Jade honestly did not know if he were dead or alive. He couldn't move, it was like he was floating. Yet, every part of his body seemed to be in pain. He couldn't really be dead then, death can't possible be as painful as this. Or cold. Jade felt like every drop of warm blood in his body had just drained away, like he'd been buried in ice. All he could hear was the seemingly non-existent blood in his ears. But his breath still came in long, slow draws. He was still alive... for now. The fact that the pain was more intense in his mouth only made it harder to try to concentrate on what was happening.

Strange tingling in his throat...

It was hard for Jade to remember what happened before now. He knew that he'd gone to Tataroo valley, and some how, Luke had been there. What happened next? A flash of an insane laugh, and a sadistic face, and fangs... A vampire. He'd... he'd been bitten by a vampire? No. no, no , no. That wasn't possible, because vampires are mythical creatures. They don't exist, it's impossible for them to exist. The dead cannot live! He would have figured that out long ago if it were possible! But his neck had hurt so much...

Suddenly, the slow pulsing in his ears stopped, the feel of his heart beating in his chest disappeared, the pain ebbed away. He froze. Was he finally dying now? But what about everybody else? Luke, Anise, Tear, Natalia, Guy, did they know where he was? Were they with him, where ever the hell he was? did they know he was dying? He couldn't breath, his lungs were on fire, burning the oxygen away. He was choking and his body seemed to become number as the painless seconds dragged by. The pain was slowly disappearing... Jade didn't try to move, he welcomed death finally, with open arms.

...But it didn't come.

Cold, fresh air returned to his lungs, and he took in a long breath of air, taking note of the tingling (now a small urge to itch) in his throat, exhaling with confusion. He was... still alive? But where was the beating of his heart? Why couldn't he hear the blood pumping in his ears? It wasn't possible, he couldn't be...

"You may open your eyes now."

Where ever Jade was, he wasn't alone. He waited a few moments, the sound of some ones breathing next to him reached his ears, barely there. He tried to listen for anything else, but he appeared to be alone with the stranger.

"I know you're awake. You can't be asleep, vampires cannot sleep. Not even a new born."

A scent filled his nostrils. Something sweet and... rusty?

Vampires. New born? Jade finally opened his eyes a crack, and was met with moon light pouring in through a window. He stared ahead for a moment before noticing something. The slight blur caused by his fonic sight gathering fonons was just... not there. He turned his head, and his eyes made contact with a set of blood red eyes smiling back. The man next to him had black hair that seemed to have a silver sheen in it, and a cloak like the men in Tataroo Valley, but he had no hood. He also had a small gold symbol on his chest, a dagger, and a flower.

"Nice to see that you've woken up." The man said in a cool, smooth voice. He never broke eye contact, nor did he blink. "My name is Emindrunum. I am the third elder of the Grand Council. Now I suppose you'd like to know what that is, and where you are?" Emindrunum meant 'timeless problem' in Ancient Ispanion, if Jade was not mistaken. A fitting name for what he was.

The tingling was getting more intense...

Jade nodded. Emindrunum continued. "You are in Jue's Castle, the home of all the vampire race on Auldrant. The Grand Council, is the force that controls it. If you are thinking that Yulia Jue had some connection to this place, then you are correct." he smiled, confirming the question that had barely entered Jade's head. "Two thousand years ago, man kind was more... aware of our presence. But Yulia built this place for us, so that the men who hunted our kind was cease doing so." he explained. "We've lived here ever since."

Jade admitted (in his mind) that he was amazed. The entire (non-mythical) race of vampires had remained hidden since the Dawn Age. With the help of Yulia Jue. But how?! How had this castle remained unseen by anybody? Where could it have possible been built?

It went from tingling to burning... What was that smell?!

"I suppose..." Emindrunum continued again. "Not even the oldest of us remember how she did it... How this castle has stayed hidden from all of man kind for two thousand years... Rem and Shadow are powerful beings, after all."

Emindrunum smiled again as Jade's breath turned slightly shaky. "My apologies. I've spent to much time speaking. You must be thirsty, aren't you?" He reached over, some where out of Jade's sight, but when it came back, the scent and the burning in his throat became more intense. A simple. clear glass cup was in Emindrunum's hand. Not of water, like you would normally give a person when they were just about dead, blood.

Jade didn't know exactly what happened, but when he opened his eyes again, both he and Emindrunum were on the floor, the glass was empty and cracked next to them. Jade ran his tongue over every surface of his mouth, swallowing the blood that remained, the burn in his throat was reduced to a tiny tingling sensation again.

Emindrunum sighed, glancing at the cracked glass. "Perhaps I should have brought a simple paper cup."

Jade pushed himself back on the bed, allowing Emindrunum to reclaim his chair next to said bed. "I... apologize..." he mumbled.

