'vanity of vanities, all is vanity' - Ecclesiastes, 1:2.

Prologue

"I announce this good news to the city, that New Orleans will be more glorious, richer, more powerful than she has ever been; First, glorious in the sight of God as well as of men: and you, O New Orleans will be the reformation of all Americas, and from here the renewal will begin and spread everywhere, because this is the navel of America. Your counsels will reform all by the light and grace that God will give you. Second, O New Orleans, you will have innumerable riches, and God will multiply all things for you. Third, you will spread your empire, and thus you will have power temporal and spiritual."

Turbulence had a sundered the political planes of New Orleans for weeks. An ancient vampire whom they called the Repenter was challenging the reigning queen. He preached to his flock from an old crypt in the St. Louis no. 1 cemetery. Soon that could no longer hold all his followers, the Red Weepers, and they sought a larger arena.

The abandoned scrap yard filled with more vampires night by night from far and wide. All came to listen to the Repenter preach. He spoke of the excess, the frivols and the waste. Only if vampires accepted that they were the occasions of sin could they be saved.

Unnerved by the activity in her governing capital the Queen sought out the help of the vampire authority. In a display of power they raided and attacked one fateful night. The Repenter commanded his Red Weepers not to react to the influx of armed men. The image of peace the vampires surrendered themselves to The Authority. No blood was shed and the Red Weepers were released when The Authority deemed them unthreatening.

The Queen lost her backing and was forced to fend for herself. It didn't take long for the Red Weepers to turn their grief against their queen. Rumours of her spending the public coffers on her personal pool room enticed the crowd into their rebellion. Whispers of blood found them storming the palace, without a loss of human life, the Queen found herself deposed and headless.

A great fire erupted from the city of New Orleans that night, one by one the fine possessions of the former queen fuelled the flames over Sophie Anne and her retinues' bodies.

The crowd instated a reluctant Repenter to the throne. He called his child to his side for he would need his sacrifice. A prophecy had come to him for a new Cyrus would come from the North and with that defeat a new light would emerge. A light that would salve the wounds of their dark souls.

The Repenter spoke these words to his weepers, "Our existence is insanity. We don't belong here." The crowd set to wail as they honoured their new king with deep bows of devotion.

It is said the Repenter's child spoke these words, 'But we are here,' as he pleaded with his master.

Only those who held doubt in their faith heard those words. Thus that faithful night there were only two that heard those words. The child who spoke them and his loyal progeny.


A/N: Thank you for taking the time to read this story. I'm relatively new to this writing business having had a very successful maiden voyage by winning Sephrenia's Writing Challenge with my one shot In Memoriam. It can be found on my profile page along with its companion piece Memento Mori. If you'd like to read some of my other work I have uploaded the first chapters of two other stories I have been working on to my own site (hisviks dot wordpress dot com). Expect weekly updates on all three from now on. This story will be updated every Friday. The first chapter of this story should be uploaded along with this so enjoy your continued reading.

This story will be a complete re-imagining of the first three seasons of True Blood starting at the end of season one. Loosely based on the historical events in 15th century Florence surrounding the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola

Please note that I don't own anything pertaining to the universe of SVM and True Blood created by Charlaine Harris and HBO. Any recognisable characters, story lines and/or dialogue belong to them. The italic speech in this chapter is an altered version of a speech spoken by Savonarola.