**originally posted in 2008**
There's been so much that's occured, that sometimes I can't keep all the details straight in my mind. I don't remember some of what occured after Michael and I ended up back in California. I don't know what led to him getting killed anymore. It was so long ago. At least it was for me. But he's dead now too. They all die, everyone but me it seems. His death somehow led to me getting involved for a brief time with a mage, who strangly enough, liked to create lightsabers out of flashlights. It was rather amusing. Met her a club, Michael was already dead by then. She nearly attacked me. The joys of being undead around other supernaturals is unperileled, let me tell you. I apologize again for the disjointed fragments of my history that you're receiving, but alas, short of allowing some Tremere access to my skull and memories to draw them forth in more detail and order, this is what shall be put forth. The mage and I, her name I don't recall, traveled together for a time. She followed me to one of the more bizarre places, in New York City, or a post-apocalyptic version of New York City. It was dark and most buildings weren't even standing anymore. The ones that were looked as if they hadn't been used for decades. There was no electricity. Now, bear in mind, I had only passed through New York City on my first arrival to this country, but had been impressed by the sheer enormity and magnificence of the city as a whole. To see it become so degenerated was truly shocking. We found ourselves approached by a very skittish group of survivors, who dragged us out of the open and into an abandoned office building. There were fires going in the deepest area of the building, the part farthest removed from all entrances and exits. Strangely enough, I wasn't afraid of the fire like I normally would have been. Instead I was able to appreciate the warmth and comfort of the glow instead of running in abject terror. While now I can realize that as strange, at the time I didn't really notice it. Not long after we joined this ragged band of survivors, I became quite violently sick to my stomach, heaving blood up everywhere. It was excruciating. I lay there for I don't know how long before I was able to pull myself up and crawl over near the fire to grab some water to clean myself off with. So much blood everywhere, I don't think I ever fully comprehended how much I ingest and carry in me on a regular basis. More so than a normal human because it's the only substance I can derive nutrients from. So strange to lose so much blood and not die. . . . but I digress. As we sat there, huddled in the near dark with our, well allies I suppose, we found ourselves under attack by the strange creatures of which I have no names. That was when I found that our allies were werewolves. As they shifted into their strongest form, I found myself moving faster then I thought possible. I know that others of my kind can move faster then normal, but it's not been a gift I've been given. Also, usually, in order to use our gifts, we must use the blood in our systems and at this point I had none.
We managed to repell the intruders, but some of our group were injured severly, too and including my traveling partner at the time. None of us knew how to help her, so gravely wounded was she. I remember fumbling with some bandages, not really sure of what I was doing, just not wanting her to die, mostly because I didn't know what was happening to me and who I might have to fight here, and somehow I managed to heal her. Later I found out that the Curse of Cain somehow operated differently there. I was still a vampire, just not in a way that I was familiar with. I don't pretend to understand it and there's not really anything to be done about it now.
We discovered that the world had been overrun by a group of werewolves that called themselves Black Spiral Dancers. Twisted, apparently, by werewolf standards. Evil, my guess would be they are the werewolf equivalent to what we consider the Baali to be. They were to be performing a ritual a few days hence, at which they were supposed to rip open the fabric of space and allow a realm that overlaps ours into it. It was amusing, but I carried a sword for this. I had no other weapons that I could use. Any natural weapons I may have had, I wasn't familiar with. We attacked as they started the ritual. Megan and I stayed as close together as we could. We noticed that one of the leaders of these Spiral Dancers was wearing a large amber collar. She noticed us, just as we noticed her. The rest of the battle seemed to fade away and there was just the three of us. I stood frozen for a moment as Megan and the she-wolf charged each other. It wasn't until I saw Megan get her back ripped open that I was able to shake off my shock. I lunged at the she-wolf as she was turned away from me. I recall realizing that there was something strange going on in the battles around us as they started to become background noise again. They were all moving in a circle around us as we faught. The Black Spiral Dancers and our allies together, even while they battled each other. There was a rift that started to open over our very heads, and though I don't know what was on the other side of that, I was terrified of what was about to come through. However, at that moment, Megan managed to catch the she-wolf unawares with her magic and she stood before me held within invisible bonds. Megan was screaming at me (such a bossy young girl really) to finish it. The sword moved and sliced through her neck, causing the amber collar to fall at our feet. The world itself started spinning around us as Megan and I fell to our knees, hands covering our ears in an attempt to silence the inhuman shrieks of anger coming from the rift hovering over our heads. Then all was silence and there was noone but Megan and myself. Not the other Black Spiral Dancers, not our allies, no one. I found myself unable to move, and Megan grabbed my arm, then reached out with her other hand and clutched at the collar, and before I knew it we were being transported away from there. The last thing I remember for a long time afterwards was that neither Megan nor I had been in control of the sword when it sliced through that she-wolf's neck. And then only blackness.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Tales of Nate - 55 Years Later
**originally posted in 2008**
55 years later. . . . . . .
