lips and tongue a dark red, but she hardly minded. She was sort of beginning to understand why picnics had been invented, rules or not. This was… surprisingly pleasant. Suddenly, she had the desire to remember every detail of this event, as perfectly as possible. Maybe, if she could keep this memory close to herself, protect it and cherish it, it could… well, she knew it would not stand up to him if he really wanted to erase it, but maybe he would let her keep it. A trace of warmth for a cold night.
Her godson’s voice drew her from the dark direction of her thoughts, and she blinked slowly down at him. She wasn’t his aunt, not really, but then… if there was anything these people had taught her, it was not blood that made a bond. It was choice, and acceptance. She accepted this. “He did,” she replied. “But I am not so fast a student as yourself. My intellectual strengths are more related to the storage and recall of information, numbers, and facts. The creativity required for evolving strategy is not as forthcoming.” That had been intentional. She had a strategic mind, in a sense, but it was not at the level of a prodigy, and she did not doubt that this had been intentional on her creator’s part. She was meant to be a piece, not a player.
Bryer regarded her silently for a few seconds, before replying, "Perhaps, but even so, I would enjoy playing you." Aryan watched the two of them for a few seconds before returning his gaze to Diya, who was talking to Kami. A small, knowing smile appeared on his face as he took one of Helen's hands in his own, running his thumb over the back of it as he brought it up to his lips.
"I believe I would like to watch that game." The small smile grew when Diya suddenly came bouncing up to them, a huge smile on her face as she excitedly spat out at them in one breath, "I made you all flower crowns! Come one, come on, you gotta wear them!"
She put the first one on her brother, made from violets and blue peonies, which set nicely in his white hair. He looked blankly at his sister for a few seconds, before breaking out into a slow smile. The then went over and placed one made of orange lilies on Helen's head, and then one of white daisies on Aryan. Her own head was graced by yellow and white daffodills, the white lily that usually adorned her hair in her hand. She smiled again. "There, now we're really on a picnic!" Aryan chuckled, highly amused. His niece's endless energy never ceased to amaze him.
The tiniest of tremors ran down Helen’s spine when Aryan kissed her hand, as it always seemed to when he touched her. She wasn’t exactly used to it by this point, but at least she’d come to expect it, and as such it was unobservable, except perhaps to him, who often appeared to know her better than she knew herself. She nodded mildly in reply to Bryer’s statement—she had no pride such that she would be affronted losing such a game to someone of his age. Genius was genius, and chess a game that required understanding of nothing but the rules. In this sense, anyone could master it, and she saw no reason to be upset that the master was a child. In fact… it brought her some kind of abstract pleasure that he seemed to take so much from it, and she recognized the feeling as a different kind of pride, one not for herself, but for someone else.
If she would have said anything, however, she was stopped from doing so by Diya’s sudden reappearance, and blinked owlishly then the crown of orange lilies was placed on her head. She much preferred it to the circlet she sometimes wore when he was present; there was a fresh scent to it, and it felt soft and light rather than cold and hard on her brow. “Thank you, Diya,” she said quietly, something warm blooming in her chest. She felt… included here, but especially right now. Like she was as much a part of this family as anyone, and it made her feel… strange. It was something she liked, in a curious sort of way.
Was this what it was like, for women who had husbands and children? Helen had never thought of herself as the sort of person who would have those things, and so she had not given the related matters much thought. Now, though… sitting beside someone she loved so much the feeling scared her and her best friend’s children, so strong and bright even after their mother’s death, she could not help but wonder, just for a moment, what it might be like to have that. Somehow, the warmth in her chest translated to her face, giving it a faint pinkness that was probably quite inexplicable to anyone without access to her thoughts. She was suddenly very glad that Alden was not present.
But maybe... one day, if they survived all this. Maybe she would be willing to share those thoughts.
Two months left. It seemed like such a short time, especially for those who lived as long as they did, but even Balthasar was surprised by just how fast the end of a year had caught up to them. And yet, for all that, the war still went on. The Council had been all but crushed by the Pantheon now, most of its members defected to the rule of Malkior or else killed for their resistance. The Council itself was dissolved; he was just glad Aryan wasn’t there when the last attack happened. It had been a bloody mess, from the reports.
Most of the fighting was taking place in already-contested or ravaged areas, but of late, Malkior seemed to be having the Pantheon stay off the field, presumably to plan his final assault on Balthasar’s family. One way or another, everything would be decided in two months. There was, however, a report of a small army of lower-class vampires led by a single Panthon member, believed to be Thor. Jasper had decided to send Balthasar to deal with it, and he would have gone by himself, but Rica had also wanted to come, and he wasn’t going to deny her that if she really wanted it. He was learning quite quickly that there really wasn’t anything he would deny her if she asked for it, and so it was that the two of them arrived in northern Italy, Balthasar setting Rica down on her feet, as he’d flown them both here to be as efficient as possible.
Drawing his sword in one hand, he laid the other atop her crown, bending down to press a kiss to her temple. “Stay close, beloved.” He could do this. He knew he could. He wouldn’t have to push those he loved to arms’ length anymore when he used his power, just as his father had taught him to do. Not that he would necessarily need it for one Pantheon member, but it was better to be safe than sorry. They just needed to clear this infestation as quickly as possible and then they could go home. Though… in one sense, he already was home, because she was here. He wondered if she knew that. He’d be sure to mention it later.
Hefting the blade, Balthasar dropped into a sprint, slowing just a fraction so that Rica could run on his right, the two of them cleaving easily through anything in their path. Balthasar hurled compact gravity fields to crush large groups of them. He was pretty sure he could hear the sound of many more freezing in place on the other side. They cut a wide swath in the combatants, and it was hardly a surprise that they almost immediately had the attention of the Pantheon member on the field—a series of knives of all shapes and sizes went flying for them, but Balthasar forced them all to the ground with his gravity. He was perplexed to note that not one of them had been aimed for him.
He looked up, and sure enough, not ten feet away from them now was a face he knew very well. “Elizabeth…” he murmured, but she caught it, and her lips compressed into a thin line, something uncomfortable flashing over her features. She looked wan and drawn, weaker than she had been before, with dark circles under her eyes. Her hands curled into fists.
“It would be you…” she said in the barest whisper.
She could see why Leora liked flying with him so much. There was a surge of euphoria coursing through her veins as they made their way towards Italy. There was a horde of lower level vampires causing mayhem, and though Jasper had sent Balthasar to deal with it, Alarica was not going to miss out on some fun. Besides, she could use the extra training and Balthasar would be there. She would be okay, however; she knew she couldn't always depend on him to keep her safe. She had to keep herself safe too. Relying on others wasn't exactly her forte either.
Once they reached their destination, Balthasar set her down, a smile pulling at her lips when his hand laid atop her head, and he kissed her temple. She nodded in response, pulling out Ulrik and laying it out in front of her, as if to inspect it for any damage it had. Satisfied, the smile morphed into a smirk, her weapon hoisted behind her as she and Balthasar took off. She swung her blade, catching a few vampires here and there in their shoulders, managing to lop off one vampire's arm. She could hear the vampire snarl in a painful howl, and her brows furrowed. Usually, the thrill of a kill would send her adrenaline skyrocketing, causing her to move faster and heave through more of them.
But something was holding her back. She didn't know what it was, or why it was even there, however; she did not think of it any longer as she continued to cut down the vampires in her way. A few of them had the unfortunate incident to be frozen in place as she heaved through their frozen forms, watching as their dust became entrapped inside the ice. She sighed heavily, something that was a bit unlike her. She usually enjoyed a good battle, however; as of late, she had found herself wondering what it would be like once the war was over. Once it was all over. What would she do? What would they do?
The only life she had ever known was the one of war, nothing of peace even if her parents and family tried so hard to provide it. War was all she knew. Could she really change that when it was over? Glancing over, she spotted the one person who could make it seem so possible: a peaceful life. A life without death, without war, where no one cried over the loss of a loved one or mourned the death of a family member. She would do whatever she could to keep him safe, to keep that thought, that feeling alive. So, it, perhaps, shouldn't have startled her so much when that scent fluttered into her nose.
The scent of that creature who thought to take Balthasar away from her. Her hands clutched tightly against Ulrik, her lips pulled back into a snarl as she bared her fangs at Elizabeth. The girl sent every hair on Alarica's body into shock mode, causing them to stand up along the back of her neck and her arms. She didn't like this girl, after everything she did to her Balthasar, Alarica wanted nothing more than to rip the girl's head off. Whether or not she would succeed was still largely a factor she wasn't considering at the moment. She did, however, catch the end of Elizabeth's statement.
"You sound a bit disappointed," she stated, heaving Ulrik on her back as she placed a hand on her hip, popping it out in the process. "Though I will admit, seeing you isn't exactly the most pleasant thing on my taste buds right now," she spoke, glancing at her free hand as she inspected it, cleaning out the pieces of dirt that somehow managed to lodge themselves into her fingernails.
For a long moment, Sigyn said nothing in response, simply locking eyes with Balthasar, who looked indecisive. He didn’t want to kill her. He wasn’t sure he could. She had been his friend, once, and he really believed that it hadn’t been false. It was true that he hadn’t loved her, he could see that now, with the clarity afforded to him by knowing what it was really like to love someone, but he’d liked her. She was funny, and interesting, and he wondered if she’d made up the part about wanting to be in the opera. He still thought she’d do really well at that, if she could just leave these battlefields and this hate behind her.
He was a bit taken aback by Rica’s apparent hostility, and for a moment, the thought flickered over his mind that it might be some kind of jealousy, but it disappeared as fast as it had come. Nobody had ever been jealous over him in his life, and he doubted someone like Rica would even think that way in the first place. More likely, it was just because she was Pantheon, and they had to learn to dislike their enemies in order to be able to kill them. It was something he had never quite mastered—no matter how hard he tried, Balthasar could not bring himself to hate. It might have been easier for him, if he could, but it just wasn’t part of his makeup.
He’d parted his lips to speak, to implore her once more to leave, but she spoke to cut him off. “Don't,” she said suddenly, shaking her head. It was only then that he’d noticed she cut her hair. It fluttered now around her chin, and her manner of dress also was plainer than it had been, but she was wearing black. “Don’t tell me I can still live in your world, Balthasar, because I can’t. I lost that right when I left you bleeding instead of taking my chances with you.” She’d lost more than just that—she could read it in the way they stood beside each other, attenuated to the presence of the other in some way that was deep and vital and strong. In the way his eyes would flicker to her sporadically, as if to reassure himself that she was there.
“I was expecting your father, honestly. It’s why I’m here.” Her lips twitched, but she could not manage a smile. “I came to die, and I was hoping he would make it quick. But… perhaps this is better. Could… could you…?” She was not all that surprised to note that he looked horrified by the very idea. He was such a gentle person, really; it was ironic that it was he who’d been gifted with such an ability to destroy. Or maybe… maybe that was how it was supposed to be, and it was Malkior who was unsuited to his power. The thought of the King made her shudder. Sigyn had once entertained thoughts of being Queen, but… she was glad she wasn’t, if that man was King.
Sighing softly, she flicked her glance between the two of them. “I couldn’t make you hate me enough before… but I think I might be able to now.” A ring of daggers materialized around her, like rows of predatory teeth, and she drove them for the space between Balthasar and Alarica, forcing them to separate, and then she split them, sending half flying point-blank for each. They were just as fast as she was, and it would be no simple thing to dodge them that close.
Every word she spoke sent another spark of anger through Alarica, her blood feeling as if it were on fire. But, perhaps, if Elizabeth had stayed, would she have been able to confess to Balthasar? To tell him that she had loved him for so long? Would he have eventually grown to love her? Her last few words, however, caught Alarica completely off guard. She was here...to die? She would have rose a brow at the Pantheon member, probably called her insane, but then again most members were. Her gaze flickered towards Balthasar when Sigyn asked if he could, perhaps, kill her, but she knew her cousin. He wouldn't be able to, and that thought caused her brows to furrow together.
If the girl wanted to die so badly, then Alarica would oblige her. And it was with that thought in mind that Alarica wanted to charge the girl, but found herself unable to. She was separated from Balthasar by a row of knives, each one flying at a speed that Alarica might have had trouble evading at one point in her life, however; training with those adept in flexibility, stamina, and speed, gave her an extra boost to her own speed. Though it wasn't much, she was still able to evade the knives that flew at her, raising Ulrik so that he blocked the rest of the knives.
"If you want to die so badly, then allow me to oblige you," she snarled through her teeth. She didn't like this girl, she never did, and if she wanted to die so badly, then Alarica would gladly grant her wish. She charged Sigyn, Ulrik pointed straight for her in the process.
The exchange that followed was short, brutal, and bloody. Bathasar was prevented from interfering because of a large pocket of level E’s that had decided to try and flank Rica. He wasn’t going to allow that, and though it was a matter of less than thirty seconds to crush them all, it was likewise a matter of that little time for several things to have happened to the two very quick females. Rica was sporting several new cuts, and the smell of her blood was calling to that darker part of him, demanding that he destroy the one responsible. He ignored it. He may have that part of himself in hand now, may have accepted it to some degree, but that did not mean he bowed to it.
Sigyn, however, had fallen hard, and something like resignation crept into her expression. She wasn’t going to even attempt to dodge the deathblow. Rica raised Ulrik, and the gunblade found a new sheath—in Balthasar’s chest.
He’d moved as quickly as his legs could carry him, placing himself between the two, and felt the cold press of steel as the blow aimed for the prone woman instead found the spot just beneath his sternum. Balthasar gritted his teeth against the sensation of being essentially stabbed in the left lung, and placed his bare hands on the blade, heedless of the way it cut into his fingers. His pain was irrelevant—his father did worse to him than this, in practice, and he returned almost as much. Slowly, he eased the sword out of his body, taking a step backwards to slide it back and away. He smiled gently at Rica even as the scent of fresh air, pine forest, and something darkly-intoxicating filled the air. It was his blood, he knew, but it was by and large irrelevant.
“I’m sorry, Rica,” he said, still smiling, and the blade slid free at last, coated in the thick crimson fluid that represented his life for as long as he was yet flesh. “Please don’t kill her. I know she’s done bad things, but she was my friend, and she was kind to me. More than that…” he reached for one of his cousin’s slender hands, and took it in his own. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his wounds were already healing themselves. “These hands should not kill for my sake.” Whether it was just that Elizabeth was Pantheon or for some other reason, he knew it had something to do with him, and it sat ill with him. Balthasar knew that killing was sometimes necessary, but he had never liked the idea of anyone killing or dying because of him. If he could prevent that, then he owed it to them both to do so.
Something lurched in her chest. Her eyes went wide, and Alarica swore she couldn't breathe. His blood filled her senses and the sudden realization hit her like a big rig. She had stabbed him. She had stabbed him. But why? She was aiming for Sigyn. When had he appeared? Why would he throw himself in front to save her? Something warm stung the back of her eyes as she stumbled backwards, unable to move even as he apologized to her, grabbing her hand into his. Her eyes narrowed, confusion still plaguing the light behind them as he spoke.
She was his friend, she was kind to him. He knew she did bad things, and yet here he was saving her. Alarica jerked her hand away from Balthasar, stepping away from him as she took a few steps back. "No, Balthasar. She deserves it, she deserves what is due to her," she spoke, her words dangerously low and almost venomous. "And it's not just your sake. She almost killed Emrys, me," she continued, remembering the last encounter they had with Sigyn.
The girl had been intent on killing her, and had Emrys not intervened, Alarica would be dead. "I would be dead if it wasn't for Emrys, and he almost died because of her. I cannot forgive her for that. You cannot expect me to forgive her for that. Friend or not, she is...," she continued, pausing as her voice wavered between sadness and anger. Her eyes softened a bit as she noted Balthasar's expression, turning towards Sigyn and glaring at the girl. But she couldn't force herself to fully glare.
Alarica wrapped her arms around herself, glancing away from Balthasar and Sigyn. Even now, she still felt so pathetic. How could she ever be with someone like Balthasar, and still be this way? She didn't deserve him, she didn't. And that truth was painful, stabbing at her like the blade that ran through him moments ago. She couldn't do this, she couldn't do this. As much as she wanted to kill Sigyn, she couldn't. And he was her reason why. "I'm sorry, Balthasar," she whispered, turning her back to him as she walked a few feet away. She would leave him to deal with Sigyn. When they returned home, she would have to let him go. For her sake, and his.
He knew. He’d always known that, he just… this was a war, and they’d been on opposite sides of it from the beginning. Elizabeth had had no more choice about fighting them than they had about fighting her. But here, here there was a choice. And Balthasar knew that if the world was ever going to heal from all the damage that had been done, they would need to be able to look people in the eye who had been their enemies and forgive them. The desire for power, for dominion, and an inexplicable apathy for the lives of others had been what his great-grandfather used to start this war. It could not be ended the same way. Vengeance wouldn’t end it, either. They had to stop the cycle somewhere, and if it had to be with him, then so be it. He would take the flak from both sides for putting himself in between them, however much it hurt.
And it did hurt, to see her look at him like that, to feel her pull away from him as she did. “Rica…” but he didn’t know how to end the sentence, and she was stepping back, so he shook his head sorrowfully and turned behind him. Elizabeth was still on the ground, and he noted with a small wince that she appeared to have been splashed in no small amount of his blood. Her face was stricken, pale, her red-brown eyes wide in her face, and her breathing shallow. Frowning, he crouched beside her. There was a smear of blood on her face, and from the scent of it, it wasn’t his, but Rica’s. He had to stop the frown from deepening. It was true that forgiveness was not easy, but he believed that in time, the wounds would heal. That was, after all, the nature of wounds. As long as they weren’t infected, poisoned by hate, they healed.
He looked at her for a moment, and her breathing seemed to steady a little when she recognized that it was him and he was not going to hurt her, but he was somewhat taken aback when her eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t really seem to get this right, could he? What if, in trying to heal things, he was only making them worse? A muscle in Balthasar’s jaw ticked. He had to believe he was doing this right. Because he didn’t know what else to do. Gentling his expression as much as he could, he extended an arm.
“No more battlefields, Elizabeth,” he said quietly, though anyone present could hear him without difficulty. “When you leave this one, you leave the Pantheon, and you never look back. Sigyn died here today; she has no more path to tread in this world. But… Elizabeth Snowe has parents who have been looking for her for almost ten years. It might be hard to repair things with them, but it might be possible. Or… maybe someone new can join the opera in Italy. Or whatever else you want. Just… no more of this. No more hurting people. If you can do that, then…” He’d have been right all along about her, in some sense. He didn’t need to say what would happen if she opposed his family again. Balthasar was kind, but he was not that kind of fool. This was the last chance she had, and he really, really, hoped she took it.
The hand she placed in his was thin, and chill, but her grip was strong as she wound her fingers around his wrist. He pulled her to her feet as she stood, and smiled. She looked at him for a long moment, her grip tightening on his hand, but then she released it, and let hers fall back to her side. “Thank you, Balthasar,” she murmured, “for always giving me more than I deserve. I…” She stood on her toes for a moment, whispering something nearly inaudible into his ear. He blinked, both eyebrows ascending, but recovered, opening his mouth to reply when she shook her head.
“I know. It’s fairly easy to see.” She paused, sighing, then made eye contact with Alarica and inclined her head. She turned back to him afterwards though. “Goodbye, Balthasar von Nacht. I hope… I hope you are happy.” With that, Elizabeth flickered and disappeared from view.
It was Balthasar’s turn to sigh, and he turned back to his cousin with a somewhat-tightened smile. Part of him was afraid that he’d just earned himself another three years of not existing to her, and this time for a reason he was quite aware of. “We should… we should go home.”
Most of the fighting was taking place in already-contested or ravaged areas, but of late, Malkior seemed to be having the Pantheon stay off the field, presumably to plan his final assault on Balthasar’s family. One way or another, everything would be decided in two months. There was, however, a report of a small army of lower-class vampires led by a single Panthon member, believed to be Thor. Jasper had decided to send Balthasar to deal with it, and he would have gone by himself, but Rica had also wanted to come, and he wasn’t going to deny her that if she really wanted it. He was learning quite quickly that there really wasn’t anything he would deny her if she asked for it, and so it was that the two of them arrived in northern Italy, Balthasar setting Rica down on her feet, as he’d flown them both here to be as efficient as possible.
Drawing his sword in one hand, he laid the other atop her crown, bending down to press a kiss to her temple. “Stay close, beloved.” He could do this. He knew he could. He wouldn’t have to push those he loved to arms’ length anymore when he used his power, just as his father had taught him to do. Not that he would necessarily need it for one Pantheon member, but it was better to be safe than sorry. They just needed to clear this infestation as quickly as possible and then they could go home. Though… in one sense, he already was home, because she was here. He wondered if she knew that. He’d be sure to mention it later.
Hefting the blade, Balthasar dropped into a sprint, slowing just a fraction so that Rica could run on his right, the two of them cleaving easily through anything in their path. Balthasar hurled compact gravity fields to crush large groups of them. He was pretty sure he could hear the sound of many more freezing in place on the other side. They cut a wide swath in the combatants, and it was hardly a surprise that they almost immediately had the attention of the Pantheon member on the field—a series of knives of all shapes and sizes went flying for them, but Balthasar forced them all to the ground with his gravity. He was perplexed to note that not one of them had been aimed for him.
He looked up, and sure enough, not ten feet away from them now was a face he knew very well. “Elizabeth…” he murmured, but she caught it, and her lips compressed into a thin line, something uncomfortable flashing over her features. She looked wan and drawn, weaker than she had been before, with dark circles under her eyes. Her hands curled into fists.
“It would be you…” she said in the barest whisper.
She could see why Leora liked flying with him so much. There was a surge of euphoria coursing through her veins as they made their way towards Italy. There was a horde of lower level vampires causing mayhem, and though Jasper had sent Balthasar to deal with it, Alarica was not going to miss out on some fun. Besides, she could use the extra training and Balthasar would be there. She would be okay, however; she knew she couldn't always depend on him to keep her safe. She had to keep herself safe too. Relying on others wasn't exactly her forte either.
Once they reached their destination, Balthasar set her down, a smile pulling at her lips when his hand laid atop her head, and he kissed her temple. She nodded in response, pulling out Ulrik and laying it out in front of her, as if to inspect it for any damage it had. Satisfied, the smile morphed into a smirk, her weapon hoisted behind her as she and Balthasar took off. She swung her blade, catching a few vampires here and there in their shoulders, managing to lop off one vampire's arm. She could hear the vampire snarl in a painful howl, and her brows furrowed. Usually, the thrill of a kill would send her adrenaline skyrocketing, causing her to move faster and heave through more of them.
But something was holding her back. She didn't know what it was, or why it was even there, however; she did not think of it any longer as she continued to cut down the vampires in her way. A few of them had the unfortunate incident to be frozen in place as she heaved through their frozen forms, watching as their dust became entrapped inside the ice. She sighed heavily, something that was a bit unlike her. She usually enjoyed a good battle, however; as of late, she had found herself wondering what it would be like once the war was over. Once it was all over. What would she do? What would they do?
The only life she had ever known was the one of war, nothing of peace even if her parents and family tried so hard to provide it. War was all she knew. Could she really change that when it was over? Glancing over, she spotted the one person who could make it seem so possible: a peaceful life. A life without death, without war, where no one cried over the loss of a loved one or mourned the death of a family member. She would do whatever she could to keep him safe, to keep that thought, that feeling alive. So, it, perhaps, shouldn't have startled her so much when that scent fluttered into her nose.
The scent of that creature who thought to take Balthasar away from her. Her hands clutched tightly against Ulrik, her lips pulled back into a snarl as she bared her fangs at Elizabeth. The girl sent every hair on Alarica's body into shock mode, causing them to stand up along the back of her neck and her arms. She didn't like this girl, after everything she did to her Balthasar, Alarica wanted nothing more than to rip the girl's head off. Whether or not she would succeed was still largely a factor she wasn't considering at the moment. She did, however, catch the end of Elizabeth's statement.
"You sound a bit disappointed," she stated, heaving Ulrik on her back as she placed a hand on her hip, popping it out in the process. "Though I will admit, seeing you isn't exactly the most pleasant thing on my taste buds right now," she spoke, glancing at her free hand as she inspected it, cleaning out the pieces of dirt that somehow managed to lodge themselves into her fingernails.
For a long moment, Sigyn said nothing in response, simply locking eyes with Balthasar, who looked indecisive. He didn’t want to kill her. He wasn’t sure he could. She had been his friend, once, and he really believed that it hadn’t been false. It was true that he hadn’t loved her, he could see that now, with the clarity afforded to him by knowing what it was really like to love someone, but he’d liked her. She was funny, and interesting, and he wondered if she’d made up the part about wanting to be in the opera. He still thought she’d do really well at that, if she could just leave these battlefields and this hate behind her.
He was a bit taken aback by Rica’s apparent hostility, and for a moment, the thought flickered over his mind that it might be some kind of jealousy, but it disappeared as fast as it had come. Nobody had ever been jealous over him in his life, and he doubted someone like Rica would even think that way in the first place. More likely, it was just because she was Pantheon, and they had to learn to dislike their enemies in order to be able to kill them. It was something he had never quite mastered—no matter how hard he tried, Balthasar could not bring himself to hate. It might have been easier for him, if he could, but it just wasn’t part of his makeup.
He’d parted his lips to speak, to implore her once more to leave, but she spoke to cut him off. “Don't,” she said suddenly, shaking her head. It was only then that he’d noticed she cut her hair. It fluttered now around her chin, and her manner of dress also was plainer than it had been, but she was wearing black. “Don’t tell me I can still live in your world, Balthasar, because I can’t. I lost that right when I left you bleeding instead of taking my chances with you.” She’d lost more than just that—she could read it in the way they stood beside each other, attenuated to the presence of the other in some way that was deep and vital and strong. In the way his eyes would flicker to her sporadically, as if to reassure himself that she was there.
“I was expecting your father, honestly. It’s why I’m here.” Her lips twitched, but she could not manage a smile. “I came to die, and I was hoping he would make it quick. But… perhaps this is better. Could… could you…?” She was not all that surprised to note that he looked horrified by the very idea. He was such a gentle person, really; it was ironic that it was he who’d been gifted with such an ability to destroy. Or maybe… maybe that was how it was supposed to be, and it was Malkior who was unsuited to his power. The thought of the King made her shudder. Sigyn had once entertained thoughts of being Queen, but… she was glad she wasn’t, if that man was King.
Sighing softly, she flicked her glance between the two of them. “I couldn’t make you hate me enough before… but I think I might be able to now.” A ring of daggers materialized around her, like rows of predatory teeth, and she drove them for the space between Balthasar and Alarica, forcing them to separate, and then she split them, sending half flying point-blank for each. They were just as fast as she was, and it would be no simple thing to dodge them that close.
Every word she spoke sent another spark of anger through Alarica, her blood feeling as if it were on fire. But, perhaps, if Elizabeth had stayed, would she have been able to confess to Balthasar? To tell him that she had loved him for so long? Would he have eventually grown to love her? Her last few words, however, caught Alarica completely off guard. She was here...to die? She would have rose a brow at the Pantheon member, probably called her insane, but then again most members were. Her gaze flickered towards Balthasar when Sigyn asked if he could, perhaps, kill her, but she knew her cousin. He wouldn't be able to, and that thought caused her brows to furrow together.
If the girl wanted to die so badly, then Alarica would oblige her. And it was with that thought in mind that Alarica wanted to charge the girl, but found herself unable to. She was separated from Balthasar by a row of knives, each one flying at a speed that Alarica might have had trouble evading at one point in her life, however; training with those adept in flexibility, stamina, and speed, gave her an extra boost to her own speed. Though it wasn't much, she was still able to evade the knives that flew at her, raising Ulrik so that he blocked the rest of the knives.
"If you want to die so badly, then allow me to oblige you," she snarled through her teeth. She didn't like this girl, she never did, and if she wanted to die so badly, then Alarica would gladly grant her wish. She charged Sigyn, Ulrik pointed straight for her in the process.
The exchange that followed was short, brutal, and bloody. Bathasar was prevented from interfering because of a large pocket of level E’s that had decided to try and flank Rica. He wasn’t going to allow that, and though it was a matter of less than thirty seconds to crush them all, it was likewise a matter of that little time for several things to have happened to the two very quick females. Rica was sporting several new cuts, and the smell of her blood was calling to that darker part of him, demanding that he destroy the one responsible. He ignored it. He may have that part of himself in hand now, may have accepted it to some degree, but that did not mean he bowed to it.
Sigyn, however, had fallen hard, and something like resignation crept into her expression. She wasn’t going to even attempt to dodge the deathblow. Rica raised Ulrik, and the gunblade found a new sheath—in Balthasar’s chest.
He’d moved as quickly as his legs could carry him, placing himself between the two, and felt the cold press of steel as the blow aimed for the prone woman instead found the spot just beneath his sternum. Balthasar gritted his teeth against the sensation of being essentially stabbed in the left lung, and placed his bare hands on the blade, heedless of the way it cut into his fingers. His pain was irrelevant—his father did worse to him than this, in practice, and he returned almost as much. Slowly, he eased the sword out of his body, taking a step backwards to slide it back and away. He smiled gently at Rica even as the scent of fresh air, pine forest, and something darkly-intoxicating filled the air. It was his blood, he knew, but it was by and large irrelevant.
“I’m sorry, Rica,” he said, still smiling, and the blade slid free at last, coated in the thick crimson fluid that represented his life for as long as he was yet flesh. “Please don’t kill her. I know she’s done bad things, but she was my friend, and she was kind to me. More than that…” he reached for one of his cousin’s slender hands, and took it in his own. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but his wounds were already healing themselves. “These hands should not kill for my sake.” Whether it was just that Elizabeth was Pantheon or for some other reason, he knew it had something to do with him, and it sat ill with him. Balthasar knew that killing was sometimes necessary, but he had never liked the idea of anyone killing or dying because of him. If he could prevent that, then he owed it to them both to do so.
Something lurched in her chest. Her eyes went wide, and Alarica swore she couldn't breathe. His blood filled her senses and the sudden realization hit her like a big rig. She had stabbed him. She had stabbed him. But why? She was aiming for Sigyn. When had he appeared? Why would he throw himself in front to save her? Something warm stung the back of her eyes as she stumbled backwards, unable to move even as he apologized to her, grabbing her hand into his. Her eyes narrowed, confusion still plaguing the light behind them as he spoke.
She was his friend, she was kind to him. He knew she did bad things, and yet here he was saving her. Alarica jerked her hand away from Balthasar, stepping away from him as she took a few steps back. "No, Balthasar. She deserves it, she deserves what is due to her," she spoke, her words dangerously low and almost venomous. "And it's not just your sake. She almost killed Emrys, me," she continued, remembering the last encounter they had with Sigyn.
The girl had been intent on killing her, and had Emrys not intervened, Alarica would be dead. "I would be dead if it wasn't for Emrys, and he almost died because of her. I cannot forgive her for that. You cannot expect me to forgive her for that. Friend or not, she is...," she continued, pausing as her voice wavered between sadness and anger. Her eyes softened a bit as she noted Balthasar's expression, turning towards Sigyn and glaring at the girl. But she couldn't force herself to fully glare.
Alarica wrapped her arms around herself, glancing away from Balthasar and Sigyn. Even now, she still felt so pathetic. How could she ever be with someone like Balthasar, and still be this way? She didn't deserve him, she didn't. And that truth was painful, stabbing at her like the blade that ran through him moments ago. She couldn't do this, she couldn't do this. As much as she wanted to kill Sigyn, she couldn't. And he was her reason why. "I'm sorry, Balthasar," she whispered, turning her back to him as she walked a few feet away. She would leave him to deal with Sigyn. When they returned home, she would have to let him go. For her sake, and his.
He knew. He’d always known that, he just… this was a war, and they’d been on opposite sides of it from the beginning. Elizabeth had had no more choice about fighting them than they had about fighting her. But here, here there was a choice. And Balthasar knew that if the world was ever going to heal from all the damage that had been done, they would need to be able to look people in the eye who had been their enemies and forgive them. The desire for power, for dominion, and an inexplicable apathy for the lives of others had been what his great-grandfather used to start this war. It could not be ended the same way. Vengeance wouldn’t end it, either. They had to stop the cycle somewhere, and if it had to be with him, then so be it. He would take the flak from both sides for putting himself in between them, however much it hurt.
And it did hurt, to see her look at him like that, to feel her pull away from him as she did. “Rica…” but he didn’t know how to end the sentence, and she was stepping back, so he shook his head sorrowfully and turned behind him. Elizabeth was still on the ground, and he noted with a small wince that she appeared to have been splashed in no small amount of his blood. Her face was stricken, pale, her red-brown eyes wide in her face, and her breathing shallow. Frowning, he crouched beside her. There was a smear of blood on her face, and from the scent of it, it wasn’t his, but Rica’s. He had to stop the frown from deepening. It was true that forgiveness was not easy, but he believed that in time, the wounds would heal. That was, after all, the nature of wounds. As long as they weren’t infected, poisoned by hate, they healed.
He looked at her for a moment, and her breathing seemed to steady a little when she recognized that it was him and he was not going to hurt her, but he was somewhat taken aback when her eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t really seem to get this right, could he? What if, in trying to heal things, he was only making them worse? A muscle in Balthasar’s jaw ticked. He had to believe he was doing this right. Because he didn’t know what else to do. Gentling his expression as much as he could, he extended an arm.
“No more battlefields, Elizabeth,” he said quietly, though anyone present could hear him without difficulty. “When you leave this one, you leave the Pantheon, and you never look back. Sigyn died here today; she has no more path to tread in this world. But… Elizabeth Snowe has parents who have been looking for her for almost ten years. It might be hard to repair things with them, but it might be possible. Or… maybe someone new can join the opera in Italy. Or whatever else you want. Just… no more of this. No more hurting people. If you can do that, then…” He’d have been right all along about her, in some sense. He didn’t need to say what would happen if she opposed his family again. Balthasar was kind, but he was not that kind of fool. This was the last chance she had, and he really, really, hoped she took it.
The hand she placed in his was thin, and chill, but her grip was strong as she wound her fingers around his wrist. He pulled her to her feet as she stood, and smiled. She looked at him for a long moment, her grip tightening on his hand, but then she released it, and let hers fall back to her side. “Thank you, Balthasar,” she murmured, “for always giving me more than I deserve. I…” She stood on her toes for a moment, whispering something nearly inaudible into his ear. He blinked, both eyebrows ascending, but recovered, opening his mouth to reply when she shook her head.
“I know. It’s fairly easy to see.” She paused, sighing, then made eye contact with Alarica and inclined her head. She turned back to him afterwards though. “Goodbye, Balthasar von Nacht. I hope… I hope you are happy.” With that, Elizabeth flickered and disappeared from view.
It was Balthasar’s turn to sigh, and he turned back to his cousin with a somewhat-tightened smile. Part of him was afraid that he’d just earned himself another three years of not existing to her, and this time for a reason he was quite aware of. “We should… we should go home.”
Three weeks.
She wasn't planning on staying away from him this long, however; she needed time to clear her thoughts. She needed to collect herself, her emotions, her thoughts, her self. She still planned on going through with this. She had to. It wasn't fair to him, to her, to any of them. She wanted to desperately to be like him, to be able to forgive, to show mercy to those who had wronged her family, who wronged her, him. But there was something that prevented her from doing so. She just couldn't. She sighed, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed as she placed her bare feet upon the cold floor.
Pushing herself off of the bed, she glanced at Angelus, watching as the familiar shook his head, causing her to frown. He had tried to sway her from this course, to show her that it was okay to feel as she had, but he couldn't convince her. There was a part of him that was losing faith in his master's mentality, however; he had a spark of hope still. If he couldn't reach her, then perhaps there was just one who might. If he couldn't reach her...Angelus didn't want to think of what would become of his master. Instead, he watched as she left, heading for the door and disappeared from sight.
"I hope you can save her," he muttered, curling up on his bed as he slumbered. Alarica wandered through the home, ignoring the other members of her family as she tried to go around them. She managed to evade them, and found herself wandering the yard, following a scent she was all too familiar with. She followed it deep into the woods, noticing the pressure increasing as she grew closer to where he was. It was an effect of his power and his father's. Before, it would have been painful just to be so close to them, however; over the years they had both managed to control it. She sighed, watching as her uncle and cousin sparred.
"Uncle," she regarded her uncle as her eyes never left Balthasar's form. She smiled softly towards him, one that wasn't forced nor exactly vibrant. It was just there. "May I have a word with Balthasar?" she questioned, still keeping her gaze locked on said male.
The impacts they were hitting one another with would probably have leveled buildings, sending shockwaves of force into the environment that occasionally damaged nearby tree, those mostly from Balthasar. They were working on containing the force—all of it—into the blows themselves, and had trained closer to the house than before to force the necessity of this. It was a risk, but they were both motivated, more than anything else, by the desire to protect that which they held dear, and it was only this that enabled father and son to damage each other as they did. The left side of Balthasar’s ribcage caved in when he got distracted by a new presence entering the area, but before his father could so much as remind him of it, he was retaliating, moving past the pain of that blow and following up with a brutal flurry of his fists. Weapons, even those made of one metal, were useless for this kind of training, because they would simply break under the force with which they were swung.
Balthasar had been especially aggressive over the past three weeks, and while in one sense it was good for his training, he was also distracted, and Jasper was about to call a halt to the session anyway when Alarica appeared, causing both to halt dead in their motions, the son’s fist stopping an inch from the hand his father had raised to catch it. Jazz’s eyes faded first, from the iced-over white they were with the use of his power to their usual radiant silver, and he flickered his glance between his niece and his son, before nodding slightly. “You may,” he replied, smiling softly, but saying nothing else before he walked in the direction she’d come from, disappearing into the tree line.
It took a couple more seconds for Balthasar to deactivate his powers, the black of his eyes slowly fading out. His shattered ribs rearranged themselves with no difficulty, and he blinked a few times to make sure his vision was back to normal. Something about the way she was looking at him—it made his stomach twist uncomfortably. That wasn’t the smile he knew… he wondered if he should be grateful she was finally here at all or worried that she was going to say something he really wouldn’t like. He settled on both, taking a few cautious steps so that he was standing in front of her. He wanted to kiss her, to hold her, for things to be as they had been before that battle three weeks ago, but he wasn’t sure if that would be welcome right now, and so he refrained from doing either. In fact, much as he wanted to, he didn't touch her at all.
“Rica?” He inflected her name as a question, not because he doubted who was before him, but because he didn't understand a lot of things about where she stood right now. With him, with the war, with herself… there was a lot, perhaps, to talk about. He’d kept his promise though. He may have given her her space, but every morning, she’d awoken to a new note under her door. Always short, but always a reminder of some quality of hers that he found wonderful. Balthasar was a man of his word, after all, and he’d told her he would remind her every day.
She nodded towards her uncle, watching as he left before turning her attention back to Balthasar. Her smile faded from her lips, pursing them into a fine line as she regarded him silently. She wanted to embrace him, to forget the battle that had happened three weeks ago, but she couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, the images played over in her mind, plagued her dreams like a sick horror show that was stuck on repeat. She tried to push stop, but they never would. She sighed deeply, rubbing her arm as she tried to think of the words she wanted to say. She had rehearsed them, almost, but couldn't seem to form them now.
"Hi...Balthasar," she muttered, trying to look him in the eye but failing to do so. She took a deep breath, holding it for five seconds before releasing. "I...I can't do this, Balthasar," she finally spoke, her words conveying but what she meant exactly. "I love you, I really do, I just...," just what? Just couldn't be in the same world as he? A world where forgiveness and mercy came easily? Why was this so much harder than it had to be? She should just say what she wanted, needed to say and be done with it. She shook her head and tried again.
"I'm sorry, but this...whatever it is, was...it can't continue this way. I can't do what you do. And you deserve someone who can. I tried. I really have, to believe the words you've said, to believe that they were really the person I am, could be, but I just can't. I am not that person, and I never will be," she finally spoke, her words growing a bit stronger as she said them, almost as if she believed them to be true. And she did. She believed it with everything she was. "I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that person you believe me to be," she whispered, shaking her head softly.
He was honestly having difficulty processing this. Whatever he’d expected—lingering anger at him for letting Elizabeth go, perhaps more uncertainty regarding herself—it was not this. She wasn’t really… “You… you don't want to be with me anymore.” It was said flatly, as though all the emotion had been stolen from him by the sheer effort of processing what was said. She said she loved him, but she didn’t want to be with him. She wasn’t the person he thought she was. She didn’t want to be what he thought she was. Somehow, that struck him the hardest. She didn’t want to be? But… she already was.
“But… you don’t have to be anything, Rica. I don't love you because you have some magical list of traits, or because of some idea I have of you.” Had it seemed that way, because of the way he’d said it? He needed to clear that up. “You’re not wonderful because of the words that apply to you. Those words are wonderful because they apply to you. And if they don’t, then that’s fine. You don’t… I never… don’t feel like you have to change for me, or be anything in particular. I know I’m a big idiot, but I see you, Rica, I really think I do. And I know you’re not perfect. I’m not perfect, either—no matter how hard I work or how much I try. But you’re still perfect to me, just as you are.” He swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice from thickening and largely failing.
“And you always will be.” His hands clenched into fists at his side, but still he kept himself from reaching out for her, because if she didn’t want him to, he would respect that. And it sounded a lot like she really didn’t want him to. He could feel that not all of himself was in agreement about this—his darkness was stirring again. It was territorial, and it had pride. He was territorial, and he had pride. He just suppressed these things because they were not what he needed to be, to achieve the things his whole family was working so hard for.
It hurt. From the way he said it, it caused her heart to ache. She wanted to take back the words she said, to make them untrue, but she couldn't, and she wouldn't. She meant everything she said. It's not that she didn't want to be with him. Gods knew she did, but she couldn't be with him. And he was wrong, so very wrong. He was perfect, to her. He was everything she couldn't hope to be, no matter how hard she tried or desperately wanted to be. He was everything she wanted and more. But she couldn't let this deter her from her decision. She had made it for her sake, and his. It would hurt. It would be painful in the long run, and hopefully, in time, he would be able to find someone who could be what he deserved.
"No, I don't," she lied to herself, pausing in her words. She had to swallow the lump that grew in her throat as she finally managed to meet his gaze. "But that's where you are wrong. I can't be who I am, and still be expected to be by your side. It's not that I don't want to be that person for you, because I really wish I could," she continued, pausing once again to collect herself. "I am not a wonderful person, Balthasar. I still cannot see what it is that makes you think so. I do not regret this decision, though. I...I really do love you, please don't think otherwise," she finished, walking a bit closer to him so that she could lay her hand on his cheek.
She placed the other one on his other cheek and lifted his head so that she was staring directly into his eyes, her own filled with determination. "I hope that one of these days that you find that person who is wonderful, who can love you as much as I do, and will be this perfect to you. You deserve that much because you are a wonderful person. You are kind, forgiving, and merciful. Yes, you're an idiot, but that's just who you are. I wouldn't change that for anyone, and anyone else would be a fool to try and change you. I hope you can forgive me for this," she whispered out the last sentence and let her hands fall to her sides. She was shaking slightly, a light tremor running through her, but she had to resist it. She had to.
She was lying. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. Some part of him knew it. It was evident in the way her hands were against his face, the tone of her voice. She wanted him, and he wanted to be with her too, so what was the problem, really? He didn’t understand how it was that she could just push him away like this. And for what, some imagined difference in their goodness. Balthasar didn’t feel very good right now, causing her pain as he almost certainly was. He was also starting to get a little angry at this persistence of hers. Did she think to know him better than he knew himself, to know better than he did what was good for him? To know what kind of person he really was? Because the kind of person that he really was rose from somewhere under his skin and darkened his eyes when he replied.
“Then what?” he said, and his voice was low, just a fraction chiller than his usual warmth. “If I wasn’t those things, would you have me? If I’d killed her, would you have me? I don’t think you understand me at all, Rica. You have no idea just how far I’d go for you, do you? Just how low I’d sink if you asked it of me? So let me be clear.” He moved suddenly, like a predatory animal of some kind, pressing her back up against the nearest tree with nothing more than an index finger on her sternum. He followed, bracing his hands on either side of her head and looking down at her with narrowed eyes, darkly-glimmering. He leaned down, so that there was only a hairsbreadth of space between their lips, but he did not close it. “Let me be clear,” he repeated, the words little more than a shape given to the breath that left him, so soft were they.
“If you had asked me then, I would have slain her. If you asked me now, I would track her down and do the same. I would give up every ounce of kindness or mercy or forgiveness, for you. Not because I don’t value them, but because I value you more.” he pulled back slightly, moving one of his hands and using the index digit to trace the line of her lower lip. “Command me, and I will tear every last one of them apart, right now. Tell me to, and I will go to my own death, alone and unprepared, by storming that castle where my ancestor lies. Say that you do not want me one more time, and I will leave you.” He lowered his hand and used it to take her by the chin. Deliberately, he kissed her, the action caught between tender and desperate. It was brief, though, and when he pulled away, he shook his head faintly. “But I think we both know that’s not what you really want. Just say the words, Rica. For I am at your mercy, and only yours.”
"That's not fair, Balthasar, and you know it," she spoke, ignoring the way her heartbeat picked up its pace when he trapped her by the tree. She ignored the shiver that went down her back when his finger traced her lip, and she ignored the sudden urge to just wrap her arms around him. This...wasn't the Balthasar she knew, if the way his eyes darkened to the way he spoke was any indication. Her lips pursed into a fine line, searching his face for something, but it was all taken away with his kiss. It was brief, but she could feel the emotion behind it. She shook her head when he spoke to her. She didn't want to command anything of him, least of all to send him to his death.
That would kill her, knowing it was she that had sent him to his death because she didn't want him. She had always wanted him, ever since she could remember. It was he that she could see in her future, if she even had one, and it was he that she had loved, and always would. Her brows furrowed, her eyes narrowing at his words. It brought to surface the part of her that had never been afraid to say what was on her mind, to be blunt, honest, and truthful. It was who she was, and he needed to know what she had to say.
"Those things do not matter to me. Even if you were none of those things, I would still want you. I would still have you. What I want, what I will always want, is you. I don't want to command you, I just want to love you," she spoke, her voice stronger than it had started out to be. "I don't want you to go. I want you to stay here, with me. I do not want you going anywhere without me," she continued, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him back towards her, pressing her lips to his in a fierce, demanding kiss.
He hadn’t meant to present it as though his death or her capitulation were the only options here, though… well, he would be in a very sorry state indeed if she had sent him away. What he had been trying to get across was only that he would do anything she asked of him, however dangerous, however against what he generally took to be his nature. Because this kind of devotion was also in his nature, and more than anyone or anything else, he was devoted to her. He watched the expressions play over her face, and for a moment, even the darkest part of his nature feared that he had said too much, that he had made his weakness abundantly clear, and was about to take a blow much more painful than the one she had dealt him three weeks ago.
When she kissed him, though, he smiled, answering the latent demand with that same unbending devotion. Whatever she wanted, he would give. He knew himself to be well capable of it, and so it was almost simple to just do so. He moved closer, bracing his forearm rather than his hand on the smooth bark of the tree, and in doing so, eliminated the rest of the space between them, moving his free hand back into her hair. Gradually, he shifted the tenor of the kiss, from something heated and demanding to something more languid, drugging, slow. If it were possible to be drunk on the presence, on the taste, of another person, he was drunk on her—largely oblivious to his surroundings or really anything at all that wasn’t Rica.
When the need to breathe became overwhelming, he pulled back slightly. “If that’s what you want,” he said, nuzzling against the crook of her neck, “then speak to me no more of what I deserve or what you cannot be. I don’t care what I deserve, or what you think you deserve, or whether some other person will think this is wrong somehow. All I care about is you.” The words were murmured low, but it would be impossible for her not to notice the way he shook, just a little, with some emotion as yet still contained. He’d been so afraid, when she’d said those words. Afraid that she was just going to turn her back on him and walk away forever. He might, might have been able to deal with that the first time he gave her the chance, when he wasn’t sure she loved him the way he loved her, but… he couldn’t do it now. When he wasn’t looking, she’d become everything he wanted to see in the first place.
“If you really want me, Rica, then please. Just have me. I can’t do this tightrope walk anymore, where I don’t know if you’ll let yourself be with me tomorrow. It’s killing me.”
"It's what I want, what I'll always want," she spoke, a bit out of breath, but spoke nonetheless with truth. "I'm sorry, I did this to you. I won't make you do anything anymore. I won't cause you to hurt anymore," she spoke, running her fingers through his hair in the process, allowing the feeling of the softness to fill her thoughts as her eyes were still glazed over. She had not known that she had done that to him, caused him to feel he was walking on a tightrope, however; she was sorry that she had. She hadn't meant for him to feel that way, and even though she still felt that she didn't deserve him, she wouldn't make him feel that way any more. If it took the rest of their lives for her to finally see what he saw, then so be it. She would do so for his sake.
There was, however odd its placement was, one thing still plaguing her thoughts. It didn't matter. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter, but it still irked her that it bothered her. It shouldn't bother her in the way it had, because they had been together for a while. It was only natural if it were true, for a relationship such as that, however; she still couldn't help the feeling that bubbled within her. If it was true, then she could live with that. If it wasn't true, all the better. She blinked slowly, lowering her head just a bit and pulling back so that she was looking at him. She still wasn't sure she should ask the question, but it was something she needed to know.
"I...know this is none of my business but...I just," she started, pursing her lips a bit as she pouted. How could she say this without sounding too jealous about it? "Elizabeth said something...that day she hurt Emrys, and it's been bugging me. I know it shouldn't, because if you did, then that is between you and her, but," she continued, her voice straining just a bit as she struggled with the words she was looking for. "Did...did you, um, did," she tried again, still struggling with the words she was trying to say as her face turned a light shade that complimented her eyes. She just hoped what she was trying to say would actually reach him.
Slowly, deliberately, Balthasar relaxed, easing the tension in his shoulders. His bearing regained some of its surety, and he let his eyes fall closed, exhaling a heavy breath when she moved her hands through his hair. It was really weird, maybe, but he went a little weak at the knees when she did that. The hand that was in her own hair receded slightly, so that he was holding the side of her face, brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. His smile was small, but genuine. It wasn’t true that everything was fixed; he knew her self-esteem issues ran deeper than that. But as long as he knew she wouldn’t let them push her away from him anymore, he could help her. Wanted to help her.
The next question, though, furrowed his brow in confusion. Elizabeth had said something about him to her? It took him a few seconds, but when the blush spread over her cheeks like a rose-colored stain, his eyes widened, and he blinked down at her, tripping over his response as his own face gained a color to match. “What? She said… n-no, Rica, we never… uh…” he cleared his throat awkwardly—this was maybe not the best time for his thoughts to be turned in such a direction, when they were here by themselves and she looked like that and there was really no space in between them at all. Oh gods, he needed to… right.
Swallowing, Balthasar took half a step back, sucking in a breath mostly for balance. Now that the thoughts were there, it was hard to look at her and not have them, but he forced himself to clarify, because the last thing this needed was more confusion and uncertainty. “No. I didn’t sleep with Elizabeth. I, uh… I wasn’t sure I loved her, and I didn’t want to if I couldn’t be certain of that. And I didn’t love her, really, not like I love you.” The implication of that statement set in, and Balthasar went from pink to scarlet. “Which is not to say that we have to, um… you know. Just…” he scrubbed his hands up and back down his face, shaking his head ruefully. He really was hopeless.
That...was unexpected to say the least. She honestly did not expect him to answer the way he had, and quiet honestly, a sense of relief washed over her. It wasn't true. Not that she would have cared if it was, but to know that it wasn't true, sent a sense of relief through her. A slow smile spread across her lips as she shook her own head, closing her eyes briefly before opening them in time to see Balthasar scrubbing his hands upon his face. A smirk pulled at her lips as he had stepped away, and she wasn't so inclined to let it end there. His expressions were amusing, and she wanted to see just how many more she could elicit from him. She was glad though, that Sigyn had been lying, which meant this would be even more entertaining.
Slowly, she moved towards him, her hand stretched out towards him before allowing her fingers to gently caress his chest, crawling in gentle circles as she grabbed his hand with her free one. She laced her fingers with his, bringing his hand over her shoulder. "You're right," she spoke, her voice low, sultry, yet teasing. "We don't have to," she continued, placing her face close to his ear as she kissed just under his earlobe, trailing soft kisses along his jawline before nipping at his lower lip. He was right, though. They didn't have to do anything, but she wasn't going to lie and say she wasn't going to have a little bit of fun with it.
"But...then again," she continued, leaning in close so that their lips were just a hairsbreadth away from each other, the warmth of his breath mixing with hers. "It is a thought to entertain," she spoke, pressing her lips softly against his, teasing in every sense before she pulled back just as quickly, the smirk still playing on her lips as she stood a few feet away from him.
Balthasar swallowed past the sudden new lump in his throat, attempting and failing to speak. It really wasn’t fair, he decided, the things she could do to him. It was an action he repeated when she drew his hand over to her shoulder. It was such a funny thing to feel, because he knew exactly how strong she really was, but… his hands felt oversized when they held her, and clumsy rather than graceful as he knew he could be. She felt breakable under his fingers, and it settled a strange kind of weight on his heart. A feeling of certainty more than anything else, the idea that protecting her, which something she could do just fine herself on most days, was something he nevertheless wanted to devote himself to. He’d always felt that instinct towards her, from the time she was a little snow-haired child causing mayhem with her brother to now, when she was not at all a child anymore, but the woman he loved.
He wondered for a moment if this was how his father felt about his mother. The parallels were not lost on him, and he supposed that, if this really was how he felt, he could understand how he’d managed everything he did for a hundred years and still had the time to be a husband and father. There was no forgetting someone you loved this much, no matter how important everything else was. Balthasar sucked in a breath when she planted her lips beneath his ear, succeeding in regulating his breathing but not his heartbeat as she nibbled his lip. He’d moved to close the distance, that tiny hairsbreadth, between them, but she moved back even as he went forward, his eyes positively metallic with desire, the blue only the faintest hint at the edges of silver.
“Tease,” he accused in a rumbling baritone, spearing a hand into the hair at the back of her head and using his palm to pull her close. As with everything else he did, his response was quite direct—he kissed her with force and feeling, and it was his turn to be demanding about it. That dark part of him was threaded in these feelings, but not in the same way it usually was. It left him with the uncanny desire to devour everything she was, to make her feel the strength of his emotions, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. It was almost like being thirsty, but not quite that. It was more as he imagined hunger must be, for those who needed to consume such substances. The only thing he was interested in consuming was her, but the metaphor worked well enough.
If she hadn't been caught off guard to his reaction, she would have laughed. To know that she could have elicited this kind of reaction, she would have done it sooner. She felt weak in her knees, and had he not been holding her per se, she probably would have let them buckle beneath her. She smiled against his lips, allowing him to do as he pleased, after all, she too, wasn't going to deny him anything he wanted. He could, with just a single word, command her to do anything he desired. Even without subjugating her, she would do it, because she loved him. And it was an odd feeling to finally realize just how much she did. Though she still had her issues to resolve, to fix, she wouldn't allow them to judge her decisions any longer that concerned him, them.
"Tease? No, I think the word you are looking for is instigator," she replied, pulling away from his kiss as to allow her lungs the much needed air they were craving. Though, honestly, she wouldn't have minded either way. She could die that way, and still be happy to have done so. She chuckled lightly at her own words and laced her fingers in his hair again, twirling a piece between her fingers. Never in her dreams, could she have imagined anything else. She had the one she loved in her arms, returning that love even after she had tried so hard to push him away. She had tried so hard, and yet here he was still. Perhaps, there was something more at work here, that kept her from truly leaving him, from him leaving her.
Whatever it was, she'd be forever grateful to that something, because she was in love, loved, and couldn't think of anything better than this. "I love you, Balthasar. No matter what, I love you, only you, and always just you," she spoke, her voice low. "Whatever may come our way, whatever happens in the little time we have left to prepare, I love you. I'll prove it to you every day, every minute, every hour, we are together," she continued, kissing him after every word she spoke. "In every way possible, I will prove it to you," she continued, leaning her forehead against his, trying to regulate the fast thrumming of her heartbeat.
She would. In any and every way she could think of, she would prove to him that she loved him. She wouldn't push him away any more. She wouldn't try and make him leave her, nor would she try and make herself believe that she wasn't any good for him. She might have still felt that way, however; she wasn't going to fool herself into believing it. If he believed her to be good enough for him, that was all that mattered. Whatever he believed was true, was what mattered, because he was all that mattered. "You need only to command it of me, and I will do it," she repeated his words because they were true for her as well. Whatever he desired of her, whatever he asked her to do, she would do it in less than a heartbeat, because she loved him.
The look he gave her was one of heartstopping devotion. He had always been lucky enough to have people in his life who mattered to him, who loved him, and who were irreplaceable. But none of that was anything like this and it was at once so strange and so wonderful to him that he could only smile. “Then I guess we’re both hopeless,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around her and just holding her to him for a while. “I’m such a fool for you, Rica, I really am.” But he didn’t mind it. He’d happily be a fool for her for the rest of their lives. “When this is over, we’ll go wherever you want, do whatever you decide to do. We’ll build this world back up, better than it used to be, and then the rest of forever is open to us. But for now…”
He paused, tilting her shin up so he could make eye contact with her. The blush that had faded crept back up onto his cheeks, just a little, but next to the brightness of her eyes, it was nothing at all. “I think… I would like to finish what was instigated.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face, but the character of it had changed, fading until it was more a half-smirk than anything, and he leaned down again, stopping just short of brushing her nose with his. “If you’d be amenable to the suggestion.”
"Hopeless fools," she agreed, sighing in content as he held her to him. She opened her eyes, when she had closed them was a mystery to her, and allowed a single brow to ascend her forehead. A smirk pulled at her lips as he spoke, their noses touching in the lightest way, until it bloomed into a full smile. It was the smile that she had came to wear upon her face for him, and only him, and she cradled his face with her hands. If she had the common sense to laugh, she was sorely lacking it now. "Well, I couldn't say no even if I wanted to, though I think it is rather bold to be out in the open like this," she replied, but she didn't care enough to care. She loved him, and she had said she would prove it to him. And what started out as nothing but a tease, turned into a showcase of desire, passion, but most of all, love.
She wasn't planning on staying away from him this long, however; she needed time to clear her thoughts. She needed to collect herself, her emotions, her thoughts, her self. She still planned on going through with this. She had to. It wasn't fair to him, to her, to any of them. She wanted to desperately to be like him, to be able to forgive, to show mercy to those who had wronged her family, who wronged her, him. But there was something that prevented her from doing so. She just couldn't. She sighed, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed as she placed her bare feet upon the cold floor.
Pushing herself off of the bed, she glanced at Angelus, watching as the familiar shook his head, causing her to frown. He had tried to sway her from this course, to show her that it was okay to feel as she had, but he couldn't convince her. There was a part of him that was losing faith in his master's mentality, however; he had a spark of hope still. If he couldn't reach her, then perhaps there was just one who might. If he couldn't reach her...Angelus didn't want to think of what would become of his master. Instead, he watched as she left, heading for the door and disappeared from sight.
"I hope you can save her," he muttered, curling up on his bed as he slumbered. Alarica wandered through the home, ignoring the other members of her family as she tried to go around them. She managed to evade them, and found herself wandering the yard, following a scent she was all too familiar with. She followed it deep into the woods, noticing the pressure increasing as she grew closer to where he was. It was an effect of his power and his father's. Before, it would have been painful just to be so close to them, however; over the years they had both managed to control it. She sighed, watching as her uncle and cousin sparred.
"Uncle," she regarded her uncle as her eyes never left Balthasar's form. She smiled softly towards him, one that wasn't forced nor exactly vibrant. It was just there. "May I have a word with Balthasar?" she questioned, still keeping her gaze locked on said male.
The impacts they were hitting one another with would probably have leveled buildings, sending shockwaves of force into the environment that occasionally damaged nearby tree, those mostly from Balthasar. They were working on containing the force—all of it—into the blows themselves, and had trained closer to the house than before to force the necessity of this. It was a risk, but they were both motivated, more than anything else, by the desire to protect that which they held dear, and it was only this that enabled father and son to damage each other as they did. The left side of Balthasar’s ribcage caved in when he got distracted by a new presence entering the area, but before his father could so much as remind him of it, he was retaliating, moving past the pain of that blow and following up with a brutal flurry of his fists. Weapons, even those made of one metal, were useless for this kind of training, because they would simply break under the force with which they were swung.
Balthasar had been especially aggressive over the past three weeks, and while in one sense it was good for his training, he was also distracted, and Jasper was about to call a halt to the session anyway when Alarica appeared, causing both to halt dead in their motions, the son’s fist stopping an inch from the hand his father had raised to catch it. Jazz’s eyes faded first, from the iced-over white they were with the use of his power to their usual radiant silver, and he flickered his glance between his niece and his son, before nodding slightly. “You may,” he replied, smiling softly, but saying nothing else before he walked in the direction she’d come from, disappearing into the tree line.
It took a couple more seconds for Balthasar to deactivate his powers, the black of his eyes slowly fading out. His shattered ribs rearranged themselves with no difficulty, and he blinked a few times to make sure his vision was back to normal. Something about the way she was looking at him—it made his stomach twist uncomfortably. That wasn’t the smile he knew… he wondered if he should be grateful she was finally here at all or worried that she was going to say something he really wouldn’t like. He settled on both, taking a few cautious steps so that he was standing in front of her. He wanted to kiss her, to hold her, for things to be as they had been before that battle three weeks ago, but he wasn’t sure if that would be welcome right now, and so he refrained from doing either. In fact, much as he wanted to, he didn't touch her at all.
“Rica?” He inflected her name as a question, not because he doubted who was before him, but because he didn't understand a lot of things about where she stood right now. With him, with the war, with herself… there was a lot, perhaps, to talk about. He’d kept his promise though. He may have given her her space, but every morning, she’d awoken to a new note under her door. Always short, but always a reminder of some quality of hers that he found wonderful. Balthasar was a man of his word, after all, and he’d told her he would remind her every day.
She nodded towards her uncle, watching as he left before turning her attention back to Balthasar. Her smile faded from her lips, pursing them into a fine line as she regarded him silently. She wanted to embrace him, to forget the battle that had happened three weeks ago, but she couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, the images played over in her mind, plagued her dreams like a sick horror show that was stuck on repeat. She tried to push stop, but they never would. She sighed deeply, rubbing her arm as she tried to think of the words she wanted to say. She had rehearsed them, almost, but couldn't seem to form them now.
"Hi...Balthasar," she muttered, trying to look him in the eye but failing to do so. She took a deep breath, holding it for five seconds before releasing. "I...I can't do this, Balthasar," she finally spoke, her words conveying but what she meant exactly. "I love you, I really do, I just...," just what? Just couldn't be in the same world as he? A world where forgiveness and mercy came easily? Why was this so much harder than it had to be? She should just say what she wanted, needed to say and be done with it. She shook her head and tried again.
"I'm sorry, but this...whatever it is, was...it can't continue this way. I can't do what you do. And you deserve someone who can. I tried. I really have, to believe the words you've said, to believe that they were really the person I am, could be, but I just can't. I am not that person, and I never will be," she finally spoke, her words growing a bit stronger as she said them, almost as if she believed them to be true. And she did. She believed it with everything she was. "I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that person you believe me to be," she whispered, shaking her head softly.
He was honestly having difficulty processing this. Whatever he’d expected—lingering anger at him for letting Elizabeth go, perhaps more uncertainty regarding herself—it was not this. She wasn’t really… “You… you don't want to be with me anymore.” It was said flatly, as though all the emotion had been stolen from him by the sheer effort of processing what was said. She said she loved him, but she didn’t want to be with him. She wasn’t the person he thought she was. She didn’t want to be what he thought she was. Somehow, that struck him the hardest. She didn’t want to be? But… she already was.
“But… you don’t have to be anything, Rica. I don't love you because you have some magical list of traits, or because of some idea I have of you.” Had it seemed that way, because of the way he’d said it? He needed to clear that up. “You’re not wonderful because of the words that apply to you. Those words are wonderful because they apply to you. And if they don’t, then that’s fine. You don’t… I never… don’t feel like you have to change for me, or be anything in particular. I know I’m a big idiot, but I see you, Rica, I really think I do. And I know you’re not perfect. I’m not perfect, either—no matter how hard I work or how much I try. But you’re still perfect to me, just as you are.” He swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice from thickening and largely failing.
“And you always will be.” His hands clenched into fists at his side, but still he kept himself from reaching out for her, because if she didn’t want him to, he would respect that. And it sounded a lot like she really didn’t want him to. He could feel that not all of himself was in agreement about this—his darkness was stirring again. It was territorial, and it had pride. He was territorial, and he had pride. He just suppressed these things because they were not what he needed to be, to achieve the things his whole family was working so hard for.
It hurt. From the way he said it, it caused her heart to ache. She wanted to take back the words she said, to make them untrue, but she couldn't, and she wouldn't. She meant everything she said. It's not that she didn't want to be with him. Gods knew she did, but she couldn't be with him. And he was wrong, so very wrong. He was perfect, to her. He was everything she couldn't hope to be, no matter how hard she tried or desperately wanted to be. He was everything she wanted and more. But she couldn't let this deter her from her decision. She had made it for her sake, and his. It would hurt. It would be painful in the long run, and hopefully, in time, he would be able to find someone who could be what he deserved.
"No, I don't," she lied to herself, pausing in her words. She had to swallow the lump that grew in her throat as she finally managed to meet his gaze. "But that's where you are wrong. I can't be who I am, and still be expected to be by your side. It's not that I don't want to be that person for you, because I really wish I could," she continued, pausing once again to collect herself. "I am not a wonderful person, Balthasar. I still cannot see what it is that makes you think so. I do not regret this decision, though. I...I really do love you, please don't think otherwise," she finished, walking a bit closer to him so that she could lay her hand on his cheek.
She placed the other one on his other cheek and lifted his head so that she was staring directly into his eyes, her own filled with determination. "I hope that one of these days that you find that person who is wonderful, who can love you as much as I do, and will be this perfect to you. You deserve that much because you are a wonderful person. You are kind, forgiving, and merciful. Yes, you're an idiot, but that's just who you are. I wouldn't change that for anyone, and anyone else would be a fool to try and change you. I hope you can forgive me for this," she whispered out the last sentence and let her hands fall to her sides. She was shaking slightly, a light tremor running through her, but she had to resist it. She had to.
She was lying. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. Some part of him knew it. It was evident in the way her hands were against his face, the tone of her voice. She wanted him, and he wanted to be with her too, so what was the problem, really? He didn’t understand how it was that she could just push him away like this. And for what, some imagined difference in their goodness. Balthasar didn’t feel very good right now, causing her pain as he almost certainly was. He was also starting to get a little angry at this persistence of hers. Did she think to know him better than he knew himself, to know better than he did what was good for him? To know what kind of person he really was? Because the kind of person that he really was rose from somewhere under his skin and darkened his eyes when he replied.
“Then what?” he said, and his voice was low, just a fraction chiller than his usual warmth. “If I wasn’t those things, would you have me? If I’d killed her, would you have me? I don’t think you understand me at all, Rica. You have no idea just how far I’d go for you, do you? Just how low I’d sink if you asked it of me? So let me be clear.” He moved suddenly, like a predatory animal of some kind, pressing her back up against the nearest tree with nothing more than an index finger on her sternum. He followed, bracing his hands on either side of her head and looking down at her with narrowed eyes, darkly-glimmering. He leaned down, so that there was only a hairsbreadth of space between their lips, but he did not close it. “Let me be clear,” he repeated, the words little more than a shape given to the breath that left him, so soft were they.
“If you had asked me then, I would have slain her. If you asked me now, I would track her down and do the same. I would give up every ounce of kindness or mercy or forgiveness, for you. Not because I don’t value them, but because I value you more.” he pulled back slightly, moving one of his hands and using the index digit to trace the line of her lower lip. “Command me, and I will tear every last one of them apart, right now. Tell me to, and I will go to my own death, alone and unprepared, by storming that castle where my ancestor lies. Say that you do not want me one more time, and I will leave you.” He lowered his hand and used it to take her by the chin. Deliberately, he kissed her, the action caught between tender and desperate. It was brief, though, and when he pulled away, he shook his head faintly. “But I think we both know that’s not what you really want. Just say the words, Rica. For I am at your mercy, and only yours.”
