So, I give in. I've had this story (or at least the basic idea of it) running havoc in my mind for several months now. Seeing as it currently keeps me from writing an original story I saw no other way to silence the nagging voice in my head than to write it down. And to keep me writing the story once it is started I decided to post it here, hoping someone out there might enjoy reading it.
Disclaimer: Well, obviously the Carpathians and everything about them and their back story doesn't belong to me. The Sirens and the Rhinedragons as well as Doru however, have all found their way into this world through my (right now quite annoying) mind ;)
16 years ago
"I've never seen you here before." Doru turned around hastily and stared at the little girl that had spoken to him. She was still a baby, he could tell. Her dark hair framed a soft round face with huge dark eyes, a tiny snub nose and a frowning little mouth.
Her hands rested on her hips as she stood there with her head tilted to the side. She looked him up and down as though he was something she had never seen. Then again, he probably was.
"Do you understand me?" she asked him when he didn't respond to her initial remark. Now it was his turn to frown. Did she take him for an idiot?
"Why shouldn't I understand you?"
The little girl shrugged her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at him.
"You just look...exotic." she finally decided. Doru's frown deepened at that. He scoffed irritable at her and turned away from the girl, ready to walk back to the house. But a little hand reached for the sleeve of his shirt.
"Please, wait. I didn't mean to make you angry. I... I'm not like most of the other people myself." the last part of the sentence was only a small whisper in the darkness. Doru turned back around to the girl and pulled his arm free from her grasp.
"I'm not exotic. I'm totally normal. And you don't look different to the other people around here either."
The little girl didn't answer but her lips pressed together in a thin line.
"You shouldn't be out here this late. A baby like you should already be in bed!"
Her little chin came out and she made a step towards him.
"I'm not a baby! I'm almost six! And you aren't that much older!"
"I'm nine." Doru threw his shoulders back in an attempt to make himself appear taller.
"That's not that much older! My sister is nine, too." Doru scoffed at her. What did she knew. She was only a little child while he was almost a teenager. And he was a boy. Of course he knew better than her. And he would tell her that right now.
"Kalli? Kalli were are you? Papa wants you to come back in." Doru stood there with his mouth hanging open as he saw another girl walking around the corner. She was a bit taller than the girl in front of him, but not by much. And where the little girl was darkness, the newcomer was light. Her skin almost translucent, her hair shimmering in a tone between silver and gold, even in the light of the setting sun.
Kalli didn't turn as she heard her sisters voice calling for her. She stayed as she was, glaring up at the new neighbouring boy. And she saw what she always saw at people's faces when they saw Ley for the first time. Absolute awe. She knew her sister was pretty. Of course she was. But it sure became tiresome to talk to people only to have them stop listening once Ley was near. So she did the first thing that came to her mind to get the boy's attention back: she kicked him against his shin.
Doru screamed as the little hellcat kicked his shin. What was she still doing there? Before he could yell at her, the blonde girl had caught the younger one's hand and was pulling her away from him without so much as passing him a glance. Doru rubbed his throbbing shin while he glared after the two girls before he walked back into the house.
***
The next evening, Doru was playing in the garden with a plastic sword his foster father had given him that day. He was fighting with hundreds of invisible opponents at one, gloriously defeating them all.
"So? Where do you come from?" Doru snapped around and the plastic sword hit the apple tree he was standing under. Luckily for him the apples weren't ripe yet or he might have caught one of them on his head.
"What do you want?" he growled at the troublesome child from the day before. She had climbed over the small fence that surrounded the garden and was leaning against it.
"I thought we could be friends." Doru had to laugh at that.
"Do you always kick your friends?"
"I don't have any friends." she told him as though she was merely talking about the weather.
"Wonder why." Doru muttered and glared at her.
"Because I'm not pretty as Ley is."
"What?" The little girl shrugged and sighed.
"Ley is beautiful. Of course people want to be her friend and not mine. I had thought … but you have seen Ley already. You don't want to be my friend either." Doru saw her shoulders slump. Before he could even try to understand her she had already made her way back over the fence and was running away.
He told himself, that it was better that way. He didn't want to be friends with a baby. Especially not such a weird one. So he went back to practice sword fighting until his foster mother called him inside for dinner.