I don't remember the mark that I picked it off of. I just know that I have it now and I can't get rid of it. But it has caused me an endless parade of trouble, sorrow and even joy since it's entered my ownership. This new world that I'm living in is already so strange to me and then this small piece of jewelry changes it even more irrevocably. Jenna, who became my friend in a world where I was very alone and perplexed. She shouldn't have. Most others wouldn't in her position. They would have avoided me at all costs. But not Jenna. And now she's dead. There's so much strangness that's happened and it's swirling in my mind, sometimes I can't believe that it's even happened. I woke up here, in Denver of all places and I'm told that I was the one who killed Jenna. But I know that's not so!! Why would I kill her? They did it. They killed her. Frank taunted me with her death while he had me captive, trying to find a way to remove the necklace from me for his own self. To no avail though. Next thing I know, I'm being tossed out of a van in front of some nightclub at the feet of some guitar player. Who just happened to be wearing a similar amber around his wrist. Michael, his name was. In a local band, playing at some bar in San Diego! Stranger still was that I saw Jenna there that night, in the women's restroom, waving her arms at me from inside a mirror and trying to warn me of something. Next thing I know, the entire club is being sucked into some swirling black vortex, and on the spot where the club once stood, there are changelings fighting. Now I have heard the stories of the fey and the sidhe all during my mortal life. There is a family that deals with them quite a bit, but to those of us that didn't it was only half believed. I was not the only one to see this however. While the vast majority of the patrons exited and went running in various directions, there was one other who stood there, watching the spectacle with a dumbfounded look upon his face. The guitarist. At that point, we decided it was best if we both relocated and ended up at his home. This was where I found out that Michael was a werewolf. Yes, don't look like that. If I can exist as a vampire (because that's exactly what I am in case you havn't figured that out) then it stands to reason that there are other creatures that exist. The funny thing is, is that there's a family of the Rom that travel with a tribe of the werewolves. Generally speaking they avoid us Ravnos altogether and to be honest, most werewolves can't stand us to begin with. But no, he wasn't of the family and yet he had no all-consuming hatred for me. Which I appreciated because I was very lost in what was going on. We tried to part company the next morning, however, every time we would end up a certain distance from each other, we'd end up passing by each other again. We finally realized that the ambers we wore were connected to each other and that there was no way we could seperate outselves while we wore them.
I know that according to the calendars, and everyone around me, very little time has passed since Jenna died, but I can see the years of this course stretching back. SOme of the details elude me, and yet some of them are as clear as if it had just happened. Michael and I somehow ended up in the Tibetan mountains. I remember duping some gaje into selling us a boat once we got to the Mediterranian. I believe we were in Italy. We sailed until we reached a port as close as we could get and then hiked. Along our way in the mountains, we encountered a tribe of werewolves. Michael was astounded by what he learned. He believed that he had been turned when he was bitten by a rabid dog in South America while in the military. This stunned the tribe we encountered. They also threatened to kill me for being what I am. Because Michael was traveling with me and took it upon himself to keep me from "losing control" while we were there, they allowed me to pass. As we trudged through the mountians, the weather continued to grow worse. The snow was driving, sometimes it felt as if it was driving right through us. We finally reached a strange seeming peak, that dropped off sheer. We leaned over the edge and there, in the valley was the city of Chicago. I swear on Deanna's blood, it was Chicago, located somewhere in the Tibetan mountians. There was some sort of ward up around it because there was no snow blowing across the city. It was peaceful looking down there. We managed to find a small switchback trail going down the inside of the mountain and carefully climbed down, entering the city. I do not remember how we met him, but we ended up speaking with a gentleman who also wore a piece of amber around his neck, same as mine. He had a book which explained what the ambers were and what was happening to us. My mind still reels when I think of what transpired to land Michael and myself in the predicament we were in. There could be no more than two carriers of the ambers in any one dimension. If at anytime there were more than two, one carrier must be destroyed and the amber absorbed by one of the others. The two remaining carriers would then be thrown into the next dimension where the ambers existed. I remember picking up the book to look at it, and then Michael was grabbing me and yanking me through the door. Evans was trying to slice my head off with a sword. Michael and I managed to make a stand in a department store, police cars all around us. Evans found us and, somehow, we managed to overpower him. The other 5 ambers he had became part of mine and suddenly Michael and I were no longer in the Chicago in the Tibetans. We were back in California.
