Fan Fiction ❯ Aranea ❯ chapter three ( Chapter 3 )

A/N: I know, I know, long time no see, but writer's block is evil... I seriously wanted to kill it completely. I did... for this story anyways... The beginning of this chap might be written a bit differently than at the end, because I wrote the chapter at many different times and during the end, the style is different because I am tryign the style out on this story. I sort of like it. well, read on, its a relatively long chapter for me... ^_^

 

~Chapter Three~

 

Riley turned solemn with a grave look in her eyes. "Yes, very so. Most of our kind were wiped out by two different plagues. An epidemic illness killed many and weakened almost all others. An a tyrant of a leader that wanted to capture all the humans and breed them for their blood. The illness poisoned the blood that was inside them, ate away the nutrients they needed to keep going. It was a most painful illness. All three of them caught it, near dying each night with only each other to keep going. At the time, they were only, young ones, 400 years old at least and without their sire for intrustion or teachings. " Riley had led Katharine to the marble stair covered with a red velvet carpet. They were walking up it slowly, Katharine listening intently from pure interest and Riley smiling with pride. "What they are right now," she started again, glancing back down at where the three were conversing in a secluded corner, "they became on their own. No one led them, guided them, told them what they were to do, how to survive, what to eat..."

 

Katharine stopped for a moment. "Did they not know of legends or bodies found that showed evidence that human's blood is their life?"

 

"No, they did not. Neither of them had the time to pay attention to silly rumors that merchants passed around, hoping to scare competition away. They had to provide money and food for their families. Do as the first pharoah asked of them." Riley did not notice Katharine's eyebrows rise. She went on with the tale. "At first, it wasn't just Ray, Taryn and Kai, there were more. Two more of their group. They were powerful together, but, at the time, weak alone. The two wandered, overestimating their own strengths and daring to step out. Our 'leader', Stefanus, struck out at them, angered by their defiance to offer up any humans. They never had a chance."

 

"Stefanus?" Katharine repeated. Riley only nodded her head and began walking back down the steps, leaving Katharine rooted to the spot.

 

"The three of them went to war with Stefanus, one that lasted a thousand years and took the lives of over seventy-five percent of the population. Our population. Kai himself fought the prince and won, declaring a new rule for all his kind. He destroyed his own sire under no teachings." Riley smiled to Katharine, then let Ray, who had appeared from the other side of the room, take her hand and lead her into the crowd.

 

Katharine was left to ponder on Riley's words, her eyes trailing over the ones below her unconciously. Her gaze rested on Kai momentarily then she moved on. Kai glanced up at her, looking arund the room as well and noticing someone atop the balcony. He had heard bits of what Riley told to the girl. .......without their sire ..................... at the time, weak alone ................... Stefanus ........................ his own sire ..................

 

Why was Riley telling that girl his history? The history of all his kind?

 

Kai closed his eyes and shook his head once, slowly. Before opening his eyes, he let out a sigh then looked up at the balcony again. She was leaning against the balcony, back to the others, and arms crossed. She looked deep in though with her head bowed lightly.

 

He couldn't concentrate on figuring out what was on the girl's mind. His own was thinking of its own accord, Riley history lesson striking up memories. ......I will always be here, inside of you.........., his mind whispered. You'll never escape me....... you are just like me.....my son......the same fate will befall you........ Kai was no longer concentrating on what was before him. He saw nothing but memories he did not want to relive...

 

Columns. Bricks of mud. Golden statues of Gods. Of Ra. All of these had no value or meaning. Not to him. To his kind. To his battle to keep life as it was.

 

If he could find the leader, Stefanus, kill him, then it would all be over. But he was his sire. Sires were not meant to be killed by its children, the ones whom he had given eternal life... not until the sire accepted a challenge...

 

It did not matter. Rules meant nothing to him... he was supposed to be embracing the idea, to never have to grow crops, work in hot feilds, go to rivers for waters ways away. Where was the joy in never having to step out into the sun again? Where was the joy in never dying? It died when he lost his heart. He only wanted one person to be dead. Stefanus.

 

"Stefanus," the snarl came... just the thought drove his body into shivers from the ruthless ways the tyrant had. He had destroyed every vampyre who he thought was against in the slightest bit. Every vampyre who had been turned less than 200 years before.

 

"And he's the one who turned me..." disgust was evident in his voice. His voice was deep, yet young at the same time. Turned while his voice was still changing, while he was still growing, still trying to find what love meant. Even in those Egyptian times, love was still searched for. Few found it, as many lost the ones they were to love to immortality. The same happened to Kai. Only he was the one turned. And she was killed by Stefanus, killed for her defiance to be turned, to betray her kind. Her heart was ripped out brutally by Stefanus' own hands, in front of Kai as he was chained to the wall.

 

Before he had known, Kai was in the main chamber of the temple. The room was wide and the ceiling was high up. Statues of Ra adorned the far wall, next to a throne of gold and fires lit on stands. Stefanus was perched in the throne, smiling hungrily, eyes glinting with anxiousness.