"That's not fair, Balthasar, and you know it," she spoke, ignoring the way her heartbeat picked up its pace when he trapped her by the tree. She ignored the shiver that went down her back when his finger traced her lip, and she ignored the sudden urge to just wrap her arms around him. This...wasn't the Balthasar she knew, if the way his eyes darkened to the way he spoke was any indication. Her lips pursed into a fine line, searching his face for something, but it was all taken away with his kiss. It was brief, but she could feel the emotion behind it. She shook her head when he spoke to her. She didn't want to command anything of him, least of all to send him to his death.
That would kill her, knowing it was she that had sent him to his death because she didn't want him. She had always wanted him, ever since she could remember. It was he that she could see in her future, if she even had one, and it was he that she had loved, and always would. Her brows furrowed, her eyes narrowing at his words. It brought to surface the part of her that had never been afraid to say what was on her mind, to be blunt, honest, and truthful. It was who she was, and he needed to know what she had to say.
"Those things do not matter to me. Even if you were none of those things, I would still want you. I would still have you. What I want, what I will always want, is you. I don't want to command you, I just want to love you," she spoke, her voice stronger than it had started out to be. "I don't want you to go. I want you to stay here, with me. I do not want you going anywhere without me," she continued, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him back towards her, pressing her lips to his in a fierce, demanding kiss.
He hadn’t meant to present it as though his death or her capitulation were the only options here, though… well, he would be in a very sorry state indeed if she had sent him away. What he had been trying to get across was only that he would do anything she asked of him, however dangerous, however against what he generally took to be his nature. Because this kind of devotion was also in his nature, and more than anyone or anything else, he was devoted to her. He watched the expressions play over her face, and for a moment, even the darkest part of his nature feared that he had said too much, that he had made his weakness abundantly clear, and was about to take a blow much more painful than the one she had dealt him three weeks ago.
When she kissed him, though, he smiled, answering the latent demand with that same unbending devotion. Whatever she wanted, he would give. He knew himself to be well capable of it, and so it was almost simple to just do so. He moved closer, bracing his forearm rather than his hand on the smooth bark of the tree, and in doing so, eliminated the rest of the space between them, moving his free hand back into her hair. Gradually, he shifted the tenor of the kiss, from something heated and demanding to something more languid, drugging, slow. If it were possible to be drunk on the presence, on the taste, of another person, he was drunk on her—largely oblivious to his surroundings or really anything at all that wasn’t Rica.
When the need to breathe became overwhelming, he pulled back slightly. “If that’s what you want,” he said, nuzzling against the crook of her neck, “then speak to me no more of what I deserve or what you cannot be. I don’t care what I deserve, or what you think you deserve, or whether some other person will think this is wrong somehow. All I care about is you.” The words were murmured low, but it would be impossible for her not to notice the way he shook, just a little, with some emotion as yet still contained. He’d been so afraid, when she’d said those words. Afraid that she was just going to turn her back on him and walk away forever. He might, might have been able to deal with that the first time he gave her the chance, when he wasn’t sure she loved him the way he loved her, but… he couldn’t do it now. When he wasn’t looking, she’d become everything he wanted to see in the first place.
“If you really want me, Rica, then please. Just have me. I can’t do this tightrope walk anymore, where I don’t know if you’ll let yourself be with me tomorrow. It’s killing me.”
"It's what I want, what I'll always want," she spoke, a bit out of breath, but spoke nonetheless with truth. "I'm sorry, I did this to you. I won't make you do anything anymore. I won't cause you to hurt anymore," she spoke, running her fingers through his hair in the process, allowing the feeling of the softness to fill her thoughts as her eyes were still glazed over. She had not known that she had done that to him, caused him to feel he was walking on a tightrope, however; she was sorry that she had. She hadn't meant for him to feel that way, and even though she still felt that she didn't deserve him, she wouldn't make him feel that way any more. If it took the rest of their lives for her to finally see what he saw, then so be it. She would do so for his sake.
There was, however odd its placement was, one thing still plaguing her thoughts. It didn't matter. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter, but it still irked her that it bothered her. It shouldn't bother her in the way it had, because they had been together for a while. It was only natural if it were true, for a relationship such as that, however; she still couldn't help the feeling that bubbled within her. If it was true, then she could live with that. If it wasn't true, all the better. She blinked slowly, lowering her head just a bit and pulling back so that she was looking at him. She still wasn't sure she should ask the question, but it was something she needed to know.
"I...know this is none of my business but...I just," she started, pursing her lips a bit as she pouted. How could she say this without sounding too jealous about it? "Elizabeth said something...that day she hurt Emrys, and it's been bugging me. I know it shouldn't, because if you did, then that is between you and her, but," she continued, her voice straining just a bit as she struggled with the words she was looking for. "Did...did you, um, did," she tried again, still struggling with the words she was trying to say as her face turned a light shade that complimented her eyes. She just hoped what she was trying to say would actually reach him.
Slowly, deliberately, Balthasar relaxed, easing the tension in his shoulders. His bearing regained some of its surety, and he let his eyes fall closed, exhaling a heavy breath when she moved her hands through his hair. It was really weird, maybe, but he went a little weak at the knees when she did that. The hand that was in her own hair receded slightly, so that he was holding the side of her face, brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. His smile was small, but genuine. It wasn’t true that everything was fixed; he knew her self-esteem issues ran deeper than that. But as long as he knew she wouldn’t let them push her away from him anymore, he could help her. Wanted to help her.
The next question, though, furrowed his brow in confusion. Elizabeth had said something about him to her? It took him a few seconds, but when the blush spread over her cheeks like a rose-colored stain, his eyes widened, and he blinked down at her, tripping over his response as his own face gained a color to match. “What? She said… n-no, Rica, we never… uh…” he cleared his throat awkwardly—this was maybe not the best time for his thoughts to be turned in such a direction, when they were here by themselves and she looked like that and there was really no space in between them at all. Oh gods, he needed to… right.
Swallowing, Balthasar took half a step back, sucking in a breath mostly for balance. Now that the thoughts were there, it was hard to look at her and not have them, but he forced himself to clarify, because the last thing this needed was more confusion and uncertainty. “No. I didn’t sleep with Elizabeth. I, uh… I wasn’t sure I loved her, and I didn’t want to if I couldn’t be certain of that. And I didn’t love her, really, not like I love you.” The implication of that statement set in, and Balthasar went from pink to scarlet. “Which is not to say that we have to, um… you know. Just…” he scrubbed his hands up and back down his face, shaking his head ruefully. He really was hopeless.
That...was unexpected to say the least. She honestly did not expect him to answer the way he had, and quiet honestly, a sense of relief washed over her. It wasn't true. Not that she would have cared if it was, but to know that it wasn't true, sent a sense of relief through her. A slow smile spread across her lips as she shook her own head, closing her eyes briefly before opening them in time to see Balthasar scrubbing his hands upon his face. A smirk pulled at her lips as he had stepped away, and she wasn't so inclined to let it end there. His expressions were amusing, and she wanted to see just how many more she could elicit from him. She was glad though, that Sigyn had been lying, which meant this would be even more entertaining.
Slowly, she moved towards him, her hand stretched out towards him before allowing her fingers to gently caress his chest, crawling in gentle circles as she grabbed his hand with her free one. She laced her fingers with his, bringing his hand over her shoulder. "You're right," she spoke, her voice low, sultry, yet teasing. "We don't have to," she continued, placing her face close to his ear as she kissed just under his earlobe, trailing soft kisses along his jawline before nipping at his lower lip. He was right, though. They didn't have to do anything, but she wasn't going to lie and say she wasn't going to have a little bit of fun with it.
"But...then again," she continued, leaning in close so that their lips were just a hairsbreadth away from each other, the warmth of his breath mixing with hers. "It is a thought to entertain," she spoke, pressing her lips softly against his, teasing in every sense before she pulled back just as quickly, the smirk still playing on her lips as she stood a few feet away from him.
Balthasar swallowed past the sudden new lump in his throat, attempting and failing to speak. It really wasn’t fair, he decided, the things she could do to him. It was an action he repeated when she drew his hand over to her shoulder. It was such a funny thing to feel, because he knew exactly how strong she really was, but… his hands felt oversized when they held her, and clumsy rather than graceful as he knew he could be. She felt breakable under his fingers, and it settled a strange kind of weight on his heart. A feeling of certainty more than anything else, the idea that protecting her, which something she could do just fine herself on most days, was something he nevertheless wanted to devote himself to. He’d always felt that instinct towards her, from the time she was a little snow-haired child causing mayhem with her brother to now, when she was not at all a child anymore, but the woman he loved.
He wondered for a moment if this was how his father felt about his mother. The parallels were not lost on him, and he supposed that, if this really was how he felt, he could understand how he’d managed everything he did for a hundred years and still had the time to be a husband and father. There was no forgetting someone you loved this much, no matter how important everything else was. Balthasar sucked in a breath when she planted her lips beneath his ear, succeeding in regulating his breathing but not his heartbeat as she nibbled his lip. He’d moved to close the distance, that tiny hairsbreadth, between them, but she moved back even as he went forward, his eyes positively metallic with desire, the blue only the faintest hint at the edges of silver.
“Tease,” he accused in a rumbling baritone, spearing a hand into the hair at the back of her head and using his palm to pull her close. As with everything else he did, his response was quite direct—he kissed her with force and feeling, and it was his turn to be demanding about it. That dark part of him was threaded in these feelings, but not in the same way it usually was. It left him with the uncanny desire to devour everything she was, to make her feel the strength of his emotions, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. It was almost like being thirsty, but not quite that. It was more as he imagined hunger must be, for those who needed to consume such substances. The only thing he was interested in consuming was her, but the metaphor worked well enough.
If she hadn't been caught off guard to his reaction, she would have laughed. To know that she could have elicited this kind of reaction, she would have done it sooner. She felt weak in her knees, and had he not been holding her per se, she probably would have let them buckle beneath her. She smiled against his lips, allowing him to do as he pleased, after all, she too, wasn't going to deny him anything he wanted. He could, with just a single word, command her to do anything he desired. Even without subjugating her, she would do it, because she loved him. And it was an odd feeling to finally realize just how much she did. Though she still had her issues to resolve, to fix, she wouldn't allow them to judge her decisions any longer that concerned him, them.
"Tease? No, I think the word you are looking for is instigator," she replied, pulling away from his kiss as to allow her lungs the much needed air they were craving. Though, honestly, she wouldn't have minded either way. She could die that way, and still be happy to have done so. She chuckled lightly at her own words and laced her fingers in his hair again, twirling a piece between her fingers. Never in her dreams, could she have imagined anything else. She had the one she loved in her arms, returning that love even after she had tried so hard to push him away. She had tried so hard, and yet here he was still. Perhaps, there was something more at work here, that kept her from truly leaving him, from him leaving her.
Whatever it was, she'd be forever grateful to that something, because she was in love, loved, and couldn't think of anything better than this. "I love you, Balthasar. No matter what, I love you, only you, and always just you," she spoke, her voice low. "Whatever may come our way, whatever happens in the little time we have left to prepare, I love you. I'll prove it to you every day, every minute, every hour, we are together," she continued, kissing him after every word she spoke. "In every way possible, I will prove it to you," she continued, leaning her forehead against his, trying to regulate the fast thrumming of her heartbeat.
She would. In any and every way she could think of, she would prove to him that she loved him. She wouldn't push him away any more. She wouldn't try and make him leave her, nor would she try and make herself believe that she wasn't any good for him. She might have still felt that way, however; she wasn't going to fool herself into believing it. If he believed her to be good enough for him, that was all that mattered. Whatever he believed was true, was what mattered, because he was all that mattered. "You need only to command it of me, and I will do it," she repeated his words because they were true for her as well. Whatever he desired of her, whatever he asked her to do, she would do it in less than a heartbeat, because she loved him.
The look he gave her was one of heartstopping devotion. He had always been lucky enough to have people in his life who mattered to him, who loved him, and who were irreplaceable. But none of that was anything like this and it was at once so strange and so wonderful to him that he could only smile. “Then I guess we’re both hopeless,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around her and just holding her to him for a while. “I’m such a fool for you, Rica, I really am.” But he didn’t mind it. He’d happily be a fool for her for the rest of their lives. “When this is over, we’ll go wherever you want, do whatever you decide to do. We’ll build this world back up, better than it used to be, and then the rest of forever is open to us. But for now…”
He paused, tilting her shin up so he could make eye contact with her. The blush that had faded crept back up onto his cheeks, just a little, but next to the brightness of her eyes, it was nothing at all. “I think… I would like to finish what was instigated.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face, but the character of it had changed, fading until it was more a half-smirk than anything, and he leaned down again, stopping just short of brushing her nose with his. “If you’d be amenable to the suggestion.”
"Hopeless fools," she agreed, sighing in content as he held her to him. She opened her eyes, when she had closed them was a mystery to her, and allowed a single brow to ascend her forehead. A smirk pulled at her lips as he spoke, their noses touching in the lightest way, until it bloomed into a full smile. It was the smile that she had came to wear upon her face for him, and only him, and she cradled his face with her hands. If she had the common sense to laugh, she was sorely lacking it now. "Well, I couldn't say no even if I wanted to, though I think it is rather bold to be out in the open like this," she replied, but she didn't care enough to care. She loved him, and she had said she would prove it to him. And what started out as nothing but a tease, turned into a showcase of desire, passion, but most of all, love.
Balthasar grinned upon passing his father in the hallway. “She still causing trouble?” he asked Jasper, who quirked an eyebrow. “Go see for yourself.”
He’d intended to, of course. It hadn’t been more than a month ago that his little sister was born, and while it made him feel a little weird that there was another small child around, he couldn’t deny that it was refreshing, especially considering the mood that had settled over the house now that there was perhaps a month and some weeks left until Malkior had promised to show up with the entire Pantheon in tow. Not the most reassuring thought, but at the moment, Balthasar was feeling a little bit indestructible. Not enough to make him reckless, of course, but enough that he had confidence in their eventual success.
He paused on the threshold of the nursery, waiting until his mother let him know it was okay to enter, and then he did, his smile inching wider at all the small objects floating around in the room. Some of them weren’t actually that small. Typical for a member of his family, when a member of it was good at something, they were very good at it, and his baby sister was a telekinetic of no mean potential. Smiling at his mother, he braced either of his hands on the side of the crib, and his expression gentled. “Hey Bree,” he said, reaching down to tap the end of her nose with his index finger. “Are you giving mom trouble again?” With a great deal more care than someone like him looked to be capable of, Bathasar lifted her out of the crib, holding her gently to him, careful to support her head, which sported a wispy crown of pink hair at present. Apparently, it was a trait his grandmother had shared, which explained how aunt Erys had come by it.
His sister safely in hand, he turned to his mother. “How are you, mom?” It had been a few weeks since they’d really had a proper conversation, considering all the time he and his dad had spent training.
Nikki gave her son a small smile, which only brightened when he picked up his sister and the child gurgled happily. Brayleigh had really taken a shine to both her father and her eldest brother, and Nikki had a sense that Bree liked being in high places. She'd spent enough nights on the ceiling, after all.
"Oh, tired. But well. I'd almost forgotten what this is like, really. It has been almost eight decades now." That wasn't true, really, Nikki would never forget, and being a mother was simply ingrained into her very being, whether her children were infants or grown men. However, this was a bit of a different situation. While Balthasar had been...difficult to carry and deliver, he'd been a very calm child, as had Aryan; Brayleigh, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. Not that Nikki minded, really. "This one definitely has Alistair blood in her veins. You watch, she's going to be a terror, of a worse kind than Ary was."
For a while, she watched Balthasar, an odd little smile on her face. He looked rather good with a babe in his arms; he was going to make an excellent father, just like his own. She also had not missed the way he had looked the first time he'd held Bree; the expression of awe had been almost a perfect match for Jasper's face the first time he'd held Balthasar, almost a century ago now. Like father, like son. "What about you, Little One? You're looking better." While the nickname hardly applied to her son any longer, it was a habit she couldn't shake, just as she couldn't shake calling Aryan Gentle One. It was simply...a part of her.
Balthasar snorted softly, holding his baby sister out at arms’ length and pretending to scrutinize her closely. “Is that so?” he asked, though the question was more to the child than their mother, and with a grin, he generated an antigravity field and gently released Bree, using smaller, gentler pulses of gravity to rotate her, like she was some kind of slowly-spinning planet. They had discovered this game about a week ago, and it was assuredly her favorite. He had to be careful, of course, as he didn’t want to spin her too fast and make her dizzy or sick, but she was the furthest thing from afraid. “Nothing wrong with Alistairs; someone has to keep us von Nachts on our toes.” He was, after all, in love with one.
Still gently floating his sister around, he shot a glance at his mother, generating another field so that he, too, was suspended in midair. Balthasar crossed his legs underneath him and set himself to spinning, as well, orbiting himself and his sister around one another and occasionally reaching out to touch her nose or tickle her ribs when they ‘happened’ to pass each other by. The fact that his mom still called him that sometimes amused him more than anything; given that he was just as tall as his dad and a bit broader, he was the least little person in the whole family. But that wasn’t really the point of the name—and he had been little, once.
“I was looking bad? That hurts, mom.” but he smiled, shaking his head. His expression turned sober for a moment, and he righted himself so that he was simply levitated into the air, still in a seated position. “But I’m feeling better, yeah. I think I’m really close to figuring out my powers, and even if I don’t, I think dad has it under control. So I guess I’m not as worried about what happens six weeks from now as I used to be. Besides that, well…” he shrugged, but the slightly-awestruck smile on his face really said it all. Balthasar von Nacht was a man deeply in love, and it didn’t take a master of observation to see it. He’d always carried himself well, but there was a certain confidence in his stride that had not been there before, a way he had of being in his own skin that exuded comfort and familiarity. It was a product of his training as well as his relationship with Rica, and that just made it doubly apparent. The fact that he couldn’t seem to stop smiling and would stare off into space with some frequency helped. Alden couldn’t seem to stop laughing at them both.
Had Nikki been two centuries younger, she might have laughed at her son as she had laughed at her brother, but she was not, and merely smiled knowingly. It was no secret what Balthasar and Alarica shared. There were a few parallels there to herself and Jasper, and they were not lost on her. "No, you hid it as well as you always do. A mother simply knows, Balthasar, it is in our job description. And Alistair females do have a tendancy to gravitate toward male von Nachts. Must be something in the water." She was happy, really, for both of her sons. Helen may have trouble with her feelings, but there was no denying that she loved Aryan, that much was obvious to everyone, just as it was clear to see Aryan adored her.
She watched as her children floated in mid-air, Brayleigh enjoying herself. The girl loved high places, and Balthasar was always happy to oblige. She sighed slightly, though, at the mention of six weeks. She hated having to stay behind, but Brayleigh needed her here more than they on the battlefield. Even Aryan was going; in the end, it would be her, Morgan, and the children. "Just make sure you come back to me. All of you." The smile returned again, though. "Why is it I can see you surrounded by daughters?" It was an amusing thought, and she certainly wouldn't mind having more granddaughters.
Balthasar nodded sagely, or at least as sagely as one could while floating slightly sideways and clasping one’s own ankles in a crisscross fashion. When Bree got older, he thought maybe he’d clear out a room and lift the gravity on the whole thing so she could bounce off the walls—the last time he’d done that was when Leo was still a little girl, and they’d had a blast. “I won’t bother telling you not to worry,” he said, his face cracking into a grin. “But we’ll come back, mom. Even if we have to come back on each other’s backs and shoulders, we’ll do it.” There was nobody he’d rather fight beside than his family.
At the mention of daughters, though, his face gained an alarming tinge of red, and he coughed awkwardly. “Uh… I’m not so sure that’d be a good idea,” he said ruefully. “I’m already really bad at saying no to Rica… I might just turn into a big puddle of mush if I had daughters.” And he wouldn’t be a semi-secret puddle of mush like his Uncle Vincent, either. The level to which he was hopeless would be abundantly obvious, and he wasn’t sure his poor heart could take all the worrying he would do. “Besides… I don’t even know if she wants kids… and then again, I’m not sure how ready I am to even think about it.” It boggled the mind a little bit, really, the thought of being responsible for such a vulnerable, tiny little life.
It was one thing to babysit—he’d been doing that since Ary and Alden were born. But kids of his own? He wasn’t sure he had the skills or the fortitude necessary to be a father, in all honesty. It was one of many things for which his only frame of reference was his own father, who honestly was about as good at it as he thought a parent could be. Balthasar knew he couldn’t be like that. Striking that balance between empathy and discipline would be worse than trying to walk a wire—because he could actually do the latter, and the risk wasn’t so great as raising a child was.
This time, Nikki did laugh. She simply couldn't help it, her son was just so much like his father it was incredible. She shook her head slightly, smiling up at her eldest son. "We really should have just named you Jasper, we could have called you J-J. For all his raising of Yuki, he said the exact same thing to me when I came to him with the same idea. No one is ever prepared for being a parent. It's not really something you learn, it's instinctual."
She was also quite certain her niece wanted children, most women did, often times the most rough and hardened ones were the ones who wanted kids the most. They would both make excellent parents, that she knew. It was really only a matter of time, and that was something they would have plenty of, whether everyone else thought otherwise or not. It was looking on the brighter side that had gotten Nikki through her century alone, and it was what helped her through these dark times now.
Balthasar did not have Aryan’s distaste for being compared to their father. It was usually a compliment of a sort, considering who the man was and all that he’d been able to do. Even so, it stung a little, and he might have pouted slightly at his mother. He was still her son, after all, no matter how old he was. “Oh gee thanks, mom. It’s nice to be reminded that I have no individuality.” Which was actually not true—there were differences between them, but they were far outweighed by the similarities. He actually considered this to be a positive thing, but he still shook his head.
“And well… I don’t know about that. But if I do test my instincts there, it’ll be when this is over. I can’t blame any of you guys for having kids during the war, but no child of mine is going to have to grow up with a sword in-hand if they don’t want to.” He said it firmly, but with no blame. The world didn’t stop for war, and in many ways, the younger generation of his family was indispensible in the effort to bring it to an end. But, if not from his parents than from himself and other sources, Balthasar had felt a lot of pressure growing up, and he didn’t want that for any kids he might have. He wanted them to be able to be whatever and however they wanted, without ever feeling like the choice was made for them. He wanted them to be children of peace, not children of war.
He’d seen enough of the damage his family had endured to know better.
Still, he managed a small smile as he cancelled his gravity field, catching Bree gently and setting her back down in her crib with a soft thumb over her forehead. She’d be the first of those children of peace. He swore it to himself right there. The war would never touch his baby sister.
He’d intended to, of course. It hadn’t been more than a month ago that his little sister was born, and while it made him feel a little weird that there was another small child around, he couldn’t deny that it was refreshing, especially considering the mood that had settled over the house now that there was perhaps a month and some weeks left until Malkior had promised to show up with the entire Pantheon in tow. Not the most reassuring thought, but at the moment, Balthasar was feeling a little bit indestructible. Not enough to make him reckless, of course, but enough that he had confidence in their eventual success.
He paused on the threshold of the nursery, waiting until his mother let him know it was okay to enter, and then he did, his smile inching wider at all the small objects floating around in the room. Some of them weren’t actually that small. Typical for a member of his family, when a member of it was good at something, they were very good at it, and his baby sister was a telekinetic of no mean potential. Smiling at his mother, he braced either of his hands on the side of the crib, and his expression gentled. “Hey Bree,” he said, reaching down to tap the end of her nose with his index finger. “Are you giving mom trouble again?” With a great deal more care than someone like him looked to be capable of, Bathasar lifted her out of the crib, holding her gently to him, careful to support her head, which sported a wispy crown of pink hair at present. Apparently, it was a trait his grandmother had shared, which explained how aunt Erys had come by it.
His sister safely in hand, he turned to his mother. “How are you, mom?” It had been a few weeks since they’d really had a proper conversation, considering all the time he and his dad had spent training.
Nikki gave her son a small smile, which only brightened when he picked up his sister and the child gurgled happily. Brayleigh had really taken a shine to both her father and her eldest brother, and Nikki had a sense that Bree liked being in high places. She'd spent enough nights on the ceiling, after all.
"Oh, tired. But well. I'd almost forgotten what this is like, really. It has been almost eight decades now." That wasn't true, really, Nikki would never forget, and being a mother was simply ingrained into her very being, whether her children were infants or grown men. However, this was a bit of a different situation. While Balthasar had been...difficult to carry and deliver, he'd been a very calm child, as had Aryan; Brayleigh, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. Not that Nikki minded, really. "This one definitely has Alistair blood in her veins. You watch, she's going to be a terror, of a worse kind than Ary was."
For a while, she watched Balthasar, an odd little smile on her face. He looked rather good with a babe in his arms; he was going to make an excellent father, just like his own. She also had not missed the way he had looked the first time he'd held Bree; the expression of awe had been almost a perfect match for Jasper's face the first time he'd held Balthasar, almost a century ago now. Like father, like son. "What about you, Little One? You're looking better." While the nickname hardly applied to her son any longer, it was a habit she couldn't shake, just as she couldn't shake calling Aryan Gentle One. It was simply...a part of her.
Balthasar snorted softly, holding his baby sister out at arms’ length and pretending to scrutinize her closely. “Is that so?” he asked, though the question was more to the child than their mother, and with a grin, he generated an antigravity field and gently released Bree, using smaller, gentler pulses of gravity to rotate her, like she was some kind of slowly-spinning planet. They had discovered this game about a week ago, and it was assuredly her favorite. He had to be careful, of course, as he didn’t want to spin her too fast and make her dizzy or sick, but she was the furthest thing from afraid. “Nothing wrong with Alistairs; someone has to keep us von Nachts on our toes.” He was, after all, in love with one.
Still gently floating his sister around, he shot a glance at his mother, generating another field so that he, too, was suspended in midair. Balthasar crossed his legs underneath him and set himself to spinning, as well, orbiting himself and his sister around one another and occasionally reaching out to touch her nose or tickle her ribs when they ‘happened’ to pass each other by. The fact that his mom still called him that sometimes amused him more than anything; given that he was just as tall as his dad and a bit broader, he was the least little person in the whole family. But that wasn’t really the point of the name—and he had been little, once.
“I was looking bad? That hurts, mom.” but he smiled, shaking his head. His expression turned sober for a moment, and he righted himself so that he was simply levitated into the air, still in a seated position. “But I’m feeling better, yeah. I think I’m really close to figuring out my powers, and even if I don’t, I think dad has it under control. So I guess I’m not as worried about what happens six weeks from now as I used to be. Besides that, well…” he shrugged, but the slightly-awestruck smile on his face really said it all. Balthasar von Nacht was a man deeply in love, and it didn’t take a master of observation to see it. He’d always carried himself well, but there was a certain confidence in his stride that had not been there before, a way he had of being in his own skin that exuded comfort and familiarity. It was a product of his training as well as his relationship with Rica, and that just made it doubly apparent. The fact that he couldn’t seem to stop smiling and would stare off into space with some frequency helped. Alden couldn’t seem to stop laughing at them both.
Had Nikki been two centuries younger, she might have laughed at her son as she had laughed at her brother, but she was not, and merely smiled knowingly. It was no secret what Balthasar and Alarica shared. There were a few parallels there to herself and Jasper, and they were not lost on her. "No, you hid it as well as you always do. A mother simply knows, Balthasar, it is in our job description. And Alistair females do have a tendancy to gravitate toward male von Nachts. Must be something in the water." She was happy, really, for both of her sons. Helen may have trouble with her feelings, but there was no denying that she loved Aryan, that much was obvious to everyone, just as it was clear to see Aryan adored her.
She watched as her children floated in mid-air, Brayleigh enjoying herself. The girl loved high places, and Balthasar was always happy to oblige. She sighed slightly, though, at the mention of six weeks. She hated having to stay behind, but Brayleigh needed her here more than they on the battlefield. Even Aryan was going; in the end, it would be her, Morgan, and the children. "Just make sure you come back to me. All of you." The smile returned again, though. "Why is it I can see you surrounded by daughters?" It was an amusing thought, and she certainly wouldn't mind having more granddaughters.
Balthasar nodded sagely, or at least as sagely as one could while floating slightly sideways and clasping one’s own ankles in a crisscross fashion. When Bree got older, he thought maybe he’d clear out a room and lift the gravity on the whole thing so she could bounce off the walls—the last time he’d done that was when Leo was still a little girl, and they’d had a blast. “I won’t bother telling you not to worry,” he said, his face cracking into a grin. “But we’ll come back, mom. Even if we have to come back on each other’s backs and shoulders, we’ll do it.” There was nobody he’d rather fight beside than his family.
At the mention of daughters, though, his face gained an alarming tinge of red, and he coughed awkwardly. “Uh… I’m not so sure that’d be a good idea,” he said ruefully. “I’m already really bad at saying no to Rica… I might just turn into a big puddle of mush if I had daughters.” And he wouldn’t be a semi-secret puddle of mush like his Uncle Vincent, either. The level to which he was hopeless would be abundantly obvious, and he wasn’t sure his poor heart could take all the worrying he would do. “Besides… I don’t even know if she wants kids… and then again, I’m not sure how ready I am to even think about it.” It boggled the mind a little bit, really, the thought of being responsible for such a vulnerable, tiny little life.
It was one thing to babysit—he’d been doing that since Ary and Alden were born. But kids of his own? He wasn’t sure he had the skills or the fortitude necessary to be a father, in all honesty. It was one of many things for which his only frame of reference was his own father, who honestly was about as good at it as he thought a parent could be. Balthasar knew he couldn’t be like that. Striking that balance between empathy and discipline would be worse than trying to walk a wire—because he could actually do the latter, and the risk wasn’t so great as raising a child was.
This time, Nikki did laugh. She simply couldn't help it, her son was just so much like his father it was incredible. She shook her head slightly, smiling up at her eldest son. "We really should have just named you Jasper, we could have called you J-J. For all his raising of Yuki, he said the exact same thing to me when I came to him with the same idea. No one is ever prepared for being a parent. It's not really something you learn, it's instinctual."
She was also quite certain her niece wanted children, most women did, often times the most rough and hardened ones were the ones who wanted kids the most. They would both make excellent parents, that she knew. It was really only a matter of time, and that was something they would have plenty of, whether everyone else thought otherwise or not. It was looking on the brighter side that had gotten Nikki through her century alone, and it was what helped her through these dark times now.
Balthasar did not have Aryan’s distaste for being compared to their father. It was usually a compliment of a sort, considering who the man was and all that he’d been able to do. Even so, it stung a little, and he might have pouted slightly at his mother. He was still her son, after all, no matter how old he was. “Oh gee thanks, mom. It’s nice to be reminded that I have no individuality.” Which was actually not true—there were differences between them, but they were far outweighed by the similarities. He actually considered this to be a positive thing, but he still shook his head.
“And well… I don’t know about that. But if I do test my instincts there, it’ll be when this is over. I can’t blame any of you guys for having kids during the war, but no child of mine is going to have to grow up with a sword in-hand if they don’t want to.” He said it firmly, but with no blame. The world didn’t stop for war, and in many ways, the younger generation of his family was indispensible in the effort to bring it to an end. But, if not from his parents than from himself and other sources, Balthasar had felt a lot of pressure growing up, and he didn’t want that for any kids he might have. He wanted them to be able to be whatever and however they wanted, without ever feeling like the choice was made for them. He wanted them to be children of peace, not children of war.
He’d seen enough of the damage his family had endured to know better.
Still, he managed a small smile as he cancelled his gravity field, catching Bree gently and setting her back down in her crib with a soft thumb over her forehead. She’d be the first of those children of peace. He swore it to himself right there. The war would never touch his baby sister.
Aryan looked up as three of the pens on his desk began hovering, floating around with no sense of direction, an amused smile on his face. It had been almost four months now, right after his mother had just began her third trimester, that things around the house had begun to move around, often floating. They'd even found Nikki floating up at the ceiling at one point. Brayleigh was one of the strongest telekinetics Aryan had ever seen, and she was only a month old.
Without really thinking about it, Aryan began to create small rifts in space, the pens floating through them and out on the other end of the room. Really, it wasn't even practice any more, not with rifts this small. He'd discovered that he could link two of them when using himself as target practice. Alden, Alarica, and Emrys had unloaded on him, not one of them having any reservation about shooting at him, and to his credit, he'd deflected every bullet. Well, almost. One he'd deflected too close, and he'd nicked himself in the shoulder. It had been nothing serious, but it had hurt quite a bit. It had also been discovered that when the bullet passed through a rift and out the other one, it lost no momentum at all, making for a point-blank range shot.
Aryan's purple eyes glanced up as his father entered. By now, things were floating all over the room, passing back and forth between several different rifts. He actually had had little work to do, as the Council had all but fallen apart. Aryan wondered every once in a while if it would be rebuilt. He supposed they would simply have to wait and see, first they had to deal with Malkior.
"I see Brayleigh is is having a good time. I take it Bal is with her?" Brayleigh always seemed to get more active[i] when she was with her eldest brother.
After passing Balthasar, Jasper had continued to his younger son’s study, merely raising a speculative eyebrow at the objects passing through the minor tears in space. One of the pens was making a beeline for his head, until it wasn’t. It vanished from its trajectory, and reappeared in his left hand. There was no rift, no floating, just a change in the situation of reality. He didn’t seem to think much of it though, replacing the pen in the container it had initially left and taking the seat across from his middle child. “He is,” Jazz confirmed mildly, pulling a few strands of hair from out of his eyes with a rake of his fingers. He leaned against the back of the chair, an amused expression playing over his face for a moment.
“I heard you were shot the other day. Helen was somewhat distressed about this, you know.” She hadn’t said it as such, and to his knowledge at the time had not even insisted on healing the nick, trusting his natural faculties to do that. But she’d visited him for a little while after, and had not seemed to lose the small furrow between her brows. He mentioned it not to make Aryan feel guilty, but simply because he found it worth mentioning. Jasper himself was more [i]amused than anything; he’d field-tested no few possible uses of his own abilities in quite dangerous ways himself over the years he’d been alive—when one had powers that were not commonly documented, one had to take the occasional risk.
There was something he was working on now, actually; inspired by the story Balthasar had relayed about pulling Alarica back from the precipice of death. It wouldn't be quite the same, but it would be close. But that was a discussion for another time, perhaps. “How are you finding life without politics?” Though the question was lightly-inflected, it was serious enough.
Aryan smiled a little ruefully. "I misdirected the exit rift, nothing more. You should have seen the look on Emrys's face, honestly I thought my cousin was going to faint for minute." He was not one to miss the note of amusement, it had been an interesting situation. "Even so, I do believe I can add getting shot to the list of things I do not wish to repeat. Helen was concerned, yes, but pacified when she saw I was alright. She scolded me for being reckless, of course, but then I suppose I did deserve that."
He leaned back in the chair, regarding his father's question before raising a brow. "Honestly? As much as I detest the cutthroat back-stabbing and back-room deals, I find it...rather dull with nothing to do. I daresay I even miss it from time to time." For as powerful on a battlefield as the middle von Nacht was growing, fighting simply wasn't who he was. He did it because it was necessary, not because he enjoyed it.
The smile that tilted Jasper’s lips indicated that there was something in the answer he found agreeable. Lacing his fingers together under his chin, he cocked his head to the side a fraction. “I can’t say I’ve ever found all the backstabbing to my taste, either, but I do believe the end of this war will present us with an opportunity to change the way it is done.” One of his dark brows arched slightly, and the smile grew a little. “I’ve been thinking, you see, and it seems to me that when this is over, what is left of the world is going to need a sense of stability as quickly as possible, something to trust and lean on. I don’t want to restart the Council, as such—it seems that the best way to move is forward, and that is far too much like going back.” He also did not doubt that the humans would see it as more of the same.
“But there must be something. The rebuilding must have some visible body at its head, people who can be held accountable for what will follow this. Vampires and humans. It cannot and must not be this family alone. We are here when we are needed, but we must not become a crutch.” He was no king, and neither were any of the others amongst them—it would not be right to place all the power in their hands. “So the thought was this: that there would be a body of governance comprised of both our kind and humans. They will never forget our presence, now, and we can retreat to the shadows no longer. Instead, we must be as visible as possible, to show those that still doubt us that our intentions are good, that we can be something other than the monsters they tell their children about, the soldiers who tear apart their homes and would herd them like mere cattle.”
It would need to be handled with the utmost delicacy, and it would be a great deal of hard work. On top of that, it was but one of many tasks that would need doing. “I do not doubt that myself and perhaps some of the others will hold positions of some variety in such a body, but…” he fixed his eyes on Aryan’s. “I believe the person most suited to lead such an effort is you.”
There was a long moment that Aryan simply sat there, his purple eyes never wavering from his father's grey ones. If it had been anyone else to ask that of him, he would have laughed. But his father was not one to simply joke about things, certainly not something like this. Even so, he certainly wasn't expecting his father to ask him something like this.
Though, he was not blind to some of the more obvious reasons behind the maneuver. For one, he did not have the powers his father and brother shared, and his abilities with words made him rather good for such a position. Even so, he was rather unsure that he was the one right for such a position. Power could warp people, change people. He was afraid of what he would become. He exhaled through his nose slightly.
"Surely there are others you would consider before me? As much as I did not enjoy the back-stabbing, it is what I have spent the majority of my life doing. I am not sure anyone would want someone like that in a leading position."
Jasper had expected something like this, which was honestly why he was choosing to have this discussion now and not later. Pulling his hands just a little further apart, he pressed the tips of each against their opposites, so that they were steepled. He paused for a moment, considering how best to explain it. “When people look at me, what do you think they see?” The question did not really require an answer, but he allowed it to sink in for a moment. The smile on his face turned rueful for a brief second, and he shook his head just slightly. “Outside of this family, I am nothing more or less than the general of an army. Vincent is the same. Balthasar is a soldier. Keir and Alarica and Leora and Emrys and Zero are not so different. Your mother and Erys are mercenaries if they are anything. Alden and Morgan are intelligence men, shadows, and even less trustworthy than soldiers.” It wasn’t true, of course, and they were all much more complex than that, but nevertheless, Jasper knew well the science of images and the perception of others.
“But you… you are a man of letters and oratory, fighter though you have become. When you stand before them, it will swiftly become evident that you are a man of peace rather than war. The soldier in your brother will never leave. Good as his intentions are, open and honest as he may be, people will always look at him and see the way he moves, the way he carries himself, and recognize him as a warrior by his trade. They will always be afraid that I seek to be what my grandfather believed I was. The story is the same for any of the others you should like to choose.” He halted for a moment and leaned forward slightly. “That is not what is evident in your bearing, nor in the way you speak. It is not what they will see when they look at you, because it is not what you are. And that will give you the opportunity necessary to prove your intentions.”
His smile returned as though it had never left, though it was as subtle as ever. “You won’t be alone, Aryan. You’ll never be alone. We will always be here to support you in whatever capacity you require, and we will work to win the trust of people alongside you and for you. But none of us will be able to take that last step, to truly array the rest of the world behind us for its own repair. So no, there is no one I would consider before you. Not when the first solution is the best one there is.” There was a glimmer of something in Jasper’s eyes, and it looked suspiciously as though it were caught between a certain kind of gentle amusement and pride. And why not? He was proud of his son. He always had been.
There was a slight smile on his face in response to his father's. He still was not overly certain about the choice, but...he did have a few points. It was true, most of his family were fighters, and he simply was not. He was not the warrior Balthasar was, nor did he want to be. A man of oratory...he could not argue that. He'd become one of the youngest people to ever be accepted into the council, after all. He cocked his head to the side, propping it up on his knuckles.
"I am still not overly sure about it, but that does not mean I will not try."
Without really thinking about it, Aryan began to create small rifts in space, the pens floating through them and out on the other end of the room. Really, it wasn't even practice any more, not with rifts this small. He'd discovered that he could link two of them when using himself as target practice. Alden, Alarica, and Emrys had unloaded on him, not one of them having any reservation about shooting at him, and to his credit, he'd deflected every bullet. Well, almost. One he'd deflected too close, and he'd nicked himself in the shoulder. It had been nothing serious, but it had hurt quite a bit. It had also been discovered that when the bullet passed through a rift and out the other one, it lost no momentum at all, making for a point-blank range shot.
Aryan's purple eyes glanced up as his father entered. By now, things were floating all over the room, passing back and forth between several different rifts. He actually had had little work to do, as the Council had all but fallen apart. Aryan wondered every once in a while if it would be rebuilt. He supposed they would simply have to wait and see, first they had to deal with Malkior.
"I see Brayleigh is is having a good time. I take it Bal is with her?" Brayleigh always seemed to get more active[i] when she was with her eldest brother.
After passing Balthasar, Jasper had continued to his younger son’s study, merely raising a speculative eyebrow at the objects passing through the minor tears in space. One of the pens was making a beeline for his head, until it wasn’t. It vanished from its trajectory, and reappeared in his left hand. There was no rift, no floating, just a change in the situation of reality. He didn’t seem to think much of it though, replacing the pen in the container it had initially left and taking the seat across from his middle child. “He is,” Jazz confirmed mildly, pulling a few strands of hair from out of his eyes with a rake of his fingers. He leaned against the back of the chair, an amused expression playing over his face for a moment.
“I heard you were shot the other day. Helen was somewhat distressed about this, you know.” She hadn’t said it as such, and to his knowledge at the time had not even insisted on healing the nick, trusting his natural faculties to do that. But she’d visited him for a little while after, and had not seemed to lose the small furrow between her brows. He mentioned it not to make Aryan feel guilty, but simply because he found it worth mentioning. Jasper himself was more [i]amused than anything; he’d field-tested no few possible uses of his own abilities in quite dangerous ways himself over the years he’d been alive—when one had powers that were not commonly documented, one had to take the occasional risk.
There was something he was working on now, actually; inspired by the story Balthasar had relayed about pulling Alarica back from the precipice of death. It wouldn't be quite the same, but it would be close. But that was a discussion for another time, perhaps. “How are you finding life without politics?” Though the question was lightly-inflected, it was serious enough.
Aryan smiled a little ruefully. "I misdirected the exit rift, nothing more. You should have seen the look on Emrys's face, honestly I thought my cousin was going to faint for minute." He was not one to miss the note of amusement, it had been an interesting situation. "Even so, I do believe I can add getting shot to the list of things I do not wish to repeat. Helen was concerned, yes, but pacified when she saw I was alright. She scolded me for being reckless, of course, but then I suppose I did deserve that."
He leaned back in the chair, regarding his father's question before raising a brow. "Honestly? As much as I detest the cutthroat back-stabbing and back-room deals, I find it...rather dull with nothing to do. I daresay I even miss it from time to time." For as powerful on a battlefield as the middle von Nacht was growing, fighting simply wasn't who he was. He did it because it was necessary, not because he enjoyed it.
The smile that tilted Jasper’s lips indicated that there was something in the answer he found agreeable. Lacing his fingers together under his chin, he cocked his head to the side a fraction. “I can’t say I’ve ever found all the backstabbing to my taste, either, but I do believe the end of this war will present us with an opportunity to change the way it is done.” One of his dark brows arched slightly, and the smile grew a little. “I’ve been thinking, you see, and it seems to me that when this is over, what is left of the world is going to need a sense of stability as quickly as possible, something to trust and lean on. I don’t want to restart the Council, as such—it seems that the best way to move is forward, and that is far too much like going back.” He also did not doubt that the humans would see it as more of the same.
“But there must be something. The rebuilding must have some visible body at its head, people who can be held accountable for what will follow this. Vampires and humans. It cannot and must not be this family alone. We are here when we are needed, but we must not become a crutch.” He was no king, and neither were any of the others amongst them—it would not be right to place all the power in their hands. “So the thought was this: that there would be a body of governance comprised of both our kind and humans. They will never forget our presence, now, and we can retreat to the shadows no longer. Instead, we must be as visible as possible, to show those that still doubt us that our intentions are good, that we can be something other than the monsters they tell their children about, the soldiers who tear apart their homes and would herd them like mere cattle.”
It would need to be handled with the utmost delicacy, and it would be a great deal of hard work. On top of that, it was but one of many tasks that would need doing. “I do not doubt that myself and perhaps some of the others will hold positions of some variety in such a body, but…” he fixed his eyes on Aryan’s. “I believe the person most suited to lead such an effort is you.”
There was a long moment that Aryan simply sat there, his purple eyes never wavering from his father's grey ones. If it had been anyone else to ask that of him, he would have laughed. But his father was not one to simply joke about things, certainly not something like this. Even so, he certainly wasn't expecting his father to ask him something like this.
Though, he was not blind to some of the more obvious reasons behind the maneuver. For one, he did not have the powers his father and brother shared, and his abilities with words made him rather good for such a position. Even so, he was rather unsure that he was the one right for such a position. Power could warp people, change people. He was afraid of what he would become. He exhaled through his nose slightly.
"Surely there are others you would consider before me? As much as I did not enjoy the back-stabbing, it is what I have spent the majority of my life doing. I am not sure anyone would want someone like that in a leading position."
Jasper had expected something like this, which was honestly why he was choosing to have this discussion now and not later. Pulling his hands just a little further apart, he pressed the tips of each against their opposites, so that they were steepled. He paused for a moment, considering how best to explain it. “When people look at me, what do you think they see?” The question did not really require an answer, but he allowed it to sink in for a moment. The smile on his face turned rueful for a brief second, and he shook his head just slightly. “Outside of this family, I am nothing more or less than the general of an army. Vincent is the same. Balthasar is a soldier. Keir and Alarica and Leora and Emrys and Zero are not so different. Your mother and Erys are mercenaries if they are anything. Alden and Morgan are intelligence men, shadows, and even less trustworthy than soldiers.” It wasn’t true, of course, and they were all much more complex than that, but nevertheless, Jasper knew well the science of images and the perception of others.
“But you… you are a man of letters and oratory, fighter though you have become. When you stand before them, it will swiftly become evident that you are a man of peace rather than war. The soldier in your brother will never leave. Good as his intentions are, open and honest as he may be, people will always look at him and see the way he moves, the way he carries himself, and recognize him as a warrior by his trade. They will always be afraid that I seek to be what my grandfather believed I was. The story is the same for any of the others you should like to choose.” He halted for a moment and leaned forward slightly. “That is not what is evident in your bearing, nor in the way you speak. It is not what they will see when they look at you, because it is not what you are. And that will give you the opportunity necessary to prove your intentions.”
His smile returned as though it had never left, though it was as subtle as ever. “You won’t be alone, Aryan. You’ll never be alone. We will always be here to support you in whatever capacity you require, and we will work to win the trust of people alongside you and for you. But none of us will be able to take that last step, to truly array the rest of the world behind us for its own repair. So no, there is no one I would consider before you. Not when the first solution is the best one there is.” There was a glimmer of something in Jasper’s eyes, and it looked suspiciously as though it were caught between a certain kind of gentle amusement and pride. And why not? He was proud of his son. He always had been.
There was a slight smile on his face in response to his father's. He still was not overly certain about the choice, but...he did have a few points. It was true, most of his family were fighters, and he simply was not. He was not the warrior Balthasar was, nor did he want to be. A man of oratory...he could not argue that. He'd become one of the youngest people to ever be accepted into the council, after all. He cocked his head to the side, propping it up on his knuckles.
"I am still not overly sure about it, but that does not mean I will not try."
Erys lay, her limbs stretched out over the couch in a rather languid manner. She was a bit tired, and that was saying a lot for the dhampir. She had been running about, training with her children, her husband, and her brother. The progenitor was not going to be an easy person to beat, and he would, perhaps, be the hardest to beat. There were moments where she doubted they would even be able to pull off such a feat, however; glancing at her family always managed to banish those thoughts. They were all trying so hard to train, to strengthen themselves to become stronger. They all were. She sighed, letting it out slowly and drawled it out longer than what was necessary.
Her eldest child flickered over her thoughts, and a smile pulled at her lips. It had taken him a while, but he had finally learned how to escape that dreadful closet he was stuck in, and she couldn't be more thrilled for him. He loved who he loved, just as she loved who she loved. There was no shame in that. The heart chose, not the mind, nor the body. It always came back to the heart. Though, really, the thing that had surprised her the most was the fact that he and his lover had taken in a child, adopted him as their own, and had raised him to be quite the superb little thing. She loved her grandchild to pieces, and she couldn't think of any two people more suited for him.
Rolling from the couch, she stood, stretching her limbs and listening for the satisfying pop. Once she made sure everything was in place, she began walking through the home. It had been a while since she last saw her eldest child, let alone spoke to him, and she was in the mood to see how he was faring. She was still worried for her children, considering the last incident they had, she almost lost her youngest child. And she still worried about the girl. In ways, her daughter was just like herself, and it caused a bit of white hair to sprout in her strawberry locks. Shaking her head, she laughed at herself. She had been scolded by said child about her over protective ways, but really, who could blame her?
Instead, she focused on finding the scent that belonged to Emrys, and smiled when she soon found him. "Emrys," she spoke, clearing her throat to signal him that she was there. She smiled down at him, placing a hand on her hip as she waited for his reply.
Emrys didn't need to look up to know that his mother was there, nor for her to actually say anything. An amused smile appeared on his face as he put Antissa back together, methodically taking Ushas apart peice by peice. Violet had taken Andrick off to see how well his powers were progressing; Em let Vi handle most of that. Emrys was more of a hands-on, combat type, like all Alistairs. His abilities were not offensive, therefore that kind of training he wasn't really suited for. Not that he minded, there were plenty of ways to be involved with his son, and Emrys would be a liar if he said he wasn't proud.
"Oh dear, should I be worried that my mother has sought me out?" That he really couldn't help, his crimson eyes gleaming much like his father's often did, the mischief clearly evident. "Hello, Mother. Something I can help you with?"
"Does a mother need a reason to visit her child? Especially her baby?" she stated, folding her arms across her chest as she regarded her child with a raised brow. "You wound me so, my son," she spoke, placing a hand over her heart and giving a mock hurt appearance. She laughed at herself before shaking her head softly, walking over towards Emrys and sitting beside him. For a moment, they sat in relative silence, just enjoying each other's company. She missed this, them. It seemed that the only time she saw them was during training sessions.
"How is the parenting life treating you?" she finally questioned, though she knew, sort of, the answer to that question. Parenting wasn't easy, especially with the first child, and she could only imagine how it was on him and Alden. Andrick was a special case, and though he was adapting very well, it still must have been difficult for him. Regardless, she trusted her son enough to know that if he ever needed it, she was here, along with the rest of his family.
Emrys chuckled lightly as she sat down beside him. "No, I suppose you don't. Especially not your baby." While some might scoff at being called that when they were only about ten years shy of a century, Emrys hardly minded. He would always be, he understood, her baby boy, just as Andrick probably would remain ingrained in his memory as the little ten year old, now pushing twelve.
The smile on his face softened. "He's a smart kid, and growing like a weed. He's also gotten really good at making only the types of plants that he wants." He'd grown a whole rose bush outside of Brayleigh's window the other day, the infant gurgling as she watched the flowers shoot upwards from the ground. "Gotta admit though, never thought I'd be a parent, not at this age, and certainly not after Vi. But, I suppose life always has funny little ways of surprising us."
That wicked Alistair grin spread across his face before speaking again. "Did you hear I shot Ary?" Really, that wasn't quite how it had happened. It had been his bullet, but Aryan had redirected it into his shoulder, instead of away from him, when he'd had a lapse in concentraition. Emrys had been concerned at first, but had laughed all the same when it turned out his cousin was fine.
"Yeah? Then when did you exactly plan on becoming a parent? You're over eighty years old, you should be a grandpa by now," Erys teased as she ruffled her sons' hair. It was true though, no one ever expects to be a parent so soon or so late in life. Things just happen unexpectedly. Erys, for a while, wanted kids, but she was never sure if she could have them given what she and Morgan were. Not to mention the broken beds they'd managed and still had no child. In a way, Emrys had been her miracle child. He had been unexpected, but not unpleasant. She smiled at the memory and sighed softly.
"Oh? And here I thought it was your sister who shot him. Huh, makes sense now I suppose when you think about it," she replied, smiling in the process. "Well I suppose since there is not a rampaging Nikki after you, that it wasn't too severe of a wound. Besides, I'm sure the kid could take it. He is partly Alistair you know," she continued, a smirk worming its way back onto her face. In a sense, they were all partly Alistair, except for maybe Ava, who hadn't exactly been a family member, but was still family nonetheless.
Emrys chuckled. "You do realize that Alden and I are both males, despite what Diya has taken to calling me? That leaves few options in the kid department, you know. And Ary's tougher than he gives himself credit for. That black hole thing he does is no mean feat, and just for the record, I don't recommend going through one. It's great for on the spot teleportation, but it's...weird." Somehow Em had become the guinea pig for that, and it had been an awkward experience. It was like being torn to pieces and then reassembled and shoved back into reality. A neat trick, but it was not an experience he wanted to repeat. He'd stick with his intangibility.
"It actually wasn't my fault, he deflected the bullet back at himself. Even so, it wasn't much more than a nick in his shoulder, really. How's Dad doing? I know he's not overly happy about staying behind with Aunt Nikki."
"Not exactly what I meant, and even though the two of you are males, you two produced a rather cute kid," she replied, sighing softly as she caught his last question. Morgan would be staying behind with Nikki to care for the children. She knew he wanted to be out on the field as much as they all did, it was in their blood, however; there was something holding him back, and she was not going to allow him to fight in that condition. At least not until it could be fixed. Regardless, it was something that their children did not know, and did not need to know. She glanced up towards the sky for a moment, as if seeking its counsel before making a decision.
"You know your dad, a stubborn cat who won't lay down and be kicked. He'll be okay, staying behind with your aunt will be good for the both of them," she replied, turning back to face Emrys. "You know us Alistairs though, we just can't stay away from a good fight, though I think it might actually run in the Kuragari line too, considering your uncle has just as much fun with it as we do. Though don't tell him I said that," she stated, waving a hand in front of her face in the process. She smiled at her son as it slowly turned into something softer. They wouldn't all be joining the final battle, however; it was enough to know that a majority of the family would be there, fighting together physically while some of the others could only be there spiritually.
Emrys chuckled. "Well, there was Alistair blood in the Kuragari line before you and Dad. And I don't think Dad would appreciate the comparison to a cat. Tiger, maybe, but not a cat." Em grinned, and shook his head. "Well, we'll just have to make sure we kick enough ass for him as well, and that we all get back. Then he won't have reason to complain, yet he still will, cause he always does. C'mon." He holstered all three of his guns, grinning down at his mother as he stood up. "How about you come kick my ass on the range, just like old times?"
Her eldest child flickered over her thoughts, and a smile pulled at her lips. It had taken him a while, but he had finally learned how to escape that dreadful closet he was stuck in, and she couldn't be more thrilled for him. He loved who he loved, just as she loved who she loved. There was no shame in that. The heart chose, not the mind, nor the body. It always came back to the heart. Though, really, the thing that had surprised her the most was the fact that he and his lover had taken in a child, adopted him as their own, and had raised him to be quite the superb little thing. She loved her grandchild to pieces, and she couldn't think of any two people more suited for him.
Rolling from the couch, she stood, stretching her limbs and listening for the satisfying pop. Once she made sure everything was in place, she began walking through the home. It had been a while since she last saw her eldest child, let alone spoke to him, and she was in the mood to see how he was faring. She was still worried for her children, considering the last incident they had, she almost lost her youngest child. And she still worried about the girl. In ways, her daughter was just like herself, and it caused a bit of white hair to sprout in her strawberry locks. Shaking her head, she laughed at herself. She had been scolded by said child about her over protective ways, but really, who could blame her?
Instead, she focused on finding the scent that belonged to Emrys, and smiled when she soon found him. "Emrys," she spoke, clearing her throat to signal him that she was there. She smiled down at him, placing a hand on her hip as she waited for his reply.
Emrys didn't need to look up to know that his mother was there, nor for her to actually say anything. An amused smile appeared on his face as he put Antissa back together, methodically taking Ushas apart peice by peice. Violet had taken Andrick off to see how well his powers were progressing; Em let Vi handle most of that. Emrys was more of a hands-on, combat type, like all Alistairs. His abilities were not offensive, therefore that kind of training he wasn't really suited for. Not that he minded, there were plenty of ways to be involved with his son, and Emrys would be a liar if he said he wasn't proud.
"Oh dear, should I be worried that my mother has sought me out?" That he really couldn't help, his crimson eyes gleaming much like his father's often did, the mischief clearly evident. "Hello, Mother. Something I can help you with?"
"Does a mother need a reason to visit her child? Especially her baby?" she stated, folding her arms across her chest as she regarded her child with a raised brow. "You wound me so, my son," she spoke, placing a hand over her heart and giving a mock hurt appearance. She laughed at herself before shaking her head softly, walking over towards Emrys and sitting beside him. For a moment, they sat in relative silence, just enjoying each other's company. She missed this, them. It seemed that the only time she saw them was during training sessions.
"How is the parenting life treating you?" she finally questioned, though she knew, sort of, the answer to that question. Parenting wasn't easy, especially with the first child, and she could only imagine how it was on him and Alden. Andrick was a special case, and though he was adapting very well, it still must have been difficult for him. Regardless, she trusted her son enough to know that if he ever needed it, she was here, along with the rest of his family.
Emrys chuckled lightly as she sat down beside him. "No, I suppose you don't. Especially not your baby." While some might scoff at being called that when they were only about ten years shy of a century, Emrys hardly minded. He would always be, he understood, her baby boy, just as Andrick probably would remain ingrained in his memory as the little ten year old, now pushing twelve.
The smile on his face softened. "He's a smart kid, and growing like a weed. He's also gotten really good at making only the types of plants that he wants." He'd grown a whole rose bush outside of Brayleigh's window the other day, the infant gurgling as she watched the flowers shoot upwards from the ground. "Gotta admit though, never thought I'd be a parent, not at this age, and certainly not after Vi. But, I suppose life always has funny little ways of surprising us."
That wicked Alistair grin spread across his face before speaking again. "Did you hear I shot Ary?" Really, that wasn't quite how it had happened. It had been his bullet, but Aryan had redirected it into his shoulder, instead of away from him, when he'd had a lapse in concentraition. Emrys had been concerned at first, but had laughed all the same when it turned out his cousin was fine.
"Yeah? Then when did you exactly plan on becoming a parent? You're over eighty years old, you should be a grandpa by now," Erys teased as she ruffled her sons' hair. It was true though, no one ever expects to be a parent so soon or so late in life. Things just happen unexpectedly. Erys, for a while, wanted kids, but she was never sure if she could have them given what she and Morgan were. Not to mention the broken beds they'd managed and still had no child. In a way, Emrys had been her miracle child. He had been unexpected, but not unpleasant. She smiled at the memory and sighed softly.
"Oh? And here I thought it was your sister who shot him. Huh, makes sense now I suppose when you think about it," she replied, smiling in the process. "Well I suppose since there is not a rampaging Nikki after you, that it wasn't too severe of a wound. Besides, I'm sure the kid could take it. He is partly Alistair you know," she continued, a smirk worming its way back onto her face. In a sense, they were all partly Alistair, except for maybe Ava, who hadn't exactly been a family member, but was still family nonetheless.
Emrys chuckled. "You do realize that Alden and I are both males, despite what Diya has taken to calling me? That leaves few options in the kid department, you know. And Ary's tougher than he gives himself credit for. That black hole thing he does is no mean feat, and just for the record, I don't recommend going through one. It's great for on the spot teleportation, but it's...weird." Somehow Em had become the guinea pig for that, and it had been an awkward experience. It was like being torn to pieces and then reassembled and shoved back into reality. A neat trick, but it was not an experience he wanted to repeat. He'd stick with his intangibility.
"It actually wasn't my fault, he deflected the bullet back at himself. Even so, it wasn't much more than a nick in his shoulder, really. How's Dad doing? I know he's not overly happy about staying behind with Aunt Nikki."
"Not exactly what I meant, and even though the two of you are males, you two produced a rather cute kid," she replied, sighing softly as she caught his last question. Morgan would be staying behind with Nikki to care for the children. She knew he wanted to be out on the field as much as they all did, it was in their blood, however; there was something holding him back, and she was not going to allow him to fight in that condition. At least not until it could be fixed. Regardless, it was something that their children did not know, and did not need to know. She glanced up towards the sky for a moment, as if seeking its counsel before making a decision.
"You know your dad, a stubborn cat who won't lay down and be kicked. He'll be okay, staying behind with your aunt will be good for the both of them," she replied, turning back to face Emrys. "You know us Alistairs though, we just can't stay away from a good fight, though I think it might actually run in the Kuragari line too, considering your uncle has just as much fun with it as we do. Though don't tell him I said that," she stated, waving a hand in front of her face in the process. She smiled at her son as it slowly turned into something softer. They wouldn't all be joining the final battle, however; it was enough to know that a majority of the family would be there, fighting together physically while some of the others could only be there spiritually.
Emrys chuckled. "Well, there was Alistair blood in the Kuragari line before you and Dad. And I don't think Dad would appreciate the comparison to a cat. Tiger, maybe, but not a cat." Em grinned, and shook his head. "Well, we'll just have to make sure we kick enough ass for him as well, and that we all get back. Then he won't have reason to complain, yet he still will, cause he always does. C'mon." He holstered all three of his guns, grinning down at his mother as he stood up. "How about you come kick my ass on the range, just like old times?"
Erys shook her head lightly. Over the past few months, her brother had taken it upon himself to train Keir, to teach him how to control his other side. When Vincent first came to her about it, she was quite honestly frightened. Not for her son, but for her brother. She and Morgan were the only ones who even knew of that other side of him, and it was something that had perplexed both her and Morgan. Neither of them knew where it had come from, and it had startled her to know that there was something like that in her son. She had voiced this concern to Vincent, however; the man always seemed to put her fears at ease, and she couldn't help but give him her blessings to train the boy.
So, it wasn't perhaps that surprising to find that she was seeking her middle child. She wanted to see how his progress was coming along more than anything, especially since he had reason to learn the control. It wasn't a secret any longer, how her son felt about her niece, and quite honestly, she had found it rather hilarious. Vincent, when he had found out, wasn't exactly a happy trooper about it, but then again, he was never happy about things that concerned his family. Well, that wasn't true, he was just over protective. She had almost felt bad for Keir when she had found out about his feelings, however; when Vincent showed an interest in actually helping Keir, she had all but laughed herself to tears.
She blinked slowly, her blue gaze landing on the one person she had been searching for. "Keir," she called out, her lips tilting into a soft smile. "Vincent tells me you've come a long way in your training. How are you faring with that uncle of yours?" she spoke, her voice lightly teasing as if to say she knew exactly how he was faring. Vincent was a brutal man, and family or not, she knew he would not take it easy on Keir, which was, perhaps, for the best. Control was best learned under various and vast conditions, something that only Vincent could provide, except for perhaps Jasper as well, but Leora wasn't his daughter, nor was Keir his[/u] son.
Keir had been perched in a tree, intent on doing nothing at all for the moment, a wry smile appearing on his face as he smelled his mother approaching. She always managed to make him smile just by [i]being there. It wasn't something he could explain, and he wasn't exactly inclined to try.
Languidly, he jumped down, landing silently in front of the woman who had brought him into this world. He laced his hands behind his head, looking almost bored. "Well, it has a name now, it's Sagiv. And Uncle Vincent hasn't killed me yet, so I guess that's a plus. Though I could do without some of the scarring."
Erys rose a brow when Keir spoke, saying it had a name. Sagiv? Interesting name, really, when one thought of the meaning behind it, however; Erys merely shook her head, a smile pulling at her lips as Keir walked towards her. "Well, you know Vincent. Besides, you should count yourself so lucky to only be scarring," she spoke, ruffling her son's hair in the process. She let her hand fall to her side, a smirk pulling at her lips in the process.
"Actually, you should count yourself so lucky as to still be alive. Didn't think you had it in you to actually go for Leora. Though honestly, you had it a lot easier than your father did," she stated, laughing at him in the process. She could still see the memory playing vividly over her mind, and it had taken every ounce of control to not laugh at Morgan when she found out. Vincent...could be terrifying in a certain sense, however; he was just a big teddy bear, and it took the right amount of coaxing to actually bring that out in him. So far Ava and Leora were the only ones who could, but not that she could blame them. They were his wife and daughter. Must be a male thing or something, since all of the males in the family, Alistair, Kuragari, and von Nacht, seemed to gush over their daughters.
Keir shrugged lightly, an amused smile on his face. "Hey, when you've loved someone since you were old enough to understand the emotion, you tend not to let them go very easily." And that was certainly correct, he had no intention of letting Leora go, not again. He'd let her go once, and that had ended up being one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
"Besides, you know us Alistairs. We like living risky lives, it's what makes it fun. Having Vincent for both an Uncle and perhaps one day an In-Law just makes things interesting." He grinned.
"You...certainly do not take after your father," she stated, shaking her head in the process. "If I remember correctly, your father didn't want to chase after it, but then again, I can see your point. Vinny tends to be intimidating I suppose. Really, all you have to do is just tickle his fancy a bit and he'll be the biggest teddy bear at your disposal," she stated, cackling in the process. She could already picture her brother in a bear costume, his face pursed into a fine line as he stared with evil intent towards an enemy.
"Oh? So you plan on asking Vincent's permission to take Leora away from him? Risky, you've got balls boy," she stated, patting her son on the back in the process. "Well, it was nice knowing you. Just make sure when he attempts to kill you, that you at least don't scream? It'll make things worse," she stated, the trademark smirk pulling at her lips in the process.
Keir rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom. And when was the last time you heard me scream? Honestly, he can try and kill me all he wants, it'd be refreshing to be able to go all-out on someone." And actually, that was not entirely true, as he had gone all out against his uncle, and several times now. It was a perk of the Aegis. He could throw everything he had at Vincent without fear of hurting him. "Though that doesn't mean I don't fear him. I think the only person alive who doesn't fear him is maybe Ava and Leora. And you. And if I ask anyone, it would be Aunt Ava."
Erys snorted at Keir, holding back a laugh in the process as she held a hand over her mouth. "You forget your cousin Balthasar, your Uncle Jasper, your Aunt Nikki. They do not fear him," she chided as she thought of the people listed. Nikki, might have feared him at one time, but Vincent and she had come a long way. She rose a brow when Keir mentioned going to Ava. Ava wouldn't hesitate to give her blessings, however; it wouldn't be that easy. It was Leora, Vincent's only daughter. Keir would need to be direct and approach Vincent first, however; she wasn't going to tell her son how to do things. She could only help direct him, and hope he chose to do the right thing when the time came.
"Yeah, well just remember, Leora has two parents, you can't by pass the other," she replied, sighing softly before throwing herself to the ground, crossing her legs beneath her. "The way I see it, you have a better chance at asking just the one you need to but, that'll be up to you," she continued, letting a half smile pull at her lips. "Besides, your brother beat you to giving me a grandchild, and Alarica won't be having any time soon, if I know your cousin...when are you and Leora going to give me more?" she questioned, allowing her lips to pull into a wicked grin.
In his natural life, Keir could not remember having ever blushed. He supposed it was possible that he had when he was a young child, but in recent years, the most he'd ever done was scowled and look annoyed. Blushing just wasn't something he did.
At least, not until this particular subject came up. He could feel the heat snaking up his face, and he crossed his arms, a scowl on his face. "Mom..." he growled. He and Leora had had some rather heavy make-out sessions, but nothing more than that. Keir understood that he was not her first. That really didn't bother him, he didn't care, because she was his, now. However; her memories of what had accompanied said act were far less than happy ones, and as such, he had no desire to drudge things up to the surface. He would wait for her, just like he always did.
"You'll get grandkids when Leo wants them. As for Rica...well, they already beat us to that, so are you really sure they won't be having any anytime soon?"
Erys laughed at her son's colored face, holding her sides in the process. She wiped away a tear that formed in the corner of her eye before trying to calm herself down. "I didn't know that subject would render you so...embarrassed," she stated, her half-smile twisting into a smirk. "And just because your sister beat you to that doesn't mean she's going to have kids first. Your cousin...he's a special case. That is going to take time before anything even happens, but you and Leo...I'm surprised you've held out this long. Shouldn't you be ravishing her by now? You are an Alistair, after all," she stated, her smirk widening if possible.
