Summary: When there is light, there is darkness. In the passage from night to day, there is a period of time when one can see an unearthly light. Gegenschein, the counter shine.
Actually, this is about vampires. Among other things. Humor, mystery, action and drama. Fun stuff. Oh, and yuri too. Of course. :D
Disclaimer: I do not own the girls. I wish I did, but I don't. I do own all random passerbys as well as unfortunate victims. All the girls belong to UFA. D:
Prologue
There are things that go bump in the night.
More than just the horror stories to frighten little children into obedience, more than the whispered tales at bars that bind men closer over beer...
There are demons that walk the night. Tread carefully, and stray not far from home when dusk settles.
You don't want to meet one up close. You might not even live long enough to regret it.
Trust me. I know.
I was one of them after all.
~*~*~
Normality was such a drag.
Pen to paper, rough drafts and notes scattered over an already littered table, fingers flying over a stained keyboard, the victim of one too many spilled drinks and bits of food. Toes tapped restlessly against cold tile, and she gnawed on her pen in frustration at the incomplete report winking back at her on the screen.
Her eyes her sandpapery and her brain was choked with rust. At least, that was what it felt like. She shook her head, hard. The deadline was in 6 hours, she couldn't afford to fall asleep now! Damn this paper for being almost half her grade for the class.
Why did I leave it so late?! Argh! I'm never listening to those two again!
Friends could be such a problem, no matter how much of a comfort they could be in better times. Her friends though, were hardly the type that were conducive to her keeping up her grades. One was always happily goofing off with her, and the other was no better...well, that one was annoyingly intelligent behind her "my brain is made of cotton candy~" bimbo exterior. She sighed out loud and glared malevolently at the screen, as if willing her report to write itself.
I hate being so average and normal and GAH!
She flailed around wildly when a huge bug flew right past her nose, pen flying in one direction, glasses in another, and her ass found the floor in about 2 seconds flat. She groaned piteously and covered her face with one hand. Now the rest of her body was hurting along with her head.
Great, life was just GREAT.
I hate you, Life! Oodles of hate! Bundles and crumples and humdingers of it! I hate being Normal!
The computer screen blacked out. She shrieked in wordless horror, scrambling up to try and save her work from complete obliteration.
Why does everything happen to me?!
Yup, normal life was just fine and dandy.
~*~*~
High places were nice.
She stuck her tongue out, tasting the wind on it. City air was full of toxic substances though, so she drew it back again. Not that they could harm her.
She was already dead, after all.
The moon hung heavy and pregnant in the night sky, veiled thinly in the shadow of wispy clouds. She looked up, a fanged grin visible on her pale, young face, dark hair arrayed wildly around it. The tip of her tongue curled around the points of her fangs, exploring almost playfully how they felt in her mouth.
More than 10 years and she was still fascinated by how they developed and were still developing in her mouth. She didn't know vampires had teething problems before, a fact she had soon discovered on her own not long after her entry into unlife. So many things she didn't know, and was still learning.
Geh, I don't need anyone...stupid Master...
Tossed aside like a plaything...she hadn't liked that. Still didn't. Rejection stung. But she clung on to her second chance at life stubbornly, not letting things get her down, surviving despite the odds, fighting tooth and nail against others that wanted to erase her for being what she was.
She could fight though. Fighting was what she did, what she was. She grew up fighting bullies twice her size on the streets, died fighting a monster three times her size and about ten times stronger who had wanted her for supper, and was revived by yet another demon who happened to pass by. And the first thing she had done upon waking up then was to claw at her Master's eyes.
Pfft, I just look small. I'm not weak.
Anyone itching for a fight would get one from her. Never mind that it would probably be their last, if they were human.
I'm hungry again.
The thought was sudden, as was the craving. Her nose twitched, catching the scent of blood in the whispery breeze. A low growl, animalistic and fierce, and blood red eyes.
She leapt, shadow on steel and concrete. It was a good night for hunting.
Too bad for those who were prey.
~*~*~
Don't change. I like you the way you are.
So that person said, smiling, and stepped into the flames.
She jolted from her light doze, upsetting the clear crystal goblet perched on the little table by that voluminous armchair she was currently ensconced in.
For a moment she forgot where she was, who she was, even what she was. Blissful incomprehension, for that one second, only to be broken, literally, by the shards embedded in the rich red carpet, winking innocently in the candlelight. A viscous drop hung perilously on the edge, before merging seamlessly with the heavy fabric below it.
Ah, that's right. I am no longer human.
Frozen into an eternal "now". That was what she was. Beauty crystallized into unyielding diamond, white as a marble sculpture, forever young, forever beautiful, perfection locked within an endless eternity, unchanging.
How many nights have I spent alone, counting the distance between us?
Every second, every minute, every nonexistent heartbeat that passed, putting her yet another step, another gasp away from her originator. Her cruelly humane, gently unyielding and oh so very beautiful master. He had set her free, and then locked her into another existence more inescapable than fate itself. Immortal, unchanging, inhuman and...beautiful.
He loved what he saw in me, so much that he bestowed his curse upon me.
So that her innocence, her beauty, would not fade and wilt in time as any mortal rose might. Innocence she no longer held, no more, not this way, but beauty she retained.
Live, and do not change.
His final command, before embracing the final rest, vanishing in a storm of ash and flame, his terrified fledgling left to face the darkness of the neverending nights to come, stretching endlessly before her until death would take her, or madness would.
She had seen many nights since. Some nights were light, filled with music and dance, laughter and carousing from those vicariously burning through their mortal coil. Others were painted red, so much so that they shaded into a deep darkness, tears and sorrow creating their own dirge as the moon winked out, covered by the clouds of war and misery.
Soon, it will be morning.
Night always came to an end, somehow. The day, a time of renewal, of fresh life, of change, for better and worse, running its course. A cycle as eternal as she was.
A morning that I shall face alone.
Once more, once again. Those who shared her immortality did not necessarily share her immunity. The sun was a blight to the others, the ones fresh into the eternal night. For one such as her, enduring the millennia had its rewards, such as being able to see the sun again without fear of dissolving into the ashes she should have belonged to, so many ages ago.
Master, why would you have me live while you chose death?
She could not cry, she would not. There would be no meaning for them now. After surviving all this time, she had learned to accept, even if she did not always understand. The alternative was insanity, and she would not betray the life she had been given, no matter how heavy the burden of eternity was.
Rising, she came to stand by the window, one pale hand reaching out to hover close to the crystal clear pane, dark eyes far away on the horizon, on that lighter patch of sky on the dark vistas, waiting for morning to return.
When will my morning come for me too, I wonder?
Until her own dawn broke, she would wait. As she had, all this time.
After all, time was all that she had..
Sunshine smile down, chasing away velvet night
Till sun returns, till sun returns
Until morning comes to embrace us all once again.