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Realms Converge	By : Candice Category: +G through L > Legacy of Kain Views: 3562 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Legacy of Kain, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.Don't get to Nosgoth itself til chap 5

Chapter List
- 42
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Chapter Forty-three: See no Evil...

*-*/-Katrina POV-**-*

I closed my mouth, my jaw clenched tight as I looked back at Altair with widened eyes. Kain could not seem to avert his own gaze from the damaged surface of the moon and his mind was a firm weight of confusion against my own as I spoke to the Eldar.

"The article made it seem as if the Unveiling went smoothly!" I pointed up at the moon. "If that occurred during the Unveiling, I would argue the supposed smoothness of said transition!"

"Indeed," Altair responded with a faint, bitter smile. "For the most part the initial years after the Unveiling did go smoothly. We made certain that the human society was informed concerning the nature of both Breed and Blood, we reintroduced many of written histories greatest minds that had been Turned and we aided during times of disaster in more open ways then we had previously through the centuries."

"'More open...'" I fell silent with a blink. Even with the shock of seeing the moon damaged the way it had been something suddenly clicked. "Wait... those stories of people saying they were rescued by an angel or a mysterious figure that could never be found later on...?"

"Were vampires," Altair said with a faint smile and a nod of his head. "We knew with the advances in technology that we could not remain hidden for much longer. We used those incidents to help build good will as we released information to the public about the truth of our existence. There were many heartening news stories of humans meeting their rescuers ten to fifty years after they were saved."

"The problem came about due to one simple truth," the Scottish accented vampire said darkly. "Regardless of the amount of good will built up between two peoples, some individuals, either by nature or nurture, will always promote hate. I believe the phrase popular in your youth was 'haters gonna hate'?"

"Indeed," I said with a wince as I glanced at Kain.

I had never liked that particular phrase despite the truth found in it. Kain tore his gaze from the sight of the damaged moon and looked at me with a frown.

"You have mentioned over the years that despite the educational system of your home world, some were willfully ignorant and that, without an obvious target, some humans would turn on their own simply due to a simple difference in skin color or region of birth," Kain said thoughtfully. Even though I could detect the faint strain in his tone, he hid his unease well and kept his overall expression blank. "I had wondered if that rage would not turn upon the vampires and had thought the apparent smoothness of the transition mentioned in that... article... seemed odd. What precisely occurred during that time to cause such damage to your world's moon?"

"A faction of humans managed to somehow obtain nuclear warheads on the black market," Altair said darkly. "They were unable to obtain the actual rockets at least, else the situation may have been worse then what it was. They used the warheads in an attack that targeted what they believed to be a city filled with a high vampire populace."

"They were wrong I take it?" I asked with a tilt of my head and a nervous twitch of my wings.

"Yes, there was only a single family of six vampires of the Breed," Altair said with a nod. "Out of a population of just over a thousand."

"A moment before you continue," Kain said with a frown. "Katrina and I have both wondered; what is the difference between Breed and Blood?"

"Ah... my apologies," Altair said with a startled twitch of his wings. "I did not realized you did not know the difference Lady Eklund, Lord Kain."

That would take getting used to, I thought to myself at the use of my last name in association with the title.

"I was kept in a veritable prison until I landed in Nosgoth. A large prison, but a prison none-the-less," I said dryly. "What I learned about a half-blood's nature was taught to me in ways were intended to break me. I learned nothing of the Breed during the years of my capture other then that they existed."

Altair's expression, as well as the expressions of his guards, darkened at my words. The Scottish vampire cleared his throat softly. If I didn't get a name from him soon I was going to be sorely tempted to start calling him Scotty...

"The Breed are the original vampires of this world," he said as the burr in his voice deepened. "They are like anemic humans in some ways. Like us, they can turn a human by draining said human to the point of exsanguination then sharing blood with the dying individual. The process, like ourselves, must be completed before true death, though unlike us the genetic marker that allows the change does not exist in roughly twenty percent of the humans here on Gaia. This means that there is a possiblity that the Turning will not be successful for one Chosen by the Breed. There is no failure for those Chosen to be turned by one of the Blood."

