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Awakenings
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A/N: Yet again Aubrey has captured my inspiration and forced me to write his view and version of things. Set in the first book in which everything is so marvelously flexible to play around with, this particular piece of fiction takes place during the fight in Las Noches. While I hail "In the Forests of the Night," please erase all followings of knowledge obtained from the other books. Merci beaucoup.
Disclaimer: All is owned by her gracious highness Amelia Atwater-Rhodes of whom without I shall be a mere unsatisfied, meaningless mortal without the depth and devotion I have towards Aubrey. *bows humbly*
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There was a breath of a moment in which he realized that despite everything, he would lose. It was a mere prelude to the ensuing battle within him between instinctive survival and that damnable pride so characterized and claimed by him. But in which matters had become so utterly base, tracing that thin line between life and death, his will to survive conquered all.
His mind's activity had dulled and blurred thoughts and memories, one with the other, until they become so intertwined that he would have been lost in times outside of the present moment were it not for his undying, single tracked attention towards this enemy. Had conscious thought been promptly working, it would have cursed him to admit such defeat and it would pain him, later when there was no one but himself in the blanket of the night.
In the darkest workings in his memory, he could remember Jager's words and the arrogance he had discarded the advice by. He could also remember the ambiguously prophetic statement Jager had replied with. Pride and arrogance are signs of weakness. If they are to linger, they shall be your downfall, Aubrey. It was disconnected towards the current moment of being pressed harshly into the wooden floor, pinned down by the massive, angry, teeth-bared tiger who was very nearly close to killing him, and ending all possibilities of future victories with the final defeat.
Though desperate to survive, he was unnervingly calm, still perhaps, convinced of his ability to manipulate and twist whatever way was necessary to survive unharmed. It could also perhaps be attributed towards the near resignation he felt in the situation. It was narrowed down to that single variable, of which he only had to focus his attention on in order to bend her to his will. And within the depths of depths, he knew that it would one day end.
"You've proved yourself, Risika," he began, voice unmarred by the frantic inherent need to survive, to live. "Years ago," he continued, reminiscing, drawing upon those memories of memories, embedded and connected, "I gave you a choice between giving up and fighting to the death." He paused for the briefest flicker of a moment that was only beknownst to him. In slightly softer tones, he said, "Do I get no such chance?"
There was no spite, no mockery, no attempt to twist that too moral credo in that blackened heart of hers. It was a reversion to the most natural of his core and being. And even that was not laced with a hidden knowledge of in order to preserve himself such trifling things of emotions and hatred would never do him justice. It simply was. Humbled by the very human moment of being so very near the end of it all, a part of his mind catalogued this particular experience for future use, if there was going to be any future, that this moment was perhaps one of the few times that he felt so very alive in all of his years of living as the undead, so very human.
It would have been disconcerting to him that he was having such thoughts, but in honesty, he allowed himself that very human moment, particularly if he was just a mere few inches away from that sharp swipe of claws to the finishing of his existence. No, it didn't bother him, at least not at the moment.
Aubrey, I know how this game works. He understood and grasped that Risika, while emotionally charged, was wary of the prospect of allowing him to live. What surprised him, almost, was that she had even contemplated and seriously considered allowing him to live. Had he been able to drive into her mind years ago how to live completely and utterly without emotions and morals, he would not have had these precious seconds to be contemplating about it. Ironic, a series of failures.
If I let you go now, what is to stop you from stabbing me in the back as soon as I turn away? It was there again. There was a sense of self-preservation in her words, not the expected need for destruction. And through that, there was yet hope.
This doesn't need to be to the death, Risika. The conversation was turning startling personal, the constant use and assurance of names and identity. The silence to those outside not personally engaged in such a talk could only imagine a near emotionally charged, rage filled atmosphere within their minds. Ironically enough, to them there was only a sense of clarity that came from unrushed and unstumbled words so akin with those of near death.
You gave me a choice because I was weak, Aubrey. Another affirmation of the name, personalizing this near death exchange of words, but of course, death is a personal and intimate matter. I am stronger than you – we have proved that here – but I swore long ago that I would avenge all you have taken from me. And you took so much; the price is so high.
Instinctively he understood her to a basis of a level that he had never before been quite able to understand. Those forever damned morals and other forever damned affectations she was well known of stemmed from love. Her love of her family, her love of her home, her love of Tora. All sense of humanity had remained because of that very human love that had crossed into death and eternity.
And there, in that flicker of a moment, he understood.
Those of the most powerful and vicious of the vampires that continued to live were stone cold because of that lack of love from humanity.
It was ironic, he would have mused, but it had all occurred in a flicker of a moment.
And there, that gentle tilting of his head back signified more than words could ever say.
She had gazed blankly at him. A quick flutter of a thought came into his mind that she really was young and inexperienced, made unassuming by the lack of stark realities.
