"Cursed to Live"

[Alandor Fydmere]

“They call me bad.. mad Caliban with manner. Dangerous to know, passing fad.. taught in all debauch, in excess and in canto…”

How long the days, how many years had passed, since last the villain passed through the countryside he now found himself running. As is the fruit of all sins, Justice was calling. It had been his way to move with purpose, with a deep elegance that held to all of the grandeur he often carried. The suns had risen, and they had fallen.. much like this criminal empire. His feet crashed, and they carried him with speed between the trees and shallow waters. His leather shoes once so perfectly shined, so perfectly clean, were covered in mud and filth. They were worn. They were old.. much as he had become. The deep lines with the stingray leather matched those that coursed through his slowly aging elven soul.

He was home, or what was once his home. Where he and his beloved had carried court and driven blades, torn teeth and played in the decadence of all those who wallowed in the endless abyss below. He saw it, there, as he hurriedly pushed through the bushes and ran across the open grasslands between the forest and the tavern before him. His once beautiful black velvet coat torn and worn, shattered, much as he was now. Fallen from his throne to hide in back alleys and furrow into the nests of vampires and mages. It had come full circle. He was where he started so long before.

Through the doors he plunged, to the ground.. lifting himself quickly and looking about. The tavern was much different now. It reminded him of the apocalypse, when the world was shorn from it’s roots and the tree of life fell into the jaws of Nidhoggr, that worm who could not be filled. A few vagabonds looked up from the corners where they found rest, and he had no time to respond. Through the windows they came, enforcers. They came for him, swinging as soldiers do.. with purpose. He had aged, and worn, and at times broke and yet his way with the blade had not changed. A life of crime will do that to you. While they had strength, he had speed.. and as he fell one after another, he took dips beneath oncoming blades to craft a sigil with charcoal before the door. It was furious, each swing of the blade, each duck, each perfectly pitched line, before swinging up to fell a foe.

He had drawn this very sigil so many times before. And as the enforcers came to an end, he stood before the door. Blades ever so gently resting within his grip, the blood still dripping from the tips of the knives. He waited. Not long.. for the door swung open before the inquisitor. The light shined out from him, as tendrils swinging, strands hit by the very force that was captured within this being of the sun and the Empire. Alandor dropped his blades, not stepping back. His eyes met what would be eyes, if the Inquisitor had them. The Inquisitor spoke,

“For the crimes of Assassination, illegal trade, of wielding black magic, and various other villainy against the Empire you, Alandor Fydmere, will be executed.”

The Inquisitor moved forward, through the door, and below him the sigil began to glow the most effervescent purple before exploding forth and sucking him into the damnation of the inferno. The being of Light trapped within the tendrils of darkness.

He let out a sigh, turning away from the door finally, and now uncovered from the moss and grime that had been holding out the sun the taverns true form had been uncovered. So old. So worn. He walked through the overturned tables and chairs, his body once more taking the elegant movements he was known for though after the battle a limp had come to him. He leaned forward and lifted a stool before the bar and sat it upright, taking a seat. In the past he would not have been able to sit in such filth.. but now, without his adored, without his empire, he was naught but a split canopic jar. He slid his glove from his hand and ran his finger through the ash and the dirt that had built up from the years of neglect and abandonment.

“Leetah”

And for a moment, just a moment, he allowed himself time to stop and remember.

[Leetah]

It was the voices that woke her. A multifaceted, multitudinous wave of voices, glittering and smoking and screaming, railing and whispering and breaking like so many fragile wings. Relentlessly crashing, the wave, into and around her without ceasing. Enfolding her, wrapping her up in confessions, confusions, heartbreaking pleas for forgiveness and absolution...all manner of things with which humans concern themselves so needlessly. Asleep for decades, alone for much longer, Leetah turned her face to the warm rock wall of her sanctum and sought sleep -- sought silence -- as she had for so many years. But this time sleep did not come. Silence did not come. She stirred restlessly, rearranging her limbs and drifting (unwillingly) into consciousness. A low, long sigh escaped her lips; her eyelids fluttered, lifted, closed and then opened again. Her eyes, finally, opened. And they remained opened. There was no sleeping now. There would be no more silence this time. She stirred. Allowing the wave of voices -- that deep and penetrating collection of voices from humans living lives all over the world -- to push and then, mercifully, ebb, Leetah moved. Moved against heavy furs draping her, moved against the heavy stones of her sanctuary and, after long moments, moved against the very rocks of the earth burrow in which she'd slept for so, so long. Up through layers of sand and stone and earth, her movements hampered by cramped muscles and lethargy, Leetah sought (after years -- years!) to breathe air at the surface.

