Conquer
Title: Conquer
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 736
Summary: Wherein Ragnar Merridan is still fighting a war that's already been won, Mashiro's war has only just begun, and one or both of the above are had at “hello.”
Shang was a city for the living, even if the vampires didn't care to notice, and though Ragnar often wondered if he was alive, he loved this city. He especially loved that he knew how to perfectly siege Shang, knew every possible exit and how to reach it most efficiently, had memorized the position of every sewer grate, could tell you Lucy Gong's bakery had a trap entrance that led to the cherry blossom grove in Wonderland Plains. He knew where best to set a fire so that the town would go down in flames before anyone would notice. Ragnar knew how to choke the life out of this city, and he loved it enough that he didn't.
He loved to hate Shang. And besides, he'd already both sieged and burned Shang to the ground in the war, which was over.
Dark was the night and thunderous was the pounding of the rain, which is just a fancy way of saying, “it was a dark and stormy night.” Bad things happen on dark and stormy nights, but what some people don't realize is that bad things happen all the time, even during bright and sunny June mornings, like the one three years ago, when Ragnar Merridan turned Shang into a city of ashes and children's bones. But this particular dark and stormy night was special, if for no other reason then because it was the night of a solar eclipse. Few vampires ventured out even in the safety of the eclipse that morning, because greater than the fear of garlic was the fear of sunlight, but the few vamps that braved the shadowed sun were rewarded with ample blood, turmoil - and the transformation of the vampire self to dust. Because the war was over in Shang - but the fight was not, and Ragnar's soldier's blood simmered for violence. The night brought peace, a little mourning before the dawn, and a sense of...
Waiting.
Something was going to happen, something fantastic, something fated.
Something...
Listen.
The Shangian night was wet with sound; the occasional crash of thunder, the flow of music from the streets, night birds cawing and cooing and whoing, the sound of men and women laughing, talking, loving, living in the rain - and the sounds that weren't so plain: the drunken chanting of amateur mages from a second story window, children noisily ignoring curfew, their parents' hushed, tender distractions from their children, the footsteps of the immortal damned, a nameless beast howling from a mile away. On that dark and stormy night, you could have heard this and more.
Ragnar heard only this: a man, saying, “Ragnar Merridan, I have come for you.”
Ragnar smiled. “There will be blood, of course? Something to calm the beast they created in me?”
Laughter, low and amused. “Well, they did say you would already be like us. And that you would know. But...how?”
“You stink like one of them,” Ragnar said. “Most people can't smell it, but I can. Like magic and earth and death. It's like...my own personal brand of honey.”
“Close your eyes, then,” the man-shaped thing said. “I am Mashiro Yuuki of the Rag Dolls. You will be one of us, unique to all undead.”
The vampire, Mashiro, bit into the soft place where shoulder met neck, taking time like it was the sweetest, juiciest apple on the bough. And as Ragnar fell, seeing the first and last pair of lips to be coated in his mortal blood he would ever set eyes on, he thought nothing of the life he was rapidly losing or the blood which he was being fed - strangely delicious, abominable nectar though it was. His last words were, “I will conquer you like a starving nation.”
There was no love in the words, no real sense of physical lust. Just the desire to have something powerful bend to his will, the desire to do the impossible, to be stronger than this. Reach for the stars and sometimes you might catch one.
It was a dark and stormy night, but nothing really important happened. People died. Others lived. Promises were made to be kept, and whether to death or a man, at least one would be. But nothing really vital happened. But it was special. It was, after all, the rise of a curtain named Ragnar. The important stuff, well...
That would come with the sweetness of time.
Story Continuity: Battle For the Sun
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 736
Summary: Wherein Ragnar Merridan is still fighting a war that's already been won, Mashiro's war has only just begun, and one or both of the above are had at “hello.”
Shang was a city for the living, even if the vampires didn't care to notice, and though Ragnar often wondered if he was alive, he loved this city. He especially loved that he knew how to perfectly siege Shang, knew every possible exit and how to reach it most efficiently, had memorized the position of every sewer grate, could tell you Lucy Gong's bakery had a trap entrance that led to the cherry blossom grove in Wonderland Plains. He knew where best to set a fire so that the town would go down in flames before anyone would notice. Ragnar knew how to choke the life out of this city, and he loved it enough that he didn't.
He loved to hate Shang. And besides, he'd already both sieged and burned Shang to the ground in the war, which was over.
Dark was the night and thunderous was the pounding of the rain, which is just a fancy way of saying, “it was a dark and stormy night.” Bad things happen on dark and stormy nights, but what some people don't realize is that bad things happen all the time, even during bright and sunny June mornings, like the one three years ago, when Ragnar Merridan turned Shang into a city of ashes and children's bones. But this particular dark and stormy night was special, if for no other reason then because it was the night of a solar eclipse. Few vampires ventured out even in the safety of the eclipse that morning, because greater than the fear of garlic was the fear of sunlight, but the few vamps that braved the shadowed sun were rewarded with ample blood, turmoil - and the transformation of the vampire self to dust. Because the war was over in Shang - but the fight was not, and Ragnar's soldier's blood simmered for violence. The night brought peace, a little mourning before the dawn, and a sense of...
Waiting.
Something was going to happen, something fantastic, something fated.
Something...
Listen.
The Shangian night was wet with sound; the occasional crash of thunder, the flow of music from the streets, night birds cawing and cooing and whoing, the sound of men and women laughing, talking, loving, living in the rain - and the sounds that weren't so plain: the drunken chanting of amateur mages from a second story window, children noisily ignoring curfew, their parents' hushed, tender distractions from their children, the footsteps of the immortal damned, a nameless beast howling from a mile away. On that dark and stormy night, you could have heard this and more.
Ragnar heard only this: a man, saying, “Ragnar Merridan, I have come for you.”
Ragnar smiled. “There will be blood, of course? Something to calm the beast they created in me?”
Laughter, low and amused. “Well, they did say you would already be like us. And that you would know. But...how?”
“You stink like one of them,” Ragnar said. “Most people can't smell it, but I can. Like magic and earth and death. It's like...my own personal brand of honey.”
“Close your eyes, then,” the man-shaped thing said. “I am Mashiro Yuuki of the Rag Dolls. You will be one of us, unique to all undead.”
The vampire, Mashiro, bit into the soft place where shoulder met neck, taking time like it was the sweetest, juiciest apple on the bough. And as Ragnar fell, seeing the first and last pair of lips to be coated in his mortal blood he would ever set eyes on, he thought nothing of the life he was rapidly losing or the blood which he was being fed - strangely delicious, abominable nectar though it was. His last words were, “I will conquer you like a starving nation.”
There was no love in the words, no real sense of physical lust. Just the desire to have something powerful bend to his will, the desire to do the impossible, to be stronger than this. Reach for the stars and sometimes you might catch one.
It was a dark and stormy night, but nothing really important happened. People died. Others lived. Promises were made to be kept, and whether to death or a man, at least one would be. But nothing really vital happened. But it was special. It was, after all, the rise of a curtain named Ragnar. The important stuff, well...
That would come with the sweetness of time.