"Any of the Breed can live as a human and not be questioned outright due to the lack of notable changes such as claws and talons," Altair continued as he held up his own taloned hands. "They only ever have strength and speed equal to that of a fledge of the Blood, regardless of their age, though they have equal longevity compared to ourselves. They have no Aura to speak of and what hunters instincts they have are dull when compared to that of the Blood. Yet those instincts make them easily superior to humans. The Breed gain no Gifts either and have little magic. They prefer to pass as human, hidden amongst the populace, as the sunlight does not harm them outright as it might a fledge of the Blood and acts as a constant irritant regardless of an individuals age when, comparatively, most Eldar's of the Blood eventually surpass that weakness entirely. They also have a severe allergy to silver that borders on being lethal."

"They do not sound like much," Kain said in a low tone that just hinted at his disdain.

"When compared to ourselves, they are not," Altair said with a shrug of shoulder and wing. "We are the superior hunter, but this was their world first and thus they are treated with the respect they are due when it comes to their wishes to be left alone outside of singular incidents."

"Understandable, I suppose. They sound as if they are quite set in their ways," I said with a frown. "So a family of six were the only vampires in the city? Did the attacking faction know where they lived?"

"No," the Scottish Eldar said with a wince and a sigh.

"Brice, you do not have to speak further of the incident," Altair offered in a kindly tone.

"I will be fine, My Lord," Brice the Eldar said with a shake of his head. "The faction of humans, called themselves 'The Human's First Coalition', placed the warheads throughout the city itself. Managed it by gettin' agents into the cities maintenance crews. Next thing anyone knew, one of the main news channels got hijacked by the HFC, men armed to the teeth. Daft bastards demanded that we set up the vampiric equivalent of concentration camps."

"That... well," I blinked and felt my eyes widen slightly.

I shared a brief look with Kain. His own expression was grim at the other vampires words as I had shared as much about the history of my world as I knew regarding politics and wars while trying to avoid details regarding some of the weapons. I only ever advised him that nukes were... well, 'bad news', and could easily destroy an entire city. He and I had both agreed that he would not ask the 'how' of such a thing both due to my limited understanding and due to my stubborn insistence that this was something that no one on Nosgoth should ever pursue. Kain shook his head in angry exasperation as he looked back at Brice.

"Did the humans not realize that such a demand would be near impossible for them to enforce?" he asked in disgust.

"Logic and reason were not in high abundance with tha' lot," Brice said with a low growl and a small flaring of his Aura that suddenly had Lucius suddenly shivering next to him. Kid was still young enough that the sense of an enraged Eldar nearby equated to the need to find a place to hide. Fast. "As it was, all the human media saw was a group of nutters threatening their own kind. We couldn't send in a strong armed force to stop the HFC and couldn't evacuate the city without them blowin' the place and the surroundin' areas sky high, so we had to go with our stealth troops to attempt to find and remove the warheads."

"Remove?" I asked slowly. "Not disarm?"

"Aye lass, in the end, remove," Brice shook his head. "I'm able to teleport meself and, when we managed to figure out where some of the warheads had been hidden, I popped into the area under cover of night with a few bomb squad experts. Daft human idiots had done something to the wiring in the warheads to leave the bomb squad members vampire pale within barely a minute of lookin' them over. Nothin' could be done to disable the damn things and they couldna do more then remove one or two panels to look inside before they ordered a retreat."

"Fuck, shit and damnation," I said with a startled hiss of breath as I struggled to recall what I could of such ordinance. "They messed with the wiring to such a point? What if it had gone off in their faces?"

"Willful stupidity is a horrible thing, especially when you're dealin' with former army, bomb squad and the like," Brice said with an angry shrug. The last two guards shared a brief look but continued to maintain their silence and I knew why they had shared that look. Brice's accent was getting more pronounced the longer he spoke. "At any rate, the lads from the bomb squad said we had two choices to stop the tragedy waitin' to happen; somehow get the trigger release detonator away from the lot, which even with vampiric speed woulda been impossible, or somehow get the warheads far enough away tha' the populace and environment wouldna be compromised by the blast radius... and we're talkin' enough combined power to make Hiroshima look like a fuckin' firecracker, if you'll pardon my language lass."

