I don't own SM, but this IS my own creation, and nobody posts w/o my permission. *smiles* Thanks goes to Patch, for reading this for me before I posted it to the list. Vaympyre Chapter Eight Lazuli I looked over at Endymion, who seemed to be deep asleep. I loved him so much, I realized. That I would die without him. How life can change for you in such a short amount of time. It was mind-boggling. I wondered about what we were to do about my father. And the girl Leda. I hoped that she was going to be okay. I knew that she would be under Pallas's control by the time we got to her, but we would have a better chance of making friends with her if we went now. And my father? I shook my head silently. He did not really matter at the moment. I had more matters in my life to worry about than a father who had broken his word. I would kill him only for what he did to my mother. I was not able to forgive him for that. Endymion sensed my thoughts, for he stirred, and his blue eyes met mine. "Calm down, beloved. It will not be as bad as you think. You can kill him now if you like. Or you can drag it out." His eyes glimmered with a hunger that I felt, and I smiled. The thrill of the hunt.. the spice the fear would add to a meal... I opened my eyes. What was I thinking? Had I truly changed that much where I would *want* to think like this? I told myself that it was my father whom I was thinking about. The man that helped raise me when I was a child, who had said he loved my mother and I. My fists clenched suddenly, and my anger boiled up. The man who lied to us. Who said that he loved us, when he left us and then tried to kill us. He had succeded. That was evident. For my mother had died, and I would never die. He was undeserving of my pity. I would make sure he paid. "I want to go now." I snarled, and Endymion reached out to me, with both mind and body, to calm me down. "Beloved, it will be okay, I know where he is. Just calm down, or you may get caught before your revenge is exacted. Save your anger for him." WIth soothing words, I finally calmed down enough to kiss Endymion gently on the lips, and settled into his embrace. After awhile, my mind drifted slowly on the bond between father and daughter, and it caught a hold of the man on the other end. I knew where he was, and my anger tried to rise up anew. I did not let it, though, but smiled at Endymion. "I know where he is right now. I want to greet him, and the people who had hurt me so badly. Can we go now, Endymion?" I pleaded. He nodded, although he looked as if he wished that we could stay in our peaceful haven for a whole longer. It would not be long before we would not have this brief moments of calm. I took pity on him, and turned into his embrace once more, holding as tightly to him as he did to me. "We have time, Endymion. I do not want to leave you." WIth that, we sank into eachother once more, our power building again, our bond ever growing. I rested with him, as the time slowly went by. I knew that I could live an eternity if I so wished, but if I ever lost Endymion, I wanted some memory to hold onto before I ended my immortal sentence. Pallas looked at Leda, who seemed in desperate need of food. Food that she refused to eat, but still her body demanded that she have. "Oh, Leda... give up the fight. I have your meal waiting for you right here...." Pallas let her voice grow soft as she pointed to the young man in the cage that had once been engaged to Leda. Leda's eyes filled with tears. She couldn't do it, no matter how much her body demanded it. She loved Marcus with all her soul, and now she was told that he was going to be her meal? Her eyes met his in a silent apology. For getting him involved in this. He turned away from her though, making the sign of the cross aganist her, and Leda could not help backing away from him. She feared her punishment for becoming a creature of evil, but Marcus's rejection hurt her more. "So, what say you, Leda? Do you not feel that burning hunger? Do you not feel the anger that your beloved has rejected what you have become? Do you not want to punish him?" Leda shrieked in fury, ashamed that she had come to such a lowly creature, and lept at Pallas, who seemed prepared for her attack. With a casual gesture, she slammed Leda into the wall, who slid down the side of it, dazed. Her eyes met Marcus's once more, who never said a word to her after he had been taken here. Her mind drifted to the past, when she had been happy with him, and the room faded around her, Pallas's angry words already in the background. Leda struggled to get up, realizing that she had done it again. She had someone used a foreign talent, and transported herself to the past. Her mind refused to accept it, but at least she was free of Pallas for now. She knew that she would be drawn back by her master, but while she had the chance, she was going to explore her surrondings. She realized, by the look of things, that she was in her village the year that Marcus had declared his love to her. She recognized all the signs. There was a huge storm, and the roads were flooded everywhere. Her and Marcus had been trapped in the storage barn together, high enough up so that