55 years later. . . . . . .
I don't remember the mark that I picked it off of. I just know that I have it now and I can't get rid of it. But it has caused me an endless parade of trouble, sorrow and even joy since it's entered my ownership. This new world that I'm living in is already so strange to me and then this small piece of jewelry changes it even more irrevocably. Jenna, who became my friend in a world where I was very alone and perplexed. She shouldn't have. Most others wouldn't in her position. They would have avoided me at all costs. But not Jenna. And now she's dead. There's so much strangness that's happened and it's swirling in my mind, sometimes I can't believe that it's even happened. I woke up here, in Denver of all places and I'm told that I was the one who killed Jenna. But I know that's not so!! Why would I kill her? They did it. They killed her. Frank taunted me with her death while he had me captive, trying to find a way to remove the necklace from me for his own self. To no avail though. Next thing I know, I'm being tossed out of a van in front of some nightclub at the feet of some guitar player. Who just happened to be wearing a similar amber around his wrist. Michael, his name was. In a local band, playing at some bar in San Diego! Stranger still was that I saw Jenna there that night, in the women's restroom, waving her arms at me from inside a mirror and trying to warn me of something. Next thing I know, the entire club is being sucked into some swirling black vortex, and on the spot where the club once stood, there are changelings fighting. Now I have heard the stories of the fey and the sidhe all during my mortal life. There is a family that deals with them quite a bit, but to those of us that didn't it was only half believed. I was not the only one to see this however. While the vast majority of the patrons exited and went running in various directions, there was one other who stood there, watching the spectacle with a dumbfounded look upon his face. The guitarist. At that point, we decided it was best if we both relocated and ended up at his home. This was where I found out that Michael was a werewolf. Yes, don't look like that. If I can exist as a vampire (because that's exactly what I am in case you havn't figured that out) then it stands to reason that there are other creatures that exist. The funny thing is, is that there's a family of the Rom that travel with a tribe of the werewolves. Generally speaking they avoid us Ravnos altogether and to be honest, most werewolves can't stand us to begin with. But no, he wasn't of the family and yet he had no all-consuming hatred for me. Which I appreciated because I was very lost in what was going on. We tried to part company the next morning, however, every time we would end up a certain distance from each other, we'd end up passing by each other again. We finally realized that the ambers we wore were connected to each other and that there was no way we could seperate outselves while we wore them.
I know that according to the calendars, and everyone around me, very little time has passed since Jenna died, but I can see the years of this course stretching back. SOme of the details elude me, and yet some of them are as clear as if it had just happened. Michael and I somehow ended up in the Tibetan mountains. I remember duping some gaje into selling us a boat once we got to the Mediterranian. I believe we were in Italy. We sailed until we reached a port as close as we could get and then hiked. Along our way in the mountains, we encountered a tribe of werewolves. Michael was astounded by what he learned. He believed that he had been turned when he was bitten by a rabid dog in South America while in the military. This stunned the tribe we encountered. They also threatened to kill me for being what I am. Because Michael was traveling with me and took it upon himself to keep me from "losing control" while we were there, they allowed me to pass. As we trudged through the mountians, the weather continued to grow worse. The snow was driving, sometimes it felt as if it was driving right through us. We finally reached a strange seeming peak, that dropped off sheer. We leaned over the edge and there, in the valley was the city of Chicago. I swear on Deanna's blood, it was Chicago, located somewhere in the Tibetan mountians. There was some sort of ward up around it because there was no snow blowing across the city. It was peaceful looking down there. We managed to find a small switchback trail going down the inside of the mountain and carefully climbed down, entering the city. I do not remember how we met him, but we ended up speaking with a gentleman who also wore a piece of amber around his neck, same as mine. He had a book which explained what the ambers were and what was happening to us. My mind still reels when I think of what transpired to land Michael and myself in the predicament we were in. There could be no more than two carriers of the ambers in any one dimension. If at anytime there were more than two, one carrier must be destroyed and the amber absorbed by one of the others. The two remaining carriers would then be thrown into the next dimension where the ambers existed. I remember picking up the book to look at it, and then Michael was grabbing me and yanking me through the door. Evans was trying to slice my head off with a sword. Michael and I managed to make a stand in a department store, police cars all around us. Evans found us and, somehow, we managed to overpower him. The other 5 ambers he had became part of mine and suddenly Michael and I were no longer in the Chicago in the Tibetans. We were back in California.