"No need to apologize for foul language," I said with a faint smile even as Kain's hand came to rest against the base of my spine. "I did just use worse."

"True enough," the Eldar said with a weak smile of his own that revealed no fang.

"Hiroshima?" Kain questioned.

I looked down briefly for a few moments and then sighed in dark frustration.

"I don't quite understand the inner workings of a nuclear warhead," I said to him softly as I met his questioning gaze. "But I do know the damage it can cause. A nuclear blast larger then Hiroshima? Hiroshima had... a population of around three-hundred thousand or more if I recall correctly. Over... seventy...? percent of the buildings in the city were destroyed outright and the death toll before radiation sickness set in was around eighty... or ninety?... thousand. After the deaths due to injury and radiation sickness it was what...over a hundred thousand?"

I said the last part as I looked back at Altair and Brice. Brice nodded his head sadly.

"O'er one hundred and fifty thousand people dead 'cause of a single nuke and th' fallout that followed," he clarified. "There were seven warheads, each o' equal strength to th' one tha' hit Hiroshima, spaced out in tha' city of just o'er a thousand."

I looked back at Kain and saw that his complexion had gone pale even for him. He looked back up at the moon and then back to the others.

"And the damage to the moon was a result of...?" he asked with a voice that did not betray the unease that tinged his Aura.

"Like th' lad said," Brice said with a shrug of his shoulder and wing. "I had been part of th' space programs both then and more recent, though I've only acted in the role of mentor in th' more recent years for the greenhorns. Had been to th' moon itself an' back just a year before tha' incident, but I ain't been back t' space itself since."

"Ah... your teleport ability allowed you to travel that far?" Kain asked in some surprise as he looked back at the moon.

Brice nodded his head, "Aye. Major strain on th' magical reserves tha', but it was th' only course of action available t' us at th' time. If th' things went off out there on th' moon, th' radiation could dissipate easier then here on Gaia and wouldna affect th' planet as badly compared t' th' damage tha' would have happened had th' warheads gone off planet side. I had t' be th' one t' teleport things, aye, but several bomb squad members and a few astronauts were needed t' help me. Bomb squad members helped me get things arranged planet side for each jump and th' astronauts helped me set things up on th' dark side of the moon t' keep any potential explosion from blindin' anyone and t' have th' resultant radiation goin' off in a direction pointed away from th' planet. Not an easy time o' it, getting those damn things moon side one a' a time."

"What went wrong?" I asked softly. "Detonators have a set range, I remember that much without having to give it much thought."

"Tha' they do lass, even now," Brice sighed as his wings drooped to rest upon his shoulders. "Shoulda been safe enough gettin' 'em t' th' moon t' prevent an explosion. Problem was tha' they put secondary detonators within th' warheads tha' th' bomb squad couldna find what with them being unable t' dig into th' things withou' settin' 'em off. All tha' daft HFC group needed was one of th' internal detonators bein' in range o' th' others when they released th' pressure trigger and then tha' one would send a secondary signal t' the other warheads. What with the rest of 'em being all in one place moon side..."

Kain frowned at that as he tilted his head. I'd had to explain cellphones as a kind of tool that acted like a technological Whisper for humans. Like the Whisper there was a limited range. Even with the Mark granting me a greater range then most, it was still not usable after a certain amount of distance between us. I might be able to talk to him from Meridian while he was in Coorhagen, but not Meridian to Janos' Retreat for example. Detonator's worked pretty much the same way.

"The last bomb t' be moved moon side was still in range o' the detonator when I went to grab it... didna have time to grab all th' crew on the moon..." Brice shook his head, his expression one of sadness and rage. "Could only grab the three closest to me before we had to jump..."

"They knew the risks and did their duty well from the sound of it," Kain said simply. His way of offering condolences. Cold and concise, yet still polite.