Keir scoffed slightly. "I'll hold out as long as I have to, if she doesn't want that then so be it. Her past experience with men and sex has been far from good, I'm not going to make her relive that if she doesn't want to. Tch." He cut himself off, seeing as his mother did not exactly know, and it was up to Leora if she wanted her aunt to know.
"That's my boy," Erys stated, grabbing her son's arm and pulling him close to her and rubbing his head. She didn't press the issue further, and instead sighed softly. "You are just like your father you know that," she stated in a soft whisper before letting him go. "I'm proud of you, Keir, I really am," she continued, offering her son a genuine smile. She may not have told her kids often, but it was true all the same. She was proud of them, every single one of them, but Keir especially. He had grown to face his metaphorical and literal demons, loved a woman so much that he was willing to wait for her, and fought fiercely to defend his family from even himself.
"Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."
So, it wasn't perhaps that surprising to find that she was seeking her middle child. She wanted to see how his progress was coming along more than anything, especially since he had reason to learn the control. It wasn't a secret any longer, how her son felt about her niece, and quite honestly, she had found it rather hilarious. Vincent, when he had found out, wasn't exactly a happy trooper about it, but then again, he was never happy about things that concerned his family. Well, that wasn't true, he was just over protective. She had almost felt bad for Keir when she had found out about his feelings, however; when Vincent showed an interest in actually helping Keir, she had all but laughed herself to tears.
She blinked slowly, her blue gaze landing on the one person she had been searching for. "Keir," she called out, her lips tilting into a soft smile. "Vincent tells me you've come a long way in your training. How are you faring with that uncle of yours?" she spoke, her voice lightly teasing as if to say she knew exactly how he was faring. Vincent was a brutal man, and family or not, she knew he would not take it easy on Keir, which was, perhaps, for the best. Control was best learned under various and vast conditions, something that only Vincent could provide, except for perhaps Jasper as well, but Leora wasn't his daughter, nor was Keir his[/u] son.
Keir had been perched in a tree, intent on doing nothing at all for the moment, a wry smile appearing on his face as he smelled his mother approaching. She always managed to make him smile just by [i]being there. It wasn't something he could explain, and he wasn't exactly inclined to try.
Languidly, he jumped down, landing silently in front of the woman who had brought him into this world. He laced his hands behind his head, looking almost bored. "Well, it has a name now, it's Sagiv. And Uncle Vincent hasn't killed me yet, so I guess that's a plus. Though I could do without some of the scarring."
Erys rose a brow when Keir spoke, saying it had a name. Sagiv? Interesting name, really, when one thought of the meaning behind it, however; Erys merely shook her head, a smile pulling at her lips as Keir walked towards her. "Well, you know Vincent. Besides, you should count yourself so lucky to only be scarring," she spoke, ruffling her son's hair in the process. She let her hand fall to her side, a smirk pulling at her lips in the process.
"Actually, you should count yourself so lucky as to still be alive. Didn't think you had it in you to actually go for Leora. Though honestly, you had it a lot easier than your father did," she stated, laughing at him in the process. She could still see the memory playing vividly over her mind, and it had taken every ounce of control to not laugh at Morgan when she found out. Vincent...could be terrifying in a certain sense, however; he was just a big teddy bear, and it took the right amount of coaxing to actually bring that out in him. So far Ava and Leora were the only ones who could, but not that she could blame them. They were his wife and daughter. Must be a male thing or something, since all of the males in the family, Alistair, Kuragari, and von Nacht, seemed to gush over their daughters.
Keir shrugged lightly, an amused smile on his face. "Hey, when you've loved someone since you were old enough to understand the emotion, you tend not to let them go very easily." And that was certainly correct, he had no intention of letting Leora go, not again. He'd let her go once, and that had ended up being one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
"Besides, you know us Alistairs. We like living risky lives, it's what makes it fun. Having Vincent for both an Uncle and perhaps one day an In-Law just makes things interesting." He grinned.
"You...certainly do not take after your father," she stated, shaking her head in the process. "If I remember correctly, your father didn't want to chase after it, but then again, I can see your point. Vinny tends to be intimidating I suppose. Really, all you have to do is just tickle his fancy a bit and he'll be the biggest teddy bear at your disposal," she stated, cackling in the process. She could already picture her brother in a bear costume, his face pursed into a fine line as he stared with evil intent towards an enemy.
"Oh? So you plan on asking Vincent's permission to take Leora away from him? Risky, you've got balls boy," she stated, patting her son on the back in the process. "Well, it was nice knowing you. Just make sure when he attempts to kill you, that you at least don't scream? It'll make things worse," she stated, the trademark smirk pulling at her lips in the process.
Keir rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom. And when was the last time you heard me scream? Honestly, he can try and kill me all he wants, it'd be refreshing to be able to go all-out on someone." And actually, that was not entirely true, as he had gone all out against his uncle, and several times now. It was a perk of the Aegis. He could throw everything he had at Vincent without fear of hurting him. "Though that doesn't mean I don't fear him. I think the only person alive who doesn't fear him is maybe Ava and Leora. And you. And if I ask anyone, it would be Aunt Ava."
Erys snorted at Keir, holding back a laugh in the process as she held a hand over her mouth. "You forget your cousin Balthasar, your Uncle Jasper, your Aunt Nikki. They do not fear him," she chided as she thought of the people listed. Nikki, might have feared him at one time, but Vincent and she had come a long way. She rose a brow when Keir mentioned going to Ava. Ava wouldn't hesitate to give her blessings, however; it wouldn't be that easy. It was Leora, Vincent's only daughter. Keir would need to be direct and approach Vincent first, however; she wasn't going to tell her son how to do things. She could only help direct him, and hope he chose to do the right thing when the time came.
"Yeah, well just remember, Leora has two parents, you can't by pass the other," she replied, sighing softly before throwing herself to the ground, crossing her legs beneath her. "The way I see it, you have a better chance at asking just the one you need to but, that'll be up to you," she continued, letting a half smile pull at her lips. "Besides, your brother beat you to giving me a grandchild, and Alarica won't be having any time soon, if I know your cousin...when are you and Leora going to give me more?" she questioned, allowing her lips to pull into a wicked grin.
In his natural life, Keir could not remember having ever blushed. He supposed it was possible that he had when he was a young child, but in recent years, the most he'd ever done was scowled and look annoyed. Blushing just wasn't something he did.
At least, not until this particular subject came up. He could feel the heat snaking up his face, and he crossed his arms, a scowl on his face. "Mom..." he growled. He and Leora had had some rather heavy make-out sessions, but nothing more than that. Keir understood that he was not her first. That really didn't bother him, he didn't care, because she was his, now. However; her memories of what had accompanied said act were far less than happy ones, and as such, he had no desire to drudge things up to the surface. He would wait for her, just like he always did.
"You'll get grandkids when Leo wants them. As for Rica...well, they already beat us to that, so are you really sure they won't be having any anytime soon?"
Erys laughed at her son's colored face, holding her sides in the process. She wiped away a tear that formed in the corner of her eye before trying to calm herself down. "I didn't know that subject would render you so...embarrassed," she stated, her half-smile twisting into a smirk. "And just because your sister beat you to that doesn't mean she's going to have kids first. Your cousin...he's a special case. That is going to take time before anything even happens, but you and Leo...I'm surprised you've held out this long. Shouldn't you be ravishing her by now? You are an Alistair, after all," she stated, her smirk widening if possible.
Keir scoffed slightly. "I'll hold out as long as I have to, if she doesn't want that then so be it. Her past experience with men and sex has been far from good, I'm not going to make her relive that if she doesn't want to. Tch." He cut himself off, seeing as his mother did not exactly know, and it was up to Leora if she wanted her aunt to know.
"That's my boy," Erys stated, grabbing her son's arm and pulling him close to her and rubbing his head. She didn't press the issue further, and instead sighed softly. "You are just like your father you know that," she stated in a soft whisper before letting him go. "I'm proud of you, Keir, I really am," she continued, offering her son a genuine smile. She may not have told her kids often, but it was true all the same. She was proud of them, every single one of them, but Keir especially. He had grown to face his metaphorical and literal demons, loved a woman so much that he was willing to wait for her, and fought fiercely to defend his family from even himself.
"Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."
Morgan set the paper down, stretching afterwards. He leaned back in the chair, looking out the window. After some discussion with his brothers-in-law, it had been decided that he would stay behind, along with his sister and the children. Brayleigh would need Nikki, but there were too many of the children now for only one person. Bryer had a much better hand with his abilities now, as did Andrick, and Diya was a little spitfire with her pyrokinesis, but even so, they were children, and all of them much too gentle and young for something like a fight should the need arise.
Morgan had no wish to remain behind while his family went off to fight, but he was not blind to the necessity. Jasper was probably the only one who was strong enough to even attempt a battle with the Progenitor, and Vincent was the only one with enough experience with the Aegis to fight Baldr. Well, there was his son, as well, though really, Keir had little experience, he was just a fighting machine that enjoyed it with possibly too much gusto. Not that he could blame him, it was in his blood. The Alistairs had always been a very...hands-on type when it came to fighting, none more so that Keir himself.
Morgan smiled to himself, wondering how his youngest was faring. She was often sparring with her mother, but at the moment, he could smell Erys with Emrys, and Rica was somewhere out in the orchard. That made him chuckle slightly. It was like clockwork, really, the girl loved apples. Standing up and stretching again, Morgan languidly made his way towards his daughter. It was a bit odd, really, that Morgan never really doted on the girl, not like Vincent did with Leora. He reached up and plucked one of the apples out of the tree above him as he passed. "How is my little Koneko?
Alarica allowed her legs to sway from the tree she currently was making her home in. For the past few days, she'd come to the orchard, plucking an apple or two, sometimes five or six, and taking them back with her to her room. What could she say? She loved apples, and a part of her almost said she loved them more than she did Balthasar, however; she chuckled at that thought. There was nothing more she loved than him, and it would always be so. She frowned though, when she recalled Alden laughing at the two of them, and she and the second oldest Kuragari began a game of images, however; there was one in particular that she did not need to see of her brother, and allowed him his victory.
She sighed softly, shaking her head when a voice called out to her. She blinked a few times, glancing down from the tree in time to spot her father, and she smiled brightly at him. "Well, that depends really. I am fine, and I don't think I could be any better really," she replied, wrapping her arms around her father's torso in the process and squeezing lightly. She pulled away and blinked slightly. "You're...staying behind with aunt Nikki right?" she questioned, sadness laced behind her tone, however; there was a hint of understanding. She was upset that she wouldn't be getting to fight alongside her whole family, but the youngest generation needed looking after as well, and aunt Nikki was only one person.
Morgan smiled down at his daughter as she hugged him. "What, disappointed that you won't be fighting next to your old man? Don't worry, Koneko, I'll be with you in spirit. Besides, someone has to stay with Nikki. Three little ones and Brayleigh is a bit much on her own."
For a few seconds, he said nothing, and then, with a raise of his eyebrows and a sly smile, he looked sideways at Alarica. "So...it's good to see you finally got your problem sorted out. It's good to see you happy, Rica."
Alarica shrugged her shoulders at her father's response. Disappointed was an understatement, however, she knew the meaning behind his words. "Yeah, well it won't be the same without you. Fighting next to my old man in spirit isn't as fun as it is to actually fight next to you, but aunt Nikki needs you more than I do I suppose," she stated, relaxing her shoulders a bit before rolling them to pop them muscles back into place. The smirk on her face faded into a soft smile at her father's last words, and she couldn't help but shake her head. Her problem hadn't exactly been dealt with, however; it was a work in progress at least.
"Yeah, well you and mom were no help," she bantered playfully, the smile still playing at her lips. "There are still a lot of things I need to work out, but for the most part, yes I am happy. I...think I can finally understand what it is you and mom have, but it still feels...different. I don't really know how to explain it, but I suppose if it feels almost the same, then maybe..." she paused shaking her head in the process. "The only thing that matters is that we're happy, right?" she stated, nodding her head in the process.
Morgan chuckled. He nodded. "The problems never really go away, they just get easier to accept with time. Trust me, I felt the same way with your mother, and to some extent, I still do. It's not easy, being someone that you don't think the other person deserves, but I'll let you in on a little secret." He winked at her. "More often than not, it only serves to make you a better person in the end, being with them. You and Bal were made for each other, Rica. Being happy is all that ever matters. Just...try to keep your mother away from him for a while. She's already hounding Emrys and Keir for more grandkids. I have a feeling Nikki's already been on her son about that...I don't think he could handle his mother and his aunt."
"Well...now I see who I get it from," Alarica replied, shaking her head in the process. Maybe he was right, perhaps in time she'd learn to accept it. For now, she had to cope and deal with the feeling of being not good enough for the one she loved, however; to him, she was, and that was all that mattered. They were happy, and that was all that mattered. She nodded in understanding to her father's words before a brow ascended her forehead. She scoffed lightly, shaking her head in the process. Of course her mother would already be hounding for grandchildren, however; Alarica wasn't quite sure she was exactly ready for kids herself.
Not that she didn't want them, she did, but with the war...she wasn't so sure she wanted to have kids during such a time. She, herself, was a child of war, and look how she grew up to be. There was nothing wrong with it per se, however, but that didn't mean that she was spared knowing how the war changed people. She didn't want that for her kids, to grow up as she had. Though the family had tried everything to shield them from the world, the war just kept sneaking in, and they were all taught, inevitably, to fight. She wanted to raise her kids in a world where the only reason they needed to fight was to protect themselves from idiots or people who would do them harm. Not because they would eventually be sent out to fight a bloody battle that had raged for over a century.
"I make no promises about that. You know how mom is, once she's set her mind to something, she goes after it. It...is a surprise how you've managed to stay alive after all these years of breaking beds...I'm sure you and mom destroyed more than just beds," she stated, the signature Alistair smirk pulling at her lips in the process.
This time, Morgan laughed. "Hey...I'm more durable than that. And yes, it's been more than just beds, though it certainly was a lot of beds. We even broke the roof once. Frankly I'm a bit disappointed, though, you did do it outside, so I suppose I can't expect you to break too much." He grinned wryly at his daughter. He'd found it a bit interesting that she'd beaten her twin in that regard, though he supposed Keir also had his own reasons.
Alarica rose a brow at her father, tilting her head to the side in the process. He was disappointed that they did it outside? She shook her head, the trademark smirk pulling at her lips as she placed a hand on her hip. "Oh? Well, there was the tree not too long ago, and really? The roof? How did you manage that one? Wait, actually I don't want to know," she stated, visibly shuddering at the image she did not need in her mind. She chuckled lightly to herself before glancing back at her dad.
"You know, just because we are Alistair's, doesn't mean we all have to go around breaking beds and other things. It's nice to just be there. You and mom should try it sometime," she stated shaking her head in the process. It was true though, she might have wanted something like what her parents had, but she didn't exactly want every little detail about it. She had more restraint than that, though lately...
Morgan let out a short laugh. "Trust me Koneko, your mother and I have plenty of experience knowing what that's like." That, in it's own way, was true. Though they may be known as the most destructive couple, they had plenty of quieter moments. He glanced up at the apples above them still, reaching up and plucking one down.
"Come on, I think your aunt is running out of baking supplies, I'd bet she'd appreciate some of these."
Morgan had no wish to remain behind while his family went off to fight, but he was not blind to the necessity. Jasper was probably the only one who was strong enough to even attempt a battle with the Progenitor, and Vincent was the only one with enough experience with the Aegis to fight Baldr. Well, there was his son, as well, though really, Keir had little experience, he was just a fighting machine that enjoyed it with possibly too much gusto. Not that he could blame him, it was in his blood. The Alistairs had always been a very...hands-on type when it came to fighting, none more so that Keir himself.
Morgan smiled to himself, wondering how his youngest was faring. She was often sparring with her mother, but at the moment, he could smell Erys with Emrys, and Rica was somewhere out in the orchard. That made him chuckle slightly. It was like clockwork, really, the girl loved apples. Standing up and stretching again, Morgan languidly made his way towards his daughter. It was a bit odd, really, that Morgan never really doted on the girl, not like Vincent did with Leora. He reached up and plucked one of the apples out of the tree above him as he passed. "How is my little Koneko?
Alarica allowed her legs to sway from the tree she currently was making her home in. For the past few days, she'd come to the orchard, plucking an apple or two, sometimes five or six, and taking them back with her to her room. What could she say? She loved apples, and a part of her almost said she loved them more than she did Balthasar, however; she chuckled at that thought. There was nothing more she loved than him, and it would always be so. She frowned though, when she recalled Alden laughing at the two of them, and she and the second oldest Kuragari began a game of images, however; there was one in particular that she did not need to see of her brother, and allowed him his victory.
She sighed softly, shaking her head when a voice called out to her. She blinked a few times, glancing down from the tree in time to spot her father, and she smiled brightly at him. "Well, that depends really. I am fine, and I don't think I could be any better really," she replied, wrapping her arms around her father's torso in the process and squeezing lightly. She pulled away and blinked slightly. "You're...staying behind with aunt Nikki right?" she questioned, sadness laced behind her tone, however; there was a hint of understanding. She was upset that she wouldn't be getting to fight alongside her whole family, but the youngest generation needed looking after as well, and aunt Nikki was only one person.
Morgan smiled down at his daughter as she hugged him. "What, disappointed that you won't be fighting next to your old man? Don't worry, Koneko, I'll be with you in spirit. Besides, someone has to stay with Nikki. Three little ones and Brayleigh is a bit much on her own."
For a few seconds, he said nothing, and then, with a raise of his eyebrows and a sly smile, he looked sideways at Alarica. "So...it's good to see you finally got your problem sorted out. It's good to see you happy, Rica."
Alarica shrugged her shoulders at her father's response. Disappointed was an understatement, however, she knew the meaning behind his words. "Yeah, well it won't be the same without you. Fighting next to my old man in spirit isn't as fun as it is to actually fight next to you, but aunt Nikki needs you more than I do I suppose," she stated, relaxing her shoulders a bit before rolling them to pop them muscles back into place. The smirk on her face faded into a soft smile at her father's last words, and she couldn't help but shake her head. Her problem hadn't exactly been dealt with, however; it was a work in progress at least.
"Yeah, well you and mom were no help," she bantered playfully, the smile still playing at her lips. "There are still a lot of things I need to work out, but for the most part, yes I am happy. I...think I can finally understand what it is you and mom have, but it still feels...different. I don't really know how to explain it, but I suppose if it feels almost the same, then maybe..." she paused shaking her head in the process. "The only thing that matters is that we're happy, right?" she stated, nodding her head in the process.
Morgan chuckled. He nodded. "The problems never really go away, they just get easier to accept with time. Trust me, I felt the same way with your mother, and to some extent, I still do. It's not easy, being someone that you don't think the other person deserves, but I'll let you in on a little secret." He winked at her. "More often than not, it only serves to make you a better person in the end, being with them. You and Bal were made for each other, Rica. Being happy is all that ever matters. Just...try to keep your mother away from him for a while. She's already hounding Emrys and Keir for more grandkids. I have a feeling Nikki's already been on her son about that...I don't think he could handle his mother and his aunt."
"Well...now I see who I get it from," Alarica replied, shaking her head in the process. Maybe he was right, perhaps in time she'd learn to accept it. For now, she had to cope and deal with the feeling of being not good enough for the one she loved, however; to him, she was, and that was all that mattered. They were happy, and that was all that mattered. She nodded in understanding to her father's words before a brow ascended her forehead. She scoffed lightly, shaking her head in the process. Of course her mother would already be hounding for grandchildren, however; Alarica wasn't quite sure she was exactly ready for kids herself.
Not that she didn't want them, she did, but with the war...she wasn't so sure she wanted to have kids during such a time. She, herself, was a child of war, and look how she grew up to be. There was nothing wrong with it per se, however, but that didn't mean that she was spared knowing how the war changed people. She didn't want that for her kids, to grow up as she had. Though the family had tried everything to shield them from the world, the war just kept sneaking in, and they were all taught, inevitably, to fight. She wanted to raise her kids in a world where the only reason they needed to fight was to protect themselves from idiots or people who would do them harm. Not because they would eventually be sent out to fight a bloody battle that had raged for over a century.
"I make no promises about that. You know how mom is, once she's set her mind to something, she goes after it. It...is a surprise how you've managed to stay alive after all these years of breaking beds...I'm sure you and mom destroyed more than just beds," she stated, the signature Alistair smirk pulling at her lips in the process.
This time, Morgan laughed. "Hey...I'm more durable than that. And yes, it's been more than just beds, though it certainly was a lot of beds. We even broke the roof once. Frankly I'm a bit disappointed, though, you did do it outside, so I suppose I can't expect you to break too much." He grinned wryly at his daughter. He'd found it a bit interesting that she'd beaten her twin in that regard, though he supposed Keir also had his own reasons.
Alarica rose a brow at her father, tilting her head to the side in the process. He was disappointed that they did it outside? She shook her head, the trademark smirk pulling at her lips as she placed a hand on her hip. "Oh? Well, there was the tree not too long ago, and really? The roof? How did you manage that one? Wait, actually I don't want to know," she stated, visibly shuddering at the image she did not need in her mind. She chuckled lightly to herself before glancing back at her dad.
"You know, just because we are Alistair's, doesn't mean we all have to go around breaking beds and other things. It's nice to just be there. You and mom should try it sometime," she stated shaking her head in the process. It was true though, she might have wanted something like what her parents had, but she didn't exactly want every little detail about it. She had more restraint than that, though lately...
Morgan let out a short laugh. "Trust me Koneko, your mother and I have plenty of experience knowing what that's like." That, in it's own way, was true. Though they may be known as the most destructive couple, they had plenty of quieter moments. He glanced up at the apples above them still, reaching up and plucking one down.
"Come on, I think your aunt is running out of baking supplies, I'd bet she'd appreciate some of these."
Keir sighed, raking a hand through his snow white locks. The previous conversation with his mother had really gotten him thinking far too much. He would never push the matter, but that didn't mean he didn't think about it, didn't want it. Because honestly, he did. He was, after all, a guy, and an Alistair, to boot.
He lay on the roof, staring up at the night sky. Leora had been spending the day training with Zero, and he'd actually been alone for most of it. Vincent had given him the day off, not that he'd really needed it, but then again, maybe he had. Absentmindedly, he stroked Alucard, the wolf laying beside him.
Rather oblivious to her beloved’s current predicament, Leora finished stretching out her muscles. She and Zero had been at it again today, and they were both in the best fighting form they’d been in for their entire lives. It felt good, to have the adrenaline moving through her system, the singing of her blood in her veins. When there was nobody to kill and no need to put her life on the line, Leo was perfectly okay with violence, really. She just couldn’t bring herself to be so casual about taking a life. Those children still found her at night, and no matter how many times she told herself it was a mercy, the dreams were no less horrible. Taking a deep breath and straightening, she shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. Saying goodbye to her brother, she headed outside for a bit, smiling when she caught a familiar scent on the wind.
She supposed she could have used the stairs, but that wasn’t as fun as running and jumping to catch hold of a high window ledge and then climbing the rest of the way to the roof. Whenever she needed to not think about the nightmares, she sought him out. Well, him or Zero, who was great at distracting people, or Balthasar, who was good at helping people see past the stuff bothering them. But those two were busy, and if she had her choice, she’d pick Keir anyway. She didn’t particularly want to be that close to her brother or Al. “You know,” she said conversationally, crouching for a moment to scratch at the spot behind Alucard’s ear. She didn’t care if the familiar was generally grumpy around others—she knew his weak spots, too. “With your affinity for high places, I’m really not sure why Sagiv isn’t some kind of bird. Aren’t dragons supposed to go for caves?” She stood again and crossed to his other side, taking a seat crosslegged next to him.
“Day off from Dad, huh? Do you guys ever get tired, with the Aegis and all?” For someone who bore it, she wasn’t really sure of all its properties. It wasn’t like it had the same effect if she drank her own blood, after all.
Alucard grumbled wordlessly as Leora scratched behind his ear. Keir raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, dragons do like to fly." he retorted, flashing her a fanged grin, which dimmed slightly at her second question. He looked contemplative for a second, being slow with his answer as he sat up. "Not while we're actually on it, no. You can't be hurt, you don't get tired, I don't even think you can feel pain. Though I have noticed once it wears off, at least for me, I get tired faster. Your Dad doesn't seem to, though that may be because he's a pureblood and I'm a Dhampir, but really, no one has enough experience to know." He picked up her hand, running his thumb over the back of it. "How's it been with Zero?"
It might also be because her dad was very used to using the Aegis, had been using it sporadically for more than a century, but there was definitely a lack of data, that was true. One she was not all that keen to rectify. Only one person was ever going to have her blood, and it was going to be him. That much, she knew for certain. It was this or nothing. She hummed a note in her throat, turning her hand over in his grip so that her palm was pressed to his, and she laced their fingers together. At the question, she shrugged, taking the opportunity to lay back on the roof so that she was next to him and staring up at the same sky. She’d always think of him now, when she looked at the nighttime canvas. There was no way around it, and she didn’t want there to be.
“Same as usual. We beat the crap out of each other, trash talk each other, rinse, repeat.” A minor pause, and then: “I never did make him streak across campus that one time. An opportunity sadly missed, I’m afraid. I’m definitely not going to make him do it now that he has kids. They should not have to accidentally see that, and Alden would probably make sure they did.” Mostly to humiliate Zero, of course, but still. The trauma might be horrifying. She couldn’t quite not snicker at the thought though, but the musing disappeared as shortly as it had appeared.
“Not much time left, now,” she said more soberly. They had less than three weeks until the appointed time. Neither of them had yet met the man who planned to kill them all, but… if it was someone that Uncle Jasper or her dad couldn’t deal with, then Leora knew enough to be wary. Not afraid, exactly—her faith in her family prevented that. But definitely cautious.
Keir looked slightly horrified for a split second. "You were going to make him go streaking across the campus?" He laughed, not able to shut out how he thought Yuki's face would have looked like had she seen that. He calmed then, and tugged her over, so that she was half on top of him. Making a soft humming sound in the back of his throat, his kissed her languidly. "Let's not talk about the depressing cloud looming over our heads. I can think of plenty other topics of discussion."
Leora fought down the urge to laugh, constraining her mirth into a light smile against his mouth when he kissed her. It was on the slow and deliberate side of things, meant, perhaps, to stoke desire in just the same way. A gradual build, much as they had experienced, minus perhaps a few very heated exchanges and the utterly cold period she was not going to think about right now. Whatever the case, it was certainly working, and she felt a warmth spread through her as she braced a hand over his heart, using it to push herself up a bit such that she was now several inches above him, the strands of her thick, dark hair a curtain between them and the rest of the world, pooling on the tiles of the roof below.
“Is that so?” she purred, lowering herself so as to nip playfully at his lower lip, pulling back and just barely letting her mouth touch his before she drew away again to work her way down his jaw and throat, instead. Her free hand found one of the patches of scales on his bicep and traced the edge of it, fascinated—as she had secretly always been-- by the harmonious way the diamond-hard chips of blue and silver melded so seamlessly with warm flesh. She bit down on his neck, but not with the use of fangs, and a bit more gentle worrying of the spot revealed her intentions clearly enough—she was leaving a mark there. “Funny thing is,” she whispered into his ear, “There never seems to be much discussion at all, when you start the conversation that way.”
She smiled wickedly, tracing her index finger down the center of his chest, stopping perhaps dangerously far down. But then, nothing about this was safe, was it? Returning the hand to splay over his beating heart, she raised a brow. “But if you really want to talk, I suppose I wouldn’t mind.”
Keir groaned, shuddering underneath her fingertips, his ice blue eyes shifting to a rather dark shade of vermilion. He grinned up at her, one hand splayed across her back as he chased her upwards, his mouth claiming hers. She was right, they rarely did talk when such a "conversation" was started, and that was exactly what he intended. One of his hands entangled itself in her hair while the other skirted the hem of her shirt.
Only when it became necessary to breathe again did he pull away, a dangerous grin playing on his face. "No, Kazu-mi, I believe we're far past the point of talking." Even so, he was only going to take it as far as she pushed him.
But that smile. The way it bespoke danger and all the darker things she’d ever wanted. She was in love with all of him, but she was absolutely gone for that smile. Part of her hoped he never found out, because it was almost a little scary to her, just how easy it would be for him to have her trembling and more or less out of her mind with desire. The other part definitely wanted to just tell him so, because it would increase the chance of such a thing happening more frequently, and she honestly couldn’t get enough of him. The fact that he was using a pet name in that voice just made things much, much worse. Shit, she was as whipped as her dad, wasn’t she? Completely unexpected, since Leora had always, always been sure to be in control of every such situation since the incident, but she found she didn’t mind ceding that to him. In fact, she kind of wanted to.
Throwing a leg over his waist, she glanced pointedly at Alucard, raising a brow and waiting for the familiar to leave before she turned back to Keir. “That’s all right,” she said in between kisses. “I only had one important thing to say anyway.” Her hands slid beneath his shirt, trailing over the warmth of his skin, and then Leo moved, rolling them both so that she was beneath him rather than the other way around. Not usually the reason for such an act, but then, usual wasn’t her style anyway. One of her arms moved, so that she slid her hand around to the back of his neck, threading her fingers in his hair. She rose to kiss him, this considerably more forcefully than the previous exchange, and lingered to breathe the next words into his ear.
“Love me, Keir,” she exhaled, and it was rather obvious that she didn’t just mean emotionally.
She was making it damnably difficult for him to keep his head. He pulled back, forcing her to look at him. The desire was plainly there, but there was still that hesitation. He cupped the side of her face with his hand, brushing away a few strands of her bangs as he did so.
"Are you...sure? I don't want to hurt you, Leora."
She wasn’t sure whether to be touched or frustrated, so she settled on both. Using one of her elbows to prop herself up a bit, she fisted her other hand in his shirt collar and moved close to his face, though not close enough to kiss him, quite. Alden had advised her in a manner only half-joking that male Alistairs responded best to the direct approach, and so she was going to be as direct as possible. “Keir,” she said, and something in her tone was a little darker than usual, laced with something almost indefinable. Her burning eyes narrowed, and her grip tightened. “I told you. It’s you and nobody else. Ever. I’m done letting what happened to me when I was a stupid little girl make me too stupid now to reach for what makes me happy. And you make me happy, as I hope I make you happy. The only way you can hurt me now is by not wanting me.”
Her expression changed, the intensity morphing a bit until it was a different kind of thing, closer to what it had been before. “So? What’s it going to be, love? This is everything I’ve got, everything I am, and it’s yours, if you want it. Are you taking, or leaving?”
Keir blinked owlishly as she literally grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Well, anyone who said that Alistairs did not appreciate strong women were dead wrong. He ducked his head back down, no longer able to argue the point. Not that he wanted to, of course. He kissed her slowly again, a hand running the length of her thigh.
"I think I'll be taking, Kazu-mi."
He lay on the roof, staring up at the night sky. Leora had been spending the day training with Zero, and he'd actually been alone for most of it. Vincent had given him the day off, not that he'd really needed it, but then again, maybe he had. Absentmindedly, he stroked Alucard, the wolf laying beside him.
Rather oblivious to her beloved’s current predicament, Leora finished stretching out her muscles. She and Zero had been at it again today, and they were both in the best fighting form they’d been in for their entire lives. It felt good, to have the adrenaline moving through her system, the singing of her blood in her veins. When there was nobody to kill and no need to put her life on the line, Leo was perfectly okay with violence, really. She just couldn’t bring herself to be so casual about taking a life. Those children still found her at night, and no matter how many times she told herself it was a mercy, the dreams were no less horrible. Taking a deep breath and straightening, she shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. Saying goodbye to her brother, she headed outside for a bit, smiling when she caught a familiar scent on the wind.
She supposed she could have used the stairs, but that wasn’t as fun as running and jumping to catch hold of a high window ledge and then climbing the rest of the way to the roof. Whenever she needed to not think about the nightmares, she sought him out. Well, him or Zero, who was great at distracting people, or Balthasar, who was good at helping people see past the stuff bothering them. But those two were busy, and if she had her choice, she’d pick Keir anyway. She didn’t particularly want to be that close to her brother or Al. “You know,” she said conversationally, crouching for a moment to scratch at the spot behind Alucard’s ear. She didn’t care if the familiar was generally grumpy around others—she knew his weak spots, too. “With your affinity for high places, I’m really not sure why Sagiv isn’t some kind of bird. Aren’t dragons supposed to go for caves?” She stood again and crossed to his other side, taking a seat crosslegged next to him.
“Day off from Dad, huh? Do you guys ever get tired, with the Aegis and all?” For someone who bore it, she wasn’t really sure of all its properties. It wasn’t like it had the same effect if she drank her own blood, after all.
Alucard grumbled wordlessly as Leora scratched behind his ear. Keir raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, dragons do like to fly." he retorted, flashing her a fanged grin, which dimmed slightly at her second question. He looked contemplative for a second, being slow with his answer as he sat up. "Not while we're actually on it, no. You can't be hurt, you don't get tired, I don't even think you can feel pain. Though I have noticed once it wears off, at least for me, I get tired faster. Your Dad doesn't seem to, though that may be because he's a pureblood and I'm a Dhampir, but really, no one has enough experience to know." He picked up her hand, running his thumb over the back of it. "How's it been with Zero?"
It might also be because her dad was very used to using the Aegis, had been using it sporadically for more than a century, but there was definitely a lack of data, that was true. One she was not all that keen to rectify. Only one person was ever going to have her blood, and it was going to be him. That much, she knew for certain. It was this or nothing. She hummed a note in her throat, turning her hand over in his grip so that her palm was pressed to his, and she laced their fingers together. At the question, she shrugged, taking the opportunity to lay back on the roof so that she was next to him and staring up at the same sky. She’d always think of him now, when she looked at the nighttime canvas. There was no way around it, and she didn’t want there to be.
“Same as usual. We beat the crap out of each other, trash talk each other, rinse, repeat.” A minor pause, and then: “I never did make him streak across campus that one time. An opportunity sadly missed, I’m afraid. I’m definitely not going to make him do it now that he has kids. They should not have to accidentally see that, and Alden would probably make sure they did.” Mostly to humiliate Zero, of course, but still. The trauma might be horrifying. She couldn’t quite not snicker at the thought though, but the musing disappeared as shortly as it had appeared.
“Not much time left, now,” she said more soberly. They had less than three weeks until the appointed time. Neither of them had yet met the man who planned to kill them all, but… if it was someone that Uncle Jasper or her dad couldn’t deal with, then Leora knew enough to be wary. Not afraid, exactly—her faith in her family prevented that. But definitely cautious.
Keir looked slightly horrified for a split second. "You were going to make him go streaking across the campus?" He laughed, not able to shut out how he thought Yuki's face would have looked like had she seen that. He calmed then, and tugged her over, so that she was half on top of him. Making a soft humming sound in the back of his throat, his kissed her languidly. "Let's not talk about the depressing cloud looming over our heads. I can think of plenty other topics of discussion."
Leora fought down the urge to laugh, constraining her mirth into a light smile against his mouth when he kissed her. It was on the slow and deliberate side of things, meant, perhaps, to stoke desire in just the same way. A gradual build, much as they had experienced, minus perhaps a few very heated exchanges and the utterly cold period she was not going to think about right now. Whatever the case, it was certainly working, and she felt a warmth spread through her as she braced a hand over his heart, using it to push herself up a bit such that she was now several inches above him, the strands of her thick, dark hair a curtain between them and the rest of the world, pooling on the tiles of the roof below.
“Is that so?” she purred, lowering herself so as to nip playfully at his lower lip, pulling back and just barely letting her mouth touch his before she drew away again to work her way down his jaw and throat, instead. Her free hand found one of the patches of scales on his bicep and traced the edge of it, fascinated—as she had secretly always been-- by the harmonious way the diamond-hard chips of blue and silver melded so seamlessly with warm flesh. She bit down on his neck, but not with the use of fangs, and a bit more gentle worrying of the spot revealed her intentions clearly enough—she was leaving a mark there. “Funny thing is,” she whispered into his ear, “There never seems to be much discussion at all, when you start the conversation that way.”
She smiled wickedly, tracing her index finger down the center of his chest, stopping perhaps dangerously far down. But then, nothing about this was safe, was it? Returning the hand to splay over his beating heart, she raised a brow. “But if you really want to talk, I suppose I wouldn’t mind.”
Keir groaned, shuddering underneath her fingertips, his ice blue eyes shifting to a rather dark shade of vermilion. He grinned up at her, one hand splayed across her back as he chased her upwards, his mouth claiming hers. She was right, they rarely did talk when such a "conversation" was started, and that was exactly what he intended. One of his hands entangled itself in her hair while the other skirted the hem of her shirt.
Only when it became necessary to breathe again did he pull away, a dangerous grin playing on his face. "No, Kazu-mi, I believe we're far past the point of talking." Even so, he was only going to take it as far as she pushed him.
But that smile. The way it bespoke danger and all the darker things she’d ever wanted. She was in love with all of him, but she was absolutely gone for that smile. Part of her hoped he never found out, because it was almost a little scary to her, just how easy it would be for him to have her trembling and more or less out of her mind with desire. The other part definitely wanted to just tell him so, because it would increase the chance of such a thing happening more frequently, and she honestly couldn’t get enough of him. The fact that he was using a pet name in that voice just made things much, much worse. Shit, she was as whipped as her dad, wasn’t she? Completely unexpected, since Leora had always, always been sure to be in control of every such situation since the incident, but she found she didn’t mind ceding that to him. In fact, she kind of wanted to.
Throwing a leg over his waist, she glanced pointedly at Alucard, raising a brow and waiting for the familiar to leave before she turned back to Keir. “That’s all right,” she said in between kisses. “I only had one important thing to say anyway.” Her hands slid beneath his shirt, trailing over the warmth of his skin, and then Leo moved, rolling them both so that she was beneath him rather than the other way around. Not usually the reason for such an act, but then, usual wasn’t her style anyway. One of her arms moved, so that she slid her hand around to the back of his neck, threading her fingers in his hair. She rose to kiss him, this considerably more forcefully than the previous exchange, and lingered to breathe the next words into his ear.
“Love me, Keir,” she exhaled, and it was rather obvious that she didn’t just mean emotionally.
She was making it damnably difficult for him to keep his head. He pulled back, forcing her to look at him. The desire was plainly there, but there was still that hesitation. He cupped the side of her face with his hand, brushing away a few strands of her bangs as he did so.
"Are you...sure? I don't want to hurt you, Leora."
She wasn’t sure whether to be touched or frustrated, so she settled on both. Using one of her elbows to prop herself up a bit, she fisted her other hand in his shirt collar and moved close to his face, though not close enough to kiss him, quite. Alden had advised her in a manner only half-joking that male Alistairs responded best to the direct approach, and so she was going to be as direct as possible. “Keir,” she said, and something in her tone was a little darker than usual, laced with something almost indefinable. Her burning eyes narrowed, and her grip tightened. “I told you. It’s you and nobody else. Ever. I’m done letting what happened to me when I was a stupid little girl make me too stupid now to reach for what makes me happy. And you make me happy, as I hope I make you happy. The only way you can hurt me now is by not wanting me.”
Her expression changed, the intensity morphing a bit until it was a different kind of thing, closer to what it had been before. “So? What’s it going to be, love? This is everything I’ve got, everything I am, and it’s yours, if you want it. Are you taking, or leaving?”
Keir blinked owlishly as she literally grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Well, anyone who said that Alistairs did not appreciate strong women were dead wrong. He ducked his head back down, no longer able to argue the point. Not that he wanted to, of course. He kissed her slowly again, a hand running the length of her thigh.
"I think I'll be taking, Kazu-mi."
Leora slowed the pace of her run, bringing herself to a cooldown jog and then eventually a walk. She felt more lively than she had in a long time, really, and it was not terribly difficult to guess the cause of that. She wasn’t given to blushing at all, actually, so she didn’t, not even when she thought about the previous night on the roof, but it did produce a pleasant little tingle under her skin all the same. If only she’d known it would make her feel this way, she would have… but no. She’d needed to wait until she was really ready for that step, and she had. She was glad of it, because now there was no lingering hesitancy tainting the memory, and she just felt content. That warmth, that came from loving another person and being loved… she finally understood her parents.
Separated more of then than together for the past hundred years, they’d still managed to raise a family, and that warmth and love had been obvious the whole time. Leo had once thought the sheer goodness of what they shared had ruined love for her, but now she saw that in the end, it had just given her the patience to wait for the one thing she was willing to risk it all on, and that had turned out for the better.
Speaking of her parents, she could smell her dad nearby. Smiling to herself, Leo kept walking until she came upon him, apparently just finishing some training exercise or another. Her smile widened until it was actually a grin, an expression she didn’t often wear at all. Her parents had always been her heroes, for different reasons, and she was never unhappy to see them. Raising an arm, she waved over to him, then covered the rest of the distance and pulled him in for a hug, standing on her toes to prop her chin over his shoulder. There were precious few people from whom Vincent Kuragari would tolerate such behavior, but Leora had always known she was one of them. Stepping back, she flashed the same smile. “Hey Dad.”
Vincent laid Gilgamesh to his side, putting his weapon back into the holster as he rolled his shoulders a bit. He was a bit sore, which was unusual for him. He had never felt sore before, however; it could be the more intensive training he was doing. Instead of the casual training sessions, he had amplified it to a higher degree. The Progenitor was not a vampire to underestimate, especially after he consumed Helen's blood. Her blood had certain properties to it that even Vincent could not help but fear the Progenitor. He was not a man who was so easily frightened about anything, however; the progenitor instilled the first bouts of doubt and fear into him. He did not want to make a careless mistake that could end his or his family's lives.
Perhaps it was his thoughts that drew one of them, however, he smiled a bit wider when a familiar scent entered the vicinity. A frown pulled at his lips slightly when he noticed that it wasn't all her scent, and that it was mixed with his scent. He sighed softly through his nose as he turned to face his youngest child, his smile having returned moments earlier. He returned her hug, awkward as it was, as she spoke. He placed a hand upon her head, glancing down at her in the process, and noting a rather bright spark behind her eyes.
"You seem, happier as of late. How are you faring, Leora?[/b]" he questioned, allowing his hand to fall to his side in the process.
It was probably fair to say that in most respects, Leora represented a harmonious blending of the traits of her parents, both in terms of physicality and personality. She had her father’s coloration, down to the band of gold around her red eyes, but her mother’s fine-boned facial structure, and her curvature, though her height was doubtless inherited from him. She somehow managed to possess both her mother’s warm friendliness and affection and her father’s cool stoicism, tilting back and forth from one to the other as the situation demanded. It was clear in everything about her that she was a Kuragari, and that both of them had some hand in raising her into the person she was. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to express how grateful she was to them for this.
Stepping back a little, she found that she was still smiling, and shook her head faintly. Really, it wasn’t like her to smile in such an open fashion, but if this was just what happiness looked like on her, she wouldn’t mind so much. She’d had not one nightmare last night, curled up next to him, and it left her feeling refreshed. Of course her father would have noticed. “I’m feeling happier,” she admitted. Her dad knew about the nightmares, of course—there had only ever been one secret she kept from him, and that more for the sake of Alexander’s life than because she really wanted to. For once, thinking the name brought her no pain—it was just a name, just an unpleasant memory that she did not have to allow to rule her. So yes, she was happier than she had been, in that respect and in others.
“I’m still worried, about what happens soon,” she confessed. “But… I think we can win. I really do. And after that… the worst will be over. It’s almost hard to imagine.” She’d never lived in a world without war, and wasn’t really sure what to expect of it. She heard there were plans for a new Council of sorts—apparently, Ary was more or less going to be president of the world for a while. That would be interesting, but she wasn’t concerned about it. She’d known him for long enough to know he’d be great. She was more worried, perhaps, about trying to fit herself to a world she’d never seen or known.
His smile softened, if possible, when she mentioned she was feeling happier, and a part of him relaxed a bit. Perhaps he should thank Keir for that. It has been a while since she was able to smile that way, and he honestly could not recall the last time she had smiled like that. Genuine and true. Her statement, however, caused a light frown to mar his features. They were all worried about the upcoming weeks. It wasn't much longer till the alotted time, and they were all growing more edgy each passing day. He could only imagine how Helen was holding up. The Progenitor, after all, was mainly coming to retrieve her, and end the war in one way or another.
"It is natural to be worried. We know who our enemy is, what his strength is like, and what it is exactly we are up against. If we did not, then we would surely fail. It is good that you have faith in your family, for in the end, it is that faith in us that will cause us to continue fighting. It was your mother's faith in me that day that saved my life," he spoke, referring to when they battled Theodor. He had almost told Ava the same thing as well, that it was her belief in her friends that gave them strength, that it had come in different forms. It seems that his wife and daughter shared that same belief.
Leora nodded, as if in agreement, but decided not to linger overmuch on the topic. Really, what good would it do? It was going to happen, one way or another, and they didn’t need to stain the days they had left with the shadows of the thoughts. She tilted her head to the side for a moment, then looped her arm around her father’s and started tugging him towards the house. She had just caught the most delightful scent on the wind, and she knew exactly what that meant. “I think mom might be stress-baking again; we should probably go make sure the kitchen doesn’t get overrun with food.”
Ava, as it turned out, was in fact making a lot of food, most of it sweets as per the usual, but she didn’t exactly appear stressed when her husband and daughter arrived in the kitchen, looking up from where she was furiously whisking eggs for a soufflé and smiling brightly at them both. “Hello, you two,” she said, watching with amusement as Leora dropped her father’s arm and slid into one of the stools at the breakfast bar. As it so happened, she had a plate pre-loaded with their favorites, and set it in front of her daughter as though she’d known they were coming. Knowing her mom, she probably had known. Leo wondered if she’d ever master that kind of strange, quiet knowledge Ava seemed to have about everything.
“How is practice coming along?” She glanced back and forth between the two of them.
Vincent blinked at his daughter, confusion laced in his face before the scent of something sweet filled the area. He shook his head softly, knowing that Leora was right. Ava was stress cooking. She always did right before a major battle where the family would be separated, like when they were separated for seven years. He followed after Leora, making his way towards the kitchen where he spotted Ava working vigorously on another dish. He smiled softly at her, walking over to her side and placed a kiss upon the side of her temple. Showing affection to his wife, in front of his children, was not something Vincent did not not do. He often did in their presence, though it was more subtle than it was when around his daughter.
"Everyone is making progress," he replied to Ava's question, moving so that he took a seat across from Leora and stared at the plethora of sweets that littered the kitchen. It would only be a matter of time before the scent of her cooking would draw in his nephew's, and maybe his niece since there were not many females in the family. In fact, there were, currently, four. Leora, Alarica, Diya, and the newest addition, Brayleigh. Helen was also family, but she was not born into the family as the other four were. He still accepted her as such though. He took one of the cookies from the plate, taking a slow bite out of it and savoring the flavor.
"I still think you should have opened up a bakery."
Ava hummed a small note when he pressed a kiss to her temple, and tried unsuccessfully to stifle the laugh at the comment. It reminded her of that first Christmas she’d spent in his company. Had it really been a century? It did not seem so long as that at all. Then again, in a hundred years, they’d spent maybe twenty total living in the same place, even, so perhaps it should not. Her smile was still bright when she replied. “Well, since the training’s going so well and the war will be over soon, maybe I will,” she replied with humor, dark golden eyes glittering with her mirth. More than likely, she would need to do another stint as Jazz’s assistant, at least in the immediate aftermath. There would be a lot of things to organize, and nobody was quite as good at that as she was. Though Helen was quite efficient herself, really, she was more comfortable with bodyguard work and everyone knew it.
But when all that was taken care of… she just might. It would be nice to have something free of all the memories and connections from the war. Something new, and simple, and nice. She could set up shop in Paris, once they rebuilt it. “And what about our Leora?” she asked, ruffling her daughter’s hair across the counter. Leo, who’d just bitten into a warm chocolate chip cookie, rolled her eyes good-naturedly, and shrugged before swallowing. That was the thing, she really didn’t know.
“I… haven’t really thought about it,” she confessed. It was hard to conceptualize not needing to be prepared to drop everything and go fight. “I guess…I might want to play music, I suppose. It’s been a long time since I gave my violin enough attention. Playing with an orchestra would be… it’d be nice.” She’d dared not hope for things like that, before, but now that the end of everything seemed so close, she wondered if it was maybe okay to think about it.
“What about you, Dad? What do you do when there’s no battles to fight?” It was strange, almost, that she didn’t know.
He stopped, mid-chew, and fixed Leora with a stare. He...had never really thought about it. Now that he was thinking about it, what would he do? There were multiple things he could do. Catch up as a parent, perhaps, was at the top of his list. He had seven children, all whom had grown in the war. They had not the chance to grow without ever knowing peace. It was something that had bothered him somewhat, when he was raising them. He had raised them in a time of war, and they had all had to grow up quickly in order to survive. It was something he regretted, something that still ate at him at night, though he would never tell them this.
"When there are no more battles to fight, when the world is in no longer need of us to protect it, I will do as I've always done. I will remain here, beside your mother until the end of time and make up the lost time of a parent to my children," was his simple reply. If Ava truly wanted to build a bakery when this was all over, he would help her do it. He had told her, whatever she desired, he would give it to her. The same applied to his children. Whatever they would want, after the war, he would give it to them. They need only ask. Of course, most of his children would, perhaps, have a family of their own by then. Zero had started that early, having two children of his own already whereas Alden had a small family of his own as well. And it seemed that Leora would have one eventually as well.
Not that he would mind, he loved his grandchildren. He wasn't like his sister though, where he had wanted grandchildren. He would simply enjoy them when and if they happened. His children were privy to their own time when they had children. He glanced up at Ava, a small spark fluttering across his eyes in the process. Perhaps they could have another of their own, but that was a thought to entertain at a later time. They had a war to fight, to win.
Ava caught the look, knowing exactly what it meant, and she was caught somewhere between a sigh and a blush. Leo managed to infer what was going on, and huffed a short laugh at her parents. Well, they had seven already, what was one more, right? Shaking her head, she leaned sideways until she was half-supported by her dad’s shoulder, smiling across the counter at her mom. She really did love them—and she supposed she could give up being the baby of the family if she had to. “You guys are crazy.”
Separated more of then than together for the past hundred years, they’d still managed to raise a family, and that warmth and love had been obvious the whole time. Leo had once thought the sheer goodness of what they shared had ruined love for her, but now she saw that in the end, it had just given her the patience to wait for the one thing she was willing to risk it all on, and that had turned out for the better.
Speaking of her parents, she could smell her dad nearby. Smiling to herself, Leo kept walking until she came upon him, apparently just finishing some training exercise or another. Her smile widened until it was actually a grin, an expression she didn’t often wear at all. Her parents had always been her heroes, for different reasons, and she was never unhappy to see them. Raising an arm, she waved over to him, then covered the rest of the distance and pulled him in for a hug, standing on her toes to prop her chin over his shoulder. There were precious few people from whom Vincent Kuragari would tolerate such behavior, but Leora had always known she was one of them. Stepping back, she flashed the same smile. “Hey Dad.”
Vincent laid Gilgamesh to his side, putting his weapon back into the holster as he rolled his shoulders a bit. He was a bit sore, which was unusual for him. He had never felt sore before, however; it could be the more intensive training he was doing. Instead of the casual training sessions, he had amplified it to a higher degree. The Progenitor was not a vampire to underestimate, especially after he consumed Helen's blood. Her blood had certain properties to it that even Vincent could not help but fear the Progenitor. He was not a man who was so easily frightened about anything, however; the progenitor instilled the first bouts of doubt and fear into him. He did not want to make a careless mistake that could end his or his family's lives.
Perhaps it was his thoughts that drew one of them, however, he smiled a bit wider when a familiar scent entered the vicinity. A frown pulled at his lips slightly when he noticed that it wasn't all her scent, and that it was mixed with his scent. He sighed softly through his nose as he turned to face his youngest child, his smile having returned moments earlier. He returned her hug, awkward as it was, as she spoke. He placed a hand upon her head, glancing down at her in the process, and noting a rather bright spark behind her eyes.
"You seem, happier as of late. How are you faring, Leora?[/b]" he questioned, allowing his hand to fall to his side in the process.
It was probably fair to say that in most respects, Leora represented a harmonious blending of the traits of her parents, both in terms of physicality and personality. She had her father’s coloration, down to the band of gold around her red eyes, but her mother’s fine-boned facial structure, and her curvature, though her height was doubtless inherited from him. She somehow managed to possess both her mother’s warm friendliness and affection and her father’s cool stoicism, tilting back and forth from one to the other as the situation demanded. It was clear in everything about her that she was a Kuragari, and that both of them had some hand in raising her into the person she was. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to express how grateful she was to them for this.
Stepping back a little, she found that she was still smiling, and shook her head faintly. Really, it wasn’t like her to smile in such an open fashion, but if this was just what happiness looked like on her, she wouldn’t mind so much. She’d had not one nightmare last night, curled up next to him, and it left her feeling refreshed. Of course her father would have noticed. “I’m feeling happier,” she admitted. Her dad knew about the nightmares, of course—there had only ever been one secret she kept from him, and that more for the sake of Alexander’s life than because she really wanted to. For once, thinking the name brought her no pain—it was just a name, just an unpleasant memory that she did not have to allow to rule her. So yes, she was happier than she had been, in that respect and in others.
“I’m still worried, about what happens soon,” she confessed. “But… I think we can win. I really do. And after that… the worst will be over. It’s almost hard to imagine.” She’d never lived in a world without war, and wasn’t really sure what to expect of it. She heard there were plans for a new Council of sorts—apparently, Ary was more or less going to be president of the world for a while. That would be interesting, but she wasn’t concerned about it. She’d known him for long enough to know he’d be great. She was more worried, perhaps, about trying to fit herself to a world she’d never seen or known.
His smile softened, if possible, when she mentioned she was feeling happier, and a part of him relaxed a bit. Perhaps he should thank Keir for that. It has been a while since she was able to smile that way, and he honestly could not recall the last time she had smiled like that. Genuine and true. Her statement, however, caused a light frown to mar his features. They were all worried about the upcoming weeks. It wasn't much longer till the alotted time, and they were all growing more edgy each passing day. He could only imagine how Helen was holding up. The Progenitor, after all, was mainly coming to retrieve her, and end the war in one way or another.
"It is natural to be worried. We know who our enemy is, what his strength is like, and what it is exactly we are up against. If we did not, then we would surely fail. It is good that you have faith in your family, for in the end, it is that faith in us that will cause us to continue fighting. It was your mother's faith in me that day that saved my life," he spoke, referring to when they battled Theodor. He had almost told Ava the same thing as well, that it was her belief in her friends that gave them strength, that it had come in different forms. It seems that his wife and daughter shared that same belief.
Leora nodded, as if in agreement, but decided not to linger overmuch on the topic. Really, what good would it do? It was going to happen, one way or another, and they didn’t need to stain the days they had left with the shadows of the thoughts. She tilted her head to the side for a moment, then looped her arm around her father’s and started tugging him towards the house. She had just caught the most delightful scent on the wind, and she knew exactly what that meant. “I think mom might be stress-baking again; we should probably go make sure the kitchen doesn’t get overrun with food.”
Ava, as it turned out, was in fact making a lot of food, most of it sweets as per the usual, but she didn’t exactly appear stressed when her husband and daughter arrived in the kitchen, looking up from where she was furiously whisking eggs for a soufflé and smiling brightly at them both. “Hello, you two,” she said, watching with amusement as Leora dropped her father’s arm and slid into one of the stools at the breakfast bar. As it so happened, she had a plate pre-loaded with their favorites, and set it in front of her daughter as though she’d known they were coming. Knowing her mom, she probably had known. Leo wondered if she’d ever master that kind of strange, quiet knowledge Ava seemed to have about everything.
“How is practice coming along?” She glanced back and forth between the two of them.
Vincent blinked at his daughter, confusion laced in his face before the scent of something sweet filled the area. He shook his head softly, knowing that Leora was right. Ava was stress cooking. She always did right before a major battle where the family would be separated, like when they were separated for seven years. He followed after Leora, making his way towards the kitchen where he spotted Ava working vigorously on another dish. He smiled softly at her, walking over to her side and placed a kiss upon the side of her temple. Showing affection to his wife, in front of his children, was not something Vincent did not not do. He often did in their presence, though it was more subtle than it was when around his daughter.
"Everyone is making progress," he replied to Ava's question, moving so that he took a seat across from Leora and stared at the plethora of sweets that littered the kitchen. It would only be a matter of time before the scent of her cooking would draw in his nephew's, and maybe his niece since there were not many females in the family. In fact, there were, currently, four. Leora, Alarica, Diya, and the newest addition, Brayleigh. Helen was also family, but she was not born into the family as the other four were. He still accepted her as such though. He took one of the cookies from the plate, taking a slow bite out of it and savoring the flavor.
"I still think you should have opened up a bakery."
Ava hummed a small note when he pressed a kiss to her temple, and tried unsuccessfully to stifle the laugh at the comment. It reminded her of that first Christmas she’d spent in his company. Had it really been a century? It did not seem so long as that at all. Then again, in a hundred years, they’d spent maybe twenty total living in the same place, even, so perhaps it should not. Her smile was still bright when she replied. “Well, since the training’s going so well and the war will be over soon, maybe I will,” she replied with humor, dark golden eyes glittering with her mirth. More than likely, she would need to do another stint as Jazz’s assistant, at least in the immediate aftermath. There would be a lot of things to organize, and nobody was quite as good at that as she was. Though Helen was quite efficient herself, really, she was more comfortable with bodyguard work and everyone knew it.
But when all that was taken care of… she just might. It would be nice to have something free of all the memories and connections from the war. Something new, and simple, and nice. She could set up shop in Paris, once they rebuilt it. “And what about our Leora?” she asked, ruffling her daughter’s hair across the counter. Leo, who’d just bitten into a warm chocolate chip cookie, rolled her eyes good-naturedly, and shrugged before swallowing. That was the thing, she really didn’t know.
“I… haven’t really thought about it,” she confessed. It was hard to conceptualize not needing to be prepared to drop everything and go fight. “I guess…I might want to play music, I suppose. It’s been a long time since I gave my violin enough attention. Playing with an orchestra would be… it’d be nice.” She’d dared not hope for things like that, before, but now that the end of everything seemed so close, she wondered if it was maybe okay to think about it.
“What about you, Dad? What do you do when there’s no battles to fight?” It was strange, almost, that she didn’t know.
He stopped, mid-chew, and fixed Leora with a stare. He...had never really thought about it. Now that he was thinking about it, what would he do? There were multiple things he could do. Catch up as a parent, perhaps, was at the top of his list. He had seven children, all whom had grown in the war. They had not the chance to grow without ever knowing peace. It was something that had bothered him somewhat, when he was raising them. He had raised them in a time of war, and they had all had to grow up quickly in order to survive. It was something he regretted, something that still ate at him at night, though he would never tell them this.
"When there are no more battles to fight, when the world is in no longer need of us to protect it, I will do as I've always done. I will remain here, beside your mother until the end of time and make up the lost time of a parent to my children," was his simple reply. If Ava truly wanted to build a bakery when this was all over, he would help her do it. He had told her, whatever she desired, he would give it to her. The same applied to his children. Whatever they would want, after the war, he would give it to them. They need only ask. Of course, most of his children would, perhaps, have a family of their own by then. Zero had started that early, having two children of his own already whereas Alden had a small family of his own as well. And it seemed that Leora would have one eventually as well.
Not that he would mind, he loved his grandchildren. He wasn't like his sister though, where he had wanted grandchildren. He would simply enjoy them when and if they happened. His children were privy to their own time when they had children. He glanced up at Ava, a small spark fluttering across his eyes in the process. Perhaps they could have another of their own, but that was a thought to entertain at a later time. They had a war to fight, to win.
Ava caught the look, knowing exactly what it meant, and she was caught somewhere between a sigh and a blush. Leo managed to infer what was going on, and huffed a short laugh at her parents. Well, they had seven already, what was one more, right? Shaking her head, she leaned sideways until she was half-supported by her dad’s shoulder, smiling across the counter at her mom. She really did love them—and she supposed she could give up being the baby of the family if she had to. “You guys are crazy.”
Aryan raked his hair back away from his face with his thin fingers. Over the course of two years, he'd built up a decent amount of muscle mass, but still had retained his thin, spindly look about him. Not that he cared, really. As his father had pointed out, Balthasar was the warrior, not him, and he was perfectly fine with that.
Thinking of that only made him think of the request his father had made of him, though truthfully, he'd never stopped thinking about it save for a few moments, usually when he was with Helen. He'd said he would try, and try he would, but that did not stop the doubt from creeping in along the edges of his mind. Alone or not, it was still a hefty responsibility for someone, and he was unsure he could do this.
Being on the Council was one thing; leading the entire world was something else entirely. Even so, it wasn't as if he could simply let everyone down. That was perhaps what scared him the most, that he would fail. There was no doubt in his mind that they would beat Malkior. It was what came after that terrified him. He sighed heavily.
Helen drew the brush through her hair a few more times, deciding to leave it bereft even of the usual ribbon for the day. That item, she laid on the dresser, moving the silvery sheet of hair off her shoulder so it all rested against her back. Having finished her training for the day and showered, she found herself without anything else to do for the moment, so of course that meant it wasn’t long before she was padding up the carpeted staircase in stocking-feet and pushing open the door to the study with a gentle brush of her fingers. The whisper of the fabric of her collared shirt was really the only indication of her presence, save of course her smell, but they did not need such things to sense each other.
He looked… distressed. Aryan had appeared so more often than not, lately, and in her perceptiveness, she had come to the conclusion that it was something other than the impending battle with Malkior that was causing it. Usually when she entered, she would stand on the other side of his desk, her hands folded behind her back, but today she took one look at the strain evident in his porcelain features and pursed her lips, deciding to take a different approach.
Once Helen had accepted the way she felt about him, she had treated their relationship with a similar kind of directness to the way she treated everything in her life. There was a lingering sense of unworthiness on some level, of course, and perhaps there always would be. One did not suffer as she had suffered and turn out to be fixable by a set of magic words. But she understood that, for whatever reason, she made him happy. Perhaps almost as happy as he made her, though she dare not presume so. The simple fact was that his happiness mattered to her, more than anything else she could ever recall valuing, and so she would be beside him for as long as it made him happy, and not a day less. So Helen walked around the desk rather than stopping in front of it and settled herself sideways on his lap, pressing her cheek to his chest and curling her legs beneath her.
“What do you doubt, Aryan?” she asked him softly, naming the feeling she could sense radiating off him in waves. She felt it in the tension of his posture. She might even be able to smell it, in a certain way that was hard to put her finger on. It was quite visible. More than anything, though, she could feel it in her own heart, constricting her chest, as though passed directly between them with no need for any of the rest of it at all.
Despite how he felt, a soft smile wormed its way onto his face, as it always did at Helen's approach, and it only grew as she curled herself into his lap. One hand absentmindedly ran through her hair. He waited a few seconds before answering. It was almost surprising how easy it came, when he did speak.
"I doubt myself," he admitted. "Leading the entire world in an effort of peace is...rather daunting. At least, it is to me."
Ah, she recalled the discussion of this. Jasper had suggested to her that his son might require some measure of protection after the war, because, as capable as he was of defending himself, one just never knew when something would come up. She hadn’t thought anything of it—it was quite obvious to her that he was capable of what he had been asked to do, and she was unsure why he did not see it. With the softest of sighs, Helen adjusted herself with a feline grace, bracing a knee on either of the armrests of the chair so that she was facing him, and for once actually a few inches taller. She regarded him steadily for a moment with pale purple eyes, canting her head to the side and causing a tendril of hair to fall over the corresponding shoulder. If she noticed, she gave no sign of it.
Tenderly, she reached up, cradling the sides of his jaw in either hand, the look she was giving him rather intent. She had been told on more than one occasion that it was slightly unnerving to be the object of her full focus, because she was unnaturally still, and even her breathing softened, as though she was so perfectly attuned to what she was looking at that she forgot to do other basic things like that. Moments passed, about ten seconds in total, though it perhaps felt longer in the way that such things sometimes do. When she spoke, it was softly, but as bluntly as always.
“I do not doubt you,” she told him matter of factly. “From the moment I met you, I knew you were clever enough. As I became acquainted with you, I learned that you are judicious enough. In playing chess, I learned you are patient enough. When Yuki died, I realized that you are caring enough. Watching you with your godchildren, I know you are gentle enough, good enough, at heart.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “In loving you, I have discovered that you are more than enough, to do anything you should wish.” Her eyes softened, the flicker of a smile passed over her face, and she touched her forehead to his, moving her fingers back over the lines of his face, her thumbs ghosting over his cheekbones, back into his hair and down to the nape of his neck, letting her arms rest loosely on his shoulders. They were close enough that their eyelashes almost brushed, and she let hers fall to rest against her cheek, repeating the gentle sigh.
“If you find that it is difficult to believe in yourself, you may believe in me, when I say this. And in all the others who would say something similar, who know that you are capable of what you are asked.”
Where others may have found it uncomfortable, Aryan had always found it intriguing, the way she could focus all of her attention, all her being, towards one object. As she stared at him, he silently stared back at her. His eyes slipped half-way closed as she touched him, and the smile never left his face. He was in awe, really, the way she spoke of him. He truly could not understand how she had such profound faith in him, but even so, her reasoning was so very simple, to the point that it was laughable that he had not realized it sooner.
She was right, of course. She was always right when it came in regards to him, it seemed. Silently, he reached up, cupping the side of her face with his hand as he pressed his lip to hers, softly. "You, my dear, are something, someone I have, do, and always will believe in. For that, I thank you."
It was very strange, to hear someone say something like that. Nobody had ever had cause to do so before, not when she was the one being spoken to. Believing in her was very different from believing that she was adequate to a purpose, especially one for which she had been made. She didn’t quite understand it, but accepted that it was part of his nature to say such things, and to mean them. She could only try her best not to let him down, and hope that she never did. Though… her thoughts moved in an uncomfortable direction for a moment, and she drew back slightly, to make eye contact a little easier. “I wanted to… apologize,” she confessed, sounding a little guilty. “Back then, when I gave you blood, I did not realize the effects it had. I… it changed you, altered something about you, and it was wrong to do so without your permission.”
This had been weighing on her mind for some time now, as the effects of her actions had only been made known to her in her year of captivity. She’d given Yuki her blood once, more than a hundred years ago, after a desperate battle, but of course it had no effect. That was something it would only do for somebody in Aryan’s family line, and though Yuki had been his sister in every way that mattered, she was not of the relevant bloodline. Helen’s brow furrowed. “I wanted to apologize, but… I cannot.” There was a vague sense of puzzlement to her, and she shook her head. “No more than I can apologize for taking that poisoned bullet. I… it protected you, but more than that… it means I was protecting you, that I was helping you. It should not matter, as long as the outcome was the same, but…” What was it that made it so important who helped him? It was like… she wanted him to be safe, and happy, more than anything, but beyond that, she wanted him to be safe and happy with her and because of her.
It felt selfish, and she hoped it was forgivable. She honestly did not know.
Aryan tilted his head to the side slightly, looking very much like a feline as he did so. He smiled at her. "You do not have to apologize, Helen. What you did that day saved my life. How it changed me is of little consequence. What matters is that I am here, now, and am able to spend my life with you, if that is what you wish. That is all I care about, Helen. Being with you, and making you happy in every aspect that it is within my power to do."
Helen exhaled, something like relief passing over her features before she leaned down a little to nuzzle into the side of his neck. For a while, she just breathed the smell of him, which to her was something like sandalwood and parchment, like some kinds of wine tended to have. A question flitted over the surface of her thoughts: what, exactly, would it taste like? The traitorous seed of thought had planted itself, and no matter how she tried, it would not be uprooted and brushed away, and she was suddenly very conscious of the sound of it thrumming through his veins. The primal instinct to feed had always been relatively dormant in her, so it came as something of a shock when her mouth started to water, and she swallowed thickly. She shouldn’t… should she? Was this not the kind of relationship in which such things were permissible?
She bit her lower lip, surprised that her fangs had descended just slightly without her notice. Helen had never even considered this before, but as soon as that thought was there, it didn’t seem to let go. Something about the notion seemed right, in a way that Malkior taking hers had never felt right. Reaching upwards with a hand, she brushed her fingers down the column of his throat. He… he’d said he wanted to make her happy, too, right? Perhaps it would be okay…
“A-Aryan? May I…?” She flushed an interesting shade of pink, hoping that she didn’t have to complete the question for him to understand. Direct or not, this was not an easy question to just ask somebody. The only person whose blood she’d ever taken in such a fashion had been her sister, and that only when it was necessary to her very survival. So she’d never had to ask, before.