Breaking through the sun-baked crust like a deep-sea creature, she gasped and collapsed against the earth. The night air was warm, wet, alive with the sounds of insects and (far, far off) the unending chatter of people. Here, though, where she had pushed to the surface like a blooming plant, there were no people. There were no lights, no clattering automobiles, so sign nor presence of the modern world. The forest beneath where Leetah had retreated, burrowed, finally slept for decades was old. Very old. And very, very alive. It had been her home in ages past, and it harbored that magnificent, dark place in which she'd honed her peculiar skills, met all manner of creatures (her oldest, dearest friends), encountered a most elusive man who would become her beloved, her king...her equal. The sudden resurgence of memories momentarily froze her. This place...this forest and this place and these people. They seemed so near -- indeed, that place was so near. The Tavern, it was so very near. As she turned over, collected herself, brushed the dirt and dead leaves from her clothes, she thought (maybe...just maybe) she'd heard something. A whisper. A soft fluttering. "Leetah." As if suddenly shocked, heart thundering in her ears, she started running. Muscles protesting from years of unuse, only half-sure of the direction in which she rushed, she finally moved. Scrambling through the ancient brush and over massive gnarled roots, Leetah ran blindly towards the Tavern.

As she did, a name escaped her lips. More a question than an answer, half-remembered scenes of a moonlit field glistening while the world burned around them suddenly assaulting her, she gasped: "Alandor?"

[Alandor Fydmere]

Eyes shut. His finger running along the edges of the letters drawn within the grime and the dust. The sky was a soft hue of blue, it was spring. He had made his way to the Tavern as he had done so many times before. To sell his latest demonic powder from the deep south, where the ancient tribal shamans would often trade their wares.. for gold or at the end of the blade.. to whatever beast or dark being that was filled with sinister intent. He, the foul and perfected connoisseur of all that death and poison could supply.. bound in leather and draped in silk.. adorned with gold. Always so much gold. Ancient talismans, relics of holy wars. He opened the door of the tavern, his always gloved hands turning and pushing. Looking back over his shoulder for the timely antagonist to rush upon him before he entered the safety of the tavern. That was when everything changed. A glimpse of the most radiant light he had ever seen. She was a healer, a flower blooming in the swamp, and unlike anyone he had ever seen. She was knelt down upon the hill, taking care of some wounded fellow.. and he needed her. Needed her more than the man she was reviving from deaths door. Needed her beyond good and evil, beyond crime and the fulfilment of desire. The wanton criminal was stricken with feelings he had never felt before. The light shining between the branches, making her glow, and drawing him closer.. from the darkness. Calling him from the darkness.

Eyes now open, he looked along the back of the bar. He could see her moving so fluidly between the people. So lithe, so beautiful. She was his, he was hers. He needed a drink. Just a drink. All empty, shattered glass strewn along the floor. He reached over the bar and pulled up a large piece of glass, rubbing it clean from the years of distress, he held it up to the look at his reflection as best he could. Shaking his head he tossed the glass at the wall, the vagabonds scurried away. Grunts and moans as the sick and the weak scattered. This was the tavern of the vampires, never before had he walked through those doors looking like such a mess. He pushed his flowing black behind his pointed and pierced ear, the shimmering gold that once adorned his hair was gone now. He looked down upon the word he had written

“Leetah.”

Eyes closed. He stood, walking so elegantly between the chairs and tables solely from memory. His feet stepping over the legs of tables, his shoes crushing glass and finally the sound of the leather falling into pools of blood. Pushing open the door, the sweet air hitting him..


His eyes opened.


She was here.

[Leetah]

Heart thudding so heavy in her ears that she thought it might very well burst, Leetah pulled herself onwards, through tangles of thorns and over the stumps of massive trees, across gnarled pits of underbrush and through misty clearings. It was so dark, this place, so dark and so very old. Moonlight penetrated it all in weak, watery shafts and the air itself felt alive -- it was as if the woods were alive. Breathing. Coiled like a snake and waiting for a sign to uncurl. It was all so familiar to her, and rather than set her on edge, it soothed her. She knew this place. Barely touched, hardly changed, the Tavern and its surrounding grounds -- she knew this place. And she loved this place. And, moments ago, she thought she'd heard the whisper of something...someone...else she loved.

