Fan Fiction ❯ Past and Present ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

"Going to see your little healer?"

Raziel strode across the hall, but paused at his comrade's mocking tone. He waved away Dumah's sly grin irritably. Several more catcalls reached his ears and he raised a single finger salute in their directions. With an exasperated sigh he finished crossing the main hall. They, his brethren in arms, never seemed to tire of teasing him about the young healer currently working in the infirmary.

The door closed and the rest of their comments faded away in the resounding echo. He turned to the left and continued, walking at a brisk pace. Even if he hadn't walked the corridor more times than he could remember, the pitiful groans of the injured and dying would lead him to the infirmary. Sometimes late night their would drag him into an uneasy wakefulness. The pained voices of his fellow hunters served to reaffirm his determination to wipe out the vampiric plague. How many of his friends, allies, and confidants had come back terribly wounded? How many had never returned at least a live?

The numbers bore deep into his mind until he had to stop walking and concentrate, instead, on his burgeoning rage. After a few moments of carefully regulated breathing he continued.

Upon entering, Raziel found the healer Tanim running between her patients with brisk efficiency. She paused a moment to grace him with a tired smile, all her smiles seemed to be tired nowadays, before racing off to assist another wounded man.

He watched her with amusement. Her black hair had escaped its braid and defied all her attempts to confine it. Every once in a while she would blow a wisp away as she worked, but it settled back unperturbed.

"What can I do for you, lord Raziel?" she inquired between moments of frenetic activity. A tired glint of mischievous humor shone in her dark purple eyes.

"I see you have quite a lot of men to take care of, healer Tanim." She smiled as he replied with her title.

"No, they're boys straight out of short trews," she quipped. Several disgruntled comments met her assertion.

"They have seen combat. They are men now."

"As you say." She always said that when she knew that neither of them would change their mind nor relent. It was her way of acknowledging his opinion while maintaining her own.

"I was going to ask if you would like to come on a walk with me, but you look a little busy."

"It's because these 'men' of yours are fools and lucky to be…breathing." He noted the pause where she hesitated in saying 'alive'.

"We are fighting a holy war," he said with pride. She nodded in a distracted manner. Apparently one of her patients needed help.

"This evening, Raziel, meet me here." She touched his cheek lightly with a fingertip and then whirled away.

~ ~ ~

Tanim paled marble white, as Raziel led her onto the grassy moor about the Sarafan fortress. Her purple eyes paused upon each forest of wooden spears and the strange fruits hanging from each. The latest vampire dead sagged like insects pinned in an examining case. He gazed upon their screaming, agonized faces with righteous pleasure.

"How horrible." Her soft voice drew his gaze to her.

"They were only vampires," he responded with a nonchalant shrug. She turned and met his eyes. The look in them was both reproachful and sad.

"They were living beings." He issued a short back of laughter, but quieted at her pointed glare.

"They are corpses infested with a demonic spirit. How else would you explain their appearance?" He expected her to respond with, "As you say", like usual, but her face merely smoothed into expressionless planes. He had seen that look before, not directed at him until now, and it boded ill for the receiver. It was as if her personality, her soul had fled somewhere else and she was merely a marionette whose strings were being pulled by a deliberate puppeteer.

"They bleed when cut, feel pain, anger. They form communities and seek vengeance for wrongs done to them. Are we not like that?"

"But that doesn't mean they live," he retorted. Their first argument, this was their very first one. Her face became even more expressionless, if that was possible. Her eyes held the only animation and that was frighteningly icy. He stood there, feeling angry and hurt that she didn't approve, and tried to justify himself.

"Stop, Raziel." She placed one pale hand across his mouth and stifled his outpouring of reasons. Emotion flooded into her face and brought the vivacious animation back that always held him in such a helpless thrall. "I love you."

A sharp pang bit his heart in two and left it bleeding inside his chest at her suddenly spoken words. Hundreds of thoughts, each demanding equal attention, boiled through his brain and rolled into and around each other. He opened and closed his mouth helplessly under her hand, as he tried to formulate a reply.

"It's okay. I love you and it's that simple. I could see that I was loosing you with that argument and it hurt. Just…just don't take me on walks where these corpses can be seen, please." Then Tanim removed her hand and kissed him, the briefest brush of silk, tenderly on the lips. "Let's go back."

She took his limp hand and led him back inside like an adult leading a particularly reticent child.

"I…love you, too," he stuttered lamely at the threshold of the fortress. She smiled in her usual tired fashion, but an extra brilliant sparkle shone in her eyes.

"Thought so."

~ ~ ~

A soft gasp wrenched my attention away from the glorifying visage of the slain Turel. I turned, reaver bloodied and ready for more violence, and stopped.

"T-Tanim?"

~ ~ ~

That's the first chapter. Thank you for reading. I hoped you enjoyed it. The Italics happen in the past and the normal words happen in the present of SR2 after Raziel kills Turel. I usually write for anime series so this is quite a bit different. Please review with your comments or thoughts. Any questions you have I will try to answer in the next chapter.