Disclaimer: All characters appearing within this story are creations of myself and three friends -- Shelbi Noffsinger, Dian Nyobe, and Lonijae Simonton. All locations within this story are also of our creation.
Under the pallid shower of the moon on a balmy summer night, a titan among men folded his arms over his chest. A gentle breeze feathered through his crimson mane, noble and prideful like that of a lion in its taper to the small of his back. Dried dirt kicked up in waves, the brown particles discontent with their sedentary existence, and catching whispers of wind like flights to the next settlement.
Behind this titan, in the distance as it were, was a line of trees, a scattering of trunks and shrubs, of greenery and scurrying creatures. And across from him stood fast a man and a woman -- his subordinates and friends -- Dilante and Thornika.
Thorn was tall, with long, toned legs that wound up and into her femininely sculpted hips like the roads to the Holy Grail. A narrow waist, enticing in its curvature, hid beneath a black camisol and a denim jacket. Her raven hair fell in cascades over her shoulder, and framed a milky face that touted its own beauty in her very countenance. And as the coup de grace, chilling blue eyes, like icicles, stabbed at the visible world, seemingly daunting everything and everyone that stood in her way.
Dilante looked to be the average man, at least in terms of stature. Shaggy black hair ruffled in the wind, and sharp green eyes absorbed the world around him. A black track jacket hung loosely against him, and jeans sat over simple sneakers. His expression, Dilante always being the one for levity, held an almost comical sarcasm to it by default. He rested his hands in his pockets aloofly and bobbed his head as if to music.
The titan, Manzikert, grinned competitively. Silver eyes brilliantly illuminated his head, set behind the foreground of his mane. He was the tallest of them, the crown of his head scraping six and a half feet. Evenly defined, his lean musculature belied the strength that resided within, and eagerly awaited to be released from, every muscle fiber and striation of his body. Set upon his shoulders, as much as a restraint as an article of clothing, was a cumbersome black mantle, complete with a battle-tattered cloak. Rustled burgundy pants covered his legs, and brown boots provided ankle support. And as a show of his rank, a golden brooch clipped to the on his chest -- The Nemean Lion, a creature of mythology that was considered his family's ancestral spirit.
"The two of you haven't fatigued already, have you?" Manzikert goaded. "I should say that this would be a poor show of might, especially combined, if you surrender with such a pitious effort."
Dilante shrugged, threw a sly grin to Thorn, who much to his surprise, was already in the course of a beeline toward Manzikert. Man, she's gonna get us killed one day, he said to himself. Then, despite his own reservations about such a hasty offensive, Dilante sprang into action as well.
Thorn had already leapt daringly into the air, her scythe in tow, to rain down on Manzikert with a swift strike. A silver gleam, the screech of metal, and the vampire found herself halted in midflight. She had seen the captain (though by no means did she consider him to be her leader) perform supernatural feats of strength and reaction, but never before had his senses been acute enough to catch the pole of her scythe in the zenith of its assault.
In an ill-advised choice, Dilante, assuming he now had the opportunity to strike while Manzikert was distracted, dashed until he had come in range, and opted for a sweep of the legs, but before he could drop to perform the kick, he felt the weight of Thorn crashing against his body like a projectile. The two of them tumbled like stray weeds in the desert, tangled together, through the dirt, while Manzikert stifled chuckles at their misfortune.
At last they came to a stop, covered with dirt and grass stains, and picked themselves apart from each other. Dilante sat on his butt, rubbing his temples, while Thorn pulled herself together and banished her otherworldly scythe to its interdimensional home. They glanced at each other -- Thorn with pursed lips and Dilante with a detached smile, then both cast slighting sights on the third present.
"It was supposed to be a spar," Thorn complained viciously, ice in her words.
"Not a human shield exhibition," Dilante interjected.
Thorn spat angrily, "I'm not a human."
Manzikert interloped before another argument on Thorn's choice of species could ignite, "Never mind the spar." He cracked his neck, relieving the constant tension, and strided toward them, settling a few feet away before speaking again. "We've been charged with a new operation that will begin tomorrow."
Dilante griped now, preferring to give himself time to recuperate unlike his bulky friend and the vampire, who had regenerative properties anyway. "Aww man we just came off of a mission. Can't we ever just, you know, take a break?"
"Aww poor little human," Thorn taunted, shooting Dilante a snide smirk.
"Bickering children," sighed Manzikert, shielding the words under his breath.
"What'd you call me you prick?" hissed Thorn, stepping toward him threateningly. "Did you just call me a child?"
Dilante backed away for fear of a feminine explosion. He'd learned in just the few months that he'd been traveling with the pair that although Hell has no wrath like a woman scorned, no woman had wrath like the vampire Thorn. He covered his mouth with a hand, feigning a cough to conceal his laughter.