Leetah pressed on. Pace slowing to a crawl as the Tavern slid slowly into view, bathed in the diffused light of a wet night, the Vampire Tavern suddenly filled her view.

There it was. In all its glory. Leetah drew in her breath very softly. She gazed at it in something like reverence. Its sharp angles and corners, turrets, dark wood and stained glass, the Tavern took her breath away as if she'd never seen it before. The immense, shadowed porch beckoned her. Beyond, it seemed low lights flickered through the windows. And barely imperceptible, so low no other could hear, the beat of a heart. Or maybe she imagined it, because she wasn't sure if who she sought still lived or if the voice she'd heard in her head was real. She shivered, paused, took a step back into the woods and then moved forward again. Pale green eyes darted across the Tavern's front facade, copper-colored brows knit for a moment in consternation. And then -- then! -- without giving it another second's thought, she ran across the expanse of grass to its massive double doors and turned the heavy, ornate handle.

[Alandor Fydmere]

The chilling tendrils of darkness weaved through the walls of the tavern and draped about his body like rushing waters, the incandescent stars wafted softly through the shattered windows, and this torn and shattered being slowly stepped towards the door. His feet carrying him over the bodies without regard, the tinge of silver that adorned the leather glimmered against the backdrop of encroaching night. So many years, so many years.. so many he had forgotten how it happened. How they parted, how they were torn asunder as prey to ravaging and rancorous wolves.. it was so distant now that he couldn’t place it. He couldn’t place it against the warmth he could feel pushing forward from the Earth. The glow born again from its torpor and funneling the life from the grand tapestry of their past.

She was here.

And as his leather gloved hands wrapped around the doorknob, and as he pushed forward.. the door opened from force outside his own. He knew. He knew. She knew. He knew she knew. The door opened. The door opened in what seemed like an eternal struggle. These two cursed souls, so entwined that you could almost see their ribs intermingled and bound. Across aeons, across apocalypses, across time itself.. these two ancient forces were within reach. Separated solely by a door.

Then it was. Then it was all over again. Those green eyes.. so soft, so perfect.. no amount of hibernation beneath the earth could tame them. The push of his lungs suddenly caught, his petulant purple eyes returned that soft gaze in that moment, that sudden and infinite moment. The damnation of the elves, the slow passage of time.. and in that moment? It stopped. He could see her face slowly exposed as the door moved. As if he had been caught in the vortex, and pulled into a time without time.

Suddenly time returned. The door flung open.. and he pushed with it, pulling her close. Pulling her close into his barely beating heart, pulling her close into his barely flowing blood, pulling her close into his tattered remains. Into his embrace he pulled her. As the abyss took the Inquisitor, he pulled her into he.

[Leetah]

All time slowed. Everything, every sound and every movement, slowed inexplicably. Breathing took ages; thoughts came even slower. She was caught in an amber river thickly flowing.

But then, the voice: "Leetah..."

Pinned up in one great, sudden slow whirling of lines and light, space and shadow, Leetah was frozen. She could not register this maelstrom of occurrences. From subterranean slumber to restless waking to sudden consciousness at the surface, it was all too fast. Too fast. Hours ago she had been in a wakeless sleep, listening to all sorts of voices from all sorts of humans from all sorts of places around the world. As she had for a century, Leetah slept. Listened. Felt such pain and love and anger for those mortals -- her only companions in her self-imposed exile...it had only been minutes before. Or hours? How much time had passed? Why had she awoke?

It didn't matter. She pushed those gnawing thoughts away...now, here she was. At the great front doors to the only place that had given her respite in all these long years! For just a brief second (a whisper-quick moment) she longed again for the familiarity and warmth of that dark secret cave -- that burrowed den beneath the earth that she'd dug with her own fingers. That dark secret cave in which she'd heard the world's voices while dreaming of the old, dark secret love.

But no! Night insects sang. The Tavern rose, gorgeous and hulking before her. A storm was rolling in now with its lightning-tendriled fingers and throaty thunder-growls.

And the door...the door was wrenched suddenly open from the other side (how? Was it true? But the Tavern was empty!), and before she'd had a second to register what was happening, it was all violet light and silk. Worn leather and silver. Flash of familiar scents so strong she was almost dizzy, and then suddenly a realization that it was real -- this was real, this thing she'd never dreamt of happening!

