Reasoning
Daianta
Written while listening to the original sound track for Final Fantasy VII. Orchestra pieces FTW! There was also a little Nightwish here, too. They're cool for this sort of thing. So this came to me and wouldn't leave, so I wrote it out and I've now typed it up. I hope it's okay. Pairings are there if you want to see them like that; it's open to interpretation.
Word Count: 1967
If Vorador was the sun, then Janos Audron was the moon. A hidden gem, so to speak. If Vorador outshone him with his vampire-creating knowledge, then the blue vampire eclipsed him when it came to knowledge. The saying was Knowledge is Power, and Janos wielded that power with a gentle hand and a kind heart.
Janos was an enigma; he'd been alive for so long, he hardly knew human feelings. That is, he couldn't remember ever being human. Perhaps he had never been so. But he was the first, a reverent God and a pillar that generations after generations of vampires would look up to.
Vorador looked up to Janos, his sire. Born a human, Vorador had been turned by the reticent being, for reasons he still didn't understand. Perhaps he never will; for Janos will not talk about it but Vorador was curious. Far too curious for his own mental health. He'd spent forever thinking about it whenever he had a free moment; wasting hours upon days upon weeks: simply thinking.
Every path he carved in his mind left a blank slate; no answers.
Was it because he was an intelligent being? Had that been Janos' reasoning? He thirsted for knowledge, ate at it in the same way humans ate a well anticipated meal.
Vorador wasn't stupid; he was blessed with a brain that others didn't seem to understand, but he was easily outshone by his mentor and friend.
But that didn't matter. It was just the two of them for a little while. Holed up in the mountains; learning, exploring the realms of vampirism while villages bloomed and died at their feet. Up in the mountains, time isn't a concept. For vampires, time isn't a concept. As such, Vorador had no idea how long he had been up there, simply learning. It sounded like paradise; heaven on Earth for the intelligent, but the reality of it was so much more.
They started experimenting. Well, Vorador had. Janos merely watched his friend work, a sly smile on his lips. Janos always watched Vorador work, even if it was over meagre things. It was as if everything the vampire did pleased the winged one, no matter how mundane it was.
He created vampires, the reason for Janos' small but meaningful smiles. He transferred blood from his body into humans, forcing the change into a vampire, using the puncture wounds as a makeshift funnel. He first drank the intended victim's blood and substituted his own, closing the circle. His body would create more vampiric blood cells to take over the human ones, leaving the victim with vampire cells that would allow for the transformation.
It was cell theory, to be fair; a science that Vorador loved and Janos allowed him to explore seamlessly, without limitations. Science was a second nature to him, and his sire was aware of that fact. He had skilfully, without the other vampire realising until much later, added more and more equipment to the building they shared in the mountain to further fuel Vorador's passion in the science of vampire-human systems.
They knew that vampires could be born, having seen it with their own eyes when Vorador's 'children' sired their own undead offspring. To allow Vorador time to replenish his own very much depleted blood supply, Janos had played matchmaker to the town of vampires living at the foot of the hill, setting up a bigger colony of vampires to procreate and interact.
They, in turn, spread out across the land of Nosgoth, populating the place with their own children and symbolising a harmony between humans and vampires. They had a choice on whether to be turned or not, and Janos had deemed it that they obey a human's wishes. Janos' heart was really too soft to be a vampire, Vorador had often mentioned, but it suited him. To see him bloodthirsty and cruel was not in his nature.
However, there were drawbacks to having such a huge vampire colony at the bottom of your feet. Although a patient vampire by nature, Janos had grown weary with the endless noise and space issues that came with vampires and humans. He compensated by moving further up the mountain, abandoning the huge mansion that Vorador had come to love. The vampire was very house-proud.
Janos Audron was weary. He was weary with all the experimentations, lacking the will to push vampires to their limits. He would allow others to push themselves, allow others to unlock the secrets of their gift. Naturally, Vorador followed him like a lost puppy, even if it meant abandoning his research to lesser vampires. Thus, a new, tentative relationship between the two vampires was born. Janos had seen how reverent Vorador had held his labs and research, and was secretly pleased that his child had decided to follow him.
Of course, Vorador could never turn his sire down. It physically pained him to do so, even if there was no real pain involved. Nestled in a tiny corner of the mountain ranges they lived, passing the time learning new skills and talents, and expanding the library Janos had insisted they take with them. Everything else was abandoned to the other vampires. Given their love of books, this was a mutual decision.
What had been the clincher in their relationship was the loss of their souls to the Elder God; granting them immortality but the loss of their reverent God. Although not religious; for Vorador was a scientific man at heart and Janos seemed to prefer going with what he felt was right, it still hurt them physically.
