The Rogues.

"This Elena." Damon spoke as he held up an old picture of what looked like an Italian-like encrusted silver dagger stained with rust, either that or it simply was the worn out piece of parchment the photo was printed on. Elena decided on the latter after Damon pointed to the identical image on the screen of his computer. This time, she managed to make out every single detail the old parchment left out and noticed that the design engraved on the dagger's body represented some sort of symbol. One she couldn't fathom. A code that clearly did not want to be cracked unless by its respective master. "Is a silver dagger from the fifteenth century made of the purest form of silver you could ever find. The art and beauty work of the body are believed to be the product of talent and sheer perseverance of the tskalas of that era."

However, before Elena could even ask what tskalas were, he continued contemporaneously answering her question as though he had read her mind.

"Slave elves who were mostly blacksmiths during the fifteenth century. It is believed that they emerged during the fall of the Aztec empire and mostly consisted of men who were brave enough to migrate to Italy to try and seek a new life."

Elena shifted her legs to find a comfortable position as the story got more interesting. She watched Damon rip something out from the book and handed it to her. It was another silly old parchment with a faded picture of a creature. She wasn't sure if it was human or not with its elephant like ears and nose that seemed to occupy nearly two thirds of its face. The tskala, or whatever Damon had said, had a small frame, perhaps that of a ten year old child's with fingers so lean and defined, it was probably the only beautiful thing they possessed. The picture, however, stopped just at its knees, preventing Elena to steal a glimpse at its feet. She sensed Damon's mysterious, profound eyes on her as she traced the tskala's thin yet muscular arms with her slender fingers. The coarse texture of the parchment made her almost feel as though she was touching the creature's rough arms.

"But fate wasn't so much on their side." Damon continued and crossed his arms across his chest in a manner that made him seem serious and well, different. Rid of humour and jokes and imprisoned in seriousness for the first time, to Elena that is. "The minute the tskala's arrived in Italy, they were tricked and deceived by what are known as Rogues. Powerful Baron descendants from the dark ages except they lived in exile due to their suspicious behaviour and odd abilities to do things out of the extraordinaire." He unfolded his muscular arms and Elena studied the way he pressed them against the mahogany study before slowly tilting his body forwards as he peered down at one of the books Elena managed to sneak out from the restriction section.

"Astronomy, physics and chemistry had been way back discovered by these rogues by what most of us believe to be revelations from their master. However, being in their barbaric and uncivilized state, not a single patron or king, for that matter, believed them and blamed these rogues for being the doings of evil and menace that was determined to bring the feudal constitution down."

"So they were banished?" Elena guessed and watched Damon nod subtly with a hand rubbing his clean shave, square jaw.

"They lived in pure agony with rewards circling the country for whoever who killed a rogue or brought him to the king to be killed. So they knew their lives weren't safe anymore in Italy. Not only in Rome but also in other cities such as Florence, where I come from."

Elena couldn't help but smile to herself at the end bit of his last sentence. Even when she had known the Salvatore brothers for nearly two years now, it was still hard to believe they were once gentlemen from Italy instead of average American people who had been living the past eighteen years just like herself. Damon noticed the subtle smile on her face and when their eyes met, he arched an eyebrow but she quickly shook her head and insisted he go on.

"So these Rogues started to become what is commonly known as Nomads, traveling the entire Europe to seek refuge. However, unlike the nomads you commonly watch on TV that venture through deserts with camels…" He paused when he heard her stifling a laugh as though his stereotypical statement about nomads was rather amusing to her. "Rogues travel with Stallions, a creature…"

"I know what a Stallion is Damon." Elena interrupted but he ignored her, as usual and went on by insisting that the stallions they travelled with weren't ordinary male unicorns.

"They are called Silver Stallions, Elena." He spoke almost too clearly that the name got immediately engraved onto her mind. "They are rare creatures that were once said to be the most dangerous of all horses. It has the blood of viscous silver liquid, one that can-"

"Poison a vampire." Elena breathed out when she remembered the silver blade stabbed into Damon's back. She looked up at him, at his enchanted eyes that hid so many secrets, and watched him nod as though impressed by her intelligence.

"Not only poison Elena, but cause other vicious things worse than death. Things that can even cause a vampire to lose that last bit of humanity in him, or worse – his sanity, his soul, and keep it imprisoned in what is believed to be the eternal abyss."

Elena raised her eyebrows.

"No one has really ever seen it." He straightened his back and scratched the bridge of his perfectly straight nose before tightening his lips together as though the topic made him rather uncomfortable. "As a matter of fact, no one wants to see it, or witness it too. But words go around saying that it is the place where souls from the past are kept when they are forced out of the body. This was the tactic used by the Rogues during the Inquisition era, Elena." He chuckled slowly to himself when he noticed how dilated her pupils were and how she gaped as a result of being super engrossed by the story. "The Inquisition era was the rise of the Rogues to seek revenge. They were blood thirsty, lusted for vendetta…"

"Were Vampires killed too?" Elena posed curiously and clasped both her hands tightly before allowing her chin to rest on them. "Did you and Stefan escape?"