In a low, quavering voice, she trembled: "Alandor...?"

[Alandor Fydmere]

“We’ve drifted apart.. but I want you to know.. wherever you are I belong..”

The last moment, they engulfed each others eyes. The world was coming to an end. The apocalypse. Revelations. The sky was falling, fire. Everywhere was fire. The drifting desecration of all that was by the gods above. And the defilement of all that lived. The world was to fall to ruins, and most likely they were to die.. and in those last seconds they kneeled before each other and looked into each others eyes. There was chaos. The people, the beings, those who walked the ground and flew in the sky and breathed below water all wept and gnashed their teeth, for the end was coming and no angels, no half gods, no vampires bite could save them from the oncoming fall. No pact could be made with demons, or sacrifices to gods would fill the blood thirst that was forming within the void that was to envelope their planet and absorb them all.. and yet they looked into each others eyes. They had found love. Not just love. Love was thrown about like dolls among children.. no this was more than that. It was the bonding of two like spirits into something that would last beyond the fall of the very planet and existence they had always known..

And it did.

Here they were. Through the apocalypse. Through plague. Through the fire that had erupted and taken the planet and all that lived.. they made it. Beyond aeons. Beyond ages. Beyond the rise and fall of kingdoms.. they made it. And in that moment, when Leetah spoke his name.. he knew they had once again made it.

Made it through another cataclysm.

He took her into his arms, bound her as he had done so many times before.. he slid off his glove, to expose the ink ruined, sigil stained, pale fingers.. and ran them up her face. He pushed her hair back, in the ebbing and flowing of time, and leaned in to kiss her. He kissed her, kissed her breath, and her being, and all that she had went through in their separation.. and in that moment none of it had happened. Nothing before, nothing after..

“Leetah” he whispered in response..

There was nothing more.

[Leetah]

Her head was swimming again. She scarce knew what to do, what to say, where to look -- several seconds passed in utter confusion. Alone, sleeping, wrapped in silent solace for so long! Years and years and years away from others, from the world, from the air and light and rain and moon...her senses were momentarily assaulted. Here was the Tavern again, here were the woods again, here were the colors and smells of the night again. A deep rumble of thunder, blessed thunder, brought her around once more.

The rain started, heavy drops hammering the roof and windows. It was a beautiful, relentless rhythm. And as he clasped her to his chest, spoke to her, kissed her face, she very nearly wept. "We’ve drifted apart.. but I want you to know.. wherever you are I belong..." His voice was like velvet and smoke and something else too heady for words.

Long brown fingers scrabbling at his collar, she murmured, "you...here?...how..."

Blinking away the inner chaos, trying desperately to focus, she found his face with her eyes...and she melted. Alandor. Oh, Alandor. His voice, from years ago, reverberated in her head and his eyes were so like those eyes she'd gazed into (desperately! so desperately) when the old world had died and their sun exploded -- alone on that hill together, watching their realm obliterate itself -- those violet eyes stayed her heart and she very suddenly found her strength. Her hand slid down and she brushed her skirt, though tattered and crusted with dirt, and with her other she sought to smooth her hair, though the copper curls were also matted with the dirt of her ascent up out of that earth-womb.

"But you died! I saw it. I died. I felt it! Everything went black and everything was burning."

And somehow, she thought -- after days and days of burning, on that baked earth and under clouds of ash and smoke -- she went down into the ground. Unconscious and alone, her body had acted as its own agent of mercy and had dug down deep through the soil, sand, bedrock and had hollowed out a great chamber quite of its own accord. Her body had saved her brain, and together they'd healed over countless years in the deep, dark, earthen burrow. And so she hadn't really died, she thought...which meant maybe he hadn't really died...

She turned her face to meet his again: "...Where did you go? I tried to find you. I dreamt of you. Of you and me. Of the old lands and people."

She pressed her face against his shoulder: "I tried to find you. And I couldn't. And I thought this place -- you, the woods, everything -- was dead."