He didn't see the strange girl for the next weeks. Then one evening, he saw her sitting on the meadow behind his foster parents' garden. She had her back to him and her head was bowed. Doru told himself he should just let her be, but he couldn't bring himself to let her sit there alone in the cold twilight. He sighed heavily and slowly made his way to her side.
"You didn't have to come here. I just wanted to be alone and I know my family won't come here. " she told him softly once he stood next to her. She didn't lift her head but he saw that her cheeks and nose were bright red and puffy.
"Why are you crying?" he asked uncomfortable and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets.
"Because I'm stupid." Doru frowned. What kind of reasoning was that? As though she could read his mind she sniffled and started to explain.
"I though, that maybe, one day, they would see that I'm not so bad. I know I'm not right, but I could be worse. Or at least, I had thought so. But I was wrong. I heard them talking about me. About how wrong I am. They think I'm a punishment for them." Doru was taken aback at what he heard. This girl had either the scariest imagination or a real fucked up family.
"I look like my father, but I'm a girl! I should look like Mama and Ley." she said as though that would explain everything.
"There are other girls that look more like their fathers than their mothers." Doru argued and crouched down in the grass.
"But they aren't like us. They are normal. They aren't..." Kalli clapped her hands on her mouth and looked at him with wide eyes. She had almost let it slip. Had almost given her families secret away to a stranger. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes. No wonder her family thought her a failure. She was one.
Doru's heart clenched as he watched her dark head burrowed in her hands as she cried anew. Awkwardly he reached his hand out and stroke her trembling shoulder.
"I'm sure you misunderstood them." he told her and hoped she would stop crying. Instead she threw herself into his arms and cried against his chest. Doru sat there completely shocked. Not knowing what he was supposed to do with the crying child. He had seen people stroking the crying child's back at such an occasion and decided, that he could at least try it. But just as he was about to bring his hand on her back was she suddenly pulled away from him. Doru looked up at the tall man looming above him.
The look the man gave him was enough to make him scramble back his feet. Now that he was able to get a better look at the huge man he could see the resemblance between him and the girl. They both had the same dark hair, an undefinable mixture between red, brown and black and the same dark brown eyes. But where the girl's face was all softness the man's looked like it was made of stone.
"Kallianassa, you were told not to wander around alone." the booming voice of the man scolded the child which he held on one arm like a rag doll. Like her sister he didn't even glance at Doru as he pulled his struggling daughter away.
Doru had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn't eat that evening at dinner, his stomach not able to keep anything inside while his thoughts were with the little girl – Kalliasomething. A strange name she had. But then, Doru wasn't that common around here either. But his name was all he had from his past.
His foster mother put her hand on his face and checked his temperature, worried, that he might come down with the flu. She send him to bed early and Doru went without arguing. His dreams were troubling. Again and again he saw the huge man pulling the fragile little girl away and him standing behind and doing nothing. He had done nothing. But he should have done something. He should have protected her. Annoying or not, she didn't deserve to be treated so harshly.
"I'm not annoying. And you couldn't have done anything." Doru whirled around and saw the girl standing before him. Her hair was up in a complicated hairdo and she was wearing a silvery princess dress.
"You like it?" she asked him and made a pirouette before him.
"What... what are you doing here? It's the middle of the night."
"Of course it is. Otherwise I couldn't be in your dreams."
Doru frowned and looked around. He was still standing on the meadow but it was the middle of the night. The full moon was shining brightly down on them.
"I'm dreaming you?"
"No. I'm in your dreams. But you didn't bring me here. I came on my own."
"You can go into other people's dreams?!" Doru took several steps away from her. This was a really weird dream.
"Why are you surprised? You should know about … being able to do things others can't. You can too. Well, not dreamwalk, but I've seen in your mind that you can do some things others can't. And there are things you can't do that others can. You can't bear the bright sun. You aren't normal either, right?" Her voice was soft and not the least bit teasing or mean. Doru sighed heavily and let himself fall down onto the grass.
"I don't know what I am. I was found as a baby and brought to an orphanage. All I know is my name." he pulled out the wooden cross from where it hang on the leather band underneath his pyjama top.
"I can't read yet." she reminded him.
"My name is Doru. Doru Lupei." The girl sat slowly down next to him and looked at him for some time before speaking.
