Re: the Luminary
Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:08 am
When they were alone again Daniel’s shoulders slumped. “This is going to sound so stupid.” He warned.
“I have spent the last six months learning how to kill vampires from an underground organisation that trains people who they suspect have a certain afinity for the work.” She made it clear with her tone that pretty much anything said at any time in those last six months had sounded insane and stupid, but she was coping so far. She wondered how much worse it could get that he looked so unsure of how to tell her.
“You’re children.” He seemed to be correcting her. She waited for more, but he was looking at her, earnest.
Confused panic began to rise. “What?” She begged, turning over explenations and trying to understand but it made no sense. She didn’t have children, she- “What?” She demanded a little harder because a headache was building.
“The kindred,” he began carefully, keeping eye contact, “they’re yours.”
“My children?” She repeated for clarty. Daniel winced slightly.
“Not- no.” He shook his head. “That was a bad place to start.” She waited, wide eye’d, somewhere in here he was going to make sense, she was sure of it, and she didn’t want to miss it. He made a vague hand gesture. He seemed to be struggling.
“Try again.” She suggested, “We can come back to… to me having children.” She hoped they wouldn’t. “What is the Luminary?”
“She is the Star that Fell.” His awe was clear, and it was directed piercingly at her. “She is our Goddess.”
She did not break eyecontact, looking for the joke or the hint that he wasn’t making sense anymore, he didn’t even flinch.
“Your Goddess?”
“The Vampires.” He clarrified. “It happened… too long ago for us to be sure when it happened, but it was before our records start and they are… extensive. She-you… You came from the sky, a burning light that drove back darkness. And our ancestors welcomed you. The Star that Fell became the touchstone of our people. She built the bridges between the clans, united us as a people.”
“And then she died.” Janice interupted, Gwen inhaled sharply in surprise, stopping herself from the automatic programing to attack. She hadn’t heard the three vampires aproach, but there were certainly three of them standing on the weir. Janice looked a little apologetic, the other two refused to make eye contact of any kind. “Of a cold, I believe.” Janice gave a shrug of her shoulders, as if the reason was unimportant.
“No-one remembers how she died.” Daniel corrected. “But she did die.” He pulled himself up off the seat, and Gwen stepped back from him, not sure if she was ready to be touched by anyone. The idea, the very concept that they thought she was some sort of ancient goddess made her feel small and pathetic and very very nervous. She couldn’t live up to those expectations. Clearly there had been some all mighty mix up.
Janice noticed Daniels effort and responded. “You okay?” She touched his forehead for temperature, and then pulled his shirt up to check his wound. He tollerated her actions by ignoring them, his attention still fixed on Gwen. His wound was narrow, but it was obviously deep from the amount of blood that continued to seep out of it. Gwen wondered how long he could go without treatment, and knew it probably wasn’t very long at all.
“You’re going to bleed to death if you sit around here chatting all day.” Janice flicked his shirt back down to cover the wound and turned an accusing glare towards Gwen. “We need to get moving.”
“It’s fine.” Daniel interjected.
“Fine is it?” Janice was still on edge from the fight, her movements sharp and jittery.
“Are there any others coming this way?” He disracted, smoothing his shirt down shakily.
Janice eyed the wound speculatively. “I don’t think so. The others took to the streets when the alarm sounded. A few were left behind.” She shrugged casually again. “No great losses that I noticed. It was still early so the young hadn’t shown up yet, which is lucky.”
“Indeed.”
“So you’re telling her then?” Janice cut her eyes to Gwen and Gwen found herself flinching away from the attention. When she noticed the other two men who’d arrived were almost looking at her she took another step back.
“When you’ve moved on.” Daniel instructed with a sigh. “There’s a lot to tell.” His shoulders slumped a bit. Janice considered him, glancing at the wound again and then turned to Gwen.
“It can wait.” She instructed. “He need’s treatment.”
“I’m a fucken goddess.” Gwen spat back unaware that she was shaking.
Janice only sneered, “And he’s my clan leader. Oh great goddess, do you want him to die?”
“Do you really think-“ Gwen snapped, “-that I’m some sort of goddess?”