Tales of Nate - Natasha speaks
**originally posted in 2007**
I've been this creature for 3 months now. They have been the most glorious and torturous I've ever known. I feel the loss of what I was so keenly. The gifts I had as part of my tribe now lost to me. Instead I have the means to survive this genocide that is taking place and stalk the same people that have inflicted this unwarrented death upon us. My cousins have disappeared. I do not know what's become of them. The three of us training every day, working to perfect these new bodies and talents bestowed on us. I woke up one night and they were gone. Alienor says she doesn't know where they have gone to, but I no longer believe that. Her eyes have always been cold, but there's something more now. A shifting that occurs whenever I probe too much about what we are to do next or any of the rest of our family, either alive or otherwise. The fragmented shards of what was once my soul cries out to me that I have sold myself into some obscene form of slavery from which there is no escape. There is more looming upon the horizon then I can comprehend. I dare not voice my fears out loud, not right now. Alienor has some grander plan in mind than simply helping the family to survive this war. I do not know what she plans, but I can see her mind working on it when she thinks I am occupied with my training. I can do much more than what I've been working on in recent days. But if I improve too quickly she'll move forward before I know what's happening. My soul is trapped forever in this limboed existence and my former self dead. Natasha Phurie Dae no longer exists. I am only Natasha Ravnos, killer of killers and survivor of nothing. Survive one night to the next, that's all I can do. Maybe one night I can at least trade this hell for a different type of hell.
I've been this creature for 3 months now. They have been the most glorious and torturous I've ever known. I feel the loss of what I was so keenly. The gifts I had as part of my tribe now lost to me. Instead I have the means to survive this genocide that is taking place and stalk the same people that have inflicted this unwarrented death upon us. My cousins have disappeared. I do not know what's become of them. The three of us training every day, working to perfect these new bodies and talents bestowed on us. I woke up one night and they were gone. Alienor says she doesn't know where they have gone to, but I no longer believe that. Her eyes have always been cold, but there's something more now. A shifting that occurs whenever I probe too much about what we are to do next or any of the rest of our family, either alive or otherwise. The fragmented shards of what was once my soul cries out to me that I have sold myself into some obscene form of slavery from which there is no escape. There is more looming upon the horizon then I can comprehend. I dare not voice my fears out loud, not right now. Alienor has some grander plan in mind than simply helping the family to survive this war. I do not know what she plans, but I can see her mind working on it when she thinks I am occupied with my training. I can do much more than what I've been working on in recent days. But if I improve too quickly she'll move forward before I know what's happening. My soul is trapped forever in this limboed existence and my former self dead. Natasha Phurie Dae no longer exists. I am only Natasha Ravnos, killer of killers and survivor of nothing. Survive one night to the next, that's all I can do. Maybe one night I can at least trade this hell for a different type of hell.
Tales of Nate - First Kill
**originally posted 2006**
There's water splashing across my eyelids. I struggle to open my eyes; something's matting my eyelashes together. .I rubs my hand across them, grinding into them with my knuckles.
"Natasha, dearling, it's time to wake up. We have work to do."
