Paradise At Last

by HOAnubisTS

Co-written with the awesome Cat attack 411! Paradise. We never know much about it, really. But deep inside its realms, the vampires that we loved so much when they were alive, live on.

Hey guys! This is a one-shot of what happens in Paradise! It's Co-written with my friend, HOAnubisTS. We really hope that you like this!
Disclaimer: We don't own the saga, but wouldn't it be awesome if we did?

Larten lay on his side, his eyes closed, in some kind of peaceful trance. Paradise tended to do that to people - suddenly, death was much more favorable than living. He turned over and sighed.
"Larten," he heard someone calling.
Larten opened his eyes and looked over to see his old master, Seba Nile. Larten gaped and ran over to the first person in Paradise since the War of Scars was over. "SEBA! What are you doing here?"
Seba smirked and simply said,"I died."
Larten let out a hearty laugh, then pulled him into a warm embrace.
"I think you will like it here," he smiled. His mentor nodded in agreement.
"I will," he replied. Then his smile faded and a somber expression slipped on his face. "Larten, I have something to tell you."
Larten for once ignored his mentor and started asking a lot of questions about Darren. "How has Darren been since the war has ended? How is he doing? Is he still a Prince? Did he kill Steve? Has he-"
"Larten!" Seba snapped. At once, Larten stopped talking immediately.
"I am sorry Seba," he said. "You were saying?"
Seba looked reluctant, gulped, and opened his mouth to say something. Larten noticed he had averted his eyes, avoiding eye contact.
"Darren has been fine," he mumbled, feebly. "Recently.. recently he has gone to the lake of souls."
Larten tilted his head in confusing and tried to speak, but nothing came out. "He-has what?" Seba nodded his head glumly and spoke softly. "Evanna told us that he and Steve have gone to the Lake of Souls."
Larten felt emotions surging through him. They registered one by one - anger, shock, misery, disbelieve.
"Wh.. what do you mean, Lake of Souls?" he spluttered. "Darren was a good boy! He saved Steve's life. He never killed when he did not need to. What do you mean, Lake of Souls?"
Seba sighed and put a hand on Larten's shoulder. "Evanna spoke to us all about what happened. He and Steve fought it out and Steve was about to die. Darren did not want to accept his destiny, so he got Steve to kill him as well." Larten gasped and started to speak, but was cut off by Seba. "That is not all. Tiny was so furious he banished both of them to the Lake of Souls."
The ginger vampire took a few short breaths as he paced around in a circle.
"So... Darren... he is damned forever?" he asked.
Seba smiled ruefully and shrugged. "Only DesTiny knows."
Larten looked at his mentor, then almost immediately, burst into tears. Seba, baffled, could only pat him on the back awkwardly.
Larten continued to mourn and pity Darren for the next hundred years, always blaming himself for what had happened to Darren. He did not deserve this. I did. Not him. Darren was a good soul. He should not be damned for this. He thought this almost all the time, if not it was always nagging his brain, not matter how hard he tried to ignore it.
He was laying down again when Vancha came up to him and sat down.
"Larten... Larten..." he nudged him. Larten waved aside his kindness and fell back into his pit of misery. How could he let Darren go into the lake of the damned? It was all his fault... he knew it was. "Larten," he beamed and hit Larten on the shoulder. "Did you miss me?"
He removed his face out of his hands. "Vancha!"
They spent the next hours reminiscing the past, talking about their deaths, people they cherished, laughing at the silly mistakes they had made. When the topic got to Darren, a hostile edge crept into Larten's voice.
Vancha looked very confused when Larten spoke of Darren that harsh.
"Why are you talking of Darren like that? He fought bravely in battle." Larten looked up at Vancha and there was no mercy in his eyes.
"It is my fault that Darren is in the Lake of Souls. He does not deserve to be there."
Vancha blinked a couple a times, mouth agape. "Larten, I was there when he died. He was wearing your cloak. He looked like you and fought like you. He was incredible! And you know what else? He had to die. Don't," Larten was about to rip Vancha's head off, "if he didn't he would have been the Lord of the Shadows. If Steve lived, he would have been the Lord. They both had to die."
Larten swallowed down his feelings and tried to sound as calm as he possibly could. "I made him a bad person. I am a bad man." He sounded plaintive - just like a child.
Instantly Vancha was irritated. "Bad man? Larten, you raised the boy like he was your son! He saved lives, and was a better prince than I!" He paused. "Believe it or not.. he went to the Lake of Souls because he was... too clever."
Larten blinked a few times and then said in a quite tone, "Really? But-"
"NO!" Vancha playfully snapped "No buts! Darren is in the Lake of Souls, right? Well, that's fine. It sucks, yes, but we can always remember him as he was. I missed him so much when he died then I realized something. He had a good run. And if we have to wait here every damn day for him to come back, because I have a feeling he will, so be it. We'll wait."
A delicate silence blanketed over them. Larten ran his finger across his scar, as he always did when he was alive.
He was the one to break the silence. "What... what do you mean, he might come back?"
Vancha grunted and shrugged his shoulders. "You never know."
"You know something, don't you?" Larten questioned. He immediately pounced at the idea - if it meant he was going to see Darren again, so be it.
Vancha turned a little red and coughed into his hand. "Well...Evanna made a deal with Tiny. I uh...helped with that deal. Gannen did too. But uh...I think that he's coming back. No more questions! Show me what Paradise can really do for ya."
Larten smiled for the first time in a long time. His assistant, his son, was coming to Paradise.