"That doesn't sound German."
"It's Romanian. But there was no sign of any relatives."
"They aren't your parents?"
Doru shook his head as he thought about his foster parents.
"No, but I wish they were."
"They love you."
Doru looked at her as she stated this and flinched. Parents didn't seem to be a good thing to speak about after what he had seen earlier this evening.
"Your name doesn't sound German either." he said instead. She shook her head.
"It's Greek. I'm named after a water nymph."
"Your name is complicated." Doru decided and looked up at the moon.
"Kallianassa?" the girl shrugged her shoulders. "You can call me Kalli." With a small smile she added "I always wanted to say my friends may call me that."
Doru turned his eyes to her and watched her for several moments.
"You seem older than almost six. When you speak like this, I mean." Kalli nodded and angrily put a streak of hair behind her ear that fluttered before her eyes.
"So do you. It's because we are different."
"What are you?"
Kalli bit her lip and looked away. Suddenly a river appeared a few metres away from them dividing the meadow. Laughter could be heard from the water and as Doru leaned a bit forward he saw women smiling at him from the river. When he saw that they weren't wearing anything he frowned at Kalli. But she just pointed back at the scene at the river. A large dark Dragon flew over it and the women in the water laughed joyfully up at the large creature.
Doru frowned as the scene disappeared.
"So... where that mermaids? Are you a mermaid?" Kalli nodded slowly and pulled her legs close, resting her head on her knees.
"Partly. And partly a Dragon."
"A Dragon?"
"Yes, normally, the girls born will become mermaids. They are all beautiful. Light hair and eyes and skin and wonderful voices. The boys are darker and become a Dragon once they grow up. I'm wrong. I look like a Dragon, not like a mermaid. That's why they are so disappointed. I'm not right. I'm not pretty and though I love to sing, it's nothing compared to what my sister's voice sounds."
"You are pretty." Doru murmured. Kalli considered this for several moments before a smile grew on her face.
"Thank you." They sat in silence for the rest of the night and when morning came Doru found himself reluctant to wake up. But Kalli promised him to visit his dreams again, if he allowed it. He hadn't wanted her as a friend, and yet Doru found himself unable to keep the little girl that was so different from other as he was from worming her way into his heart.
***
10 years ago
A desperate knock on his bedroom door caused Doru to put the atlas aside and to rise from the bed where he had been lying on. It was early afternoon. A time he had been spending inside for the past five years. His intolerance for sunlight had become worse the older he had become.
As he now opened the door he saw his best friend standing before him, shaking all over her body.
"Kalli, what's wrong?" he ushered her into the room and made her sit on the bed, putting a blanket around her shoulders although it was August. But Kalli didn't answer him. She only shook her head and looked at him pleadingly. As though she was willing him to understand her without words. But he couldn't.
"Kalli, talk to me. Have they done something? Have they said something bad again?" One day he would go to her family and send them all to hell. The older Kalli had become, the worse had her family reacted to her. Had she been looked down upon as a little child they were now almost ignoring her completely. She had passed her twelfth birthday without changing into a Dragon. She hadn't even made that. The last year had been hell for her, and he hadn't been able to do anything but hold her and tell her it would one day be better.
Kalli shook her head again and left the bed to go toward his desk. Looking around at the chaos on the desk of a fifteen year old boy she finally grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and hastily began to scribble something. After what seemed like an eternity to Doru she handed him the paper and looked at him expectantly.
Doru frowned down at what she had written.
It changed. My voice. Well, I don't think it changed, I still sound the same to me, but not to others. They react. My voice is like Ley's or Mama's. I can never speak to anybody again without all men acting crazy around me. It was better when I hadn't any change than that!
Kalli stood there before him, wringing her hands as he read with excruciating slowness. He let the paper down slowly and looked up at her. As Doru stood up and made a step towards her Kalli shook her head and made a step back.
"Kalli. Let me help you. Please. We can will go away. We will just..." Kalli shook her head vehemently and went to the desk again. She hastily wrote something down and held the note out to him.
I can't ever talk to you again! You will act just like everyone else. I couldn't stand it. Not from you.
Doru saw the pain on her face as the words of the note sank in.
"No. Kalli. You're not going to pull back completely because of this. You hear me? I'm not letting this happen." Doru had his hands on Kalli's shoulders and kept her from leaving the room.