Aryan had been rather content with her in his arms, his eyes half-closed. However, when he felt her fingers at his throat, he opened them. For a few seconds, he waited, wondering what she would do. A small smile plauged his face as she started to voice the question. He supposed he could understand the hesitation, as far as he knew, she'd never taken from anyone other than Freya, and even that had only been in life and death situation. He was not Freya, and this was far from life or death.
Slowly, his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, drawing her closer to him as he tilted his head away from her, exposing the smooth arc of his neck. "What is mine is yours, Helen. You do not need to ask."
That was all it took. She didn’t really remember moving afterwards, but she was there anyway, poised centimeters from his throat, and with one last deep inhale, she sank her teeth in as gently as she knew how. The warm liquid hit her lips and tongue with all the smoothness of honey, and she’d been correct in her guess—he tasted like a sweet, earthy wine. Pressing closer, she braced her hands on his shoulders and lowered the rest of herself so that she wasn’t on the arms of the chair anymore. The height drop made him taller again, but it also gave her a much better angle, and she made a satisfied sound suspiciously caught between a groan and a purr in the back of her throat. That… was not a sound she’d realized she could make, but she found it very hard to care.
There was a warm feeling spreading through her, and though she had never been drunk, she had heard the effects described, and this seemed to be similar. Only... amid the general warmth were lances of white-hot feeling, like lightning in a storm-dark atmosphere. She shuddered almost violently when she pulled back, catching the last few drops with her tongue. Her usually pale eyes were glowing a deep scarlet when she met his, and that wracking sensation actually caused her to bite her own lower lip, leaving twin punctures there before the distended canines receded. But she found it very, very hard to care. In fact, the longer she looked at him, the more difficult she found it to care about anything that was not him and the sensations rebounding around under her skin.
Lip still bleeding, she fisted both hands in his shirt and tugged herself forward, pressing herself against him until there was no empty space left and all that heat was being directly, straightforwardly, and very obviously expressed by the demanding movement of her mouth against his. She had no idea what was going on, but she certainly was not going to complain about it.
Aryan exhaled slightly when she bit into him, his eyes closing once more however; the opened again at the sound she made. While he had not quite expect it, he certainly didn't dislike it. He was, however, rather shocked at the expression on her face as she pulled away and looked at him. His eyebrows rose, and he opened his mouth to say something, though he got not further than "Hel--" then she had pressed every inch of herself to him, lips, body, and all.
That alone, the closeness, was enough to put his mind in a rather heavy fog, enough so that, for the moment, he was unable to do much more than simply return the kiss with an equal amount of heat. He wondered vaugely, just what was going on, but for the moment, he wasn't one to care, nor did it bother him that they were in a room that was rather public; anyone could enter, it wasn't like they were in a bedroom.
It was considerably more intense than anything that had yet passed between them, the judicious application of aggression or no. Given her own modesty about such matters, she knew that the sensations she was currently experiencing, while not unusual in the sense that they were absent around him, had been pitched upward to a degree perhaps unjustified by the rather simple contact they’d been sharing. Some part of Helen’s mind, able to remain slightly dissociated from the immediate happenings, reached the conclusion that this was somehow the result of consuming his blood. If so, she was glad she had not done so before, but she was not displeased to have done so now. Perhaps that same modesty would have at least usually prompted her to move this somewhere less possibly public, but right at this moment she did not care. She barely had the presence of mind necessary to think something in the direction of Alden, a request, more or less, to keep anyone else away.
He returned with the mental equivalent of a smirk, but she was already ignoring him. It wasn’t until she needed to breathe so badly it burned that she disentangled lips and tongue from Aryan’s mouth, the quick little pants of air softly audible in the fractional space between them. Should she apologize? Explain? He didn’t seem upset, and honestly? She’d rather not do either of those things. So, when she spoke, it was only one word, her tone lightly raspy, faintly growling, but assuredly feminine all the same.
“Aryan.”
It explained enough, perhaps. And if it did not, the fact that she practically attacked his mouth again would speak loudly enough, to say nothing of the fact that she’d finally detached their bodies long enough to deftly work the buttons of his shirt, running the callused fingertips of both hands down his chest and abdomen. Helen had never thought nearly enough about such matters to have a type; as far as she was concerned, her type was Aryan, and that was simply it. But there was something undeniably appealing about the added muscle definition the last two years had given him. He was lean and corded, and she was, as the phrase went—crazy for him. Apparently literally at present. She’d always feared her seemingly-inevitable descent into insanity, but if this was it, she had no idea why, in retrospect.
Whatever had happened to cause this sort of reaction to both of them, Aryan was not overly worried about it, and indeed, it was all he could do not to groan at the feeling of her hands on his skin. His own eyes had taken on a dangerous vermilion hue, as passion overtook them both.
Finding himself on the sofa of the study with Helen in his arms was decidedly not how he had expected to wake up, but then again, nothing about the previous night had been expected, least of all her reaction to drinking his blood. That was the only wild card he could think of, and it did make him wonder. Thinking back over the events, he remembered vaugely tasting blood as she'd kissed him the first time; perhaps if it was hers, as he'd assumed, it would explain his own reaction.
He'd never been very overly thoughtful on such matters; not that he hadn't thought about them, of course, but rather, more or less he'd never thought them important. Even so, he certainly did not regret what had happened. Propping himself up on an elbow, he watched her as she slept, noting that, somehow, she'd wound up wearing his shirt. An amused little smile played across his face. He only hoped that she did not regret the turn of events.
Her limbs felt oddly heavy, actually, the rest of her sore in places she could not immediately produce a justification for. Taking in a breath thick with the smell of him, Helen cracked her eyes open, registering almost immediately that they were not in his bed, where she usually fell asleep, and she was not in the usual clothing she wore for this purpose. In fact… she wasn’t in a whole lot of clothing at all. Enough for decency’s sake, and that was it. The shirt… was far too large to be hers.
The memories rushed back in at once, and Helen turned crimson from her scalp down to her collarbones. That… explained the aches. Blinking, she parted her lips to speak, but found that she had no idea what to say. This was decidedly not a situation she’d ever been in before, and she had no concept of how to handle it. Oh, gods, she’d just attacked him, and then… she lifted her hands to her face to cover it, feeling the heat radiating off of her own skin in waves. She curled a little tighter, wishing very much to just be able to disappear. It was absolutely mortifying.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” she stuttered out from behind her hands, then turned even redder as her brain oh-so-helpfully reminded her what she was apologizing for.
While it was perhaps not quite the reaction he'd been expecting, it was decidedly better than that, though perhaps not the best reaction. Even so, he figured he probably should have expected it. Smiling kindly, Aryan gently shifted so that he could take bother of her hands in his, removing them from her face.
"Helen." he said gently. "You have nothing to apologize for, Love. This is not wholly in either of our hands to take full responsibility for. I've been thinking and...I believe there were some outside factors at work."
She suspected the same, but she wasn’t exactly upset because the events in question had happened. It was just… she felt bad, about how they had happened. And because… there was something she wondered about, sometimes, something she had not ever really found the words to ask. Since she was already feeling about as humiliated as she’d ever been in her life that she could recall, she figured she might as well just ask. “I kn-know, and it’s n-not that. Just…” she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Without her hands to hide her face in, the other option was this or his chest, and that was currently bare, seeing as how she was the one with his shirt. She wasn’t sure she could take the skin-to-skin contact right now.
Eyes still closed, she asked the question that had been nagging at her, a little piece of doubt that she hadn’t quite managed to be rid of. “Without that, would you have…? D-did you even… want me?” She was fairly certain she would not be able to handle it if what had happened was entirely the result of whatever strange alchemy went on with their blood, but… it was a possibility. She knew Aryan loved her. She was less certain that he desired her. Every time there was something to be initiated, she was the one doing so. He never touched her unless she touched him first, never kissed her unless she kissed him first, and that… that had been at her prompting as well. She wondered if he wasn’t just going along with the things she did to make her happy. She wondered if maybe she wasn’t desirable at all.
Three years ago, she wouldn’t have even known it was possible to worry about this. And yet here she was, worried about it and fearing the answer a little bit.
If looks could convey feelings, and they often could, she probably would have gotten her answer at the look of hurt that had flashed over his face. As it were, her eyes were closed. Slowly, Aryan sat up, letting go of her hands in the process, and he looked at her silently. That had been his fault, he supposed. He'd always spent so much time trying to make sure he didn't push things too far...he'd never worried about the opposite problem.
It seemed that Helen was rather good at leaving him wordless, something that he was highly uncomfortable with. So instead, he did the only other thing he could think of. He lowered himself down to her, his mouth covering hers before trailing kisses down her jawline and then even further, ending closer to her navel. When he straightened again, bringing his head up to hers once more, he said softly, "I have always desired you, Helen."
She swallowed reflexively, bringing her hands up to thread them into his hair, sitting up part of the way to brush her lips with his. It was soft more than anything, and a little awestruck. She’d never thought that. Even she, who was so observant, had been utterly fooled by his caution and his consideration, having never been able to guess at what lay underneath it. Letting out a shaky breath, she smiled gently. “Then I regret nothing, and I never will.”
Thinking of that only made him think of the request his father had made of him, though truthfully, he'd never stopped thinking about it save for a few moments, usually when he was with Helen. He'd said he would try, and try he would, but that did not stop the doubt from creeping in along the edges of his mind. Alone or not, it was still a hefty responsibility for someone, and he was unsure he could do this.
Being on the Council was one thing; leading the entire world was something else entirely. Even so, it wasn't as if he could simply let everyone down. That was perhaps what scared him the most, that he would fail. There was no doubt in his mind that they would beat Malkior. It was what came after that terrified him. He sighed heavily.
Helen drew the brush through her hair a few more times, deciding to leave it bereft even of the usual ribbon for the day. That item, she laid on the dresser, moving the silvery sheet of hair off her shoulder so it all rested against her back. Having finished her training for the day and showered, she found herself without anything else to do for the moment, so of course that meant it wasn’t long before she was padding up the carpeted staircase in stocking-feet and pushing open the door to the study with a gentle brush of her fingers. The whisper of the fabric of her collared shirt was really the only indication of her presence, save of course her smell, but they did not need such things to sense each other.
He looked… distressed. Aryan had appeared so more often than not, lately, and in her perceptiveness, she had come to the conclusion that it was something other than the impending battle with Malkior that was causing it. Usually when she entered, she would stand on the other side of his desk, her hands folded behind her back, but today she took one look at the strain evident in his porcelain features and pursed her lips, deciding to take a different approach.
Once Helen had accepted the way she felt about him, she had treated their relationship with a similar kind of directness to the way she treated everything in her life. There was a lingering sense of unworthiness on some level, of course, and perhaps there always would be. One did not suffer as she had suffered and turn out to be fixable by a set of magic words. But she understood that, for whatever reason, she made him happy. Perhaps almost as happy as he made her, though she dare not presume so. The simple fact was that his happiness mattered to her, more than anything else she could ever recall valuing, and so she would be beside him for as long as it made him happy, and not a day less. So Helen walked around the desk rather than stopping in front of it and settled herself sideways on his lap, pressing her cheek to his chest and curling her legs beneath her.
“What do you doubt, Aryan?” she asked him softly, naming the feeling she could sense radiating off him in waves. She felt it in the tension of his posture. She might even be able to smell it, in a certain way that was hard to put her finger on. It was quite visible. More than anything, though, she could feel it in her own heart, constricting her chest, as though passed directly between them with no need for any of the rest of it at all.
Despite how he felt, a soft smile wormed its way onto his face, as it always did at Helen's approach, and it only grew as she curled herself into his lap. One hand absentmindedly ran through her hair. He waited a few seconds before answering. It was almost surprising how easy it came, when he did speak.
"I doubt myself," he admitted. "Leading the entire world in an effort of peace is...rather daunting. At least, it is to me."
Ah, she recalled the discussion of this. Jasper had suggested to her that his son might require some measure of protection after the war, because, as capable as he was of defending himself, one just never knew when something would come up. She hadn’t thought anything of it—it was quite obvious to her that he was capable of what he had been asked to do, and she was unsure why he did not see it. With the softest of sighs, Helen adjusted herself with a feline grace, bracing a knee on either of the armrests of the chair so that she was facing him, and for once actually a few inches taller. She regarded him steadily for a moment with pale purple eyes, canting her head to the side and causing a tendril of hair to fall over the corresponding shoulder. If she noticed, she gave no sign of it.
Tenderly, she reached up, cradling the sides of his jaw in either hand, the look she was giving him rather intent. She had been told on more than one occasion that it was slightly unnerving to be the object of her full focus, because she was unnaturally still, and even her breathing softened, as though she was so perfectly attuned to what she was looking at that she forgot to do other basic things like that. Moments passed, about ten seconds in total, though it perhaps felt longer in the way that such things sometimes do. When she spoke, it was softly, but as bluntly as always.
“I do not doubt you,” she told him matter of factly. “From the moment I met you, I knew you were clever enough. As I became acquainted with you, I learned that you are judicious enough. In playing chess, I learned you are patient enough. When Yuki died, I realized that you are caring enough. Watching you with your godchildren, I know you are gentle enough, good enough, at heart.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “In loving you, I have discovered that you are more than enough, to do anything you should wish.” Her eyes softened, the flicker of a smile passed over her face, and she touched her forehead to his, moving her fingers back over the lines of his face, her thumbs ghosting over his cheekbones, back into his hair and down to the nape of his neck, letting her arms rest loosely on his shoulders. They were close enough that their eyelashes almost brushed, and she let hers fall to rest against her cheek, repeating the gentle sigh.
“If you find that it is difficult to believe in yourself, you may believe in me, when I say this. And in all the others who would say something similar, who know that you are capable of what you are asked.”
Where others may have found it uncomfortable, Aryan had always found it intriguing, the way she could focus all of her attention, all her being, towards one object. As she stared at him, he silently stared back at her. His eyes slipped half-way closed as she touched him, and the smile never left his face. He was in awe, really, the way she spoke of him. He truly could not understand how she had such profound faith in him, but even so, her reasoning was so very simple, to the point that it was laughable that he had not realized it sooner.
She was right, of course. She was always right when it came in regards to him, it seemed. Silently, he reached up, cupping the side of her face with his hand as he pressed his lip to hers, softly. "You, my dear, are something, someone I have, do, and always will believe in. For that, I thank you."
It was very strange, to hear someone say something like that. Nobody had ever had cause to do so before, not when she was the one being spoken to. Believing in her was very different from believing that she was adequate to a purpose, especially one for which she had been made. She didn’t quite understand it, but accepted that it was part of his nature to say such things, and to mean them. She could only try her best not to let him down, and hope that she never did. Though… her thoughts moved in an uncomfortable direction for a moment, and she drew back slightly, to make eye contact a little easier. “I wanted to… apologize,” she confessed, sounding a little guilty. “Back then, when I gave you blood, I did not realize the effects it had. I… it changed you, altered something about you, and it was wrong to do so without your permission.”
This had been weighing on her mind for some time now, as the effects of her actions had only been made known to her in her year of captivity. She’d given Yuki her blood once, more than a hundred years ago, after a desperate battle, but of course it had no effect. That was something it would only do for somebody in Aryan’s family line, and though Yuki had been his sister in every way that mattered, she was not of the relevant bloodline. Helen’s brow furrowed. “I wanted to apologize, but… I cannot.” There was a vague sense of puzzlement to her, and she shook her head. “No more than I can apologize for taking that poisoned bullet. I… it protected you, but more than that… it means I was protecting you, that I was helping you. It should not matter, as long as the outcome was the same, but…” What was it that made it so important who helped him? It was like… she wanted him to be safe, and happy, more than anything, but beyond that, she wanted him to be safe and happy with her and because of her.
It felt selfish, and she hoped it was forgivable. She honestly did not know.
Aryan tilted his head to the side slightly, looking very much like a feline as he did so. He smiled at her. "You do not have to apologize, Helen. What you did that day saved my life. How it changed me is of little consequence. What matters is that I am here, now, and am able to spend my life with you, if that is what you wish. That is all I care about, Helen. Being with you, and making you happy in every aspect that it is within my power to do."
Helen exhaled, something like relief passing over her features before she leaned down a little to nuzzle into the side of his neck. For a while, she just breathed the smell of him, which to her was something like sandalwood and parchment, like some kinds of wine tended to have. A question flitted over the surface of her thoughts: what, exactly, would it taste like? The traitorous seed of thought had planted itself, and no matter how she tried, it would not be uprooted and brushed away, and she was suddenly very conscious of the sound of it thrumming through his veins. The primal instinct to feed had always been relatively dormant in her, so it came as something of a shock when her mouth started to water, and she swallowed thickly. She shouldn’t… should she? Was this not the kind of relationship in which such things were permissible?
She bit her lower lip, surprised that her fangs had descended just slightly without her notice. Helen had never even considered this before, but as soon as that thought was there, it didn’t seem to let go. Something about the notion seemed right, in a way that Malkior taking hers had never felt right. Reaching upwards with a hand, she brushed her fingers down the column of his throat. He… he’d said he wanted to make her happy, too, right? Perhaps it would be okay…
“A-Aryan? May I…?” She flushed an interesting shade of pink, hoping that she didn’t have to complete the question for him to understand. Direct or not, this was not an easy question to just ask somebody. The only person whose blood she’d ever taken in such a fashion had been her sister, and that only when it was necessary to her very survival. So she’d never had to ask, before.
Aryan had been rather content with her in his arms, his eyes half-closed. However, when he felt her fingers at his throat, he opened them. For a few seconds, he waited, wondering what she would do. A small smile plauged his face as she started to voice the question. He supposed he could understand the hesitation, as far as he knew, she'd never taken from anyone other than Freya, and even that had only been in life and death situation. He was not Freya, and this was far from life or death.
Slowly, his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, drawing her closer to him as he tilted his head away from her, exposing the smooth arc of his neck. "What is mine is yours, Helen. You do not need to ask."
That was all it took. She didn’t really remember moving afterwards, but she was there anyway, poised centimeters from his throat, and with one last deep inhale, she sank her teeth in as gently as she knew how. The warm liquid hit her lips and tongue with all the smoothness of honey, and she’d been correct in her guess—he tasted like a sweet, earthy wine. Pressing closer, she braced her hands on his shoulders and lowered the rest of herself so that she wasn’t on the arms of the chair anymore. The height drop made him taller again, but it also gave her a much better angle, and she made a satisfied sound suspiciously caught between a groan and a purr in the back of her throat. That… was not a sound she’d realized she could make, but she found it very hard to care.
There was a warm feeling spreading through her, and though she had never been drunk, she had heard the effects described, and this seemed to be similar. Only... amid the general warmth were lances of white-hot feeling, like lightning in a storm-dark atmosphere. She shuddered almost violently when she pulled back, catching the last few drops with her tongue. Her usually pale eyes were glowing a deep scarlet when she met his, and that wracking sensation actually caused her to bite her own lower lip, leaving twin punctures there before the distended canines receded. But she found it very, very hard to care. In fact, the longer she looked at him, the more difficult she found it to care about anything that was not him and the sensations rebounding around under her skin.
Lip still bleeding, she fisted both hands in his shirt and tugged herself forward, pressing herself against him until there was no empty space left and all that heat was being directly, straightforwardly, and very obviously expressed by the demanding movement of her mouth against his. She had no idea what was going on, but she certainly was not going to complain about it.
Aryan exhaled slightly when she bit into him, his eyes closing once more however; the opened again at the sound she made. While he had not quite expect it, he certainly didn't dislike it. He was, however, rather shocked at the expression on her face as she pulled away and looked at him. His eyebrows rose, and he opened his mouth to say something, though he got not further than "Hel--" then she had pressed every inch of herself to him, lips, body, and all.
That alone, the closeness, was enough to put his mind in a rather heavy fog, enough so that, for the moment, he was unable to do much more than simply return the kiss with an equal amount of heat. He wondered vaugely, just what was going on, but for the moment, he wasn't one to care, nor did it bother him that they were in a room that was rather public; anyone could enter, it wasn't like they were in a bedroom.
It was considerably more intense than anything that had yet passed between them, the judicious application of aggression or no. Given her own modesty about such matters, she knew that the sensations she was currently experiencing, while not unusual in the sense that they were absent around him, had been pitched upward to a degree perhaps unjustified by the rather simple contact they’d been sharing. Some part of Helen’s mind, able to remain slightly dissociated from the immediate happenings, reached the conclusion that this was somehow the result of consuming his blood. If so, she was glad she had not done so before, but she was not displeased to have done so now. Perhaps that same modesty would have at least usually prompted her to move this somewhere less possibly public, but right at this moment she did not care. She barely had the presence of mind necessary to think something in the direction of Alden, a request, more or less, to keep anyone else away.
He returned with the mental equivalent of a smirk, but she was already ignoring him. It wasn’t until she needed to breathe so badly it burned that she disentangled lips and tongue from Aryan’s mouth, the quick little pants of air softly audible in the fractional space between them. Should she apologize? Explain? He didn’t seem upset, and honestly? She’d rather not do either of those things. So, when she spoke, it was only one word, her tone lightly raspy, faintly growling, but assuredly feminine all the same.
“Aryan.”
It explained enough, perhaps. And if it did not, the fact that she practically attacked his mouth again would speak loudly enough, to say nothing of the fact that she’d finally detached their bodies long enough to deftly work the buttons of his shirt, running the callused fingertips of both hands down his chest and abdomen. Helen had never thought nearly enough about such matters to have a type; as far as she was concerned, her type was Aryan, and that was simply it. But there was something undeniably appealing about the added muscle definition the last two years had given him. He was lean and corded, and she was, as the phrase went—crazy for him. Apparently literally at present. She’d always feared her seemingly-inevitable descent into insanity, but if this was it, she had no idea why, in retrospect.
Whatever had happened to cause this sort of reaction to both of them, Aryan was not overly worried about it, and indeed, it was all he could do not to groan at the feeling of her hands on his skin. His own eyes had taken on a dangerous vermilion hue, as passion overtook them both.
Finding himself on the sofa of the study with Helen in his arms was decidedly not how he had expected to wake up, but then again, nothing about the previous night had been expected, least of all her reaction to drinking his blood. That was the only wild card he could think of, and it did make him wonder. Thinking back over the events, he remembered vaugely tasting blood as she'd kissed him the first time; perhaps if it was hers, as he'd assumed, it would explain his own reaction.
He'd never been very overly thoughtful on such matters; not that he hadn't thought about them, of course, but rather, more or less he'd never thought them important. Even so, he certainly did not regret what had happened. Propping himself up on an elbow, he watched her as she slept, noting that, somehow, she'd wound up wearing his shirt. An amused little smile played across his face. He only hoped that she did not regret the turn of events.
Her limbs felt oddly heavy, actually, the rest of her sore in places she could not immediately produce a justification for. Taking in a breath thick with the smell of him, Helen cracked her eyes open, registering almost immediately that they were not in his bed, where she usually fell asleep, and she was not in the usual clothing she wore for this purpose. In fact… she wasn’t in a whole lot of clothing at all. Enough for decency’s sake, and that was it. The shirt… was far too large to be hers.
The memories rushed back in at once, and Helen turned crimson from her scalp down to her collarbones. That… explained the aches. Blinking, she parted her lips to speak, but found that she had no idea what to say. This was decidedly not a situation she’d ever been in before, and she had no concept of how to handle it. Oh, gods, she’d just attacked him, and then… she lifted her hands to her face to cover it, feeling the heat radiating off of her own skin in waves. She curled a little tighter, wishing very much to just be able to disappear. It was absolutely mortifying.
“I’m s-s-sorry,” she stuttered out from behind her hands, then turned even redder as her brain oh-so-helpfully reminded her what she was apologizing for.
While it was perhaps not quite the reaction he'd been expecting, it was decidedly better than that, though perhaps not the best reaction. Even so, he figured he probably should have expected it. Smiling kindly, Aryan gently shifted so that he could take bother of her hands in his, removing them from her face.
"Helen." he said gently. "You have nothing to apologize for, Love. This is not wholly in either of our hands to take full responsibility for. I've been thinking and...I believe there were some outside factors at work."
She suspected the same, but she wasn’t exactly upset because the events in question had happened. It was just… she felt bad, about how they had happened. And because… there was something she wondered about, sometimes, something she had not ever really found the words to ask. Since she was already feeling about as humiliated as she’d ever been in her life that she could recall, she figured she might as well just ask. “I kn-know, and it’s n-not that. Just…” she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Without her hands to hide her face in, the other option was this or his chest, and that was currently bare, seeing as how she was the one with his shirt. She wasn’t sure she could take the skin-to-skin contact right now.
Eyes still closed, she asked the question that had been nagging at her, a little piece of doubt that she hadn’t quite managed to be rid of. “Without that, would you have…? D-did you even… want me?” She was fairly certain she would not be able to handle it if what had happened was entirely the result of whatever strange alchemy went on with their blood, but… it was a possibility. She knew Aryan loved her. She was less certain that he desired her. Every time there was something to be initiated, she was the one doing so. He never touched her unless she touched him first, never kissed her unless she kissed him first, and that… that had been at her prompting as well. She wondered if he wasn’t just going along with the things she did to make her happy. She wondered if maybe she wasn’t desirable at all.
Three years ago, she wouldn’t have even known it was possible to worry about this. And yet here she was, worried about it and fearing the answer a little bit.
If looks could convey feelings, and they often could, she probably would have gotten her answer at the look of hurt that had flashed over his face. As it were, her eyes were closed. Slowly, Aryan sat up, letting go of her hands in the process, and he looked at her silently. That had been his fault, he supposed. He'd always spent so much time trying to make sure he didn't push things too far...he'd never worried about the opposite problem.
It seemed that Helen was rather good at leaving him wordless, something that he was highly uncomfortable with. So instead, he did the only other thing he could think of. He lowered himself down to her, his mouth covering hers before trailing kisses down her jawline and then even further, ending closer to her navel. When he straightened again, bringing his head up to hers once more, he said softly, "I have always desired you, Helen."
She swallowed reflexively, bringing her hands up to thread them into his hair, sitting up part of the way to brush her lips with his. It was soft more than anything, and a little awestruck. She’d never thought that. Even she, who was so observant, had been utterly fooled by his caution and his consideration, having never been able to guess at what lay underneath it. Letting out a shaky breath, she smiled gently. “Then I regret nothing, and I never will.”
It was not often that Keir pulled his hair back, but when he did, it made him look...slightly less feral than he normally did. His bangs really could not be helped, and they hung down in his face still, but the sides of his neck were well exposed, not to mention a certain mark Leora had left on him from the night they had shared. It was fading now, but still somewhat visible. It still made him chuckle slightly.
Still, such carnal acts seemed to be running their course through the family, if the certain smell that hung over Aryan and Helen were any indication. That had surprised him, but even so, he had at least had the decency not to push, Helen would probably be uncomfortable enough as it was. He cocked his head to the side as he caught his sister's scent, his feet carrying him in her direction.
"Wow...don't normally find you outside of Bal's company. Got bored already, Sister?" He chuckled slightly. If he knew anything, neither of them would ever get bored of the people they loved; if anything, their feelings would only grow with time. As over-protective of his twin as he tended to be, he wasn't sure there was a better person out there for her than Balthasar, and he was happy to see her smiling again.
As of late, it wasn't often that Alarica left Balthasar's side, however; she knew the importance of giving someone their space. Though she knew regardless that giving him his space wasn't exactly necessary, it was still something she wanted to do. She didn't want to smother him, nor did she want to interrupt his training. She trained herself as well with her family, her uncle Vincent, and occasionally with Zero and Leora. They were her favorite sparring partners because the two of them were not prone to holding back. Just because they were family didn't mean they had to hold out on each other. If anything, now was the time to go full out because the progenitor and the Pantheon would not show the same courtesy of holding back.
They would come with the full intention of killing, and they needed to prepare for that. So far, everyone had improved greatly, their techniques, their form, their powers had all became honed. Their senses were sharper, and they had all become powerful in their own rights. She shook her head, pushing htose thoughts away from her mind as she sighed a contented sigh. She was currently sitting outside, of course, in her favorite spot: the apple orchard. She would never get tired of the apples that grew on her Uncle's estate, as they had always been the best. She'd never admit it, but it was from these apples that her love of apples stemmed from. She, however, was not eating them, not today. Instead, she sat, her hands laced behind her head as she leaned against the bark of the tree.
She smiled when a familiar scent entered her senses, and she turned to spot her brother walking in her direction. A smirk pulled at her lips as he spoke, and she cocked her head to the side. "Bored? No, brother, bored is not the term I would use. Besides, he's training with Uncle Jasper. I don't need to be by his side all of the time, especially now that there are just a few days left," she replied, her smirk faltering a bit. It was only a few more days until the Progenitor came with the Pantheon, and he would try to take Helen back. Her hands clenched into fists at that thought. He wouldn't take any more of her family members. She'd die if she had to, to prevent him from doing so.
"You're one to talk, though. Where's Leora? I can smell her all over you. Is it that season that everyone is just mad for each other? Arty and Hel have been at it apparently, as well," she spoke, the smirk pulling at her lips in the process. She'd known the two had been close, and it was apparent everyone in the family had been, if their scents mingling together was any indication. A part of her was happy that her family had become closer, even if it had been in that way or another. Even Zero was happy with his children, though she could see it in his eyes that he still missed Yuki. Not that she blamed him, she wasn't sure she'd be as strong as he was if she lost Balthasar. Zero had his children to think of, she had no such anchor. She shook those thoughts out of her mind. She wouldn't lose Balthasar, nor any other of her family members. Not so long as she breathed, she would lose no more.
Keir's eyebrows rose, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was true, everyone had been all over their own lovers, it seemed, at least as much as they all could. It had been the same with him and Leora. They were training most nights, and sleeping in the same bed during the days. As for Aryan and Helen...that had been an interesting story, actually.
He shrugged lightly, brushing his bangs back. "She's training with her father today. We are sleeping in the same bed, I'm not surprised I smell like her." He regarded his sister with a smirk. "You're still carrying around his scent, too, ya know."
Alarica rose a brow at her brother's explanation. They were sleeping in the same bed, he said. A smirk tugged at her lips as she crossed her arms over her chest, regarding him with a blank stare in the process. Her eyes drifted towards the side of his neck, spotting something that only caused her smirk to widen. There, on the corner of his neck, was something red, something purple. At first, she thought it was bruise, given its coloration, however; closer inspection revealed that it was most definitely not a bruise. Her brow continued to rise as she stared at it.
"Uh huh. So does sleeping in the same bed mean that you wake up with love bites?" she teased. "Because, you know that everyone here shares a bed, and Balthasar does not wake up with love bites. Though, now that I think about it, maybe he should. That way the world will know he belongs to someone, since you know our healing factors kind of heal the marks we do leave," she stated, referring to the feedings they would occasionaly need to do. She and her family were lucky they did not need blood as often as their pure-blood relatives, and that they could live off of solid foods more-so than blood. Not that she minded either way. If he needed blood, she'd provide it to him. If she needed blood...well, she'd get it one way or another.
Keir rolled his eyes, his smirk dropping into a scowl. "Actually, this is from a week ago, and that was on the roof, not in bed, so no; sleeping together does not mean waking up with love marks. Though I certainly wouldn't complain if I did." He raised an eyebrow at his sister's final comment. An interesting assumption, really, considering that in all reality, Balthasar and Leora probably fed more often than the two of them; being a Dhampir meant you didn't need blood the way normal vampires did.
"Trust me, the way he walks around with that whipped look on his face, the world already knows he belongs to someone, dear sister." He smirked again, though really, he had little room to talk. He'd probably go flying head-first off of a cliff if Leora asked him to. Then again, he might do that anyway.
"Anyone can wear that look, doesn't mean they actually belong to someone. They could just be smitten with someone and wear that look, though I have to say, that look is rather suited to you," she replied back, shrugging her shoulders in the process. It did, however, manage to bring a smile to her face though. "So, how's training with Uncle Vincent? I'm surprised he hasn't killed you yet, all things considered," she stated, leaning back against the bark of the tree and patted the ground next to her.
"Come, sit and tell me all about it. I am interested in learning why you are still breathing," she continued, the same smirk still tugging at her lips. Though she really was rather curious as to how his training was coming along, not the fact that Uncle Vincent hasn't killed him yet.
Keir rolled his eyes again as he sat down, but really, he couldn't argue with her. He was whipped, and he knew it, too. It was funny, really, he didn't mind it all that much. He sat silently for a moment. "Well, you can thank Leora, really. Because of her, Sagiv and I were able to reach what I suppose you could call an agreement. He's still bloodthirsty and insane as ever, but he's not constantly trying to take over my mind anymore. Really he just likes to fight, more than I do. Things tend to have a funny way of working out." He smirked slightly. "He really likes going up against Uncle Vincent, though."
"Really? And here I thought you just had a death wish," Alarica replied, shrugging her shoulders in the process. "Besides, I don't blame him. Uncle Vincent isn't exactly one to take it easy, regardless if it's family or not," she continued, turning her gaze up towards the sky. She'd only sparred with Vincent once, and it was enough to know that he was a good training partner, though she didn't particularly want to explain missing limbs and bruised body parts to her mother. Brother or not, Erys was not exactly one to let things happen to her children like that.
"Speaking of which, you should probably thank Leora then, though I am sure you've already given your thanks in many ways. She saved you from yourself. Maybe I should go thank her too," she stated, allowing a smirk to pull at her features as she nudged her brother in the ribs, winking at him in the process as if to imply just exactly how she would thank Leora. Though of course she was kidding.
Keir rolled his eyes, a grin lacing his features. "Fine, but I get to watch this time."
Still, such carnal acts seemed to be running their course through the family, if the certain smell that hung over Aryan and Helen were any indication. That had surprised him, but even so, he had at least had the decency not to push, Helen would probably be uncomfortable enough as it was. He cocked his head to the side as he caught his sister's scent, his feet carrying him in her direction.
"Wow...don't normally find you outside of Bal's company. Got bored already, Sister?" He chuckled slightly. If he knew anything, neither of them would ever get bored of the people they loved; if anything, their feelings would only grow with time. As over-protective of his twin as he tended to be, he wasn't sure there was a better person out there for her than Balthasar, and he was happy to see her smiling again.
As of late, it wasn't often that Alarica left Balthasar's side, however; she knew the importance of giving someone their space. Though she knew regardless that giving him his space wasn't exactly necessary, it was still something she wanted to do. She didn't want to smother him, nor did she want to interrupt his training. She trained herself as well with her family, her uncle Vincent, and occasionally with Zero and Leora. They were her favorite sparring partners because the two of them were not prone to holding back. Just because they were family didn't mean they had to hold out on each other. If anything, now was the time to go full out because the progenitor and the Pantheon would not show the same courtesy of holding back.
They would come with the full intention of killing, and they needed to prepare for that. So far, everyone had improved greatly, their techniques, their form, their powers had all became honed. Their senses were sharper, and they had all become powerful in their own rights. She shook her head, pushing htose thoughts away from her mind as she sighed a contented sigh. She was currently sitting outside, of course, in her favorite spot: the apple orchard. She would never get tired of the apples that grew on her Uncle's estate, as they had always been the best. She'd never admit it, but it was from these apples that her love of apples stemmed from. She, however, was not eating them, not today. Instead, she sat, her hands laced behind her head as she leaned against the bark of the tree.
She smiled when a familiar scent entered her senses, and she turned to spot her brother walking in her direction. A smirk pulled at her lips as he spoke, and she cocked her head to the side. "Bored? No, brother, bored is not the term I would use. Besides, he's training with Uncle Jasper. I don't need to be by his side all of the time, especially now that there are just a few days left," she replied, her smirk faltering a bit. It was only a few more days until the Progenitor came with the Pantheon, and he would try to take Helen back. Her hands clenched into fists at that thought. He wouldn't take any more of her family members. She'd die if she had to, to prevent him from doing so.
"You're one to talk, though. Where's Leora? I can smell her all over you. Is it that season that everyone is just mad for each other? Arty and Hel have been at it apparently, as well," she spoke, the smirk pulling at her lips in the process. She'd known the two had been close, and it was apparent everyone in the family had been, if their scents mingling together was any indication. A part of her was happy that her family had become closer, even if it had been in that way or another. Even Zero was happy with his children, though she could see it in his eyes that he still missed Yuki. Not that she blamed him, she wasn't sure she'd be as strong as he was if she lost Balthasar. Zero had his children to think of, she had no such anchor. She shook those thoughts out of her mind. She wouldn't lose Balthasar, nor any other of her family members. Not so long as she breathed, she would lose no more.
Keir's eyebrows rose, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was true, everyone had been all over their own lovers, it seemed, at least as much as they all could. It had been the same with him and Leora. They were training most nights, and sleeping in the same bed during the days. As for Aryan and Helen...that had been an interesting story, actually.
He shrugged lightly, brushing his bangs back. "She's training with her father today. We are sleeping in the same bed, I'm not surprised I smell like her." He regarded his sister with a smirk. "You're still carrying around his scent, too, ya know."
Alarica rose a brow at her brother's explanation. They were sleeping in the same bed, he said. A smirk tugged at her lips as she crossed her arms over her chest, regarding him with a blank stare in the process. Her eyes drifted towards the side of his neck, spotting something that only caused her smirk to widen. There, on the corner of his neck, was something red, something purple. At first, she thought it was bruise, given its coloration, however; closer inspection revealed that it was most definitely not a bruise. Her brow continued to rise as she stared at it.
"Uh huh. So does sleeping in the same bed mean that you wake up with love bites?" she teased. "Because, you know that everyone here shares a bed, and Balthasar does not wake up with love bites. Though, now that I think about it, maybe he should. That way the world will know he belongs to someone, since you know our healing factors kind of heal the marks we do leave," she stated, referring to the feedings they would occasionaly need to do. She and her family were lucky they did not need blood as often as their pure-blood relatives, and that they could live off of solid foods more-so than blood. Not that she minded either way. If he needed blood, she'd provide it to him. If she needed blood...well, she'd get it one way or another.
Keir rolled his eyes, his smirk dropping into a scowl. "Actually, this is from a week ago, and that was on the roof, not in bed, so no; sleeping together does not mean waking up with love marks. Though I certainly wouldn't complain if I did." He raised an eyebrow at his sister's final comment. An interesting assumption, really, considering that in all reality, Balthasar and Leora probably fed more often than the two of them; being a Dhampir meant you didn't need blood the way normal vampires did.
"Trust me, the way he walks around with that whipped look on his face, the world already knows he belongs to someone, dear sister." He smirked again, though really, he had little room to talk. He'd probably go flying head-first off of a cliff if Leora asked him to. Then again, he might do that anyway.
"Anyone can wear that look, doesn't mean they actually belong to someone. They could just be smitten with someone and wear that look, though I have to say, that look is rather suited to you," she replied back, shrugging her shoulders in the process. It did, however, manage to bring a smile to her face though. "So, how's training with Uncle Vincent? I'm surprised he hasn't killed you yet, all things considered," she stated, leaning back against the bark of the tree and patted the ground next to her.
"Come, sit and tell me all about it. I am interested in learning why you are still breathing," she continued, the same smirk still tugging at her lips. Though she really was rather curious as to how his training was coming along, not the fact that Uncle Vincent hasn't killed him yet.
Keir rolled his eyes again as he sat down, but really, he couldn't argue with her. He was whipped, and he knew it, too. It was funny, really, he didn't mind it all that much. He sat silently for a moment. "Well, you can thank Leora, really. Because of her, Sagiv and I were able to reach what I suppose you could call an agreement. He's still bloodthirsty and insane as ever, but he's not constantly trying to take over my mind anymore. Really he just likes to fight, more than I do. Things tend to have a funny way of working out." He smirked slightly. "He really likes going up against Uncle Vincent, though."
"Really? And here I thought you just had a death wish," Alarica replied, shrugging her shoulders in the process. "Besides, I don't blame him. Uncle Vincent isn't exactly one to take it easy, regardless if it's family or not," she continued, turning her gaze up towards the sky. She'd only sparred with Vincent once, and it was enough to know that he was a good training partner, though she didn't particularly want to explain missing limbs and bruised body parts to her mother. Brother or not, Erys was not exactly one to let things happen to her children like that.
"Speaking of which, you should probably thank Leora then, though I am sure you've already given your thanks in many ways. She saved you from yourself. Maybe I should go thank her too," she stated, allowing a smirk to pull at her features as she nudged her brother in the ribs, winking at him in the process as if to imply just exactly how she would thank Leora. Though of course she was kidding.
Keir rolled his eyes, a grin lacing his features. "Fine, but I get to watch this time."
Balthasar contemplated his twin lances for a moment, testing their weight and balance in his hands, then sighed slightly through his nose and shook his head. They wouldn’t be of any use against Malkior, and he hardly needed an edge against anything else he would face. At this point, it was probably better to simply leave them behind. Setting both back against the wall, he ended up doing no more than checking his leathers and linens. He didn’t wear the fabrics for protection—considering the strength that both he and his opponents were capable of, any such attempt would be pointless, but rather because they were flexible, aerodynamic, and fitted close enough to his body that they wouldn’t stand any chance of getting in the way. That was really the only important thing. Tightening a buckle or two, he raked his fingers through his hair and headed to the foyer.
It was, after all, the appointed date. One year ago, his family had confronted the Progenitor of their entire race, and he had promised them this much time. Whatever they had done, whatever they had become, in this year would have to be enough. If it wasn’t, then… Balthasar chose not to allow himself to think about the consequences. Setting his jaw, he entered the appointed room and found that it was empty save his mother and father. Jasper was whispering something inaudible in Nikki’s ear, his arms wrapped gently around her, lips bushing her neck for just a moment before he propped his chin on her crown.
Balthasar honestly couldn’t say if he envied his father, or felt bad for him. This was mostly because he couldn’t decide, if it had been up to him, whether Rica would have stayed or gone with. On the one hand… it was only natural to want to keep her safe. He was sure it was something that all of them felt, at some point or another. But otherwise, he honestly liked fighting beside her, when he had to fight at all. He knew she was strong, could contribute to the effort, could make a difference, and in that sense it seemed just wrong to think about her not being there, facing whatever they faced together.
In the end, he decided, it was what it was. They had to fight, but they also had to look after the kids, and somebody had to be responsible for that. Balthasar let his eyes fall to his feet. There was no point in thinking too much about it. The time for thinking had passed, and would come again when the battle was done. Now, however, was the time to act, and so he simply decided to wait for the others to make their way down, having finished whatever preparation they had deemed necessary.
Nikki sighed softly, relaxing into her husband's embrace. She allowed her eyes to close as her eldest son entered, though she did not move. She didn't want to, just as she didn't want to stay behind as her husband and children went off to battle without her. But, she knew, better than anyone that she needed to stay behind above all others; Brayleigh needed her mother.
It did not take long for Aryan to arrive; he was alone, as Helen was currently with Freya. He was not at all surprised to find his parents like such, it was actually something he'd seen often in his earlier years. He stood silently next to his brother. His face was a cool mask, unreadable as always. Inside however, he was...restless. It wasn't to say that he was worried, but he wasn't completely calm, either. But he was not one to let it show on the outside. They had had a year; he could only pray that it would be enough.
A year.
It has been an entire year since Helen first returned, and the date the Progenitor, Malkior, said he would come for her. Sapphire eyes watched as the laughter of children filled his ears, a smile once hard to form, now present softly upon his face. Zero watched his children, his son and his daughter, playing off in the distance. He didn't want to leave them, but he had to. He had to leave them in order to ensure that they, at least, had a future. He would return to them, that much he had promised, but he wasn't so sure. Even with all the training he did with his family, he wasn't quite sure they could do it. The smile faded slightly from his face, his eyes glazed over as something warm squeezed his hand.
He turned to stare at his oldest, Diya, as she smiled up at him. He shook the thoughts from his head as he squeezed her hand back, watching as she left to go with Bryer. No, he couldn't still think like that. They would win this battle, and he would get to watch his children grow. He would get to watch them grow up, become adults, fall in love, have children of their own, he would get to do all of that. Though it hurt still that his beloved could no longer be here to see them as well, he knew that Yuki would still be with him, in his memories, in his life, in everything that was him, she would be there. And that was all that mattered. He would bid his children farewell until he returned.
Alarica, on the other hand, was restless. To say she was excited would have been an understatement. There were no words to describe what she was feeling. The excitement, the adrenaline coursed through her veins. She and her family would be going up against strong opponents, that much she knew. She also knew that her family had also become stronger over the year, and not just physically either. They had all gained a stronger mentality, each one of them knowing that this battle was theirs, that the war was going to finally end with them as the victors. The pantheon would be destroyed, and the Progenitor dealt with. Though still, doubts lingered in her mind.
Strong as they may be, he was still the Progenitor. He was the father of all vampires, and the creator of the vampiric race. He was powerful, and they only strong. But she had to have faith that the person she loved the most, and her Uncle and the rest of her family would be enough. With that in mind, she followed behind her mother, matching her strides as Ulrik hung off of her shoulder. They were to all meet, to have a final meeting before they left for battle. Her brothers were with their father, probably already there, and Uncle Vincent should be there as well. She knew not where her cousins, Leora, Zero, or Alden, were, but from the scents, they would be arriving shortly.
When they arrived, it was to the sight of the von Nacht family already gathered, and Alarica merely shook her head. Leave it to them to be the ones on time while the rest were late.
Bathasar looked up when Rica entered, smiling gently at the woman he loved, but for the moment, he said nothing. What else was left to be said? This was it, and they all knew it. Leora and Alden arrived next, having met each other in the hallway on their way over. She’d gone ahead of Keir, and he of Emrys, both aware that their lovers would be along presently. Leo punched Balthasar affectionately in the arm, and he responded by ruffling her hair, earning a muted chuckle from her and a grin from him. But then she righted herself, he removed his hand from her head, and things were once again quiet.
Ava was next in, her hand enclosed in one of Vincent’s—at her prompting or his, it was always hard to tell with the two of them. As Brynhilde had been gifted to Alden a long time ago, she wore a different spear sling over her back, this one plainer but just as sturdy. Her hair had been pulled into a tail, trailing to her waist even so, and her gear otherwise resembled her daughter’s—practical, skintight fabric for ease of movement. The only difference was that Ava wore one of Vincent’s trademark red hair bands, and the black cord of a necklace could be seen disappearing beneath the line of her shirt, the pendant worn, as it always had been, against her heart.
It did not take long for Emrys and Keir to arrive, and they did so together, the brothers wearing matching expressions of calm aloofness, though Keir's may have been a bit darker than his brother's. Sagiv was stirring, and for once, Keir was not fighting him, if the fact that his eyes were glowing a bit of a darker sapphire than normal was any indication. Alucard and Solaris trotted next to them, the wolves silent as ever.
Keir was in much the same attire as he ever was; seeing as he would more than likely yield to Sagiv for the majority of the battle, what he wore was of little consequence, and besides that, he was used to fighting in what he wore. Emrys, on the other hand, was dressed much like the rest of the family. Simple, skin-tight, and flexible, though the eldest Alistair did tend to wear a lot of black. Really, the only color aside from his hair and eyes were the silver steel of the seven different guns he wore. While Antissa, Ushas, and Esternos were his three favorites, he also had Vishnu, Nassivern, Isunova, and Kuvera. For this battle, he would be taking all of them.
His eyes roamed over the others, resting on Alden for a second before he seemed to simply stare off at nothing. They were only waiting on Helen and Freya now, it seemed. Solaris rubbed her head against his hand, and he absently petted her.
Freya and Helen were the last to arrive, only the latter dressed for battle. Freya only fought on occasion, and for the moment, she was best put to use hanging back with medical triage equipment, just in case, something which she would do, though her own arrival to the field would be somewhat delayed, just in case. If everything went wrong, she would need to get the word back to the siblings who stayed with the children. Helen, however, was arrayed similarly to the others, her swords strapped firmly in place and her hair tailed high on her head. It was, however, the elder sister who spoke.
“Before you go,” she said calmly, “there is something you ought to know.” Pausing just long enough to make sure that everyone was listening, she blinked once and continued. “Most of you must stay away from Baldr. By now, you know that every member of the Pantheon was created for a purpose. His was to render enemies of the king useless, and he will. With a touch, he can steal any and all abilities you possess—permanently. As long as he’s lived and as many people as he’s fought, he has some version of almost all of them by this point. Such a talent passes through even the nullification that some of you share, so you must not let him touch you.”
Another small pause, and this time, she smiled a little. “Fortunately, Theodor never liked him much, and was afraid of him. So there is a countermeasure. While I doubt his talents would work on those with Malkior’s powers, the Aegis was designed with Baldr in mind. So anyone using it should be able to avoid having their power sapped or his talents used upon them. Be aware, however, that he will be able to injure you physically still. The Aegis was the shield to Baldr’s Sword—he can hurt you, and he will try. But he shouldn’t be able to do anything more than that.” She directed the last words to Vincent and Keir, the known bearers of the Aegis, then nodded slightly and left the room to finish preparing her equipment, laying a delicate hand on Helen’s crown for a moment and then departing.
Once everyone was properly organized and had said their goodbyes, the group left the estate. Malkior doubtless knew where they were—they had made no attempt to conceal it, after all, and even if they had, he’d likely have found the location anyway. Indeed, not three miles outside the estate, they found the army waiting for them. It was arranged oddly: two separate halves. One seemed to be a horde of lesser vampires, from Level E to a few Nobles, and it was enormous. The other, the vanguard, was split off slightly and contained the members of the Pantheon and Makior himself, dressed in the color of night and standing front and center of his servants.
Ava took one look at the arrangement and branched off to the left, where the horde was. “You guys handle the Pantheon,” she said firmly, drawing the spear from her back. “I’ll keep the rest away.” It was a lot of vampires, but the fact was, they needed as much strength as they could muster to handle the Pantheon. When the spheres of light that issued from each of the fingertips of her left hand exploded into the middle of the horde, cutting massive swaths in the soldiers, she knew she’d be able to handle it.
It was, after all, the appointed date. One year ago, his family had confronted the Progenitor of their entire race, and he had promised them this much time. Whatever they had done, whatever they had become, in this year would have to be enough. If it wasn’t, then… Balthasar chose not to allow himself to think about the consequences. Setting his jaw, he entered the appointed room and found that it was empty save his mother and father. Jasper was whispering something inaudible in Nikki’s ear, his arms wrapped gently around her, lips bushing her neck for just a moment before he propped his chin on her crown.
Balthasar honestly couldn’t say if he envied his father, or felt bad for him. This was mostly because he couldn’t decide, if it had been up to him, whether Rica would have stayed or gone with. On the one hand… it was only natural to want to keep her safe. He was sure it was something that all of them felt, at some point or another. But otherwise, he honestly liked fighting beside her, when he had to fight at all. He knew she was strong, could contribute to the effort, could make a difference, and in that sense it seemed just wrong to think about her not being there, facing whatever they faced together.
In the end, he decided, it was what it was. They had to fight, but they also had to look after the kids, and somebody had to be responsible for that. Balthasar let his eyes fall to his feet. There was no point in thinking too much about it. The time for thinking had passed, and would come again when the battle was done. Now, however, was the time to act, and so he simply decided to wait for the others to make their way down, having finished whatever preparation they had deemed necessary.
Nikki sighed softly, relaxing into her husband's embrace. She allowed her eyes to close as her eldest son entered, though she did not move. She didn't want to, just as she didn't want to stay behind as her husband and children went off to battle without her. But, she knew, better than anyone that she needed to stay behind above all others; Brayleigh needed her mother.
It did not take long for Aryan to arrive; he was alone, as Helen was currently with Freya. He was not at all surprised to find his parents like such, it was actually something he'd seen often in his earlier years. He stood silently next to his brother. His face was a cool mask, unreadable as always. Inside however, he was...restless. It wasn't to say that he was worried, but he wasn't completely calm, either. But he was not one to let it show on the outside. They had had a year; he could only pray that it would be enough.
A year.
It has been an entire year since Helen first returned, and the date the Progenitor, Malkior, said he would come for her. Sapphire eyes watched as the laughter of children filled his ears, a smile once hard to form, now present softly upon his face. Zero watched his children, his son and his daughter, playing off in the distance. He didn't want to leave them, but he had to. He had to leave them in order to ensure that they, at least, had a future. He would return to them, that much he had promised, but he wasn't so sure. Even with all the training he did with his family, he wasn't quite sure they could do it. The smile faded slightly from his face, his eyes glazed over as something warm squeezed his hand.
He turned to stare at his oldest, Diya, as she smiled up at him. He shook the thoughts from his head as he squeezed her hand back, watching as she left to go with Bryer. No, he couldn't still think like that. They would win this battle, and he would get to watch his children grow. He would get to watch them grow up, become adults, fall in love, have children of their own, he would get to do all of that. Though it hurt still that his beloved could no longer be here to see them as well, he knew that Yuki would still be with him, in his memories, in his life, in everything that was him, she would be there. And that was all that mattered. He would bid his children farewell until he returned.
Alarica, on the other hand, was restless. To say she was excited would have been an understatement. There were no words to describe what she was feeling. The excitement, the adrenaline coursed through her veins. She and her family would be going up against strong opponents, that much she knew. She also knew that her family had also become stronger over the year, and not just physically either. They had all gained a stronger mentality, each one of them knowing that this battle was theirs, that the war was going to finally end with them as the victors. The pantheon would be destroyed, and the Progenitor dealt with. Though still, doubts lingered in her mind.
Strong as they may be, he was still the Progenitor. He was the father of all vampires, and the creator of the vampiric race. He was powerful, and they only strong. But she had to have faith that the person she loved the most, and her Uncle and the rest of her family would be enough. With that in mind, she followed behind her mother, matching her strides as Ulrik hung off of her shoulder. They were to all meet, to have a final meeting before they left for battle. Her brothers were with their father, probably already there, and Uncle Vincent should be there as well. She knew not where her cousins, Leora, Zero, or Alden, were, but from the scents, they would be arriving shortly.
When they arrived, it was to the sight of the von Nacht family already gathered, and Alarica merely shook her head. Leave it to them to be the ones on time while the rest were late.
Bathasar looked up when Rica entered, smiling gently at the woman he loved, but for the moment, he said nothing. What else was left to be said? This was it, and they all knew it. Leora and Alden arrived next, having met each other in the hallway on their way over. She’d gone ahead of Keir, and he of Emrys, both aware that their lovers would be along presently. Leo punched Balthasar affectionately in the arm, and he responded by ruffling her hair, earning a muted chuckle from her and a grin from him. But then she righted herself, he removed his hand from her head, and things were once again quiet.
Ava was next in, her hand enclosed in one of Vincent’s—at her prompting or his, it was always hard to tell with the two of them. As Brynhilde had been gifted to Alden a long time ago, she wore a different spear sling over her back, this one plainer but just as sturdy. Her hair had been pulled into a tail, trailing to her waist even so, and her gear otherwise resembled her daughter’s—practical, skintight fabric for ease of movement. The only difference was that Ava wore one of Vincent’s trademark red hair bands, and the black cord of a necklace could be seen disappearing beneath the line of her shirt, the pendant worn, as it always had been, against her heart.
It did not take long for Emrys and Keir to arrive, and they did so together, the brothers wearing matching expressions of calm aloofness, though Keir's may have been a bit darker than his brother's. Sagiv was stirring, and for once, Keir was not fighting him, if the fact that his eyes were glowing a bit of a darker sapphire than normal was any indication. Alucard and Solaris trotted next to them, the wolves silent as ever.
Keir was in much the same attire as he ever was; seeing as he would more than likely yield to Sagiv for the majority of the battle, what he wore was of little consequence, and besides that, he was used to fighting in what he wore. Emrys, on the other hand, was dressed much like the rest of the family. Simple, skin-tight, and flexible, though the eldest Alistair did tend to wear a lot of black. Really, the only color aside from his hair and eyes were the silver steel of the seven different guns he wore. While Antissa, Ushas, and Esternos were his three favorites, he also had Vishnu, Nassivern, Isunova, and Kuvera. For this battle, he would be taking all of them.
His eyes roamed over the others, resting on Alden for a second before he seemed to simply stare off at nothing. They were only waiting on Helen and Freya now, it seemed. Solaris rubbed her head against his hand, and he absently petted her.
Freya and Helen were the last to arrive, only the latter dressed for battle. Freya only fought on occasion, and for the moment, she was best put to use hanging back with medical triage equipment, just in case, something which she would do, though her own arrival to the field would be somewhat delayed, just in case. If everything went wrong, she would need to get the word back to the siblings who stayed with the children. Helen, however, was arrayed similarly to the others, her swords strapped firmly in place and her hair tailed high on her head. It was, however, the elder sister who spoke.
“Before you go,” she said calmly, “there is something you ought to know.” Pausing just long enough to make sure that everyone was listening, she blinked once and continued. “Most of you must stay away from Baldr. By now, you know that every member of the Pantheon was created for a purpose. His was to render enemies of the king useless, and he will. With a touch, he can steal any and all abilities you possess—permanently. As long as he’s lived and as many people as he’s fought, he has some version of almost all of them by this point. Such a talent passes through even the nullification that some of you share, so you must not let him touch you.”
Another small pause, and this time, she smiled a little. “Fortunately, Theodor never liked him much, and was afraid of him. So there is a countermeasure. While I doubt his talents would work on those with Malkior’s powers, the Aegis was designed with Baldr in mind. So anyone using it should be able to avoid having their power sapped or his talents used upon them. Be aware, however, that he will be able to injure you physically still. The Aegis was the shield to Baldr’s Sword—he can hurt you, and he will try. But he shouldn’t be able to do anything more than that.” She directed the last words to Vincent and Keir, the known bearers of the Aegis, then nodded slightly and left the room to finish preparing her equipment, laying a delicate hand on Helen’s crown for a moment and then departing.
Once everyone was properly organized and had said their goodbyes, the group left the estate. Malkior doubtless knew where they were—they had made no attempt to conceal it, after all, and even if they had, he’d likely have found the location anyway. Indeed, not three miles outside the estate, they found the army waiting for them. It was arranged oddly: two separate halves. One seemed to be a horde of lesser vampires, from Level E to a few Nobles, and it was enormous. The other, the vanguard, was split off slightly and contained the members of the Pantheon and Makior himself, dressed in the color of night and standing front and center of his servants.
Ava took one look at the arrangement and branched off to the left, where the horde was. “You guys handle the Pantheon,” she said firmly, drawing the spear from her back. “I’ll keep the rest away.” It was a lot of vampires, but the fact was, they needed as much strength as they could muster to handle the Pantheon. When the spheres of light that issued from each of the fingertips of her left hand exploded into the middle of the horde, cutting massive swaths in the soldiers, she knew she’d be able to handle it.
The family were not the only ones who had been training all year—every member of the Pantheon could feel within them new strength as well, strength that they drew not only from their own skills, but the strange and alien power of their King. What had been sacrificed, however, was much of the individuality and quirks they’d had before. Personality was, to a certain extent, still possible, but defiance was not. Preferences were not. They did what they were told to do, and they lived another day. This was the control of them that Theodor had sought, but never truly found. This was what drawing out the full potential of a killing machine, a being born and bred to destroy, really looked like.
And it was a grim reality.
Perhaps of all the familiar members of the Pantheon, Thor looked the least different. It was hardly surprising to him. He was less… singular than someone like Frigga. All he lived and breathed to do was fight. Nothing else had ever held his attention in the same way. He and his brethren had been more-or-less trusted to pick their own targets, as soon as the King had exercised his peculiar power and caused himself, Jasper, and Balthasar von Nacht to disappear. He’d pulled them into another dimensional space, where they would remain for most of the battle, Thor suspected. He was not, after all, as stupid as his silence often led others to infer. Once their commander had pulled his targets from this plane of reality, the other members of the Pantheon moved, and Thor zeroed in on someone he remembered, from more than a century previous.
That fight had been fun. Perhaps this one would be, too. His long-handled hammer crackled with the electricity of his power, and Thor swung it with a ringing sound for Erys’s shoulder.
Erys shifted so that she stood more comfortably in her own skin. This was it, the battle that would end it all. The outcome, however, was not something she could predict. She couldn't predict who the victors would be in this battle, whether her and her family would triumph or perish. Should they triumph, it would be a battle won with blood, sweat, and most definitely tears. Should they fall, she and her family would die, knowing that they had failed the world. That, perhaps, was not the best train of thoughts to have. They couldn't afford to lose. They mustn't lose. They needed to win, to end this war that has plagued the world for more than a century now. The war that ripped the childhoods away from many children, not just her own or her family's.
She had a new weapon now, very similar to Ulrik in that it was also a gunblade, however; it was perhaps not as pronounced and large as Ulrik had been. It was a bit smaller, lighter, and more flexible, something Erys had come to appreciate in the weapon, however; it wasn't fragile. It was, perhaps, more durable than she was, and it was no surprise that it was that weapon she chose to block the swinging of the Pantheon member she fought nearly a century ago. The smirk that she had once used during that battle appeared on her lips as she slid back a few feet, using her weapon as a means of leverage and to keep herself from flying any further. She straightened her posture back up, heaving her weapon over her shoulders as she grinned at Thor.
"It's been awhile, lover boy," she spoke, though she made no attempt to insult him. She was merely speaking her mind. The last battle she had with him, he'd nearly killed her and Vincent, however; this time...this time she would be prepared for him. Glancing over towards Emrys, she grinned wickedly, shuffling her weapon in front of her as she shot off, aiming straight for Thor while she tried to give Emrys an opening to attack.
Emrys stuck close to his mother. It was fairly easy to see how the pairs would break up once the fighting broke out. While naturally, he would have preferred to stay with Alden, but he also knew that his mother could not fight this battle alone. So, with his mother he went, keeping up with her easily. While Emrys raised an eyebrow at his mothers' quip against Thor, he disregarded it. Whatever odd assessment his mother had of this guy, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Emrys's whole body took on a blue glow. He had no reason to hide for this fight; all three of them were direct, heavy hitters when it came down to it. Even so, Emrys was taking no chances with that hammer. He'd keep his intagibility on, and his life. He watched as his mother kept on the offensive at close range. He waited for an opening, his eyes watching Thor's movements. He saw it then, it was fleeting, but it might be enough. The series continued, and then Emrys shot, when Thor had his back to him.
[ont=cambria]Unfortunately, perhaps, Thor had no need to be cautious of bullets in the back, because his skin was as diamonds were—virtually unbreakable, and the concussive force of the bullet broke no bones. It was clear that whatever else might be true, he was going to require even more blunt methodology to take down, something that Erys was certainly attempting to employ. He hadn’t said anything in response to her comment—he wasn’t that big on banter, during a fight or otherwise. But the corners of his mouth did twitch upwards, giving him a feral smirk that flashed fang. Thor didn’t fight at less than all-out, and he expected the same of his opponents. Perhaps that was why he’d instinctively gone after this one. He remembered her, and her brother. Though the latter was occupied, she’d been a bit more fun anyhow.
The air was filled with violent clangor as, over and over again, the blunt end of Thor’s hammer met Erys’s blade. There was no mistaking that the more slender of the two would break first if this continued, but before it did, he managed to land a hard hit on her midsection, sending her flying. Ignoring for the moment the one with the gun—bullets had never been a problem for him—he took off after her, intent on seeing how much more violence he could draw out of this before it ended. One way or the other, whatever the result, none of what was left for him after this would ever be as fun again. These were the strongest of the Pantheon’s foes, the King’s foes, and Thor wanted to make sure he got as much out of this as possible.
Reaching the downed Erys, he chose not to take advantage of her prone position. Instead, he stood and waited for her to get to her feet. Perhaps he could have killed her there, perhaps not. It didn’t matter, because he didn’t really care if he killed or not. All the wanted to do was fight.[/font]
Erys gritted her teeth together at each swing she took from Thor, pushing her back with each time his hammer met the flat of her gunblade. If he continued this up, her blade would break and she'd have to resort to using it as a gun again, however; watching her son's own bullet leave little affect on him, she was more than ready to cast aside the blade and fight with her bare hands again. The last time she did that, he nearly broke her whole hand, however; even though she was dhampir, her regenerative abilities always sought to fix what needed to be mended as quickly as possible. It was, perhaps with this in mind that she was able to hold out against him a bit. That, however, changed when his fist met her midsection, and she flinched at the contact.
She was sent to the floor, her eyes meeting Thor's as she bared her fangs. Quickly, she regained her footing, grabbing her midsection slightly as the pain subsided. She glanced at her blade, tossing it to the side in the process. It wouldn't do her much good now, so why should she hold onto it. She took a step back, raising her fists up and allowed a smirk to cross her features. She could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she stepped forward, pushing herself to move as quickly as her heritage would let her, bringing her fist around with as much strength as she could muster. She would trust Emrys to follow up with his own attack since it seemed that Thor was intent on fighting her at the current moment. And she was going to oblige him with all the strength and feralness she could.
Emrys growled in the back of his throat. This was going to do him little good, it seemed. He probably should have realized that from the beginning, but even so, there was always that little spark of hope. Or maybe it was rebellion. All seven of the handguns were discarded at once, just as Erys tossed aside hers. As much as he disliked it, hand-to-hand combat was the only way this would end.
But then, Emrys only needed to touch him long enough, if he could get close enough, that was. He exhaled slowly before taking off, his body glowing blue. There was little point in hiding since Thor already knew he was there. His mother was in front of him, and Emrys was approaching from his left, Solaris on his right, fangs bared and hair bristling, the both of them.
The battle between the three raged for what felt like hours. At some point, Thor got tired of using his hammer, and threw it off to the side. It may have been an advantage for him, but he didn’t care. His opponents were down to teeth and claws and body parts—he might as well do the same. He caught the man more than once with lancing bolts of electricity, too, but they both kept coming, and their persistence made him smile, a little, decidedly-feral thing that flashed too much fang to be friendly in the conventional sense. His hand clamped down on Erys’s arm and squeezed, pulverizing the bone above her elbow and tearing the muscle there, but before he could simply rend it from its socket, she surprised him.
The palm of her hand cracked up into his jaw, snapping his head back and dazing him for a second. It wasn’t long, but considering just how impossible it had been for Emrys to actually lay a hand on the man, it might be long enough. In fact, he knew it would be, and rather than try to stave off the inevitable, he refocused electric-blue eyes on the woman in front of him. “Well fought,” he said simply, and then he knew no more.
By this point, Emrys was literally spitting blood, his ribcage shattered, and it was a wonder he was even standing at all, he'd taken a blow from Thor's hammer to his leg; he was fairly certain his femur was shattered. Even so, when his mother caught the man in the jaw, Emrys took full advantage of that, all it would take was one touch.
The Alistair was able to latch onto his hair, and his simply pulled, though it was not with any sort of physical force. Slowly at first, Thor began to dissolve, and after he spoke, he simply turned to ash. Emrys collapsed after that, glancing at his mother with a grim smile on his face. It hadn't been easy, but they had done it. He was dead, and they were alive.
He winced in pain as he propped himself against a tree. He shut his eyes, hoping Alden was alright. There was little he could do if he wasn't, in his condition.
And it was a grim reality.
Perhaps of all the familiar members of the Pantheon, Thor looked the least different. It was hardly surprising to him. He was less… singular than someone like Frigga. All he lived and breathed to do was fight. Nothing else had ever held his attention in the same way. He and his brethren had been more-or-less trusted to pick their own targets, as soon as the King had exercised his peculiar power and caused himself, Jasper, and Balthasar von Nacht to disappear. He’d pulled them into another dimensional space, where they would remain for most of the battle, Thor suspected. He was not, after all, as stupid as his silence often led others to infer. Once their commander had pulled his targets from this plane of reality, the other members of the Pantheon moved, and Thor zeroed in on someone he remembered, from more than a century previous.
That fight had been fun. Perhaps this one would be, too. His long-handled hammer crackled with the electricity of his power, and Thor swung it with a ringing sound for Erys’s shoulder.
Erys shifted so that she stood more comfortably in her own skin. This was it, the battle that would end it all. The outcome, however, was not something she could predict. She couldn't predict who the victors would be in this battle, whether her and her family would triumph or perish. Should they triumph, it would be a battle won with blood, sweat, and most definitely tears. Should they fall, she and her family would die, knowing that they had failed the world. That, perhaps, was not the best train of thoughts to have. They couldn't afford to lose. They mustn't lose. They needed to win, to end this war that has plagued the world for more than a century now. The war that ripped the childhoods away from many children, not just her own or her family's.