Janice glared. “Not a good one, it seems.”
“This is crazy.” Gwen went to step back and Janice caught her arm. Behind her the weir dropped away. It wasn’t a great drop, but it would certainly do damage if she’d stepped over it. Gwen shook off Janices hold and stepped away from the edge, she wouldn’t back up again, not now the danger was apparent. Janice gave a huff, looked at Daniel who was drawn but unmoving then back to Gwen. “And yes.” She added grudgingly. “You are ‘some sort of goddess’. We can all tell just by being near you. Just as you regonise us for what we are. Some things can not be hidden once people are looking.”
Gwen wondered if it was true. Adam had told her they could tell the kindred that way, like a sense that reached out and they were aware of. But they had to look. She wondered if she’d been walking around in front of vampires for months and none of them had noticed. But she’d killed them all, so maybe they had noticed. Daniel had been the first and only to survive an encounter with her and, she realised, he had already known what she was.
“Is that why you let me live?” The question should have stayed secret, certainly not asked in front of these three other vampires who were waiting for some sign of what their next action should be. Gwen didn’t care about them because she was lossing herself to a feeling too powerful to name, it reeked of disillusionment but peppered in where spikes of horrified surrender. “Is that why you slept with me?” It woke the knowledge that she had always had that no man would bother with her unless there was something in it for him. “You just wanted to screw your goddess.” She hissed, defensive now that the idea was in place. It didn’t even matter that they were wrong, all that mattered was that it was the most logical reason for him ever looking at her.
Daniel shook his head, pleading eyes trying to catch hers, moving towards her. Her hand rose between them a clear sign for him to stop and he did, but he was unhappy with the comand. She watched his fists clench and release. She watched it dispassionately, because if passion became part of this she would feel betrayed and used and what pleasure she had had in their encounteres would be ripped away and turned into something different, something tainted and ugly and very very angry.
“Gwen, I let you live because of what you are, I slept with you because of who you are.”
“You didn’t even know me.” She spat. “I didn’t know you.” She frowned with a new thought. “You had better not have known me.” All she needed was some crazy stalker vampire to make her life complete.
He laughed, tense still but it was real amusement.”No. I saw you with Cassie, that was the first time. I promise.” He held up a hand to stall her response, “and I didn’t plan on taking you to bed, but I can’t say I regret it.” Now he looked at their company. “You three should move on. We’ll be fine.”
The two male vampires seemed all to glad to be moving on, and they would have if Janice had moved even slightly at Daniels comand. Janice was watching Gwen though, a frown etched across her face.
Gwen checked Daniels drawn expression and could tell he was in pain. A tinge of guilt shot through her, knowing he was tollerating it for her. It also made her feel better, but she supposed he didn’t have a choice if he really thought she was some sort of goddess.
“No.” She snapped. “We’ll go with you.” She went to leave aiming in the general direction they had been heading. It didn’t matter that she didn't know the way, he needed assistance and she needed to move.
“Gwen.” Daniel sounded angry now, and she was surprised still when he caught a hold of her. “Wait.” She stopped moving and turned her glare on him. He wasn’t even looking at her, he was glaring in turn at the three vampires who’d interupted them. “You three can go.” His order was clearer this time, his voice hard with warning. Janice did not move, the other two did moving quickly past Daniel and Gwen. Janice only glared back at him.
“This isn’t-“
“This is not a request Janice.”
“I’m entitled to ignore you if you are being ridiculous!” She snapped back.
“Go on already.” Gwen growled and she tried to get her arm back so Daniel caught her hand, lacing his fingers into her own. The action pulled at her comfortingly, she wished it hadn’t and felt a little angier for it all over again.
“I’ve had worse.” He growled into the room, his voice echoing off old pipes and cobblestones. “Now get out of my sight.” He ordered Janice. She hesitated again, Gwen chanced a look at the woman, Janice was upright and drawn, it was clear she did not want to obey the command, but instinctively she was also concious of her need to obey it. “Janice!” He barked and the woman shuddered and slumped.
“Don’t you dare let him die.” She hissed as she made her exit, not looking back.
