chow. sorry girls and gents. I have been gone a long time and I can't really help it. x_x'

first it was the computer and the dial up

than it was school.

it was just a bunch of crud that has been keeping me away.

but I'm back now with a new story and I hope you like it. I'm trying my luck with an original main character but I like it a great deal and I hope you will too =3

don't forget to tell me what you think ^ ^

Prolog~

I remember a lot more than I should. I know things I shouldn't and the things these eyes of mine have seen would scare mortals and vampires a like.

You make ask what I remember and how I am able to recall it; all mortals do. Its part of your nature I suppose. Something that you have been ingrained with since your great, great, great ancestors crawled out of the hole they were born in. I have nothing against you creatures made of flesh and bone; though, I may have, I admit, a strong dislike of the fact that you poor creatures can hardly defend yourselves and can die so easily by such simple means.

I have learned this sad truth about your kind and it has forever changed my opinion on how creatures like me must live our lives. An opinion I stand by and will die for, though, I do believe I am rambling and you are looking for answers.

My name is Arenea, meaning spider web in Latin and I am a vampire just like the others that haunt the recesses of your dreams. And what I remember is the history of what we are and how things have changed. I am one of three originals and the only one left I am afraid and saddened to say.

But you don't believe me, I'm sure. Your head has been filled with lies about how we began. Well, let me tell you younglings, everything you have been told is most likely a lie. You probably think I am insane. To tell you the truth, if I were you, I would think me crazy too.

I am older than any Italian vampires sitting on plush velvet thrones in a land that was once Romania. I am older than any young foolhardy vampire you have read about or swooned over. I have loved humans and lost them; I have loved more than probably any creature on this earth. I also punish myself more than any other you will ever meet. That is my nature I am afraid. I give and give and give until there is no more to give and when I am alone, I punish myself for not having enough to give away.

Even the greatest of creatures have their weaknesses I am afraid to admit. Even you mortals superman has his own Kryptonite. Yes, I have taken the time to get to know your literature too. One is prone to get bored after several millennia on a spinning blue and green orb.

Our beautiful terra, the mother of us all. Oh, how I love her and always will. Eventually you humans will learn to love her as my race does. You have a lot to learn. But here I am rambling again and you are probably getting frustrated with me. Creatures as old as I am often tend to ramble. It is our nature as it is your nature to be curious.

Chapter 1~

"Arenea!"

I bolt upright from my perch, slamming my shoulders against the stone gargoyle behind me. I doesn't hurt but it's definitely enough of a shove to leave me reeling in confusion. That's what you get when you fall asleep with your eyes open, I'm afraid.

I blink a few times and straighten my shoulders before I reply to the high pitched voice that called my name. Young vampires are exceptionally excitable which my companions happen to be. "Shush with your mouths, Noire, Noelle. You are extremely loud," I grumble to hardly anything more than air. Possibly a few spider webs and dust around the room.

"Arenea, Aro said it was ok to be as loud as we needed to be to wake you up. Though we are sorry we scared you." I looked at the two young vampire girls then. They were pale; as if our kind, their eyes so dark red they appeared black in the dusty gloom around us. Their white claw like hangs clutching at the reds of their skirts as they swayed back and forth like dancers stuck in time. Their light red hair was pulled back from their faces but otherwise; free to curl around their temples with feminine grace. They were beautiful, the twins, but in an alien way I noticed as in synchronized motion, both their mouths twisted up in elfin grins full of mischief.

"You know how I feel about Aro. Half the things he says are lies while the other half is bent truths. The whole lot of it is obscure and obnoxious." I have my own opinions of my not chosen companions. Perhaps, as I have been told, I judge too quickly.

Perhaps I don't.

"You know Aro only means well at heart," Noelle whispered, her eyes wide and cat like as she stared at me. Her ashy lips were parted in a fake tremor as if she would cry if she could. Her twin glanced about as if she was lost for a moment and beseechingly replicated her sisters' appeal with hushed breathing and gasps of disbelief.

"Yes, of course I mean well, as my entire friends do. Dear Arenea, will you not grace me with a second chance?" I looked up and roll my eyes, shifting in my chair with a chill of disgust as if inched up my spine. I really needed that over-zealous, pompous and sodomizing glutton, didn't I?

"Aro, I have no reason to grace you with anything but a foot to your back end. You know how I feel about you lurking about in my home," my tone started out sweet but by the end of the phrase it was cold and commanding. I knew I must have looked wild and dangerous—maybe even deadly to my company.

The younger vampires all looked around themselves in secretive sideways glances. They must have thought I wouldn't see it. I smiled at them and looked the other way as if I wasn't paying an attention though I was highly attuned to what was going on in this very room. I caught the floating travels of dust motes in the air and the hushed silence of everything but our breathing. I registered the soft tick of the grandfather clock several feet away from me as it counted down the seconds to its death. If only I had known that then I would have changed things.

And then I saw movement from the tree vampires below me. Aro had slipped his hand from one of the folds of his robes and was secretly reaching for Noire's hand. He was good but he was not that good.

"Aro! Do you wish to keep that hand?!" I yelled, lurching out of my chair far faster than what I intended and finding myself in front of him and between the twins. He was a good foot taller than me but that was all silly nonsense as size is only trivial. And of course, he knew this. I could tell from the ways his eyes looked at me. I also noted that he had tucked his hands safely back amongst his clothes.

"You know the penalties that come with your gifts. If you cannot say it out loud than it is not worth being said and if it is indeed important," I said softly, my voice like a snake's. I held my hand out to him than as an invitation. He stared at it like it would bite him and swallowed hard.

"It is not of dire importance," he murmured looking away like a beat pup, though I knew it was only temporary. I would be reprimanding him again very soon as it had seemed to become one of my many jobs. The twins shifted at my raised hand and I dropped it back to my side.

"Very well." I stepped back from the trio, careful not to step on my burgundy skirts below me. "I am awake and you have taken too much of my time already. You are dismissed. All of you." They shuffled for a moment as if they were unsure if I was serious or not. A mistake that I could make they pay for it I had the mind to. "Are you deaf of just dumb? Be gone with you!"

They started at my outburst and backed out not seconds afterward like mice before the lion or the quail before the grizzly. I found myself alone in the room now and set back against my chair, laying my head against the stone back with the gargoyles break and claws bared across my shoulders and brushing against my neck. The date then was unknown but it was a very long time ago.

Time was different then and always will be different for ones as old as me. A sad fate that I didn't know what was going to happen to me or everyone around me. And as I sat there with my chin in my hand and my legs crossed I was oblivious and helpless to stop the fate that was to befall me.