She had a new weapon now, very similar to Ulrik in that it was also a gunblade, however; it was perhaps not as pronounced and large as Ulrik had been. It was a bit smaller, lighter, and more flexible, something Erys had come to appreciate in the weapon, however; it wasn't fragile. It was, perhaps, more durable than she was, and it was no surprise that it was that weapon she chose to block the swinging of the Pantheon member she fought nearly a century ago. The smirk that she had once used during that battle appeared on her lips as she slid back a few feet, using her weapon as a means of leverage and to keep herself from flying any further. She straightened her posture back up, heaving her weapon over her shoulders as she grinned at Thor.
"It's been awhile, lover boy," she spoke, though she made no attempt to insult him. She was merely speaking her mind. The last battle she had with him, he'd nearly killed her and Vincent, however; this time...this time she would be prepared for him. Glancing over towards Emrys, she grinned wickedly, shuffling her weapon in front of her as she shot off, aiming straight for Thor while she tried to give Emrys an opening to attack.
Emrys stuck close to his mother. It was fairly easy to see how the pairs would break up once the fighting broke out. While naturally, he would have preferred to stay with Alden, but he also knew that his mother could not fight this battle alone. So, with his mother he went, keeping up with her easily. While Emrys raised an eyebrow at his mothers' quip against Thor, he disregarded it. Whatever odd assessment his mother had of this guy, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Emrys's whole body took on a blue glow. He had no reason to hide for this fight; all three of them were direct, heavy hitters when it came down to it. Even so, Emrys was taking no chances with that hammer. He'd keep his intagibility on, and his life. He watched as his mother kept on the offensive at close range. He waited for an opening, his eyes watching Thor's movements. He saw it then, it was fleeting, but it might be enough. The series continued, and then Emrys shot, when Thor had his back to him.
[ont=cambria]Unfortunately, perhaps, Thor had no need to be cautious of bullets in the back, because his skin was as diamonds were—virtually unbreakable, and the concussive force of the bullet broke no bones. It was clear that whatever else might be true, he was going to require even more blunt methodology to take down, something that Erys was certainly attempting to employ. He hadn’t said anything in response to her comment—he wasn’t that big on banter, during a fight or otherwise. But the corners of his mouth did twitch upwards, giving him a feral smirk that flashed fang. Thor didn’t fight at less than all-out, and he expected the same of his opponents. Perhaps that was why he’d instinctively gone after this one. He remembered her, and her brother. Though the latter was occupied, she’d been a bit more fun anyhow.
The air was filled with violent clangor as, over and over again, the blunt end of Thor’s hammer met Erys’s blade. There was no mistaking that the more slender of the two would break first if this continued, but before it did, he managed to land a hard hit on her midsection, sending her flying. Ignoring for the moment the one with the gun—bullets had never been a problem for him—he took off after her, intent on seeing how much more violence he could draw out of this before it ended. One way or the other, whatever the result, none of what was left for him after this would ever be as fun again. These were the strongest of the Pantheon’s foes, the King’s foes, and Thor wanted to make sure he got as much out of this as possible.
Reaching the downed Erys, he chose not to take advantage of her prone position. Instead, he stood and waited for her to get to her feet. Perhaps he could have killed her there, perhaps not. It didn’t matter, because he didn’t really care if he killed or not. All the wanted to do was fight.[/font]
Erys gritted her teeth together at each swing she took from Thor, pushing her back with each time his hammer met the flat of her gunblade. If he continued this up, her blade would break and she'd have to resort to using it as a gun again, however; watching her son's own bullet leave little affect on him, she was more than ready to cast aside the blade and fight with her bare hands again. The last time she did that, he nearly broke her whole hand, however; even though she was dhampir, her regenerative abilities always sought to fix what needed to be mended as quickly as possible. It was, perhaps with this in mind that she was able to hold out against him a bit. That, however, changed when his fist met her midsection, and she flinched at the contact.
She was sent to the floor, her eyes meeting Thor's as she bared her fangs. Quickly, she regained her footing, grabbing her midsection slightly as the pain subsided. She glanced at her blade, tossing it to the side in the process. It wouldn't do her much good now, so why should she hold onto it. She took a step back, raising her fists up and allowed a smirk to cross her features. She could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she stepped forward, pushing herself to move as quickly as her heritage would let her, bringing her fist around with as much strength as she could muster. She would trust Emrys to follow up with his own attack since it seemed that Thor was intent on fighting her at the current moment. And she was going to oblige him with all the strength and feralness she could.
Emrys growled in the back of his throat. This was going to do him little good, it seemed. He probably should have realized that from the beginning, but even so, there was always that little spark of hope. Or maybe it was rebellion. All seven of the handguns were discarded at once, just as Erys tossed aside hers. As much as he disliked it, hand-to-hand combat was the only way this would end.
But then, Emrys only needed to touch him long enough, if he could get close enough, that was. He exhaled slowly before taking off, his body glowing blue. There was little point in hiding since Thor already knew he was there. His mother was in front of him, and Emrys was approaching from his left, Solaris on his right, fangs bared and hair bristling, the both of them.
The battle between the three raged for what felt like hours. At some point, Thor got tired of using his hammer, and threw it off to the side. It may have been an advantage for him, but he didn’t care. His opponents were down to teeth and claws and body parts—he might as well do the same. He caught the man more than once with lancing bolts of electricity, too, but they both kept coming, and their persistence made him smile, a little, decidedly-feral thing that flashed too much fang to be friendly in the conventional sense. His hand clamped down on Erys’s arm and squeezed, pulverizing the bone above her elbow and tearing the muscle there, but before he could simply rend it from its socket, she surprised him.
The palm of her hand cracked up into his jaw, snapping his head back and dazing him for a second. It wasn’t long, but considering just how impossible it had been for Emrys to actually lay a hand on the man, it might be long enough. In fact, he knew it would be, and rather than try to stave off the inevitable, he refocused electric-blue eyes on the woman in front of him. “Well fought,” he said simply, and then he knew no more.
By this point, Emrys was literally spitting blood, his ribcage shattered, and it was a wonder he was even standing at all, he'd taken a blow from Thor's hammer to his leg; he was fairly certain his femur was shattered. Even so, when his mother caught the man in the jaw, Emrys took full advantage of that, all it would take was one touch.
The Alistair was able to latch onto his hair, and his simply pulled, though it was not with any sort of physical force. Slowly at first, Thor began to dissolve, and after he spoke, he simply turned to ash. Emrys collapsed after that, glancing at his mother with a grim smile on his face. It hadn't been easy, but they had done it. He was dead, and they were alive.
He winced in pain as he propped himself against a tree. He shut his eyes, hoping Alden was alright. There was little he could do if he wasn't, in his condition.
Baldr, once the left hand of Theodor von Nacht (a position he had only ever occupied with the intention of usurping the fool), was now quite content in his position as right hand of the King, Sword of the Pantheon, as it went. He didn’t really care what it was called, but he supposed the title, if he was indeed going to have one, could have been much worse. Presently, he also wielded a sword, a one-handed contraction with a curved blade. A saber, properly called, and an exceptionally well-made one at that. He had a feeling that his opponents would seek him out, because Freya would not have let them waltz into this fight without knowing what he was truly capable of, and as such, there were perhaps four who stood even a remote chance against him. Of those four, two were presently in extradimensional space, likely being slaughtered by the King.
The other two were the present bearers of the Aegis, Theodor’s little safeguard against his power. Baldr would admit, it was a formidable ability, total immunity to vampiric talents, and resistance to physical damage so high that only someone like him would be able to pierce it. But like any shield, the Aegis could be broken. It was simply a matter of knowing how to strike it. A scientist to his core, Baldr was quite interested in the results of this little experiment, and sharp golden eyes picked out his foes as they advanced in his direction.
“Gentlemen,” he said without preamble, his eyes narrowing precipitously. Though admittedly, the younger one looked more like a beast than anything. Well, it was not as though he cared what form they chose to fight him in. It may well punctuate the inevitable monotony of battle with something interesting. He recognized that one as the one who’d removed Frigga’s tongue, and then killed the faulty replication of Balthasar von Nacht. The other was the scourge of many a battlefield for more than a century, with or without the Aegis, and arguably more formidable still. Baldr did not make the mistake of underestimation, but his own talents were extraordinary, even without the abilities he’d taken over his near-millennium of existence. He inclined his head and torso slightly, as one properly does before a duel or something of the sort, and leveled his saber.
“Do not bother restraining yourselves. There shall be no need.”
Vincent cast his gaze across the battlefield, his eyes piercing everything around them, searching. Malkior had taken Jasper and Balthasar somewhere, he knew not exactly, but that did not matter to him. The two von Nachts could handle themselves against their parent vampire, it was Ava and his daughter he worried for most. Simply because of their blood and the effects it would have should anyone else who wasn't Keir or himself, ingest it. He would need to end this battle as quickly as he could, however; he was not a fool to think that he could end it quickly. Baldr was a strong foe, older than even Vincent himself, and it was only by the Aegis and his own abilities that he would even stand a chance against the older pure-blood.
His gaze traveled towards his nephew, regarding him in the same silence he did everyone else, before taking off in a slow pace, for Keir's sake even if they were currently on the Aegis. Immediately, ruby eyes met his opponent's as he slowed to a walk. He eventually stopped in front of Baldr, watching his movement, trying to get a read on the male before they made their attacks. He merely nodded his head when he spoke of not restraining themselves. Vincent, as calm and collected as he was, was not exactly the type to hold back. His trainings with his family had proven that, and even now, with the enemy, he wouldn't dream of holding back. He was as eager to fight as his sister, something that ran in the family he supposed, but now was not time for those thoughts.
"We do not need reservations when it comes to our enemies. We know full well what you are capable of, and only a fool would hold back," Vincent spoke, his voice void of all emotion as he simply regarded Baldr. It was a fact, only a fool would charge head on to attack and hold back against their enemy, especially if their enemy happened to be as strong as Baldr was, is. "Keir, you would be wise to remember that as well. Do not charge blindly," he spoke, pulling out Gilgamesh in the process. It would do him no good here, but he could still wield it to block the attacks Baldr would undoubtedly deal with his sword.
Sagiv let out a low growl, his wings shifting behind him. "I do wish you would stop referring to me as the boy, Kuragari. I am not your nephew." He made no other regard to the earlier statement as his sapphire eyes took in Baldr. A wicked smile revealed rows of jagged, sharp teeth as his tongue slid out. Oh, he was going to have fun with this fight. Probably too much, but he had no intention of dying in this fight.
But he had every intention of killing. His tail flicked back, and he chuckled slightly. "I hope you can give me more of a fight than that little clone of yours. He was pathetic."
The cold light of malice was bright in Baldr’s eyes, and he whirled his saber experimentally, as though testing the heft of it. It had been some time since he’d actually taken the field himself, though of course this was not to say he was out of practice. “Petty words, from one hiding behind an impenetrable shield,” he remarked casually. He glanced between the two, coming to the conclusion that neither was going to presently initiate. “I’ve always wondered,” he mused, readying the blade, “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”
With the characteristic crack of teleportation, he disappeared, reappearing behind the reptilian one. Faster than Sagiv could even blink, the saber was sunk to the hilt in his back, angled perfectly for his heart. Sabers were slashing weapons as a rule, not piercing ones, so it took a lot of force to get the object through the dragonlike scales, and it was not a pleasant feeling, either. But Baldr, true to his reputation was able to manage it. “Hm. Seems you were not so immovable as you thought.” Twisting the weapon, Baldr set his foot on Sagiv’s back and pulled, freeing the weapon and flicking it clean of the creature’s blood.
“I hope you can do better,” he told Vincent flatly, disappearing with another crack and this time attempting a proper horizontal slash at the Kuragari’s back.
Vincent merely sighed at Sagiv's response, shaking his head before his attention was set back onto Baldr. There was no doubt in his mind what Baldr was capable of, and he was unable to move when he was upon his nephew, his nephew's blood staining the air. It pulled at something deep within Vincent as his eyes glowed a dangerous color, a snarl bubbling from deep within his chest. He may not be the most emotional of the family, but it did not seem to matter much when it came to his family. Though he may have some issues to resolve with Keir, he wasn't going to allow his sister's son be harmed, not while he could do something about it.
So it was, with precision, that the Kuragari male summoned his shadows, teleporting himself to the side so that Baldr's blade missed by just a few centimeters, though he was now sporting slightly shorter hair now. Like that should matter now, though. And it did not. Vincent did not sport weapons like his sister's or his nephew. The only thing he relied on was Gilgamesh and his claws, though it appeared that Gilgamesh would do very little here. Still, he had to do something, and so with that thought, he fired off consistent shots at Baldr, moving with the bullets so that he would try to force the weapon from Baldr's hand, forcing him into hand-to-hand, giving Keir and himself a much needed edge.
It was a bit odd, really, that Keir felt no pain. He was well aware that he'd been stabbed, and directly through the heart at that. So why didn't it hurt? Unless of course he was already dead. Funny, he didn't think he'd die that fast from such an injury. He opened his eyes, coming face to face with Sagiv, the dragon-like face staring back at him. For what seemed like hours, days, months, years even, the two stared at each other through a wall that shifted, like the surface of water. They did not speak, they simply stared.
Keir felt something then, a shift in his soul. It was as if something was being separated, and he didn't understand it. Sagiv was fading from his vision, which was also something he couldn't comprehend. The dragon simply smiled at him.
He'd had no intention of dying, but then, fate worked in mysterious ways. He wasn't going to let Keir die, and he didn't have to, either. By separating himself from the Dhampir, Keir would live; it also meant that Sagiv would die. He chuckled slightly at the shocked expression on Keir's face.
Keir's eyes snapped open, the stench of his own and his uncle's blood hanging heavy in the air. For a long moment he wasn't able to put the pieces together, why he was now himself, and why he was alive, and why he felt so empty. Within a few moments, however, it all clicked. The scaled patches that had once been on his arm and torso were gone, the skin underneath them a dark red in color, like burn scars.
His heart nearly stopped. Sagiv was gone. He was dead, and he'd sacrificed himself in order to protect Keir. Keir never really did remember exactly what happened next, because his world simply exploded.
His eyes a deep vermilion, he stood up, the air around him crackling heavy with energy, his face twisted in a murderous and merciless snarl, fangs bared. Screw being careful; he was out to kill. He moved then, faster than a dhampir had much right to be, his bare hand catching Baldr's blade that had been aimed for Vincent's chest. With a clench of his fist, the blade shattered, a deep growl sounding from his throat. Blood dripped from the palm of his hand and his fingers from where he had grabbed the blade, but he didn't really care.
After stabbing the creature, Baldr had simply moved to refocus on the Kuragari instead. This was the man that had killed Fenrir. Not a particularly simple task, but not the hardest either. Still, it meant that Baldr would not underestimate him. It was a shame, really, that all of his acquired abilities were useless here with the Aegis in play. Still, there was no mistaking that if they did not kill him quickly and the Aegis Effect ended, he would be able to wipe them off this plane of existence with little more than a thought. So it was to be a matter of timing.
The Kuragari was fast for someone of his age, and blocked nearly all of Baldr’s strikes, though his claws and gun were effectively useless against the head of the Pantheon. In the end, Vincent came away with broad, but shallow, slashes to his chest and arms, one dangerously-close to his throat. He was aiming another such blow when he sensed a strange shift in the other one, the one who should have been dead by now. A hand caught his blade and shattered it, and in retaliation, Baldr shattered one side of his ribcage with a concussive blow to the side of his abdomen. Golden eyes lit with unholy malice at the sound of multiple bone fractures, and he even smiled a little, just the tiniest of smirks.
Tossing aside the remainder of his sword, Baldr extended his own claws and teeth. “So we are to fight as the beasts that nature made us, with tooth and claw? So be it.”
Vincent did not go unscathed, and he knew that he wouldn't. Though his wounds were not as grievous as his nephew's, there was also the fact that the Aegis would be wearing off soon. It was one of the drawbacks and perhaps less fortunate side-affects of being on the Aegis. As all things were, it had a limit. And he knew that if they were to survive, they would need to end Baldr quickly. As soon as the Aegis was gone, Vincent and Keir would be powerless against Baldr. They would meet their end. Vincent frowned at that thought. He could not die on this field, not yet. When Baldr attacked, Vincent met it with the same aggression, throwing punches, trying to claw Baldr's throat, however; he was sporting a fractured wrist and soon to be elbow.
"Keir," Vincent spoke, trying to give his nephew the edge he would undoubtedly need to get at Baldr. This continued for what seemed like hours, however; it was merely a few minutes. Vincent was breathing harshly, and he could already feel the last flickering life of the Aegis setting in. It was something he was far too acquainted with. The fatigue that would settle in, the light-headed feeling he would get just moments before the Aegis disappeared. This did not bode well at all. "Keir, end this now," he spoke, charging once more with every ounce of energy and strength he had, towards getting Baldr under his control so that Keir could deliver the killing blow. Vincent knew that he would also be in the line of fire, but if that is what it took to bring Baldr down, then so be it.
There was very little available data on the Aegis, because Vincent Kuragari had been careful to use it relatively sparingly over the years, and as a result, Baldr honestly did not know when it was going to wear off, and he hadn’t anticipated it taking quite this long. Gritting his teeth, he readied himself for another heavy barrage aimed mostly at the older of the two, though he’d spared the younger no mercy at all thus far, but he was caught off-guard by the sudden all-out rush from Vincent. The Kuragari had been more defensive up until this point, and Baldr reached the conclusion that the Aegis was wearing off just as he was pinned to the ground.
He was, in fact, the stronger of the two of them, and began to fight as soon as he hit the ground. But he was not so much stronger that he could simply throw the other man off, and the seconds he spent struggling were seconds that could be used to his detriment…
Those few seconds would prove to be fatal to the Pantheon member, as Keir shoved both of his clawed hands into the other man's mouth, the feral look that spoke of nothing other than killing clear in the crimson hue of his eyes, which were staring intently down at Baldr's glaring ones. For a second, it seemed as if nothing was happening, and then, with a sickening popping sound, Keir simultaneously tore Baldr's lower jaw from his skull, all the while pulling upwards on the roof of his mouth, tearing it clean from his neck a mere few seconds after. The look of enjoyment on Keir's face was...unsettling.
Covered in grime, blood, and gore, Keir then sank to his knees, his eyes reverting to their usual ice blue color, but it was like they weren't seeing anything. If his uncle spoke to him, he didn't hear it. Two tears marked their way down his cheeks before he even realized he was crying. "You fucking bastard." he whispered, though it was rather unclear just who he was speaking about.
The other two were the present bearers of the Aegis, Theodor’s little safeguard against his power. Baldr would admit, it was a formidable ability, total immunity to vampiric talents, and resistance to physical damage so high that only someone like him would be able to pierce it. But like any shield, the Aegis could be broken. It was simply a matter of knowing how to strike it. A scientist to his core, Baldr was quite interested in the results of this little experiment, and sharp golden eyes picked out his foes as they advanced in his direction.
“Gentlemen,” he said without preamble, his eyes narrowing precipitously. Though admittedly, the younger one looked more like a beast than anything. Well, it was not as though he cared what form they chose to fight him in. It may well punctuate the inevitable monotony of battle with something interesting. He recognized that one as the one who’d removed Frigga’s tongue, and then killed the faulty replication of Balthasar von Nacht. The other was the scourge of many a battlefield for more than a century, with or without the Aegis, and arguably more formidable still. Baldr did not make the mistake of underestimation, but his own talents were extraordinary, even without the abilities he’d taken over his near-millennium of existence. He inclined his head and torso slightly, as one properly does before a duel or something of the sort, and leveled his saber.
“Do not bother restraining yourselves. There shall be no need.”
Vincent cast his gaze across the battlefield, his eyes piercing everything around them, searching. Malkior had taken Jasper and Balthasar somewhere, he knew not exactly, but that did not matter to him. The two von Nachts could handle themselves against their parent vampire, it was Ava and his daughter he worried for most. Simply because of their blood and the effects it would have should anyone else who wasn't Keir or himself, ingest it. He would need to end this battle as quickly as he could, however; he was not a fool to think that he could end it quickly. Baldr was a strong foe, older than even Vincent himself, and it was only by the Aegis and his own abilities that he would even stand a chance against the older pure-blood.
His gaze traveled towards his nephew, regarding him in the same silence he did everyone else, before taking off in a slow pace, for Keir's sake even if they were currently on the Aegis. Immediately, ruby eyes met his opponent's as he slowed to a walk. He eventually stopped in front of Baldr, watching his movement, trying to get a read on the male before they made their attacks. He merely nodded his head when he spoke of not restraining themselves. Vincent, as calm and collected as he was, was not exactly the type to hold back. His trainings with his family had proven that, and even now, with the enemy, he wouldn't dream of holding back. He was as eager to fight as his sister, something that ran in the family he supposed, but now was not time for those thoughts.
"We do not need reservations when it comes to our enemies. We know full well what you are capable of, and only a fool would hold back," Vincent spoke, his voice void of all emotion as he simply regarded Baldr. It was a fact, only a fool would charge head on to attack and hold back against their enemy, especially if their enemy happened to be as strong as Baldr was, is. "Keir, you would be wise to remember that as well. Do not charge blindly," he spoke, pulling out Gilgamesh in the process. It would do him no good here, but he could still wield it to block the attacks Baldr would undoubtedly deal with his sword.
Sagiv let out a low growl, his wings shifting behind him. "I do wish you would stop referring to me as the boy, Kuragari. I am not your nephew." He made no other regard to the earlier statement as his sapphire eyes took in Baldr. A wicked smile revealed rows of jagged, sharp teeth as his tongue slid out. Oh, he was going to have fun with this fight. Probably too much, but he had no intention of dying in this fight.
But he had every intention of killing. His tail flicked back, and he chuckled slightly. "I hope you can give me more of a fight than that little clone of yours. He was pathetic."
The cold light of malice was bright in Baldr’s eyes, and he whirled his saber experimentally, as though testing the heft of it. It had been some time since he’d actually taken the field himself, though of course this was not to say he was out of practice. “Petty words, from one hiding behind an impenetrable shield,” he remarked casually. He glanced between the two, coming to the conclusion that neither was going to presently initiate. “I’ve always wondered,” he mused, readying the blade, “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”
With the characteristic crack of teleportation, he disappeared, reappearing behind the reptilian one. Faster than Sagiv could even blink, the saber was sunk to the hilt in his back, angled perfectly for his heart. Sabers were slashing weapons as a rule, not piercing ones, so it took a lot of force to get the object through the dragonlike scales, and it was not a pleasant feeling, either. But Baldr, true to his reputation was able to manage it. “Hm. Seems you were not so immovable as you thought.” Twisting the weapon, Baldr set his foot on Sagiv’s back and pulled, freeing the weapon and flicking it clean of the creature’s blood.
“I hope you can do better,” he told Vincent flatly, disappearing with another crack and this time attempting a proper horizontal slash at the Kuragari’s back.
Vincent merely sighed at Sagiv's response, shaking his head before his attention was set back onto Baldr. There was no doubt in his mind what Baldr was capable of, and he was unable to move when he was upon his nephew, his nephew's blood staining the air. It pulled at something deep within Vincent as his eyes glowed a dangerous color, a snarl bubbling from deep within his chest. He may not be the most emotional of the family, but it did not seem to matter much when it came to his family. Though he may have some issues to resolve with Keir, he wasn't going to allow his sister's son be harmed, not while he could do something about it.
So it was, with precision, that the Kuragari male summoned his shadows, teleporting himself to the side so that Baldr's blade missed by just a few centimeters, though he was now sporting slightly shorter hair now. Like that should matter now, though. And it did not. Vincent did not sport weapons like his sister's or his nephew. The only thing he relied on was Gilgamesh and his claws, though it appeared that Gilgamesh would do very little here. Still, he had to do something, and so with that thought, he fired off consistent shots at Baldr, moving with the bullets so that he would try to force the weapon from Baldr's hand, forcing him into hand-to-hand, giving Keir and himself a much needed edge.
It was a bit odd, really, that Keir felt no pain. He was well aware that he'd been stabbed, and directly through the heart at that. So why didn't it hurt? Unless of course he was already dead. Funny, he didn't think he'd die that fast from such an injury. He opened his eyes, coming face to face with Sagiv, the dragon-like face staring back at him. For what seemed like hours, days, months, years even, the two stared at each other through a wall that shifted, like the surface of water. They did not speak, they simply stared.
Keir felt something then, a shift in his soul. It was as if something was being separated, and he didn't understand it. Sagiv was fading from his vision, which was also something he couldn't comprehend. The dragon simply smiled at him.
He'd had no intention of dying, but then, fate worked in mysterious ways. He wasn't going to let Keir die, and he didn't have to, either. By separating himself from the Dhampir, Keir would live; it also meant that Sagiv would die. He chuckled slightly at the shocked expression on Keir's face.
"Go raise Hell, Keir."
Keir's eyes snapped open, the stench of his own and his uncle's blood hanging heavy in the air. For a long moment he wasn't able to put the pieces together, why he was now himself, and why he was alive, and why he felt so empty. Within a few moments, however, it all clicked. The scaled patches that had once been on his arm and torso were gone, the skin underneath them a dark red in color, like burn scars.
His heart nearly stopped. Sagiv was gone. He was dead, and he'd sacrificed himself in order to protect Keir. Keir never really did remember exactly what happened next, because his world simply exploded.
His eyes a deep vermilion, he stood up, the air around him crackling heavy with energy, his face twisted in a murderous and merciless snarl, fangs bared. Screw being careful; he was out to kill. He moved then, faster than a dhampir had much right to be, his bare hand catching Baldr's blade that had been aimed for Vincent's chest. With a clench of his fist, the blade shattered, a deep growl sounding from his throat. Blood dripped from the palm of his hand and his fingers from where he had grabbed the blade, but he didn't really care.
After stabbing the creature, Baldr had simply moved to refocus on the Kuragari instead. This was the man that had killed Fenrir. Not a particularly simple task, but not the hardest either. Still, it meant that Baldr would not underestimate him. It was a shame, really, that all of his acquired abilities were useless here with the Aegis in play. Still, there was no mistaking that if they did not kill him quickly and the Aegis Effect ended, he would be able to wipe them off this plane of existence with little more than a thought. So it was to be a matter of timing.
The Kuragari was fast for someone of his age, and blocked nearly all of Baldr’s strikes, though his claws and gun were effectively useless against the head of the Pantheon. In the end, Vincent came away with broad, but shallow, slashes to his chest and arms, one dangerously-close to his throat. He was aiming another such blow when he sensed a strange shift in the other one, the one who should have been dead by now. A hand caught his blade and shattered it, and in retaliation, Baldr shattered one side of his ribcage with a concussive blow to the side of his abdomen. Golden eyes lit with unholy malice at the sound of multiple bone fractures, and he even smiled a little, just the tiniest of smirks.
Tossing aside the remainder of his sword, Baldr extended his own claws and teeth. “So we are to fight as the beasts that nature made us, with tooth and claw? So be it.”
Vincent did not go unscathed, and he knew that he wouldn't. Though his wounds were not as grievous as his nephew's, there was also the fact that the Aegis would be wearing off soon. It was one of the drawbacks and perhaps less fortunate side-affects of being on the Aegis. As all things were, it had a limit. And he knew that if they were to survive, they would need to end Baldr quickly. As soon as the Aegis was gone, Vincent and Keir would be powerless against Baldr. They would meet their end. Vincent frowned at that thought. He could not die on this field, not yet. When Baldr attacked, Vincent met it with the same aggression, throwing punches, trying to claw Baldr's throat, however; he was sporting a fractured wrist and soon to be elbow.
"Keir," Vincent spoke, trying to give his nephew the edge he would undoubtedly need to get at Baldr. This continued for what seemed like hours, however; it was merely a few minutes. Vincent was breathing harshly, and he could already feel the last flickering life of the Aegis setting in. It was something he was far too acquainted with. The fatigue that would settle in, the light-headed feeling he would get just moments before the Aegis disappeared. This did not bode well at all. "Keir, end this now," he spoke, charging once more with every ounce of energy and strength he had, towards getting Baldr under his control so that Keir could deliver the killing blow. Vincent knew that he would also be in the line of fire, but if that is what it took to bring Baldr down, then so be it.
There was very little available data on the Aegis, because Vincent Kuragari had been careful to use it relatively sparingly over the years, and as a result, Baldr honestly did not know when it was going to wear off, and he hadn’t anticipated it taking quite this long. Gritting his teeth, he readied himself for another heavy barrage aimed mostly at the older of the two, though he’d spared the younger no mercy at all thus far, but he was caught off-guard by the sudden all-out rush from Vincent. The Kuragari had been more defensive up until this point, and Baldr reached the conclusion that the Aegis was wearing off just as he was pinned to the ground.
He was, in fact, the stronger of the two of them, and began to fight as soon as he hit the ground. But he was not so much stronger that he could simply throw the other man off, and the seconds he spent struggling were seconds that could be used to his detriment…
Those few seconds would prove to be fatal to the Pantheon member, as Keir shoved both of his clawed hands into the other man's mouth, the feral look that spoke of nothing other than killing clear in the crimson hue of his eyes, which were staring intently down at Baldr's glaring ones. For a second, it seemed as if nothing was happening, and then, with a sickening popping sound, Keir simultaneously tore Baldr's lower jaw from his skull, all the while pulling upwards on the roof of his mouth, tearing it clean from his neck a mere few seconds after. The look of enjoyment on Keir's face was...unsettling.
Covered in grime, blood, and gore, Keir then sank to his knees, his eyes reverting to their usual ice blue color, but it was like they weren't seeing anything. If his uncle spoke to him, he didn't hear it. Two tears marked their way down his cheeks before he even realized he was crying. "You fucking bastard." he whispered, though it was rather unclear just who he was speaking about.
There was one member of the Pantheon who was not visible, and Alden remembered enough to know what that meant. The man who had kidnapped Yuki was here, Helen’s so-called brother, but he was presently completely imperceptible. It was something similar to what Emrys could do, actually, and just as with Emrys, it would not prevent the Spider from finding him, if in fact he came within range of Alden’s truesight. So Violet took a guess, and moved to be in Helen’s proximity. Wasn’t that always the way with the half-insane, sadistic types? They hit where it hurt most, and he would certainly do more emotional damage to his once-sister than either of them.
“Ary,” Vi said, gesturing the youngest von Nacht male over towards him. “Freyr’s here. I’m going to find him, and then I think you should try to trap him in an area. If you can, I can give you both enough truesight to know where he is.” That alone would take a lot of energy—a telepathic transfer of that magnitude to two people was not an easy task, but he was confident that between them, Ary and Helen should be able to do the actual fighting just fine. Especially if Aryan could keep him contained to an area and prevent him from disappearing again. He doubted Freyr was weak enough to wholly succumb to the singularities his cousin created, but they should at least stop him from slipping away.
Helen overheard, of course; she knew Alden had intended for her to. And he was right—Freyr would be hard to fight, but even harder if they couldn’t keep him pinned down somehow. She would trust that Aryan could do that, and what came after, well… she drew both of her blades with rasping hisses, one lower pitched than the other. She had reasons, a lot of reasons, to come out of this alive. There were a few seconds of tension in which none of the three of them moved more than was required to breathe, and then it finally happened. Alden’s eyes snapped to a point slightly to the left and in front of them, and he pointed. “There, surround him with fields.”
As per usual, the cool, impenetrable mask covered Aryan's face, hiding the sense of unease, the disquiet. His eyes roamed, that the only movement of his body. He didn't even breathe in the first few seconds while Alden located Freyr. It did not surprise him at all that the man would go after Helen; he was sadistic, so he would hit where it would hurt the most. The others had already gravitated to their own battles, and his father, brother, and ancestor had simply disappeared.
He ignored that. He would have to trust everyone with their own battles; he would need every ounce of focus he had for this battle alone. Two years of training amounted to little when you considered your opponent had a lifetime. Luckily for Aryan, he worked...a little faster than most, thanks to his mind. Even so, it didn't reach the level Freyr had. It would have to be enough. His life was not the only one riding on the line.
His eyes snapped to the location Alden directed it to, the only indication he heard his cousin. A gravatic field materialized above Freyr, intent on pinning the man; whether it would succeed had yet to be seen.
The mental voice seemed to issue from everywhere and nowhere at once, but thankfully, Alden was not to be fooled by such things, and though perhaps Freyr would have otherwise slipped out of the field Aryan was generating, the other telepath pushed back with a brutal attack, reminiscent of what he’d done to the scientists who’d held Andrick. Only by necessity less prolonged. The mental disruption stilled the man in his tracks, and he flickered in and out of visibility for a moment, and a moment was all Helen needed.
A sword in each hand, the girl sprang forward, countering some of the increased gravity with the propulsion of aerokinesis, so that she could get at Freyr faster than he could get away. Even that was not quite fast enough—what should have skewered him directly through the heart instead flayed into his ribcage as he disappeared. Helen tore the blade out with mechanical precision, but she knew it wouldn’t be fatal to him. He was far stronger than that.
The answering blow from the foe she could not see knocked her back several yards, and it was only by cushioning herself with a pocket of air that she managed to avoid slamming into a nearby tree. The punch had cracked several of her ribs and outright broken two; she could feel them healing as she shook her head to clear it of the dancing sparks in front of her eyes. Freyr hit even harder than she remembered, but nowhere near as hard as Tyr had, and the latter was the one who’d trained her to withstand pain. So she knew she could withstand this, for a time.
“Sibling rivalry?” Alden quipped, and she could tell that despite his tone, he was searching intently, trying to discern where exactly Freyr had gone.
Helen blinked. “He is displeased because Freya always liked me better,” she said flatly, earning herself a short, surprised bark of laughter from the Kuragari male. What she said, while doubtless amusing on some level to someone like Alden was nevertheless quite true. She had learned in her year of captivity that Freyr nursed an unhealthy obsession with his twin, who had never returned the feelings in that manner. Her own sisterly affections had been more focused on Helen, besides, so he didn’t even have that part of her heart to himself. Such a revelation—that his bitterness towards her was not something she had done, but his own unbalanced preoccupations—would perhaps have disturbed her, if she hadn’t come across more disturbing things on an almost daily basis either in Malkior’s company or in her own head… and therefore still in Malkior’s company, honestly.
It was actually a little bit mild, comparatively speaking. It would not stop her from ending his life for what he had done.
“Twenty-two degrees north, Ary. Let’s try this again. Can you do some of those singularities this time? I have an idea.” He thought something at Helen, and she nodded. That might just work.
A slight flicker of anger flashed through Aryan's eyes, but otherwise he remained rather neutral. He nodded, otherwise still keeping silent, though he was slightly amused by Helen's observation. He was not at all surprised that Freya liked Helen better, even a mother could not love someone as twisted as this man. He adjusted his position to match the new direction, his eyes glowing as he created that which only he could.
The tears in the fabric of space were visible, four of them. There were three surrounding Freyr in a triangular shape, and one above him. There was enough space between them for someone small, but a man of Freyr's stature shouldn't be able to slip through them. If he even so much as grazed the edges, he would more than likely be pulled in, and none of these were connected; he wouldn't be spat out anywhere else.
Helen slid gracefully in between the gravatic fields, and given the small spaces in between them, Freyr did not bother dodging, instead pulling a long dagger from one of the sheaths at his thigh and blocking her incoming first sword, giving up on the intangibility for now. While it would keep him invulnerable, that was more or less pointless unless he was also imperceptible. He needed to be able to hit them, after all. The force of his parry was great, and Alden read his intention even as it formed. “Shit. Ary, connect them, now!” He would have to hope his cousin had been fast enough, because even as Helen’s second sword bit into her brother’s shoulder, he used the motion to open her guard, his hand darting in to wrap around her neck, and he shoved her back into the northernmost singularity.
Helen, without any grounding, was unable to stop herself from being pulled in.
Growling under his breath, Alden took over the task of keeping Freyr busy, aiming precise throwing knives at the gaps between singularities. Hoping Helen would know how to take advantage, he also tossed one into the same field she had entered. Have it spit her out above, if you can. Freyr was far too strong a fighter to be taken out by conventional means. Helen was an assassin in her own right, but her brother had more than twice her lifespan, and had been made for that purpose alone. Alden was less a combatant than a strategist, though he could and did hold his own. Aryan was two years a fighter, and talented or not, there was just no way they stacked up against Freyr in a fair fight. So they were going to have to do what Alden and Ary both did better than anyone.
They were going to have to cheat.
Aryan felt his heart stop as Helen disappeared. He didn't even register Alden's mental comment, but luckily Aryan's mind worked faster than most; he was already reconnecting her, and with the mental calculations, he connected the northern hole and the top one, allowing it to spit Helen back out above Freyr.
It was however, very disorienting to go through one of his singularities. Aryan could only hope that she was able to recover enough to be able to attack him. He would trust that she could; Helen was a lot stronger than some gave her credit for being. It would take all three of them to pull this off, Helen to attack, Aryan to position her, and Alden to tell him which direction. There was an odd little smirk on Aryan's face.
He did love cheating sometimes.
The sensation of being warped from one singularity to another was nauseating, and Helen was only able to grasp the knife that followed her out of an instinct long honed into her by her work. She’d lost her second sword somewhere between Freyr and the wormhole, so the throwing knife in her fist was the only thing she had.
It took her a moment to get her bearings when she fell out the other end, but the fact that she was falling at all told her she must be coming out of the one in the air above Freyr, and without really quite being able to see what she was doing, she twisted her body in midair, bringing the knife down in a perfectly-trained arc that would likely have struck her brother in the spine had he not moved at the last moment. She was slightly to the left, but the knife still caught, dragging from the back of his shoulder to his waist with her momentum, and Helen landed in a crouch, ducking the next blow and grabbing the sword still stuck inside his shoulder before she vanished into the eastern singularity. She suspected it would take her out the western one, and this time, she was more prepared for the unpleasantness.
Alden’s flinging knives and constant mental barrage on Freyr were helping keep the man pressed in from all sides, though when Helen emerged from the west, he was ready, having logically guessed what the eastern one must be connected to, and his knife sank deeply into Hel’s shoulder, emerging out the other side red with her blood. She staggered, and her free hand jerked up to close around his wrist. She hated using her ability for this purpose, but she knew it had to be done. So, her grip like a vise, Helen refused to let go, even when Freyr, increasingly desperate, wrenched out the knife and stabbed her again, repeatedly. He missed her abdomen, though, because she moved just enough to protect it every time, which was a bit strange considering it wasn’t her heart or something likewise vital. The rest was inconsequential. She could almost hear Tyr’s voice, telling her that what didn’t kill her gave her the chance to kill her foe—and she was killing him, her wounds healing too fast even for one of her kind as she siphoned his life energy.
It was a slow process, though, and so when he was weak enough, she turned her head to look at Aryan. “Drop the fields, please. All but the north one.” Once he did, she sucked all the air out of the space between her so called brother and the remaining singularity, creating a vacuum. She leveled her gaze on Freyr, then, and blinked at him once. “Goodbye, my brother,” she said simply, and her grip on him slackened even as he opened his mouth to say something, allowing the vacuum to pull him into the singularity, from which there was now no exit. He would die there, but she doubted he would feel much pain. It was the only mercy she could bring herself to allow him, after all he had done.
Her wounds still closing and her skin eerily lit from beneath, Helen fell to her knees, exhausted and faintly dizzy still from her warp-travel, but otherwise all right. Alden’s constant use of his powers had worn him down, too, and he produced half a back of licorice from up one of his baggy sleeves and started chewing immediately, to stave off the thirst. He didn’t know exactly what condition Em was in right now, after all.
Aryan sank to his knees, blood running from his nose. Four fields running simultaneously while connecting them was not easy, and it took its toll on him. Even so, he was alright, for the most part. He just needed rest. This much was over, at least. They'd killed him. His eyes narrowed, however, at Helen. He had not missed how she had protected her abdomen, but for now he put it out of mind. He could worry about that later, for now he was simply happy that they were alive.
He forced himself up, though, to go to Helen. He knelt next to her, pulling her into his arms in the process. They were alive.
“Ary,” Vi said, gesturing the youngest von Nacht male over towards him. “Freyr’s here. I’m going to find him, and then I think you should try to trap him in an area. If you can, I can give you both enough truesight to know where he is.” That alone would take a lot of energy—a telepathic transfer of that magnitude to two people was not an easy task, but he was confident that between them, Ary and Helen should be able to do the actual fighting just fine. Especially if Aryan could keep him contained to an area and prevent him from disappearing again. He doubted Freyr was weak enough to wholly succumb to the singularities his cousin created, but they should at least stop him from slipping away.
Helen overheard, of course; she knew Alden had intended for her to. And he was right—Freyr would be hard to fight, but even harder if they couldn’t keep him pinned down somehow. She would trust that Aryan could do that, and what came after, well… she drew both of her blades with rasping hisses, one lower pitched than the other. She had reasons, a lot of reasons, to come out of this alive. There were a few seconds of tension in which none of the three of them moved more than was required to breathe, and then it finally happened. Alden’s eyes snapped to a point slightly to the left and in front of them, and he pointed. “There, surround him with fields.”
As per usual, the cool, impenetrable mask covered Aryan's face, hiding the sense of unease, the disquiet. His eyes roamed, that the only movement of his body. He didn't even breathe in the first few seconds while Alden located Freyr. It did not surprise him at all that the man would go after Helen; he was sadistic, so he would hit where it would hurt the most. The others had already gravitated to their own battles, and his father, brother, and ancestor had simply disappeared.
He ignored that. He would have to trust everyone with their own battles; he would need every ounce of focus he had for this battle alone. Two years of training amounted to little when you considered your opponent had a lifetime. Luckily for Aryan, he worked...a little faster than most, thanks to his mind. Even so, it didn't reach the level Freyr had. It would have to be enough. His life was not the only one riding on the line.
His eyes snapped to the location Alden directed it to, the only indication he heard his cousin. A gravatic field materialized above Freyr, intent on pinning the man; whether it would succeed had yet to be seen.
Getting creative, are we?
The mental voice seemed to issue from everywhere and nowhere at once, but thankfully, Alden was not to be fooled by such things, and though perhaps Freyr would have otherwise slipped out of the field Aryan was generating, the other telepath pushed back with a brutal attack, reminiscent of what he’d done to the scientists who’d held Andrick. Only by necessity less prolonged. The mental disruption stilled the man in his tracks, and he flickered in and out of visibility for a moment, and a moment was all Helen needed.
A sword in each hand, the girl sprang forward, countering some of the increased gravity with the propulsion of aerokinesis, so that she could get at Freyr faster than he could get away. Even that was not quite fast enough—what should have skewered him directly through the heart instead flayed into his ribcage as he disappeared. Helen tore the blade out with mechanical precision, but she knew it wouldn’t be fatal to him. He was far stronger than that.
The answering blow from the foe she could not see knocked her back several yards, and it was only by cushioning herself with a pocket of air that she managed to avoid slamming into a nearby tree. The punch had cracked several of her ribs and outright broken two; she could feel them healing as she shook her head to clear it of the dancing sparks in front of her eyes. Freyr hit even harder than she remembered, but nowhere near as hard as Tyr had, and the latter was the one who’d trained her to withstand pain. So she knew she could withstand this, for a time.
“Sibling rivalry?” Alden quipped, and she could tell that despite his tone, he was searching intently, trying to discern where exactly Freyr had gone.
Helen blinked. “He is displeased because Freya always liked me better,” she said flatly, earning herself a short, surprised bark of laughter from the Kuragari male. What she said, while doubtless amusing on some level to someone like Alden was nevertheless quite true. She had learned in her year of captivity that Freyr nursed an unhealthy obsession with his twin, who had never returned the feelings in that manner. Her own sisterly affections had been more focused on Helen, besides, so he didn’t even have that part of her heart to himself. Such a revelation—that his bitterness towards her was not something she had done, but his own unbalanced preoccupations—would perhaps have disturbed her, if she hadn’t come across more disturbing things on an almost daily basis either in Malkior’s company or in her own head… and therefore still in Malkior’s company, honestly.
It was actually a little bit mild, comparatively speaking. It would not stop her from ending his life for what he had done.
“Twenty-two degrees north, Ary. Let’s try this again. Can you do some of those singularities this time? I have an idea.” He thought something at Helen, and she nodded. That might just work.
A slight flicker of anger flashed through Aryan's eyes, but otherwise he remained rather neutral. He nodded, otherwise still keeping silent, though he was slightly amused by Helen's observation. He was not at all surprised that Freya liked Helen better, even a mother could not love someone as twisted as this man. He adjusted his position to match the new direction, his eyes glowing as he created that which only he could.
The tears in the fabric of space were visible, four of them. There were three surrounding Freyr in a triangular shape, and one above him. There was enough space between them for someone small, but a man of Freyr's stature shouldn't be able to slip through them. If he even so much as grazed the edges, he would more than likely be pulled in, and none of these were connected; he wouldn't be spat out anywhere else.
Helen slid gracefully in between the gravatic fields, and given the small spaces in between them, Freyr did not bother dodging, instead pulling a long dagger from one of the sheaths at his thigh and blocking her incoming first sword, giving up on the intangibility for now. While it would keep him invulnerable, that was more or less pointless unless he was also imperceptible. He needed to be able to hit them, after all. The force of his parry was great, and Alden read his intention even as it formed. “Shit. Ary, connect them, now!” He would have to hope his cousin had been fast enough, because even as Helen’s second sword bit into her brother’s shoulder, he used the motion to open her guard, his hand darting in to wrap around her neck, and he shoved her back into the northernmost singularity.
Helen, without any grounding, was unable to stop herself from being pulled in.
Growling under his breath, Alden took over the task of keeping Freyr busy, aiming precise throwing knives at the gaps between singularities. Hoping Helen would know how to take advantage, he also tossed one into the same field she had entered. Have it spit her out above, if you can. Freyr was far too strong a fighter to be taken out by conventional means. Helen was an assassin in her own right, but her brother had more than twice her lifespan, and had been made for that purpose alone. Alden was less a combatant than a strategist, though he could and did hold his own. Aryan was two years a fighter, and talented or not, there was just no way they stacked up against Freyr in a fair fight. So they were going to have to do what Alden and Ary both did better than anyone.
They were going to have to cheat.
Aryan felt his heart stop as Helen disappeared. He didn't even register Alden's mental comment, but luckily Aryan's mind worked faster than most; he was already reconnecting her, and with the mental calculations, he connected the northern hole and the top one, allowing it to spit Helen back out above Freyr.
It was however, very disorienting to go through one of his singularities. Aryan could only hope that she was able to recover enough to be able to attack him. He would trust that she could; Helen was a lot stronger than some gave her credit for being. It would take all three of them to pull this off, Helen to attack, Aryan to position her, and Alden to tell him which direction. There was an odd little smirk on Aryan's face.
He did love cheating sometimes.
The sensation of being warped from one singularity to another was nauseating, and Helen was only able to grasp the knife that followed her out of an instinct long honed into her by her work. She’d lost her second sword somewhere between Freyr and the wormhole, so the throwing knife in her fist was the only thing she had.
It took her a moment to get her bearings when she fell out the other end, but the fact that she was falling at all told her she must be coming out of the one in the air above Freyr, and without really quite being able to see what she was doing, she twisted her body in midair, bringing the knife down in a perfectly-trained arc that would likely have struck her brother in the spine had he not moved at the last moment. She was slightly to the left, but the knife still caught, dragging from the back of his shoulder to his waist with her momentum, and Helen landed in a crouch, ducking the next blow and grabbing the sword still stuck inside his shoulder before she vanished into the eastern singularity. She suspected it would take her out the western one, and this time, she was more prepared for the unpleasantness.
Alden’s flinging knives and constant mental barrage on Freyr were helping keep the man pressed in from all sides, though when Helen emerged from the west, he was ready, having logically guessed what the eastern one must be connected to, and his knife sank deeply into Hel’s shoulder, emerging out the other side red with her blood. She staggered, and her free hand jerked up to close around his wrist. She hated using her ability for this purpose, but she knew it had to be done. So, her grip like a vise, Helen refused to let go, even when Freyr, increasingly desperate, wrenched out the knife and stabbed her again, repeatedly. He missed her abdomen, though, because she moved just enough to protect it every time, which was a bit strange considering it wasn’t her heart or something likewise vital. The rest was inconsequential. She could almost hear Tyr’s voice, telling her that what didn’t kill her gave her the chance to kill her foe—and she was killing him, her wounds healing too fast even for one of her kind as she siphoned his life energy.
It was a slow process, though, and so when he was weak enough, she turned her head to look at Aryan. “Drop the fields, please. All but the north one.” Once he did, she sucked all the air out of the space between her so called brother and the remaining singularity, creating a vacuum. She leveled her gaze on Freyr, then, and blinked at him once. “Goodbye, my brother,” she said simply, and her grip on him slackened even as he opened his mouth to say something, allowing the vacuum to pull him into the singularity, from which there was now no exit. He would die there, but she doubted he would feel much pain. It was the only mercy she could bring herself to allow him, after all he had done.
Her wounds still closing and her skin eerily lit from beneath, Helen fell to her knees, exhausted and faintly dizzy still from her warp-travel, but otherwise all right. Alden’s constant use of his powers had worn him down, too, and he produced half a back of licorice from up one of his baggy sleeves and started chewing immediately, to stave off the thirst. He didn’t know exactly what condition Em was in right now, after all.
Aryan sank to his knees, blood running from his nose. Four fields running simultaneously while connecting them was not easy, and it took its toll on him. Even so, he was alright, for the most part. He just needed rest. This much was over, at least. They'd killed him. His eyes narrowed, however, at Helen. He had not missed how she had protected her abdomen, but for now he put it out of mind. He could worry about that later, for now he was simply happy that they were alive.
He forced himself up, though, to go to Helen. He knelt next to her, pulling her into his arms in the process. They were alive.
Of all the members of the Pantheon, the year under the dominion of the King had changed Frigga the most. Like Sigyn, she had once been led to believe that she was a candidate for Queen. She was certain that, in one of the possible futures Theodor had envisioned, she was. She deemed it fortunate that this was not that future, and had even caught herself feeling a little sorry for Hel, when she’d still been there. Of course, the year since she’d left had been even worse. Malkior was absolutely terrifying, and without his little Queen around to keep him occupied, he’d seemed to take no particular issue with “testing” the capabilities of his other soldiers, which included rooting around in their minds and forcing them to try resisting his control—a futile effort if ever there was one.
The constant fear of being killed on a whim had dimmed Frigga’s uncanny brightness considerably, and though she was now a ruthless, efficient solider even more than she had been, she’d lost the joy in any of it. Thor might have been able to hold onto fighting as a form of release, but to her if anything it was just more work now. She knew that if they succeeded, these enemies of hers, then she would die. She wasn’t sure, but Frigga might actually prefer this. Even the certainty of death would be welcome over the feeling of someone else in her head for the rest of forever. But she had her pride, and she would not die without the hardest fight she’d ever given. Considering who she was and what she could do, it was going to take a lot to bring her down.
Seeing as how most of those she’d fought before were already occupied, she made a line for the ones that remained. She wasn’t going to sneak up on anyone and do them in while they weren’t looking. That wasn’t her style—it was Freyr’s, and she honestly had never liked him much. She did spot the pretty little Aegis-girl, though, standing in shock at the disappearance of her uncle and cousin no doubt. Moving quickly to stand before them, she swung her axe down for Leora’s shoulder, not even managing a smile when the girl ducked and rolled away, coming up in an automatic fighting stance than anything else, delivering a series of hard blows to Frigga’s midsection. Much harder than she recalled the girl having hit before.
“Sorry, dove,” she said, but the words sounded hollow, even to her. She'd regenerated her tongue, but not the spirited lilt of her voice, it seemed. “You’ll still need to hit harder than that. Maybe if all three of you try at once?”
Alarica had to keep the frown from marring her face when Jasper and Balthasar disappeared. Her hand twitched, reaching immediately for Ulrik. Her uncle and cousin would be fine, she believed they would be. She had to believe that they would be. Instead, her mind focused upon the people left standing with her: Zero and Leora. A smirk graced her features as she stared at the eldest and youngest Kuragari duo, shifting so that she held Ulrik at arms length. Zero regarded his cousin and sister with a stare, Ragnarok clutched in his hand as he was itching to pull the trigger on someone. His mother left to handle the small horde of level E's and a few Nobles, a hint of worry crossing his features.
He was worried about his mother being alone, however; he knew she was strong enough to handle it, and that worrying about her would only distract him. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted, there was an enemy approaching, and he could see as the one known as Frigga, attacked his sister. He pulled his lips back, a faint snarl leaving his lips as she spoke. All three of them? Did she truly wish for that? He would have to oblige the woman then. They would suffer a few broken bones, perhaps come close to the verge of death, however; it would be worth it all once they ended this war. Immediately, Alarica was by her cousin's side, glancing at Leora as she pulled her lips back, though she did not bare her fangs as Zero did.
"Then let me be the first to oblige your wish," she spoke, glancing at Leora and Zero as she shot off towards Frigga. Zero wasn't far behind her, as Alarica aimed a blow to Frigga's face, Zero coming up behind her quickly aiming for her abdomen.
Frigga ducked backwards, dodging the blow aimed for her face and retaliating with a punishing stroke to the chin with the handle of her axe. She heard it crack Alarica’s jaw, but it was not a fatal wound by any means. The follow-up from Zero, she simply took, impressed with the force used, but unmoving against it. One of her ribs gave way with a snap, but as soon as his hand was gone, it was healing anyway. The third strike was a sweep from Leora, and that did force her to move, lest she lose her footing and fall to the ground, which would be a serious disadvantage. Se leapt back lightly, readjusted her direction and aimed a series of crushing axe-blows for Zero, forcing him to back up quickly or be sliced to ribbons.
Her face was entirely bereft of its usual smile, even when she blocked a punch from Leora one-handed, throwing the girl back several yards and returning her attention to the girl’s brother. They were stronger than reports had indicated, certainly, but how long would that strength last?
Alarica did not move fast enough, and so she found her jaw slightly cracked, the pain shooting all the way to the back of her neck. She hissed out in pain, stumbling back a bit as she felt along her face. She'd bruise, but the damage done was already healing. She could feel her jaw piecing itself back together and gave a few grazes to make sure it was intact. Once it was realigned, she stared at the battle between Frigga, Zero, and Leora. Zero had managed to dodge a few of Frigga's blows, however; he was sporting a trail of crimson along his arms. Though he had managed to block, he was not unscathed, instead sporting wounds that were closing. He had used a majority of his arms to block the attacks, perhaps not a wise move, however; it was necessary.
He clicked his tongue as he locked glances with Frigga. He shot Alarica a glance, and she nodded. Pulling Ragnarok in front of him, he fired a shot, pushing himself off of his feet to follow behind the bullet as Alarica shot at Frigga from behind, mirroring her cousin's move. She would attack from below, he would get her from above. Either way, it still left plenty of room for Leora to go in and follow with an attack as well. They couldn't give Frigga much room to escape, they mustn't.
Frigga twisted so that neither of the bullets struck anywhere vital—in fact, one of them rebounded off her unnaturally-hardened skin. The other managed to lodge in the back of her shoulder, though her healing factor had pushed it out and healed the wound in no time. She was about to get out of the way of the lunges when she felt her legs become entrapped, by none other than Leora, who used her own to tangle with them and twist her whole body had enough to bring Frigga down. It cost her dearly—the axe biting into the place between her shoulder and neck, breaking her clavicle, but Frigga was clearly surprised, and desperately reached for her terrakinesis, using the roots and vines that sprang from the ground to entangle the other two. The axe, she threw like something much lighter, catching Zero in the abdomen on her way down, but Alarica’s sword caught her across the back. The damage was minimal, but she hissed anyway, landing on the wound when she fell.
Despite her injury, Leo kept on fighting, stubbornly refusing to let Frigga up and twisting herself with surprising flexibility so that she was holding the other woman to the ground, one hand fisted in Frigga’s bright scarlet hair, the other pressed hard into her sternum. Both of Leo’s knees were pinning the other woman’s hips. Unfortunately, this left Frigga’s arms free, and her claws were used to great effect on Leo’s own arms, one of which was rapidly losing strength because of the injury to the corresponding deltoid muscle.
“Zee, Rica, her throat—quickly!” She couldn’t hold her down much longer, and only hoped that the spot was a little more vulnerable than the rest of Freya’s skin. Surely it would need to be, if she was ever supposed to be a blood supply for anyone, but there was no guarantee that even this was the case. She was struggling to hold on, and knew she’d be thrown any second—and probably out of the fight, given how much bleeding she was doing. She only hoped that Frigga did not get the brilliant idea to try drinking any of it. That would be bad news.
Zero winced, stopping in his tracks when the axe met his abdomen. He heaved the weapon out, falling to his knees as his body took its time to regenerate. He cursed his luck that he would heal so slowly. He was, after all, not entirely up to strength as he should be. After Yuki's death, there was no one else he fed from. He had stopped using his father and his other siblings, excluding Leora, since he wanted no other, and instead resorted to using the blood pills. He had taken a little bit of someone's blood before the battle, however; it was apparently not enough to keep his regenerative abilities up to par. He cursed beneath his breath as he watched Leora struggle to contain Frigga.
It was Alarica who moved to her aid, reaching for Frigga's neck in the process. She had to take the chance of not missing her mark, and catching Leora's arms in the process. She'd have to be careful, precise, and with that in mind, she brought Ulrik down, hard, upon Frigga's neck, watching as the blade pierced the scarlet-haired woman's neck. She continued to push, watching, feeling the blade slip through. She paused just moments before grazing Leora's arms, missing barely by a hairsbreadth. She watched as the Pantheon member's head rolled away, her body slowly dissolving as she turned to Zero, kneeling down beside him and clasping her hands together.
Zero watched as Alarica tended to his wound, his eyes flickering over towards his sister. "Leo, are you alright?" he questioned, thanking Alarica who merely fell back on her backside, her breathing slightly labored as she tried to keep her heartbeat down. "We...did it, guys," he spoke, a soft smile grazing his lips as Alarica fell completely on her back, staring up at the sky. They did it. They managed to kill one of the members of the Pantheon. How the others were faring, she did not know, and at the moment, he didn't give it much thought. They had defeated one of their own enemies. That was one victory in their pouch.
Leo rolled over onto her back as well, her own injuries healing faster than her brother’s were. It was also true, however, that they were more grievous, and the scent of citrus and cream was thick on the air. But they did heal, and she reached over the grasp Alarica’s hand in one of her own. “I’m okay,” she breathed in relief, answering her brother’s question. “Everything is going to be okay.” she could hear and smell the other battles coming to an end around them, leaving her with only one remaining question: where were Balthasar and Uncle Jazz?
The constant fear of being killed on a whim had dimmed Frigga’s uncanny brightness considerably, and though she was now a ruthless, efficient solider even more than she had been, she’d lost the joy in any of it. Thor might have been able to hold onto fighting as a form of release, but to her if anything it was just more work now. She knew that if they succeeded, these enemies of hers, then she would die. She wasn’t sure, but Frigga might actually prefer this. Even the certainty of death would be welcome over the feeling of someone else in her head for the rest of forever. But she had her pride, and she would not die without the hardest fight she’d ever given. Considering who she was and what she could do, it was going to take a lot to bring her down.
Seeing as how most of those she’d fought before were already occupied, she made a line for the ones that remained. She wasn’t going to sneak up on anyone and do them in while they weren’t looking. That wasn’t her style—it was Freyr’s, and she honestly had never liked him much. She did spot the pretty little Aegis-girl, though, standing in shock at the disappearance of her uncle and cousin no doubt. Moving quickly to stand before them, she swung her axe down for Leora’s shoulder, not even managing a smile when the girl ducked and rolled away, coming up in an automatic fighting stance than anything else, delivering a series of hard blows to Frigga’s midsection. Much harder than she recalled the girl having hit before.
“Sorry, dove,” she said, but the words sounded hollow, even to her. She'd regenerated her tongue, but not the spirited lilt of her voice, it seemed. “You’ll still need to hit harder than that. Maybe if all three of you try at once?”
Alarica had to keep the frown from marring her face when Jasper and Balthasar disappeared. Her hand twitched, reaching immediately for Ulrik. Her uncle and cousin would be fine, she believed they would be. She had to believe that they would be. Instead, her mind focused upon the people left standing with her: Zero and Leora. A smirk graced her features as she stared at the eldest and youngest Kuragari duo, shifting so that she held Ulrik at arms length. Zero regarded his cousin and sister with a stare, Ragnarok clutched in his hand as he was itching to pull the trigger on someone. His mother left to handle the small horde of level E's and a few Nobles, a hint of worry crossing his features.
He was worried about his mother being alone, however; he knew she was strong enough to handle it, and that worrying about her would only distract him. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted, there was an enemy approaching, and he could see as the one known as Frigga, attacked his sister. He pulled his lips back, a faint snarl leaving his lips as she spoke. All three of them? Did she truly wish for that? He would have to oblige the woman then. They would suffer a few broken bones, perhaps come close to the verge of death, however; it would be worth it all once they ended this war. Immediately, Alarica was by her cousin's side, glancing at Leora as she pulled her lips back, though she did not bare her fangs as Zero did.
"Then let me be the first to oblige your wish," she spoke, glancing at Leora and Zero as she shot off towards Frigga. Zero wasn't far behind her, as Alarica aimed a blow to Frigga's face, Zero coming up behind her quickly aiming for her abdomen.
Frigga ducked backwards, dodging the blow aimed for her face and retaliating with a punishing stroke to the chin with the handle of her axe. She heard it crack Alarica’s jaw, but it was not a fatal wound by any means. The follow-up from Zero, she simply took, impressed with the force used, but unmoving against it. One of her ribs gave way with a snap, but as soon as his hand was gone, it was healing anyway. The third strike was a sweep from Leora, and that did force her to move, lest she lose her footing and fall to the ground, which would be a serious disadvantage. Se leapt back lightly, readjusted her direction and aimed a series of crushing axe-blows for Zero, forcing him to back up quickly or be sliced to ribbons.
Her face was entirely bereft of its usual smile, even when she blocked a punch from Leora one-handed, throwing the girl back several yards and returning her attention to the girl’s brother. They were stronger than reports had indicated, certainly, but how long would that strength last?
Alarica did not move fast enough, and so she found her jaw slightly cracked, the pain shooting all the way to the back of her neck. She hissed out in pain, stumbling back a bit as she felt along her face. She'd bruise, but the damage done was already healing. She could feel her jaw piecing itself back together and gave a few grazes to make sure it was intact. Once it was realigned, she stared at the battle between Frigga, Zero, and Leora. Zero had managed to dodge a few of Frigga's blows, however; he was sporting a trail of crimson along his arms. Though he had managed to block, he was not unscathed, instead sporting wounds that were closing. He had used a majority of his arms to block the attacks, perhaps not a wise move, however; it was necessary.
He clicked his tongue as he locked glances with Frigga. He shot Alarica a glance, and she nodded. Pulling Ragnarok in front of him, he fired a shot, pushing himself off of his feet to follow behind the bullet as Alarica shot at Frigga from behind, mirroring her cousin's move. She would attack from below, he would get her from above. Either way, it still left plenty of room for Leora to go in and follow with an attack as well. They couldn't give Frigga much room to escape, they mustn't.
Frigga twisted so that neither of the bullets struck anywhere vital—in fact, one of them rebounded off her unnaturally-hardened skin. The other managed to lodge in the back of her shoulder, though her healing factor had pushed it out and healed the wound in no time. She was about to get out of the way of the lunges when she felt her legs become entrapped, by none other than Leora, who used her own to tangle with them and twist her whole body had enough to bring Frigga down. It cost her dearly—the axe biting into the place between her shoulder and neck, breaking her clavicle, but Frigga was clearly surprised, and desperately reached for her terrakinesis, using the roots and vines that sprang from the ground to entangle the other two. The axe, she threw like something much lighter, catching Zero in the abdomen on her way down, but Alarica’s sword caught her across the back. The damage was minimal, but she hissed anyway, landing on the wound when she fell.
Despite her injury, Leo kept on fighting, stubbornly refusing to let Frigga up and twisting herself with surprising flexibility so that she was holding the other woman to the ground, one hand fisted in Frigga’s bright scarlet hair, the other pressed hard into her sternum. Both of Leo’s knees were pinning the other woman’s hips. Unfortunately, this left Frigga’s arms free, and her claws were used to great effect on Leo’s own arms, one of which was rapidly losing strength because of the injury to the corresponding deltoid muscle.
“Zee, Rica, her throat—quickly!” She couldn’t hold her down much longer, and only hoped that the spot was a little more vulnerable than the rest of Freya’s skin. Surely it would need to be, if she was ever supposed to be a blood supply for anyone, but there was no guarantee that even this was the case. She was struggling to hold on, and knew she’d be thrown any second—and probably out of the fight, given how much bleeding she was doing. She only hoped that Frigga did not get the brilliant idea to try drinking any of it. That would be bad news.
Zero winced, stopping in his tracks when the axe met his abdomen. He heaved the weapon out, falling to his knees as his body took its time to regenerate. He cursed his luck that he would heal so slowly. He was, after all, not entirely up to strength as he should be. After Yuki's death, there was no one else he fed from. He had stopped using his father and his other siblings, excluding Leora, since he wanted no other, and instead resorted to using the blood pills. He had taken a little bit of someone's blood before the battle, however; it was apparently not enough to keep his regenerative abilities up to par. He cursed beneath his breath as he watched Leora struggle to contain Frigga.
It was Alarica who moved to her aid, reaching for Frigga's neck in the process. She had to take the chance of not missing her mark, and catching Leora's arms in the process. She'd have to be careful, precise, and with that in mind, she brought Ulrik down, hard, upon Frigga's neck, watching as the blade pierced the scarlet-haired woman's neck. She continued to push, watching, feeling the blade slip through. She paused just moments before grazing Leora's arms, missing barely by a hairsbreadth. She watched as the Pantheon member's head rolled away, her body slowly dissolving as she turned to Zero, kneeling down beside him and clasping her hands together.
Zero watched as Alarica tended to his wound, his eyes flickering over towards his sister. "Leo, are you alright?" he questioned, thanking Alarica who merely fell back on her backside, her breathing slightly labored as she tried to keep her heartbeat down. "We...did it, guys," he spoke, a soft smile grazing his lips as Alarica fell completely on her back, staring up at the sky. They did it. They managed to kill one of the members of the Pantheon. How the others were faring, she did not know, and at the moment, he didn't give it much thought. They had defeated one of their own enemies. That was one victory in their pouch.
Leo rolled over onto her back as well, her own injuries healing faster than her brother’s were. It was also true, however, that they were more grievous, and the scent of citrus and cream was thick on the air. But they did heal, and she reached over the grasp Alarica’s hand in one of her own. “I’m okay,” she breathed in relief, answering her brother’s question. “Everything is going to be okay.” she could hear and smell the other battles coming to an end around them, leaving her with only one remaining question: where were Balthasar and Uncle Jazz?
The place to which Malkior took them was largely featureless. It seemed to be comprised of a lot of white sand, curving over into gentle dunes, and a sky that was a dark grey with but the faintest tinge of blue. Though it was impossible to identify any source of light, the whole place was dimly-illuminated, as though cast in perpetual twilight. There was no great tumble, nor even a disruption in balance. They had simply blinked, and all of a sudden they were present. It reminded Jasper a little bit of the sensation of being put in Yuki’s or Bryer’s mind, except it was much larger, with the feel of something almost infinite, as though one could strike off in a given direction and never be able to reach the end, even should they walk for all of time.
He glanced over at his son, who shrugged with some nonchalance, as if to say that they might as well just accept it for what it was. There was wisdom in that, because the change in environment did not seem to alter their task—whatever had happened, they could figure it out once Malkior was dead. The man himself was standing perhaps thirty feet from them, but they heard his voice as clearly as if he were right beside them, though not at any greater volume. “I find so often that the lesser beings who claim to serve me are more hindrance than help, so I thought perhaps our meeting would be best conducted away from any… distractions.” He glanced around at the area for a moment, seemingly satisfied with what he had wrought. “Sometimes, I contemplate killing all of them. Everyone in that world that is not me, if only for the quiet of it. They make so much noise, like little. Buzzing. Insects.” He punctuated each of the last words clearly, though the emphasis was subtle.