Gwen dismissed Janice the moment she was gone and turned to deal with Daniel, clearly he needed some sort of attention, Janice didn’t seem the sort to worry unduely. Glancing at the spot he had been sitting at before Gwen noticed there was too much blood for anyone to be okay. Her anger banked in the face of concern, again.
“You really need to get that looked at.” She informed listlessly.
“Not as much as we need to deal with this. I’ve got a few hours before it starts being a problem.”
“Will blood help?” She cringed at the idea of him biting her, although she hadn’t felt it any other time the idea of anything cutting into her made her flinch. It was a natural reaction, and she was fine with keeping it that way.
His quirk of a smile flicked into place again. “You’re offering?”
“Will it help?” She reiterated forcefully not up for dealing with his charm.
His smile folded. “It would yes, but it’s not magic, even it has it’s limits.”
She freed her hand from his, and held it out to him. He looked at the upturned wrist critically, then at her, then the wrist again, as if debating his next action.
“Really?” He checked, taking a gentle hold on the profered wrist and stroking it gently. She didn’t reply before he’d tugged her closer, his body closing around hers and his mouth and teeth falling to her neck.
She stifled the gasp when he broke the skin there, freezing the hands that wanted to push him away, and she let him take what he needed. It was strange and not exactly the sensual experience she had heard people talk about, but there was a thrill in her for trusting her life to him. A knowledge that he could break her so very easily while she was so vunerable. She would never tell him that, never give away that little secret, but she would let him do this again if it was what he needed.
When he pulled away he didn’t let her go, only pulled back so that he could see her face more clearly. He ran his tongue over his teeth thoughtfully.
“There,” he spoke with a whipsered voice, low again, but there was no shake to it anymore, “all better.” Then his endearing smile quirked into place, as if everything between them was fine, she felt almost rude to tell him otherwise, but she seemed only to have more questions than she’d had before.
“I’m a goddess?” She checked, her hands braced on his waist and he hummed an affirmation running a finger down her brow and behind her ear thoughtfully.
“The reincarnation of the Luminary. Our shining light. The Star that Fell.”
“Am I a star?” She checked, a little confused because she knew for a fact that stars were not people.
“Who knows?” He laughed breathless and pleased. “You might as well be, Gwen.”
“And…” there as that thought again, awkward and impossible, “I have children?”
He let her go, looking contrite. “Not children.” He struggled, trying to get a word out of his brain that seemed entierly stuck there. She let him struggle, she let him pace away from her, it was easier without contact anyway. “Blood lines.” He decided eventually, seeing her confusion he pushed on. “Sometimes you have children,” he saw her confision “in other lives.” he hurried to add. “The kindred are you’re blood lines, your decendents. I mean, decendents from some of your previous lives.”
“Then why are they killing you?” Because surely if she was some vampire goddess she wouldn’t send her children off to kill them.
Daniel sat down by the wall and motioned her to do the same, she did with only the slightest hesitation. It was not the best place to stop for a chat, it was neither clean nor secret, but she was sick of running and it seemed like the first, maybe the only, time that anyone would tell her what she wanted to know.
She tried to wrap her head around being related to all the kindred. The fighters who had just attacked them, wrapped in black and unassailably focused, she couldn’t marry herself to them, but the recruits… The recruits she had sat beside for six months as they’d learnt faster and better than she had. The recruits whose lives she had learnt about over time, and whose welfare she cared about. She could believe they were related to her in some way, even if she had trouble believing she’d ever had children, even a past incarnation of her.
“They kill for the same reason you do. Because the guardians tell them to.”
“What are they?” Gwen was glad she was sitting, her legs felt weak and wobbley and it wasn’t just a result of the blood she’d given him so recently.
“The guardians?” Daniel considered, “They- It's a game.” He began, sounding a little surer. “The guardians are the strongest link between humans and the spirits. And by spirits I suppose I mean the occult, the mythical, the magical.” He wasn’t thrilled with the use of any of those words but pushed on. “They are the strongest human link to our world. And they have been for-for longer than written history.”
“And they hate you. Vampires.”