"Tha' they did," Brice said with a nod. "Four dead. Good people, all of 'em. At any rate, explosion caused th' damage you see t' the moon. Didna work out in th' favor of tha' faction either as the initial damage was a lo' worse then jus' the moon bein' damaged, whole planet was up in arms against 'em after tha' mess."

"You mean the debris from the moon?" I said thoughtfully as I looked back up at the moon. "I imagine the debris either burned up in the atmosphere or got caught orbiting the planet."

"Correct on both parts," Altair said with a nod of his head. "Most of the debris burnt up upon entry but we had a few minor impacts from chunks of moon large enough to remain intact through the entry process. The rest of the debris now orbit the planet itself. We had to help with an emergency evacuation of the International Space Station itself as the Station was then in the way of the newly formed debris field... and became a part of the debris field as a result. The vampiric community has helped over the years to fund the needed programs to rebuild the Station. The new International Space Station houses Human, Full-blood, Half-blood and Breed alike with at least three members on board at any given time that have a strong teleport ability. Though the numbers of Human and Half-blood on board do outnumber the number of Breed and Full-blood."

"To keep the vampires well fed or due to lack of training?" I asked with a raised brow.

"Both," Brice said with a bitter sounding chuckle.

I shook my head faintly at that and looked at Kain. He was once more looking at the moon with what the others might take as a blank expression but what I knew to be him hiding his pensiveness. He looked back to me with that yet serious expression and I felt his mind brush against mine.

~I do believe you were correct to keep what you knew of such weapons to yourself, mine own,~ he said, his mental voice somewhat shaken even though his expression did not change. ~The technology of your home world, the warmongering sort based on this advanced technology at the least, remains here.~

~As you say,~ I responded softly.

I felt that small knot of worry deep within me unravel as I looked back at the moon. As much as it pained me to think such a thing, I felt especially grateful that there had been such a horrible confrontation after the Unveiling. The loss of life and blatant damage to the moon had given me the opportunity to drive home the validity of my choice to withhold what little I knew of such weapons from Kain. I had been worried that he would yet try to gain information on such weapons in order to obtain an overwhelming advantage over the Sarafan controlled lands of the East so that all of Nosgoth would be his that much faster. His choice now alleviated that concern. This also meant that I could focus primarily on the tech that might help to restore Nosgoth upon my return.

I still wasn't sure what to do about the loss of souls that had been consumed by the Parasite... Janos had taught me that without the smallest mote of soul-stuff, that even grass could not grow. What Nosgoth would need most of all would be the soul equivalent to a blood transfusion once the Parasite was dead... and I had no idea how to go about helping with that just yet.

My thoughts were derailed as a sleek limo pulled up just outside the gates of the park. Altair bowed his head to the both of us and indicated the vehicle.

"Our ride is here. Shall we?"

Kain and I shared another brief look before he once more offered me his arm. I took a moment to slip off my wing-torn shirt and then tucked my hand into the bend of his arm. Maintaining a careful air of battle-ready-nonchalance, we moved over to the sleek limo. Altair fell in step beside us even as Brice and Lucius moved forward to open the double doors of the limo. An odd design for a limo but it worked well enough. We slipped into the wide spaced interior and sat down together on the back, very plush, velvet lined seats. We sat just enough apart from each other to insure that we would not interfere with each others movements if it became necessary. Altair, Lucius and Brice moved in after us and at at the seats closest to the currently lowered drivers window. Altair turned his head toward that open window.

"To the Imari Estate, Johanna," he said softly.

"On it bossman," came a chipper, female voice. "Be a good hour before we arrive."

Altair made a sound of acknowledgement and the window rolled up a moment later. The silence continued for several long minutes, the lot of us still firmly uneasy with each other. I shifted a bit and leaned back, mindful of my wings and focused my attention on Altair once more.

"My Mother..." I asked slowly. Old memories were flaring up the longer we remained and I found myself wondering... "Where was she buried?"

"She was buried beside your Father at the Woodland Cemetery. She was forty-six when you went missing. The madness and self-starvation claimed her at fifty-three," Altair said in a gentle tone.