The strange tugging sensations in their chests hadn't been given a cause and had been overlooked, a mistake that had cost the pair of them dearly. Of course, Vorador hadn't been able to distinguish it between other feelings he was experiencing, while Janos Audron wasn't one to openly admit when he was in pain. He was a strong, silent type at best.
When it reached a peak, pain almost unbearable, they realised something was wrong. Very wrong. Staggering, Vorador had walked over to place a hand over Janos' arm, other hand clawing at his chest. They didn't believe that their souls would truly be taken by the God that lived underneath them, and had under-estimated the being, big time. The ethereal part of their being left a wound in them that couldn't be repaired, although Vorador seemed to realise that now they were soulless, they were immortal. As such, they were released from the Wheel of Fate. News spread quickly across Nosgoth.
Janos had stood on the balcony after the mental anguish and physical pain had vanished, and simply stared into the distance. He didn't answer Vorador's pleas to come inside before the sun rose, and, growing increasingly fretful, he was worried Janos was going to commit suicide. He was at a loss. All around him, the news had spread and vampires were destroying themselves in quick succession, eager to be reunited with their God. They saw themselves as abominations; Vorador had to disagree. They were beings of absolute power and devastation.
After the soul-incident, humans began to see vampires in a different light, but they weren't segregated much. It was only after the Sarafan came in to dispose of the 'abominationsagainsttheirGod' that segregation happened on a large scale.
Janos was not an abomination, Vorador had mused to himself one evening after the call was sent out. He was the polar opposite, and if people were to sit down with him for ten minutes, even they could see what a kind-hearted soul he was. He didn't have to command respect, he earnt it by being himself. He was a silent soul in a cacophony of screams and vampires and humans alike gravitated towards him, although sometimes for the wrong reason. They didn't understand him, and so he came to be hunted. Vorador disagreed with them all, and cursed them for it, drawing on his emotions for power.
Things eventually settled down. The vampires that chose to live settled into their own camps, into a new world back in the towns and cities that had previously been deserted by their own kind. It was a camp like this that grew to become Meridian, the capital city.
Vorador remained by Janos' side, a thank you not needed but appreciated nonetheless.
The green vampire had been taught a lot by Janos: Two beings colliding together on a self-motivating quest for knowledge. They had come to appreciate each other's faults and merits; had seen each other's true emotions and knew each other inside out, back-to-front. Inadvertently, Vorador had taught Janos things too, like learning to stand up for himself. Not that he was a pushover, on the contrary; Vorador couldn't take him in a fight. (He'd tried many a time).
Somewhere along their massive timeline together, the lines between student and teacher, master and beginner had become blurred. Vorador had come to see Janos as more than a companion, but was unable to act upon his feelings. The term 'friendship' or 'companionship' had been thrown around a lot by vampires and humans eager to understand the dynamic between the first born vampire and the first created one. To be honest, not even they knew. It was a mass of emotions that none of them understood, much less wanted to dissect. The results would not be something the world would be ready for.
Inevitably, the words humans threw around, cast from vampire's lips themselves, could not be used to describe Janos Audron and Vorador.
When the sun was rising on a winter's morning, Vorador found himself drawn to the balcony, where Janos stood, stock-still against the horizon, hands gently holding onto the balustrade. His fingers would move ever so slightly now and again, as if caressing the metal underneath his fingers.
His black wings were folded back, tops lit by the sun and smouldering slightly, creating blue hues when you looked at it at different angles.
Both knew they could not stand out in the sun for long, but neither of them made any effort to move. Vorador was struck by how beautiful the winged vampire looked in the rising sunlight, handsome face hued by reddish light.
Vorador pressed a clawed hand to Janos' wing, threading through feathers with the touch only a lover could give. He was gentle, as he always had been, straightening a few feathers that appeared crooked and out of place, but that could have been Vorador merely wanting to touch. He moved his hand when he realised what he was doing, placing it on the heavily muscled shoulder of the other, older vampire. Janos turned to face him, the barest hint of a fang under curved lips, eyes dark and smiling. Such eyes held secrets like the heavens.
"Stay with me, Vorador."
Such a simple sentence, one that Janos needn't speak. It was an unwritten rule. Both men knew that they would stay, as they had demonstrated before. Vorador had spent forever with the vampire, and he would spend the rest of forever with him too.
The reasoning was simple; they were companions; intellectual enemies, chess-mates and something more, something that no vampire dared mention about. Such things were uncommon, but not unseen.
The word slipped from Vorador's mouth almost instantly, no need to disagree or refuse. He was un-hesitant, looking the vampire in the eye, small smile twitching the corner of devilish lips.
Vorador belonged to Janos in a way that an eagle belonged to the sky, or how the moon and the sun were irrevocably joined. His talons touched Janos' gently, bending together as he tugged the first vampire back into the building for safety.
"Always."