 

The element of surprise had not been on Stefanus. It had been on Kai.

 

"Welcome to my humble abode, Jenkaise."

 

No sooner than Stefanus had pronounced the 'e', the battle had begun. Fire lept wildly as the quick speeds produced winds of high stature.

 

It was not long before Stefanus had gained the upper hand and Kai was pinned to the wall by golden daggers through the palms of his hands. Taunts came quickly, Stefanus' becoming more confident of his victory. Stefanus' was mere inches from Jenkaise, from Kai, and he had lost in a moment later, due to the assumptions made in his mind.

 

Stefanus was wide eyed. It had happened so quickly that even his eyes had not seen it. Shock turned to rage and anger. Though there was no chance, he had to put in his last words.

 

"You... you.... impudence...." Stefanus saw the smirk of satisfation and the evident pain in Kai's eyes. Kai thought it was fully over, that he was free. "I will always be here, inside of you. You'll never escape me. Not when we are the same. When you are just like me. Whether you want to believe it or not, you are my son. I turned you, you became my son, and you will take my place. The very same fate will befall upon you. It will NEVER be over......not in even six millenia........."

 

His final death was a mere second later. His words were the motivation and reason for Kai to keep his immortality and prove his 'father' wrong.

 

With dazed confusion in his eyes, hidden by the shadow of his bangs, he sighed out of his memory. Nightmare. After Stefanus had fallen to the floor and turned to gray, lifeless dust, Taryn and Ray came through the doors, catching him before collapsing to floor himself. When leaving room, he saw he never would have made it through if Taryn and Ray hadn't fought the guards. Bone dust covered the entire floor, no floor was seen anywhere, not even around the stone columns.

 

The girl came back into his mind without meaning and he looked up, to the balcony. The girl had gone. Most of the crowd, seeing as over two hours had passed, before him had dispersed to their predetermined rooms, and to await the next night.

 

Ray said his last good night to Riley, sealed it with a kiss, then watched her leave to her own room. After she disappeared from his sight, Ray turned to the prince, one of the few remaining in the room. Occasionally, a passing woman or two would wave and giggle and flutter their eyelashes at the prince, trying to seem appealing with their expensive attire and haughty air. They weren't fooling anyone, specifically the prince.

 

"Still no one? Or have you had the same girl on your mind since the beginning of the Gathering?"

 

With just a glare directed at Ray, Kai stalked past him and rolled his eyes.

 

"What business do you have about it?" he asked lowly, already across the room to the velvet covered stairs.

 

"Oh none at all, Kai. Just my future and my entire life."

 

(-)

 

Katharine held up the torch she was given to head down the dark, stone corridor to her room. As she passed by doors, she wondered just how far the corridor reached and if humans knew of its existence. Judging by the faint and faded red stains on the grey stone walls those humans who found out did not live long after.

 

Her stomach growled, interrupting her thoughts and causing her to glance over her shoulder cautiously. Slowly, she became aware of the smells down in the corridor and she searched the air for wise and old blood of vampyres, wondering just where Taryn, Ray or Kai were.

 

As if hearing Katharine's searching mind and nose, being naive, a young woman walked out her door and glanced to Katharine curiously.

 

"Looking for something? Like your room?" she asked, an irish accent giving off from where she hailed. The girl had long light brown hair reaching down her back in a few curls and a green velvet dress with white lace here and there.

 

Katharine ignored the woman and passed right by her, noting in her mind that the woman snarled at her ignorance. "I can do well on my own, thank you very much."

 

The door closed and Katharine stopped and looked at the door. It was the same as all the others, except for the metal numbers plated in the upper part. A black handle made of metal and shaped by a blacksmith, curved elegantly to fit with the door well gave off a humble feeling yet as if she was in royal company.

 

Katharine turned to continue on her way when the door opened once more to show the same girl.

 

"You aren't too smart. Lingering in a hallway, a dark one, and all alone."

 

"You are not too smart talking to a stranger wandering down a dark hallway alone." Katharine turned around and disappeared into the darkness ahead.

 

"Young vampyres. So naive and stupid. How she is still alive is pure good luck for her."

 

(-)

 

Kai sighed and opened the glass doors to the balcony. His room was in the only surfacing tower of the gathering building. And it was a good hundred and fifty above the ground. There was little chance anyone would dare to climb up it. Best thing was... his room wasn't at the top, as most would assume it to be. It was just short of being half-way.

 

It had been a full moon that night, for the gathering, and it looked as if it was slightly fading away as dawn came closer with each passing minute. Even so, dawn was still at least an hour and a half away. The rising sun-light would not burn him until the sun itself rised over the horizon.

 

No one else could venture out this close to dawn, they were too weak. Taryn and Ray were off in their rooms, tending to their own business of right-hand vampyres. No one would be able to bother him.

 

The prince leapt off the balcony.