I paid a high price long ago for this life. There was the lightest trace of melancholy there, but it was mostly unnoticed by both, buried by those thousands of years of time passing. I do not want it to end yet. I offer you my blood in return for the blood I have spilled.
There was an uttering of sacred truth in those words, an acknowledgement, an understanding, and a final means of an apology.
His eyes softened, shying away from their previous intensity. There was no more that he could do nor was there any more that could be done. Such fatalistic tendencies were not known within him, but he knew that a finality was reached whether or not his existence was snuffed in the next second or not. He didn't care and was slightly amused by the very likely probability that Risika had not fully understood the seriousness of the offering. She was still young and viewed the world from her own tainted eyes alone.
He waited patiently within those few moments in which she was churning those thoughts within her mind. In all rationality, it was more than a fair offer on his part. In all emotionality, it was a disgrace that such a sacrilege could be offered to the loved. In all cruel mixtures of cunning and deviousness, he could still very well lose his blood and life.
And there was that sudden transformation from that bold strong tiger to that equally strong vampire within human form. And there was that moment, known to every single thinking vampire in that room, in which he could have thrown her off and killed her within that flash of anger of that bare second. But that moment passed as soon as it came and the flash of anger expected by all, except perhaps the knowing Jager, never appeared.
There was a strange peace, a peace he had never known before in his tumultuous life, that fell, signified by that closed surrendering of eyes into the darkness and that sharp piercing of teeth and that long soft rush of blood, rushing away into another's life. And he was drawn into that moment, lost in perhaps the amazingly lack of pain, hummed into that trance of near unfeeling found from the lack of resistance to the inevitable.
The moment ended quickly enough, and he had lost that intangible sensation of peace, awakening perhaps to wonder if living was in fact better than that lost detachment of death. But that wonderment was questioned by the fact that it was out of his hands now. He watched as Risika picked up the knife that had been lying on the floor a few mere moments before, a bit away from where he lay. She held the knife, contemplating, musing at the strange twist of events. There was her hand, fingertips gently tracing that scar he had given her a long time ago. He knew that she was unconsciously remembering everything that had went with it.
His mind briefly identified that sharp, burning, cutting sensation of the knife's blade, dragging along his skin, but the pain was detached as if there was a part in his mind that decided to observe and record, but decided not to experience. He knew instantly that the scar that would last on his skin was the same to the minutest detail as hers. He could only venture a guess at how many times those fingertips had memorized that faint path across her collarbones.
"Remember this day, Aubrey," she announced in her actual voice. "The wound you dealt long ago has returned to you. I'll be satisfied with your blood, though it doesn't begin to replace the lives of Alexander and Tora." A glare. "Now get out." There was that sense of child in her voice and way of thinking, the young Goddess that needs to have the power to make the sun rise and set.
She got up, not bothering to brush off the blood that had already begun to dry on her clothes. She was strong again, as she deserved to be. There was nothing more, only the closing finales. Only just now had he begun to realize that incredible loss of strength and power. The weakness would have been nauseating were he not so fatigued. He managed to stand very carefully, balancing between the two wills of simply giving up and collapsing and the other more insistent one of that ever-persistent pride and determination to continue. And there, when he stood, was his own hand, fingertips tracing the first scar he had ever had in a few thousand years.
That instinctive need to survive struck again, biting more sharply, screaming at him to feed. Yet, thankfully perhaps, it wasn't overwhelmingly strong enough to overpower that hint of rationality that grudgingly warned him that this was not the place to sate that hunger. He captured Jager's eye and saw that brief acknowledgement and understanding found there. He nodded ever so slightly and fleetingly, a gesture lost to many, before leaving the club.
And ever so musingly, he had found that peace and meaning in a flicker of humanity that night.
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A/N: And that was the end… how I adore Risika and Aubrey interactions. :) I tried to portray Aubrey in a slightly different light then we are used to seeing. And yes, this is essentially Aubrey's version of the tale. Read between the lines in Risika's version of the tale in the book; she can become quite the angry narrator and commentator. Hopefully, I managed to create a rather in-character feasible Aubrey that is not terribly evil, nor terribly good, nor terribly cynical, nor terribly humanistic. And if I didn't, I did try, you know. Whether or not there might be more to this, only time will tell. You know me. I almost have a near phobia of writing anything novel length. Anyway enough about me!
Please review. Reviews are always extraordinarily welcome. Comments, constructive criticism, rants, ramblings, suggestions so on and so forth are all welcome. Did I fudge up on spellings and grammatical errors? (Note on the later, I do intentionally fudge at times. *winks*) Are my characters completely out of character that you want to smack me with every single Amelia Atwater-Rhodes book you own? Is there something pathetically wrong about my cannon versions of things? (Note, yet again. Only the first book was used as cannon. Everything else was a free for all.) Did I make you chuckle or burst out laughing unintentionally? Did you gag pathetically at the absurd nature of it all? Reviews s'il vous plait! Without them, you'd have to survive me in my bad state of an attempt at writing time after time again, crowding up the poor fanfiction site.