Something about what she said or how she said it made Damon shift in a very inconspicuous way that it would take a pair of vampire's eyes to notice it. Thankfully for her, she had a pair of Vampire's eyes and after feeding last week, her senses had been amplified and she knew, Damon knew that too. However when she furrowed her eyebrows, he ignored her – again.

"Vampires were once in power during that period Elena but not during the rise of the Rogues. These rogues were powerful, god-like, like no creature anyone as ever witnessed and when they invented the Silver Stallion dagger, no one was safe – not even vampires. Now as I was saying earlier, these tskala's got tricked into working for the rogues who claimed to be superpowers in those days. The tskala's had their loyalty bound to the Rogue army by magic. A magic so powerful, so intense that if ever a tsakala was to turn his back, the magic – an invisible chord like rope connected to the soul of a tskala would be broken, pulling the soul out and imprisoning in in the eternal abyss."

Elena shivered, feeling the goosebumps surfacing on her porcelain skin as Damon's already, deep, sensual voice got deeper and deeper. She wasn't sure if the goosebumps had been a result of the menacing story or the intense energy Damon seemed to be channelling her.

"So the Vampires did what we had to do. We formed an allegiance."

"With the Rogues?" Elena gaped and watched Damon nod. "But they were immoral, blood thirsty beasts, out to kill!" Then she stopped when she sensed the shift in energy around Damon. From being so intense, so passionate, the atmosphere he emanated seemed to vanish and so did his expression on his God-like countenance.

"We are immoral, we are blood thirsty – blood-sucking to be more exact, and while I'm not too sure about the beast part, all our lives we had been thought to kill to survive so…"

"You joined them." Elena uttered breathlessly, unable to believe her ears and pushed her hair back with both her hands as she tried to digest everything Damon had told her for the past hour. She allowed her heartbeat to steady but all it did was continued to thrum in her veins, in her mind. Elena could feel the adrenaline pulsating through her veins as she tried to imagine Stefan with his courteous demeanour and the face of a nobleman sink his fangs into the neck of an innocent human being.

She gripped the sides of her head tightly, fighting the migraine that was beginning to attack her mind before squeezing both her eyes shut when the pain became insurmountable. The minute she opened them, she found herself staring directly into Damon Salvatore's pitch black ones. They were empty, nothing but a single void yet something about his expression, about his gaze but them…believable and comforting. It made them understanding and kind. It made them….well, appeasing.

"Stefan didn't join them." He muttered as though reading her thoughts. "He was too much of a do-gooder." He reached up for her hands, the ones that had been clasping her head all this while, and placed them gently back on her lap, not pulling his eyes away from them for approximately one minute before finally getting up and exhaling. He had his back facing her but Elena could see his face through the vague reflection of the old Oakwood armoire.

"I did." He finished and Elena pressed her lips together only to hear his subtle chuckle a few minutes later. "Probably one of the worst periods of my life." He mumbled, still not turning around to face her.

"What happened to Stefan?" Elena muttered, reluctant to ask him at first since clearly, the fact that Stefan hadn't gotten involved left some sort of emotion in Damon but with his back turned to face her and the vagueness of his reflection in the armoire's grimy glass door, she couldn't fathom it just yet.

"Katherine saved him." Damon spoke without a hint of any sort of emotion, in the most monotonous tone and almost too fast it was as though he had been musing over the answer for a really, really long time now. "My little brother had the free chance of an escape without telling me." He slowly began turning around now and Elena couldn't help but wonder why her breathing rate increased as he approached to sit beside her.

"Apparently Katherine didn't want me, or so he says." Damon licked his thin, dry lips and Elena watched the blood rush below those epithelial cells. "But we all know he enjoyed watching me suffer."

"Damon, you know that's not true." Elena began but he raised a hand to silence her.

"Do I?" He scrutinised her with his jet, black beady eyes that seemed to have found a way to penetrate straight through her and find her weak spot. A gaze so dreamy yet so intense that if looks could kill, she could have simply died on the spot. His stare was filled with vehemence, remorse and anger, all jumbled up into a sentiment that fogged his brain and made him, in the end, stoic.

He watched her cast a glance of pity, a look that showered him with infinite sympathy – something he did not wish for and did not want even when it was sincerely, from the bottom of her heart.

"Don't feel sorry for me Elena. It was a wise decision anyway." Damon uttered indifferently and Elena studied his artistic fingers as it pulled the zipper to his black, leather jacket down. "Stefan wouldn't have survived if he stayed anyway so I guess it was a good thing he fled, as usual to save his own life. At least, he's got some sense in himself when it comes to surviving." Then, with his fangs bared directly at Elena, he went on. "Kill or be killed, die or be dead."

