In the Name of Justice: Chapter V
So here we go - Chapter V! Please excuse my inability to write love scenes. ^^'
Chapter V
Love Song of a Moonlit Night
Rosalie fell back against the sheets and was swiftly covered by a dark figure who hovered above her. Tresses of black hair lightly brushed her face as Dreizehn leaned over, the slightest hint of a smile passing his lips.
The window outside allowed blades of moonlight to fall upon the bed and the two who lay on it, illuminating the King's clothes so that shadows were cast in the folds.
During the day, the curtains would be drawn to prevent the scalding rays of sunlight from falling upon the room's sleeping denizen, but at night the light was encouraged: Dreizehn found the moon to have a calm, relaxing aura about it, perhaps because it indicated the hours when he was free to roam as a vampire.
Whatever the reason, tonight would be his last, and he was determined to spend it with the one he loved.
Gently, as if handling something that could shatter at any moment, he lowered his head and locked lips with the woman, pressed her into the bed and felt near intoxicated by the warmth that enveloped him. Her hand stroked his hair, pale fingers entangling amongst strands of spun ebony.
"Your Majesty," she said slowly once she was free again, "Are you… Are you okay?"
She blushed, immediately hating herself for delving into business that wasn't hers, but the king remained silent for a few seconds. His lips dragged across the side of her neck and continued down to her collarbone, landing a small kiss every second or so.
"In what sense?" came the reply, little more than a mutter.
"I'm not sure… You just seem sad, that's all."
"I do?" He sat up and rested back on the mattress, leaving his partner open to the cold of the room. A little shocked, she did the same, though made no attempt to close the gap between them. She'd gone too far… Nervously, she glanced at the man and tried to sense any feelings of agitation on his face, but there were none - his expression had faded into its usual blank setting.
"Rosalie, have you ever taken time to examine a rose?"
"A rose?" She stared at him enquiringly, trying to decipher the obscure question.
Dreizehn nodded slowly. "If you look carefully, you'll see that it's made up of several layers, each one coiled around another. You can see the edge of each petal, but in order to completely uncover the one underneath, the outer layer must first be peeled off."
Confusion washed over Rosalie: whilst the metaphor was clear, she failed to see how it could possibly be relevant to the situation.
Sensing her uncertainty, the king presented another view. "Perhaps it would be clearer if you took it from the perspective of the thorns: if you hand someone a rose and tell them straight away that the stem is lined with thorns, then there is no doubt that they will turn away; no matter how beautiful the flower is, thought of the ugliness that lies underneath will repel them.
"However, if you say nothing, that person will look upon the flower and regard it in all its glory - that is, of course, until they reach out and try to pick it up… Even so, there is still that small period of ignorance where the beauty of the flower is allowed to shine through, unsoiled by the thorns. The thing to ask yourself is what kind of person you are: would you mention the thorns, or simply say nothing and allow the other to discover it for themselves?"
The woman had to take a moment to pause and consider his words properly. "If I were to take the situation literally, then I would probably remain silent," she said, to which the king nodded.
"I wouldn't have thought you'd be the kind of person to keep secrets, yet I must admit that I, too, would most likely do the same."
So this was about secrets, Rosalie thought - in that case, perhaps things made a little sense after all. From near enough the moment he'd approached her today, she'd sensed that something had been on the man's mind, and now he was all but admitting it. However, she could tell that she had reached a boundary: Dreizehn had never been one to make his thoughts obvious, and now she could tell from the hard set of his jaw that he was no longer willing to speak of it.
Was that really such a bad thing, though? Rosalie trusted the king more than anyone else, particularly in a castle where she could potentially fall victim to blood-draining creatures at any moment. If he wished to keep secrets from her, then she was all but obliged to accept that fact; not because she felt forced to, but because she trusted his decisions implicitly.
Perhaps in the future she would find out, but for now, she was content to live in ignorance.
"I suppose that makes us the same then, Your Majesty."
Dreizehn nodded again, his facial expression dangerously close a smile. Any tension that had accumulated between the two was swiftly away, and Rosalie, sensing this, crawled across the small stretch of mattress to where her partner sat.
As the two of them melted together again, Dreizehn couldn't help but feel a little hesitant; deep down, he wanted to say more, yet doing so ran the risk of revealing everything, and he couldn't possibly be so cruel. Which option would cause her less pain, though? Was it kinder to tell her now that by the end of the night, he would be gone? Or maybe it would be better to wait and allow her to discover the thorns herself.