"No," Manzikert solidly answered. "I believe 'bickering' preceded 'children,' the plural form of child, and thus, singularly, I referred to you as a 'bickering child.'"
Silence. Stillness. And then a flash of pale skin as Thorn pounced on her officer like a cougar on its prey, slashing and chomping at him as effectively as she could, but due to Manzikert's overwhelming strength and advantage in reach, he staved her off for the first few moments of her raging assault, at least until they had hit the dirt.
Dilante watched, wide-eyed and still laughing, as the two of them wrestled about in the dirt like children over a piece of candy. And he called us children, mused the tracker. He pulled his from his pocket and gave it a glance to find that it was well past his time to return.
He shrugged, "So err, you guys keep wrestling, I have shit to do."
Thorn palmed, to the best of her abilites when comparing his large head to her small hand, Manzikert's face and held him to the dirt, while he wrapped an engulfing hand around her throat. They paused, gave each other a fleeting connection of the eyes, then rose from the dirt separately and dusted themselves off.
"I suppose then that I should make this debriefing rather brief," Manzikert surmised, ignoring the cold glare that he received from Thorn. "An Ambassador from the nation Alexandria will be arriving tonight in Aria, our capital. Alexandria is a small nation, but it has collaborated with Achea during war many times in the past, and is one of our premier trading partners. It is our responsibility to escort the Ambassador, Mrs. Talia Masanon, from Aria to The Festival of the Summer Sun, where she is slated to engage in a press conference. It is an honor to be given this assignment, which will last us approximately three days, and I will not tolerate tardiness or disrespect in the slightest manner."
Thorn scoffed, turned toward the moon. At one point she had been an official, the director of the Coven's Defensive Military Procedures. Now she was taking orders from nothing more than an oversized human with too much time on his hands. At least Dilante, for what it was worth, offered her some real company and a few laughs now and again, as opposed to Manzikert who could never seem to pull his head out of his work long enough to smell coffee in the kitchen.
Dilante pursed his lips, irritated with all of the effort he had to exert just to complete his personal assignment. But, as always, an arch of his shoulders dismissed just about anything that distracted him from his most cherished of all possessions: calmness under any circumstances. Well, that and his hair.
A twinge of guilt racked Manzikert's body, tugged at his heartstrings like the keys of a piano. He shuddered, and repressed certain memories back to the recesses of his mind, where they belonged to stay.
"Everybody get some rest. I will see you bright and early." His voice was weakened, removed from the strength that it had exuded only moments ago.
"I'm sure I'll sleep real well, Prick," Thorn jabbed. "I'm a vampire -- NOCTURNAL -- meaning that I'm awake at night and sleep during the day." She continued to grumble, resigned to her diurnal fate as long as she traveled with the two men.
Without a word Dilante darted off into the forest, vanishing into the blending colors of the night.
"You've permission to take leave, Thornika," Manzikert feebly uttered, feet carrying him toward his house. Still he carried himself with a pride unfathomable, despite his apparently languid state.
"Like I need permission from you," she spat again, then scampered toward the trees herself, and in a single leap, became one with the benighted world as if she had been its child since birth.
Alone, the titan took himself into his self-constructed cabin. He had summoned Thorn and Dilante to the clearing where he resided, less as a form of training, and more because he had simply desired some company, temporary and belligerent as it was.
His house, as it could hardly be considered a home, was sparsely furbished and reflected his ascetic, military mindset. From his five years of official service to the Achean Imperial Military, and for the profession which he had all but perfected, Manzikert had amassed quite the fortune, but meted it for the most part to charities and public works projects, with the exemption of the antiques that he collected such as his wardrobe, armoire, and bathroom mirror. But even these reflected his lack of modern materialism.
He passed through the small kitchen and entered the singular bedroom of the house on the opposite side of the thin wall. In the center of the square, immaculate room was a king sized bed in a cherrywood frame of Manzikert's own craft. Quilts passed through the generations of his family set neatly folded at the foot of it, and two pillows rested at diagonals against the headboard. Manzikert shed his clothes, hanging his mantle-cloak as usual and leaving it beside his freshly pressed black suits in the wardrobe. He headed for the shower, rinsed lather from his hair, and stared at himself in the mirror.
Gilded with horns at each corner, the old sheet of silvered glass reciprocated hauntingly his consuming stare. Deep inside those silver eyes, beyond the pupils and the anatomical jargon, rested a beast, a behemoth that yearned to be released. With a gentle finger he pulled at the bottom of his eye lid, revealing the veins and capillaries relaxed on his sclera. At least for the night, that horrible monster rested, and wasn't a threat to himself, or the world.
Then came bed. The titan rolled back the comforter, reached for a quilt, and tucked himself away in the night. The terrors would accost him, rack his body with vivid pain as if being abused while paralyzed, petrified in his own body, but that was a worthwhile sacrifice to keep the beast tamed...