Alienor's talking to me. I finally manage to pry my eyes open, blinking against the rain falling against them. I don't feel my skin. Wait, yes, it's tight, as if pulled to stretch too far across my bones. I pull myself into a sitting position against the tree behind me, shoving my hair back behind my ears. It had finally started growing again before this. My eyes widen as I see my hands. They're red. With blood. Not mine. Someone else's. My head feels funny, there's this deep satisfaction when I see the blood as if it was something I meant to do and was happy about doing. There, there on the ground just a few feet away, what looks like a body. I scramble on all fours over to it. It's a guard. IT was a guard. He's dead. I killed him. I struggle to remember; there it washes over me with a suddenness that leaves me speechless.
I remember: a ravenous hunger like I've never felt, even in the dead of winter when there was limited food for the kumpania, tearing through me, leaving me snarling, raving. Alienor brought the guard, enticed him away from his post. Left him where I could find him, he had turned away from where I was to look behind him. I lunged, grabbing for his head, my legs circling his chest and my arms twisting him, so that I could reach his throat. There, the feel of two sharp pinpricks. OH Gods, the bliss!!! The sheer ecstasy of sinking my teeth into him and feeling his blood slide past my lips and over my tongue to pour down my throat. I didn't stop until he was dead.
I shiver with the remembered bliss of the moment. I don't regret it. That bastard is only one of the many I will see pay for what they've done to me and my family. I can feel the hunger still simmering under the surface. I look up at Alienor.
"Good. You feel it don't you? That craving for more?" she bends down to help me up, "you want to finish what you've started? Good. You're cousins will be joining us over the next couple of nights. For now, rest; let me teach you more about the gifts that I've given you."
We walk away from the encampment. I look back once, still wanting to tear them apart with my bear hands. But Alienor is right; I need to learn about what I've traded my natural blood heritage for. For I can feel the absence of Daenna's blood in my veins even now. It's an absence that makes my heart bleed, but a price I pay gladly for the means to outlive these bastards and destroy as many as I can.
There's water splashing across my eyelids. I struggle to open my eyes; something's matting my eyelashes together. .I rubs my hand across them, grinding into them with my knuckles.
"Natasha, dearling, it's time to wake up. We have work to do."
Alienor's talking to me. I finally manage to pry my eyes open, blinking against the rain falling against them. I don't feel my skin. Wait, yes, it's tight, as if pulled to stretch too far across my bones. I pull myself into a sitting position against the tree behind me, shoving my hair back behind my ears. It had finally started growing again before this. My eyes widen as I see my hands. They're red. With blood. Not mine. Someone else's. My head feels funny, there's this deep satisfaction when I see the blood as if it was something I meant to do and was happy about doing. There, there on the ground just a few feet away, what looks like a body. I scramble on all fours over to it. It's a guard. IT was a guard. He's dead. I killed him. I struggle to remember; there it washes over me with a suddenness that leaves me speechless.
I remember: a ravenous hunger like I've never felt, even in the dead of winter when there was limited food for the kumpania, tearing through me, leaving me snarling, raving. Alienor brought the guard, enticed him away from his post. Left him where I could find him, he had turned away from where I was to look behind him. I lunged, grabbing for his head, my legs circling his chest and my arms twisting him, so that I could reach his throat. There, the feel of two sharp pinpricks. OH Gods, the bliss!!! The sheer ecstasy of sinking my teeth into him and feeling his blood slide past my lips and over my tongue to pour down my throat. I didn't stop until he was dead.
I shiver with the remembered bliss of the moment. I don't regret it. That bastard is only one of the many I will see pay for what they've done to me and my family. I can feel the hunger still simmering under the surface. I look up at Alienor.
"Good. You feel it don't you? That craving for more?" she bends down to help me up, "you want to finish what you've started? Good. You're cousins will be joining us over the next couple of nights. For now, rest; let me teach you more about the gifts that I've given you."
We walk away from the encampment. I look back once, still wanting to tear them apart with my bear hands. But Alienor is right; I need to learn about what I've traded my natural blood heritage for. For I can feel the absence of Daenna's blood in my veins even now. It's an absence that makes my heart bleed, but a price I pay gladly for the means to outlive these bastards and destroy as many as I can.
