The Dacians
The corpse slithered downwards with disorganized thump, and Stephen sighed. The woman's hands were tight shells, reflecting her last moments of stunned, and then panicked realization. The body resisted, even when the mind was so willing to comply.
A nudging sort of reminiscence took him, for the days when his meals had actually been prepared for his kind. This feeling sat just below the ever violent rage for the Volturi. For what they had taken from him, and so many others.
He and Vladimir always selected meals in remote locations, finding things at least rinsed of the worst pollutants. Campers and hikers were the best available, but still so inferior to what he and his brother had once thought the poorest of fodder. These modern travellers still reeked of chemicals, but their distance from civilization stripped them of the most egregious contaminants.
Stefan snorted, recalling his last conversation with one of their own kind—at least, one that wasn't Vladimir.
At this sound, Vladimir looked over at him, and shrugged.
Stephen had given up on explaining to other, younger vampires what it was like, to eat what they were meant to, not these sour blood bags they were left with—unsanctified creatures that sustained, but did not satisfy them.
In his bitterest moods, he contemplated a Dacian diet.
Then Vladimir, who knew him too well, would pin his brother with an arched eyebrow and ask, "Does pity make them taste better, little one?"
Depending on how deep in it he was, this condescension would either drive him further down into his self-indulgent despair, or yank him from it, shaking it off in the pleasure of a wordy, or physical spar.
They were on a rocky outcropping, several hours inland into the stretches of the north they had not bothered to find a name for.
The hiker he'd just dispatched, and her mate, had been easy. The couple had been lonely, happy and surprised by the company. Then suspicious at the lack of baggage. It hadn't been much to stun her with simple proximity, whispers, and suggestive words.
Vlad had flavoured his meal just as effectively, but with fear, the man's silent trembling quick and unobserved by his partner.
"Remember—" Stefan started.
"Yes," Vlad cut him off. "I remember it all. I don't want to talk about it now."
Stefan's lips twisted together.
When they ruled, their diets were religiously prepared offerings—each one purified, cleansed, and flavoured to their liking. It was artisanal a process as any—the Dacians' work.
While the Volturi ruled in a rigid secrecy, Vladimir and Stefan's kind had lived in a helpful pool of open human ignorance. They were all their people knew: beneficent, if expensive overlords. No army ever troubled their human populace, or even a wild animal dare stray too close to their borders. The choicest selections were brought to them in thanks.
The Dacians—and here he sighed again—such loyal things, kept the offerings for the time required. Usually a few days. Most of their food arrived dirty and terrified, then were stunned with gratitude when they were fed, and washed, and offered clean clothes and for most, the novelty of a bed. It kept them calm, to be treated so. It cleared the blood.
When time stripped the worst scents, they were brought to the antechambers.
That was where the fun began.
Stefan shuddered in remembered pleasure.
Oh. Such delights.
The Dacians knew to leave then. It was too tempting for them, seeing what was done.
Downwind, and in the very far distance, a pack of caribou lumbered by, the thump of their hooves a muffled rain over the tundra.
They'd kept the Dacians compliant and docile on such a diet once, but of bears though, and polecats—or goats and foxes, and even stoats too. He chuckled, wondering what their reaction would be to some of the creatures he and Stefan had seen in their travels.
Not that he would've ever cared to speak with one.
Dacians were an order made for service, and serve they did.
But what he wouldn't give for the services of one now.
It was hard to make a good Dacian, and once mature, they were prized for the work they did. It took wise choosing in human form to find a suitable candidate. Stefan had never made one, but Vladimir had, once.
Stefan had asked him, what it was like, to bite, and then release.
"Awful," had been the curt response.
The bites—for there were several—made a crude clover cross at the neck, and required a repeated, and disciplined incision.
Stefan's creation had lasted a matter of days, too stupid to adhere to the most basic requirements.
They'd always chosen from the lower minds. Not damaged, but of an intelligence that would willingly adhere to its allocated place, even for eternity. A fair share of the town populace's rejects made their way into the Dacian stable. Fewer lasted long enough to become useful.
Physically, they were the same as their betters, but carefully pruned in habit, thought and most importantly: diet.
"Are you still sulking?" Vladimir called, snapping a bone and tossing it into the soft reach of a shrunken tree. He hurled the next fragment, landing its splintered end in the receptive ground.