[Alandor Fydmere]

He didn’t remember the exact moment, when the world came to shining and bright crescendo among a cacophony of screams.. though he remembered the chaos after. His eyes opening slowly, as he laid among rubble, among the bodies, the dried blood and carcasses. The few seconds of confusion, and painful breathing. His broken arm, and shaking frame. The piercing sound filling his ears. Only to come to with a flurry of distress. The frantic flipping of bodies, and dragging of corpses, and screaming of her name.. the rushed moments, the beating heart, the searching. The endless searching. The flailing, and sorrow, and loss.. and the moments that never were. The misery, his misery. The days spent sitting in the rubble, trying to think.. and only finding memories. No life came there. How did he survive? And where.. where did she go?

And suddenly she was here, or he was here.. or they were here. By some instance? Some chance? Or luck? Or fate.. or fate. He held her close. His fingers running along her face and wiping the tears from her eyes, his own welling up for the first time since he finally abandoned that rubble. He pressed his lips together, completely at a loss for words. All of his thinking, and wondering, and imagining this moment prepared him not for what he would say.

He looked at her, and he held her. He felt her heart starting to beat again.. from the deep torpor she had fallen. He could see it in her eyes. He could feel it as he held her close. He breathed her in and that scent.. it was a memory he had never let go of. Even in all of the pain, and the fear, and the loss.

She spoke, and her voice so close and alive. Alive! And the questions, and her questions, and his mind swirling in all of the madness that had come forth between the two of them.. and all he could do
Was let a smirk form on his face, in realization that all of it had suddenly come to an end.. that everything between that moment and this was to be the memories he lost from the world ending, that they were suddenly reborn.. his eyes filled with tears.. it was as if there was barely a day that passed since he had last held her. In that moment.. he held her tight.. and he wanted to answer her. He wanted to have answers. What had happened, how they were alive.. he pressed his hand to her cheek and looked her in the eyes, his thumb running along the bottom of her lip.

“We’ve really let our tavern fall to disrepair.”

[Leetah]

She cleaved to him. As if holding him tight would ensure she'd never lose him again, she pressed hard against him. Small-boned, brown-skinned, auburn-haired elf, Leetah buried her face into Alandor's shoulder and paused. ...Just as she'd had so long ago. His fingers on her face were like the waves of rain outside on the baked earth of their world's apocalypse -- on that night. That night they watched everything...EVERYTHING...burn.

The storm's fury was increasing, the rain came down harder against the Tavern and lightning split the sky in great electric gasps. Yet despite that fury outside, the little elf was suddenly happy -- still out of sorts, yes, and still reeling from her sudden (nearly violent and inarguably unnerving) awakening -- but so indescribably happy. And happier still when he touched her, held her, spoke the her. It was as if no time -- NO TIME -- had passed. It was all violent violet eyes and smoky voice and the darkest shadow of the man she'd met such a long, long time ago.

"I looked for you. I looked through the eyes of every mortal, every human, for just a glimpse or a trace or..." She trailed off. Such long, long years spent sleeping and listening, searching despite consciousness for a sign of him. All for naught, she'd thought, all for naught until this night. This night! This night of rain and moon and waking. She cleaved to him again.

She thought she'd searched in vain. She thought she'd missed him, that maybe he'd turn up while she was sleeping, deep down beneath the earth, and would never, ever make himself known. She had been so very afraid that they'd pass each other, like maybe those damned ships in the night...

She shook her head. She looked at him. She breathed him in and thought what a dark, secret love they had. Resolute now and trying to right herself after such an absolute mess of a resurgence, she swallowed deep and smiled.

"Such goddamn disrepair. Where do we start?"

And then a second later: "Where do we start...my love?"

[Alandor Fydmere]

My love? My love.. my love. Her voice. From her lips.. those words. Those words echoed through him, through his body, through his soul.. and down his spine. From the Tree of life, through the roots and the grinding teeth of the Nidhoggr. It came bursting out, those words. Those thoughts. My love. After all of the years of despair.. he remembered, in that moment, what he had been holding onto. What his clenching fingers, bound in leather and ink and runes was holding onto. Through all of the bloodshed, all of the dead, all of the plagues and curses and disease he laid waste upon his enemies.. he had been surviving, surviving for her. He loved her. The salt he had spread upon the earth behind him, that had killed the birth of life, had still found a way to sprout this one flower. The only important flower. The only flower he ever wanted. The only flower he remembered from before the death of seasons.

The Death of Seasons.

He lifted her from the ground, his hands holding her tight and raising her above him, bringing her from the earth.. so that he was all that was keeping her from falling.. as Atlas held the Earth. He looked into her eyes. He looked into those eyes that had haunted his thoughts. Every sleepless night, every dream beneath the lunar sky.. the shocking blues. The retreating stars.. Her visage, those words.