He grimaced - it was the coward's way out. He'd lost count of the amount of times the thought that he was abandoning his people had crossed his mind, and on each occasion he'd found reason to combat it. When he looked at it from Rosalie's point of view, however, what he was intending to do was an unfeeling, callous motion. What would become of her when he was gone, he wondered.
His right hand clenched into a fist and slammed down upon the sheets so hard that for a moment he was worried he'd snapped the frame, but to his relief it appeared to still be intact. Rosalie stared at him, shocked to find that his eyes had taken on a glassy appearance, as though he were holding back tears.
"Your Majesty…"
The king was speechless, unable to say anything for fear that doing so would cause the moisture in his eyes to come spilling out. He shook his head abruptly and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, as if to steady himself. What was wrong with him? He'd never been one to let his emotions take a toll on his body like this… Perhaps it was the sudden reality of it all, the thought of everything he was going to have to leave behind. For just over nine hundred years, he'd lived in a world where death was a mere word, an entity that he'd regarded with ignorant eyes; yet the feeling of the sun of the skin, the way the rays had eaten away at all that he was… That had been real - there was no denying it.
To say that he was afraid wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
"I'm sorry, my darling."
Slowly, Dreizehn'sacross left the woman's shoulder, slid across the smooth skin of her back and began to ease away one of the threads holding her dress in place.
Outside, the moon continued to hang in the sky, though its position had already shifted, marking another wasted hour in a night where time was all but slipping away.
---
The guard hit the ground before he even had time to draw his sword. Coughing violently, he clawed at his throat, but found that only warm liquid met his fingers; seconds later, he collapsed in a bloody heap on the path.
Justice, clutching his newly-soiled dagger, spun around and turned his attention upon the horse. Its rider was still in shock from the sight in front of him, though the animal seemed to have sensed what was happening and was struggling in its reins. However, this barely proved an obstacle to Justice, who leapt at it from the side, took hold of the man's collar and dragged him clean off the saddle to the hard floor below.
He was overweight, thin-haired and short of breath, his chest shaking with each ragged breath; he turned his eyes upwards to the figure that stood over him.
Now relieved of its rider, the horse began to trot along the path in a far less frantic pace, leaving only the two men and the third's lifeless corpse behind. Justice bent down, took a firm hold of his collar with both hands and pushed him back into the grass.
"Where are you headed to?"
The man shook his head with wide terrified eyes, at which his shoulders were lifted into the air and slammed back down again with such it force it caused his whole body to shudder. Slowly, as if deliberately trying to force fear upon him, the vampire removed one hand and pushed the edge of his dagger against his neck.
"H-Harkshal," the man finally stammered. Each movement seemed laboured.
"Harkshal? The state?" Justice raised an eyebrow and considered that for a moment. The smell of blood from the guard's body was thick in the air, making it difficult to think. It wouldn't be long now, though - he only had to hold himself for a few minutes more...
"Why Harkshal? What business do you have there?"
This time the answer was almost immediate. "I have to relay a message to Lord Fairslough, that's all. The Guardians… They wish to hold their annual meeting in his home."
"The Guardians? I see… Did they send you?"
"It was Sir Wilderness, of the Earth," he continued. "I don't serve him personally, but my village lies close to his castle, and I was offered a price to deliver the message. I've got until tomorrow to do so, which gives Lord Fairslough two days to prepare. That's why I chose to travel through the night. It was nothing else, I promise." When the knife pushed further into his throat, he flinched and added, "I promise that's the truth!"
Justice nodded slowly - past affairs had taught him that people seldom lied at knife point, yet something still appeared out of place in his explanation. Wasn't the fact that the Guardians would send a messenger mere days before meeting a little strange? Why the sudden need to convene? He longed to ask the man more, but doubted there was any more information he could give; and what's more, he had reached his limit at last.
His throat burned, clouding his thoughts with red; it was as if his mind had been wiped and replaced with a painful awareness of the blood drifting through the air and staining the blade in his hand. He knew it would not be long now before all reason left him, so without a backwards thought, he pushed all feelings to the back of his head and allowed his instincts to seize his consciousness.
