I don't own Vampire Academy just my OC. I don't own Lost in paradise by Evanscence
Please read and review, Comments and constructive critism welcome.
I was watching over Rose as she slept from the rooftop next to the apartment building making sure no Strigoi was lurking about. I'm probably confusing everyone about who I am and why I'm watching over Rose so I'll start at the beginning.
I got told when I was born I was left on the steps of St. Vladimirs Academy where Moroi and Dhampirs grow up and train or get educated to become part of society. Dhampirs were trained to guard Moroi and Moroi would learn the general subject just at higher level that allow them to do what they would like with there futures. Apparently when I was four years old I got taken away from my new friends Rose Hathaway and VasilisaDragomir, then taken to the royal court to be assessed. Over the year I spent there their conclusion was that I was somehow both Moroi and Dhampir there was also something about a destiny but as I was five at the time I only got told that I was going to go back to St. Vladimirs academy to train.
Over the next ten years I was given books about all elemental power and had some Guardians train me but they never let me do anything challenging so I told them that they shouldn't any more if they weren't going to push me and I ended up training on my own. I was told by the Queen herself that I wasn't allowed to get close to any of the students because of a reason that she wouldn't tell me it was infuriating. I had to grow up very quickly and adapt to deal with the loneliness for example I would train hard in one of the room at the back of the training gym or sing along to music. Once I turned fifteen they moved my dorm room to the guest quarters of the school. After an unfortunate incident that happened earlier that year Rose and Lissa ran away from the college. I couldn't help but think why so I tried something that I had started practising a month ago and did a mind link to Rose's mind, I only got snippets of what was happening but I knew they were both safe and that they left the academy for good reason.
Later that month I got called into Headmistress Kirova office, which was never a good thing; it usually meant that Queen Tatiana wanted something from me again. God I hope it's not another one of her annoying parties where she showed me off like her prize pet. Once I knocked and entered the office I realised that it wasn't only her there. There was a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties, about six foot six with shoulder length brown hair that looked to be tied up in a pony tail. He stood cross armed against the wall behind Kirova in a leather duster of sorts. My seconds of assessing were now over as I moved slowly forward towards the desk.
"Hello Sapphire, I have asked you to come to my office today to discuss your Guardian training." I nodded in understanding, and was slightly relieved that I wasn't getting whisked off to court again.
"The Queen has decided that you need more training as you've been training yourself." She said skeptically.
I butted in, "I've only been training myself because none of the Guardians here want to challenge me just in case they hurt me..." I breathed in and out. "I'm sorry that was out of line."
"Yes it was but your apology is accepted, Guardian Belikov has said that he is willing to train and Challenge you if you are willing." My mind was racing. The stories of Guardian Belikov said that he was like a God, immensely skilled and super strong.
"I would much appreciate the training thank you." I smiled towards him.
"I will not hold back with you're training, you might get injured when we move onto weapons. You are aware of the risk aren't you?" Guardian Belikov spoke up in a low accented voice. I was slightly stunned, I knew that he was Russian but I didn't expect him to sound like that.
"I'm aware, I want to learn otherwise my and other peoples futures could be in jeopardy." I said in a stern voice trying to keep professional.
"Okay then, You'll report to Guardian Belikov after lunch period everyday in the room behind the gym, except Sundays where you have the usual day off." Headmistress Kirova stated.
I nodded before talking, "Is there anything else you wish me for?"
"Apart from the Queen letting some of the school Guardian decide if you should talk to other students then you can go." I nodded again, not knowing whether I should be joyous or not because if they decide against it then my hopes would be all for nothing.
I gradually exited and walked to the gym like I usually do for the morning before taking my early lunch to avoid being seen by more student and raising questions; it actually been quite easy to do after years and years of practice. I did weights for a good hour and a half then half an hour of aerobics before I grabbed lunch and went back to the gym to warm up for Guardian Belikov lesson. Stretching for a bit seemed to be a good start as I didn't know what to expect for today's lesson, but after a while it felt like the fighting dummy was taunting me from across the room. I leapt and kicked it followed by multiple of hits turning into a full fight routines.
After five minutes I felt like someone was watching me I spun around to find Guardian Belikov leaning against the wall staring at me.
"Our lesson isn't for another ten minutes." I stated slightly annoyed to have my me time interrupted.
"You know you were doing quite well, good form but you need to put more power into your blows otherwise if you do ever face Strigoi it won't be enough to give you time to get away or immobilise them." He took his long coat off and walked over to the mat. "I know you have the strength and power for it so why aren't you using it?" He raised up his eyebrow while asking the question. I was a little dum founded by the question, the truth was I didn't know how or even understand how to use my strength in combat.
"I...Err...I don't know how."