"Wait..." I blinked in surprise. "Mother was Master Marked from what I had initially inferred with how she declined, constantly in a drunken stupor, and what you yourself confirmed. She still survived for seven years after I went missing? You said you could not help her."

"I could not prevent her decline," Altair said as he tilted his head. "But that does not mean she simply faded away upon your disappearance. Your Mother was a strong willed woman before your Father's death; fierce, stubborn and proud. His intent was to turn her when you reached your mid-teens. An extended holiday with you being left with family friends as he worked her through the initial stages of controlling the Hunger so she would not be a danger to you. What with your Father's death, the older you became, the more she declined, true, as you needed her less and less as you aged. Your disappearance... it had been as if she had regained herself in full as the search for you began... for a time."

"I..." I looked away for a moment and cleared my throat. I felt a faint, near to comforting brush of Kain's mind against my own as he spoke.

"So that is where she gets her stubbornness and pride," Kain said with a faint smirk. "I had wondered."

"Her Father was just as stubborn," Brice said with a laugh. "When those two had a row, ye left the general area for yer own safety ye did."

"Truly?" I asked with a pained laugh and a glance at Kain.

~Sounds like us...~ I Whispered to him with a fond yet sorrowful tone.

~It does,~ he responded with a mental purr. ~Mine stubborn Queen.~

I turned back to Altair as my smile faded.

"How was she able to hold on for seven years exactly?" I asked.

He pulled out the crystal he had been holding and held it out briefly. I looked it over for a moment before I nodded my head and answered my own question.

"She knew that I was alive just as you did and used that knowledge to keep going," I said in a soft tone.

"She did," he said softly as he tucked the crystal away once more. "Turning her might well have meant she would had lived to see your return, but it would also have meant her mind would have shattered in entirety by now. Her last days were spent in the crystal room watching over the one that tracked you. We could not move her else she would enter a state of wild madness. She would only stay calm when she could see your crystal and, at first, she would eat and drink what we offered her. Eventually she stopped doing even that."

"Most humans perish after three days of no water," Brice said softly. "She lasted nine."

I closed my eyes at Brice's words and rubbed at the bridge of my nose as I fought off the brief urge to cry. Mother had been long dead for me by this point but the firm, painful knowledge of just how she had died, staring insistently at the tangible proof that I was alive, still tugged at my heart. Kain shifted and I felt his taloned hand move to rest at the base of my back in a firm and comforting touch. I took a slow breath and looked up with a small wince as I thought of something.

"Did the crystal ever start to go dark in those first seven years?" I asked.

"No," Altair said in a voice that was both soothing and dark with contained anger. "Fifty years passed before the crystal first went near dark. Around the same time your wings would have extended."

My wings tightened at my shoulders at the memory those words tugged upon and I could not help the small shudder that ran through me from toe-tip to wing-tip. My voice was all but void of emotion as I spoke.

"I thought I was going mad when the itching and agony started flaring along my back. It was a violent sort of relief when they extended," I clenched my jaw tight for a moment before I turned cold eyes on Altair. "Ten... maybe fifteen minutes later Auron came in and, after pausing in shock and making a few comments about me being a Draconian Half-Blood, he tore them off."

Lucius' wings tightened close to his own body as his eyes widened and he paled at my words. Brice and Altair shared another dark look. Kain shifted his hand where it was hidden behind my back and lightly rubbed the knuckles of his talons along my spine. His expression had not changed, yet I appreciated the soothing touch. Four hundred years of freedom to grow did not simply eliminate the memories of a hundred and fifty years of torture and torment. He had oft had to make me speak to him of those memories when they threatened to overwhelm me and had helped me to work through them many a time simply by lending an attentive ear. Some of my worst fits of anger over the years had only been able to be tamed by his hand. He had never once held those fits of rage and violence against me, merely assisted me through them so that the memories could no longer control me.

I took a slow, calming breath and rolled my shoulders even as my wings gave a twitching ruffle that fluffed the feathers up despite being held so close. Altair cleared his throat softly and tilted his head.