The man's terrified eyes widened as the knife bit down upon the side of his neck; his mouth opened, but no words came out. Carefully, Justice ran his tongue along the small dark line that dribbled out and placed his lips over the cut. He used one of his elongated canines to tear the incision open further, and then the blood was flowing like running water. The man himself put up little resistance: either he was too shocked to move, or the lack of fluid reaching his brain was disorientating him. On the other hand, Justice felt as though a great fire within him had been extinguished within him. As the warm blood splashed into his mouth, he closed his eyes and leant forward so that almost all of his weight was transferred to the upper half of his body.
It was an overwhelming feeling, yet like everything else, short-lived, and as the reserve began to thin, he pulled back. A few drops still clung to his lower lip, but he wiped them away with his thumb and straightened up.
The sight in front of him was a sobering one: one man on his back, barely alive with his neck torn open, whilst the corpse of the other lay in a pool of its own blood on the other side of the path. The smell still lingered strongly, though it no longer carried the same degree of attraction now that his hunger had been fully gratified. It seemed like such a waste of a life to leave the guard untouched, but drinking a dead person was, to him, at least, the equivalent of a human consuming decayed meat. There was a small consolation, at least, in the fact that the two of them may provide food for a pack of wolves or other wild animal wandering the plains. The balding man had mere minutes to live, if that, and already his throat looked as though it had been maimed by the jaws of something wild. The way Justice saw the situation, it was highly unlikely that their bodies would remain untouched by morning, and even if they were discovered by someone, he had deliberately made it so that the fact he had been felled by a vampire not obvious - he was safe.
As he stood, he sniffed the air and frowned. Nothing seemed to be out of place, though what he'd been expecting he didn't know; perhaps the only thing left for him now was to return back to his home and try to sleep for the remainder of the night, as a human would.
However, another option suddenly sprang to mind - hadn't there been a horse with the two men? If it had kept to the path when it ran away, then there was still a high probability that it was within reach.
A horse… He hadn't planned on anything of the sort, but now that he thought about it, having an animal to take him across Marthiel may just turn out to be a good idea.
An excellent idea, in fact.
With that in mind, Justice began his way along the track, barely bothering to pay a second thought to the bodies now behind him.
Next Chapter →
Chapter V
Love Song of a Moonlit Night
Rosalie fell back against the sheets and was swiftly covered by a dark figure who hovered above her. Tresses of black hair lightly brushed her face as Dreizehn leaned over, the slightest hint of a smile passing his lips.
The window outside allowed blades of moonlight to fall upon the bed and the two who lay on it, illuminating the King's clothes so that shadows were cast in the folds.
During the day, the curtains would be drawn to prevent the scalding rays of sunlight from falling upon the room's sleeping denizen, but at night the light was encouraged: Dreizehn found the moon to have a calm, relaxing aura about it, perhaps because it indicated the hours when he was free to roam as a vampire.
Whatever the reason, tonight would be his last, and he was determined to spend it with the one he loved.
Gently, as if handling something that could shatter at any moment, he lowered his head and locked lips with the woman, pressed her into the bed and felt near intoxicated by the warmth that enveloped him. Her hand stroked his hair, pale fingers entangling amongst strands of spun ebony.
"Your Majesty," she said slowly once she was free again, "Are you… Are you okay?"
She blushed, immediately hating herself for delving into business that wasn't hers, but the king remained silent for a few seconds. His lips dragged across the side of her neck and continued down to her collarbone, landing a small kiss every second or so.
"In what sense?" came the reply, little more than a mutter.
"I'm not sure… You just seem sad, that's all."
"I do?" He sat up and rested back on the mattress, leaving his partner open to the cold of the room. A little shocked, she did the same, though made no attempt to close the gap between them. She'd gone too far… Nervously, she glanced at the man and tried to sense any feelings of agitation on his face, but there were none - his expression had faded into its usual blank setting.
"Rosalie, have you ever taken time to examine a rose?"
"A rose?" She stared at him enquiringly, trying to decipher the obscure question.
Dreizehn nodded slowly. "If you look carefully, you'll see that it's made up of several layers, each one coiled around another. You can see the edge of each petal, but in order to completely uncover the one underneath, the outer layer must first be peeled off."
Confusion washed over Rosalie: whilst the metaphor was clear, she failed to see how it could possibly be relevant to the situation.