"Talk to me." Kalli let her head hang low and simply shook her head over and over again. Her long dark curls were covering her face completely.
"Kalli. You've been inside my head almost every night in the past six years. You know me better than that."
Kalli felt the fear growing inside of her as she thought about losing her best, her only friend. Forever. To think that years ago she had wished for this gift. But without the looks of a Siren her voice was nothing but a farce. Kalli had always been a shadow, invisible to those around her when her mother or Ley were around. She had been sad then. Now she was still invisible, not worth noticing. Unless she opened her mouth and spoke or even worse: sang. Then she suddenly was surrounded by men searching her attention. Men who normally wouldn't spare her a second glance. Her voice wasn't a gift. It was a curse.
But Doru didn't understand. Didn't believe it could be so bad. She had to prove him. Had to speak. And then she would lose him forever. Because she would run away from him as fast as possible and never come back.
She took a deep breath and whispered his name, not daring to speak louder. It was enough. It would happen any moment now. His eyes would change. He would look at her as though she was food to a starving man. Kalli winced when Doru but his hand on her cheek and pulled her head up to look at him.
"Kalli, it's okay. It won't change a thing. I'm always here for you. I promise." Kalli frowned. This couldn't be.
"How do I sound to you? How do I look to you?" she pressed out between sobs. She had her hands flat on his chest and they were shivering awfully right now.
"Like always. Like Kalli."
More sobs erupted her throat as she threw her arms around his neck. Doru put his arms around her smaller form and just let her cry her heart out.
"How can this be. Why don't you react like everyone else?" Doru stroke slowly through her long hair.
"I thought we had established a long time ago that neither of us is like all the others." Kalli let out small laugh. Doru was still there. She hadn't lost the only person who had ever really cared for her. The only family she had. She could talk with him. As she always had. Just around all the others would she be mute. But that was okay. She had her best friend.
Kalli dried her tears but stayed a bit longer in Doru's embrace. She just needed that right now. To know that there was someone there.
"What were you doing." she asked after some time and pulled slowly away.
"Ah, just looking around in the atlas."
"Found your dream?"
"No. It's harder than I thought. Those glimpses you found there," he tabbed his forehead with his finger "leave to much open to give me anything concrete."
"We'll find it. We'll find out where your parents were from. Together."
"The two musketeers." Doru grinned at her and was glad to see her laugh at that.
"Yeah, the two musketeers."
***
Today
"Loreley, Kallianassa, come here, your grandmother has arrived." The contempt their mother felt for her mother-in-law was obvious as she called her daughters. The sisters made their way out of the house to greet their grandmother. While Ley was almost dancing in her movements, Kalli was moving more slowly, dreading to face yet another relative who would be disappointed in her.
A stunningly beautiful woman awaited them in the courtyard. Although Kalli knew her grandmother had already lived almost a millennium she didn't appear to be older than a middle-aged human woman. Her hair had the soft golden tone of the Sirens and her skin was the palest white ever seen. She was kissing Ley on both her cheeks and praised her beauty as Kalli stopped a few feet away from them.
Her grandmother's gaze met hers and she beckoned the younger woman to come to her.
"Kallianassa, come here." her voice was sweet and melodious, strong enough to even make another Siren do her bidding. Kalli hesitantly stepped closer to her elder.
"Don't fear me child. You are of my blood, I do not wish you harm." The old Siren whispered to Kalli as she took her hands in her own and kissed her granddaughter's cheeks.
"Show me to my quarters, will you?" Before Kalli could so much as think about answering her grandmother pulled her into the house with her. Ley, not to be left behind hurried to keep up with them.
Her grandmother was nothing what Kalli had imagined. She didn't have any traces of her father's fierceness or her mother's haughtiness. She was the kindest and sweetest woman Kalli had ever met. And though she was reluctant to do so, Kalli sang with her the old songs of the Sirens and her grandmother praised her voice to be one of the most beautiful voices she had ever heard.
She didn't get along very well with Kalli's mother and it brought her seemingly endless joy to aggravate her whenever she could. And most often she didn't even have to try hard to do so. As this day at the dinner table.
"You're late again, Kallianassa." Kalli's mother reprimanded her as she ran into the dining room just as the dinner was set on the table.
