A/N: A short recap for you all, since this update is very late. To littlehughesy and my other amazing reviewers, there's a short note at the end of the chapter for you.
Bella (at this time called Sabelle) was turned into a vampire around the year 4000 BC by Charlie (Charle). They traveled across prehistoric Europe and down to Sumer/Mesopotamia in modern day Middle East, where they were greeted as Sun-Gods and built a large temple. A human woman was presented to them and turned out to be Charlie's mate, Renée (René-a), who was soon thereafter turned. The three of them fought a long and groundbreaking war against another coven from Asia – the first vampire war, dubbed the 'Kin-Slaying'. Bella lost her head, but they won in the end. After the war, Bella traveled to the river Nile to investigate the rumors of "Terrors", which shockingly turned out to be vampire children let loose in a feral pack on Egypt. One of these children, and the only one to survive in the long run, was a small girl named Tiy. Bella and Tiy set off towards Sumer.
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Another OC is introduced in this chapter – sorry, but he will be necessary. I promise there will be no Bella/OC romance.
Childe of the Swans
Chapter Nine: The Swans' Only Rule, Part 1
3791 BC, Middle East
When I arrived to our ziggurat in southernmost Sumer, it was the middle of summer and people were bustling around the complex of smaller buildings around our temple. Even from far, far away the sight was imposing, and I heard little Tiy gasp next to me when we reached the top of a particularly tall sand dune and met a wonderful view of the ziggurat.
"It's flawless!" Tiy said and bounced in the sand, her shoulder-length black hair flying around her head. The few beads that had managed to cling on and survive her rough years as a Terror tinkled in the summer air.
I smiled and ran faster, leaving the ten-year-old in the sandy dust behind me. Even from far, far away I could see a sparkling diamond at the top of the ziggurat, and I knew my skin's reflections too would be visible to them.
A feeling of warmth washed through me as I blurred up the long stairs and came to an abrupt stop in front of my Sire. Air snapped around me, a crack like that of a whip to announce my stop. I had not seen him in twelve years, longer than I had ever been away from him before, and I felt suddenly light and like I could smile without end for years.
"Sabelä", he greeted me warmly, and his dark red eyes crinkled happily as he slowly stepped up to me. "Oh, how I have missed you."
"As I have missed you." I smiled. It felt good to speak to him again, in a language I was more comfortable with.
There was hesitation in our movement around each other, I realized with a stab of pain in my chest. Even as we carefully moved to embrace with one arm each, low growls rumbled in our chests and I knew the tiny hair on my arms and neck stood at end. The hierarchy between us had always been firmly established, but now I didn't know how to behave. It had only been twelve years, but it felt as if it had been a hundred. It was no longer a reflexive reaction to step down and follow his body language. I had not forgotten – I could never forget – but it was no longer habit. He must have changed, I thought, because surely twelve years could not change me so much that I was at a loss at how to treat my own Sire.
"I have much to tell you, Sire", I said as René-a moved up next to her mate and nodded at me with a bright smile.
We hugged, too, though it was a tense move on both our parts and I could tell that she had lost much of her confidence in approaching me as her child. We no longer smelled of each other, I realized and sniffed the air. It was strange to not smell my own scent on her, though it still lingered in the ziggurat. I had claimed this ziggurat just like the other two had, and such things did not fade even in a hundred years. Twelve years was only long enough that the scent washed away from skin and clothes, but not from things I had purposely claimed.
Another kin stood behind Charle and René-a; tall and broad across the shoulders and almost the same shade of black skin as Narme had had. Djehutimose was his name, and when he saw me he smiled warmly. It made me ashamed to realize that I did not immediately remember his name – after all, this one was my Childe, turned right after the Kin-Slaying to relay our words. His scent blew towards me, an instinctually pleasant reminder that he had my venom inside of him. I wondered if my scent invoked the same feeling in Charle. During the Kin-Slaying I had never paid much attention to the bond between the Newborns and myself, but now I could feel it. Like a responsibility I instinctually grasped after even without knowing him personally. From his smile, wholly platonic as it thankfully was, he felt the Sire bond, too.
At that moment Tiy rushed up the long stairs, her bright red eyes wide in wonder.