He held her there. There above the ground.. he walked into her eyes.. and he returned home. He could see the plants blooming, the people laughing and conversing, the blood partook by the undead. He saw all he had forgotten..

“We’ll raise the dead, and dance among their cold bodies..”

The smile.. real.

[Leetah]

She paused, letting his words slide over and into her. It was like the last slow strains of a favorite song -- one she didn't think she'd hear again. Not after the Great Burning, the mass destruction of everything and everyone she'd known all those long years ago. Good god, how she'd longed to hear it in her darkest hours there beneath the dirt! Her gaze met his and, for just a moment, she was lost; fathomless pools, those eyes, violet windows to something ancient, inexplicable, otherworldly...and she was nearly pulled into what lay behind.

She laughed when he lifted her, a full, throaty laugh that smacked of genuine (and long-repressed) delight. She kicked her feet like a child and wrapped her arms around his neck:

"Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick," she said, "the one that makes me laugh..."

Wriggling from his grasp back to the ground, only chin-height but still beaming up at him, she paused. Reached up. Paused again. Took a deep breath to calm the spiking emotions rising inside. Then...

Standing on the tips of her toes to run her hand from his temple to the curve of his jaw, she leaned in and kissed his cheek...kissed his eyes closed a moment so she could break the spell and regain a little composure. His eyes had always, always been spellbinding. They'd always knocked her off his feet, especially when used in conjunction with his smoky-velvet voice. Cocking her head to side as he spoke, she smiled again. A knowing smile.

"Raise the dead? I thought I did that, just now." A second or two of silence, and then, as the word dead began reverberating somewhere in the back of her brain, she said softly "Did I, Alandor? My heart stills beats...but does yours? You won't tell me how you survived the destruction of our land, how you've held on and fared so well," she brushed tenderly a long, loose strand of black hair behind his ear, "So I wonder...if you didn't go down into the earth as an elf, did you dance through shadows as a vampire?"

The question had burned suddenly bright amongst the tumble of thoughts Leetah'd been sifting through after finding him here in the Tavern. She herself could suffer grievous injury, she could sleep undeterred but unaffected for centuries -- but she could suffer a mortal death. And suddenly, faced with the beautiful immortality of her lover there before her, she was struck dumb. ...Had he always been this way? WAS he this way? She searched his face then, gently, clasping her hands behind his neck again. She couldn't let go; she needed to touch him, needed to make sure this was real and not some spectacular fever-dream. She needed him. Here. With her.

But this question -- why now? Why was it shoving its way to the forefront of her brain only now, as she breathed in the mingled scents of a milennia?

"Tell me where you've been," she whispered, smiling, leaning in, "tell me what you've seen and done. Then we'll raise the dead."

She smiled and kissed him.

[Alandor Fydmere]

All of this time, he never stopped to think how it was he had survived.. how did he make it through while the bodies of the newly departed were laid as a barren wasteland? His eyes went in and out of focus, as the touch of her hands and eyes made their way over him and inspected him as the lost boys had done to one, the saint Peter Pan, long before he..

While his thoughts went black, farther.. even farther now. All of the ghosts were gathering.. how long had it been? How long had it been? The tortured incivility of time. There were no etiquette when it came to dying. The chaos. The flashes of falling stone, and the endless wailing and stomach churning screams. He couldn’t remember, not now, if he had survived at all. He slid his hands along her arms, as they searched him.. and a calm suddenly began to smooth the anxiety that was coming over him. Births and deaths, the impenetrable force of the rotation of planets.. there was no escape.

Her eyes.

Again. The upturned buildings, and the burning trees. The sky turning so bright, as if the angels that haunted the land had joined in a choir above to burn out the eyes of those who were mortals. And then.. him. He remembered now. The bitter one, who had fallen so in love with Leetah before Alandor had come to her, and she to him. The vampire, Selur. The one who peered down from above and often took sport in killing his errand boys and guards. He appeared from behind, striking him down. Amid the chaos, and searching he had been taken off guard. ‘I have killed her, Alandor. And now you shall live, in the sorrow, and the pain, in the ruins of the world!’ .. and then everything went black.

He shook his head. He was back. Here before his love.. and finally spoke, “I was bit, as the world was falling to ruin.”