“They see anyone who feeds on humans as an enemy. They wiped out a whole race of blood drinkers about a thousand years ago. Well, you did. Apparently you were spectacularily destructive that lifetime.”
“For them?”
“Yes. Because that’s their game. There are more of them, and they are better networked than the vampire clans. They have their kindred at beck and call and they have nothing hunting them down and killing them. It makes it easier for them to find you first.” He shrugged. “They find you, they lie to you and then they watch our god kill us off one by one. It’s all a game to them.”
“And what do you do with me?”
“Sometimes we kill you, because you belong to them too completely to ever turn you back. Sometimes we find you first. Sometimes you live a whole lifetime and no-one finds you. It’s those lives when you’re most likely to have children, though you’ve had them in other lives.”
“Why don’t you protect them?” She turned to him, earnest and curious. “The kindred. You could stop them from going to the guardians.”
“No.” He seemed only sad in his reply. “There are too many, and we can not- It would be too hard. And it has been tried before. And in the end they just aren’t valuable enough.”
“Because they’re not a goddess?”
“We kill her, Gwen, my father died killing the last incarnation of you. I should never have gone near you. I should have made my knowledge of you public and I probably should have died trying to kill you that night instead of- of what we did.” He grinned at the memory of it, but she was too overwhelmed to flush. Any other day and she would be bright red. “If I shouldn’t have risked that much for our goddess, why would we risk anything for the kindred?”
“They’re my family.” She wondered how true it was, how much she would protect them. She had family, she knew the limits she would do for them, but for these strangers who were family, she wondered just how far she could go.
“Not by blood. Not anymore. And we have enough to worry about.” He was starting to sound tired again, she put her hand to the wound cautiously.
“Do we need to go?” Gwen asked softly. She needed a break, she was sure it would all make sense tomorrow, or the day after. Definatly some time that wasn’t now.
“I’m just glad your Adam figured it out before the other guardians did. If they’d known they would never have let you leave their sight, and if you’d been uncooporative they would have locked you away to drag your life out as long as they could.”
“That’s why he’s doing this, isn’t it? Because he still wants me.”
“Probably. He knows that we’re lovers-“
“We are?”
“We better be.” Daniel hissed back. “Or you’ve been leading me on.”
She smiled at the pure possessiveness in his voice, glad to hear something that was for her, not some ancient goddes, but for her alone. “We are.” She felt kind of shy saying that, it was strange only because of their existing intimacy, but having it spelled out clearly made her flush with pleasure. Not even sitting in the bowels of a network of underground tunnels deminished the pleased feeling flushing through her.
“-and has gambled,” Daniel continued, “that I am your only tie to this world. He’s trying to cut you off from your life and from your connection here.”
“Then he shouldn’t have called me at my house and given the game away.” She hissed, anger coursing through her again at the memory of Stuart, and that anger was only added to when she remembered the fight they had left. To think that Adam had been trying to kill Daniel- to take away someone she was beginning to think of as irrelplaceable. To think that Adam had thought he could.
Rage coiled inside her, it pushed away the saddness that had been threatening ot take a hold of her. Sadness was for when there weren’t new threats and you only had to deal with what had already happened. But if he’d done it once, he’d keep doing it. How many kindred did Adam even have at his beck and call? And how dare he use them against her! Shane had been in that attack party, he’d been as at risk as the rest of them. She liked Shane.
It didn’t even matter if she believed any of it anymore. The fact that everyone else seemed to was all that mattered. They all thought she was some goddess from times past and if she was or not would change nothing. In the end it was all her fault, the Stuart had died because of her, all of Daniels clan had been attacked, and there was no doubt some had died. How dare anyone fight because of her when none of them had been willing to tell her what they thought she was in the first place.
The anger solidified into something cold and hard and she let it slide inside and take control. She’d been hunting before, this was going to be just like that.
[WC 47,163]
Bleeds from the eyes fingers and brain. Why you so hard to write you stupid scene?! I left crap out it was so hard to write. In that regard ask me anything htat hasn't been answered that you wanted to know, and I'll make a note for the next draft, because I don't even know what words are on that page. They are all just... erg. DEATH death is the only kindness.