 

Damn, he liked to see the colors of the sky change as dawn neared. It was the closest thing he could get to seeing the sun again. Long ago, he loved to see the sun rise, and to see it set, marvelling the magic and beauty of how it changed the way everything looked so dramatically.

 

But now, all he saw was darkness, depression, blood...

 

Arriving at a small park, full of green forest trees, snow blanketing their branches of pine fur, Kai slowed down from his quick, almost invisible speed, to a normal walk.

 

Despite being one to live in heat rather than the cold, he loved the way the air was as cold as his skin always was. As cold as the skin of those dead, not living, void.

 

He watched as wind blew clumps of snow into flurries of small gusts of flakes and wondered why snow sparkled more at night than the day. Why it seemed to glow when people stood in it at night and seemed unpure, defiled during the day when another stands in the same spot. Why the sky turned orange when a dark and dangerous storm was occuring and the sun was set.

 

Even after living for many millnia, he still did not know. And he had a feeling that he never would.

 

"Such things are not meant to be known," he snorted, a white puff of air blowing out of his nose and disappearing upwards to the skies.

 

"Just like vampyres are supposed to be just legends?"

 

Kai continued to look up towards the sky. Despite the fact it was so early in the day, late in vampyre standards, the woman was out in below zero night all alone in a deserted park. With the exception of him.

 

"Why is a vampyre out this close to dawn? You must be hurting from its light already so why be in pain?"

 

"Why assume I am a vampyre? And if you assume I am a vampyre, why would I be in pain? The sun has not rose all the way and the light in not hitting me directly."

 

"A blur running across the white land then stopping to show you is more than enough to assume you are a vampyre," the woman snarled, reaching inside her ankle-length brown coat. "And I think a slayer would know a vampyre when seeing one."

 

"Would a slayer know an unmatched vampyre when seeing one?" Kai asked, turning around halfway and regarding the woman uninterestedly.

 

The girl had raven black hair, dark skin and almond shaped eyes. This girl was no human. She was not vampyre either. She was an immortal. One chosen by the gods to kill vampyres and keep their population down to a minimum. In other words.

 

She was a vampyre slayer.

 

And she had found her next target.

 

"Perhaps. Maybe the time will come when I am matched, but I have a feeling that I have awhile before the time comes," she murmured, cocking her head to the side. "Till then, I will do my job slaying blood-thirsty beasts, continuing with you next. After all, the gods did not choose me to fail them, and dirty my beautiful family name; Raven." That being said, she pulled out a cross-bow, and held it out, aimed at Kai. "Are you ready, you filthy blood-sucker?"

 

"Ready for a child to shoot me? It'll be like trying to hit a fly, filthy half-blood." Despite how much pride and honor she held in her voice and the way she stood, this girl was what all other immortals were. Half-vampyre, half-human. Slayers live forever unless the body was burned to ashes by fire, crushed completely, or wounded to the heart, but did not thrive on blood. They ate the same as normal humans did. They could also step out into the sun.

 

Despite how slayers could be killed easier than vampyres, he envied three things about them.

 

They saw the sun, and felt its warmth. They were still living. They did not have to have the brittle, metalic taste of blood in their month to satisfy hunger.

 

Still, he would not wish to be ordered by Gods to slay vampyres just to please them. It was a fate he wanted but at the same time, despised.

 

He was fine with who and what he was. He was the strongest of all his kind. He was controlled by no one. And he followed his own rules.

 

"I am no child. I am more than experienced enough to kill the likes of you. Being out this close to dawn tells me already that you are naive and foolish. Not much longer and you will be caught in the light of the morning sun. I may not even be the death of you." Raven smiled, a chuckle escaping her lips at something only she knew. "I would not be a good slayer, if I did not attack anyways."

 

The arrow shot from the cross-bow.

 

Her body was snapped back toward a tree, held up by her neck, the remains of a broken off branch portruding out of her stomach.

 

"And I would not be a good vampyre if I did not kill you for the opposition you take against me," he whispered, holding her up at an arms length. "And to give you your honor, I will kill you with the arrow meant for my heart."

 

"I still won, vampyre," she gasped. "It is almost sunrise. Too close for you to return to your safe haven for the day."

 

Kai looked over his shoulder, glaring at the brightness of the sky already. He let loose her neck then placed the pointed end of the arrow into her heart quickly, making it seem that she was shot by cross-bow, then left her to watch the sun rise with few last seconds of life.

 

His peace was short. But hers would last forever. If only he could allow himself to be laid to rest, he would welcome the peaceful eternity. But he had a promise to uphold. His word. Six millenia had not gone by yet. He still had to wait.

 

His time on earth was not yet up.

 

 

 

Ok, well, there you go. Chapter 3 of 'Aranea'!! ^_^ this one was my hardest to write, after 'Sakura Blossoms' (which is still not going to be updated for atl least... 2-4 days) but after I had a small idea for it, the story and everything just sort of came out. Reveiw please!! I love reveiws!! they are so awesome!!! I am so hyper...