"I'm sorry Mama."
"Oh, leave her alone. She is not a little child. If I understand it correctly, she has passed her twentieth summer already, have you not?" Kalli nodded at her grandmother's question and replied that she was twenty-three.
"That doesn't mean she should hang around this human man so much. Even less so, seeing as she is grown up now."
"Human man?"
"It's not like that with Doru and you know that Mama."
"I ask again, what human man?" Her grandmother's fingers was soft on Kalli's hand in an attempt to get her attention.
"He isn't exactly human. Like we aren't. Doru is a friend. Nothing more." she hastily added the last part as she saw her grandmother's eyes sparkle.
"He is like a brother to me." Her father scoffed at that and put his glass harshly onto the table.
"I told you before to stay away from him."
Kalli bowed her head and remained silent. It would only get her in trouble would she say something now. But her grandmother wouldn't have any of that.
"I want to know about this young man."
"Eistla. Please, we are trying to keep her away from such people, not encourage her to seek them out."
"Lau, I'm aware you are my son's wife and my granddaughters' mother, that doesn't mean however, that I let myself be silenced by you." Her grandmother squeezed Kalli's hand slightly.
"Go on, tell me about your friend."
Hesitantly, Kalli started to tell her Doru's story. That he was an orphan who had been raised by foster parents in the neighbourhood. That he had pictures of wild landscapes in his mind, buried very deep and barely conscious. How they had tried for years now to find out where exactly in Romania his parents had been from. That he had started to learn Romanian to be able to travel to the country of his origin and maybe find some relatives.
While she spoke her parents stopped eating altogether and while Ley and her grandmother listened intently, Kalli's mother blanched with every word Kalli said. At one point she shoved her chair away from the table with a screeching sound and arose.
Three pairs of eyes flew to her mother while Kalli's grandmother's gaze rested on Kalli's face, lost in thought.
"So they do still exist."
"Eistla!" Kalli's mother jerked around sharply in another attempt to silence her mother-in-law. But the older Siren was not intimidated by that.
"Who? Whom are you talking about?" Ley asked her grandmother, hoping to hear some fascinating story, not caring what her mother thought. She wouldn't be angry at her anyway.
"The Carpathians."
"EISTLA!"
"Oh, stop you yelling. Your sister was happy with her lifemate. But you could never understand that."
"What is a lifemate?"
"Ley, not you too."
"The Carpathians are as old as our own people. Like we do, they appear completely human. And like us, they aren't." Kalli's mother let out a frustrated yell and slammed her hands onto the table.
"If this human isn't human but a vampire it is all the more reason for Kalli to stay away from him. We have finally managed to find a Dragon who is willing to take her as his wife even though she is inadequate. I will not have her disgrace our family by spending time with such a beast."
Kalli's grandmother calmly sipped from her glass while she listened to the younger woman's screaming.
"You do know that they aren't vampires."
"They drink blood! I don't care what they call themselves, I don't care if they claim that only a few of them turn. They are all the same savage beasts."
Kalli's mind raced. She wasn't even listening any longer at what the other women were yelling about. A Dragon. To take her as his wife. She didn't want to marry. Certainly not some Dragon who had lowered himself into a marriage with her. Without another word she arose from her chair and left the room. She was sure her parents were yelling at her to sit back down but she couldn't. Not now. She left the house through the back door and made a few shaking steps. Her heart slammed in her chest. Thoughts whirled in her head. Her body felt to small all of a sudden.
She slipped out of her shoes and left them by the house as she ran through the grass, feeling the wet blades against her bare skin. As she ran she took her clothes off one at a time. It was the least she could do when she would have wanted to shed her skin like a snake could. She reached the small lake which had been reason for her parents to live here and jumped head first into it.
Being in the water. Being one with the water helped. But only a little. She came up to the surface and screamed into the darkness. All her life had she been aware of her failure and she was sick of it. And now it poured out of her. It all came out in the one way all Siren's dealt with such emotions. Her voice rose clear and loud to the sky. For once she didn't care if anyone could hear her.
"I don't know who I am.
Where else shall I go to, I'm afraid.
It's deep inside of me.
Sometimes I cry silently, can you understand me.
No one answers me when I ask
What I'm allowed to desire.