“I have spent the last six months learning how to kill vampires from an underground organisation that trains people who they suspect have a certain afinity for the work.” She made it clear with her tone that pretty much anything said at any time in those last six months had sounded insane and stupid, but she was coping so far. She wondered how much worse it could get that he looked so unsure of how to tell her.
“You’re children.” He seemed to be correcting her. She waited for more, but he was looking at her, earnest.
Confused panic began to rise. “What?” She begged, turning over explenations and trying to understand but it made no sense. She didn’t have children, she- “What?” She demanded a little harder because a headache was building.
“The kindred,” he began carefully, keeping eye contact, “they’re yours.”
“My children?” She repeated for clarty. Daniel winced slightly.
“Not- no.” He shook his head. “That was a bad place to start.” She waited, wide eye’d, somewhere in here he was going to make sense, she was sure of it, and she didn’t want to miss it. He made a vague hand gesture. He seemed to be struggling.
“Try again.” She suggested, “We can come back to… to me having children.” She hoped they wouldn’t. “What is the Luminary?”
“She is the Star that Fell.” His awe was clear, and it was directed piercingly at her. “She is our Goddess.”
She did not break eyecontact, looking for the joke or the hint that he wasn’t making sense anymore, he didn’t even flinch.
“Your Goddess?”
“The Vampires.” He clarrified. “It happened… too long ago for us to be sure when it happened, but it was before our records start and they are… extensive. She-you… You came from the sky, a burning light that drove back darkness. And our ancestors welcomed you. The Star that Fell became the touchstone of our people. She built the bridges between the clans, united us as a people.”
“And then she died.” Janice interupted, Gwen inhaled sharply in surprise, stopping herself from the automatic programing to attack. She hadn’t heard the three vampires aproach, but there were certainly three of them standing on the weir. Janice looked a little apologetic, the other two refused to make eye contact of any kind. “Of a cold, I believe.” Janice gave a shrug of her shoulders, as if the reason was unimportant.
“No-one remembers how she died.” Daniel corrected. “But she did die.” He pulled himself up off the seat, and Gwen stepped back from him, not sure if she was ready to be touched by anyone. The idea, the very concept that they thought she was some sort of ancient goddess made her feel small and pathetic and very very nervous. She couldn’t live up to those expectations. Clearly there had been some all mighty mix up.
Janice noticed Daniels effort and responded. “You okay?” She touched his forehead for temperature, and then pulled his shirt up to check his wound. He tollerated her actions by ignoring them, his attention still fixed on Gwen. His wound was narrow, but it was obviously deep from the amount of blood that continued to seep out of it. Gwen wondered how long he could go without treatment, and knew it probably wasn’t very long at all.
“You’re going to bleed to death if you sit around here chatting all day.” Janice flicked his shirt back down to cover the wound and turned an accusing glare towards Gwen. “We need to get moving.”
“It’s fine.” Daniel interjected.
“Fine is it?” Janice was still on edge from the fight, her movements sharp and jittery.
“Are there any others coming this way?” He disracted, smoothing his shirt down shakily.
Janice eyed the wound speculatively. “I don’t think so. The others took to the streets when the alarm sounded. A few were left behind.” She shrugged casually again. “No great losses that I noticed. It was still early so the young hadn’t shown up yet, which is lucky.”
“Indeed.”
“So you’re telling her then?” Janice cut her eyes to Gwen and Gwen found herself flinching away from the attention. When she noticed the other two men who’d arrived were almost looking at her she took another step back.
“When you’ve moved on.” Daniel instructed with a sigh. “There’s a lot to tell.” His shoulders slumped a bit. Janice considered him, glancing at the wound again and then turned to Gwen.
“It can wait.” She instructed. “He need’s treatment.”
“I’m a fucken goddess.” Gwen spat back unaware that she was shaking.
Janice only sneered, “And he’s my clan leader. Oh great goddess, do you want him to die?”
“Do you really think-“ Gwen snapped, “-that I’m some sort of goddess?”
Janice glared. “Not a good one, it seems.”