His survey of the world around them ended, and he turned his eyes to look back at his descendants. Balthasar blinked, and suddenly Malkior was within ordinary speaking distance, as undisturbed as though he’d never moved at all. Balthasar felt anger rising in him, indignation at this man’s casual dismissal of other people, but he mimicked his father and remained as calm and placid externally as he possibly could. Jasper was not moving at all; indeed, his hands were in the pockets of his long black coat, and he seemed to have barely even blinked since they were brought here.
Malkior’s mouth twitched up into a smirk for just a moment. “But alas, without the foibles of others, I do think I would grown even more bored than I already am. Would you care to see it, what the world looks like when you are dead and I am undisputed King?” He raised an eyebrow, and to Balthasar it was clear that it didn’t matter what their answers were—they were going to see it anyway. Indeed, the blue-black sky above them shimmered, as a mirage might in an actual desert, and images appeared, as though it were some kind of electronic screen, playing a film. If so, it was a nightmarish one. Balthasar turned his eyes up, watching with increasing rage as he was shown moving images of humans in chains, moving about under the direction of those he somehow knew were dhampir like Alarica and Nobles like his own mother, and Level C’s and D’s as well.
The purebloods held court, and from the way they were dressed, it appeared to be no later than the Edwardian age. Technological advancements—human advancements, he realized with a lurch in his stomach—were absent, as though erased from history. The image shifted, and he saw the more immediate future as Malkior envisioned. His and his father’s bodies dissolved into ash, breaking this illusion and allowing the Progenitor to step out onto the battlefield. When he did, everything else simply stopped, and he watched with mounting horror as his family was torn apart, one by one, in the worst of ways—he forced them to kill each other. Uncle Vincent impaled Aunt Ava with her own lance, staking her to the ground, and she did not fight him, the last crystalline tears falling from her cheeks as her body dissolved into nothingness. Keir, as himself and not Sagiv, speared a clawed hand through Leora’s chest, and she could only smile up at him as she fell to her knees, blood coating her chin and neck before she, too, vanished.
It got no better. Emrys shot Alden, who of course could not help but see it coming, and he caught the look of resignation in his violet-haired cousin’s eyes when he knew there was no longer any hope of stopping it. I’m sorry was mouthed gently into the air between them, but whether Em could even hear it or not was hard to tell. Alarica’s sword blossomed from her mother’s chest, the mixed expression of shock and horror on Erys’s face quite well matching the one Balthasar was certain he was wearing. Helen ran Aryan through with no more mercy, then turned her shorter blade on herself, surgically cutting across her own abdomen, not to kill, but as if to remove an organ, or—understanding dawned on Balthasar with a fresh wave of rage, but the images were not finished yet.
Because, for just a little while, Malkior then released those who had murdered what they loved most in this world, and let them see what they had done. Balthasar almost tore his eyes away from their reactions, but he could not. Some part of him had to see this, had to know. What happened to his mother, and his uncle and his niece and nephews and little baby sister, was no less horrendous. He’d run out of words to describe the abominable way in which they were slaughtered, always by their own hands, puppeteered by one whose will could not, would not, be denied.
Balthasar’s face, always more expressive than his father’s, darkened precipitously, and Malkior did not miss this, banishing the images with the wave of a hand and raising an eyebrow at him. “Have I upset you?” he asked smugly, that damn smile tugging at his lips again. “And here I thought it would take more. I didn’t even show you what I would do to that lovely half-blooded lover of yours, boy. Would she scream, do you think? Would she weep? For herself, or for you? These are all very interesting questions, and I do rather intend to find the answers first hand.” The image that came next was placed in Balthasar’s mind directly, and it did not bear repeating, nor consideration, but even thinking that could not erase it.
It was meant to provoke. To push him far past the bounds of reason, past the point he and his father had pushed him to in training. To make him angry and irrational.
It worked.
What he had seen, what he had heard, successfully shoved Balthasar beyond any edge he had a hope of holding onto. His darkness, always there, was pulled to the fore, because this man would take from him what he had deemed to be his. Under his protection. He dove right into that part of him he’d always been afraid of, drew it to the surface, and wrapped it around him like armor. A slow, sadistic smile spread over his face, and when he raised his head to look at Malkior, his eyes were black from lid to lid, unfathomably dark, as though they absorbed light rather than reflecting it. “I’m glad you seem to like pain, Malkior,” he said, his voice lower and raspier than his usual tones. “Because you’re about to become intimately acquainted with it.”
This seemed to amuse his ancestor more than anything, and Balthasar snarled, pulling his lips back from his teeth and baring fangs that extended past his lower lip, gleaming in the low light conditions. He leaped for the self-styled King, but with a firm hand to his shoulder and the smooth movement of a foot, Malkior had flipped him over in midair and slammed him into the ground, the breath leaving his lungs in a massive gust. It might have ended right there, were it only to two of them, for Malkior’s eyes were white as the blind, and the application of his power was fearsome indeed.
But alone they were not, and Jasper came in next, with more control but just as much power as his son, aiming a kick squarely for the Progenitor’s chest, one which went sailing through empty air when he simply disappeared, reappearing not ten feet away, the same self-assured smirk firmly upon his face. “You should control your rabid dog better, boy. He’s a little feisty. I could put him down for you—such beasts have little place in the world.”
“Balthasar,” his father reprimanded, his voice stern and urgent in equal measure. “Control yourself.” Power is nothing without restraint, his father had often told him. Balthasar was still finding it hard to care. His father was not watching those images flit over the back of his mind. He wasn’t hearing the one he loved become the victim of the world’s most heinous crime. He wanted nothing more than to rip out Malkior’s throat and then kill him as slowly as he possibly could. Hell, he might bring him back just so he could kill him again, and these were not the kinds of thoughts Balthasar had ever entertained before, about anyone. Their power and brutal violence left his better self with no idea how to handle the situation, and so the part of him that was dark and vengeful and enraged and possessive was coping for him.
He climbed to his feet just as the pressure on his mind suddenly increased. Malkior was wielding his inborn compulsion abilities on them now, and it was something more agonizing than Balthasar had ever experienced. He pushed back, already disposed to be violent anyway, and his aura flared in response. He felt his father’s power join his, like two pairs of arms holding off the same crushing physical weight, and with a collective heave, they pushed back, their efforts breaking apart just short of subjugating Malkior instead. The Progenitor of his race seemed genuinely surprised by that, but he had no time to mention it, because Balthasar was on him again, this time managing to carry him to the ground, training forgotten in a primal rush, fueled only by the need to kill. To protect what was his from that which would utterly destroy it. To survive. The fact that he wasn’t thinking much was the only thing that saved his ancestor, so when his teeth sank viciously into flesh, it was that stretched over the muscles of Malkior’s forearm rather than his throat.
With a strength driven by desperate fury, Balthasar tore, half the muscle of the forearm coming away with his teeth, and he spat the flesh out to the side, snarling with bloody lips and teeth at the man beneath him. This foe was not so mighty, who presumed to take what was his.
“Balthasar!” was the only warning he got, and then he was stabbed violently with Malkior’s other hand. Only the warning gave him enough time to jerk backwards such that the Progenitor was unable to get a grip on his heart and pull it free of his chest, but the wound was grave, and he fell to the side, red staining the white sand of the otherworld. Before Malkior could finish the job, Jasper was there. It had been impossible to interfere when the man and his son were in such a close grapple, but now he was able to grab the Progenitor and transport them both several hundred yards away.
“So,” Malkior said, slightly short of breath, his left arm dangling uselessly without most of the muscle on the bottom half of it. “You’ve discovered how it works. Perhaps you are my heir after all. Theodor was clearly a fool to underestimate you. The blood of the King is yours, as well.”
“We are not kings,” Jasper replied. “We are guardians.”
Malkior laughed, a harsh, grating sound, and his white eyes met their twin pair across the field. “Guardians? Of what? A world unworthy of us, bendable to our every whim? Buzzing insects who move about at our feet, worthless save as petty amusement? No… kings is an understatement, Jasper von Nacht. King of the Night. We are more even than that. We are gods.” This time, Malkior initiated, surging forwards despite his injury and striking with his other hand, a blow which Jasper only barely dodged. Here, in this place, with their power extended to its ever-increasing upper limit, reaching for the end of their capabilities, the two warped over the endless desert, trading and canceling blows, with bodies and minds. A thought alone opened up a grave wound, but another thought closed it. They summoned fire and ice and all manner of fantastic, nonexistent creatures, only for all of it to be countered or banished with an exercise of the other’s force. The world turned upside down and inside out, reality warping and twisting so quickly it scarcely mattered at all.
What was real was only their minds, and the things they chose to bring about. But the effort was not without cost, and days, weeks, months… perhaps years later, they both felt themselves grow tired. Something had to happen, something had to change, else this would continue until both were dead from sheer exhaustion. Jasper felt himself beginning to forget things—things he had once held closer than anything. Time would do that, time and constant exertion. He felt himself losing the names of his friends, the sound of the violin, the certain confident smirk of a cousin, his daughter’s laughter, his mother’s tears.
He lost his dreams and his ambitions and his sons and his family. He began to forget the details of her face, the way her eyes would spark with amusement, her scent. The way her skin felt against his. What color was her hair again? Was it so soft as he had thought a moment ago? Why did he fight this way, and had there been a time when he did not?
Who was he?
The fact that this question had no answer was alarming, enough so that he faltered in his movement for just a second, a bare moment. But it was all his opponent needed, and in that moment, he knew that, whomever he was, he was going to die now. To cease, to end.
And yet he did not.
Another body blocked the way, taking the blow for him and surprising both of the combatants. His foe’s hand emerged from the other’s back, and that new presence fell back into the sand again. Again? Had he seen this before? This gushing of blood, this familiar scent? That face—
It all came back with his son’s face. Balthasar’s eyes bored into his own, as white as new-fallen snow, and he coughed, leaking blood from his nose and his mouth, that white fading back into a silvery blue. He recalled the first time he’d ever seen the color, the day his first child was born. He’d held the fragile life in his hands, filled with a singular sense of awe and wonder, and had sworn only to himself that this life, he would always protect. This life would not end before his own. Because this life was his son, his child, a part of himself, and a part of the woman he loved more than anything in the world. And this life was fading before his eyes.
Jasper almost fell then and there, for in fact he felt himself tearing apart at the seams. Afterwards, he could recall very little of what happened next. All he remembered was the feel of flesh tearing underneath his claws, the unwanted taste of blood on his tongue that he had no desire for, and a red haze over his vision. When it was done and his ancestor was dust, he tore apart the fabric of the reality they had been trapped in, and he knew it was all he could give. He had nothing left. His power was spent, had been spent, over what was centuries in this place but mere minutes to the world that existed outside Malkior’s domain. His memories came back to him in a flood, but they were overwhelmed by the tide of a grief so deep he felt himself being sucked under, and unaware of what happened around him, he fell to his knees beside Balthasar, his first child, the one who had taught him the wonder of life itself in a way he had never known, who had grown up so closely in his own image that he sometimes felt guilty about it.
The wound was grievous, and it was clear that the light behind his child’s eyes was dying. “Balthasar,” he choked, and he could see the man’s gaze trying to focus.
“Dad… where’s… Rica? Is she… okay? I want to… see… Ri…ca…” his words became increasingly inhibited by the blood bubbling in his lungs, and his healing factor was doing all it could, but he was just as exhausted as Jasper was, just as pushed to the brink of exhaustion. And now he was on the brink of death, and all he could think about was the safety of the woman he loved above all others.
If it had been any other situation, Jasper would have smiled. As it was, he lifted his eyes, seeking the girl out.
He glanced over at his son, who shrugged with some nonchalance, as if to say that they might as well just accept it for what it was. There was wisdom in that, because the change in environment did not seem to alter their task—whatever had happened, they could figure it out once Malkior was dead. The man himself was standing perhaps thirty feet from them, but they heard his voice as clearly as if he were right beside them, though not at any greater volume. “I find so often that the lesser beings who claim to serve me are more hindrance than help, so I thought perhaps our meeting would be best conducted away from any… distractions.” He glanced around at the area for a moment, seemingly satisfied with what he had wrought. “Sometimes, I contemplate killing all of them. Everyone in that world that is not me, if only for the quiet of it. They make so much noise, like little. Buzzing. Insects.” He punctuated each of the last words clearly, though the emphasis was subtle.
His survey of the world around them ended, and he turned his eyes to look back at his descendants. Balthasar blinked, and suddenly Malkior was within ordinary speaking distance, as undisturbed as though he’d never moved at all. Balthasar felt anger rising in him, indignation at this man’s casual dismissal of other people, but he mimicked his father and remained as calm and placid externally as he possibly could. Jasper was not moving at all; indeed, his hands were in the pockets of his long black coat, and he seemed to have barely even blinked since they were brought here.
Malkior’s mouth twitched up into a smirk for just a moment. “But alas, without the foibles of others, I do think I would grown even more bored than I already am. Would you care to see it, what the world looks like when you are dead and I am undisputed King?” He raised an eyebrow, and to Balthasar it was clear that it didn’t matter what their answers were—they were going to see it anyway. Indeed, the blue-black sky above them shimmered, as a mirage might in an actual desert, and images appeared, as though it were some kind of electronic screen, playing a film. If so, it was a nightmarish one. Balthasar turned his eyes up, watching with increasing rage as he was shown moving images of humans in chains, moving about under the direction of those he somehow knew were dhampir like Alarica and Nobles like his own mother, and Level C’s and D’s as well.
The purebloods held court, and from the way they were dressed, it appeared to be no later than the Edwardian age. Technological advancements—human advancements, he realized with a lurch in his stomach—were absent, as though erased from history. The image shifted, and he saw the more immediate future as Malkior envisioned. His and his father’s bodies dissolved into ash, breaking this illusion and allowing the Progenitor to step out onto the battlefield. When he did, everything else simply stopped, and he watched with mounting horror as his family was torn apart, one by one, in the worst of ways—he forced them to kill each other. Uncle Vincent impaled Aunt Ava with her own lance, staking her to the ground, and she did not fight him, the last crystalline tears falling from her cheeks as her body dissolved into nothingness. Keir, as himself and not Sagiv, speared a clawed hand through Leora’s chest, and she could only smile up at him as she fell to her knees, blood coating her chin and neck before she, too, vanished.
It got no better. Emrys shot Alden, who of course could not help but see it coming, and he caught the look of resignation in his violet-haired cousin’s eyes when he knew there was no longer any hope of stopping it. I’m sorry was mouthed gently into the air between them, but whether Em could even hear it or not was hard to tell. Alarica’s sword blossomed from her mother’s chest, the mixed expression of shock and horror on Erys’s face quite well matching the one Balthasar was certain he was wearing. Helen ran Aryan through with no more mercy, then turned her shorter blade on herself, surgically cutting across her own abdomen, not to kill, but as if to remove an organ, or—understanding dawned on Balthasar with a fresh wave of rage, but the images were not finished yet.
Because, for just a little while, Malkior then released those who had murdered what they loved most in this world, and let them see what they had done. Balthasar almost tore his eyes away from their reactions, but he could not. Some part of him had to see this, had to know. What happened to his mother, and his uncle and his niece and nephews and little baby sister, was no less horrendous. He’d run out of words to describe the abominable way in which they were slaughtered, always by their own hands, puppeteered by one whose will could not, would not, be denied.
Balthasar’s face, always more expressive than his father’s, darkened precipitously, and Malkior did not miss this, banishing the images with the wave of a hand and raising an eyebrow at him. “Have I upset you?” he asked smugly, that damn smile tugging at his lips again. “And here I thought it would take more. I didn’t even show you what I would do to that lovely half-blooded lover of yours, boy. Would she scream, do you think? Would she weep? For herself, or for you? These are all very interesting questions, and I do rather intend to find the answers first hand.” The image that came next was placed in Balthasar’s mind directly, and it did not bear repeating, nor consideration, but even thinking that could not erase it.
It was meant to provoke. To push him far past the bounds of reason, past the point he and his father had pushed him to in training. To make him angry and irrational.
It worked.
What he had seen, what he had heard, successfully shoved Balthasar beyond any edge he had a hope of holding onto. His darkness, always there, was pulled to the fore, because this man would take from him what he had deemed to be his. Under his protection. He dove right into that part of him he’d always been afraid of, drew it to the surface, and wrapped it around him like armor. A slow, sadistic smile spread over his face, and when he raised his head to look at Malkior, his eyes were black from lid to lid, unfathomably dark, as though they absorbed light rather than reflecting it. “I’m glad you seem to like pain, Malkior,” he said, his voice lower and raspier than his usual tones. “Because you’re about to become intimately acquainted with it.”
This seemed to amuse his ancestor more than anything, and Balthasar snarled, pulling his lips back from his teeth and baring fangs that extended past his lower lip, gleaming in the low light conditions. He leaped for the self-styled King, but with a firm hand to his shoulder and the smooth movement of a foot, Malkior had flipped him over in midair and slammed him into the ground, the breath leaving his lungs in a massive gust. It might have ended right there, were it only to two of them, for Malkior’s eyes were white as the blind, and the application of his power was fearsome indeed.
But alone they were not, and Jasper came in next, with more control but just as much power as his son, aiming a kick squarely for the Progenitor’s chest, one which went sailing through empty air when he simply disappeared, reappearing not ten feet away, the same self-assured smirk firmly upon his face. “You should control your rabid dog better, boy. He’s a little feisty. I could put him down for you—such beasts have little place in the world.”
“Balthasar,” his father reprimanded, his voice stern and urgent in equal measure. “Control yourself.” Power is nothing without restraint, his father had often told him. Balthasar was still finding it hard to care. His father was not watching those images flit over the back of his mind. He wasn’t hearing the one he loved become the victim of the world’s most heinous crime. He wanted nothing more than to rip out Malkior’s throat and then kill him as slowly as he possibly could. Hell, he might bring him back just so he could kill him again, and these were not the kinds of thoughts Balthasar had ever entertained before, about anyone. Their power and brutal violence left his better self with no idea how to handle the situation, and so the part of him that was dark and vengeful and enraged and possessive was coping for him.
He climbed to his feet just as the pressure on his mind suddenly increased. Malkior was wielding his inborn compulsion abilities on them now, and it was something more agonizing than Balthasar had ever experienced. He pushed back, already disposed to be violent anyway, and his aura flared in response. He felt his father’s power join his, like two pairs of arms holding off the same crushing physical weight, and with a collective heave, they pushed back, their efforts breaking apart just short of subjugating Malkior instead. The Progenitor of his race seemed genuinely surprised by that, but he had no time to mention it, because Balthasar was on him again, this time managing to carry him to the ground, training forgotten in a primal rush, fueled only by the need to kill. To protect what was his from that which would utterly destroy it. To survive. The fact that he wasn’t thinking much was the only thing that saved his ancestor, so when his teeth sank viciously into flesh, it was that stretched over the muscles of Malkior’s forearm rather than his throat.
With a strength driven by desperate fury, Balthasar tore, half the muscle of the forearm coming away with his teeth, and he spat the flesh out to the side, snarling with bloody lips and teeth at the man beneath him. This foe was not so mighty, who presumed to take what was his.
“Balthasar!” was the only warning he got, and then he was stabbed violently with Malkior’s other hand. Only the warning gave him enough time to jerk backwards such that the Progenitor was unable to get a grip on his heart and pull it free of his chest, but the wound was grave, and he fell to the side, red staining the white sand of the otherworld. Before Malkior could finish the job, Jasper was there. It had been impossible to interfere when the man and his son were in such a close grapple, but now he was able to grab the Progenitor and transport them both several hundred yards away.
“So,” Malkior said, slightly short of breath, his left arm dangling uselessly without most of the muscle on the bottom half of it. “You’ve discovered how it works. Perhaps you are my heir after all. Theodor was clearly a fool to underestimate you. The blood of the King is yours, as well.”
“We are not kings,” Jasper replied. “We are guardians.”
Malkior laughed, a harsh, grating sound, and his white eyes met their twin pair across the field. “Guardians? Of what? A world unworthy of us, bendable to our every whim? Buzzing insects who move about at our feet, worthless save as petty amusement? No… kings is an understatement, Jasper von Nacht. King of the Night. We are more even than that. We are gods.” This time, Malkior initiated, surging forwards despite his injury and striking with his other hand, a blow which Jasper only barely dodged. Here, in this place, with their power extended to its ever-increasing upper limit, reaching for the end of their capabilities, the two warped over the endless desert, trading and canceling blows, with bodies and minds. A thought alone opened up a grave wound, but another thought closed it. They summoned fire and ice and all manner of fantastic, nonexistent creatures, only for all of it to be countered or banished with an exercise of the other’s force. The world turned upside down and inside out, reality warping and twisting so quickly it scarcely mattered at all.
What was real was only their minds, and the things they chose to bring about. But the effort was not without cost, and days, weeks, months… perhaps years later, they both felt themselves grow tired. Something had to happen, something had to change, else this would continue until both were dead from sheer exhaustion. Jasper felt himself beginning to forget things—things he had once held closer than anything. Time would do that, time and constant exertion. He felt himself losing the names of his friends, the sound of the violin, the certain confident smirk of a cousin, his daughter’s laughter, his mother’s tears.
He lost his dreams and his ambitions and his sons and his family. He began to forget the details of her face, the way her eyes would spark with amusement, her scent. The way her skin felt against his. What color was her hair again? Was it so soft as he had thought a moment ago? Why did he fight this way, and had there been a time when he did not?
Who was he?
The fact that this question had no answer was alarming, enough so that he faltered in his movement for just a second, a bare moment. But it was all his opponent needed, and in that moment, he knew that, whomever he was, he was going to die now. To cease, to end.
And yet he did not.
Another body blocked the way, taking the blow for him and surprising both of the combatants. His foe’s hand emerged from the other’s back, and that new presence fell back into the sand again. Again? Had he seen this before? This gushing of blood, this familiar scent? That face—
It all came back with his son’s face. Balthasar’s eyes bored into his own, as white as new-fallen snow, and he coughed, leaking blood from his nose and his mouth, that white fading back into a silvery blue. He recalled the first time he’d ever seen the color, the day his first child was born. He’d held the fragile life in his hands, filled with a singular sense of awe and wonder, and had sworn only to himself that this life, he would always protect. This life would not end before his own. Because this life was his son, his child, a part of himself, and a part of the woman he loved more than anything in the world. And this life was fading before his eyes.
Jasper almost fell then and there, for in fact he felt himself tearing apart at the seams. Afterwards, he could recall very little of what happened next. All he remembered was the feel of flesh tearing underneath his claws, the unwanted taste of blood on his tongue that he had no desire for, and a red haze over his vision. When it was done and his ancestor was dust, he tore apart the fabric of the reality they had been trapped in, and he knew it was all he could give. He had nothing left. His power was spent, had been spent, over what was centuries in this place but mere minutes to the world that existed outside Malkior’s domain. His memories came back to him in a flood, but they were overwhelmed by the tide of a grief so deep he felt himself being sucked under, and unaware of what happened around him, he fell to his knees beside Balthasar, his first child, the one who had taught him the wonder of life itself in a way he had never known, who had grown up so closely in his own image that he sometimes felt guilty about it.
The wound was grievous, and it was clear that the light behind his child’s eyes was dying. “Balthasar,” he choked, and he could see the man’s gaze trying to focus.
“Dad… where’s… Rica? Is she… okay? I want to… see… Ri…ca…” his words became increasingly inhibited by the blood bubbling in his lungs, and his healing factor was doing all it could, but he was just as exhausted as Jasper was, just as pushed to the brink of exhaustion. And now he was on the brink of death, and all he could think about was the safety of the woman he loved above all others.
If it had been any other situation, Jasper would have smiled. As it was, he lifted his eyes, seeking the girl out.
Alarica lay in her spot, a small smile spread across her lips as she and her cousins celebrated their victory. Her eyes were closed, enjoying the cool breeze against her heated skin, however; a scent filled her nose, and immediately, she sat up. A bright smile littered her face before it twisted into a horrified expression. She had glanced in the direction his scent had came from, however; she had noticed it was extremely strong. When her eyes met her uncle's, she immediately stood, all fatigue leaving her system. It was replaced by adrenaline, she could feel it coursing through her veins. Why was he on the ground? Why was he bleeding? She could feel her heart stop beating, could feel her breath hitch in her throat as she fell down on her knees.
"No...no, no, no," she chanted, cradling Balthasar's head in her lap, running her fingers through his hair as she tried to keep herself from crying. "Bal...thasar...you're okay," she stated, trying to reassure him, herself, that he was okay, that he wasn't wounded as he was. Her eyes traveled to his wound, and immediately she could feel the back of her eyes burning. She could feel her tears pool in her eyes, falling, leaving trails down her cheek as they landed softly around her. Some landed upon his face as she lowered her head to his, touching her forehead to his as her shoulders shook. She couldn't lose him.
She'd lost Mikhail, she almost lost her brother, she almost died. Why? It was unfair. She loved him, and she knew there was nothing that she could do. Even glancing towards her uncle, the bright lights in her eyes dulled, she knew there was nothing he could do either. All of her blood, all of her healing properties, would do nothing for Balthasar. "You promised, you little shit," she spoke, her voice soft, broken, as she clutched him tightly. "You promised me you wouldn't die, that was our promise, Balthasar. You promised," she stated, her voice growing with each syllable as she tried to keep the choked sobs from escaping her. It was their promise, that no matter what, they would return to each other. That they would survive, live, if only to see each other.
"You can't leave me. Even if I have to follow you, you can't leave me," she continued. She could feel the painful lurch in her heart as she stared at him, the light in his eyes fading as fast as the light faded from hers. Her eyes narrowed softly at him, her hands grabbing the sides of his face as she leaned over him. "You told me you were at my mercy, only mine. You told me once to command you, and you would do it. I am commanding you now, Balthasar von Nacht, you will not die. You will come back to me...please," she whispered the last word so softly, as if it were a fragile glass that would break if she spoke any louder. With that, she pressed her lips even softer upon his. She couldn't lose him...she couldn't.
She was there. He could feel the others, these people he loved and cared about, but at the moment, the only thing he had enough attention to really notice was her. Balthasar forced his eyes to stay open a little longer, sharpening his focus until her face resolved into view above him. “So beautiful…” he breathed, the first of her words not really registering. He could only hear the gradually-dying roaring in his ears, one that subsided to something muffled, something faint. With a trembling hand, he reached up, bloody fingers caressing the perfect white of her cheek, leaving a crimson stain. He almost felt bad about it, because it marred her perfection, just a little. Perhaps he was doing that now, marring her with his presence and then his absence. It was hard to say, and the thoughts were fuzzy.
Something warm and wet fell on his face, and he rested the palm of his raised hand gently on her cheek. “Shh…” he murmured soothingly. “Don't cry, Rica. I’m so… glad…” His breath gave out on him before he could finish the thought. He was so glad that she was alive. Glad that she would never have to fall victim to the horrors Malkior had shown him. Glad that she would be able to live, to exist in this world that was not good enough for her but would have to do. She made it better by being in it, didn’t she know? He should have told her, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth, and there were many things that he could not stir it to say.
He managed a weak chuckle when her voice at last made it far enough to register. Little shit, was he? He supposed she might be right, though he really couldn’t say at the moment. His smile was thin, but he managed to hold onto it, though her voice faded in and out of his hearing, and his eyes lost their focus, half-lidding as his breathing dropped to a shallow pitch that barely even stirred his chest. His hand gave out and dropped. The last thing he felt, long after his vision and his hearing and even his sense of smell had gone, was the tender press of soft lips on his, and he gathered all that remained to him in his lungs, expelling his last breath to speak the most important words he’d ever uttered, and the truest:
And then his breath stirred no more, and the heart lodged in his chest simply ceased. There was no grand deed, no great declaration, no blaze of glory. He did not die without regrets, he had not expired with nothing left to lose. This was the simple reality of death: a man, of power and general good disposition, but a man all the same, leaving this world with thoughts of those he loved held close to the heart of hearts that would pass from here to the void of spirits. He was only a man, who had had a family, and loved a woman, dying before his due. But he went quietly, because at least, in the very end, Balthasar von Nacht had done the one thing he had always promised himself he would do: he had ended the war, and protected those that meant everything to him.
His duty was done.
Those were the last words that registered in her mind before she felt him leave. His breathing stopped, his heart beat no longer, and Alarica couldn't breathe. Her eyes were wide, her own heart stopping as it clenched tightly against her chest. Her mouth opened and closed, no words being produced as she simply stared at his face. It wouldn't be long before he disappeared, shattered into pieces in her hands, however; it felt like all of time stopped. She couldn't hear anything, see nor smell anything that wasn't him. Nothing else mattered, except for him. He was gone. He wasn't coming back, and it was taking its toll on Alarica's mind.
"Bal...tha...sar," she spoke, her voice completely void of everything. "Balthasar, wake up...wake up Balthasar," she continued, afraid to shake him though as she stared at him. She couldn't see anything passed the blurry lines as her vision became clouded with tears. He was smiling still, his face still pulled into a gentle smile, and she still couldn't bring herself to breathe. He wasn't dead. He was asleep. He was just sleeping, she tried to fool herself. But he was dead. He was dead and he wasn't coming back. A scream tore from her throat as she yelled his name. He was dead. He was dead. Those were the only words that repeated in her mind.
"I love you, I'm sorry, I love you, please come back," she spoke, the memories fluttering over her mind like some kind of horror movie. Everything played in her mind, from the moment she was born, to the years she spent growing up in his company, playing the piano with him, giggling and laughing with him. Then, the three years she spent ignoring him, the year he was with her, up until the moment in the tree, when she confessed, when he confessed. And then, the moment they shared that day fluttered over in her mind. The last thing she saw, was his face, slowly losing its light before he completely stopped breathing.
"Please....don't leave me," she whispered so softly, resting her forehead against his. It was only a matter of seconds now before he'd disappear forever, in her arms. He wouldn't be around any longer, he wouldn't be here to be with her, to be near her. She would never be able to feel him again, kiss him again. He would be out of her reach. "You bastard, come back to me, please," she choked out, another scream tearing from her throat as the tears blinded her, falling in cascades upon his face. He was dead...
His niece said with torn voice what he felt in his heart, but Jasper’s refusal to believe that his son was dead was laced with something else. He could feel it there, the last fragment of his power, flickering like a lonely candle. He could sense the bounds of this reality, and desired to tear at them, unmake and remake everything around him until Balthasar was alive and awake once more, but that candle didn’t have quite enough to do something so momentous. But… he knew that his son was moments, breaths, from disappearing, and the candlelight flared. Jasper knew what he had to do.
Reaching inside with desperate strength, he moved a hand to rest on his son’s shoulder, and lent the fragile for of his unoccupied body, once so strong and vital and immutable, the stability it needed not to fade away into nothingness. This reality, the bubble of space and time that enclosed the three of them, shimmered and wavered and froze so that to those standing outside of it they seemed to be in a strange, crystallized stasis. Within, however, it seemed rather the reverse—as though they were the only things that moved, and everything else had slowed to a standstill. “Alarica,” Jasper ground out between his teeth, the effort of maintaining even this nearly beyond him now. The strain was evident in the set of his musculature, half-bent over his eldest, the lines around his eyes hard with the effort of intense focus.
“Alarica, listen to me. Remember what Balthasar did, when he saved you? You need to do that for him now. Focus. Find him the way he found you. Bring him back… please.” His voice cracked on the last word, but he could offer no more direction than that. Reality in this zone was unstable, the barrier between this world and the realm of the dead thin. If he could keep this up, she could pass, and he could keep the door propped open on this side. But it would take Balthasar to open it back up on that one. She had to seek him not with her hands or her voice or her eyes, but with her very self, her essence, what some would call her heart and her soul, or he would become as Yuki was now. One spirit among many, reachable for the rarely-talented, but truly with them no longer.
He could not bear it, but for once, all his power and his might was not enough. They would have to save him with the most fragile thing of all: the heart of a woman who had just lost her beloved. It simplymust be enough.
She couldn't focus on anything other than his face. He looked so peaceful, and she was loathe to try and wake him. He was asleep, and she gently stroked his bangs away from his eyes. He was dead. He was asleep. No, he was dead. The only words that managed to snap her out of her stupor were the words of her uncle, and she turned to face him, her eyes blank, having lost all vibrancy of them, and red from the tears. She could see his mouth moving, barely making out the words as her eyes widened. What he did for her? She turned to face Balthasar once more, that memory fluttering over as she tried to hold back another sob. She needed to help him, she had to help him.
"I'm coming for you, Balthasar," she spoke, her voice laced with a sense of purpose, of determination. Her eyes flashed a brilliant crimson, retaining the vibrancy once more as she stared at her uncle. "I'll bring him back, uncle. I'll bring him back," she stated before she disappeared. She felt empty, as if she were just empty air in the space between. She couldn't see much of anything, and a frown pulled at her face. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn't find him the normal way, the way she would have to simply smell for him. She couldn't smell much of anything really.
"Balthasar" she called out, unsurity laced in her voice. What was she supposed to do? She was lost, she felt lost.
As if triggered by her words, something seemed to latch onto Alarica, pulling her until she came to stand in a space that was… grey. More than it was anything else, it was grey. The expanse above her was flat, with little sense of depth or space, and as far as she would be able to tell, whatever was beneath her feet was the same. She could not see it, though, for a thick fog, chill and dank, coiled around her, rising to about the level of her thighs. It moved, the only indication that motion was even possible in this place, but it didn’t move much, stirred only by the occasional shifting of her muscles. Time itself seemed to be still here, or at least consequential—there was no way to tell how much of it had passed. The fog seemed to rise ahead of her, obscuring her view of what lay ahead, but one thing was certain—something was there.
Balthasar wasn’t sure how long he’d been here. The first thing he heard was the singing, in that strange spirit-language that he’d learned because Bryer was learning it and it seemed like a good thing to do. The thought brought him no pain, no twinge of regret, because really, regretting anything seemed like such a strange idea now. Slowly, he gave up those things, the things that dissatisfied him with his presence here. He couldn’t hold onto them—something about this place would not let him. As he relinquished them, he forgot other things, too. Words like friend, cousin, brother, mother, sister, father. Words that had once meant so much to him were just swallowed up by the grey, and they were replaced by other words, in a raspy, lilting tongue that seemed to come naturally to him.
Still, something tethered him to the grey. He had found a line in it, a line where the grey ended and the unseeable void began. He could hear the singing coming from beyond the line, and he knew that that place beyond was there he was supposed to be. The mist thinned here, swirling around his knees as he walked, paced the line and looked out into the great nothingness beyond. He recognized some of those voices; one called to him with a familiar sweetness and affection. But no matter how many times he resolved that he would step over the line and join them, join her, something else held him back. Something stronger, but unnamable. It was like a chain, wrapped around his throat and his arms and his chest and legs, invisible and only tightening when he thought about taking that last step.
It would not let him go, and he could not see to find it in him to let it go. But as time passed, the chain grew weaker. He could feel it, like it was rusting or thinning out into nothing, and so he simply waited. Waited for whatever bound him to before to release him, and let him go forward.
She did not resist whatever force pulled her to wherever it was she was going to. She simply allowed it, waiting for it to be finished with. She found herself in a space of grey, and she rose a confused brow. Where was she? What was this place? These questions did not bear much thought as something stirred in her, something familiar. She followed her legs, allowing them to lead her to where this feeling was radiating from. She started off in a brisk walk, trotting lightly before breaking out into a full run. She knew this feeling, she knew it better than she knew herself. She could feel her heart racing, pounding against her chest before she came to an abrupt stop.
"Balthasar? Balthasar!" she nearly shouted his name, running to him, stopping only inches away from him. Her face lit up when she spotted him, however; it dimmed just as quickly when she noted the shape he was in. There was something about the look in his eyes, the way his face seemed to be hardened a bit, however; it was nothing compared to the moment of joy she was currently feeling. She found him, and that was all that mattered. "Balthasar, come back, please. Your father, he's trying everything he can to keep you from leaving us," she stated, placing both of her hands on his cheek in the process.
"We need you...I need you," she spoke, her voice firm and unwavering. She could hear it crack just a bit, but she could not falter. She must not falter. "Please, come back to me," she continued, the tears threatening to fall from her eyes again, but she held them at bay. She must focus on what was most important: bringing Balthasar back.
For a moment, the singing, even the familiar voice, was drowned out, as someone else called his name. He felt a stirring in his chest, where his heart used to be, and he was surprised he remembered the name for such a thing. He turned to locate the source of the voice, and if there had been any breath left in his body, it would have stilled at the sight of her. She was lovely, and achingly familiar, in a way that he could not place. He felt as if he had not only seen her before, but spoken to her, touched her, even. But how was such a thing possible? He’d been here for as long as he could remember, listening to the music and waiting for the chains to let him go.
He could feel them again, now, at once weaker and stronger than they had been before. Her presence seemed to reinforce them, and Balthasar was unsure how to feel about that. He stared incredulously at her as she placed a hand on either side of his face, the touch of her fingers warm and soft on the cold pallor of his skin. Funny… that seemed wrong, somehow, like he was the one used to being warmer, with someone smaller enfolded in his arms, a breath of winter and the smell of something at once crisp and sweet. Raspberries and mint? It was with a vague and blossoming sense of wonder that he reached up, running his fingers slowly through a section of her pristine tresses. She seemed something divine to him, beautiful and terrible, with hair like moonlight and blood streaking her cheek. How could she possibly have found him? Why would she need him?
But he remembered her—just little fragments of things. That scent, this silky texture between his fingers. The smooth perfection of her skin. She wasn’t smiling now, but he found that he knew exactly what it would look like if she did. The expression was sublime, and had once set his heart to thundering, infusing his skin with a strange warmth. She was part of him, an indispensible part. He’d never told her, but he suspected that his fire, the flames he called from nowhere, were white because the color was hers to him, though others that he knew shared it. Not like she had it. He recalled words whispered into the stillness before death, the press of her mouth to his, the taste of her tears.
And it clicked into place, gently at first, and then with a violence that surprised him. He’d thought he’d never see her again. Balthasar moved suddenly, banding his arms around her and pulling her as closely to him as their solidity would allow, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “Rica…” he exhaled, the sound full of anguish. He shook against her, and held her only the tighter, as if to preserve her warmth against the hollow chill of this place. “Rica, you fool. What have you done? This place is only for the dead—you shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here.” He’d died satisfied that she would live. If she was here… then his efforts to preserve her, the one he loved above all others, were in vain.
She let out something of a strangled sob when he grabbed her, pulling her to him, and her arms wrapped instinctively around him. She wept into his shoulder when he spoke, telling her she shouldn't be here, and he was right, she shouldn't be. But neither should he. He shouldn't be here either. He was supposed to be with her, living happily, rebuilding the world together. She tried to find the words to speak, but currently found herself unable to. She was in his arms, in his embrace, and he was all that mattered. Something in her heart broke just a little when he said that she couldn't be there, that she can't be there. She frowned, pulling back from him in the process.
"I came for you, you idiot. You shouldn't be here either. You promised me that we would have the rest of forever for us. You said that we would go and do whatever it is that I wanted, and you said..." she stated, her voice laced with the same hurt tone she had once used before. "I belong wherever you are. Be it here, in this realm with the dead, or back home, where everyone is waiting for us to return. I told you, I love you and would do anything for you. If you must die, then I will die and be here with you. You are all that matters to me. What is my life without you in it?" she stated, tears pulling at the corners of her eyes.
It was true, her life held no meaning without him in it. If he was so bent on remaining in this place, then she would not fight it. She would stay with him, accept her death alongside him. "It has no meaning. I would be nothing without you, Balthasar. How could you ever expect me to live if I cannot hear you anymore, see you, love you, kiss you, need you? I can't live in a world without your voice in it. I can't," and she wouldn't. She would not accept that fact. "So please, do not tell me to go without you, because I won't. I won't leave without you. We are in this together...remember?" she stated, tears running down her face as she brought her lips into a bright smile. It was all she could do now, smile.
It was like dying all over again. He’d never meant to hurt her, never meant to break his promises. But what else could he have done? Malkior… had he been allowed to live, he would have destroyed everything Balthasar loved, including her. His father had needed a chance, an opening to destroy him, and Balthasar had given it in the only way possible for him in that moment. He stared hard at Rica, and the regret swam in the liquid depths of his eyes anyway. For how he had hurt her. “Then here I am,” he said softly. “You can hear me and see me. Love me and need me as long as you want to.” He used the pads of his thumbs to brush the tears away from her eyes and slowly closed the distance between them, feathering his lips with all the delicacy he had in him over her brow, her closed lids, her cheekbones, slowly, slowly, until he captured her lips. She was, after all, always welcome to kiss him, too.
“But you cannot die, my beloved. I will not let you.” If that meant he had to find a way to get the both of them out of here, then so be it. Effortlessly, he picked her up, one arm bracing her back, the other beneath her knees. “Don’t let go,” he said gently, and he turned once more to look at the Void. The songs seemed desperate, but no longer so sweet to his ears. Not when he could pick up on the softness of her breath, the cadence of her voice, instead. Turning away from it, he moved, picking up his pace into a smooth run before he leapt into the air, catching himself with not his gravity, but the simple desire to fly.
Time was strange, and he knew not how much of it passed while he followed the chains worn thin as threads, barely tethering him—them—to the world from whence they had come. He could feel his father in them, and he followed them with desperate speed, his jaw tightening as they grew tenser and thinner, as though a single touch would split them in twain. He reached the edge just as they started snapping, and with a great effort, he tore open the barrier between life and death, plunging the both of them through just as the last of the threads gave beneath the strain of pulling them forward.
Balthasar’s body heaved a great breath, and his eyes flew open to the faces of Rica and his father hovering over him, the latter looking more exhausted than his son had ever seen him. His hand moved to the wound in his chest, but he found only smooth, unblemished skin there. Blinking, he sat up slowly, the pounding in his head timed in synchronization with the one in his heart. Jasper fell back to sit heavily on the ground, but the smile on his face said enough. Balthasar returned it, watching as the shimmering boundary between they and the rest of the world fell. To those outside, it had been less than a minute, but the three inside had felt it like a year. The blue-eyed von Nacht heaved a sigh of relief, raising an arm to his relatives so that they knew everything was fine, at least on this end. He watched no few lines of tension ease, and relieved smiles crossed the faces of at least Ava, Leo, and Alden, who were in his direct line of sight.
At last, though, he turned to Alarica. “Looks like I can keep my promises after all,” he murmured, smiling gently.
There were no words to describe the sensation that pulsed through her being, smiling against his lips when he kissed her, and allowed the tears to still fall freely from her eyes. "Forever and always, I will," she replied as she tightened her grip on him, afraid that if she let go, he would disappear again. They flew through the air, and had Alarica cared much, it would have been an euphoric feeling, however; as it was, she did not care about it. What she cared about was the one she was currently holding, and he holding her. He was all that mattered, and she could not ask for anything more than to have him back.
They exited the realm, and Alarica's eyes flew open in time to see Balthasar sit up slowly and wave to his relatives. Her eyes were filled once more with tears, however; they were not tears of sadness, but of joy. She lunged herself to him, wrapping him in her arms as she allowed the tears to fall freely, burying her head into his neck in the process. "You'd better have," she managed to choke out between sobs. She did not care that her family was around, because they all knew how she felt, and she rubbed the tears from her eyes, her body still encasing what it could of Balthasar, and she smiled. "Don't you ever do that to me again, you fool," she spoke, leaning forward to capture his lips, kissing him as deeply as she could, not caring if the whole world was there to see them.
"No...no, no, no," she chanted, cradling Balthasar's head in her lap, running her fingers through his hair as she tried to keep herself from crying. "Bal...thasar...you're okay," she stated, trying to reassure him, herself, that he was okay, that he wasn't wounded as he was. Her eyes traveled to his wound, and immediately she could feel the back of her eyes burning. She could feel her tears pool in her eyes, falling, leaving trails down her cheek as they landed softly around her. Some landed upon his face as she lowered her head to his, touching her forehead to his as her shoulders shook. She couldn't lose him.
She'd lost Mikhail, she almost lost her brother, she almost died. Why? It was unfair. She loved him, and she knew there was nothing that she could do. Even glancing towards her uncle, the bright lights in her eyes dulled, she knew there was nothing he could do either. All of her blood, all of her healing properties, would do nothing for Balthasar. "You promised, you little shit," she spoke, her voice soft, broken, as she clutched him tightly. "You promised me you wouldn't die, that was our promise, Balthasar. You promised," she stated, her voice growing with each syllable as she tried to keep the choked sobs from escaping her. It was their promise, that no matter what, they would return to each other. That they would survive, live, if only to see each other.
"You can't leave me. Even if I have to follow you, you can't leave me," she continued. She could feel the painful lurch in her heart as she stared at him, the light in his eyes fading as fast as the light faded from hers. Her eyes narrowed softly at him, her hands grabbing the sides of his face as she leaned over him. "You told me you were at my mercy, only mine. You told me once to command you, and you would do it. I am commanding you now, Balthasar von Nacht, you will not die. You will come back to me...please," she whispered the last word so softly, as if it were a fragile glass that would break if she spoke any louder. With that, she pressed her lips even softer upon his. She couldn't lose him...she couldn't.
She was there. He could feel the others, these people he loved and cared about, but at the moment, the only thing he had enough attention to really notice was her. Balthasar forced his eyes to stay open a little longer, sharpening his focus until her face resolved into view above him. “So beautiful…” he breathed, the first of her words not really registering. He could only hear the gradually-dying roaring in his ears, one that subsided to something muffled, something faint. With a trembling hand, he reached up, bloody fingers caressing the perfect white of her cheek, leaving a crimson stain. He almost felt bad about it, because it marred her perfection, just a little. Perhaps he was doing that now, marring her with his presence and then his absence. It was hard to say, and the thoughts were fuzzy.
Something warm and wet fell on his face, and he rested the palm of his raised hand gently on her cheek. “Shh…” he murmured soothingly. “Don't cry, Rica. I’m so… glad…” His breath gave out on him before he could finish the thought. He was so glad that she was alive. Glad that she would never have to fall victim to the horrors Malkior had shown him. Glad that she would be able to live, to exist in this world that was not good enough for her but would have to do. She made it better by being in it, didn’t she know? He should have told her, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth, and there were many things that he could not stir it to say.
He managed a weak chuckle when her voice at last made it far enough to register. Little shit, was he? He supposed she might be right, though he really couldn’t say at the moment. His smile was thin, but he managed to hold onto it, though her voice faded in and out of his hearing, and his eyes lost their focus, half-lidding as his breathing dropped to a shallow pitch that barely even stirred his chest. His hand gave out and dropped. The last thing he felt, long after his vision and his hearing and even his sense of smell had gone, was the tender press of soft lips on his, and he gathered all that remained to him in his lungs, expelling his last breath to speak the most important words he’d ever uttered, and the truest:
“I love you.”
And then his breath stirred no more, and the heart lodged in his chest simply ceased. There was no grand deed, no great declaration, no blaze of glory. He did not die without regrets, he had not expired with nothing left to lose. This was the simple reality of death: a man, of power and general good disposition, but a man all the same, leaving this world with thoughts of those he loved held close to the heart of hearts that would pass from here to the void of spirits. He was only a man, who had had a family, and loved a woman, dying before his due. But he went quietly, because at least, in the very end, Balthasar von Nacht had done the one thing he had always promised himself he would do: he had ended the war, and protected those that meant everything to him.
His duty was done.
I love you.
Those were the last words that registered in her mind before she felt him leave. His breathing stopped, his heart beat no longer, and Alarica couldn't breathe. Her eyes were wide, her own heart stopping as it clenched tightly against her chest. Her mouth opened and closed, no words being produced as she simply stared at his face. It wouldn't be long before he disappeared, shattered into pieces in her hands, however; it felt like all of time stopped. She couldn't hear anything, see nor smell anything that wasn't him. Nothing else mattered, except for him. He was gone. He wasn't coming back, and it was taking its toll on Alarica's mind.
"Bal...tha...sar," she spoke, her voice completely void of everything. "Balthasar, wake up...wake up Balthasar," she continued, afraid to shake him though as she stared at him. She couldn't see anything passed the blurry lines as her vision became clouded with tears. He was smiling still, his face still pulled into a gentle smile, and she still couldn't bring herself to breathe. He wasn't dead. He was asleep. He was just sleeping, she tried to fool herself. But he was dead. He was dead and he wasn't coming back. A scream tore from her throat as she yelled his name. He was dead. He was dead. Those were the only words that repeated in her mind.
"I love you, I'm sorry, I love you, please come back," she spoke, the memories fluttering over her mind like some kind of horror movie. Everything played in her mind, from the moment she was born, to the years she spent growing up in his company, playing the piano with him, giggling and laughing with him. Then, the three years she spent ignoring him, the year he was with her, up until the moment in the tree, when she confessed, when he confessed. And then, the moment they shared that day fluttered over in her mind. The last thing she saw, was his face, slowly losing its light before he completely stopped breathing.
"Please....don't leave me," she whispered so softly, resting her forehead against his. It was only a matter of seconds now before he'd disappear forever, in her arms. He wouldn't be around any longer, he wouldn't be here to be with her, to be near her. She would never be able to feel him again, kiss him again. He would be out of her reach. "You bastard, come back to me, please," she choked out, another scream tearing from her throat as the tears blinded her, falling in cascades upon his face. He was dead...
His niece said with torn voice what he felt in his heart, but Jasper’s refusal to believe that his son was dead was laced with something else. He could feel it there, the last fragment of his power, flickering like a lonely candle. He could sense the bounds of this reality, and desired to tear at them, unmake and remake everything around him until Balthasar was alive and awake once more, but that candle didn’t have quite enough to do something so momentous. But… he knew that his son was moments, breaths, from disappearing, and the candlelight flared. Jasper knew what he had to do.
Reaching inside with desperate strength, he moved a hand to rest on his son’s shoulder, and lent the fragile for of his unoccupied body, once so strong and vital and immutable, the stability it needed not to fade away into nothingness. This reality, the bubble of space and time that enclosed the three of them, shimmered and wavered and froze so that to those standing outside of it they seemed to be in a strange, crystallized stasis. Within, however, it seemed rather the reverse—as though they were the only things that moved, and everything else had slowed to a standstill. “Alarica,” Jasper ground out between his teeth, the effort of maintaining even this nearly beyond him now. The strain was evident in the set of his musculature, half-bent over his eldest, the lines around his eyes hard with the effort of intense focus.
“Alarica, listen to me. Remember what Balthasar did, when he saved you? You need to do that for him now. Focus. Find him the way he found you. Bring him back… please.” His voice cracked on the last word, but he could offer no more direction than that. Reality in this zone was unstable, the barrier between this world and the realm of the dead thin. If he could keep this up, she could pass, and he could keep the door propped open on this side. But it would take Balthasar to open it back up on that one. She had to seek him not with her hands or her voice or her eyes, but with her very self, her essence, what some would call her heart and her soul, or he would become as Yuki was now. One spirit among many, reachable for the rarely-talented, but truly with them no longer.
He could not bear it, but for once, all his power and his might was not enough. They would have to save him with the most fragile thing of all: the heart of a woman who had just lost her beloved. It simplymust be enough.
She couldn't focus on anything other than his face. He looked so peaceful, and she was loathe to try and wake him. He was asleep, and she gently stroked his bangs away from his eyes. He was dead. He was asleep. No, he was dead. The only words that managed to snap her out of her stupor were the words of her uncle, and she turned to face him, her eyes blank, having lost all vibrancy of them, and red from the tears. She could see his mouth moving, barely making out the words as her eyes widened. What he did for her? She turned to face Balthasar once more, that memory fluttering over as she tried to hold back another sob. She needed to help him, she had to help him.
"I'm coming for you, Balthasar," she spoke, her voice laced with a sense of purpose, of determination. Her eyes flashed a brilliant crimson, retaining the vibrancy once more as she stared at her uncle. "I'll bring him back, uncle. I'll bring him back," she stated before she disappeared. She felt empty, as if she were just empty air in the space between. She couldn't see much of anything, and a frown pulled at her face. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn't find him the normal way, the way she would have to simply smell for him. She couldn't smell much of anything really.
"Balthasar" she called out, unsurity laced in her voice. What was she supposed to do? She was lost, she felt lost.
As if triggered by her words, something seemed to latch onto Alarica, pulling her until she came to stand in a space that was… grey. More than it was anything else, it was grey. The expanse above her was flat, with little sense of depth or space, and as far as she would be able to tell, whatever was beneath her feet was the same. She could not see it, though, for a thick fog, chill and dank, coiled around her, rising to about the level of her thighs. It moved, the only indication that motion was even possible in this place, but it didn’t move much, stirred only by the occasional shifting of her muscles. Time itself seemed to be still here, or at least consequential—there was no way to tell how much of it had passed. The fog seemed to rise ahead of her, obscuring her view of what lay ahead, but one thing was certain—something was there.
Balthasar wasn’t sure how long he’d been here. The first thing he heard was the singing, in that strange spirit-language that he’d learned because Bryer was learning it and it seemed like a good thing to do. The thought brought him no pain, no twinge of regret, because really, regretting anything seemed like such a strange idea now. Slowly, he gave up those things, the things that dissatisfied him with his presence here. He couldn’t hold onto them—something about this place would not let him. As he relinquished them, he forgot other things, too. Words like friend, cousin, brother, mother, sister, father. Words that had once meant so much to him were just swallowed up by the grey, and they were replaced by other words, in a raspy, lilting tongue that seemed to come naturally to him.
Still, something tethered him to the grey. He had found a line in it, a line where the grey ended and the unseeable void began. He could hear the singing coming from beyond the line, and he knew that that place beyond was there he was supposed to be. The mist thinned here, swirling around his knees as he walked, paced the line and looked out into the great nothingness beyond. He recognized some of those voices; one called to him with a familiar sweetness and affection. But no matter how many times he resolved that he would step over the line and join them, join her, something else held him back. Something stronger, but unnamable. It was like a chain, wrapped around his throat and his arms and his chest and legs, invisible and only tightening when he thought about taking that last step.
It would not let him go, and he could not see to find it in him to let it go. But as time passed, the chain grew weaker. He could feel it, like it was rusting or thinning out into nothing, and so he simply waited. Waited for whatever bound him to before to release him, and let him go forward.
She did not resist whatever force pulled her to wherever it was she was going to. She simply allowed it, waiting for it to be finished with. She found herself in a space of grey, and she rose a confused brow. Where was she? What was this place? These questions did not bear much thought as something stirred in her, something familiar. She followed her legs, allowing them to lead her to where this feeling was radiating from. She started off in a brisk walk, trotting lightly before breaking out into a full run. She knew this feeling, she knew it better than she knew herself. She could feel her heart racing, pounding against her chest before she came to an abrupt stop.
"Balthasar? Balthasar!" she nearly shouted his name, running to him, stopping only inches away from him. Her face lit up when she spotted him, however; it dimmed just as quickly when she noted the shape he was in. There was something about the look in his eyes, the way his face seemed to be hardened a bit, however; it was nothing compared to the moment of joy she was currently feeling. She found him, and that was all that mattered. "Balthasar, come back, please. Your father, he's trying everything he can to keep you from leaving us," she stated, placing both of her hands on his cheek in the process.
"We need you...I need you," she spoke, her voice firm and unwavering. She could hear it crack just a bit, but she could not falter. She must not falter. "Please, come back to me," she continued, the tears threatening to fall from her eyes again, but she held them at bay. She must focus on what was most important: bringing Balthasar back.
For a moment, the singing, even the familiar voice, was drowned out, as someone else called his name. He felt a stirring in his chest, where his heart used to be, and he was surprised he remembered the name for such a thing. He turned to locate the source of the voice, and if there had been any breath left in his body, it would have stilled at the sight of her. She was lovely, and achingly familiar, in a way that he could not place. He felt as if he had not only seen her before, but spoken to her, touched her, even. But how was such a thing possible? He’d been here for as long as he could remember, listening to the music and waiting for the chains to let him go.
He could feel them again, now, at once weaker and stronger than they had been before. Her presence seemed to reinforce them, and Balthasar was unsure how to feel about that. He stared incredulously at her as she placed a hand on either side of his face, the touch of her fingers warm and soft on the cold pallor of his skin. Funny… that seemed wrong, somehow, like he was the one used to being warmer, with someone smaller enfolded in his arms, a breath of winter and the smell of something at once crisp and sweet. Raspberries and mint? It was with a vague and blossoming sense of wonder that he reached up, running his fingers slowly through a section of her pristine tresses. She seemed something divine to him, beautiful and terrible, with hair like moonlight and blood streaking her cheek. How could she possibly have found him? Why would she need him?
But he remembered her—just little fragments of things. That scent, this silky texture between his fingers. The smooth perfection of her skin. She wasn’t smiling now, but he found that he knew exactly what it would look like if she did. The expression was sublime, and had once set his heart to thundering, infusing his skin with a strange warmth. She was part of him, an indispensible part. He’d never told her, but he suspected that his fire, the flames he called from nowhere, were white because the color was hers to him, though others that he knew shared it. Not like she had it. He recalled words whispered into the stillness before death, the press of her mouth to his, the taste of her tears.
And it clicked into place, gently at first, and then with a violence that surprised him. He’d thought he’d never see her again. Balthasar moved suddenly, banding his arms around her and pulling her as closely to him as their solidity would allow, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “Rica…” he exhaled, the sound full of anguish. He shook against her, and held her only the tighter, as if to preserve her warmth against the hollow chill of this place. “Rica, you fool. What have you done? This place is only for the dead—you shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here.” He’d died satisfied that she would live. If she was here… then his efforts to preserve her, the one he loved above all others, were in vain.
She let out something of a strangled sob when he grabbed her, pulling her to him, and her arms wrapped instinctively around him. She wept into his shoulder when he spoke, telling her she shouldn't be here, and he was right, she shouldn't be. But neither should he. He shouldn't be here either. He was supposed to be with her, living happily, rebuilding the world together. She tried to find the words to speak, but currently found herself unable to. She was in his arms, in his embrace, and he was all that mattered. Something in her heart broke just a little when he said that she couldn't be there, that she can't be there. She frowned, pulling back from him in the process.
"I came for you, you idiot. You shouldn't be here either. You promised me that we would have the rest of forever for us. You said that we would go and do whatever it is that I wanted, and you said..." she stated, her voice laced with the same hurt tone she had once used before. "I belong wherever you are. Be it here, in this realm with the dead, or back home, where everyone is waiting for us to return. I told you, I love you and would do anything for you. If you must die, then I will die and be here with you. You are all that matters to me. What is my life without you in it?" she stated, tears pulling at the corners of her eyes.
It was true, her life held no meaning without him in it. If he was so bent on remaining in this place, then she would not fight it. She would stay with him, accept her death alongside him. "It has no meaning. I would be nothing without you, Balthasar. How could you ever expect me to live if I cannot hear you anymore, see you, love you, kiss you, need you? I can't live in a world without your voice in it. I can't," and she wouldn't. She would not accept that fact. "So please, do not tell me to go without you, because I won't. I won't leave without you. We are in this together...remember?" she stated, tears running down her face as she brought her lips into a bright smile. It was all she could do now, smile.
It was like dying all over again. He’d never meant to hurt her, never meant to break his promises. But what else could he have done? Malkior… had he been allowed to live, he would have destroyed everything Balthasar loved, including her. His father had needed a chance, an opening to destroy him, and Balthasar had given it in the only way possible for him in that moment. He stared hard at Rica, and the regret swam in the liquid depths of his eyes anyway. For how he had hurt her. “Then here I am,” he said softly. “You can hear me and see me. Love me and need me as long as you want to.” He used the pads of his thumbs to brush the tears away from her eyes and slowly closed the distance between them, feathering his lips with all the delicacy he had in him over her brow, her closed lids, her cheekbones, slowly, slowly, until he captured her lips. She was, after all, always welcome to kiss him, too.
“But you cannot die, my beloved. I will not let you.” If that meant he had to find a way to get the both of them out of here, then so be it. Effortlessly, he picked her up, one arm bracing her back, the other beneath her knees. “Don’t let go,” he said gently, and he turned once more to look at the Void. The songs seemed desperate, but no longer so sweet to his ears. Not when he could pick up on the softness of her breath, the cadence of her voice, instead. Turning away from it, he moved, picking up his pace into a smooth run before he leapt into the air, catching himself with not his gravity, but the simple desire to fly.
Time was strange, and he knew not how much of it passed while he followed the chains worn thin as threads, barely tethering him—them—to the world from whence they had come. He could feel his father in them, and he followed them with desperate speed, his jaw tightening as they grew tenser and thinner, as though a single touch would split them in twain. He reached the edge just as they started snapping, and with a great effort, he tore open the barrier between life and death, plunging the both of them through just as the last of the threads gave beneath the strain of pulling them forward.
Balthasar’s body heaved a great breath, and his eyes flew open to the faces of Rica and his father hovering over him, the latter looking more exhausted than his son had ever seen him. His hand moved to the wound in his chest, but he found only smooth, unblemished skin there. Blinking, he sat up slowly, the pounding in his head timed in synchronization with the one in his heart. Jasper fell back to sit heavily on the ground, but the smile on his face said enough. Balthasar returned it, watching as the shimmering boundary between they and the rest of the world fell. To those outside, it had been less than a minute, but the three inside had felt it like a year. The blue-eyed von Nacht heaved a sigh of relief, raising an arm to his relatives so that they knew everything was fine, at least on this end. He watched no few lines of tension ease, and relieved smiles crossed the faces of at least Ava, Leo, and Alden, who were in his direct line of sight.
At last, though, he turned to Alarica. “Looks like I can keep my promises after all,” he murmured, smiling gently.
There were no words to describe the sensation that pulsed through her being, smiling against his lips when he kissed her, and allowed the tears to still fall freely from her eyes. "Forever and always, I will," she replied as she tightened her grip on him, afraid that if she let go, he would disappear again. They flew through the air, and had Alarica cared much, it would have been an euphoric feeling, however; as it was, she did not care about it. What she cared about was the one she was currently holding, and he holding her. He was all that mattered, and she could not ask for anything more than to have him back.
They exited the realm, and Alarica's eyes flew open in time to see Balthasar sit up slowly and wave to his relatives. Her eyes were filled once more with tears, however; they were not tears of sadness, but of joy. She lunged herself to him, wrapping him in her arms as she allowed the tears to fall freely, burying her head into his neck in the process. "You'd better have," she managed to choke out between sobs. She did not care that her family was around, because they all knew how she felt, and she rubbed the tears from her eyes, her body still encasing what it could of Balthasar, and she smiled. "Don't you ever do that to me again, you fool," she spoke, leaning forward to capture his lips, kissing him as deeply as she could, not caring if the whole world was there to see them.
Aryan was not sure how much more of this he could take. He wiped away the blood that ran from his nose again as a certain scent hit him, one that he was not at all alright with. His mind reeled, and his eyes searched desperately for the source, until they landed on his father and his brother.
He could smell his older brother's blood, and it was a lot of it. He wanted move, to be able to help him, but the younger von Nacht could not make his body work. It was as if someone had simply turned a switch off in his brain, and it would not respond. His heart broke when he heard Alarica, and he instinctively tightened his grip on Helen. Many different things ran through his head at once, but the first and foremost was the question why. Why did Balthasar have to die?
Except...that he wasn't. It was only about a fraction of a second, and he sat up again. Aryan blinked, confused, but then simply allowed the relief to flow through him. He didn't claim to understand it, and at the moment, he didn't care, either. They were alive, they were safe. Injured, perhaps, but nothing fatal, at least, not anymore.
It was over.
Even if Helen had been able to move to reach Balthasar, she would not have had the healing energy required to save him. And the thought of that hurt. Though it had only been over the last year that she could really physically tolerate his presence for extended periods of time, he had always, always been kind to her, and understanding when she needed to leave the room should he enter it. What was more, she knew the damage this event would do to Aryan, because it was the same thing that would happen to her if Freya was wounded in such a way, if she… it was hard to even think the thought. But she knew a little more of Malkior’s power, the power he had passed to some of his descendants, than most did. And so she knew that it was not yet hopeless.
The seconds seemed to tick by as slowly as minutes as the air around them shivered and shimmered, and she could not tear her eyes from the scene, not even as her arms tightened around Aryan’s middle, offering what comfort she could. In what was perhaps less than a minute all told, but felt like years, the shimmer disappeared, Jasper sank the rest of the way to the ground, and Balthasar raised a hand to let everyone know he was all right. Helen exhaled a breath she had not known she had been holding.
It was indeed over… but other things were only beginning.
She moved a hand in circles upon Aryan’s back, her forehead pressed into his chest, but after a moment she pulled back a little, looking up at him with concern. She knew he’d been bleeding earlier, from the exertion of using his power, and what of Freyr’s life remained, she used to boost his flagging reserves a bit, the warmth of it spreading from her to him. “Aryan? Are you all right?” he had not spoken n a considerable amount of time, something that was rather unusual, at least when there were things to say. Perhaps there was nothing. But she wanted to hear it, even so.
Aryan smiled weakly down at Helen, nodding slightly. "I'm fine, Helen. I vote that we do not do this again anytime soon, if we can help it." Fighting really just was not something he was made for. He hadn't been injured, but he felt worn out. Even so, Helen's touch alone helped, and for a second, he allowed his eyes to close.
He pressed his lips to her temple before speaking again. "I thought I'd lost you for a second. I love you, Helen." He spoke softly. Now more than ever, it just simply needed said.
Her own eyes fell shut for a moment at the touch of his lips to her temple, and she relaxed further against him. The words, as they always had, warmed and soothed her heart, and though some of that strange, fluttering anxiety remained, the adrenaline still running high in her system and the knowledge that all of this was over at last prompted her to speak. Malkior would not be coming for her. She could… she could stay, possibly forever, and it made her feel like maybe, everything would be all right. Even if she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to handle the situation. At least she was alive to try handling it. At least he was alive to tell.
“Aryan,” she said softly, pressing further into his side. She couldn’t quite bring herself meet his gaze, but she did open her eyes, focusing instead on the point where his hand rested gently on her hip. Like they’d both been made to fit together in this strange, mismatched way they had. It was easier, to think of it as such, because it made it seem like this was just the natural progression of things, like it was part of whatever fate had bound them together, even when neither had been looking for it. He’d been looking elsewhere, and she’d not been looking at all.
“I’m…” she murmured, catching her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m carrying your child.” Such a thing would not normally be discernible so soon, as it had been little more than a month after the… incident, but her attention to the interplay of life and death had informed her not more than a few days into her pregnancy that hers was no longer the only potential life she was supporting. It had taken her a bit longer than that to figure out what it meant, that odd thread of connection she could feel to something else, but she’d said nothing until now. It would only have clouded things, distracted them.
But now there was nothing left to be distracted from. At least, not in this moment.
At first, Aryan did not register her words. When he finally did, it was good he was sitting down, because he would have fallen over. She was...with his...if ever Aryan had a dumbfounded look on his face, now was it. While sometimes Aryan was at a loss for words, there was always at least something going on in his mind. This was not the case at the moment, as his mind was simply one big blank, like white noise. He couldn't think, he couldn't see anything but her, and for a second he forgot how to breathe.
He was...going to be a father. As shocked and terrified as that made him, there was also something that seemed inexpliciably right about it, something that he couldn't explain. There was no planning, and honestly, he hadn't really thought about it very much -though he had thought of it- but now it didn't seem to matter. Gently, he ducked his head so that their foreheads were touching, and for a second, he simply stared into her eyes. He was smiling as he spoke.
"You've already made me the happiest man on the face of this earth, yet I cannot help but think that I would be infinitely more happy if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife. Will you marry me, Helen?"
For a moment—a painfully-long moment—she was unsure how she should take his silence. It was rather uncharacteristic of him, and she had never seen this particular expression on his face before. It was hard to say for sure what it meant. She’d turned her face upwards to look at his, attempting to gauge his reaction properly, only to be frustrated in the effort because it could mean anything.
But then the stillness broke, and she was halfway through a sigh of relief when he spoke, only for it to be stilled right there as it was her turn to forget how to breathe. Helen’s heart lurched in her chest, and her own expression smoothed over into blankness, not because she was trying to hide anything, but because it was simply her instinctive reaction to surprise. She didn’t have to think about it for very long, though, and despite the fact that tears had started streaking down her face at some point, she actually laughed—a sound she had not heard from herself once in the entire duration of her existence. It wasn’t so far different from windchimes, a light, cascading sound of simple, unfettered delight.