"If I may... what did he say of your revealed nature?" Altair asked.

"At that time not much," I said with a shrug of my shoulders. "Shock at the wings... a comment on how 'lovely' they were, followed by a statement that he could not let me live because of how highly regarded the Draconian Clan was... is... and his fear of retribution at your hands as the King. He then said he would keep me a 'little longer' before killing me."

"I am glad you were able to hold onto yourself," Altair said softly after a few moments of silence.

"As am I," I tilted my head as I glanced at Kain with a raised brow. He nodded his head and spoke.

"The fiend had intended to force her into submission in order to stop the pain," Kain said in a dark tone. "To Mark her and then kill her after breaking her mind and claiming virginity. I know very few people who could survive such tortures intact."

"Bastard let it slip at one point when I was near unconsciousness that he wanted me to willingly spread my legs for him," I said with a soft growl. "Knowing exactly what he wanted made it easier for me to deny him and continue to fight back as I lost track of time."

The expressions of the two Eldar's across from us darkened and their Aura's flared briefly just as Janos' had when I had first figured out Auron's intent to force a Mate Mark me to stop the pain. Lucius warily eyed the two Eldar's beside him and then turned toward me with a raised brow and a nervous look that made plain his comparative youth.

"Wait... so you were around one hundred and sixty-eight by the time you reached Nosgoth and you were still a...?" he started with a joking yet nervous tone that made it rather obvious he was trying to do something, anything, to alleviate the sudden tension in the Eldar's next to him.

"Finish that sentence and I'm bending you over my knee, whelp," I said in warning even as I offered him a half smile that was meant to take the bite out of my words.

He tilted his head and put on a mock-contemplative look as he tapped his chin. I raised a brow at him and tilted my head.

"Do not think that I jest, youngling," I said as my smirk grew. "This confined of a space? I can catch you easily."

"Hmmm... and yet the sunroof is open," he said in a yet nervous tone even as he smiled and pointed at the aforementioned opening.

The Eldar's were eyeing the byplay with dry amusement even as their Aura's fluctuated with their upset as they reigned in their combined anger. Even Kain seemed a touch amused, more at the boy's nervous energy then anything else, but then he oft enjoyed mental mind games. Kain shifted where he sat, lounging in the leather seat as he would on his throne and rested his chin in his free hand even as the other hand continued to trace delicate, shiver inducing whorls along the bared portion of my back. I had to fight to contain the twitching of my wings even as Kain spoke.

"You would have to move forward into her range to reach that little window," Kain drawled in dry tone. "And what with your wings extended as they are, your movements would be severely hampered in this enclosed space. You would be at a tactical disadvantage if you truly dared to push Katrina with your sudden childishness."

"I... uh..."

Lucius seemed to be caught flat-footed with Kain's matter of fact statement and I had to laugh at his flabbergasted expression. Altair and Brice both relaxed further, though they shared a look that spoke volumes of their intent to ask more questions of what happened to me later. Later was fine, but I did not wish to speak of my past when confined in a fast moving car. I welcomed the younger vampires attempts at distraction at the moment.

"He's teasing you," I said with a chuckle.

"That's him teasing?" Lucius asked incredulously.

"It is," I said with a nod of my head. "He has a dry sort of humor."

Even as I said that, I found myself amused at the simple fact that Kain could still catch me off guard with his mercurial moods despite the long years together. He was functionally insane and had been since his birth due to the corruption of the Pillars. As such, he could be as capricious as a cat; equally likely to find amusement in one thing today, but annoyance in the same thing the next.

Lucius and I continued to talk for the remainder of the drive as the youngster eagerly shared details of the changes I had missed over the years I was on Nosgoth; movies, best selling books, sports, etc. Kain pretended boredom but I could sense his attentiveness as he too soaked up the information the youth was freely offering, though some of it needed more context that could only be clarified by using the various video applications on Lucius' phone to call up recorded incidents. I'd had to liken videos to scrying crystals at first and Kain seemed duly impressed by the details of the videos shown to us though his expression did not much change. On occasion Brice or Altair would offer up a bit of information regarding the political climate of Gaia such as the fact that the U.S. currently had its' first half-blooded President in office with the usual term restrictions, England currently had a Queen again after seventy years with a King, so on and so forth. It was interesting to see that so much had stayed the same.