Immediately René-a lost her composure and Charle stared openly. Djehutimose, too, startled. Tiy stopped next to me, bouncing on the balls of her feet and swinging her arms around herself impatiently. She, like I, was dressed in a simple, colorless wool tunica with a braided leather belt around her waist. Our feet were bare and our skin covered in sand, though she was still golden hued under the dirt and blood that clung to her like a second skin. Despite her unclean skin, she was inhumanly sweet and beautiful.
"Oh", René-a breathed. "My gods…"
Charle looked equally surprised and he threw me a look.
"A child? Is that possible?" he asked. I knew Tiy would not understand the Sumerian words.
"This is a Terror", I said. "Her name is Tiy and she is from the river banks of the Nile. I have not managed to teach her control."
Charle nodded, and we turned to look at René-a, who was gushing over the child like a mother hen. Her fingers traveled over Tiy's hair and played with the beads, and the two females – though lacking a common language – seemed to have connected better than I would ever have hoped. Like I had at first, René-a seemed to feel no instinctual wariness for the Terror and possibly for the first time since the Kin-Slaying she looked like she enjoyed touching another other than Charle.
"Is she a danger?" Charle asked.
"To the humans? Yes. Very much. To us? Not at all. She is as dangerous as a horse."
Charle laughed and nodded. "Why don't we take a walk, Sabelä? I think the girls can handle themselves."
I smiled. "I would like that, Sire."
We left René-a and Tiy on the ziggurat, and though I for a moment wondered if that was a good idea I quickly pushed it out of my mind. With all the toys in the ziggurat for the two to explore, it was unlikely that Tiy would throw a tantrum. René-a would give the Terror whatever she wanted. Djehutimose would be there, too – that meant two kin to keep an eye on Tiy, even if I didn't know how controlled he was yet.
Charle and I walked out into the desert, bowing our heads to the many servants on our way.
"How have your travels been, my Childe?"
I told him of the twelve years I had been away and spoke briefly about the many animals and human customs that I had encountered. I spoke about the weather and the wind and the scent of the air, and the taste of the blood of lizards and strange animals. I spoke about the clothes of humans far away, and the kin I had encountered. I mentioned Bahn and Narsa, the two who had led me to the Terrors, and then I spoke a long time about my time with the horde of Terrors I had tried to tame into civilized beings. With a low voice I recounted my inability to help and the failure of my attempts to teach, and my unplanned decision to bring Tiy back with me to Sumer.
"I have missed you greatly, Sire." I looked at the endless ocean not far from our ziggurat: it seemed a little bit closer than it had before, though it must have been a faulty impression. "How have things been here?"
He smiled at me and spoke briefly of René-a and their dealings with local groups of kin – mostly peaceful talks – and of the humans of Sumer. Then he patted the sand dune under us with a hand and gestured at me to sit down with him.
"We no longer accept innocent sacrifices", Charle said and at my raised eyebrow he grinned. "René-a didn't feel comfortable knowing that the humans were taking women and sending them here for sacrifice."
I snorted and nodded. I could imagine René-a standing in front of Charle, blood across her chest and her hands at her hips as she ranted that it was not right. Such a thing must hit too close home for comfort to the king's daughter. It may never have been voiced, but we all knew that René-a had been sent to our ziggurat by her father as a peace-offering – whether as a woman for pleasure or a dinner.
"Instead, the humans from across Sumer brings us their criminals and prisoners of war. Less goat for us, now", he joked and I laughed.
The sound felt strange leaving my mouth. When had I laughed last? It must have been a long, long time ago. I looked at Charle fondly. I had missed these talks. The last time… it must have been before René-a came to us that we went out alone like this. It was far, far too long ago and I told him as much.
"Yes, I agree." He sighed and leaned back against his hands. "Far too long."
He gestured at the ocean and changed subject. "There are boats now, big enough to carry twenty men."
I looked at him in amazement. "Twenty?"
"They hail from far away, and they come here with goods we have never seen before. All the humans have those carts. The wheels we were shown before you left are the big thing now – a wheel maker is respected as much as a spear-maker, if not more, in both Larsa and Ur."
When Charle and I leisurely walked home it was with less distance and far less awkwardness. I felt myself slipping back into our usual pattern, falling into step next to him and harmonizing my moves to his familiar ones. The need to speak slowly drained away and I basked in the silent presence of my Sire. I would not have hesitated to admit that I did not want our walk to end.