He looked a little shocked then sighed, "Firstly try and put some emotions in it but not to much, it's like a stress release button." I knew he was trying to put it in a way I would understand but I remained standing still confused. "How do you realise your negative emotions like anger, emotional pain?" He moved so he was fully on the mat and I was much to aware that once Dhampirs are on a mat to train anything could happen.
"I don't." I put it bluntly.
"You have never let your emotions out?" I shook my head and he continued, "What was the flying kick to the dummy then?"
I shrugged, "I dunno, just a little fun I guess."
Guardian Belikov stood there cross armed for a minute pondering but I couldn't help but feel awkward in the silence; I hope it wouldn't be like this every lesson.
"Alright, Today's lesson we are going to figure out what pushes your buttons so we can get them bottled up emotions out you."
Now I crossed my arms, "What makes you think that I have any negative emotions to unbottle?" 'God why did I say unbottle? Is that even a word? Arg... I feel stupid now.' I thought.
"Everyone has negative emotions it a fact of life, but you have to learn to release it otherwise they will start to control you."
"Did you take that from a fortune cookie?" Giggling slightly until I saw the stern look on his face and I shut up. He strode closer to me.
"I want you to hit that dummy with all of your strength." I nodded and lurked forward hitting it square in the stomach but it didn't even wobble. "Okay now think of something that really annoys you and try again." I did as he said but had the same result. I turned towards him and cringed, letting out a deep breath of disappointment.
He thought for a longer amount of time before speaking up, "I have got an idea, attack me."
"What?" I asked in disbelief.
"Maybe you need the situation." He said as he got into a fight stance.
"I don't think that'll work, maybe I just don't have any anger to let out." I simply stated.
"Fine." And he lunged for me, like attacking me. I was stunned to say the least but dodged out of the way easily, I was always better at be agile that's why I like doing gymnastics in my fun time in the gym. Straight after I recovered he came at me again. I barely got out the way in time, I begun to lose my balance but Guardian Belikov caught me before I hit the mat. He sat me on the floor and sat opposite me.
"If you're worried about letting your emotions out don't be...What makes you tick?" He asked me flat out.
"I dunno." I tried to think but the only thing that came to mind was how to academy and court treated me.
"That, that there. That you just thought of. What was it?"
"I didn't think of anything." I lied.
He frowned, "You don't have to tell me but can you use it in fighting."
I perked up, "I'll try."
I stood up, approaching the dummy and thought of how people treated me. It started with a punch to the training dummy and then I couldn't stop.
After a minute a voice sounded in the background, "Sapphire. You did it, now calm down."
For some reason I couldn't, not until there was someone wrapping there arms around me pinning my own arms to my side.
"Calm down Sapphire, you're going to hurt yourself. Breathe." I did as he said and relaxed almost collapsing to the floor, once again Guardian Belikov sat me down gently but I hugged me knees into myself trying to regain my breathing.
"Sapphire, Are you okay?" concern showed on his face.
"Yeah, I'm absolutely fine why?" I tried to shrug it off.
"Because you're still crying. What made you so angry? I haven't seen anyone that furious in a long time."
I sat silently looking at the ground for a bit but figured it was best to tell someone and as Guardian Belikov was going to be my instructor for a while it might as well be him.
"Well, just the way everyone treats me like I'm a rare animal that either needs to be showed off or caged and not allowing me to do anything I want. Everyone leaves me alone, I hate it." I screamed spluttering through tears, it was the first time I had cried in a long time. He looked a little startled but sympathy quickly formed on his face.
Before he could say anything I whispered, "I just want to have a friend."
"Come on, let get you a hot drink." He stood up and offered a hand that I gratefully took. We walked towards the gym door but I stopped. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I can't go out there its lunchtime students will see me." I stuttered.
"You go get changed and I'll talk to Alberta. Meet back here in ten minutes." I nodded and ran into the dressing rooms. I quickly got changed into my one shouldered blue top with boot cut jeans along with black lace up ankle boots and restyled my hair, putting it down instead of in a bun like I usually wore it. I know it was silly but if I was going to get seen by other students then I want to look nice. I exited the dressing room with one minute to spare to see Guardian Belikov waiting by the doors. He turned in one swift motion and faced me.
"Alberta has said your allowed to come with me to the lunch hall to get a drink." I couldn't help but smile, then nerves set in.
"Wait, is this appropriate to be wearing?" I asked not really knowing what people around here wore.
"I think it'll be fine, you might even turn some heads." He assessed.
"Is turning heads a good thing?" I didn't understand what he meant, most of my life I was pretty much kept in the dark with social skills, the only time I went anywhere it was to one of the royal parties and I got told what to do or say but most of the time I stayed quiet unless I was spoke to.
"Erm... yes it's a good thing." Guardian Belikov looked a little puzzled that I didn't know what it meant. "Come on, let's go."