Stefan shrugged. "Thinking about the Dacians. Wondering if any survived. What they'd do if they did."
Vladimir snorted. "Like they'd survive outside the stable."
Stefan wasn't so sure of this. "They saw enough of us to doubt what they'd been told."
With a surly shake of his head, Vladimir stood. "Let's go. See if we can find something else to eat."
"As you please," Stefan shrugged back, still attached to this wondering.
- 0 -
They'd meandered south, tasting the gritty offerings of Dawson City's dark streets. Once full, they'd been chased into the wilds again by the northern summer sunshine.
These brushes with human civilization unsettled them both. They'd skirted its edges since the Volturi had ousted them centuries ago. Now the invisible walls of technology were so foreign to their understanding as to seem utterly unbroachable.
This didn't seem to trouble Vladimir, as much as it did Stefan. All his unease was wordless, but as known to his brother as intimately as the patterns of his breathing.
They had taken advantage of the opportunity to purloin cleaner, if more rugged attire—crisp cotton shirts and supple leather jackets. Things made of things that the earth naturally parted with. The oily cloy of the artificial fabrics made Stefan's nose wrinkle visibly. Vladimir would gladly have taken something of such a fabric, but not his brother. He kept his comments about Stefan's pickiness to himself.
Not quite lost in their conversation, but certainly pinched by its depths, it was Stefan who stopped, eyes glinting, at the shifting distance of the trees.
It was sudden, and lethally precise.
"No!" he mouthed, the sound a suggestion to the air.
Vladimir was already following his gaze.
The streak of black was vicious—unmistakable.
Their feet mirrored the movement now a shrinking distance away, shoes whispering over the brittle grasses.
It stopped when it saw them, the elk carcass dropped from its frozen mouth and fingers. At its neck, the flowering of a clover cross sat in plain view. Then it fell and prostrated itself before them as it had been taught to do.
Stefan did not miss the opportunity to eye Vladimir in vindication.
"I am not worthy," the creature muttered into the ground.
Stefan almost faltered with the ritualistic response, but seeing the uncertain twist in his companion's face, spat it out, before Vladimir could ruin this opportunity with his modern notions.
"You are not," Stefan intoned. "But we suffer you for your service."
The creature—male, he realized—almost sighed in ecstasy.
"Finish your meal," Vladimir interrupted.
"But—" Stefan blurted out.
"Finish your meal," Vladimir repeated, his eyes dark and angry.
Stefan stared at him, face folding into something feral. "A word, Master Duchna," he muttered, invoking the old title.
"Your servant, Lord Bogdan," Stefan spat back, upper lip curled in contempt.
At a distance where their whispers would not be carried by the wind, Vladimir turned on Stefan. "We are not then, brother." His voice was soft. Gentle, even.
Sad, Stefan realized.
"We are not then," he said again. "And he has no more obligation to us than any other of our kind."
"But if he wants—"
"A life of servitude, after centuries free?"
"Perhaps—"
"Do you wish to be my underling again, Stefan?" Vladimir asked, a finger brushing his chin. "Hm?"
Stefan pulled his head away. "I am your underling, Vladimir—"
"You are no such thing."
A flicker at the corners of Stefan's lips paid small service to this idea.
"It would be better to release him of any duty he feels," Vladimir went on.
Stefan sighed. Here they had a true Dacian—a Dacian!—after all this time, and Vladimir wanted to release him.
"We'll hear his story first," Stefan insisted.
"Oh yes. His story. Certainly. And then he goes. We only bring ill things for those who travel with us."
There was no dispute here.
They tried not to think, let alone speak of what haunted them. Hunted them.
Stefan's fists curled in a perfect imitation of his latest meal.
The Volturi. Even thinking of them was enough to make him want to spit and curse.
"I would not have them take more from us, brother," Vladimir said, the notes of these words dark and subdued.
No. Neither would he.
When they returned, more slowly than before, the—man—Stefan made himself think, was kneeling and waiting for them, hands folded in submission, head bowed in that gesture of eternal servitude.
He wanted to groan aloud in frustration, but only loosed it in his mind, a low and aching utterance.
"You've been gone a long time, Dacian," Vladimir began.
"I did not know how to find you."
"No," Vladimir sighed. "I imagine you didn't. It's probably why you've survived."