"There have been words amongst our kin that there are other groups that have grown powerful in your homelands." Charle glanced at me as we walked up the elaborate stairs of the ziggurat. "We have sent out some of the subordinates-"
"Subordinates?" I asked.
He nodded and smiled proudly. "It was René-a's idea: kin servants. They are no longer Newborns – that is, we also have two Newborns… I thought maybe you would like to help me with them. They used to like you."
He was referring to the Newborn armies, I knew, and I dipped my head in gratitude to his compliment even if it wasn't true. They had only turned to me because I was less outspoken: my silent, flexible orders and my disinterest in the Newborns' relations with each other were often received better than René-a's more talkative, mothering style of command at the ziggurat. I hardly drew Newborns to myself – the opposite really, but they usually got used to me out of necessity. I was not a leader that people automatically followed (that was Charle) nor one to call them to me (like René-a) – I preferred that they came to me in their own time. If anything, it made it so that I mostly dealt with the more stable Newborns.
"Why?" I asked. Why did we need kin servants when we already had the humans at our call?
"It is far more valuable than I would have thought", Charle said. "They can take more subtle commands and can run long distances to leave messages. There are three with us now – two more are spreading our words, and of course we have the Newborn I mentioned."
"Then there are eight kin in the ziggurat now?" I asked in chock. "How will we manage that?"
Charle stopped and looked at me closely. His eyes searched mine, and then he leaned in to whisper in my ear at a volume that even the others nearby would never be able to catch. His breath tickled my skin and I shuddered, torn between growling and purring. Part of me remembered a time when we were so close that this kind of proximity would make me relaxed, but the part of me that had been alone for twelve years (albeit in the company of the Terrors) wanted to throw him away from me.
"It's René-a", he whispered. "She is gifted. I realized only five years ago, when we first turned a Newborn again. Others… they become mesmerized by her. They love her almost as much as I do."
I felt my eyes go wide and I glanced up at the top of the ziggurat as if to check if anyone was nearby. The sloping sides of the ziggurat meant that there could be people just inside the wall below the stairs where we stood, but that felt somehow further away than the long distance I could see.
"She is my mate, Sabelä", he growled at me and I looked away in shame. Somehow he had been able to tell the horrible thought that had just been about to cross my mind. "I have not told her about her gift – I do not feel anything good will come from it. But this gift cannot harm her as long as she does not use it on purpose and it is without doubt as useful to our group as your gift and my own."
I nodded. I could see what he meant, even if the revelation sent cold shivers down my spine. My mind spun and I tried to think back; had I ever noticed anything that could have been proof of René-a's gift? Now that I knew the truth it seemed as if it had always been so, but I knew that if I was to be honest I had never noticed anything. Most of the people I had watched René-a interacted with had loved her, simply because they had been her family. The priests and servants had adored her, as much as they had been angry at her for staying in that first holy ziggurat where we had been kept prisoner. But what Charle was suggesting was far bigger than being loved by those she knew intimately.
"It does not work on me", I murmured.
"Few gifts work against your shield, Sabelä", Charle said in a louder voice and continued to walk up the last steps. "The pain-making kin from the Ox-passage strait could not make your head hurt, and the Newborns in our own armies could rarely affect you. I would lie if I said I was surprised."
"I bet your head would feel strange if you told such lies, Charle", I joked at the truth-seer and he laughed loudly.
"Just as you must feel absent-minded when you look into a water reflection", Charle threw back at me.
I laughed and shook my head at him. We reached the summit and walked through the walled garden, and I marveled out loud at the flowers and bushes, insects and little animals. It was an oasis in the desert, raised high above the sand dunes and the ocean beyond, and in the middle of the plateau – surrounding the stairs leading down into the ziggurat – was a beautiful pond of clear river water. Water fowl swam in the pond, and I gasped: in the middle of the water swam three large white birds that could not be mistaken for anything but my namesakes.
"Swans!" I gasped and pointed childishly. "Charle! There are swans! In Sumer!"