Elena squirmed as she watched Damon pull his black t-shirt over his head, unsure of what to react because the truth was, she was too shocked to think, to speak or to even blink. Just like Stefan, Damon was beautiful but unlike Stefan, Damon had a dark, brooding side that just made him bold and dangerous yet it attracted Elena. She was so determined to unravel his secrets, his mysteries. He was like a puzzle game so hard to solve yet she was so determined to put the pieces back. She studied the way his shirt messed up his perfectly coiffed hair and made it seem like a close replica of bed hair. Perhaps semi bed hair?

And then it struck her that she was staring. Staring directly and not in a subtle way. A stare that even Damon noticed and made him chuckle.

"It's really hard being gorgeous sometimes." He jested, giving her wink that immediately snapped her back to reality. Shaking her head, Elena quickly averted her glance only to have Damon speak again. "Now when I want you to look, you turn away."

She thought it was a joke, perhaps but when Damon called for her again, Elena forced herself to shift her gaze at him only to stare again. This time, it wasn't a good, drooling stare. It was shock and bitterness and bafflement. There, plastered on what Elena had thought to be a flawless back free of blemish was a mark. A mark that looked so familiar, like one she remembered capturing vaguely in a dream, a mark that burned and scared Damon's perfectly toned back.

"Wh…"

"The mark of a silver dagger never goes away, Elena." He began and gestured at the recent stab wound just below his neck, around his scapula. Elena bit her lip, he was right. The mark was still there. It was healing, but it was still there.

"But why do you have it? Didn't you k…" She was about to say kill but something made her swallow the words back and she pulled herself back together and said. "Weren't you a team with them?"

"A team." Damon snorts with bitter laughter and throws his shirt back on. "You've got that right Elena." He sighs and slips into his leather jacket once more, contemporaneously ruffling through his dark, russet hair in vanity. "Sure they won't kill us but they have this system. This system where they know how much we've killed and if the amount of those murdered doesn't stack up to their standards, well then, you might as well be prepared for the repercussions." And when Elena shows a slow response at comprehending him, he gestures at his scar and she felt her body shudder.

"Anyway, thanks to Stefan. I've got a high affinity for pain now." He got up and approached the computer which has been standing idly for quite some time now. Biting her lip, Elena turned around and rested an arm on the armrest as he gathered the books together and slipped them into the drawer.

"So, that…thing that attacked you." Elena began, capturing Damon's attention immediately. "That thing was…a rogue?"

"Could be." He pushed the drawers close and leaned against the old, wooden armoire that seemed unable to hold his weight any longer. "Or it could be Powers. I mean, they surpass any sort of mystical creature."

"So they stole the dagger from a rogue?" Elena murmured, watching Damon put everything in order, careful not to let any sort of information be left in the open.

"Possibly." He rubbed the bottom of his chin as he looked at a piece of parchment he had picked up from the floor before crumpling it into a ball and tossing in into the bin. It landed perfectly with a single throw.

"But what about the design on the body, Damon?" Elena suddenly posed when she remembered the beatific yet daunting carvings on the dagger. "Is it some sort of code?"

The corner of Damon's thin lips edged up into an awry smile as he slowly nodded, impressed by yet again, her intelligence. "Correct Elena. And the code of every dagger is different. They are special for their specific owners." When Elena asked why, he went on. "Like a sword, only certain people can unlock the real magic in the dagger. Sure everyone can go around maiming and massacring people with it, but only its true owner can unlock the hidden powers in the dagger." He approached her with the speed of light, just in time to place a gentle finger on her fine lips when she was on the verge of asking about the powers. Elena stood there, puzzled for a moment as she watched Damon lower his eyes, watched as his dark irises sank into hers, watched him lean towards her until they were simply a finger apart before he finally stopped and stared at her in the eye.

"Powers of the sort, I have yet to find out." He gave her a short, cunning grin before making his way towards the door, not expecting her to tail behind him since he wanted to feed and clearly his feeding sessions weren't at all eye satisfying to her. Just when he was on the brink of telling her about his plans for the night, she mentioned his name.

"Was it painful? The silver stallion dagger…." She bit her lip, feeling a little queasy as she prayed for an honest answer - one that wouldn't be mixed with humour and satire and she kept hoping as he stood there voiceless, not answering her at first until about a minute later.

"Yes, Elena. Yes it was." And that was it. That was all it took for Elena to see that one glimmer, that one faded glimmer in his eye that lasted for about one tenth of a second to reveal his true feelings. One glimmer to project all the suffering, all the pain he underwent in the dungeon during the fifteenth century. One glimmer to tell Elena one thing- it still scared him. It still haunted him. And how he was still hurt by his brother and lover's betrayal.


Hiiii everyone. Yes, I've been gone for as long as I can remember. RL was tough for a while but I'm back and hopefully I'll be able to complete this story! Exams are over, 2010 is over, Damon's getting sexier ;) Mind you, so is Tyler in the TV show!

Thanks soo much for all the reviews, favourites and story alerts, really. They've been great to me and one of the reasons why I'm so inspired to continue writing this story. I hope, you guys enjoy this update! xxx