To his credit, the Dacian's head stayed down at this startling revelation.
"What's your name?" Vladimir went on.
After a moment, the pale skin quivered. "I have no name."
"You had one once."
"I have no name. Forgive me the displeasure this causes you."
"You may tell me your name. I permit it."
The voice became more insistently distressed. "I have no name. I beg your forgiveness."
"It's alright, Dacian," Stefan interjected, glaring at Vladimir. "He's kept the old ways. Honour this by remembering them."
Vladimir frowned and lowered his thick eyebrows over his eyes, momentarily turning his attention towards his brother.
With some gentle verbal nudges, they strung out the creature's story. He'd run when the Volturi had come, and in the fray and fracas, had escaped the notice of his betters, and then their conquerors.
"They seemed to not be able to smell me so well, not like—not like some of the others. The ones who were not so pure." He grew nervous, his eyes not so certain where to settle.
"And why were they not pure?" Stefan asked, genuinely curious.
"They took," the Dacian whispered, his body still held in that perfect ritual stillness. "They took what was not theirs."
"Ah," Vladimir said, and seeing the mounting distress, reassured him, "it's alright. I don't blame you for not telling. You're forgiven. Tell me though, what did they take?"
"The unwanted," he shrugged tentatively. "The foundlings. The forest children."
Vladimir chuckled. "Not so unwanted," he murmured, remembering those stolen and succulent treasures. He clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Go on."
"I'd never done so. I ran, and I ran, and I didn't stop until I came to the water. The great water. There I stayed. For a long time. I walked its depths. Saw strange creatures and things." He shook his head. "Their blood is much like this, though of a different taste."
"You walked under the water?" Stephan asked.
The man nodded.
"For how long?"
"I do not know. I only know I came to this land, and found little temptation on it—and no others of our kind."
That he had walked there, under the Atlantic's weight, did not startle him, though Stefan's nose wrinkled in distaste for the diet he must have endured. What lived in the watery depths that would sustain any of their kind?
"And you've been here, all this time? Alone?" Vladimir went on.
More nodding, but troubled now.
He resumed his story, the words becoming firmer as he went.
"Then I found them." He paused, his golden eyes divided between them.
"Found who?"
"Ones like me, but...not."
"Dacians?"
"No," he shook his head. "Mated...pairs."
Vladimir and Stefan's eyebrows made synchronous jumps.
"But—"
"Not like me," the Dacian said.
"No," Vladimir murmured in agreement, frowning.
"They had an offering with them—I thought, of course, to purify it for giving, but then—" and he shuddered, "it had...a mate."
"A human mate?" Stefan asked.
"No." The Dacian's eyes flicked up towards his, and then back down. "He looked like me, but no—he defended it as a mate." His voice held horror and disgust together at this revelation.
It was the most sacrosanct of the Dacian rules, next only to the dietary proscriptions: they could not take a mate. Those who did, were dispatched with promptly. It would've been the final break in all their servitude, to allow such a bond.
"A human mate?" Vladimir wondered aloud, voice so full of curiosity that the Dacian's lips curled back in a feral hiss.
While Vladimir had seen enough in the passing centuries to strip away his desire for a return to the old ways, this direct challenge to his authority riled all his instincts, and he stood, his own snarl loud and domineering.
The Dacian cowered, putting his face to the ground again in clear submission.
"We may not be what we were, but I am still your superior, creature," Vladimir hissed. He waited until the creature nodded into the dirt, before adding, "Go on."
Rising only the barest inch, the Dacian continued his story.
"I took it."
"Took what?"
"The offering."
Stefan and Vladimir looked at each other.
"They hadn't purified it. So I took her."
Vladimir laughed. "And how long did that last?"
The Dacian's face fell. "Not long enough. The yellow-eyed one came for her—"
"And let you live? After taking its mate?"
"He didn't want to, but another one—who had some power to compel him, he—" and here he paused a moment, his face falling and flexing in a way that showed a depth of emotion his kind were not meant to display.
"Control yourself," Stefan growled.
"He knew what I was, not because he was one, but because he'd heard of my kind. He tried to release me of my duty." His voice took on an angry edge. "He tried to tell me I was free of my obligation—that my faithfulness meant nothing to you. But I knew this wasn't true—and now I've found you. I have found a place again." His head fell, and his body shook with a feeling they both recognized.