“This is crazy.” Gwen went to step back and Janice caught her arm. Behind her the weir dropped away. It wasn’t a great drop, but it would certainly do damage if she’d stepped over it. Gwen shook off Janices hold and stepped away from the edge, she wouldn’t back up again, not now the danger was apparent. Janice gave a huff, looked at Daniel who was drawn but unmoving then back to Gwen. “And yes.” She added grudgingly. “You are ‘some sort of goddess’. We can all tell just by being near you. Just as you regonise us for what we are. Some things can not be hidden once people are looking.”
Gwen wondered if it was true. Adam had told her they could tell the kindred that way, like a sense that reached out and they were aware of. But they had to look. She wondered if she’d been walking around in front of vampires for months and none of them had noticed. But she’d killed them all, so maybe they had noticed. Daniel had been the first and only to survive an encounter with her and, she realised, he had already known what she was.
“Is that why you let me live?” The question should have stayed secret, certainly not asked in front of these three other vampires who were waiting for some sign of what their next action should be. Gwen didn’t care about them because she was lossing herself to a feeling too powerful to name, it reeked of disillusionment but peppered in where spikes of horrified surrender. “Is that why you slept with me?” It woke the knowledge that she had always had that no man would bother with her unless there was something in it for him. “You just wanted to screw your goddess.” She hissed, defensive now that the idea was in place. It didn’t even matter that they were wrong, all that mattered was that it was the most logical reason for him ever looking at her.
Daniel shook his head, pleading eyes trying to catch hers, moving towards her. Her hand rose between them a clear sign for him to stop and he did, but he was unhappy with the comand. She watched his fists clench and release. She watched it dispassionately, because if passion became part of this she would feel betrayed and used and what pleasure she had had in their encounteres would be ripped away and turned into something different, something tainted and ugly and very very angry.
“Gwen, I let you live because of what you are, I slept with you because of who you are.”
“You didn’t even know me.” She spat. “I didn’t know you.” She frowned with a new thought. “You had better not have known me.” All she needed was some crazy stalker vampire to make her life complete.
He laughed, tense still but it was real amusement.”No. I saw you with Cassie, that was the first time. I promise.” He held up a hand to stall her response, “and I didn’t plan on taking you to bed, but I can’t say I regret it.” Now he looked at their company. “You three should move on. We’ll be fine.”
The two male vampires seemed all to glad to be moving on, and they would have if Janice had moved even slightly at Daniels comand. Janice was watching Gwen though, a frown etched across her face.
Gwen checked Daniels drawn expression and could tell he was in pain. A tinge of guilt shot through her, knowing he was tollerating it for her. It also made her feel better, but she supposed he didn’t have a choice if he really thought she was some sort of goddess.
“No.” She snapped. “We’ll go with you.” She went to leave aiming in the general direction they had been heading. It didn’t matter that she didn't know the way, he needed assistance and she needed to move.
“Gwen.” Daniel sounded angry now, and she was surprised still when he caught a hold of her. “Wait.” She stopped moving and turned her glare on him. He wasn’t even looking at her, he was glaring in turn at the three vampires who’d interupted them. “You three can go.” His order was clearer this time, his voice hard with warning. Janice did not move, the other two did moving quickly past Daniel and Gwen. Janice only glared back at him.
“This isn’t-“
“This is not a request Janice.”
“I’m entitled to ignore you if you are being ridiculous!” She snapped back.
“Go on already.” Gwen growled and she tried to get her arm back so Daniel caught her hand, lacing his fingers into her own. The action pulled at her comfortingly, she wished it hadn’t and felt a little angier for it all over again.
“I’ve had worse.” He growled into the room, his voice echoing off old pipes and cobblestones. “Now get out of my sight.” He ordered Janice. She hesitated again, Gwen chanced a look at the woman, Janice was upright and drawn, it was clear she did not want to obey the command, but instinctively she was also concious of her need to obey it. “Janice!” He barked and the woman shuddered and slumped.
“Don’t you dare let him die.” She hissed as she made her exit, not looking back.