Tales of Natasha - Embraced
**This was originally posted on my myspace blog back in 2006. I want to continue my Nate stories so I'm going to repost my myspace episodes first so I can get back into the flow of it.**
Embraced.... by Natasha Phuri Dae Ravnos
I've lived for fewer years than some but longer than most. I've seen things even a Tremere would scoff at. Yet I have no proof of my travels. No one to substantiate my story. And the two people I might have learned to love no longer exist in forms that would recognize me. I've experienced a form of heaven for my kind and witnessed them terrified of hellish creatures formed by one of their own. I've been the cause of destruction for one whom my people have waited for and felt my heart weep at the thought. I've known creatures that I never would have imagined existed. And all because I took a small amber pendant off some random person on the street. I swear that the events I've been through in the last 3 years have made me realize things about myself that I never could have foreseen. I remember waking up from a 50 year sleep, disoriented at how much the world had changed around me. When I first went to sleep, the world was still at war. My family was still being herded into concentration camps and summarily destroyed. The smells of that sicken me to this day. I normally don't dwell on it. I brush it off like a pesky fly. But for the sake of my story, have you ever smelled burning human flesh? Take that smell and multiply it by 50. Then wake up to the lingering odor every day and have more of that same smell added to the existing stale rotten stench that lingers and permeates everything around you. Now live with that for two years. Watch as children you grew up with disappear. As the uncles and aunts who helped teach you how to juggle and balance on a rope get shot in front of you for no reason. No reason other than someone believes that you're worthless because you don't live you're life the same way they do. That's the hell I lived through. As each terrible day would dawn with the false promise of hope, I would cower a little more in hopes that I would not follow down the same path as my kinfolk. As fewer and fewer of us remained, we began to avoid each other. If we stayed away we wouldn't feel so terrible about the relief that we weren't the ones chosen this time. Is it any wonder that when a way out presented itself, three of us jumped at it with everything we still had in us? We dimly realized the price we would pay, but then it seemed like so small a thing. We could escape. We could punish our captors by becoming the hunters of our jailers. And yes, I wanted that bloodthirsty freedom as much as my cousins did. Wanted to stand over our jailers corpses and grin as they stared at me with horror. So when Alienor came to us and presented her offer, we accepted. We threw stones to see who would be first, for she could not take us all at once. It came to me to be taken before the others. She claimed me in the night, causing a diversion so the guards would not see us. I remember standing before her, feeling the wind on my face, lifting my hair around my head and seeing her smooth skin reflect the moonlight and being colder to touch than any wind I'd felt. I looked up into her eyes and beheld fathomless secrets and myriads of mysteries. Deadliness without fail but pity in my plight. Her hand raised up to stroke my cheek and I started, it had been so long since I'd experienced human kindness and this struck my heart with how mocking it was but how much it tried to be what I'd missed for so long. She smoothed my hair back and drew me close to her, pulling me in her arms almost tenderly. I didn't feel warmth but more a passing of mine into hers. She leaned down and whispered to me to not be afraid. My stomach began to churn with terror at that. I felt her breath, devoid of human life, upon my neck. I knew there was no way I would change my mind. I can still feel the first agonizing sting of her incisors on my throat, and then I was no longer cold. My Body became a living flame, burning with all the adolescent passion that had built up for so long. In that moment I wanted her as I had not wanted another before. Alienor became my world for that brief time. I clutched her closer, trying to push myself further into her deadly hug. I began to see people. My mother and father, aunts, uncles, my grandmother, all dead now, swim past my eyes as I stared at that sliver of silver in the night sky. I saw my father resigned but proud, and my mother weeping. She knew I would never be able to see her again with the path I was now committed to. I felt myself grow heavy and drowsy. Ad if my body was too heavy for me to bother with anymore. I only wanted to close my eyes and not see anything else. Something warm and liquid is pressed to my lips. My tongue darts out tentatively to taste. I lick at the sharp metallic tang that slides across my mouth. I've never tasted anything so wonderful. Its life, its death, its power incarnate and it will be mine. I look up to see Alienor's eyes burning red at me through the darkness. I can feel a scream from my last shred of what was human building up as everything begins to spin around me. I can't focus. I can't even see that damn moon or her bloody eyes anymore. The only thing I know is that sweet ambrosia that I gulp greedily. Then pain, blinding pain beyond anything I could have imagined in hell or purgatory twists my body to its will. I feel that part of me that was human clawing to stay in control, there's a light there, I c an see it, if I just reach far enough, I can almost……..AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..............................