Vindication.
It was easy to see what they so very much wanted themselves.
Looking at each other, Stefan and Vladimir exchanged uneasy, and then resigned looks, nodding in agreement. There was no way to use a Dacian now. It would only endanger them all, either by drawing the attention of humans, or the Volturi.
No, this creature needed to be released.
"Those times are gone, Dacian. These creatures you encountered—they're right, in their own way. The food that is now so populous is powerful too. They do not know us for what we are—the Gods that walk among them."
A flash of anger made the creature's face spasm, and then relax. Something that passed for understanding rested there suddenly. "I see," he said. "I see." He nodded, as if to himself.
"You are released, Dacian, from all service. You are free, to eat and take as you like, but you are not our creature anymore."
Rising from where they'd sat, Vladimir and Stefan nodded to the man, and then turned, and took their leave.
- 0 -
Inuvik had been their next port of call. They'd snatched a pair of scruffy hikers, dispensing with them in their sleep, leaving the bodies for the bears to maul. It entertained Vladimir to watch the corpses attract the competitive interests of these lumbering creatures.
The wind was blowing the sea scents to them, so it was the sound, rather than the smell that alerted them first.
"You tested me, masters, and I hope I've proven faithful to it. I've found you the purest offering I could."
Both Stefan and Vladimir's eyes widened at the sight of the Dacian, still clad in his ragged black, bearing two squalling infants in his arms. The uncontrolled flail of their limbs spoke of their newness, and the unadulterated smell only confirmed it.
Humans prized their progeny. And the younger they were, the more so they did.
There would be a search. There would be notice.
And that would bring the Volturi.
As he approached, holding out each of the children to them, they stepped back, not wanting even a breath of their scent on them.
"Take them, please, masters."
When neither of them moved, the Dacian's arms began to tremble—not from tiredness, but from rage. "TAKE THEM!" he shrieked.
Vladimir did, cradling the creatures there, their scent making his mouth water. "Where?" he asked, knowing they needed to be returned.
"How have I displeased you?" he begged. "They are pure—I touched them as little as I could. They're clean, as I have been. Please, accept my offering. Accept my faithfulness—" His voice broke.
And it became clear, to Stefan, that this was not all that was broken. That his very mind, so weak and well molded, was as shattered by time as their own fortunes.
He exchanged a pained look with Vladimir, who gave his brother the tiniest of nods.
The creature didn't even start when it felt Stefan's hands on its head. His face remained trusting and placid, even when bodily detached.
Finding the means for fire was more challenging, and they scrabbled for the accumulation of wood dry enough to smoke and then spark. When the mass of vampire and wood caught, they both sighed at the reassuring sight of purple smoke.
Vladimir stood, infants quieter against the warmth of the fire, nose wrinkling with displeasure. They had fouled themselves, and he wanted nothing more than to return them to a place where he could safely be rid of them.
"Here," he said, handing one of them to Stefan. "Careful. They're quite...fragile. It won't do to return them damaged."
The Dacian's scent was almost impossible to find, but the pungent odour of infant humans was distinct. It led directly to a busy and squat building on the edge of the coast.
Then they paused, not so certain where to leave their stinking and squalling bundles.
After some grumbled consultation, they settled on an infrequently used side-entrance, Vladimir wrapping them in his coat.
When Stefan stared at this seemingly tender gesture, his brother snorted, "they'll get cold and die. No good for us."
They didn't wait to see what would happen, turning and fleeing from what could only bring them greater danger.
At the late rise of the moon, they paused in their travel to admire a particularly clear reflection of this friendly orb over a still and wide pool.
Their longing, for what they'd been, and what they'd had, remained as strong as ever, but diminished in scope, as only defeat could thin it.
The Volturi had beaten them. There was no doubting that. But now they had been confronted with a failure of their own, distinct making. It was another precarious piece of their empire, already physically vanquished, crumbling in their minds.
"Still sulking, Stefan?" Vladimir asked.
Stefan looked over at him. "No," he answered pertly.
"Good." Vladimir said. "Good."
It wasn't, but they pretended that it was, each reformulating the new vision of a future that was impossible to attain, their silence a mutual complicity in this elaborately spun lie.
Disclaimer: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.