I looked at him over my shoulder as I sunk to my knees at the edge of the pond, and I saw him smile happily at my reaction. At the moment I did not care that I must seem young and inexperienced. I turned back to the swans, watching as they slowly swam towards me. Their eyes were alert and though they looked to be suffering slightly under the harsh sun they looked healthy and even more kingly than I remembered. They did not seem at all afraid of me, though I supposed the many kin in the ziggurat must have desensitized them to our predatory scents and sparkling skin.
"They are yours", Charle said and put a hand on my shoulder.
I glanced at him in surprise and saw that he was holding out a hand of breadcrumbs for me. Confused I took them from him, but I understood what he was trying to tell me when the swans immediately focused on the human food in my hands. I held my hand out and was barely aware of how I was holding my breath as the three water birds slowly glided over to me and began to take the food out of my hand. They were just as elegant as I remembered.
"I'm feeding swans from my hand." I looked at Charle happily. "Now I only need to find tame lynxes, and I will have proven you right, Charle!"
"Yes, that you have", Charle laughed. "To think I did not believe you! I could barely understand the concept of domesticated sheep – horses and water fowl seems like such a foreign concept to me."
"I will need to find a large cat to domesticate!" I smiled widely at him and turned to admire the swans again. "Where are they from? How did you get them here?"
"Actually, it is a pretty funny story involving lots of humans, some kin and a large boat – I will tell you later, when you have reacclimatized. Kin in your homeland had heard of a 'Swanchild' among us, and sent these birds as a peace offering from his group. The swans arrived only a few moon cycles ago."
"They are flawless", I told him. "Thank you."
Charle could easily have killed them and drained them, like the kin who had sent them must have expected. Instead he had let build a pond for them and kept them, not knowing when I would return form my search of the rumored Terrors.
"I have missed you", Charle said instead.
"And I you", I told him.
We entered the ziggurat in high spirits, thinking nothing of the scent of blood that wafted through the air until we stepped into the temple that made up the first and highest floor. The room, as wide as the ziggurat was from one end to the other without anything but pillars and the outer walls holding the ceiling up, bathed in blood and human bodies. Djehutimose stood to the side when we entered, and though he was splashed with blood and his eyes were bright red I could tell he was not the main cause of the chaos. Instead my eyes went to Tiy, who stood right in front of us with her hands on a miniature ship of copper and emeralds. She was covered from head to toe in blood, and there was a large smile on her face when she saw Charle and I arrive down the stairs.
"Tiy. I have told you not to create a mess", I ground out as calmly as I could in her mother tongue.
She looked like I had slapped her, and I guessed my body language gave off such intentions even though I did not plan on acting on it.
"I want the ship", she said in the same language and held up the ship for me to see. It was pretty, admittedly, but also useless and I did not understand why the child would want it.
"That is not reason to kill all the humans, child", Charle said and though he did not know Tiy personally there was disappointment in his face.
Tiy shrunk further where she stood, even if she didn't understand the words Charle spoke, and her gaze went to the helpless René-a next to her. The older female was drenched in blood, having both tried to stop the bloodbath and end the misery of those who did not immediately die when Tiy had moved on, and there was so much shame in her eyes that it made me unwilling to look at her.
"Thank you, René-a", I murmured and walked up to her. "You can clean up yourself, if you wish." Charle and I could take over now.
She gave me a grateful glance and left towards the lower levels where the bedchambers were – mine in the north, theirs in the south. I could hear more servants move downstairs, and I knew they would provide a bath for Charle's mate.
I looked back at Charle, and he drew a deep breath and nodded. I could see in his face that he wanted to help this ill child.
"We have a lot of work to do."
To answer some of my wonderful reviewers from last chapter: (and a big thank-you to everyone who's taken the time to review!)
littlehughesy: I'm afraid those three vampires last chapter were not the Volturi. Their grandparent's haven't been born yet.
XXX1994: Yeah, I agree it's slow. It will be picking up, but it will take some time to get to 2008. Currently I have no plans to abandon this, though! We're closing in on some new canon character introductions, yay!
telaviv: That's… actually very convincing. Good point!
Guest 228: I did, very briefly. However, none of these three characters seem like the… sharing kind. So no, no threesome or triangle.
I do agree that as far as healthy relationships based on mutual understanding and respect goes, Jasper wins. But maybe the extreme culture shock between broody, angsty Edward and simplistic, ancient Bella would be more in line with the story I seem to be building up to? Hm… the easy route or the hard route?