Sensing her uncertainty, the king presented another view. "Perhaps it would be clearer if you took it from the perspective of the thorns: if you hand someone a rose and tell them straight away that the stem is lined with thorns, then there is no doubt that they will turn away; no matter how beautiful the flower is, thought of the ugliness that lies underneath will repel them.
"However, if you say nothing, that person will look upon the flower and regard it in all its glory - that is, of course, until they reach out and try to pick it up… Even so, there is still that small period of ignorance where the beauty of the flower is allowed to shine through, unsoiled by the thorns. The thing to ask yourself is what kind of person you are: would you mention the thorns, or simply say nothing and allow the other to discover it for themselves?"
The woman had to take a moment to pause and consider his words properly. "If I were to take the situation literally, then I would probably remain silent," she said, to which the king nodded.
"I wouldn't have thought you'd be the kind of person to keep secrets, yet I must admit that I, too, would most likely do the same."
So this was about secrets, Rosalie thought - in that case, perhaps things made a little sense after all. From near enough the moment he'd approached her today, she'd sensed that something had been on the man's mind, and now he was all but admitting it. However, she could tell that she had reached a boundary: Dreizehn had never been one to make his thoughts obvious, and now she could tell from the hard set of his jaw that he was no longer willing to speak of it.
Was that really such a bad thing, though? Rosalie trusted the king more than anyone else, particularly in a castle where she could potentially fall victim to blood-draining creatures at any moment. If he wished to keep secrets from her, then she was all but obliged to accept that fact; not because she felt forced to, but because she trusted his decisions implicitly.
Perhaps in the future she would find out, but for now, she was content to live in ignorance.
"I suppose that makes us the same then, Your Majesty."
Dreizehn nodded again, his facial expression dangerously close a smile. Any tension that had accumulated between the two was swiftly away, and Rosalie, sensing this, crawled across the small stretch of mattress to where her partner sat.
As the two of them melted together again, Dreizehn couldn't help but feel a little hesitant; deep down, he wanted to say more, yet doing so ran the risk of revealing everything, and he couldn't possibly be so cruel. Which option would cause her less pain, though? Was it kinder to tell her now that by the end of the night, he would be gone? Or maybe it would be better to wait and allow her to discover the thorns herself.
He grimaced - it was the coward's way out. He'd lost count of the amount of times the thought that he was abandoning his people had crossed his mind, and on each occasion he'd found reason to combat it. When he looked at it from Rosalie's point of view, however, what he was intending to do was an unfeeling, callous motion. What would become of her when he was gone, he wondered.
His right hand clenched into a fist and slammed down upon the sheets so hard that for a moment he was worried he'd snapped the frame, but to his relief it appeared to still be intact. Rosalie stared at him, shocked to find that his eyes had taken on a glassy appearance, as though he were holding back tears.
"Your Majesty…"
The king was speechless, unable to say anything for fear that doing so would cause the moisture in his eyes to come spilling out. He shook his head abruptly and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, as if to steady himself. What was wrong with him? He'd never been one to let his emotions take a toll on his body like this… Perhaps it was the sudden reality of it all, the thought of everything he was going to have to leave behind. For just over nine hundred years, he'd lived in a world where death was a mere word, an entity that he'd regarded with ignorant eyes; yet the feeling of the sun of the skin, the way the rays had eaten away at all that he was… That had been real - there was no denying it.
To say that he was afraid wouldn't have been an exaggeration.
"I'm sorry, my darling."
Slowly, Dreizehn'sacross left the woman's shoulder, slid across the smooth skin of her back and began to ease away one of the threads holding her dress in place.
Outside, the moon continued to hang in the sky, though its position had already shifted, marking another wasted hour in a night where time was all but slipping away.
---
The guard hit the ground before he even had time to draw his sword. Coughing violently, he clawed at his throat, but found that only warm liquid met his fingers; seconds later, he collapsed in a bloody heap on the path.
Justice, clutching his newly-soiled dagger, spun around and turned his attention upon the horse. Its rider was still in shock from the sight in front of him, though the animal seemed to have sensed what was happening and was struggling in its reins. However, this barely proved an obstacle to Justice, who leapt at it from the side, took hold of the man's collar and dragged him clean off the saddle to the hard floor below.