Over the next few centuries, more and more of Darren's friends and people he knew came to Paradise. Harkat, Mika, Arrow, Vanez and even Gannen. They were all saddened to hear that Darren was still in the Lake of souls, but they knew that one day he would come.
Evanna came to Paradise one day, to see how everyone was doing. Larten was delighted to see her.
"Do you know when Darren will come?" he asked, excitedly.
She gave him a tight lipped smile and said, "Soon."
He frowned at her vagueness. "How many years? Months? Days?"
"Soon," she repeated.
Larten sighed. But at least he knew that Darren was coming back. So everyday, he would wake up, talk to his friends, eat, then he would wait for a few hours for Darren by the door for Darren. All the vampires knew who he was waiting for when they came to Paradise, and nodded towards him. He smiled at them and always had kept an eye out for Darren whenever he got up and left to see his friends.
One evening, just when Larten had begun to give up hope, an excited buzz ran through everyone. The chatter ceased when Larten was near, but he could still feel something peculiar about the way people acted. They were hiding something from him.
They were huddle around something. Even Mika and Arrow were playing along with it.
Larten walked over to Seba, who had stepped forward to talk to him, to question what happened."Seba...? What is going on?"
Seba smiled proudly and moved out of the way so Larten could see the group.
Seba nodded to the group and told his assistant to close his eyes. Larten question, but did so when Seba barked at him to do it.
When he opened his eyes, there was a smiling Darren. "Hi, Mr. Crepsley. It's been a while, hasn't it?"
Larten gasped and ran over to Darren, laughing with tears streaming down his face. Larten hugged Darren as soon as he got to him.
Darren snuggled into his mentor's arms, his cheeks damp.
"I missed you Mr Crepsley," he sobbed. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
Larten cocked his head in confusion. "Sorry for what, Darren?"
"For everything." His cheeks burned in shame. "I'm so sorry..."
"Darren, you never wronged me. It is I, who needs to be sorry."
The vampires let out a weak chuckle, but were so moved, that was the only sound capable of leaving the captivity of their throats.
"But I was so horrible... I almost let Madame Octa kill you in the Cirque!" Then a series of convulsive sobs followed.
"I do not care. The past is the past. It does not matter anymore." Darren smirked.
"Follow your own advise on this and drop it! It's not your fault. And if you hadn't blood me, I would had never met any of these awesome vampires."
Gavner took advantage of the situation. "See, the boy thinks I'm awesome. We all agree. Now, for some ale."
A laugh. A real one, for everyone.
"Well you're finally old enough," Larten smiled.
Darren stuck his tongue out "I got drunk before! And I've seen you drunk before too!"
Larten turned a deep shade of red and tried to calm down while everybody laughed around him.
"Come, let's go." Darren smiled and went to go get some ale, before he turned around and smiled once more. "Where do I go?"
Everyone groaned.
"That's right," Arra sighed. "There's no ale in Paradise.
"Kind of ironic, no?" Gavner smirked. "No ale in Paradise when ale IS Paradise."
"But there IS some wine though." Harkat smiled.
Larten studied Darren for a minute trying to decide if he was able to have something so strong.
"Oh, come on, Larten! He can have some fun!" Arra said, trying to convince Larten
Finally, he gave in. "Fine. Under my supervision. And a good amount."
Darren nodded eagerly and scurried away to grab a glass of wine.
Arra inspected Larten's face. "You really did miss him, didn't you?"
Larten furrowed his eyebrows. "Stupid question."
Larten watched Darren laugh and smile with his friends walking to get some wine. He really did miss that child. No, he really missed that vampire. He smiled to himself and got up to go join his friends. His family for some wine. But before he could...
"Hey, LARTEN!"
He whirled around, a cup of wine in his hands, to find a man. He was young - and something about his face that he recognized.
"Excuse me, but who are you?" he asked.
The man's smile faded. "You don't remember me?"
Larten squinted and stayed silent for a moment, trying to take in his features. He didn't have and arm, but he did look familiar. All of a sudden, Larten knew who he was. He was the general who he had fought at a council meeting.
"We fought, against all odds." He smiled feebly.
"It was you!" Larten cried. "It was you!"
They shared very few memories with each other - most associated with war and death - but somehow Paradise bonded them together.
Darren came over to investigate this strange man. The general, whose name was Keid, noticed Darren and asked who he was. "I'm Darren. I was Mr. Crepsley's assistant."
Keid looked surprised for a moment before chuckling.
"No, you were also something else," he quipped. Almost immediately, his eyes bulged out of his eyes as he exclaimed, "You're a Prince!"
Darren laughed at his childish excitement and nodded. "Ye, Darren Shan, I'm a Prince."
Darren laughed then smiled at the smiling Larten.
"So, Darren, how do you like your mentor? Is he a good mentor?"
Darren was silent for a minute, and Larten thought that he was going to say no, but surprised him when Darren said "He's an awesome mentor. But I don't view him as my mentor, i view him as my father. Well, in the vampire world."
Larten tried to stop the grin on his face from spreading, but he couldn't. He offered the man some wine, and they spent the rest of the day reminiscing the past. The grin had not left. It was still wide - Darren's remark had touched him in a way nothing else could.
New vampires came everyday, and quickly adapted to the easy going ways of Paradise. They told stories amongst themselves - but the most favorite story, by far, was the story of the brave Larten Crepsley and his young assistant, Darren Shan.
Who will always be more of a proud father and a son then a master and the assistant. Even if they won't admit it.

Review please. And E3, Cat attack 411! :D I had loads of fun writing this.