Perhaps it was all simply too much, and her hold on sanity was finally gone. But she was warm and happy and enfolded in the one she loved, and for once in her life, Helen just didn’t care about anything outside of this moment. Outside of them. “You have to ask?” she inquired, rising onto her knees and looping her arms around his neck. She paused an inch from his lips, her voice dropped back to a whisper. “Yes.” she said simply, and then she sealed her mouth to his.
There were no longer any words to describe the joy that Aryan felt blossoming through his chest. They were alive, their enemies defeated, and now, he and Helen could start a life together without worrying about what loomed over them or that he would lose her again. They would be married; they would be parents. He chuckled slightly at the thought, and then smiled at Helen. "Just to warn you, Mother may try to hug you when she finds out the news. She very much likes being a grandmother."
Emrys had been hurt to the point where he'd almost died numerous times in his life, but he never really remembered it hurting quite so much. He leaned back against the tree, his mother not far away. He spat out a mouthful of blood, sighing afterwards. He did a mental check; three broken ribs, two cracked, a fractured arm, and he was fairly certain his leg was broken. Being a Dhampir had its perks, but it also had some major downsides, slower healing being the biggest. Even so, he allowed himself to smile. They were alive, and he could smell all the others, too. They had won.
Solaris limped over to him, as the familiar was sporting a broken leg as well, but otherwise the wolf was okay. She laid her head on his lap as he pet her. "Let's not do that again, yeah?"
“Which part?” Alden asked, lowering himself to sit beside his lover with a soft grunt. His entire person was stiff and sore, though he’d obtained no actual injuries. Overexertion was a danger even to the purebloods among them, as he was certain the other members of his own team could attest. “The part where we almost died or the part where we kicked ass? Because I kind of like kicking ass, for the record.” Not that he’d really liked messing around in Freyr’s head much. The Pantheon was kind of fucked-up as a rule, but something about that guy had been particularly oily. Which mostly just meant a distraction was in order, and who better?
With a movement perhaps a bit wearier than usual, Violet gripped the front of Em’s shirt, though he moved to his lover, rather than the other way around, as he was mindful of Emrys’s injuries. They did not stop him from locking their lips together, though he was considerably more merciful than he would otherwise be, figuring that one probably needed to be able to breathe a little more, what with the broken ribs and all. His own fatigue meant that he was panting somewhat heavily when he pulled back a fraction. “Glad you’re alive, lover,” he said wryly, then tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck. It was no Aegis, but it would help Em’s healing all the same.
Emrys chuckled, wincing as he did so. He was happy to see that Alden wasn't hurt; if only the same could be said of him. He smiled though, when Vi kissed him. It was over, and they were alive; they could go home to their son, and that was what mattered. He gave a small sigh of relief as he sank his teeth into his neck. He could feel his bones mending; that was almost as painful as them breaking. That subsided, though, and he leaned back once more.
"I could do without the almost dying part, yes. Though, it'll obviously take more than some wannabe god of thunder to kill a pair of Alistairs." He hummed low in the back of his throat, for a second just reveling in Alden's scent. "I'm glad you're alive too, Vi. I love you." he murmured.
It was actually a little funny. Of all the things they’d shared, those words had never actually been part of it. Whatever it was. They were two people who were quite evidently not interested in being with anyone else, who had sex (a lot of very good sex), a son (perhaps the most adorable kid ever, but that might just be a bit of bias sneaking in), and fit into one another’s lives like they’d been meant to be there. But love had never entered the equation, at least not explicitly. Alden had always been a little afraid of the word, honestly. It wasn’t one that he was wholly comfortable using, because you couldn’t love anyone and do what he did. Not that way, anyhow. So he’d settled on attachment or affection or whatever other, milder thing he felt like on the day, and told himself that was all.
The only person who had ever been able to lie to Violet was Violet.
He huffed a sigh, the tail end of it sounding something almost like a laugh. Em was hopelessly sentimental, and honestly, he was starting to make the Spider a little sentimental himself. And really, what reason was left to be otherwise? The worst of his work was done. He could and would coordinate Aryan’s intelligence networks in the future, but he wouldn’t have to do any of the worst things this war had forced him to. Here it was: happiness, contentment, and it seemed to be reaching for him with callused hands and bright red eyes. Did he deserve it? Probably not, but Alden had learned long ago that nothing in this world was really about what you deserved. Would he take it?
Absolutely.
“Then marry me,” he said abruptly, and though it might have been a joke otherwise, his tone and facial expression were both completely serious. “We’ve been doing all of this in the wrong order from the start, but it hasn’t gone to hell yet. So… marry me, maybe help me raise a few more war orphans. That’s something people do, right? We’ll get a house or something, fuck if I know.” He shrugged, half-smiling and raising an eyebrow. In this, he was just as much an amateur as Emrys or anyone else going through it for the first time. But he found for once that he didn’t need to know everything, because they could figure it out as they went.
Em stared at Violet for a second. Of all the off-hand comments, a proposal was the very last thing he expected. Certainly not from Alden. Really it hadn't even been an entertained thought; Em understood Alden enough to know that his line of work was not one that went hand in hand with whatever twisted relationship they had, and he'd accepted that. But now...there wasn't a need for that type of thing anymore. They were free to be able to do what they wanted. There would still be work, there would always be work, but not of the same caliber that they had done before. Perhaps that was why he didn't hesitate with his answer.
His eyes were like liquid rubies as he gazed at Alden, slipping his fingers into his hair as he said, "Not until you say it, Alden." He would know exactly what he wanted to hear. Emrys was a sentimental fool, after all.
Alden was still smiling slyly, shaking his head just slightly with a soft snort at the condition. “I’m offering the wedding, the kids, and the house, and you want the words?” It was so like him, really. Well… perhaps once, the words would have been the hardest part. Oh sure, he could have said them without trouble—he said things he didn’t mean all the time. Lying and misleading was as easy as breathing to Violet. But he didn’t like lying to family, and he especially didn’t like lying to Emrys. Actually… he was fairly certain he never had, not really. And he wouldn’t now.
“I don’t know what love is, Em,” he admitted. “Not for me. But if it means that I’m done with relationships for work, or relationships that don’t mean anything, that the thought of ever going back makes me sick—if it means that I want the house and the kids and the wedding, but I could do without them because all I need in my life is you, then…” he paused, looking somewhat thoughtful, then shrugged. “Then yes, I love you. Now will you marry me? I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything else to lay on the table here.”
Considering that he was pretty much healed, it was not very difficult to pull his purple-haired lover -or perhaps the word was fiance, now- to him, kissing him with perhaps more heat than the situation warranted, but when did anything they did match the situation, really?
There might have been a time when Emrys hadn't believed him, hearing those words, but not now. They were the truth, and that was all that mattered. "Yes, Alden, I will marry you."
As soon as everything blew over with the return of Al and Uncle Jazz, Leo heaved a sigh of relief and left him to be tended by Rica. Well, tended wasn’t exactly the word, but whatever. She could understand that relief, in knowing that the one you loved was alive and safe. Which was perhaps why she was going to check up on him.
Her dad was mostly uninjured, and with her mother, so she figured that could wait until later also. Keir, however, appeared to be in much worse shape. He was injured in several places, the gashes open and bleeding as they slowly closed up and healed. There was blood everywhere: most of it his, some of it Baldr’s, presumably, and it stained most of his clothes, his exposed skin and his hair. She noticed immediately that the scaly parts of his arms were now uninterrupted, smooth flesh, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what that meant. Keir had always had scales there, since she could remember. And given what she knew about Sagiv…
He didn’t seem to really be registering everything that was going on around him, as though he might still be in shock. So Leora moved her own injured, blood-soaked self over to him, heedless of the damage to her person. She didn’t bother saying anything, because she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to hear her. Besides, they did a lot of their best communicating without talking at all, and that was what she went for here, sliding her arms gently under his and wrapping them around him, standing on her toes and resting her chin on his shoulder. She stepped in close, careful of his injuries but uncaring about the fact that he was covered in gore. She was, too; though it was mostly her own, there was at least a few spatters of Frigga’s on her face, from where Rica had stabbed her while Leo was still holding her down. She let her eyes fall shut, but still, she didn’t speak. What would she say right now?
Keir was simply standing there, his wounds healing slowly, staring off into the space in front of him. It had been where Baldr had dissolved in front of him, and after that, Keir had just sort of frozen in place. There was an empty space in his mind, a hollow resonance that echoed when he reached for it. It felt wrong.
Sagiv had always been there, for as long as he could remember, and now he simply...wasn't. He was gone. The last four words he'd said still resounded in Keir's head, and he reached for them as if that would bring him back.
It was funny, really. Keir had spent almost all of his life trying to get rid of Sagiv, ignore him, lock him away. And now, when he'd finally accepted him, he lost him. He felt lost, but there was also something grounding him. His senses were filled with her, and for a second, it was as if something just broke. His voice was strained as he spoke, wrapping his arms around her. "He's gone, Leo..."
Her arms tightened a bit in response, and she sighed softly, her breath ghosting over his neck. Heedless of the blood in it, Leora stroked his hair softly, repeatedly, feeling a few tears leak out from behind her eyelids. “I know,” she murmured gently, leaning a bit further into him not only of the desire to, but also partly out of need. She’d lost a lot of blood, and remaining on her feet was no easy matter at the moment, but she didn’t care. Her body would recover. She was far more worried about him than herself. “I’m so sorry, Keir.”
Even in his haze, Keir was conscious of her condition, so he sat right where he stood, taking her with him and pulling her into his lap. It hurt, but he would heal. He stroked her hair softly, shutting his eyes. It hurt to know that Sagiv had died saving him, but he still had her. She was alive, and so was he. He sighed softly.
"Don't be, if he hadn't...I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He knew I couldn't stand leaving you. I love you, Leora. I'm glad you're safe." He wouldn't quite say alright, but she was alive.
She couldn’t help the small noise of relief she made when they sank to the ground. She felt less like she’d pass out if he didn’t have to keep herself standing. At his words, though, she pulled back slightly, placing a hand on each side of his face, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. “Hey,” she said softly, blinking away the last of her tears as well as she could. “I’m still sorry. I’m sorry it had to happen, even if I’m glad you’re still here. I love you too, Keir, and I couldn’t have borne losing you, but it’s still worth being sorry for.” What had happened certainly wasn’t nothing, and she’d never make it out to be, even if her relief that it hadn’t been him was overwhelming.
Leora leaned forward, her hands sliding down his jaw and neck to loop loosely around his shoulders, and she kissed him softly. She would always be grateful to Sagiv, then, for letting her keep this man she loved. For giving his life to ensure that Keir would survive. When she parted her lips from his, though, there was a very small smile playing over hers, and she tried to lighten the mood a bit. They were, after all finally done with wars. “Maybe sitting down wasn’t the smartest plan,” she confessed wryly. “I’m… actually pretty sure I can’t stand up again right now.” Her legs felt like jelly from the combination of exertion, injury, and fatigue, and the latter was starting to weigh heavy on her shoulders, compounded by blood loss.
Keir's eyebrows rose slightly, and he chuckled a bit. He repositioned his arms, sliding one under her knees. He kissed her again. He could be strong enough for both of them if he had to be, regardless of how wounded. "Then I guess I'll just have to stand for you, then." For a second he just sat there with her in his arms, holding her.
In truth, he was thinking. He'd been thinking a lot lately, about what they would do after this was all done with. In truth, he was terrified, but he also realized if he didn't get this out now, then he might never get it out at all. For someone who had a lot of spunk, when it came to her, he had no spine. "Marry me, Leo."
Leora, for a moment, lost all the breath in her lungs. It wasn’t as though she’d been expecting to marry anyone else, obviously, and in truth—insecurities aside—she hadn’t expected him to, either. In fact, she had envisioned this moment more than once, and it kept her warm at night on those rare occasions when he did not. But she hadn’t exactly expected it so soon. Well… comparatively soon. Perhaps for a human, a lifetime growing to love someone and two years or so being with them was around the expected duration, but she was used to a world that took such things much more slowly.
Perhaps she should have known he’d never do the thing she expected. In the end, she smiled brilliantly, laying the palm of her hand over his heart. “That wasn’t a question, but I’ll answer it anyway,” she teased, and she might have hit him in the arm except that he was still healing and she didn’t actually want to hurt him. “It feels like a formality, after all we’ve been through,” she continued softly, and it was true. Their relationship had not been at all smooth, and at times, she’d despaired of this fact. But in the end, the fact that they loved each other had been enough to overcome all the other facts, the parts of themselves that were given over to darkness or doubt or fear. She looked up at him then, with molten eyes and a secretive smile, and tilted her head to the side.
“But that doesn’t mean I mind. Of course I’ll marry you, you silly man, if it means I get to keep you forever.” The thought that she could call him her husband and herself his wife was at once strange and thrilling and a little bit daunting, but she knew it was what she wanted. More than she’d ever expected to want anything, honestly. What came after would be for deciding later. After all, they had a lot of time to think about it.
Keir smiled, kissing her again. He was inexplicably happy, and for a moment, he simply reveled in her. Then, he stood up, holding her to him as she held on with her arms around his neck. "Well, I vote we tell my mother first, that way she can get all excited and keep your father from killing me."
He could smell his older brother's blood, and it was a lot of it. He wanted move, to be able to help him, but the younger von Nacht could not make his body work. It was as if someone had simply turned a switch off in his brain, and it would not respond. His heart broke when he heard Alarica, and he instinctively tightened his grip on Helen. Many different things ran through his head at once, but the first and foremost was the question why. Why did Balthasar have to die?
Except...that he wasn't. It was only about a fraction of a second, and he sat up again. Aryan blinked, confused, but then simply allowed the relief to flow through him. He didn't claim to understand it, and at the moment, he didn't care, either. They were alive, they were safe. Injured, perhaps, but nothing fatal, at least, not anymore.
It was over.
Even if Helen had been able to move to reach Balthasar, she would not have had the healing energy required to save him. And the thought of that hurt. Though it had only been over the last year that she could really physically tolerate his presence for extended periods of time, he had always, always been kind to her, and understanding when she needed to leave the room should he enter it. What was more, she knew the damage this event would do to Aryan, because it was the same thing that would happen to her if Freya was wounded in such a way, if she… it was hard to even think the thought. But she knew a little more of Malkior’s power, the power he had passed to some of his descendants, than most did. And so she knew that it was not yet hopeless.
The seconds seemed to tick by as slowly as minutes as the air around them shivered and shimmered, and she could not tear her eyes from the scene, not even as her arms tightened around Aryan’s middle, offering what comfort she could. In what was perhaps less than a minute all told, but felt like years, the shimmer disappeared, Jasper sank the rest of the way to the ground, and Balthasar raised a hand to let everyone know he was all right. Helen exhaled a breath she had not known she had been holding.
It was indeed over… but other things were only beginning.
She moved a hand in circles upon Aryan’s back, her forehead pressed into his chest, but after a moment she pulled back a little, looking up at him with concern. She knew he’d been bleeding earlier, from the exertion of using his power, and what of Freyr’s life remained, she used to boost his flagging reserves a bit, the warmth of it spreading from her to him. “Aryan? Are you all right?” he had not spoken n a considerable amount of time, something that was rather unusual, at least when there were things to say. Perhaps there was nothing. But she wanted to hear it, even so.
Aryan smiled weakly down at Helen, nodding slightly. "I'm fine, Helen. I vote that we do not do this again anytime soon, if we can help it." Fighting really just was not something he was made for. He hadn't been injured, but he felt worn out. Even so, Helen's touch alone helped, and for a second, he allowed his eyes to close.
He pressed his lips to her temple before speaking again. "I thought I'd lost you for a second. I love you, Helen." He spoke softly. Now more than ever, it just simply needed said.
Her own eyes fell shut for a moment at the touch of his lips to her temple, and she relaxed further against him. The words, as they always had, warmed and soothed her heart, and though some of that strange, fluttering anxiety remained, the adrenaline still running high in her system and the knowledge that all of this was over at last prompted her to speak. Malkior would not be coming for her. She could… she could stay, possibly forever, and it made her feel like maybe, everything would be all right. Even if she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to handle the situation. At least she was alive to try handling it. At least he was alive to tell.
“Aryan,” she said softly, pressing further into his side. She couldn’t quite bring herself meet his gaze, but she did open her eyes, focusing instead on the point where his hand rested gently on her hip. Like they’d both been made to fit together in this strange, mismatched way they had. It was easier, to think of it as such, because it made it seem like this was just the natural progression of things, like it was part of whatever fate had bound them together, even when neither had been looking for it. He’d been looking elsewhere, and she’d not been looking at all.
“I’m…” she murmured, catching her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m carrying your child.” Such a thing would not normally be discernible so soon, as it had been little more than a month after the… incident, but her attention to the interplay of life and death had informed her not more than a few days into her pregnancy that hers was no longer the only potential life she was supporting. It had taken her a bit longer than that to figure out what it meant, that odd thread of connection she could feel to something else, but she’d said nothing until now. It would only have clouded things, distracted them.
But now there was nothing left to be distracted from. At least, not in this moment.
At first, Aryan did not register her words. When he finally did, it was good he was sitting down, because he would have fallen over. She was...with his...if ever Aryan had a dumbfounded look on his face, now was it. While sometimes Aryan was at a loss for words, there was always at least something going on in his mind. This was not the case at the moment, as his mind was simply one big blank, like white noise. He couldn't think, he couldn't see anything but her, and for a second he forgot how to breathe.
He was...going to be a father. As shocked and terrified as that made him, there was also something that seemed inexpliciably right about it, something that he couldn't explain. There was no planning, and honestly, he hadn't really thought about it very much -though he had thought of it- but now it didn't seem to matter. Gently, he ducked his head so that their foreheads were touching, and for a second, he simply stared into her eyes. He was smiling as he spoke.
"You've already made me the happiest man on the face of this earth, yet I cannot help but think that I would be infinitely more happy if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife. Will you marry me, Helen?"
For a moment—a painfully-long moment—she was unsure how she should take his silence. It was rather uncharacteristic of him, and she had never seen this particular expression on his face before. It was hard to say for sure what it meant. She’d turned her face upwards to look at his, attempting to gauge his reaction properly, only to be frustrated in the effort because it could mean anything.
But then the stillness broke, and she was halfway through a sigh of relief when he spoke, only for it to be stilled right there as it was her turn to forget how to breathe. Helen’s heart lurched in her chest, and her own expression smoothed over into blankness, not because she was trying to hide anything, but because it was simply her instinctive reaction to surprise. She didn’t have to think about it for very long, though, and despite the fact that tears had started streaking down her face at some point, she actually laughed—a sound she had not heard from herself once in the entire duration of her existence. It wasn’t so far different from windchimes, a light, cascading sound of simple, unfettered delight.
Perhaps it was all simply too much, and her hold on sanity was finally gone. But she was warm and happy and enfolded in the one she loved, and for once in her life, Helen just didn’t care about anything outside of this moment. Outside of them. “You have to ask?” she inquired, rising onto her knees and looping her arms around his neck. She paused an inch from his lips, her voice dropped back to a whisper. “Yes.” she said simply, and then she sealed her mouth to his.
There were no longer any words to describe the joy that Aryan felt blossoming through his chest. They were alive, their enemies defeated, and now, he and Helen could start a life together without worrying about what loomed over them or that he would lose her again. They would be married; they would be parents. He chuckled slightly at the thought, and then smiled at Helen. "Just to warn you, Mother may try to hug you when she finds out the news. She very much likes being a grandmother."
Emrys had been hurt to the point where he'd almost died numerous times in his life, but he never really remembered it hurting quite so much. He leaned back against the tree, his mother not far away. He spat out a mouthful of blood, sighing afterwards. He did a mental check; three broken ribs, two cracked, a fractured arm, and he was fairly certain his leg was broken. Being a Dhampir had its perks, but it also had some major downsides, slower healing being the biggest. Even so, he allowed himself to smile. They were alive, and he could smell all the others, too. They had won.
Solaris limped over to him, as the familiar was sporting a broken leg as well, but otherwise the wolf was okay. She laid her head on his lap as he pet her. "Let's not do that again, yeah?"
“Which part?” Alden asked, lowering himself to sit beside his lover with a soft grunt. His entire person was stiff and sore, though he’d obtained no actual injuries. Overexertion was a danger even to the purebloods among them, as he was certain the other members of his own team could attest. “The part where we almost died or the part where we kicked ass? Because I kind of like kicking ass, for the record.” Not that he’d really liked messing around in Freyr’s head much. The Pantheon was kind of fucked-up as a rule, but something about that guy had been particularly oily. Which mostly just meant a distraction was in order, and who better?
With a movement perhaps a bit wearier than usual, Violet gripped the front of Em’s shirt, though he moved to his lover, rather than the other way around, as he was mindful of Emrys’s injuries. They did not stop him from locking their lips together, though he was considerably more merciful than he would otherwise be, figuring that one probably needed to be able to breathe a little more, what with the broken ribs and all. His own fatigue meant that he was panting somewhat heavily when he pulled back a fraction. “Glad you’re alive, lover,” he said wryly, then tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck. It was no Aegis, but it would help Em’s healing all the same.
Emrys chuckled, wincing as he did so. He was happy to see that Alden wasn't hurt; if only the same could be said of him. He smiled though, when Vi kissed him. It was over, and they were alive; they could go home to their son, and that was what mattered. He gave a small sigh of relief as he sank his teeth into his neck. He could feel his bones mending; that was almost as painful as them breaking. That subsided, though, and he leaned back once more.
"I could do without the almost dying part, yes. Though, it'll obviously take more than some wannabe god of thunder to kill a pair of Alistairs." He hummed low in the back of his throat, for a second just reveling in Alden's scent. "I'm glad you're alive too, Vi. I love you." he murmured.
It was actually a little funny. Of all the things they’d shared, those words had never actually been part of it. Whatever it was. They were two people who were quite evidently not interested in being with anyone else, who had sex (a lot of very good sex), a son (perhaps the most adorable kid ever, but that might just be a bit of bias sneaking in), and fit into one another’s lives like they’d been meant to be there. But love had never entered the equation, at least not explicitly. Alden had always been a little afraid of the word, honestly. It wasn’t one that he was wholly comfortable using, because you couldn’t love anyone and do what he did. Not that way, anyhow. So he’d settled on attachment or affection or whatever other, milder thing he felt like on the day, and told himself that was all.
The only person who had ever been able to lie to Violet was Violet.
He huffed a sigh, the tail end of it sounding something almost like a laugh. Em was hopelessly sentimental, and honestly, he was starting to make the Spider a little sentimental himself. And really, what reason was left to be otherwise? The worst of his work was done. He could and would coordinate Aryan’s intelligence networks in the future, but he wouldn’t have to do any of the worst things this war had forced him to. Here it was: happiness, contentment, and it seemed to be reaching for him with callused hands and bright red eyes. Did he deserve it? Probably not, but Alden had learned long ago that nothing in this world was really about what you deserved. Would he take it?
Absolutely.
“Then marry me,” he said abruptly, and though it might have been a joke otherwise, his tone and facial expression were both completely serious. “We’ve been doing all of this in the wrong order from the start, but it hasn’t gone to hell yet. So… marry me, maybe help me raise a few more war orphans. That’s something people do, right? We’ll get a house or something, fuck if I know.” He shrugged, half-smiling and raising an eyebrow. In this, he was just as much an amateur as Emrys or anyone else going through it for the first time. But he found for once that he didn’t need to know everything, because they could figure it out as they went.
Em stared at Violet for a second. Of all the off-hand comments, a proposal was the very last thing he expected. Certainly not from Alden. Really it hadn't even been an entertained thought; Em understood Alden enough to know that his line of work was not one that went hand in hand with whatever twisted relationship they had, and he'd accepted that. But now...there wasn't a need for that type of thing anymore. They were free to be able to do what they wanted. There would still be work, there would always be work, but not of the same caliber that they had done before. Perhaps that was why he didn't hesitate with his answer.
His eyes were like liquid rubies as he gazed at Alden, slipping his fingers into his hair as he said, "Not until you say it, Alden." He would know exactly what he wanted to hear. Emrys was a sentimental fool, after all.
Alden was still smiling slyly, shaking his head just slightly with a soft snort at the condition. “I’m offering the wedding, the kids, and the house, and you want the words?” It was so like him, really. Well… perhaps once, the words would have been the hardest part. Oh sure, he could have said them without trouble—he said things he didn’t mean all the time. Lying and misleading was as easy as breathing to Violet. But he didn’t like lying to family, and he especially didn’t like lying to Emrys. Actually… he was fairly certain he never had, not really. And he wouldn’t now.
“I don’t know what love is, Em,” he admitted. “Not for me. But if it means that I’m done with relationships for work, or relationships that don’t mean anything, that the thought of ever going back makes me sick—if it means that I want the house and the kids and the wedding, but I could do without them because all I need in my life is you, then…” he paused, looking somewhat thoughtful, then shrugged. “Then yes, I love you. Now will you marry me? I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything else to lay on the table here.”
Considering that he was pretty much healed, it was not very difficult to pull his purple-haired lover -or perhaps the word was fiance, now- to him, kissing him with perhaps more heat than the situation warranted, but when did anything they did match the situation, really?
There might have been a time when Emrys hadn't believed him, hearing those words, but not now. They were the truth, and that was all that mattered. "Yes, Alden, I will marry you."
As soon as everything blew over with the return of Al and Uncle Jazz, Leo heaved a sigh of relief and left him to be tended by Rica. Well, tended wasn’t exactly the word, but whatever. She could understand that relief, in knowing that the one you loved was alive and safe. Which was perhaps why she was going to check up on him.
Her dad was mostly uninjured, and with her mother, so she figured that could wait until later also. Keir, however, appeared to be in much worse shape. He was injured in several places, the gashes open and bleeding as they slowly closed up and healed. There was blood everywhere: most of it his, some of it Baldr’s, presumably, and it stained most of his clothes, his exposed skin and his hair. She noticed immediately that the scaly parts of his arms were now uninterrupted, smooth flesh, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what that meant. Keir had always had scales there, since she could remember. And given what she knew about Sagiv…
He didn’t seem to really be registering everything that was going on around him, as though he might still be in shock. So Leora moved her own injured, blood-soaked self over to him, heedless of the damage to her person. She didn’t bother saying anything, because she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to hear her. Besides, they did a lot of their best communicating without talking at all, and that was what she went for here, sliding her arms gently under his and wrapping them around him, standing on her toes and resting her chin on his shoulder. She stepped in close, careful of his injuries but uncaring about the fact that he was covered in gore. She was, too; though it was mostly her own, there was at least a few spatters of Frigga’s on her face, from where Rica had stabbed her while Leo was still holding her down. She let her eyes fall shut, but still, she didn’t speak. What would she say right now?
Keir was simply standing there, his wounds healing slowly, staring off into the space in front of him. It had been where Baldr had dissolved in front of him, and after that, Keir had just sort of frozen in place. There was an empty space in his mind, a hollow resonance that echoed when he reached for it. It felt wrong.
Sagiv had always been there, for as long as he could remember, and now he simply...wasn't. He was gone. The last four words he'd said still resounded in Keir's head, and he reached for them as if that would bring him back.
"Go raise hell, Keir."
It was funny, really. Keir had spent almost all of his life trying to get rid of Sagiv, ignore him, lock him away. And now, when he'd finally accepted him, he lost him. He felt lost, but there was also something grounding him. His senses were filled with her, and for a second, it was as if something just broke. His voice was strained as he spoke, wrapping his arms around her. "He's gone, Leo..."
Her arms tightened a bit in response, and she sighed softly, her breath ghosting over his neck. Heedless of the blood in it, Leora stroked his hair softly, repeatedly, feeling a few tears leak out from behind her eyelids. “I know,” she murmured gently, leaning a bit further into him not only of the desire to, but also partly out of need. She’d lost a lot of blood, and remaining on her feet was no easy matter at the moment, but she didn’t care. Her body would recover. She was far more worried about him than herself. “I’m so sorry, Keir.”
Even in his haze, Keir was conscious of her condition, so he sat right where he stood, taking her with him and pulling her into his lap. It hurt, but he would heal. He stroked her hair softly, shutting his eyes. It hurt to know that Sagiv had died saving him, but he still had her. She was alive, and so was he. He sighed softly.
"Don't be, if he hadn't...I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He knew I couldn't stand leaving you. I love you, Leora. I'm glad you're safe." He wouldn't quite say alright, but she was alive.
She couldn’t help the small noise of relief she made when they sank to the ground. She felt less like she’d pass out if he didn’t have to keep herself standing. At his words, though, she pulled back slightly, placing a hand on each side of his face, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. “Hey,” she said softly, blinking away the last of her tears as well as she could. “I’m still sorry. I’m sorry it had to happen, even if I’m glad you’re still here. I love you too, Keir, and I couldn’t have borne losing you, but it’s still worth being sorry for.” What had happened certainly wasn’t nothing, and she’d never make it out to be, even if her relief that it hadn’t been him was overwhelming.
Leora leaned forward, her hands sliding down his jaw and neck to loop loosely around his shoulders, and she kissed him softly. She would always be grateful to Sagiv, then, for letting her keep this man she loved. For giving his life to ensure that Keir would survive. When she parted her lips from his, though, there was a very small smile playing over hers, and she tried to lighten the mood a bit. They were, after all finally done with wars. “Maybe sitting down wasn’t the smartest plan,” she confessed wryly. “I’m… actually pretty sure I can’t stand up again right now.” Her legs felt like jelly from the combination of exertion, injury, and fatigue, and the latter was starting to weigh heavy on her shoulders, compounded by blood loss.
Keir's eyebrows rose slightly, and he chuckled a bit. He repositioned his arms, sliding one under her knees. He kissed her again. He could be strong enough for both of them if he had to be, regardless of how wounded. "Then I guess I'll just have to stand for you, then." For a second he just sat there with her in his arms, holding her.
In truth, he was thinking. He'd been thinking a lot lately, about what they would do after this was all done with. In truth, he was terrified, but he also realized if he didn't get this out now, then he might never get it out at all. For someone who had a lot of spunk, when it came to her, he had no spine. "Marry me, Leo."
Leora, for a moment, lost all the breath in her lungs. It wasn’t as though she’d been expecting to marry anyone else, obviously, and in truth—insecurities aside—she hadn’t expected him to, either. In fact, she had envisioned this moment more than once, and it kept her warm at night on those rare occasions when he did not. But she hadn’t exactly expected it so soon. Well… comparatively soon. Perhaps for a human, a lifetime growing to love someone and two years or so being with them was around the expected duration, but she was used to a world that took such things much more slowly.
Perhaps she should have known he’d never do the thing she expected. In the end, she smiled brilliantly, laying the palm of her hand over his heart. “That wasn’t a question, but I’ll answer it anyway,” she teased, and she might have hit him in the arm except that he was still healing and she didn’t actually want to hurt him. “It feels like a formality, after all we’ve been through,” she continued softly, and it was true. Their relationship had not been at all smooth, and at times, she’d despaired of this fact. But in the end, the fact that they loved each other had been enough to overcome all the other facts, the parts of themselves that were given over to darkness or doubt or fear. She looked up at him then, with molten eyes and a secretive smile, and tilted her head to the side.
“But that doesn’t mean I mind. Of course I’ll marry you, you silly man, if it means I get to keep you forever.” The thought that she could call him her husband and herself his wife was at once strange and thrilling and a little bit daunting, but she knew it was what she wanted. More than she’d ever expected to want anything, honestly. What came after would be for deciding later. After all, they had a lot of time to think about it.
Keir smiled, kissing her again. He was inexplicably happy, and for a moment, he simply reveled in her. Then, he stood up, holding her to him as she held on with her arms around his neck. "Well, I vote we tell my mother first, that way she can get all excited and keep your father from killing me."
Morgan ran a hand through his dark locks, cocking his head to the side slightly. It was a wonder he and Erys didn't look older than they did, though he'd long stopped questioning it. It was what it was, and he didn't care much, anyway. He'd spent his last twenty years helping his nephew lead the world to an era of peace, while watching everyone grow, have children of their own, and raise them. Speaking of of kids...
He and Erys had ended up adding another to their list, their third son, Raiden. Morgan couldn't have been happier; his eldest seemed to inherit his love of children from his father, it would seem. As if on cue, the thirteen year old came rounding the corner, looking annoyed, the tie he had trying to get on askew across his shoulders. Morgan rased his eyebrows, smiling as he gestured him over. "It would seem that ties are the bane of my sons' existence, all three of them." Keir had simply given up wearing them, and even now, Emrys had to get Alden to tie his. It was very amusing to Morgan.
Raiden puffed out his cheeks slightly. "I don't see why I have to wear it." Morgan chuckled, ruffling his son's hair. "Because, Supaku, Alistairs must always look their best."
Erys sighed, running a hand through her strawberry locks. A smile appeared on her lips as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. For once, in over a century, she decided to tie her hair back, placing it in a dark blue ribbon. Parts of her hair fell out of the ribbon, but she didn't care much to fix it. She rather liked the way it looked, somewhat casual yet sophisticated enough to wear. She shook her head lightly, the smile broad across her face as she thought about the up-coming event. Ava still managed, after all these years, to bring the family together for the Christmas holiday, something Erys had found she enjoyed perhaps a little more than she should have.
It was, after all, the same time that she had punched Morgan in the jaw for kissing her wrong under the mistletoe. She still never let him live that down and had made it somewhat of a tradition to do it at least once every few years. This year, however, he was lucky. She wasn't in the particular mood to do such a thing, and instead, chose to focus on her family. Her family that had once consisted of two boys and a single daughter, was now one more to add. Another son, something Erys found amusing. She wondered, for a moment, if it was a Kuragari thing, seeing as her brother had six sons and only one daughter. She had three sons now, and still only one daughter.
She laughed to herself before shoveling herself out of the room, tracking the scent of her husband and fourth child to a room and smirked when Morgan spoke to Raiden. "It would seem so, though it appears that we Alistair females are more than capable of tying something so simple as a bow," she spoke, though she was one to talk. Her bow was just as choppy as Raiden's was, however, she did not mind. The only one even remotely capable of producing a bow, it seemed, was her daughter, who still wore one in her white locks. She scoffed slightly before walking over towards Morgan, grabbing him by his waist with one hand and pulling him forward with her other hand, catching his lips with hers in a soft kiss before winking down at her youngest.
"Though your father is right, Alistairs always must look their best. The von Nachts and Kuragaris can't be the only ones who look stylish you know."
Morgan smiled through the kiss, mindful of the fact that his son was rolling his eyes in their direction. Not that he cared, of course. He chuckled slightly at his wife's comment. "Hey, I tie bows and ties just fine, thank you. That is a problem only my sons have." He raised an eyebrow at his wife's crooked bow. "And apparently my wife."
Rai grinned slightly, watching his mother punch his father. Really, his dad had been asking for that one, though he'd learned years ago that this behavior was very natural for them. Even so, he just couldn't stop himself when he spoke. "You know, one of these days you really are going to break Dad." The boy probably would have said more, but he was abruptly cut off by something large and rather solid pouncing on him from behind, causing Morgan to laugh out loud at his son's misfortune. "Damnit, Asmodeus!" Raiden shoved the large tiger off of him. Raiden's familiar was one of the few actual felines in the family, a very large orange tiger that seemed to get no end of pleasure out of stalking his master.
"Got you again, Den-den!" Raiden huffed, blowing a lock of brown hair out of his face as he picked himself up, glaring at his familiar. "Stop calling me that!"
Erys snorted at Morgan's response before punching him, smirking at her son when he spoke to his father. "Well, if one of these days your dad does break, then we'll just have to find you a new dad," she stated, allowing a large grin to pull over her lips before she turned and laughed at her son's misfortune. It was rather ironic, at least to her it was, that Raiden would have a familiar in the shape of a tiger, knowing full well that her twins were not exactly prone to felines. She took in a deep breath, catching it after her bouts of laughter passed and laid a hand on her son's head, ruffling it in the same manner she used to do with Emrys and Keir.
"He's just being affectionate, Den-Den," she spoke, removing her hand from his head in the process and took Morgan's hand in hers, their rings clinging against each other. She had, at one time, contemplated giving the rings to Keir and Leora when they were to wed, but decided against it. They would pass the rings on to the youngest one when it was his turn, and besides, if she remembered correctly, Vincent had gifted Leora and Keir with something very similar to what he and Ava had, two pendants. She couldn't recall what exactly they were, but regardless, they didn't need two family heirlooms.
"So, how is my little God of Thunder? I hear very startling rumors that he has his eye on a very peculiar girl in Vi's family," she stated, the grin spreading larger across her lips. Though whether or not the rumor was true, she would spare no expense at teasing her youngest child.
If Raiden wouldn't admit it out loud, the crimson on his cheeks certainly would, not to mention Asmodeus did for him. The tiger grinned, saying, "It's Akiko." For a second, Raiden looked horrified, but then a snap sent the familiar running off while cackling with glee, the youngest Alistair turning an even brighter crimson. His mother had named him rather appropriately; he had control over electricity, though where exactly that power had stemmed from, few could say.
Morgan snorted. Akiko had been the eldest girl that Violet and Emrys had adopted, she had lost her parents and sister in the war, and had been human; a rather merciless pureblood had turned her, intent on making her his pet. It had been Emrys who had found and saved her. She was fifteen now, if Morgan remembered right. It amused him slightly, since Raiden was only thirteen. That said little though; Yuki had been almost sixty years older than Zero, and Helen had two centuries at least on Aryan. Age meant little in the grand scheme of things.
"Well, well, yet another Alistair falls prey to the heart. It always does seem to happen when you least expect it. Go get 'em, Supaku." Raiden scowled. "Shut up, Dad..."
"It seems so, that all the Alistairs have a thing for the Kuragari's, or in this case, the Alistair males to the Kuragari females," Erys stated, the smirk widening on her face into a wicked grin as Asmodeus spoke for Raiden. Akiko was a bright child, that much Erys knew, especially considering who her father was. "I guess I have to have a little chit-chat with her then. After all, you are my youngest child, and not anyone can have you, you know," she stated, the grin still plastered upon her face as she made for the door. She stopped, placing her hand on the frame in the process and turned to stare at her son.
"Don't worry, I'll be gentle," she spoke, and disappeared.
Morgan Alistair could only shake his head and laugh as he watched the look of pure horror spread over his youngest's face, and then go bolting after his mother in a desperate and futile attempt to make her stop. He really did love his family. With a grin plastered to his face, he slung his jacket over his shoulder with a finger, and then followed after them at an easy pace.
He and Erys had ended up adding another to their list, their third son, Raiden. Morgan couldn't have been happier; his eldest seemed to inherit his love of children from his father, it would seem. As if on cue, the thirteen year old came rounding the corner, looking annoyed, the tie he had trying to get on askew across his shoulders. Morgan rased his eyebrows, smiling as he gestured him over. "It would seem that ties are the bane of my sons' existence, all three of them." Keir had simply given up wearing them, and even now, Emrys had to get Alden to tie his. It was very amusing to Morgan.
Raiden puffed out his cheeks slightly. "I don't see why I have to wear it." Morgan chuckled, ruffling his son's hair. "Because, Supaku, Alistairs must always look their best."
Erys sighed, running a hand through her strawberry locks. A smile appeared on her lips as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. For once, in over a century, she decided to tie her hair back, placing it in a dark blue ribbon. Parts of her hair fell out of the ribbon, but she didn't care much to fix it. She rather liked the way it looked, somewhat casual yet sophisticated enough to wear. She shook her head lightly, the smile broad across her face as she thought about the up-coming event. Ava still managed, after all these years, to bring the family together for the Christmas holiday, something Erys had found she enjoyed perhaps a little more than she should have.
It was, after all, the same time that she had punched Morgan in the jaw for kissing her wrong under the mistletoe. She still never let him live that down and had made it somewhat of a tradition to do it at least once every few years. This year, however, he was lucky. She wasn't in the particular mood to do such a thing, and instead, chose to focus on her family. Her family that had once consisted of two boys and a single daughter, was now one more to add. Another son, something Erys found amusing. She wondered, for a moment, if it was a Kuragari thing, seeing as her brother had six sons and only one daughter. She had three sons now, and still only one daughter.
She laughed to herself before shoveling herself out of the room, tracking the scent of her husband and fourth child to a room and smirked when Morgan spoke to Raiden. "It would seem so, though it appears that we Alistair females are more than capable of tying something so simple as a bow," she spoke, though she was one to talk. Her bow was just as choppy as Raiden's was, however, she did not mind. The only one even remotely capable of producing a bow, it seemed, was her daughter, who still wore one in her white locks. She scoffed slightly before walking over towards Morgan, grabbing him by his waist with one hand and pulling him forward with her other hand, catching his lips with hers in a soft kiss before winking down at her youngest.
"Though your father is right, Alistairs always must look their best. The von Nachts and Kuragaris can't be the only ones who look stylish you know."
Morgan smiled through the kiss, mindful of the fact that his son was rolling his eyes in their direction. Not that he cared, of course. He chuckled slightly at his wife's comment. "Hey, I tie bows and ties just fine, thank you. That is a problem only my sons have." He raised an eyebrow at his wife's crooked bow. "And apparently my wife."
Rai grinned slightly, watching his mother punch his father. Really, his dad had been asking for that one, though he'd learned years ago that this behavior was very natural for them. Even so, he just couldn't stop himself when he spoke. "You know, one of these days you really are going to break Dad." The boy probably would have said more, but he was abruptly cut off by something large and rather solid pouncing on him from behind, causing Morgan to laugh out loud at his son's misfortune. "Damnit, Asmodeus!" Raiden shoved the large tiger off of him. Raiden's familiar was one of the few actual felines in the family, a very large orange tiger that seemed to get no end of pleasure out of stalking his master.
"Got you again, Den-den!" Raiden huffed, blowing a lock of brown hair out of his face as he picked himself up, glaring at his familiar. "Stop calling me that!"
Erys snorted at Morgan's response before punching him, smirking at her son when he spoke to his father. "Well, if one of these days your dad does break, then we'll just have to find you a new dad," she stated, allowing a large grin to pull over her lips before she turned and laughed at her son's misfortune. It was rather ironic, at least to her it was, that Raiden would have a familiar in the shape of a tiger, knowing full well that her twins were not exactly prone to felines. She took in a deep breath, catching it after her bouts of laughter passed and laid a hand on her son's head, ruffling it in the same manner she used to do with Emrys and Keir.
"He's just being affectionate, Den-Den," she spoke, removing her hand from his head in the process and took Morgan's hand in hers, their rings clinging against each other. She had, at one time, contemplated giving the rings to Keir and Leora when they were to wed, but decided against it. They would pass the rings on to the youngest one when it was his turn, and besides, if she remembered correctly, Vincent had gifted Leora and Keir with something very similar to what he and Ava had, two pendants. She couldn't recall what exactly they were, but regardless, they didn't need two family heirlooms.
"So, how is my little God of Thunder? I hear very startling rumors that he has his eye on a very peculiar girl in Vi's family," she stated, the grin spreading larger across her lips. Though whether or not the rumor was true, she would spare no expense at teasing her youngest child.
If Raiden wouldn't admit it out loud, the crimson on his cheeks certainly would, not to mention Asmodeus did for him. The tiger grinned, saying, "It's Akiko." For a second, Raiden looked horrified, but then a snap sent the familiar running off while cackling with glee, the youngest Alistair turning an even brighter crimson. His mother had named him rather appropriately; he had control over electricity, though where exactly that power had stemmed from, few could say.
Morgan snorted. Akiko had been the eldest girl that Violet and Emrys had adopted, she had lost her parents and sister in the war, and had been human; a rather merciless pureblood had turned her, intent on making her his pet. It had been Emrys who had found and saved her. She was fifteen now, if Morgan remembered right. It amused him slightly, since Raiden was only thirteen. That said little though; Yuki had been almost sixty years older than Zero, and Helen had two centuries at least on Aryan. Age meant little in the grand scheme of things.
"Well, well, yet another Alistair falls prey to the heart. It always does seem to happen when you least expect it. Go get 'em, Supaku." Raiden scowled. "Shut up, Dad..."
"It seems so, that all the Alistairs have a thing for the Kuragari's, or in this case, the Alistair males to the Kuragari females," Erys stated, the smirk widening on her face into a wicked grin as Asmodeus spoke for Raiden. Akiko was a bright child, that much Erys knew, especially considering who her father was. "I guess I have to have a little chit-chat with her then. After all, you are my youngest child, and not anyone can have you, you know," she stated, the grin still plastered upon her face as she made for the door. She stopped, placing her hand on the frame in the process and turned to stare at her son.
"Don't worry, I'll be gentle," she spoke, and disappeared.
Morgan Alistair could only shake his head and laugh as he watched the look of pure horror spread over his youngest's face, and then go bolting after his mother in a desperate and futile attempt to make her stop. He really did love his family. With a grin plastered to his face, he slung his jacket over his shoulder with a finger, and then followed after them at an easy pace.
They’d had to move the celebrations to the largest of the Kuragari homes a few years ago, and that was now where they always held it, in Switzerland. The mountains were simply stunning, and Ava found that she never really got tired of the view. Presently she was taking a bit of a break, sprawled in the grass in a field somewhere on the grounds, looking up at the night sky framed by mountain peaks and smiling to herself. Vincent had managed to convince her, in his very peculiar way, that it made sense for her to be named after the stars, and two of her granddaughters now bore the names of constellations as well—Leora’s seventeen-year-old twins, Andromeda and Lyra. Their family always seemed to get bigger every time she turned around—Violet and Emrys had adopted a small army by that point, and she, of course, fed the army.
She loved every minute of it, but sometimes, as now, she felt the need to take a moment to breathe. They would, after all, still be there when she got back. She no longer had to worry about them disappearing when she looked away, and that relieved her immensely. It meant that she could do the silly little things she’d somehow never found the time for in a hundred-some years since she was turned from a human into the vampire she was now. Though her parents and relatives had all died long ago now, she found that she could not regret this. She had everything she’d ever wanted and some things she would have never dared to ask for. It was, in a word, perfect.
Her life was perfect, and the people she lived it with were perfect as well. Even when they didn’t act like it.
It was, perhaps, a good thing that vampires did not gain white hair unless they were born with it. Like Bryer, Yuki, Alarica, and Andromeda. Otherwise, Vincent would be sporting a crown full of white rather than the pitch black that covered it. Twenty years, did not seem like such a long time to pass, however; it did, and he couldn't have been more content about it either. The war was finally over, and he had the time to actually enjoy it with his family. His rather large, and growing family. Alden had deemed himself the caretaker of most of the war orphans, even taking in children that did not suffer a casualty of war, though Vincent couldn't say he was happier for his son. He and his lover had given a home to those who would be without, and Vincent would not say anything about it.
His son was free to do as he pleased with what and whom he pleased. His daughter, on the other hand, had given him granddaughters to adore over other than Diya. He had been slightly worried, only slightly, if they had inherited the Aegis as Leora, Diya, and Ava, however; it was apparent that it was indeed a female Kuragari line. Any women born to him and Ava and then thereafter in his children's children, they would undoubtedly inherit the Aegis. It had worried him, but the war was over. Aryan, with the help of others as well, had ushered in a form of peace. The world was slowly being rebuilt, and he could enjoy it now with the ones he loved. It was perhaps the easiest to find the one he was spending eternity with, as she had always had a fondness for the stars.
"Esther," he spoke, signaling to Ava he was near. Ever since the day he learned her first name, her true first name, he had called her by it, refusing to call her Ava since. It just seemed more natural that way. Besides, he rather liked the meaning of Esther Kuragari. She was a star in the darkness, his light and she would always be. He sat next to her, pulling her gently so that she lay in his lap instead of the grass and pressed his lips to her forehead.
Ava smiled softly at his arrival, though when he moved her head into his lap, she stayed precisely long enough to murmur something beneath her breath when he kissed her forehead, then sat up and crawled more properly into his embrace, leaning her back against his chest and savoring the warmth of him. A silly thought struck her, and her smile grew wider as she snuggled back against him, wrapping his arms around her waist and lacing her fingers with his. She sighed, a sound of utter contentment, and shook her head slightly.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “when I was growing up, I thought I might have maybe one or two children, perhaps a few grandchildren. That I’d live in a little house somewhere, and maybe die with those few people around me.” Those had been her more optimistic moments. Other times, she was convinced she’d age and grow incapable of her work, and Jasper, kind as he was, would set her up somewhere comfortable and visit when he could, and she would die more or less alone. They had been uncomfortable thoughts, and she had tried to entertain them as infrequently as possible.
“I honestly never thought I would be surrounded by so many people, or so happy as I am now. That’s… a lot of this is because of you, Vincent. My life was better than I ever imagined the moment you came into it, and it’s only gotten more wonderful since. I wanted you to know that.” It was a little silly, that admitting such things could still make her blush, but then, that was simply part of who she was.
It almost felt like Deja Vu for Vincent, when she grabbed hold of his hand and laced it with hers before pulling it around her waist. He smiled softly for her, and stayed silent when she spoke. He would have never met her if that were the case, at least not known her as he did now. And that thought tugged at his heart a bit. He wouldn't have been as happy as he was now, with his family, large as it may be, even his extended family. He wouldn't have any of this. This was all thanks to her as well, and he had tried so many times to convey it to her. He only hoped he did and that she understood. And she did. She seemed to understand things about him that even he himself wasn't aware of, and it was a pleasant feeling. To know that someone knew you and still loved you for it.
"I confess, I never thought of being capable of having a family. I never thought of even starting a family. Erys...she was my fiance simply because the Kuragari line was required to stay full, and she and I were the only Kuragaris alive. Most of my family still slumber, and I do not wish to ever wake them. They are, in every sense, dead, and should remain relics of the past. You have given me something more than I ever thought I was worthy of having," he spoke, his words soft and true as they have always been. "I want you to know that it was thoughts of you and your light that kept me alive all these years during the war. Thank you, Esther, for being my life, my light, mine," he spoke, tilting her head upwards to him so that he could catch her lips with his.
Ava’s eyes slid closed, and she leaned into his kiss, smiling still against his mouth. Adjusting herself, she moved so that she could hug him, wrapping her arms around his back. “I love you,” she said, the simple statement belying the intensity of the feeling, so great that her voice faintly trembled with it. “I love you so much it hurts.” It felt like a physical pain to be away from him for so long, and the war had been hard on them both. But it was done now, and there was no longer a need for that pain. She hoped fervently that there would never be a need for it again, that they had at last earned the right to simply be. To enjoy each other and enjoy their family.
“You kept me going, too. When I dreamed, they were only of you, and…” she squeezed her eyes shut, slightly embarrassed to be a bit teary after twenty years of peace. But she was an emotional person, and she’d never believed in trying to hide that from anyone. “And I’m so incredibly happy to be here. It was worth it… everything was worth it, for this. For you.” She’d made peace with what had happened with Fenrir, with how she’d been turned against her will, with the horrible things war had inflicted upon both of them and all their friends and children, because this happiness, this contentment, was so utterly perfect that she’d go through everything again a thousand times just for a taste of it. Just for a moment like this one.
Vincent wiped away his wife's tears. He hated seeing her cry, or any of his family members really. It brought back memories that were unpleasant and memories that did not need to inhabit his mind. He was happy now; happy that he had the woman he loved in his arms, his family still alive, and he still alive to enjoy whatever eternity would bring them. They had all the time in the world now, literally, to enjoy each other's company. They would no longer have to spend it apart, worrying if the other was still alive or not. It was simply not needed. He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her closer to him as he propped his head upon her crown, inhaling the delicate scent that only she could produce.
"Then let your eyes shed tears no more for you still have me. I am still here, as are you. We have the rest of eternity to ourselves, to whatever you desire, what your heart desires. I will do whatever it is in my power to make up for the years spent away from you, our family," he spoke, smiling down at her in the process. It still amazed him how everything she was, who she was, still fascinated him to no end. Every day he was with her, he found something new about her, even if it was already there and he knew. It did not matter because he loved this woman who was wrapped up in his arms. It still amazed him really how much so he could love just this one person.
"Tell me, Esther, what it is that you desire. What do you wish to do? Where do you wish to go, and we shall do it, we shall go," he spoke, trailing gentle kisses down her forehead, across her eyes, to her cheek, and finally, a gentle kiss upon her lips. He would do anything she wished because he loved her, and like most males of this large family, he was entirely at her mercy.
Ava sighed gently at the feathered touches, looping her arms around Vincent’s neck and trailing her fingers through his hair. “I think,” she said contemplatively, though there was a playful edge to her voice, “that once Christmas is done, you and I need a vacation. Somewhere warm, maybe.” Of course, it was indisputable that she didn’t actually need such a thing; she was perfectly happy with just him, anywhere they happened to be, and if their children or friends were around, then all the better, but still… “It would be nice to have you all to myself for a little while,” she admitted sheepishly. They’d been the last married of their friends, and the war had been too pressing for them to really have the opportunity to honeymoon, so to speak, but it was something she wanted. Not for the exotic locales or the fancy accommodations, but simply for the pleasure of his company.
“What do you think? A couple months of nothing but you and me?” She grinned impishly, darting in to plant a playful kiss on his jaw. He really did have a way of making her feel light and happy and freer than she’d ever been without him.
"We could turn those months into a few years, just a thought," he spoke, a ghost-like smirk tugging at his lips. He shivered slightly at the feel of her lips on his jaw, and he twisted his neck just slightly so that he was now capturing her lips. He could do this all day, kiss her, hold her, love her, for all of eternity really. If she wanted to go somewhere warm, just the two of them, he would oblige her. They, after all, did not have a honeymoon as the others had. They were the last to be wed, and by then the war had just slightly began to pick up its pace. Now that the war was over, they could do and go wherever they wanted to.
"Somewhere warm it is, then," he spoke, wrapping his arms tightly against Ava as he rested his head in the crook of her neck.
She loved every minute of it, but sometimes, as now, she felt the need to take a moment to breathe. They would, after all, still be there when she got back. She no longer had to worry about them disappearing when she looked away, and that relieved her immensely. It meant that she could do the silly little things she’d somehow never found the time for in a hundred-some years since she was turned from a human into the vampire she was now. Though her parents and relatives had all died long ago now, she found that she could not regret this. She had everything she’d ever wanted and some things she would have never dared to ask for. It was, in a word, perfect.
Her life was perfect, and the people she lived it with were perfect as well. Even when they didn’t act like it.
It was, perhaps, a good thing that vampires did not gain white hair unless they were born with it. Like Bryer, Yuki, Alarica, and Andromeda. Otherwise, Vincent would be sporting a crown full of white rather than the pitch black that covered it. Twenty years, did not seem like such a long time to pass, however; it did, and he couldn't have been more content about it either. The war was finally over, and he had the time to actually enjoy it with his family. His rather large, and growing family. Alden had deemed himself the caretaker of most of the war orphans, even taking in children that did not suffer a casualty of war, though Vincent couldn't say he was happier for his son. He and his lover had given a home to those who would be without, and Vincent would not say anything about it.
His son was free to do as he pleased with what and whom he pleased. His daughter, on the other hand, had given him granddaughters to adore over other than Diya. He had been slightly worried, only slightly, if they had inherited the Aegis as Leora, Diya, and Ava, however; it was apparent that it was indeed a female Kuragari line. Any women born to him and Ava and then thereafter in his children's children, they would undoubtedly inherit the Aegis. It had worried him, but the war was over. Aryan, with the help of others as well, had ushered in a form of peace. The world was slowly being rebuilt, and he could enjoy it now with the ones he loved. It was perhaps the easiest to find the one he was spending eternity with, as she had always had a fondness for the stars.
"Esther," he spoke, signaling to Ava he was near. Ever since the day he learned her first name, her true first name, he had called her by it, refusing to call her Ava since. It just seemed more natural that way. Besides, he rather liked the meaning of Esther Kuragari. She was a star in the darkness, his light and she would always be. He sat next to her, pulling her gently so that she lay in his lap instead of the grass and pressed his lips to her forehead.
Ava smiled softly at his arrival, though when he moved her head into his lap, she stayed precisely long enough to murmur something beneath her breath when he kissed her forehead, then sat up and crawled more properly into his embrace, leaning her back against his chest and savoring the warmth of him. A silly thought struck her, and her smile grew wider as she snuggled back against him, wrapping his arms around her waist and lacing her fingers with his. She sighed, a sound of utter contentment, and shook her head slightly.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “when I was growing up, I thought I might have maybe one or two children, perhaps a few grandchildren. That I’d live in a little house somewhere, and maybe die with those few people around me.” Those had been her more optimistic moments. Other times, she was convinced she’d age and grow incapable of her work, and Jasper, kind as he was, would set her up somewhere comfortable and visit when he could, and she would die more or less alone. They had been uncomfortable thoughts, and she had tried to entertain them as infrequently as possible.
“I honestly never thought I would be surrounded by so many people, or so happy as I am now. That’s… a lot of this is because of you, Vincent. My life was better than I ever imagined the moment you came into it, and it’s only gotten more wonderful since. I wanted you to know that.” It was a little silly, that admitting such things could still make her blush, but then, that was simply part of who she was.
It almost felt like Deja Vu for Vincent, when she grabbed hold of his hand and laced it with hers before pulling it around her waist. He smiled softly for her, and stayed silent when she spoke. He would have never met her if that were the case, at least not known her as he did now. And that thought tugged at his heart a bit. He wouldn't have been as happy as he was now, with his family, large as it may be, even his extended family. He wouldn't have any of this. This was all thanks to her as well, and he had tried so many times to convey it to her. He only hoped he did and that she understood. And she did. She seemed to understand things about him that even he himself wasn't aware of, and it was a pleasant feeling. To know that someone knew you and still loved you for it.
"I confess, I never thought of being capable of having a family. I never thought of even starting a family. Erys...she was my fiance simply because the Kuragari line was required to stay full, and she and I were the only Kuragaris alive. Most of my family still slumber, and I do not wish to ever wake them. They are, in every sense, dead, and should remain relics of the past. You have given me something more than I ever thought I was worthy of having," he spoke, his words soft and true as they have always been. "I want you to know that it was thoughts of you and your light that kept me alive all these years during the war. Thank you, Esther, for being my life, my light, mine," he spoke, tilting her head upwards to him so that he could catch her lips with his.
Ava’s eyes slid closed, and she leaned into his kiss, smiling still against his mouth. Adjusting herself, she moved so that she could hug him, wrapping her arms around his back. “I love you,” she said, the simple statement belying the intensity of the feeling, so great that her voice faintly trembled with it. “I love you so much it hurts.” It felt like a physical pain to be away from him for so long, and the war had been hard on them both. But it was done now, and there was no longer a need for that pain. She hoped fervently that there would never be a need for it again, that they had at last earned the right to simply be. To enjoy each other and enjoy their family.
“You kept me going, too. When I dreamed, they were only of you, and…” she squeezed her eyes shut, slightly embarrassed to be a bit teary after twenty years of peace. But she was an emotional person, and she’d never believed in trying to hide that from anyone. “And I’m so incredibly happy to be here. It was worth it… everything was worth it, for this. For you.” She’d made peace with what had happened with Fenrir, with how she’d been turned against her will, with the horrible things war had inflicted upon both of them and all their friends and children, because this happiness, this contentment, was so utterly perfect that she’d go through everything again a thousand times just for a taste of it. Just for a moment like this one.
Vincent wiped away his wife's tears. He hated seeing her cry, or any of his family members really. It brought back memories that were unpleasant and memories that did not need to inhabit his mind. He was happy now; happy that he had the woman he loved in his arms, his family still alive, and he still alive to enjoy whatever eternity would bring them. They had all the time in the world now, literally, to enjoy each other's company. They would no longer have to spend it apart, worrying if the other was still alive or not. It was simply not needed. He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her closer to him as he propped his head upon her crown, inhaling the delicate scent that only she could produce.
"Then let your eyes shed tears no more for you still have me. I am still here, as are you. We have the rest of eternity to ourselves, to whatever you desire, what your heart desires. I will do whatever it is in my power to make up for the years spent away from you, our family," he spoke, smiling down at her in the process. It still amazed him how everything she was, who she was, still fascinated him to no end. Every day he was with her, he found something new about her, even if it was already there and he knew. It did not matter because he loved this woman who was wrapped up in his arms. It still amazed him really how much so he could love just this one person.
"Tell me, Esther, what it is that you desire. What do you wish to do? Where do you wish to go, and we shall do it, we shall go," he spoke, trailing gentle kisses down her forehead, across her eyes, to her cheek, and finally, a gentle kiss upon her lips. He would do anything she wished because he loved her, and like most males of this large family, he was entirely at her mercy.
Ava sighed gently at the feathered touches, looping her arms around Vincent’s neck and trailing her fingers through his hair. “I think,” she said contemplatively, though there was a playful edge to her voice, “that once Christmas is done, you and I need a vacation. Somewhere warm, maybe.” Of course, it was indisputable that she didn’t actually need such a thing; she was perfectly happy with just him, anywhere they happened to be, and if their children or friends were around, then all the better, but still… “It would be nice to have you all to myself for a little while,” she admitted sheepishly. They’d been the last married of their friends, and the war had been too pressing for them to really have the opportunity to honeymoon, so to speak, but it was something she wanted. Not for the exotic locales or the fancy accommodations, but simply for the pleasure of his company.
“What do you think? A couple months of nothing but you and me?” She grinned impishly, darting in to plant a playful kiss on his jaw. He really did have a way of making her feel light and happy and freer than she’d ever been without him.
"We could turn those months into a few years, just a thought," he spoke, a ghost-like smirk tugging at his lips. He shivered slightly at the feel of her lips on his jaw, and he twisted his neck just slightly so that he was now capturing her lips. He could do this all day, kiss her, hold her, love her, for all of eternity really. If she wanted to go somewhere warm, just the two of them, he would oblige her. They, after all, did not have a honeymoon as the others had. They were the last to be wed, and by then the war had just slightly began to pick up its pace. Now that the war was over, they could do and go wherever they wanted to.
"Somewhere warm it is, then," he spoke, wrapping his arms tightly against Ava as he rested his head in the crook of her neck.
It seemed that, no matter how large their extended family became, Ava would always insist on holding Christmas all together in one place. Between the lot of them, they had a full symphony orchestra and a small choir by this point—or close enough to one to make the music workable, at any rate. It wasn’t often they were all in the same place, though, and despite preferring to avoid large crowds, the occasion still managed to make Jasper feel warmth in his heart, even after all this time. Twenty years ago, the war had ended for good. Twenty years ago, his son had assumed the reins on a rebuilding project that slowly put the world back together and gave it hope again. For the last two decades, all of them had been working towards that goal—a unified world where all were allowed to live on equal ground, no matter the circumstances of their birth. It was still a work in process, but it was moving along nicely.
And they were at last able to do things at the pace they wanted, rather than the one dictated to them by enemies in superior numbers. Not one of them had to venture out onto a battlefield to kill, or into the underground world of deception and espionage to ferret out information. They could, and had, marry and find their callings and enjoy their time with their ever-growing horde of relatives in warmth and light and safety. That, more than anything, made him believe that everything they had been through, every hardship and tragedy and heartache, had been worth it in the end. To reach this point, they had bled and sweat and wept, but they had reached it.
He was brought from his thoughts by the most mundane of problems—he was having trouble with his cuffs again. He could never seem to get them right. He never had been able to, which was one of the reasons he’d given Ava the little task when she became his assistant. But of course, she wasn’t that any longer, and though she’d occasionally help him out of a sense of mercy, she was doubtless elsewhere right now, leaving him to frown down at the offending sleeve and cufflinks. You’d think a thousand years of life would have ensured mastery of such a simple thing, but that was certainly not the case for him, anyway. Jasper sighed and shook his head, casting a few strands of dark hair into his face.
Nikki shook her head, smiling all the while. Really, some things her husband was simply hopeless with, no matter how long he lived or how hard he tried. Apparently cuffs were one of them. So, without a word she took his hand, her fingers working deftly as she fixed him. She herself was in a dress of midnight blue, accented with silver. It hung down to halfway down her calves, her hair tied back in a simple fashion. The bodice of the dress was tight, the top rather modest, or as modest as a dress could be when it was strapless.
She smiled up at Jasper afterwards, something of a teasing note in her voice as she spoke. "Really, what would you have done all these years without Ava and myself?"
Jasper smiled softly as his wife took mercy on him, and breathed a soft sigh through his nose at the question. “Forgotten all of my meetings and burned through assistants with insufficient patience to deal with me, I suspect,” he replied honestly, though the same tint of humor was present in his words as could be detected in hers. The last twenty years had been… amazing, for lack of a better word. Without the war hanging over their heads, they had not needed to worry about being parted for any longer than they wished to be, and though of course they each had their own interests and their own work and so on, not to mention the task of raising Brayleigh—and it had been a task, perhaps more than raising her brothers combined—they had spent more time simply in one another’s company in these two decades than they had been able to get in the century before.
It was warm and comfortable, and he couldn’t imagine ever going back again. Fortunately, he would not have to. The world they were building would not allow for another tyrant like his grandfather, and Malkior was a one-of-a-kind threat that was a threat no longer. They had seen to that. The prospect of eternity like this was almost too sweet to properly taste, but then he didn’t really need to. He simply chose to savor each individual moment with these people that he loved, and that was more than enough.
“I would also be patently miserable,” he said, and that was no joke. His family lit up his world, and he never wanted to experience those dark centuries again, when he had no one, before his cousins were born but after his mother had died. Even the one after his relatives’ deaths had been better than that, because at least he’d still had Morgan, and that bond had become one of brotherhood in that time. But this—this was happiness in its purest form. He leaned down to kiss her forehead, just a tender brush of the lips, and smiled a little wider. “Fortunately, I am not without you, and I do not intend to ever be.”
Nikki smiled, leaning into him as her arms wrapped around him. She slipped her eyes closed, allowing a contented sound to escape her. The last twenty years, without the threat of war and death, without having to look over her shoulder wondering when the next assassin would come after her children. While raising Brayleigh had been no easy feat, they had somehow done that, and Nikki had been able to watch her children and nieces and nephews get married and have children of their own, and help raise her grandchildren.
Lucien was only just over a year shy of Bree, and Nikki's ongoing joy over the years. She loved all of them, of course, but there was simply something about Aryan's son. The boy was smarter than either of his parents, and seemed to have more of his mother's reserved personality. Speaking of Helen, she was also expecting their second child.
Nikki pulled back slightly, smiling up at him again. She said it simply because she could; after almost one hundred and fifty years, she didn't need a reason. "I love you, Jasper."
One hundred and fifty years or no, he never got tired of hearing it. Returning the embrace, his arms settled around her familiar warmth, and he propped his chin on her crown, something which still took a little bit of stooping on his part. He’d never minded being tall, but it was occasionally just the smallest bit inconvenient. It hardly mattered—they still fit like they’d been made for each other. Whomever bound them all together with the threads of fate had given him a gift of such incredible magnitude he could scarcely comprehend it, truly.
Pulling back a little bit, he lifted one of her hands and pressed his lips to it before settling it on his shoulder, placing his own delicately at her hip. Their others, he twined and held aloft. Piano music filtered in softly from a nearby music room, and he recognized the playing as belonging to his eldest. So, Balthasar had finally finished the piece he was working on. Indeed, the music was new, though it had the basic rhythm of a waltz, and so it was into just such a dance that he led his wife, turning them gently and effortlessly through the steps, navigating the room as though it had been specifically constructed for this purpose.
As it wound to the last note, Jasper slid them to an easy stop, trailing the fingers of his hand up her extended arm until he was softly cradling the side of her face. This time, he did not stoop—he simply lifted her instead, with his free arm, and claimed her mouth for his. “You are, and always have been, the person I love above all others, Nikki. My reason for being, and the very center of my world.”
A bright bubble of laughter escaped her as Jasper danced her around the room. She never got tired of him, and she never would, either. She looped her arms around his neck as he kissed her. "Just as you are my forever and always, my love."
And they were at last able to do things at the pace they wanted, rather than the one dictated to them by enemies in superior numbers. Not one of them had to venture out onto a battlefield to kill, or into the underground world of deception and espionage to ferret out information. They could, and had, marry and find their callings and enjoy their time with their ever-growing horde of relatives in warmth and light and safety. That, more than anything, made him believe that everything they had been through, every hardship and tragedy and heartache, had been worth it in the end. To reach this point, they had bled and sweat and wept, but they had reached it.