they wouldn't risk being washed away in the water that was rising steadily. Leda made her way slowly through the soggy roads, noticing that it didn't take nearly as much effort to traverse them as it would when she was... human... She walked through the waist high waters as if there was not more than a few puddles on the ground. She wondered if she was just a ghost a future time, or if she could actually been seen by everybody. She didn't think much of it, though, as she was finally before the solid building, one of the strongest in the village. She opened the door easily, and crept quietly in, her sharp eyes observing the couple in the top of the room, confessing their love to one eachother. Leda trembled. She would never have that. She had lost it forever. Her eyes fixed on the younger, happier, Leda in the room. If she ended everything now for her... she climbed slowly up the ladder, so quietly that she was not heard by the couple, and made her way to Leda. At the last moment, Marcus looked up, and Leda couldn't finish the act. She knew that her fate had led her in this direction. She smiled, though, and decided to save her future self more heartbreak in the future. She gestured towards Marcus, who slowly made his way toward her. The younger version of her looked up in fear, and recogntion. "Please.. don't hurt us.. please... I love him... we weren't doing anything wrong. Please.." Her voice trailed off as Leda put a gentle hand on her forehead, and the girl drifted off into sleep. Leda focused wholly on Marcus now, who had not yet woken up from his trance. "Marcus... always remember that I love you." She whispered, kissing him gently, then, without warning, she moved her mouth over to his neck, breaking the skin, and finally feeding. Her eyes closed in denial of how satisfying it finally felt to feed. She finally lay Marcus gently by Leda, knowing that she would never see her Marcus again, and he would never have a chance to ever shatter her heart. Leda sighed in relief, not noticing the small girl watching *her*. The child's mouth curved upward in a smile as she watched Leda fade away. She hopped up with ease to the platform where Marcus and the young Leda lay. So, the girl *did* become hers. And the male? He was barely alive, but he had already been bitten by someone that she made. She poked him in the ribs with one dainty foot, watching his eyes open groggily. "Hello. My name is Pallas. I see that the bad vampire hurt you. I can make it all better, you know." His eyes narrowed, but seeing that she was only a child, he shook it off. The lack of blood was making him sleepy again, and he fought to keep his eyes open. "There, there. She almost killed you. If I leave you here, you will die. Leaving your beloved Leda along. Wouldn't that be horrible?" She laughed at Marcus's discomfort. "Drink this, Marcus. It's a medicine that will make you feel better again. So you won't have to worry about that girl harming you again." She offered him a cupped hand, and he swallowed the contents, his eyes becoming glazed, then eager and more alert. He didn't say anything, but silently pleaded for more. Her laughter rang out. "Ah, Leda was not so eager. Can it be that you will embrace this darkness willingly when she rejected it so easily?" She offeered him her wrist, and he drank the blood there, until he was changed completly from his former self, becoming Pallas's creature. He looked down at the sleeping from of Leda, before Pallas led him away. "I promise you will see her again, Marcus. That is something that I give my word on." Leda shimmered into exsistance, time seeming to freeze as she overlapped on herself. She was starting to master her talent, and made it so that Pallas never knew that she had left. There was Marcus still in the cage... wait... Her mind started to run in circles. She thought she had killed Marcus! Why had nothing changed? Pallas smiled at the confused girl. Now things made sense. This was the time that Leda had vanished. So soon after coming into her hands. She looked at her pet, Marcus, in the cage. Leda was totally unknowing of the situation. It was going to be so sweet to see the reunion of the two lovers. I shivered as I looked down at the village I had so recently vacated. It had seemed like centuries now, but nothing had changed since I had escaped my mother's burning home. Observing the village, my eyes filled with tears as my eyes fell upon the spot that my home should have been in. Now it was just an empty lot of ground. No house had been built on it, and all traces of the old one had vanished as well. As if it had never been there at all. I watched all the villagers move about, and I knew it was time to go down to exact my revenge. I saw my father among the crowd, and my eyes narrowed. I would make him pay for what he brought upon my family. The rest of the village could be spared if his life was brought to attention of the goddess of death. *Laz smiles evily* What does Serenity have planned? *grins* Don't worry, minna. Violence will be at a absolute minimum. I don't go for outright torture. And this IS Serenity we are talking about. She will go back to more or less her happy self. ^__^