Embraced.... by Natasha Phuri Dae Ravnos
I've lived for fewer years than some but longer than most. I've seen things even a Tremere would scoff at. Yet I have no proof of my travels. No one to substantiate my story. And the two people I might have learned to love no longer exist in forms that would recognize me. I've experienced a form of heaven for my kind and witnessed them terrified of hellish creatures formed by one of their own. I've been the cause of destruction for one whom my people have waited for and felt my heart weep at the thought. I've known creatures that I never would have imagined existed. And all because I took a small amber pendant off some random person on the street. I swear that the events I've been through in the last 3 years have made me realize things about myself that I never could have foreseen. I remember waking up from a 50 year sleep, disoriented at how much the world had changed around me. When I first went to sleep, the world was still at war. My family was still being herded into concentration camps and summarily destroyed. The smells of that sicken me to this day. I normally don't dwell on it. I brush it off like a pesky fly. But for the sake of my story, have you ever smelled burning human flesh? Take that smell and multiply it by 50. Then wake up to the lingering odor every day and have more of that same smell added to the existing stale rotten stench that lingers and permeates everything around you. Now live with that for two years. Watch as children you grew up with disappear. As the uncles and aunts who helped teach you how to juggle and balance on a rope get shot in front of you for no reason. No reason other than someone believes that you're worthless because you don't live you're life the same way they do. That's the hell I lived through. As each terrible day would dawn with the false promise of hope, I would cower a little more in hopes that I would not follow down the same path as my kinfolk. As fewer and fewer of us remained, we began to avoid each other. If we stayed away we wouldn't feel so terrible about the relief that we weren't the ones chosen this time. Is it any wonder that when a way out presented itself, three of us jumped at it with everything we still had in us? We dimly realized the price we would pay, but then it seemed like so small a thing. We could escape. We could punish our captors by becoming the hunters of our jailers. And yes, I wanted that bloodthirsty freedom as much as my cousins did. Wanted to stand over our jailers corpses and grin as they stared at me with horror. So when Alienor came to us and presented her offer, we accepted. We threw stones to see who would be first, for she could not take us all at once. It came to me to be taken before the others. She claimed me in the night, causing a diversion so the guards would not see us. I remember standing before her, feeling the wind on my face, lifting my hair around my head and seeing her smooth skin reflect the moonlight and being colder to touch than any wind I'd felt. I looked up into her eyes and beheld fathomless secrets and myriads of mysteries. Deadliness without fail but pity in my plight. Her hand raised up to stroke my cheek and I started, it had been so long since I'd experienced human kindness and this struck my heart with how mocking it was but how much it tried to be what I'd missed for so long. She smoothed my hair back and drew me close to her, pulling me in her arms almost tenderly. I didn't feel warmth but more a passing of mine into hers. She leaned down and whispered to me to not be afraid. My stomach began to churn with terror at that. I felt her breath, devoid of human life, upon my neck. I knew there was no way I would change my mind. I can still feel the first agonizing sting of her incisors on my throat, and then I was no longer cold. My Body became a living flame, burning with all the adolescent passion that had built up for so long. In that moment I wanted her as I had not wanted another before. Alienor became my world for that brief time. I clutched her closer, trying to push myself further into her deadly hug. I began to see people. My mother and father, aunts, uncles, my grandmother, all dead now, swim past my eyes as I stared at that sliver of silver in the night sky. I saw my father resigned but proud, and my mother weeping. She knew I would never be able to see her again with the path I was now committed to. I felt myself grow heavy and drowsy. Ad if my body was too heavy for me to bother with anymore. I only wanted to close my eyes and not see anything else. Something warm and liquid is pressed to my lips. My tongue darts out tentatively to taste. I lick at the sharp metallic tang that slides across my mouth. I've never tasted anything so wonderful. Its life, its death, its power incarnate and it will be mine. I look up to see Alienor's eyes burning red at me through the darkness. I can feel a scream from my last shred of what was human building up as everything begins to spin around me. I can't focus. I can't even see that damn moon or her bloody eyes anymore. The only thing I know is that sweet ambrosia that I gulp greedily. Then pain, blinding pain beyond anything I could have imagined in hell or purgatory twists my body to its will. I feel that part of me that was human clawing to stay in control, there's a light there, I c an see it, if I just reach far enough, I can almost……..AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..............................
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