Gwen dismissed Janice the moment she was gone and turned to deal with Daniel, clearly he needed some sort of attention, Janice didn’t seem the sort to worry unduely. Glancing at the spot he had been sitting at before Gwen noticed there was too much blood for anyone to be okay. Her anger banked in the face of concern, again.
“You really need to get that looked at.” She informed listlessly.
“Not as much as we need to deal with this. I’ve got a few hours before it starts being a problem.”
“Will blood help?” She cringed at the idea of him biting her, although she hadn’t felt it any other time the idea of anything cutting into her made her flinch. It was a natural reaction, and she was fine with keeping it that way.
His quirk of a smile flicked into place again. “You’re offering?”
“Will it help?” She reiterated forcefully not up for dealing with his charm.
His smile folded. “It would yes, but it’s not magic, even it has it’s limits.”
She freed her hand from his, and held it out to him. He looked at the upturned wrist critically, then at her, then the wrist again, as if debating his next action.
“Really?” He checked, taking a gentle hold on the profered wrist and stroking it gently. She didn’t reply before he’d tugged her closer, his body closing around hers and his mouth and teeth falling to her neck.
She stifled the gasp when he broke the skin there, freezing the hands that wanted to push him away, and she let him take what he needed. It was strange and not exactly the sensual experience she had heard people talk about, but there was a thrill in her for trusting her life to him. A knowledge that he could break her so very easily while she was so vunerable. She would never tell him that, never give away that little secret, but she would let him do this again if it was what he needed.
When he pulled away he didn’t let her go, only pulled back so that he could see her face more clearly. He ran his tongue over his teeth thoughtfully.
“There,” he spoke with a whipsered voice, low again, but there was no shake to it anymore, “all better.” Then his endearing smile quirked into place, as if everything between them was fine, she felt almost rude to tell him otherwise, but she seemed only to have more questions than she’d had before.
“I’m a goddess?” She checked, her hands braced on his waist and he hummed an affirmation running a finger down her brow and behind her ear thoughtfully.
“The reincarnation of the Luminary. Our shining light. The Star that Fell.”
“Am I a star?” She checked, a little confused because she knew for a fact that stars were not people.
“Who knows?” He laughed breathless and pleased. “You might as well be, Gwen.”
“And…” there as that thought again, awkward and impossible, “I have children?”
He let her go, looking contrite. “Not children.” He struggled, trying to get a word out of his brain that seemed entierly stuck there. She let him struggle, she let him pace away from her, it was easier without contact anyway. “Blood lines.” He decided eventually, seeing her confusion he pushed on. “Sometimes you have children,” he saw her confision “in other lives.” he hurried to add. “The kindred are you’re blood lines, your decendents. I mean, decendents from some of your previous lives.”
“Then why are they killing you?” Because surely if she was some vampire goddess she wouldn’t send her children off to kill them.
Daniel sat down by the wall and motioned her to do the same, she did with only the slightest hesitation. It was not the best place to stop for a chat, it was neither clean nor secret, but she was sick of running and it seemed like the first, maybe the only, time that anyone would tell her what she wanted to know.
She tried to wrap her head around being related to all the kindred. The fighters who had just attacked them, wrapped in black and unassailably focused, she couldn’t marry herself to them, but the recruits… The recruits she had sat beside for six months as they’d learnt faster and better than she had. The recruits whose lives she had learnt about over time, and whose welfare she cared about. She could believe they were related to her in some way, even if she had trouble believing she’d ever had children, even a past incarnation of her.
“They kill for the same reason you do. Because the guardians tell them to.”
“What are they?” Gwen was glad she was sitting, her legs felt weak and wobbley and it wasn’t just a result of the blood she’d given him so recently.
“The guardians?” Daniel considered, “They- It's a game.” He began, sounding a little surer. “The guardians are the strongest link between humans and the spirits. And by spirits I suppose I mean the occult, the mythical, the magical.” He wasn’t thrilled with the use of any of those words but pushed on. “They are the strongest human link to our world. And they have been for-for longer than written history.”
“And they hate you. Vampires.”