I glanced at the door and nervously pushed it open to find students walking about in groups of friends. Guardian Belikov walked up behind me and gave me a little push so that I was out the door. I anxiously peered back at him, feeling my heart beat rapidly in my chest.
"Relax. Just smile." He whispered. I started walking with Guardian Belikov beside me which made me feel a little easier knowing if anything happened he was there. People stared at me and whispered. I turned my head to Guardian Belikov and he just gave me an encouraging smile.
"Guardian Belikov is it always this busy during lunch?" I asked curiously.
"Yes it is, the lunch hall will be even busier than this. You know you can call me Dimitri."
"Really?" I smiled. I've never got the first names of Guardians or Royals, I would always call them by there Guardian name or Your highness to the Royals.
"Yes." He almost laughed.
We were nearing the lunch hall and it felt like my heart wouldn't slow down. I opened one of the double doors and halted. Dimitri was right, there were tons of students in here. I stepped backwards to have Dimitri's reassuring hand place on my shoulder.
"Come on, everything will be fine." I nodded and we made our way to the back of the drinks queue, people were staring non-stop.
"You get yourself a drink, I need to go talk to Alberta." And he left me, he left me there in a queue with people staring at me. I breathed deeply trying not to panic and tried to find where Dimitri went.
My eyes focused on him and Alberta near the offices at the other end of the queue. Luckily unlike normal Dhampirs and Moroi I can hear much better and listened in on the conversation.
"Alberta she needs to be with students more. She hasn't got any social skills at all, You should of seen her face when I said that she could call me Dimitri. Look at her." Dimitri stated seriously, I quickly looked down at my feet fidgeting, hopefully they didn't see me watching them.
"I can see that now. Maybe she should come here each lunch time and I'll talk to Headmistress Kirova to see if she can go to a couple of normal lessons a day." Dimitri nodded towards her.
I quickly stopped listening when two Moroi guys that looked like they were a year or so older than me joined the queue behind me. After a minute one of them decided to speak to me.
"So who are you?" The shorter of the two asked.
"Sapphire." I said bluntly.
"I'm Jesse Zeklos, May I ask what you are?" He said politely, I admit he was good looking but I'm still not allowed to tell anybody about my 'condition'.
I grabbed my steaming cup of hot chocolate, turning to him and said the only thing I could think of, "Wouldn't you like to know." I turned myself around and walked out of the queue, Dimitri meet me as soon as I escaped.
We exited the lunch hall and Dimitri escorted me to Headmistress Kirova office the long way around giving me enough time to drink my hot chocolate. Me and Dimitri entered the room. There was a few moments of silence before Alberta turned to the Headmistress.
"Sapphire we are going to allow you to have lunch at the same time as everyone else and I will allow you to go to fire elemental conditioning which is first period each morning and we would also like you to go to Advanced Guardian Combat Techniques third period as the Queen thinks that is best for you to do both."
Wow they got right to it quickly. I could only say one thing, "Thank you." Maybe it wasn't going to be as lonely this year.
As soon as I left the her office, I jumped in joy not realising Dimitri was behind me until I heard him laugh. I quickly turned around embarrassed.
"Sorry." I muttered looking at my feet.
"It alright to express when you're happy you know." I nodded shyly. "Now we need to talk about what you are going to tell people about yourself. Your last name will be 'Black', it was chosen by the Queen. If anyone asks you what you are make say one or the other, they must not know that you are special. I would recommend you say Dhampir as you look more like us." He paused thinking. "Do you know how to act around people?"
"Well at court I was always told to be polite and talk when spoken to." I couldn't read his facial expression.
"We can see what you're like after your first day. Lets say we'll throw you in the deep end." It wasn't Dimitri that spoke it was Alberta.
"O-okay." I stuttered.
After the meeting I went back to my room and studied up on fire magic so I would be prepare for tomorrow. Soon after I fell asleep and woke up early to get ready for my fire elemental conditioning lesson. I knocked on the door to the classroom and entered. A female Moroi teacher called Ms Carmack was at her desk.
"You must be Sapphire Black. You can sit at the back today and watch the other students work until you get the hang of things." I nodded and sat where she told me to.
Students piled in the classroom, staring every now and then until Ms Carmack started them on separate projects. The whole lesson I spent watching students, it was amazing everyone seemed to possess fire but they were able to spirals, layers or even make a waterfall of it. The only one in the lesson that seemed not to be doing anything was a guy with messy black hair and pale blue eyes, I quickly looked away when his head turned towards me even though I swear I saw a smirk on his face. The lesson ended quicker than I expected.
Guardian combat technique lesson was in forty five minutes. I walked around outside for a while to relax my nerves then headed to the dressing room to get changed into my workout gear. After I entered the gym ten minutes early to talk to whoever was teaching today's session. Alberta was teaching the session today.