The Elder didn't seemed trouble the least bit. "Oh don't be. What you did was perfectly natural. I wouldn't have been surprised if you attacked me the second you woke up. It's happened. But I know you have more control than that." he smiled again.

Jade however, wasn't really listening. He was busy running his tongue back and forth over his new fangs. They were smooth and sharp, and felt much larger than the rest of the teeth surrounding them. In other words, they were unfamiliar. When he lifted his gaze back to Emindrunum, his face was much closer. He lifted a brow.

"Sorry to disturb your exploring, but may I ask you to open your mouth for a moment?" Jade decided to do as he was asked, letting the other vampire hold his chin lightly with a cool hand. "I love a newborn's fangs..." he muttered in an admiring tone.

"Whas tha diffarase?" Jade asked, his mouth still wide open for Emindunum to look inside.

"They're much shinier, and sharper than any other vampires." he replied. "Like silver... Though I've never been able to have one for my...collection." He lightly tapped on of the fangs, and was barely able to pull his hand back before Jade snapped his mouth shut with a slightly disturbed look. Emindrunum chuckled. "But I wasn't planning on taking one of yours! I was just commenting... They are rather...beautiful..." His eyes came to rest on Jade's. "I love a newborn's eyes." he said in the same, admiring tone.

"May I ask why that is as well?" Jade didn't really like this man. He gave of a... well, a creepy air just hang around him.

"They different. We don't know why a newborn's eyes take such a color, but that what I like. We don't know." Jade would have asked what the difference was, but Emindrunum sighed and stood up (letting Jade take in a slightly relieved breath). "Well, I must apologize. I must be going, running this place has it's ups and downs, I'm sure you must understand." He smiled down at Jade, a strange twinkling look in his eyes. "I bid you farewell, for now. I will have some one watch over you for the next few days. We can't just have newborns running around every where, can we?" He headed for the door, then paused. "Leon, show him the ropes for me, would you?"

As the door clocked shut, Jade's attention turned to another body in the room that he hadn't noticed before. A man sitting on one of those annoying little spinning chairs, spinning around with a book in his hands. He sat a bit shorter than Jade, with the same blood red eyes as Emindrunum, brown hair (which also seemed to have a silvery look to it), and a bored face.

"Well," Leon snapped the book shut. "I've sat here longer, read that thing a million times." He grinned broadly, throwing the book on the shelf behind him. "So, introductions. I'm Leon, my real name is longer, but I won't say it because it's ridiculous. My job is to watch over the newborns that come into Jue's Castle. In other words, I'm your baby-sitter until you are no longer a newborn vampire. I think that's about it... What about you?"

Great. Jade had a baby-sitter. "My name is Jade."

Leon cut him off here. "That probably all I need to know. We don't get many newborns anymore nowadays. The Council got the last rouge, last I heard, so you're the last one. But we know what happens. A vampire has no use for human memories."

"In other words, I'm slowly going to lose all memories of being human." Jade said, Leon nodded.

"Exactly. Now, vampires 101." Leon crossed his legs in the chair. "Some memories go pretty fast, and some redefine the word slow. Had any good friends?"

Jade paused. He traveled the worlds with five-no six other people. Mieu should count as well, probably. Now how could he ever forget Peony? "Yes. I guess you could say that."

"Well, depending on how good they were as friends, those are some memories that are gonna take a few years." Leon said. He paused for a moment. "Uh let's see. It's been a while since I had to do any baby-sitting, I haven't had to explain anything in a while. Let's see, immortality, I think you should have already figured that out."

"Exactly how long are you 'my baby-sitter'?" Jade asked.

"Huh? Oh that? Just until you aren't considered a newborn anymore. That happens when your eyes turn red, like ours." Leon explained. "A newborn is told apart from other vampires by the color of their eyes. They're always yellow-ish-gold-ish. Let's see," he paused again. "The process takes about... a year, max. Depends on how much blood you drink, what type, animal or human, all this other crap." he shrugged. "Well, a year is as long as I've ever had to baby-sit."

"I see..." Jade didn't know when the last time was when he had to have so much explained to him. But when you're suddenly part of a whole other race (which was thought to be mythical), things like this must tend to happen.

"You're gonna miss some things about being human, most likely." Leon said. "But I wouldn't know, I was never human."

"What do you mean?"

"To sum it all up in the Elders words, there are two types of 'Lamia', vampires. Converted and Natural, made and born. 'Converted' vampires are pretty rare now, we don't have rouges running around as much anymore. These vampires that are made through heing bitten only have a few differences, first, they have gold eyes for a bit. And, they can't reproduce like natural vampires."

Leon mention 'rouges' a lot, Jade noticed. "What exactly is a 'rouge'?" he asked.