“They see anyone who feeds on humans as an enemy. They wiped out a whole race of blood drinkers about a thousand years ago. Well, you did. Apparently you were spectacularily destructive that lifetime.”
“For them?”
“Yes. Because that’s their game. There are more of them, and they are better networked than the vampire clans. They have their kindred at beck and call and they have nothing hunting them down and killing them. It makes it easier for them to find you first.” He shrugged. “They find you, they lie to you and then they watch our god kill us off one by one. It’s all a game to them.”
“And what do you do with me?”
“Sometimes we kill you, because you belong to them too completely to ever turn you back. Sometimes we find you first. Sometimes you live a whole lifetime and no-one finds you. It’s those lives when you’re most likely to have children, though you’ve had them in other lives.”
“Why don’t you protect them?” She turned to him, earnest and curious. “The kindred. You could stop them from going to the guardians.”
“No.” He seemed only sad in his reply. “There are too many, and we can not- It would be too hard. And it has been tried before. And in the end they just aren’t valuable enough.”
“Because they’re not a goddess?”
“We kill her, Gwen, my father died killing the last incarnation of you. I should never have gone near you. I should have made my knowledge of you public and I probably should have died trying to kill you that night instead of- of what we did.” He grinned at the memory of it, but she was too overwhelmed to flush. Any other day and she would be bright red. “If I shouldn’t have risked that much for our goddess, why would we risk anything for the kindred?”
“They’re my family.” She wondered how true it was, how much she would protect them. She had family, she knew the limits she would do for them, but for these strangers who were family, she wondered just how far she could go.
“Not by blood. Not anymore. And we have enough to worry about.” He was starting to sound tired again, she put her hand to the wound cautiously.
“Do we need to go?” Gwen asked softly. She needed a break, she was sure it would all make sense tomorrow, or the day after. Definatly some time that wasn’t now.
“I’m just glad your Adam figured it out before the other guardians did. If they’d known they would never have let you leave their sight, and if you’d been uncooporative they would have locked you away to drag your life out as long as they could.”
“That’s why he’s doing this, isn’t it? Because he still wants me.”
“Probably. He knows that we’re lovers-“
“We are?”
“We better be.” Daniel hissed back. “Or you’ve been leading me on.”
She smiled at the pure possessiveness in his voice, glad to hear something that was for her, not some ancient goddes, but for her alone. “We are.” She felt kind of shy saying that, it was strange only because of their existing intimacy, but having it spelled out clearly made her flush with pleasure. Not even sitting in the bowels of a network of underground tunnels deminished the pleased feeling flushing through her.
“-and has gambled,” Daniel continued, “that I am your only tie to this world. He’s trying to cut you off from your life and from your connection here.”
“Then he shouldn’t have called me at my house and given the game away.” She hissed, anger coursing through her again at the memory of Stuart, and that anger was only added to when she remembered the fight they had left. To think that Adam had been trying to kill Daniel- to take away someone she was beginning to think of as irrelplaceable. To think that Adam had thought he could.
Rage coiled inside her, it pushed away the saddness that had been threatening ot take a hold of her. Sadness was for when there weren’t new threats and you only had to deal with what had already happened. But if he’d done it once, he’d keep doing it. How many kindred did Adam even have at his beck and call? And how dare he use them against her! Shane had been in that attack party, he’d been as at risk as the rest of them. She liked Shane.
It didn’t even matter if she believed any of it anymore. The fact that everyone else seemed to was all that mattered. They all thought she was some goddess from times past and if she was or not would change nothing. In the end it was all her fault, the Stuart had died because of her, all of Daniels clan had been attacked, and there was no doubt some had died. How dare anyone fight because of her when none of them had been willing to tell her what they thought she was in the first place.
The anger solidified into something cold and hard and she let it slide inside and take control. She’d been hunting before, this was going to be just like that.
[WC 47,163]
Bleeds from the eyes fingers and brain. Why you so hard to write you stupid scene?! I left crap out it was so hard to write. In that regard ask me anything htat hasn't been answered that you wanted to know, and I'll make a note for the next draft, because I don't even know what words are on that page. They are all just... erg. DEATH death is the only kindness.