One last moment. He breathed deep, his eyes looking away for a moment before returning to hers. “Your old friend, the vampire.. Selur. Having thought you dead, came to curse me to live.”

[Leetah]

"Your old friend, the Vampire Selur, having thought you dead, came to curse me to live..."

A sharp, involuntary shudder shook her very suddenly. Starting deep, deep down, it reverberated out (in little kinetic waves) from bones through blood to her nearly-bared teeth. Leetah's brown-red skin prickled with anger, like the hackles rising on a wolf. Green eyes fairly flaming, she drew in her breath and squared her shoulders. Selur! That fiend -- that old, familiar devil! How could he dare? To use her as perverted justification to draw Alandor across the line of light into unending darkness...

"You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding." Her voice dipped dangerously low.

She felt the anger blossoming in her chest, the deadly indignation burning at the base of her skull. Just as Leetah could heal so too could she wound, and she wanted to rip Selur into fleshy shreds. Wanted to rend him limb from limb and use her gifts to PREVENT those limbs from reattaching. God, she wanted Selur to bear full-force the brunt of her rage. ...But looking up at Alandor, the barely focused gaze and faltering touch, she bit her tongue. Raked a slim-fingered hand through her hair. Tried to center herself. Truly, his revelation floored her. Absolutely, utterly floored her. She hadn't expected it -- didn't know what to expect, really -- but not that. Not Selur, surfacing from her past like a slimy leviathan to change life's course for her love. Her Alandor. Her all.

Brows furrowing in shock and indignation, she took his hand and drew him across the floor to a heavy, claw-footed couch. Ignoring the dust that flew up as she sat down, she pulled him onto the old damask cushions; dark and stately French windows rose directly behind them, and she swept the heavy velvet curtains aside with one arm as she settled in next to him. The storm roared in full force now, rain lashing the Tavern's grounds in great, sweeping gusts. She wondered how it must have been for him, during those intermittent decades, to be battered by such a storm while knowing it couldn't touch him. Knowing nothing could touch him.

"But how? How did he happen upon you? It was the end of everything! Everything was burning! Everything was dead..."

Her hands stroked both sides of his face, the fine and near imperceptible threads of an ancient power now snaking from her fingers as it attempted to impart some measure of solace. If he wasn't truly alive, that's all it would be: solace. Not the mending of broken bones, not the invisible stitching of slashes...just the sowing of solace's seeds. And he wasn't alive -- Leetah could feel it. Something deep inside her core told her. She sensed the cold. The dark. But it was still Alandor, despite all this. It was still Alandor.

She took a deep breath. She looked at him with an innocent intensity, and inching closer so that she was very nearly in his lap, she asked, "tell me. Tell me what happened to you."

[Leetah]

His silence struck a chord. She understood, given the things they'd both endured, and she wanted to put her arms around him, hold him tight, wrap him up in her warmth. His skin was so cold, so smooth -- really, like animated marble. She didn't know if she could ever warm him enough. She'd begun to notice and mark such changes in him, the preternatural skin, the too-bright eyes, the rapid fluidity which with he moved. She wondered suddenly about the other, unseen changes...wondered if his eyeteeth had budded into pearly fangs (like the ones she'd noticed, in those early days, on the vampires of old). Wondered if he thirsted as badly as the old ones had, wondered if he thirsted now...

She slid closer, her legs folded underneath her and arms perched on Alandor's knees. She leaned in, rested her head on his lap a minute. Sighing, Leetah looked up at him. She just wanted to touch him, reassure him -- to make sure, above all else, that he was real. The storm roared outside, the few burning candles (scattered along the bar and in dusty nooks) guttering as a draft whistled through the eaves. Long-lashed lids descended, blinked several times, and she focused again on Alandor.

"I don't care, you know. I don't care what he did. I mean, I care...I'd kill that bastard if I could. I'd rip his eyes out and feed them to him. I'd rip the lips off his smug mouth and I'd --" Leetah stopped, trembling a little as she felt the rage flare up again. She paused. Took a deep breath. Clenched and unclenched her jaw. Throwing all rules of propriety away, she climbed into his lap and stroked his cheek.

"I just care that you're here now. No matter how different you are. I've been down under the earth like a mole, after all, listening to mortal -- and immortal -- voices, all over the globe, in my sleep. Surely that makes me much different than the elf I was before. There is nothing to fear here."