He was overweight, thin-haired and short of breath, his chest shaking with each ragged breath; he turned his eyes upwards to the figure that stood over him.
Now relieved of its rider, the horse began to trot along the path in a far less frantic pace, leaving only the two men and the third's lifeless corpse behind. Justice bent down, took a firm hold of his collar with both hands and pushed him back into the grass.
"Where are you headed to?"
The man shook his head with wide terrified eyes, at which his shoulders were lifted into the air and slammed back down again with such it force it caused his whole body to shudder. Slowly, as if deliberately trying to force fear upon him, the vampire removed one hand and pushed the edge of his dagger against his neck.
"H-Harkshal," the man finally stammered. Each movement seemed laboured.
"Harkshal? The state?" Justice raised an eyebrow and considered that for a moment. The smell of blood from the guard's body was thick in the air, making it difficult to think. It wouldn't be long now, though - he only had to hold himself for a few minutes more...
"Why Harkshal? What business do you have there?"
This time the answer was almost immediate. "I have to relay a message to Lord Fairslough, that's all. The Guardians… They wish to hold their annual meeting in his home."
"The Guardians? I see… Did they send you?"
"It was Sir Wilderness, of the Earth," he continued. "I don't serve him personally, but my village lies close to his castle, and I was offered a price to deliver the message. I've got until tomorrow to do so, which gives Lord Fairslough two days to prepare. That's why I chose to travel through the night. It was nothing else, I promise." When the knife pushed further into his throat, he flinched and added, "I promise that's the truth!"
Justice nodded slowly - past affairs had taught him that people seldom lied at knife point, yet something still appeared out of place in his explanation. Wasn't the fact that the Guardians would send a messenger mere days before meeting a little strange? Why the sudden need to convene? He longed to ask the man more, but doubted there was any more information he could give; and what's more, he had reached his limit at last.
His throat burned, clouding his thoughts with red; it was as if his mind had been wiped and replaced with a painful awareness of the blood drifting through the air and staining the blade in his hand. He knew it would not be long now before all reason left him, so without a backwards thought, he pushed all feelings to the back of his head and allowed his instincts to seize his consciousness.
The man's terrified eyes widened as the knife bit down upon the side of his neck; his mouth opened, but no words came out. Carefully, Justice ran his tongue along the small dark line that dribbled out and placed his lips over the cut. He used one of his elongated canines to tear the incision open further, and then the blood was flowing like running water. The man himself put up little resistance: either he was too shocked to move, or the lack of fluid reaching his brain was disorientating him. On the other hand, Justice felt as though a great fire within him had been extinguished within him. As the warm blood splashed into his mouth, he closed his eyes and leant forward so that almost all of his weight was transferred to the upper half of his body.
It was an overwhelming feeling, yet like everything else, short-lived, and as the reserve began to thin, he pulled back. A few drops still clung to his lower lip, but he wiped them away with his thumb and straightened up.
The sight in front of him was a sobering one: one man on his back, barely alive with his neck torn open, whilst the corpse of the other lay in a pool of its own blood on the other side of the path. The smell still lingered strongly, though it no longer carried the same degree of attraction now that his hunger had been fully gratified. It seemed like such a waste of a life to leave the guard untouched, but drinking a dead person was, to him, at least, the equivalent of a human consuming decayed meat. There was a small consolation, at least, in the fact that the two of them may provide food for a pack of wolves or other wild animal wandering the plains. The balding man had mere minutes to live, if that, and already his throat looked as though it had been maimed by the jaws of something wild. The way Justice saw the situation, it was highly unlikely that their bodies would remain untouched by morning, and even if they were discovered by someone, he had deliberately made it so that the fact he had been felled by a vampire not obvious - he was safe.
As he stood, he sniffed the air and frowned. Nothing seemed to be out of place, though what he'd been expecting he didn't know; perhaps the only thing left for him now was to return back to his home and try to sleep for the remainder of the night, as a human would.
However, another option suddenly sprang to mind - hadn't there been a horse with the two men? If it had kept to the path when it ran away, then there was still a high probability that it was within reach.
A horse… He hadn't planned on anything of the sort, but now that he thought about it, having an animal to take him across Marthiel may just turn out to be a good idea.
An excellent idea, in fact.
With that in mind, Justice began his way along the track, barely bothering to pay a second thought to the bodies now behind him.
Next Chapter →