Eventually our conversation came to a close as we pulled into the long road leading to a rather impressive estate. Kain's brow rose slightly as the large mansion came into view and I had to stifle a chuckle as he looked over the functional opulence of the building Altair meant for us to use with a sense of approval in his Aura. A butler moved up to open the limo doors as we came to a halt near the large main doors. As we exited the vehicle I raised a brow at Altair.

"Anyone else staying here that we should know about?" I asked.

"The mansion is not being used at the moment," he said with a shake of his head. "The only people here currently are the live-in staff and the gardeners that tend the foliage weekly. This is to be your personal residence while you are here if you find no fault with it, unless you wish to visit your Father's own estates in Ireland."

"I... may wish to visit said estates later," I said with a small blink. I was still somewhat surprised at my Father's status amongst the Clan.

What followed was a brief tour of the building, I could tell when Kain found the room he wanted us to use during our stay by the way his hand tightened briefly on my hip, before we moved to the main library of the large estate. Kain and I took the couch while Altair sat in a lounge chair with Lucius and Brice at his back. Altair seemed briefly uncomfortable and eventually let out a heavy sigh.

"You have already shared details of what you have been through," he said slowly. "Yet I must ask if you can recall anything further of where you were taken. Building layout, surroundings, anything that can help us pin down a possible location for where you were kept."

"I understand the need for more information and I can still remember details even now," I said calmly as I leaned a little against Kain. His hand wrapped around my waist once more as I spoke, both possessive and comforting. "I only saw the outer part of the place during my last, successful, escape attempt. A castle on a large cliff that overlooked a massive forest. It never got very cold in the basement levels and it rained often, possibly somewhere near the equator? There were four upper floors and three basement levels. I can work out a floor map of what I memorized of the lay out."

"You were not kept isolated in a specific room?" Brice asked.

"I was moved around quite a bit," I said with a shrug. "I believe it was meant to leave me in a state of constant confusion with the consistent changes, but instead it helped me memorize the layout enough to help me during my escape attempts."

"How many times did you try to escape?" Lucius asked softly.

"I lost count," I said with another shrug. "I took every calculated opportunity that I could to escape or at least do damage to Auron and his pets if the attempt failed. Sometimes I'd get caught within minutes, sometimes I was close enough to a viable exit only to be caught last second. Auron learned fast that he needed to keep me mostly starved to keep me... docile isn't quite the right word... hm, sedate."

Brice shook his head sadly at my words.

"Almost sounds like you were a POW being held by a hostile territory," he said with a growl. "Shouldna had to go through that lass."

"POW?" Kain looked at me for clarification.

"'Prisoner of War'," I said and I raised a brow at Brice. "A near enough description."

"How did you manage a successful escape?" Altair asked.

"Developed my first Gift and used it to bolt," I said.

The three across from us blinked with various expressions of shock. Kain and I shared a brief look before we turned back at the others.

"Why such surprise to her gaining a Gift?" Kain asked in a careful tone.

"A half-blood..." Lucius paused and then continued when Brice waved his hand at the younger vampire. "A half-blood doesn't naturally gain their first Gift until their sixth-hundredth year. We can only gain Gifts before then by sharing blood with one or more of our Eldar's for at least a century or more."

I stiffened at those words and the tips of Kain's talons dug lightly into my skin in a steadying press of almost pain as I realized what their words meant for me. I swallowed and let out a slow breath before I stood up and Kain's hand fell away as he felt, and agreed, with my intent. I allowed my Gift to briefly coil around my body and disappeared from sight. Altair let out a pained sound as I reappeared and he lowered his face into his hands.

"No. Auron... what have you become?" he asked the air mournfully. "You are the only one of us with such a Gift..."

I suddenly felt sick...
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Realms Converge