The sky is black now, the sky is empty now,
I look up and see no stars anymore."
"Maybe you need some time away from your family."
Kalli spun around in the water to see her grandmother standing at the edge of the lake. She slowly swam back to the shore and sat down in the grass as her grandmother crouched down beside her. The older Siren stroke through Kalli's hair and wrapped her in the towel she had brought with her.
"I had always hoped I had raised your father right. I fear now, I should have done better than I have." Kalli remained silent as her grandmother gently dried her back.
"If your friend really is Carpathian, he needs to go back there to find his family. You could go with him. Look at it as some kind of holiday."
"And when I come back they'll marry me off to some Dragon and for the rest of my life I can listen to my beloved husband calling me unworthy." Her grandmother stopped in her stroking movements and regarded the young woman before her. How could her parents have been so cold and harmful to her.
"You look a lot like your grandfather."
Kalli scoffed at that. Of course she did. It was part of her problem.
"I loved that Dragon dearly. I could never hate someone who looked so much like him. And you know, he was also very determined. Had he made up his mind, no one could make him change it again. I hope that passed onto you as well, Kallianassa. Don't let them hurt you anymore."
"Why is Mama so against those Carpathians?" Kalli tried to change the subject, but her grandmother let it pass and sat down beside her.
"I'm not sure. Your aunt was different. Although they were raised together, were even twins, they turned out so differently. Fionnuala was very open-minded. Never had she raised her voice at anyone. She was kind and loving and caring. Sometimes I think your mother was jealous of her. The Carpathian Males would do anything for their lifemates. Their happiness and safety is most important to them. Your parent's marriage wasn't a love match." She looked out over the dark surface of the lake and let it all sink into her granddaughter's mind.
"Kalli, should you ever need my help, know that I'll be there for you. Should you not like this Dragon, I won't let them give you to him. That I swear by the seven seas." Kalli looked grateful up at her grandmother and leaned against her warm embrace.
"Thank you."
"And now to your friend again. I will write down the Places I remember the Carpathians lived in centuries ago. I can't tell you where they are today. Up until this evening I thought they had all been killed long ago. Let's hope your friend isn't the only survivor."
The two Sirens continued to sit at the shore for some more time before they made their way back home. Kalli had already decided what she would do. She would take her grandmother's advice and help Doru find his relatives. She hastily threw some clothes into a rucksack and took the list of town and village names her grandmother had given her. While her parents were fast asleep she slipped out of the house and made her way to Doru's.
His foster parents had died two years ago, leaving the twenty-five year old alone in the big house. He worked as a translator, so he wouldn't have to leave the house in the morning and stay out the entire day. Kalli knew he loved the night-time and as she had expected there was still light on in his bedroom. She gathered some small stones from the garden and started throwing them at his window. After the third stone the window opened and Doru glared down at her.
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Time to leave!"
"What?!"
"I'll explain, just let me in. You need to start packing." Perplexed Doru starred down at his friend and after some more ushering from her complied and came downstairs to open the door for her. On their way back up to his room she told him about her grandmother and what she had told her about the Carpathians. She also shoved the list in his face as she pulled an old rucksack down from where it lay on top of his armoire.
"Hurry, back together what you need. We have to leave now. We have to get as far as possible before my parents notice me gone." Doru just looked at her as though she was some alien talking a foreign language and so Kalli took it upon herself to open his armoire and stuff some clothes into the rucksack, while telling him about the marriage her parents were planning.
"Hey, you think you can put your underwear in here on your own?" Doru snapped back into reality and pulled the rucksack out of Kalli's hands.
"Do you really think this is true? That your grandmother is right?" He didn't dare hope yet. So long he had been searching for his identity. Could it really be that he finally had the chance of finding his origin?
"Only one way to find out. Hope your car's tank if full."Kalli paced around in his room while Doru finished packing.
"You want us to drive all the way to Romania?"
"Of course not. We have to drive to the nearest airport and get a plane to Bucharest. And there we will rent a car and look for these places." Kalli stepped up to Doru and took his face into her hands.
"If your family is out there, we will find it. The musketeers, remember?"
And so they drove away, leaving all that they knew behind them in the middle of the night for a journey east with a barely known destination.
Lyrics: Purple Schulz – Ich will raus – Sehnsucht '99