"Morning Sapphire, well rested for today." She greeted.
"Good Morning Alberta. Yeah I went to bed early to make sure I had the extra energy today." She nodded, pointed to a mat and told me to wait for the other students and that these Dhampirs were younger than me because they didn't want to push me. I knew what she really meant, she didn't think I was capable of practising with people my age yet.
The class came in and we started the lesson with usual warm up which wasn't hard at all. Then Alberta put us all into pairs, I was put with a thirteen year old boy called Tony. He was polite and smiled before we had been told that we had to start sparring, he told me what I had to do which was basically fighting in pairs taking it in turns to attack each other. I wasn't doing to badly until I saw Dimitri over the other side of the room and got distracted making me land on the mat with a large thump.
"Ow." I exclaimed.
"Are you alright? It looked like that hurt." Tony cringed.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I flipped back up onto my feet, it surprised him and the rest of the class that was looking even Alberta looked a bit taken back. We started sparring again I was winning against Tony almost every time and soon enough Dimitri and Alberta called me over.
"We think your good enough to join the novices your age but are you alright after that hit to the mat it looked like it hurt." She looked more than a little concerned.
"Yeah I'm fine, It hurt for like a second than went away like it usually does."
"What do you mean went away?" Dimitri questioned.
"I dunno really, If I ever injure myself it hurts for a second or two then stops."
"Really? Have you ever been ill either?" I shook my head. They both stood there thinking so I decided to break the silence.
"Could I use the gym room next period before lunch?" I smiled.
"Yes of course you can, you can go in now if you like." Alberta gave a small smile back.
"Okay, I'm going go grab something first." I ran off to the lockers to grab my Ipod and earphones out of my bag. Then walked into the gym room for some me time. I put the earphones in and started releasing my anger onto the training dummy while singing.
I've been believing
In something so distant
As if I was human
And I've been denying
This feeling of hopelessness
In me, in me
All the promises I made
Just to let you down
You believed in me but I'm broken
I have nothing left
And all I feel is this cruel wanting
We've been falling for all this time
And now, I'm lost in paradise
I knew someone had come in, I leapt out and pushed them onto the floor with my arm over there throat making sure I wasn't hurting him but making it uncomfortable. The red headed guy stared up at me in shock.
"What are you doing in here? And why were you watching me?" I interrogated.
"Alberta told me to see if you were okay and said that I should train with you." He spilled out.
"Really?" I looked on his face to see whether he was lying. But a new voice startled me.
"Really." Dimitri was standing next to the door suppressing a grin, I could tell. "He knows everything and will be joining you in the gym sometimes and you'll also be in his Guardian techniques class."
"Everything?" Dimitri nodded his head sternly.
"So you should probably let him up." After that he left the room.
I released my hold on the guy and helped him up.
"I'm sorry about that." I apologise looking at my feet again.
"It's alright. It's better to be prepare than not." I nodded my head not knowing what to say. He continued, "You know you have a really nice voice, you should sing more often."
My cheeks flushed at the compliment, "I only do it for fun." Silence continued for a few more seconds until I broke it; I've always hated silence.
"So you know everything. Like what I am and why I've been put into lessons now."
"To be honest when Alberta told me I thought it was a joke." I winced at his answer. "I'm sorry I didn't mean It like that, I just never heard of anybody like you before."
"That's probably because I'm the only one they've found. Shall we start with introductions? I'm Sapphire Black."
"Mason Ashford. Please to make your acquaintance." He did a dramatic bow that I couldn't help but giggle to. He looked up smiling. "Your nothing like I thought you would be."
I sat down on the mat and waved from him to join me. He soon sat down opposite me cross-legged.
"So what do you want to know? I might not know some of the answers but I'll try as best I can."
"What abilities do you have?" He face seemed to be more curious than judgemental.
"Well I have Dhampir abilities like you but I can hear thing better than either Moroi or Dhampirs and I have all elemental magic powers. I recover easily from getting hurt somehow and if I do get badly hurt I can drink blood to regain me quicker but I don't like to do that, it feels wrong."
"Really that's cool. But how do you drink blood you don't have fangs like Moroi."
"I'll show you but don't freak out." I waited for his answer.
"I promise that I won't freak out." I grinned, he's going to regret saying that. I shut my eyes and breathed deeply before opening my eyes giving him a big toothy smile. He scrambled backwards, I knew what he was seeing. Me with sharp canines lowering and my eyes really bright green instead of the usual hazel colour. I shut my eyes again, making myself normal once more. I stood up and turned walking towards the window.
"See how horrid I looked, I usually only become that if I'm really really angry or if I'm trying." I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Mason.
"I know what you really mean but you're not horrid." Mason smiled down at me. From then on we became good friends.