He was brought from his thoughts by the most mundane of problems—he was having trouble with his cuffs again. He could never seem to get them right. He never had been able to, which was one of the reasons he’d given Ava the little task when she became his assistant. But of course, she wasn’t that any longer, and though she’d occasionally help him out of a sense of mercy, she was doubtless elsewhere right now, leaving him to frown down at the offending sleeve and cufflinks. You’d think a thousand years of life would have ensured mastery of such a simple thing, but that was certainly not the case for him, anyway. Jasper sighed and shook his head, casting a few strands of dark hair into his face.
Nikki shook her head, smiling all the while. Really, some things her husband was simply hopeless with, no matter how long he lived or how hard he tried. Apparently cuffs were one of them. So, without a word she took his hand, her fingers working deftly as she fixed him. She herself was in a dress of midnight blue, accented with silver. It hung down to halfway down her calves, her hair tied back in a simple fashion. The bodice of the dress was tight, the top rather modest, or as modest as a dress could be when it was strapless.
She smiled up at Jasper afterwards, something of a teasing note in her voice as she spoke. "Really, what would you have done all these years without Ava and myself?"
Jasper smiled softly as his wife took mercy on him, and breathed a soft sigh through his nose at the question. “Forgotten all of my meetings and burned through assistants with insufficient patience to deal with me, I suspect,” he replied honestly, though the same tint of humor was present in his words as could be detected in hers. The last twenty years had been… amazing, for lack of a better word. Without the war hanging over their heads, they had not needed to worry about being parted for any longer than they wished to be, and though of course they each had their own interests and their own work and so on, not to mention the task of raising Brayleigh—and it had been a task, perhaps more than raising her brothers combined—they had spent more time simply in one another’s company in these two decades than they had been able to get in the century before.
It was warm and comfortable, and he couldn’t imagine ever going back again. Fortunately, he would not have to. The world they were building would not allow for another tyrant like his grandfather, and Malkior was a one-of-a-kind threat that was a threat no longer. They had seen to that. The prospect of eternity like this was almost too sweet to properly taste, but then he didn’t really need to. He simply chose to savor each individual moment with these people that he loved, and that was more than enough.
“I would also be patently miserable,” he said, and that was no joke. His family lit up his world, and he never wanted to experience those dark centuries again, when he had no one, before his cousins were born but after his mother had died. Even the one after his relatives’ deaths had been better than that, because at least he’d still had Morgan, and that bond had become one of brotherhood in that time. But this—this was happiness in its purest form. He leaned down to kiss her forehead, just a tender brush of the lips, and smiled a little wider. “Fortunately, I am not without you, and I do not intend to ever be.”
Nikki smiled, leaning into him as her arms wrapped around him. She slipped her eyes closed, allowing a contented sound to escape her. The last twenty years, without the threat of war and death, without having to look over her shoulder wondering when the next assassin would come after her children. While raising Brayleigh had been no easy feat, they had somehow done that, and Nikki had been able to watch her children and nieces and nephews get married and have children of their own, and help raise her grandchildren.
Lucien was only just over a year shy of Bree, and Nikki's ongoing joy over the years. She loved all of them, of course, but there was simply something about Aryan's son. The boy was smarter than either of his parents, and seemed to have more of his mother's reserved personality. Speaking of Helen, she was also expecting their second child.
Nikki pulled back slightly, smiling up at him again. She said it simply because she could; after almost one hundred and fifty years, she didn't need a reason. "I love you, Jasper."
One hundred and fifty years or no, he never got tired of hearing it. Returning the embrace, his arms settled around her familiar warmth, and he propped his chin on her crown, something which still took a little bit of stooping on his part. He’d never minded being tall, but it was occasionally just the smallest bit inconvenient. It hardly mattered—they still fit like they’d been made for each other. Whomever bound them all together with the threads of fate had given him a gift of such incredible magnitude he could scarcely comprehend it, truly.
Pulling back a little bit, he lifted one of her hands and pressed his lips to it before settling it on his shoulder, placing his own delicately at her hip. Their others, he twined and held aloft. Piano music filtered in softly from a nearby music room, and he recognized the playing as belonging to his eldest. So, Balthasar had finally finished the piece he was working on. Indeed, the music was new, though it had the basic rhythm of a waltz, and so it was into just such a dance that he led his wife, turning them gently and effortlessly through the steps, navigating the room as though it had been specifically constructed for this purpose.
As it wound to the last note, Jasper slid them to an easy stop, trailing the fingers of his hand up her extended arm until he was softly cradling the side of her face. This time, he did not stoop—he simply lifted her instead, with his free arm, and claimed her mouth for his. “You are, and always have been, the person I love above all others, Nikki. My reason for being, and the very center of my world.”
A bright bubble of laughter escaped her as Jasper danced her around the room. She never got tired of him, and she never would, either. She looped her arms around his neck as he kissed her. "Just as you are my forever and always, my love."
"Vinxa, Samuel. Wux tepoha coanwor vi jennu letoclo. Yenta ava'yorn ekess dask ihk ve." The wooden puppet stilled then, the soul returning to the afterlife. Bryer rolled out his shoulders, smiling slightly. Samuel had been a young boy who had lost his life in the war years ago, drawn to Bryer because of their closeness of age and Bryer's own gift. The two talked often, now, and Samuel had proven a great help in Bryer's efforts to teach his cousin to understand his abilities. Aryan and Helen's son, Lucien, had gained the same reanimation ability Bryer had, and Naya before them.
For a second, Bryer simply sat there, contemplating over the last twenty years. He roused himself out of his musings, shaking his head slightly before pulling on the red jacket. He ran a hand through his snow-white locks, sighing slightly when they simply moved back into the same place. His hair was hopeless, really. He shut the book, replacing it back on the shelf, and headed out into the hallway, his nose leading him to where his father was. The huge creature that seemed to resemble both a tiger and a wolf was there, and Bryer grinned slightly, petting him. "Hey, Xenos." He glanced over at his father, sticking his hands in his pockets. "You know Diya's going to be dragging Andrick up in a few minutes. She'll flip if you're not ready."
It was amazing what two decades could do to someone. Zero could not have been happier, per se, with his life. His children, both of them, were grown and though a part of him would always miss his beloved, his life was complete. His daughter, he had found out had a thing for Andrick, Vi and Emrys' son, and he couldn't help but laugh at his daughter. She was so young still to him. He understood how his father felt about his baby sister, Leora. They were small regardless of how old they were. Diya would always be his baby girl, as Bryer would always be his baby son regardless. He chuckled faintly at the sound of his son's voice and flickered his gaze over towards him.
Never one to not appear pleasant, Zero was currently dressed in a white shirt with a pair of khaki dress pants. "She'll flip regardless," he replied, offering his son a smirk in the process. Which, in a sense was true perhaps. She had taken after her mother in some ways, some, and he was ever grateful for that. He sighed, fixing his cufflinks in the process before turning to his son. "So, do I look presentable or do you think she'll still flip?" he spoke, twirling in the process. He may have been almost two centuries old, however; he still acted much as he did when he was still a teenager, and that didn't matter because he loved his family and he knew they loved him, crazy and all.
Bryer shook his head, a slight smile on his face. Two decades had changed him little, he was still the same quiet person he always was, though he no longer went into silent periods any more. He was slightly more expressive as well, though not nearly as much as his sister, though he was fairly certain that there was no one who could match Diya in that regard. Bryer shrugged slightly. "I'm sure she'll find some reason to get all nit-picky over the both of us, she always does."
The last time, it had been Bryer's hair, and he'd been forced into a chair at shear-point while his father only laughed at his son's misfortune. Diya had taken it upon herself ever since their mother had died to all but take up Yuki's role, and though he may not ever admit it out loud, Bryer truly was grateful to his sister. He loved her really, even with all her craziness, though sometimes he felt a bit bad for Andrick, though it was rather clear that those feelings were reciprocated on both sides.
Bryer blinked for a second, hearing a mini-stampede of feet and could only shake his head. "Uncle Vi seems to have released all of his little minions..." He'd probably have to watch out for that, last year he'd gotten caught under the mistletoe with Andromeda, and that memory still made him turn pink.
Zero laughed at his son. "His army of minions is more like it. And you are right, she always finds something to nit-pick about," he spoke, his smile fading into a soft one. Shaking his head, he chuckled as the minions all passed by his room and glanced over towards Bryer, a knowing smirk pulling at his lips. He had been there the time the minions had moved the mistletoe on his son, trapping him and Andromeda underneath said mistletoe. He hadn't missed the way Bryer's face turned a little pink at the situation, and partially, a part of him was itching to redo the situation. Besides, it was what a father did best: agonizing their sons. And what better way than to trap him and his cousin underneath mistletoe again?
"So, care to tell me how your escapade is going with Andromeda? I see the way you look at her, and don't you lie either. I'll know," he stated, the smirk still growing, if it could, wider. Though he smirked, he was truly smiling on the inside. Never, in a million years, had he thought that he would finally know the peace he knew today. The only thing, he wished he could have shared it with her. To share this happiness of watching their children grow, to know the peace of a time without war. Would she be any different if she were still alive? Would she be happy? These thoughts were forced out of his head as he shook it lightly. Of course she would be happy, that's all she had ever wanted. And he liked to think she died happy, even if it was protecting their child.
Bryer Kuragari had always taken great pride in knowing that he was like his mother, but perhaps in certain areas, he was too much like his mother. He scowled, turning a shade of crimson that matched the coat he wore, scowling as he crossed his arms in front of him. "There isn't any escapade. That was a one-time thing. Jeeze, Dad, you make it sound like I gape at her." He was lying through his teeth, and he knew it, his father knew it, and so did his sister who had just walked through the door hand-in-hand with Andrick.
With that bright smile that could light up any room, Diya cocked her head to the side. "Gape at who, little brother, Andromeda? Because you do, you know. Like a love-sick puppy, it's adorable you know." She couldn't help but grin as she teased her brother. She found it adorable, really she did. She practically danced over to her father, giving him a hug and stretching up onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "Hi, Daddy." After that, with the expertise of two decades, Diya began tugging and pulling, straightening her father out before moving on to her brother who merely resigned himself to it with a sigh. There was no fighting his sister when she put her mind to things. There never had been, and he was okay with that, even if he didn't act like it.
Zero couldn't help but shake his head at his son, letting out a deep chuckle. Bryer was in denial, and they both knew it. He was about to make a snide remark about it, but stopped half-way to opening his mouth when Diya appeared. He smiled at his oldest child, shaking his head softly when she all but danced up to him, kissing his cheek in the process. He responded the same, kissing the top of her head instead, though, and smiled. He chuckled when she began straightening him out and couldn't keep the large grin off of his face when she moved to Bryer.
"It seems that we would be lost without your abilities, Diya. We Kuragari males wouldn't be able to properly dress ourselves without you," he spoke, shaking his head softly before glancing towards Andrick. He had not missed the way they both walked hand-in-hand, and had known for some time now that the two shared a mutual bond. Though he couldn't say he wasn't reluctant when Diya showed interest in the adopted son of his brother and Emrys, Zero could say he fully understood then, his father. He wanted Diya to be happy with whomever she chose, and it so happened to be Andrick.
"Are you taking care of my little girl? Because if you're not...," he stated, setting his gaze into a narrow glare before quickly replacing it with a bright smile. "I'm just kidding, but seriously. Take care of my little girl. Just as Bryer would take care of Andromeda, if he ever got his head out of his ass and told her something," he spoke, the trademark smirk pulling at his lips before leaving the room. He did not need to be around to see Bryer's reaction, because he already knew what it would be. Andrick said nothing, the bright red of his face conveying his feelings well enough.
For a second, Bryer simply sat there, contemplating over the last twenty years. He roused himself out of his musings, shaking his head slightly before pulling on the red jacket. He ran a hand through his snow-white locks, sighing slightly when they simply moved back into the same place. His hair was hopeless, really. He shut the book, replacing it back on the shelf, and headed out into the hallway, his nose leading him to where his father was. The huge creature that seemed to resemble both a tiger and a wolf was there, and Bryer grinned slightly, petting him. "Hey, Xenos." He glanced over at his father, sticking his hands in his pockets. "You know Diya's going to be dragging Andrick up in a few minutes. She'll flip if you're not ready."
It was amazing what two decades could do to someone. Zero could not have been happier, per se, with his life. His children, both of them, were grown and though a part of him would always miss his beloved, his life was complete. His daughter, he had found out had a thing for Andrick, Vi and Emrys' son, and he couldn't help but laugh at his daughter. She was so young still to him. He understood how his father felt about his baby sister, Leora. They were small regardless of how old they were. Diya would always be his baby girl, as Bryer would always be his baby son regardless. He chuckled faintly at the sound of his son's voice and flickered his gaze over towards him.
Never one to not appear pleasant, Zero was currently dressed in a white shirt with a pair of khaki dress pants. "She'll flip regardless," he replied, offering his son a smirk in the process. Which, in a sense was true perhaps. She had taken after her mother in some ways, some, and he was ever grateful for that. He sighed, fixing his cufflinks in the process before turning to his son. "So, do I look presentable or do you think she'll still flip?" he spoke, twirling in the process. He may have been almost two centuries old, however; he still acted much as he did when he was still a teenager, and that didn't matter because he loved his family and he knew they loved him, crazy and all.
Bryer shook his head, a slight smile on his face. Two decades had changed him little, he was still the same quiet person he always was, though he no longer went into silent periods any more. He was slightly more expressive as well, though not nearly as much as his sister, though he was fairly certain that there was no one who could match Diya in that regard. Bryer shrugged slightly. "I'm sure she'll find some reason to get all nit-picky over the both of us, she always does."
The last time, it had been Bryer's hair, and he'd been forced into a chair at shear-point while his father only laughed at his son's misfortune. Diya had taken it upon herself ever since their mother had died to all but take up Yuki's role, and though he may not ever admit it out loud, Bryer truly was grateful to his sister. He loved her really, even with all her craziness, though sometimes he felt a bit bad for Andrick, though it was rather clear that those feelings were reciprocated on both sides.
Bryer blinked for a second, hearing a mini-stampede of feet and could only shake his head. "Uncle Vi seems to have released all of his little minions..." He'd probably have to watch out for that, last year he'd gotten caught under the mistletoe with Andromeda, and that memory still made him turn pink.
Zero laughed at his son. "His army of minions is more like it. And you are right, she always finds something to nit-pick about," he spoke, his smile fading into a soft one. Shaking his head, he chuckled as the minions all passed by his room and glanced over towards Bryer, a knowing smirk pulling at his lips. He had been there the time the minions had moved the mistletoe on his son, trapping him and Andromeda underneath said mistletoe. He hadn't missed the way Bryer's face turned a little pink at the situation, and partially, a part of him was itching to redo the situation. Besides, it was what a father did best: agonizing their sons. And what better way than to trap him and his cousin underneath mistletoe again?
"So, care to tell me how your escapade is going with Andromeda? I see the way you look at her, and don't you lie either. I'll know," he stated, the smirk still growing, if it could, wider. Though he smirked, he was truly smiling on the inside. Never, in a million years, had he thought that he would finally know the peace he knew today. The only thing, he wished he could have shared it with her. To share this happiness of watching their children grow, to know the peace of a time without war. Would she be any different if she were still alive? Would she be happy? These thoughts were forced out of his head as he shook it lightly. Of course she would be happy, that's all she had ever wanted. And he liked to think she died happy, even if it was protecting their child.
Bryer Kuragari had always taken great pride in knowing that he was like his mother, but perhaps in certain areas, he was too much like his mother. He scowled, turning a shade of crimson that matched the coat he wore, scowling as he crossed his arms in front of him. "There isn't any escapade. That was a one-time thing. Jeeze, Dad, you make it sound like I gape at her." He was lying through his teeth, and he knew it, his father knew it, and so did his sister who had just walked through the door hand-in-hand with Andrick.
With that bright smile that could light up any room, Diya cocked her head to the side. "Gape at who, little brother, Andromeda? Because you do, you know. Like a love-sick puppy, it's adorable you know." She couldn't help but grin as she teased her brother. She found it adorable, really she did. She practically danced over to her father, giving him a hug and stretching up onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "Hi, Daddy." After that, with the expertise of two decades, Diya began tugging and pulling, straightening her father out before moving on to her brother who merely resigned himself to it with a sigh. There was no fighting his sister when she put her mind to things. There never had been, and he was okay with that, even if he didn't act like it.
Zero couldn't help but shake his head at his son, letting out a deep chuckle. Bryer was in denial, and they both knew it. He was about to make a snide remark about it, but stopped half-way to opening his mouth when Diya appeared. He smiled at his oldest child, shaking his head softly when she all but danced up to him, kissing his cheek in the process. He responded the same, kissing the top of her head instead, though, and smiled. He chuckled when she began straightening him out and couldn't keep the large grin off of his face when she moved to Bryer.
"It seems that we would be lost without your abilities, Diya. We Kuragari males wouldn't be able to properly dress ourselves without you," he spoke, shaking his head softly before glancing towards Andrick. He had not missed the way they both walked hand-in-hand, and had known for some time now that the two shared a mutual bond. Though he couldn't say he wasn't reluctant when Diya showed interest in the adopted son of his brother and Emrys, Zero could say he fully understood then, his father. He wanted Diya to be happy with whomever she chose, and it so happened to be Andrick.
"Are you taking care of my little girl? Because if you're not...," he stated, setting his gaze into a narrow glare before quickly replacing it with a bright smile. "I'm just kidding, but seriously. Take care of my little girl. Just as Bryer would take care of Andromeda, if he ever got his head out of his ass and told her something," he spoke, the trademark smirk pulling at his lips before leaving the room. He did not need to be around to see Bryer's reaction, because he already knew what it would be. Andrick said nothing, the bright red of his face conveying his feelings well enough.
It would seem that no matter how often he tried to pretend otherwise, Aryan von Nacht was indeed his father's son, if the trouble he was having with his cuffs was any indication. He frowned down at them, sighing slightly. He honestly could not figure out just how this could prove to be so difficult for him. But his mother had done it when he was a child, and then it had been Yuki, and after it had always been Helen.
Which meant that at the moment, he really needed her to take pity on him.
At the same time, he walked over to where his wife sat, where he lowered himself next to her and placed his lips at her temple, one hand resting on her abdomen, which was rather distended at the moment, though being seven months pregnant did tend to do that to a person. He smiled at her. "How are you, my dear?"
Helen had borne pregnancy on both occasions with the same stoic evenness she seemed to apply to almost everything she did. It had never made her particularly ill or uncomfortable, and even Lucien’s birth had been minimally painful, though… perhaps that had more to do with her tolerance than anything. So, seven months into her second one, she honestly wasn’t inhibited that much, not even by the fact that her daughter was exhibiting a boisterousness that she would not have expected any child of herself and Aryan to have.
She raised a delicate silver eyebrow at her husband when he sat beside her, leaning just slightly into the kiss he pressed to her temple, but taking one of his hands in hers at the same time. “It is really a rather simple procedure,” she told him, and though her tone did not vary overmuch from cool, there was a light note of teasing in there that perhaps only he would be able to properly detect. “I am still slightly amazed that someone like you hasn’t found some way to master this by now.” Her thin fingers deftly worked at the cuff until everything was smooth and in place, and then she repeated the procedure with the other one.
“There. It would not do for the president of the world to look disheveled for his family’s Christmas, now would it?” She smiled softly, reaching up to smooth down a few of his silky black hairs, and now it was clear that she was teasing him. She’d even used Leo’s silly title for Aryan’s office. Helen had been his bodyguard as well as his wife for most of his tenure, but was presently taking a bit of leave due to her condition. Still, she went into the office every day he did, busying herself with more administrative tasks until she could go back to shadowing him. She was content and complete, and it was something she’d never thought to feel.
Aryan smiled rather sheepishly at his wife, shrugging lightly. "What can I say, cufflinks are simply my enemy now. It appears I have met my match, and must depend on my wife to save me from a horrible, agonizing, and tragic embarrasment." He kissed her softly, that silly little smile never leaving his face. She amazed him, really, and two decades had not diminished that awe at all. Aryan would look at Helen the same way his father looked at his mother; there was no denying the love that was written across his face as plain as day. Alden and Emrys and quite a few of his relatives liked to tease him about it, but he could care less, really.
He had the woman he loved, a son that was more brilliant than Aryan could ever hope to be, a daughter on the way, and somehow he still managed to lead the world. Frankly, if it had not been for Helen, who was always there with him at his side, he doubted he'd have made it this far, even with the help of his father and brother and uncles and cousins. It was Helen who grounded him when he got distracted, who reminded him that he could when he thought that he couldn't, and he couldn't have been happier. He cupped both sides of her face with his hands, his eyes slipping closed contentedly. "I love you, my dear."
Helen huffed a gentle snort through her nose, shaking her head wryly. “A daunting foe indeed, that should lay my husband so low. But I suppose I can manage.” It was an indisputable fact that she would do anything for this man. He simply had to say the word. If Aryan asked her to jump, Helen would ask how high or far, and that was simply it. Once, that kind of feeling would have frightened her. She was used to being used, and to keeping her distance from people so that she would never have this kind of connection to anyone. Because keeping her rationality had always been the most important thing.
But from the moment she’d seen him dying, rationality had left her with regards to him. She’d not needed to think before she did what she did to save him, she had simply operated on instinct. Taking that bullet had required nothing but the movement of her body—her heart had spoken into her mind’s silence, and she’d acted before she thought. It was by now a familiar pattern, to let her feelings rule her only with him. She trusted him enough to give him that kind of absolute devotion. He had shown her again and again that he would never take advantage of it, that his heart was hers as surely as hers belonged to him.
Gently, Helen placed her hands over his upon her face, sighing softly. Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “I love you, too, Aryan,” she murmured, so quietly it was almost hard to hear.
Which meant that at the moment, he really needed her to take pity on him.
At the same time, he walked over to where his wife sat, where he lowered himself next to her and placed his lips at her temple, one hand resting on her abdomen, which was rather distended at the moment, though being seven months pregnant did tend to do that to a person. He smiled at her. "How are you, my dear?"
Helen had borne pregnancy on both occasions with the same stoic evenness she seemed to apply to almost everything she did. It had never made her particularly ill or uncomfortable, and even Lucien’s birth had been minimally painful, though… perhaps that had more to do with her tolerance than anything. So, seven months into her second one, she honestly wasn’t inhibited that much, not even by the fact that her daughter was exhibiting a boisterousness that she would not have expected any child of herself and Aryan to have.
She raised a delicate silver eyebrow at her husband when he sat beside her, leaning just slightly into the kiss he pressed to her temple, but taking one of his hands in hers at the same time. “It is really a rather simple procedure,” she told him, and though her tone did not vary overmuch from cool, there was a light note of teasing in there that perhaps only he would be able to properly detect. “I am still slightly amazed that someone like you hasn’t found some way to master this by now.” Her thin fingers deftly worked at the cuff until everything was smooth and in place, and then she repeated the procedure with the other one.
“There. It would not do for the president of the world to look disheveled for his family’s Christmas, now would it?” She smiled softly, reaching up to smooth down a few of his silky black hairs, and now it was clear that she was teasing him. She’d even used Leo’s silly title for Aryan’s office. Helen had been his bodyguard as well as his wife for most of his tenure, but was presently taking a bit of leave due to her condition. Still, she went into the office every day he did, busying herself with more administrative tasks until she could go back to shadowing him. She was content and complete, and it was something she’d never thought to feel.
Aryan smiled rather sheepishly at his wife, shrugging lightly. "What can I say, cufflinks are simply my enemy now. It appears I have met my match, and must depend on my wife to save me from a horrible, agonizing, and tragic embarrasment." He kissed her softly, that silly little smile never leaving his face. She amazed him, really, and two decades had not diminished that awe at all. Aryan would look at Helen the same way his father looked at his mother; there was no denying the love that was written across his face as plain as day. Alden and Emrys and quite a few of his relatives liked to tease him about it, but he could care less, really.
He had the woman he loved, a son that was more brilliant than Aryan could ever hope to be, a daughter on the way, and somehow he still managed to lead the world. Frankly, if it had not been for Helen, who was always there with him at his side, he doubted he'd have made it this far, even with the help of his father and brother and uncles and cousins. It was Helen who grounded him when he got distracted, who reminded him that he could when he thought that he couldn't, and he couldn't have been happier. He cupped both sides of her face with his hands, his eyes slipping closed contentedly. "I love you, my dear."
Helen huffed a gentle snort through her nose, shaking her head wryly. “A daunting foe indeed, that should lay my husband so low. But I suppose I can manage.” It was an indisputable fact that she would do anything for this man. He simply had to say the word. If Aryan asked her to jump, Helen would ask how high or far, and that was simply it. Once, that kind of feeling would have frightened her. She was used to being used, and to keeping her distance from people so that she would never have this kind of connection to anyone. Because keeping her rationality had always been the most important thing.
But from the moment she’d seen him dying, rationality had left her with regards to him. She’d not needed to think before she did what she did to save him, she had simply operated on instinct. Taking that bullet had required nothing but the movement of her body—her heart had spoken into her mind’s silence, and she’d acted before she thought. It was by now a familiar pattern, to let her feelings rule her only with him. She trusted him enough to give him that kind of absolute devotion. He had shown her again and again that he would never take advantage of it, that his heart was hers as surely as hers belonged to him.
Gently, Helen placed her hands over his upon her face, sighing softly. Leaning forward, she pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “I love you, too, Aryan,” she murmured, so quietly it was almost hard to hear.
Balthasar began Christmas morning in the ballroom of this estate, at the grand piano. It wouldn’t be more than an hour before the room filled with people, but until then, he was free to use it as he liked. Strangely, he wasn’t playing at the moment, but rather writing, the slight scratch of a pencil the only sound in the otherwise still, echoing chamber. He was intently bent over his work, a faint line between his brows indicating the amount of focus he was pouring into what he was doing. It was something he liked to do, writing sheet music, and he always had.
It was not, however, until after the war that he really found he had the time to do it. Of course, it wasn’t like he had nothing else to do with his days—he had a son to raise and matters of grave importance to help Aryan with, to say nothing of the amount of time he was happy to spend with Alarica, but… he did have time to do some things simply by himself, as well, and it was in those moments that he had spent the last year working on this one piece. It was important to him, more than most of the others, because he wasn’t writing it for a symphony or for public consumption, nor indeed for the opera, where he understood Elizabeth was making a name for herself. This was something much more personal than that.
His father and brother may have struggled with cuffs and cufflinks, but it was debatable whether Balthasar even knew that cufflinks existed. Indeed, though he was well-dressed in a dark blue shirt and a black vest with crisp, black trousers, the sleeves were rolled all the way to his elbows, displaying muscular forearms presently slightly dirtied by graphite smudges from the pencil. He’d been at his work all night, after all, and he’d intended that. It had to be as perfect as he could make it.
Alarica frowned, though it was not one of sadness or discomfort, but rather one of irritation. Her son, as young as he still was, had gone off somewhere, and now she was without her son nor her lover. Twenty years had been a very long time to have passed as it had, however; she had spent every moment of it in utter bliss. The war was over, she had the love of her life, and she had a son with said love of her life. She couldn't have been more happy, and in fact even voiced that if she was, she'd probably be dead or something of the sort, which of course elicited a snort and a laugh from her mother. She shook her head at the memory before glancing back at her reflection. She was dressed, for once, in a very sleek, black dress.
It contrasted greatly against the white of her hair, and brought out the pink of her eyes, highlighting her pale skin tone in the process. She appeared almost like a ghost really, and she had contemplated on changing her outfit, however; the dress was rather fitting and she liked it. Besides, she'd never been one to care much about such things, however; it was the family Christmas gathering, and she was required to look her best. She glanced at her hair, watching as a few of the strands, curled, lay over her shoulder and down to her diaphragm. Her bangs lay where they had always laid; above her brows and slightly touching the tips of her eyelashes. Satisfied with her appearance, she left the comfort of her room and singled out a single scent, a smirk pulling at her features in the process.
She followed it to the ballroom of the estate and leaned against the door frame, shaking her head slightly as she stared at Balthasar at the piano, writing away it seemed, on a piece of paper. "Do tell, what it is that you are doing that has taken all of your attention as of late, away from me," she spoke, a hint of teasing laced in her voice as she walked over towards him, laying her hands over his shoulder and leaning forward so that her chin was propped on his shoulder. She nipped at his ear a bit, before laying her head slightly into the crook of his neck.
As intently-focused as he had been, Balthasar had not missed her entrance. It was impossible for him to not know where Rica was, but he still had not precisely been expecting the contact, and a slight flush crept up his neck when she nipped his ear. Really, his wife was just too distracting. Still, though, the question made him smile, a gentle expression, and he flicked his eyes to the side so that he regarded the profile of her face from the corner of them. Moving only slightly so as not to disturb her from the way she was leaning against him—a feeling he quite liked—he straightened the papers and set them on the piano so as to be able to read from the music.
Lifting the dust cover over the keys, he replied with a certain kind of quiet sincerity that was entirely his. “I promise you, beloved, that my attention never really leaves you.” Lifting his hands gracefully, Balthasar placed them at the keys, and began to play what was written on the sheet music. The song was in the right time measure for a waltz, but it was clear that it was not a classical piece, though it was in the right style. Perhaps that was to be expected, since Balthasar was in fact the one who’d composed it.
When it came to an end, he turned around on the bench, taking her hand and pulling her down to sit across his lap. “Merry Christmas, Rica,” he said, presenting her with the sheet music. Written at the top, in Balthasar’s surprisingly-elegant hand, were the words Alarica’s Waltz. There were already several orchestras interested in debuting the piece, as the flourishing arts atmosphere was always looking for new things to play, perhaps partially in celebration of a new world, but whether she wanted everyone or nobody else to know the song was entirely up to her.
Alarica smiled against Balthasar's neck as he spoke, eliciting a light chuckle from her as she turned her attention to his hands. She watched as he fixed the music sheet against the piano and allowed her eyes to graze over it. Not one for doing the actual reading of music sheets, she opted to listen to the music that his hands produced, her smile widening as she listened. Once it finished, she was pulled into his lap, and her smile morphed into a smirk. She grasped the papers in her hand, studying them as she read the title of the music. She turned towards the man she loved and leaned close to his face, stopping just inches away from his lips as the smirk turned back into a smile.
"If you really wanted to give me a Christmas present, you could give me another child. That boy of yours seems to have wandering legs, and I can't seem to find him," though the words were said lightly with a hint of teasing behind them. "It's beautiful, Balthasar, I love it," she stated, grabbing his lips gently with hers, pulling on his bottom lip with her teeth before pulling back. She truly enjoyed teasing him every moment she could. It was easy, and she enjoyed it far too much. Besides, she enjoyed being the only one who could do that to him. "Shall we put it to good use then? And let the whole world hear it?" she stated, wrapping her arms across his neck.
"Because frankly, I can think of a lot more things the world could hear," she stated, her eyes sliding into a narrow shape as the smirk returned to her face.
All his power, and he was completely useless against the things she could do to him, he really was. He cleared his throat slightly awkwardly at her alternative suggestion, raising a brow and fighting not to blush again. He was only partially successful. Balthasar had discovered that whenever she pushed him a little further than he could really handle, the part of his that was a few shades darker responded to it, as though it were something of a summons. He was still unmistakably Balthasar, he just forgot to care about some of the things Balthasar usually cared about. Like public decency.
So while on the one hand, he was very easy to fluster, it was also true that a little too far, and he preferred to do the flustering. The slow, wicked smile that took over his face was as much an indication as anything that she’d struck the right nerve, if the raw desire in his eyes didn’t convey it effectively enough. “A little bit public isn’t it?” he inquired of their location, which would undoubtedly be filled with relatives in forty-five minutes or less, perhaps one or two ahead of time if they were unlucky. Balthasar shifted so that his lips were pressed to her ear. “But if you really want them all to hear you, I suppose it makes no difference to me.”
So she wanted a second child? Well, he never had been able to deny her anything…
It was not, however, until after the war that he really found he had the time to do it. Of course, it wasn’t like he had nothing else to do with his days—he had a son to raise and matters of grave importance to help Aryan with, to say nothing of the amount of time he was happy to spend with Alarica, but… he did have time to do some things simply by himself, as well, and it was in those moments that he had spent the last year working on this one piece. It was important to him, more than most of the others, because he wasn’t writing it for a symphony or for public consumption, nor indeed for the opera, where he understood Elizabeth was making a name for herself. This was something much more personal than that.
His father and brother may have struggled with cuffs and cufflinks, but it was debatable whether Balthasar even knew that cufflinks existed. Indeed, though he was well-dressed in a dark blue shirt and a black vest with crisp, black trousers, the sleeves were rolled all the way to his elbows, displaying muscular forearms presently slightly dirtied by graphite smudges from the pencil. He’d been at his work all night, after all, and he’d intended that. It had to be as perfect as he could make it.
Alarica frowned, though it was not one of sadness or discomfort, but rather one of irritation. Her son, as young as he still was, had gone off somewhere, and now she was without her son nor her lover. Twenty years had been a very long time to have passed as it had, however; she had spent every moment of it in utter bliss. The war was over, she had the love of her life, and she had a son with said love of her life. She couldn't have been more happy, and in fact even voiced that if she was, she'd probably be dead or something of the sort, which of course elicited a snort and a laugh from her mother. She shook her head at the memory before glancing back at her reflection. She was dressed, for once, in a very sleek, black dress.
It contrasted greatly against the white of her hair, and brought out the pink of her eyes, highlighting her pale skin tone in the process. She appeared almost like a ghost really, and she had contemplated on changing her outfit, however; the dress was rather fitting and she liked it. Besides, she'd never been one to care much about such things, however; it was the family Christmas gathering, and she was required to look her best. She glanced at her hair, watching as a few of the strands, curled, lay over her shoulder and down to her diaphragm. Her bangs lay where they had always laid; above her brows and slightly touching the tips of her eyelashes. Satisfied with her appearance, she left the comfort of her room and singled out a single scent, a smirk pulling at her features in the process.
She followed it to the ballroom of the estate and leaned against the door frame, shaking her head slightly as she stared at Balthasar at the piano, writing away it seemed, on a piece of paper. "Do tell, what it is that you are doing that has taken all of your attention as of late, away from me," she spoke, a hint of teasing laced in her voice as she walked over towards him, laying her hands over his shoulder and leaning forward so that her chin was propped on his shoulder. She nipped at his ear a bit, before laying her head slightly into the crook of his neck.
As intently-focused as he had been, Balthasar had not missed her entrance. It was impossible for him to not know where Rica was, but he still had not precisely been expecting the contact, and a slight flush crept up his neck when she nipped his ear. Really, his wife was just too distracting. Still, though, the question made him smile, a gentle expression, and he flicked his eyes to the side so that he regarded the profile of her face from the corner of them. Moving only slightly so as not to disturb her from the way she was leaning against him—a feeling he quite liked—he straightened the papers and set them on the piano so as to be able to read from the music.
Lifting the dust cover over the keys, he replied with a certain kind of quiet sincerity that was entirely his. “I promise you, beloved, that my attention never really leaves you.” Lifting his hands gracefully, Balthasar placed them at the keys, and began to play what was written on the sheet music. The song was in the right time measure for a waltz, but it was clear that it was not a classical piece, though it was in the right style. Perhaps that was to be expected, since Balthasar was in fact the one who’d composed it.
When it came to an end, he turned around on the bench, taking her hand and pulling her down to sit across his lap. “Merry Christmas, Rica,” he said, presenting her with the sheet music. Written at the top, in Balthasar’s surprisingly-elegant hand, were the words Alarica’s Waltz. There were already several orchestras interested in debuting the piece, as the flourishing arts atmosphere was always looking for new things to play, perhaps partially in celebration of a new world, but whether she wanted everyone or nobody else to know the song was entirely up to her.
Alarica smiled against Balthasar's neck as he spoke, eliciting a light chuckle from her as she turned her attention to his hands. She watched as he fixed the music sheet against the piano and allowed her eyes to graze over it. Not one for doing the actual reading of music sheets, she opted to listen to the music that his hands produced, her smile widening as she listened. Once it finished, she was pulled into his lap, and her smile morphed into a smirk. She grasped the papers in her hand, studying them as she read the title of the music. She turned towards the man she loved and leaned close to his face, stopping just inches away from his lips as the smirk turned back into a smile.
"If you really wanted to give me a Christmas present, you could give me another child. That boy of yours seems to have wandering legs, and I can't seem to find him," though the words were said lightly with a hint of teasing behind them. "It's beautiful, Balthasar, I love it," she stated, grabbing his lips gently with hers, pulling on his bottom lip with her teeth before pulling back. She truly enjoyed teasing him every moment she could. It was easy, and she enjoyed it far too much. Besides, she enjoyed being the only one who could do that to him. "Shall we put it to good use then? And let the whole world hear it?" she stated, wrapping her arms across his neck.
"Because frankly, I can think of a lot more things the world could hear," she stated, her eyes sliding into a narrow shape as the smirk returned to her face.
All his power, and he was completely useless against the things she could do to him, he really was. He cleared his throat slightly awkwardly at her alternative suggestion, raising a brow and fighting not to blush again. He was only partially successful. Balthasar had discovered that whenever she pushed him a little further than he could really handle, the part of his that was a few shades darker responded to it, as though it were something of a summons. He was still unmistakably Balthasar, he just forgot to care about some of the things Balthasar usually cared about. Like public decency.
So while on the one hand, he was very easy to fluster, it was also true that a little too far, and he preferred to do the flustering. The slow, wicked smile that took over his face was as much an indication as anything that she’d struck the right nerve, if the raw desire in his eyes didn’t convey it effectively enough. “A little bit public isn’t it?” he inquired of their location, which would undoubtedly be filled with relatives in forty-five minutes or less, perhaps one or two ahead of time if they were unlucky. Balthasar shifted so that his lips were pressed to her ear. “But if you really want them all to hear you, I suppose it makes no difference to me.”
So she wanted a second child? Well, he never had been able to deny her anything…
Leora accepted the shears from Lyra, arrayed in white silk, smiling at her daughter as she went to join Andromeda, presently in black velvet. Her twins were about as different as it was possible for girls to be. Where the blue-eyed, black-haired Lyra was quiet, intense, and an intellectual to match even the most brilliant of her cousins, the snow-haired, red-eyed Andromeda was so much her father’s daughter that Leo couldn’t help but smile. Loud, boisterous, and always ready for a fight.
Unfortunately, the fight right now was all Leo’s to deal with, and it didn’t take her long to find her husband, though the process of actually getting him to submit to her ministrations was far from simple. When words didn’t work, she ended up dragging him and shoving him bodily into the chair, brandishing the shears in front of him. “Don’t make me tie you down Keir,” she threatened, though honestly, she wouldn't have minded. Andromeda cackled at her father’s misfortune, having absolutely no sense of loyalty when it came to the arguments between her parents even if she was very much Keir’s child in just about every respect. Lyra merely sighed and rolled her eyes—such things were relatively normal in the Alistair household, and this branch was no exception.
Shaking her head, the dark-haired girl grabbed her twin’s elbow and pulled them both from the room, closing the door with a firm click behind her. “Honestly,” Leora said to him, cocking her head to the side and reaching forward to run a few fingers through his unruly forelock, “I don’t understand why you have to be such a baby about this. I promise I’m not taking off more than a couple of inches.”
Keir had never really been one to pout, but when it came to this, that was his final defense. It did him little good, as his wife still forced him bodily into the chair in which he now sat. So, with about as much dignity he could muster -and that was very little, mind you- he sighed, allowing her to snip off the ends of his hair. "I don't know why you don't just simply leave it alone. It's fine how it is." he grumbled, and then grinned at her after his daughters left.
"So..." he said lowly, catching her wrist as she went for his bangs with the shears, his eyes going vermilion as he smiled up at her. "Is that a promise, tying me up?"
Leo sighed. She’d lost track of how many times they’d had this exact fight over the past twenty years, though to call it a “fight” was really a bit of a stretch. It was more like a perpetual disagreement, in which he didn’t see the problem with split ends and she didn’t see the reason he was so adamant in looking like a shaggy dog. She loved his hair—possibly even more than he did, though she’d never tell him so—but regular trims were part of the reason it was so perfect to run her hands through. “Oh shut up,” she said, trimming the back ends first. “You need to be able to see, you silly man.”
Of course, then she walked around to the front, to try and get at the ragged fringe that was preventing just that, but his hand on her wrist stopped her, the words sending a pleasant little fissure down her spine. Her mouth turned up at the corners, and she leaned down so that their noses were an inch apart. “Depends,” she purred. “How much do you care about making it downstairs in time?”
Keir smirked at his wife, bridging the gap between them as he kissed her with an open-mouthed heat that spoke of desire and possibly something a little darker. The last time he and Leora had actually made it downstairs on time was a moment he could not actually remember, and he didn't care to, either. For the moment, his whole world simply revolved around her, as he replied, "We never make it in time anyway, why start worrying about it now?"
“Who said I was worried?” Leora replied, moving a bit closer so as to climb astride his lap in the chair, matching heat with heat and sliding her tongue playfully along his. If Keir were paying attention, and she was doing her damndest to ensure that he was not, he would have felt the slide of cool silk against his wrists as she did, in fact, bind them to the arms of the chair, tying a firm but comfortable knot in each. The silk, it turned out, had come from the ribbon accents on the dress she was presently wearing, deftly worked out from where they were threaded at her neckline and waist. The binds were relatively slender, but silk was one of those materials that was a lot stronger than its weight would suggest, and it did not easily tear. He’d have to actually put some serious effort into it if he wanted out.
Which of course was precisely the point. Pulling back suddenly, Leo returned to standing, retrieving the shears from her pocket and snipping them together once for emphasis. “Thought you could make me forget, did you? Be a good boy and let me finish with your fringe, and then maybe I won’t leave you here and be on time for once, hm?” She took just the smallest moment to savor the image, then smiled and reached forward for the first jagged-ended lock of his bangs.
Keir wore a rather shocked expression for about two seconds that only widened when she snapped the shears shut in front of him, and then resigned himself to the torture with a heavy sigh. He contemplated continuously moving his head, but decided against it. If he wasn't careful, one of these days he was going to get stabbed viciously in the eye.
When she was finished, he gazed back up at her, the muscles of his upper arms and torso bunching as he pulled at the silk. He wasn't actually trying to get free, really, as he could have done that from the start, but honestly, he was having a little too much fun at the prospect. "The shaggy dog was a good dog, does he get his treat now?"
Brushing the last traces of hair off his shoulders, Leora paused in the motion, lifting her eyebrow at him and smirking. She really did like it better when she could properly see his eyes. For a moment, she traced the scar bisecting one of them delicately with a finger, making a contemplative humming noise in the back of her throat. “Hmm… I suppose a bit of a reward is in order…” She threaded her fingers into the hair at either side of his head, laying a languid, slow kiss on his mouth.
“But the ropes stay on.”
Unfortunately, the fight right now was all Leo’s to deal with, and it didn’t take her long to find her husband, though the process of actually getting him to submit to her ministrations was far from simple. When words didn’t work, she ended up dragging him and shoving him bodily into the chair, brandishing the shears in front of him. “Don’t make me tie you down Keir,” she threatened, though honestly, she wouldn't have minded. Andromeda cackled at her father’s misfortune, having absolutely no sense of loyalty when it came to the arguments between her parents even if she was very much Keir’s child in just about every respect. Lyra merely sighed and rolled her eyes—such things were relatively normal in the Alistair household, and this branch was no exception.
Shaking her head, the dark-haired girl grabbed her twin’s elbow and pulled them both from the room, closing the door with a firm click behind her. “Honestly,” Leora said to him, cocking her head to the side and reaching forward to run a few fingers through his unruly forelock, “I don’t understand why you have to be such a baby about this. I promise I’m not taking off more than a couple of inches.”
Keir had never really been one to pout, but when it came to this, that was his final defense. It did him little good, as his wife still forced him bodily into the chair in which he now sat. So, with about as much dignity he could muster -and that was very little, mind you- he sighed, allowing her to snip off the ends of his hair. "I don't know why you don't just simply leave it alone. It's fine how it is." he grumbled, and then grinned at her after his daughters left.
"So..." he said lowly, catching her wrist as she went for his bangs with the shears, his eyes going vermilion as he smiled up at her. "Is that a promise, tying me up?"
Leo sighed. She’d lost track of how many times they’d had this exact fight over the past twenty years, though to call it a “fight” was really a bit of a stretch. It was more like a perpetual disagreement, in which he didn’t see the problem with split ends and she didn’t see the reason he was so adamant in looking like a shaggy dog. She loved his hair—possibly even more than he did, though she’d never tell him so—but regular trims were part of the reason it was so perfect to run her hands through. “Oh shut up,” she said, trimming the back ends first. “You need to be able to see, you silly man.”
Of course, then she walked around to the front, to try and get at the ragged fringe that was preventing just that, but his hand on her wrist stopped her, the words sending a pleasant little fissure down her spine. Her mouth turned up at the corners, and she leaned down so that their noses were an inch apart. “Depends,” she purred. “How much do you care about making it downstairs in time?”
Keir smirked at his wife, bridging the gap between them as he kissed her with an open-mouthed heat that spoke of desire and possibly something a little darker. The last time he and Leora had actually made it downstairs on time was a moment he could not actually remember, and he didn't care to, either. For the moment, his whole world simply revolved around her, as he replied, "We never make it in time anyway, why start worrying about it now?"
“Who said I was worried?” Leora replied, moving a bit closer so as to climb astride his lap in the chair, matching heat with heat and sliding her tongue playfully along his. If Keir were paying attention, and she was doing her damndest to ensure that he was not, he would have felt the slide of cool silk against his wrists as she did, in fact, bind them to the arms of the chair, tying a firm but comfortable knot in each. The silk, it turned out, had come from the ribbon accents on the dress she was presently wearing, deftly worked out from where they were threaded at her neckline and waist. The binds were relatively slender, but silk was one of those materials that was a lot stronger than its weight would suggest, and it did not easily tear. He’d have to actually put some serious effort into it if he wanted out.
Which of course was precisely the point. Pulling back suddenly, Leo returned to standing, retrieving the shears from her pocket and snipping them together once for emphasis. “Thought you could make me forget, did you? Be a good boy and let me finish with your fringe, and then maybe I won’t leave you here and be on time for once, hm?” She took just the smallest moment to savor the image, then smiled and reached forward for the first jagged-ended lock of his bangs.
Keir wore a rather shocked expression for about two seconds that only widened when she snapped the shears shut in front of him, and then resigned himself to the torture with a heavy sigh. He contemplated continuously moving his head, but decided against it. If he wasn't careful, one of these days he was going to get stabbed viciously in the eye.
When she was finished, he gazed back up at her, the muscles of his upper arms and torso bunching as he pulled at the silk. He wasn't actually trying to get free, really, as he could have done that from the start, but honestly, he was having a little too much fun at the prospect. "The shaggy dog was a good dog, does he get his treat now?"
Brushing the last traces of hair off his shoulders, Leora paused in the motion, lifting her eyebrow at him and smirking. She really did like it better when she could properly see his eyes. For a moment, she traced the scar bisecting one of them delicately with a finger, making a contemplative humming noise in the back of her throat. “Hmm… I suppose a bit of a reward is in order…” She threaded her fingers into the hair at either side of his head, laying a languid, slow kiss on his mouth.
“But the ropes stay on.”
He was pretty damn good at this parenting thing.
Ten children, all somewhere between five and fifteen, stood in a line in front of Alden, and all of them were dressed impeccably. Some of them looked a little less than pleased with this, but they all put up with it, because purple-dad would know if they didn’t. Purple-dad always knew, so it was better to try not to fool him. Sometimes, you could pull one over on yellow-dad, especially if you played to his sympathies, but purple-dad was utterly ruthless. It didn’t mean he loved them any less, of course, and they adored both their fathers, but there was just an understanding that you had to behave yourself. So they did.
Of course, when purple-dad’s face broke into a wide grin, theirs all matched. They knew what that facial expression meant—it was time to cause trouble. “All right, minions,” Alden said, leaning down with his hands on his knees to look them all too-seriously in the faces, an even mix of male and female. Several giggles escaped small lungs at the title. “It’s Christmas. You know what that means. Eat all of Mama Ava’s food, bother Papa Vincent as much as possible, and cause all the havoc your evil little minds can come up with for everyone. Move the mistletoe around, throw snowballs at Auntie Bree, whatever you want. At the end of the day, the person with the most mischief gets a special prize.”
“But purple-dee, how will you know?” Piped up one of the youngest, a little girl with wide violet eyes and caramel-colored hair. She wasn’t a war orphan, but her parents had both died in a construction accident in Paris. She was too young to remember them, though, and Emrys and Alden were the only parents she knew.
Violet touched his index finger to the side of his head. “Purple-dee always knows, Lily. Don’t you worry about that.” She smiled, reassured, and then Alden straightened, clapping his hands together once to signal that the mayhem was now to begin. Ten children hastened for the door, a few of the younger ones tripping over each other. It kind of reminded him of a lot of puppies, honestly, but eventually they were all tearing through the house, looking for ways to score points with the master of the Game, as they called it. Breaking things was not allowed, but pretty much anything else was fair.
Alden chuckled as he heard the stampede of little feet recede, running a hand through his shoulder-length violet hair, and toying absently with the ends. “Need help with that tie?” he asked without turning to look at his husband. He already knew the answer, after all.
Emrys could only shake his head. Violet's idea of parenting was far from what one would consider conventional, but hell if Em didn't enjoy it. Those ten kids along with Andrick were the pride of his life, and he wasted no opportunity to dote on each and every one of them, even Andy, who was pushing thirty now. He chuckled slightly when Lily called Violet "Purple-dee". Most of the kids had picked up on Andrick's names for them, and it made Em smile.
Even so, he sighed, blushing slightly when Violet asked him if he needed help. It was sad, really, that he could not do one of the most simple things; he always ended up with his fingers stuck. He scowled slightly at his husband's reflection before replying. "Yes..." He supposed he shouldn't feel too wounded, neither of his brothers could tie a tie, either. Still, he didn't stop scowling as Violet worked, though he did lean forward and kiss him before he was finished. "Though I'm sure we'd both prefer it if it was tied elsewhere."
Fortunately, Violet didn’t even have to look at what he was doing to tie a perfect Windsor knot, and so he finished with smooth movements whilst still managing to smile into the kiss and nip Emrys’s lip just hard enough to draw a bead of blood to the surface, which of course he swiped up with his tongue. Smoothing the tie into place, he trailed his hands back up Em’s chest and neck, threading them into his husband’s blond hair and deepening the kiss before he pulled away with all the smugness and surety of a cat. “My dear lover, is that an invitation? You know how I get when you start talking dirty to me,” His voice was laced with amusement, though, and he seemed momentarily content to just smooth Em’s golden locks with his fingers.
Truthfully, Alden was just a little bit enchanted with Em’s playful side, and that feeling in itself was one he’d never really had until he’d become involved with his dhampir cousin. It was, perhaps, a silly little emotion, and common enough in people who loved each other, but for Violet, it was much more than that. Because that sense of a little bit of wonder, of constant fixation and gentle laughter at Emrys’s ways of speaking and his antics and the little things about him—that was something that Vi, for all of his experience with lovers, had never had before. It helped that the sex was fantastic, of course, and that they were friends, but that little thing, so often overlooked by people who took it for granted, was really what made this a forever entanglement for Alden. He’d never had it before, and he never intended to lose it.
“Perhaps later, hm? For now, we have a family to mock mercilessly, food to eat, and a Game to score.” He wondered if anyone would be bold enough to go for the fifty-point move: nailing Papa Vincent in the head with a snowball. It was a little unfair, because the girls were more likely to get away with it, but they hadn’t quite figured that one out yet.
Emrys chuckled slightly. Later is was then, and he had a feeling they would both make sure it happened, too. He shook his head, knowing full-well that one day, one of their kids would figure out how to hit Uncle Vincent with a snowball, and he had a hunch that it would probably be Akiko; the girl was sharper than a tack, really.
"Later it will have to be then, and five bucks says Diya shoves Andy under the mistletoe just to get him to kiss her." That was a bit unfair, really, but it wasn't overly surprising. Andrick was painfully shy, and Diya knew it, too. The poor guy never stood a chance, all she really had to do was bat her eyelashes. Emrys looped his arm through Alden's, the two of them leaving the room together to watch the ensuing chaos that was sure to come from their kids.
“That’s a sucker’s bet if I ever heard one. No deal, lover.”
Ten children, all somewhere between five and fifteen, stood in a line in front of Alden, and all of them were dressed impeccably. Some of them looked a little less than pleased with this, but they all put up with it, because purple-dad would know if they didn’t. Purple-dad always knew, so it was better to try not to fool him. Sometimes, you could pull one over on yellow-dad, especially if you played to his sympathies, but purple-dad was utterly ruthless. It didn’t mean he loved them any less, of course, and they adored both their fathers, but there was just an understanding that you had to behave yourself. So they did.
Of course, when purple-dad’s face broke into a wide grin, theirs all matched. They knew what that facial expression meant—it was time to cause trouble. “All right, minions,” Alden said, leaning down with his hands on his knees to look them all too-seriously in the faces, an even mix of male and female. Several giggles escaped small lungs at the title. “It’s Christmas. You know what that means. Eat all of Mama Ava’s food, bother Papa Vincent as much as possible, and cause all the havoc your evil little minds can come up with for everyone. Move the mistletoe around, throw snowballs at Auntie Bree, whatever you want. At the end of the day, the person with the most mischief gets a special prize.”
“But purple-dee, how will you know?” Piped up one of the youngest, a little girl with wide violet eyes and caramel-colored hair. She wasn’t a war orphan, but her parents had both died in a construction accident in Paris. She was too young to remember them, though, and Emrys and Alden were the only parents she knew.
Violet touched his index finger to the side of his head. “Purple-dee always knows, Lily. Don’t you worry about that.” She smiled, reassured, and then Alden straightened, clapping his hands together once to signal that the mayhem was now to begin. Ten children hastened for the door, a few of the younger ones tripping over each other. It kind of reminded him of a lot of puppies, honestly, but eventually they were all tearing through the house, looking for ways to score points with the master of the Game, as they called it. Breaking things was not allowed, but pretty much anything else was fair.
Alden chuckled as he heard the stampede of little feet recede, running a hand through his shoulder-length violet hair, and toying absently with the ends. “Need help with that tie?” he asked without turning to look at his husband. He already knew the answer, after all.
Emrys could only shake his head. Violet's idea of parenting was far from what one would consider conventional, but hell if Em didn't enjoy it. Those ten kids along with Andrick were the pride of his life, and he wasted no opportunity to dote on each and every one of them, even Andy, who was pushing thirty now. He chuckled slightly when Lily called Violet "Purple-dee". Most of the kids had picked up on Andrick's names for them, and it made Em smile.
Even so, he sighed, blushing slightly when Violet asked him if he needed help. It was sad, really, that he could not do one of the most simple things; he always ended up with his fingers stuck. He scowled slightly at his husband's reflection before replying. "Yes..." He supposed he shouldn't feel too wounded, neither of his brothers could tie a tie, either. Still, he didn't stop scowling as Violet worked, though he did lean forward and kiss him before he was finished. "Though I'm sure we'd both prefer it if it was tied elsewhere."
Fortunately, Violet didn’t even have to look at what he was doing to tie a perfect Windsor knot, and so he finished with smooth movements whilst still managing to smile into the kiss and nip Emrys’s lip just hard enough to draw a bead of blood to the surface, which of course he swiped up with his tongue. Smoothing the tie into place, he trailed his hands back up Em’s chest and neck, threading them into his husband’s blond hair and deepening the kiss before he pulled away with all the smugness and surety of a cat. “My dear lover, is that an invitation? You know how I get when you start talking dirty to me,” His voice was laced with amusement, though, and he seemed momentarily content to just smooth Em’s golden locks with his fingers.
Truthfully, Alden was just a little bit enchanted with Em’s playful side, and that feeling in itself was one he’d never really had until he’d become involved with his dhampir cousin. It was, perhaps, a silly little emotion, and common enough in people who loved each other, but for Violet, it was much more than that. Because that sense of a little bit of wonder, of constant fixation and gentle laughter at Emrys’s ways of speaking and his antics and the little things about him—that was something that Vi, for all of his experience with lovers, had never had before. It helped that the sex was fantastic, of course, and that they were friends, but that little thing, so often overlooked by people who took it for granted, was really what made this a forever entanglement for Alden. He’d never had it before, and he never intended to lose it.
“Perhaps later, hm? For now, we have a family to mock mercilessly, food to eat, and a Game to score.” He wondered if anyone would be bold enough to go for the fifty-point move: nailing Papa Vincent in the head with a snowball. It was a little unfair, because the girls were more likely to get away with it, but they hadn’t quite figured that one out yet.
Emrys chuckled slightly. Later is was then, and he had a feeling they would both make sure it happened, too. He shook his head, knowing full-well that one day, one of their kids would figure out how to hit Uncle Vincent with a snowball, and he had a hunch that it would probably be Akiko; the girl was sharper than a tack, really.
"Later it will have to be then, and five bucks says Diya shoves Andy under the mistletoe just to get him to kiss her." That was a bit unfair, really, but it wasn't overly surprising. Andrick was painfully shy, and Diya knew it, too. The poor guy never stood a chance, all she really had to do was bat her eyelashes. Emrys looped his arm through Alden's, the two of them leaving the room together to watch the ensuing chaos that was sure to come from their kids.
“That’s a sucker’s bet if I ever heard one. No deal, lover.”
She ran her fingers through her hair again, the amber-brown locks descending down to her calves. Big blue eyes looked back at her in the mirror, the yellow dress drawing out the blue all the more. As per usual, she had that trademark smile on her face, which only widened as she tucked the white lily into her hair behind her ear. Call her sentimental, but it had been the first gift Andrick had ever given her, and she adored it.
Well, really, Diya adored him, from his quiet ways to how much he loved his fathers. She had always felt drawn to him, but it had only gotten stronger over the last twenty years, not to mention watching him around his new brothers and sisters; she'd lost count after ten. Apparently Aunt Rits really had a thing for kids. Not that she coud blame him, she loved kids. Though perhaps not as much as she loved Andrick.
Andrick wasn’t exactly sure how purple-dad had managed to find the time to stuff him into these clothes between all dozen other kids running around underfoot, but he attributed it to the telepathy thing. He and yellow-dad fostered war-orphans, and though any of them were welcome back at any time—and many of them came to visit frequently—each was helped to find somewhere to live after they came of age and allowed to live an independent life however they chose. Except, apparently, him, if the fact that his fathers still had a say in his wardrobe had anything to do with it. Purple-dad was a bit of stickler about such things, though, and refused to allow any child of his to look unsuited to the situation they were in. There was a valuable lesson in there somewhere, Andy was sure, but mostly it was just a pain.
He tugged in vain at the sleeves of his dark grey blazer, then gave it up for useless. He looked how he looked—and he was pretty sure that no matter what he did, he’d never look quite good enough to be standing next to her. He smiled a little at the thought, then shook his head, throwing strands of auburn-gold hair into the brilliant green of his eyes. He’d flatly refused to let yellow-dad gel it, as he did for more formal occasions himself. It just wouldn’t have looked or felt right.
Reaching the door he wanted, he knocked tentatively, hoping he wasn’t too early. It was still a few minutes before he said he’d show up, after all. He wasn’t exactly sure how this whole thing came about, honestly—it certainly hadn’t been his decision. But he’d always liked her, and sometime around twenty-five, he’d finally figured out that he loved her, and somehow, she’d either found out or guessed or just decided, and it was understood that they were together. He might not have been the one to decide it, as he’d always been a bit too shy, really, but that was not to say he was unhappy about it. In fact, he was pretty sure it was impossible to be any happier than this.
Diya glanced over at the door, shaking her head slightly. She'd grown used to it, to be honest. He didn't have to, yet still he knocked. Always the gentleman, really. Even so, the simple fact of knowing that he was on the other side of the door was enough to make her heart leap. She practically skipped over to the door, answering it with that bright grin on her face. [color=#cf209]"Hey Andy!"[/color] She stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around him, savoring his scent. She giggled slightly, "Uncle Ollie picked out your clothes again, huh?" She could only shake her head. Really, her uncle had a knack for being able to make them match, the blue in what he wore offsetting the yellow of her own dress. Though, perhaps knack wasn't the right word for it.
He was thirty years old, and he still blushed like a teenager every time this woman touched him. The fact that she was always so happy to see him was something that perplexed him, honestly. Why should anyone ever be so excited by the fact that he was around? He wasn’t the vibrant, dynamic personality that some of his relatives were. While smart, he wasn’t a super-genius like Bryer, Lucien, Lyra, or their grandfather Jasper. He wasn’t even funny, really. He was just kind of… there. But with her, it felt somehow like he was much more important than that, and the feeling warmed him from the inside. A lot, if the shade of red he turned when she hugged him was any indication.
“Uh, hey yourself, Dee,” he said, moving his arms to encircle her back gently. Because he was feeling particularly bold, perhaps a result of the holiday, he even dropped a kiss on the crown of her head. Andrick was awkwardly tall—just a shade shorter than his uncle Balthasar, actually, but it wasn't a well-carried graceful or muscular height like that. It was more like a scarecrow—lanky and a bit gangly. He had a fair amount of muscle from all the time he spent outdoors, climbing mountain and trees and whatever else he felt like, but he still sort of resembled a child in a man’s body in some ways. Emotionally, he probably wasn’t much different, if she could still make him blush like this.
“Yeah… he’s a bit pushy about it, honestly, but I guess I can’t complain.” Andrick knew almost nothing about such matters himself, because pretty much anything he wore ended up stained with soil or grass or with holes torn in it from vigorous activity, so it was probably better to let his dad take care of it for formal occasions. She released him, and he stepped back with a touch of reluctance, his cheeks coloring further. “You look amazing, Diya,” he said honestly, ducking his head bashfully. Actually, she took his breath away, every time, no matter what she was wearing or doing or feeling like, but he wasn’t sure he quite had it in him to say that.
Diya smiled softly. She sometimes wondered if she didn't push too hard with Andrick, given how shy he was, but he hadn't run away from her yet. Well...there had been that one time, but then, she had snuck up on him. She smiled at the memory, lancing her fingers through his and tugging him out the door with her. She giggled slightly at his bashfulness. "And you look most handsome, my green-eyed knight." The blue of his jacket and the red of his hair really did make his eyes sparkle, especially when he smiled.
"Now come, we must go collect Daddy and Bry before they make fools of themselves." Some may have taken this as a tease towards her father and her brother, but in reality, she was completely serious.
Well, really, Diya adored him, from his quiet ways to how much he loved his fathers. She had always felt drawn to him, but it had only gotten stronger over the last twenty years, not to mention watching him around his new brothers and sisters; she'd lost count after ten. Apparently Aunt Rits really had a thing for kids. Not that she coud blame him, she loved kids. Though perhaps not as much as she loved Andrick.
Andrick wasn’t exactly sure how purple-dad had managed to find the time to stuff him into these clothes between all dozen other kids running around underfoot, but he attributed it to the telepathy thing. He and yellow-dad fostered war-orphans, and though any of them were welcome back at any time—and many of them came to visit frequently—each was helped to find somewhere to live after they came of age and allowed to live an independent life however they chose. Except, apparently, him, if the fact that his fathers still had a say in his wardrobe had anything to do with it. Purple-dad was a bit of stickler about such things, though, and refused to allow any child of his to look unsuited to the situation they were in. There was a valuable lesson in there somewhere, Andy was sure, but mostly it was just a pain.
He tugged in vain at the sleeves of his dark grey blazer, then gave it up for useless. He looked how he looked—and he was pretty sure that no matter what he did, he’d never look quite good enough to be standing next to her. He smiled a little at the thought, then shook his head, throwing strands of auburn-gold hair into the brilliant green of his eyes. He’d flatly refused to let yellow-dad gel it, as he did for more formal occasions himself. It just wouldn’t have looked or felt right.
Reaching the door he wanted, he knocked tentatively, hoping he wasn’t too early. It was still a few minutes before he said he’d show up, after all. He wasn’t exactly sure how this whole thing came about, honestly—it certainly hadn’t been his decision. But he’d always liked her, and sometime around twenty-five, he’d finally figured out that he loved her, and somehow, she’d either found out or guessed or just decided, and it was understood that they were together. He might not have been the one to decide it, as he’d always been a bit too shy, really, but that was not to say he was unhappy about it. In fact, he was pretty sure it was impossible to be any happier than this.
Diya glanced over at the door, shaking her head slightly. She'd grown used to it, to be honest. He didn't have to, yet still he knocked. Always the gentleman, really. Even so, the simple fact of knowing that he was on the other side of the door was enough to make her heart leap. She practically skipped over to the door, answering it with that bright grin on her face. [color=#cf209]"Hey Andy!"[/color] She stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around him, savoring his scent. She giggled slightly, "Uncle Ollie picked out your clothes again, huh?" She could only shake her head. Really, her uncle had a knack for being able to make them match, the blue in what he wore offsetting the yellow of her own dress. Though, perhaps knack wasn't the right word for it.
He was thirty years old, and he still blushed like a teenager every time this woman touched him. The fact that she was always so happy to see him was something that perplexed him, honestly. Why should anyone ever be so excited by the fact that he was around? He wasn’t the vibrant, dynamic personality that some of his relatives were. While smart, he wasn’t a super-genius like Bryer, Lucien, Lyra, or their grandfather Jasper. He wasn’t even funny, really. He was just kind of… there. But with her, it felt somehow like he was much more important than that, and the feeling warmed him from the inside. A lot, if the shade of red he turned when she hugged him was any indication.
“Uh, hey yourself, Dee,” he said, moving his arms to encircle her back gently. Because he was feeling particularly bold, perhaps a result of the holiday, he even dropped a kiss on the crown of her head. Andrick was awkwardly tall—just a shade shorter than his uncle Balthasar, actually, but it wasn't a well-carried graceful or muscular height like that. It was more like a scarecrow—lanky and a bit gangly. He had a fair amount of muscle from all the time he spent outdoors, climbing mountain and trees and whatever else he felt like, but he still sort of resembled a child in a man’s body in some ways. Emotionally, he probably wasn’t much different, if she could still make him blush like this.
“Yeah… he’s a bit pushy about it, honestly, but I guess I can’t complain.” Andrick knew almost nothing about such matters himself, because pretty much anything he wore ended up stained with soil or grass or with holes torn in it from vigorous activity, so it was probably better to let his dad take care of it for formal occasions. She released him, and he stepped back with a touch of reluctance, his cheeks coloring further. “You look amazing, Diya,” he said honestly, ducking his head bashfully. Actually, she took his breath away, every time, no matter what she was wearing or doing or feeling like, but he wasn’t sure he quite had it in him to say that.
Diya smiled softly. She sometimes wondered if she didn't push too hard with Andrick, given how shy he was, but he hadn't run away from her yet. Well...there had been that one time, but then, she had snuck up on him. She smiled at the memory, lancing her fingers through his and tugging him out the door with her. She giggled slightly at his bashfulness. "And you look most handsome, my green-eyed knight." The blue of his jacket and the red of his hair really did make his eyes sparkle, especially when he smiled.
"Now come, we must go collect Daddy and Bry before they make fools of themselves." Some may have taken this as a tease towards her father and her brother, but in reality, she was completely serious.
In the years to come, the von-Nacht-Alistair-Kuragari group seemed only to grow and blossom, but it never lost the intrinsic warmth and love that bound each and every member of it together. By blood and by fate, they were a family, and as the world around them repaired and healed the damage of three wars, the members of that family found themselves repairing and healing as well. In time, the world was stable enough to go on without them, and they gently withdrew, present when needed but otherwise content to enjoy the eternity they had earned with their efforts.
For the rest of time, they lived happily with one another, as close as it was possible for a family to be, and content in their hard-won peace. Though none could say what exactly had woven their fates together with that bright red string, there was not one among them who regretted it. Indeed, things could not have been better.
For the rest of time, they lived happily with one another, as close as it was possible for a family to be, and content in their hard-won peace. Though none could say what exactly had woven their fates together with that bright red string, there was not one among them who regretted it. Indeed, things could not have been better.
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