"They're just a normal vampire, but they don't live within Jue's Castle. They don't believe that we should be thankful at all towards Yulia for building this place. In other words, they break the law. They wander the world, and don't care who they bite. Humans are food, that's what they always say." Leon explained. "I say converted vampires are rare now because the last rouge finally got caught. Slimy bugger slipped passed the Council for about one hundred years. From what I heard, there were people with you before you got bitten, which slowed him down. The Council caught up, brought him and you back here, and I got my baby-sitting job again."

"...What happened to...him?" Jade said, a flash about the night in Tataroo passed through his mind.

"Executed. The Elders took him out of the castle, waited for sun rise, and just left him in the middle of the field, chained to the ground, probably. That's what they usually do. Anything else you wanna know?" Leon asked. "...Don't worry, that memory will be gone at some point too." he added.

"...Vampires can't sleep, right?"

"Nope. Not even if they tried for a million years. I would know, I tried." Leon shook his head. Jade raised a brow. "I was a little kid! What do you think I was going to do? Come to think of it, you're like a little kid too." he chucked when Jade looked slightly annoyed by his comment. "I mean, a newborn can't really control itself around blood, trust me, I've seen way worse than knocking an Elder over. But you'll learn, otherwise, you can't leave the castle."

"I thought that you weren't allowed to leave." Jade pointed out.

"I mean, you can't leave unless you have full control over your senses, or at least close enough. I mean, some ones gotta go out and get the blood for the rest of us." Leon explained. "Either that, or you're a rouge."

"I see."

"Well, I can see you're getting bored. I am too, so let's wrap this up. Okay, weaknesses, the wooded stake through the heart. Truth be told you can kill a vampire with a pencil if you had good aim, that's how bad it is to us. And fire, and of course, the power of Rem. A.K.A, the sun, or one of those whatchimicallits, flashlights or somthin'. Those hurt too. I know some one who got touched by one of those, his face was never the same." Leon shook his head. "Anyway, blood diet, that's a given, flying? Pssh no, half our race would have run into a tree by now. Strengths, we're a bit faster and stronger than humans, our skin is a tad thicker, but that's all. What else... We're done, I think. Great!" He jumped off the chair, leaving it to spin around slowly as he headed for the door. "Come on, I'll show you around."

--

Jue's Castle seemed to be much more than a palace. There were streets and shops lining said streets. The streets all seemed to run in different directions, but connect in the middle, the centre being the palace. Jade soon found out that the entire population (which was somewhere around St. Binah's own population) lived inside the palace.

"That's the entrance/exit to this castle." Leon pointed to a lone cobblestone path that lead away from the palace. It disappeared to a dirt path near the ends, which was illuminated by gold, instead of moonlight silver. This gold was surprising difficult to look at for more than a few seconds. "See how it looks like its lit up near the end? That's the sun light from outside. This place is shrouded in eternal night, that piece of the path is the only way to tell if it's day or night in the world outside. And it hurts my eyes, so let's move on."

The gold slowly turned red as they walked away to another section of Jue's Castle. Jade wondered what was happening in the world outside, if anyone was sad that he was 'dead'. Who was going to miss him?

The city of Grand Chokmah was illuminated a fiery red as the sun hung lazily over the horizon. But Peony wouldn't know that, because Jade's office didn't have a window, and that's where he was. Spinning on the chair that he'd bought his friend, just to annoy him, spinning chair annoyed Jade for some reason. He would never know why. The desk was empty, the files, all of Jade's work had been 'stolen' before the intelligence division could come in and fetch it. They would suspect that someone wanted to continue Jade's research, and stolen the work. They would never guess that it was all shoved in the back of the Emperor's dresser.

The Colonel wouldn't stop by (or be forced to stop by) anymore. No one would be there making sarcastic comments. Jade the rappig couldn't make sarcastic comments, and Jade the rappig was all that was left for company. His cute-little Jade... Peony just hoped that he knew that he would have taken the non-cut one over the cute one. Jade was his best friend, and now he was suddenly gone.

No one to chase away the council with creepy comments now, Peony... No one to eat curry with, or to have that occasional drink with. He couldn't make the voice in his head imitate Jade's. No one to slap some sense into him.

Peony slammed a fist down on the desk suddenly, ignoring the nauseous feeling caused by the chair. He was shaking, tears were welling up in his eyes, threatening to spill at any second. He grit his teeth.

Jade would call him the biggest crybaby in the world. But Jade wouldn't suddenly walk in a kick him out of his chair. He wouldn't come to make those comments that he would laugh at and call him a jerk.

So Peony let the hot tears slide endlessly down his face, half hidden by blond locks. He needed to blow his nose, as the tears fell off his chin onto his shirt.

Like the waterfalls outside, illuminated by the red sun...