Notes

Okay…

Fuck.

I'm sorry guys.

If anyone's still here, I apologise for the…delay?

I planned to have this fic. finished this time last year, but I've now been not-writing this longer than I had been writing it for, if that makes sense.

No promises about updating schedule, but I WILL NOT LEAVE THIS UNFINISHED (unless I perish) - it might just take a while.

Now, you may begin reading this and think I've forgotten which story this is. I haven't. This will be the theme of "part 2" which is about to begin. For this to make a little more sense, you might want to re-read the second half of chapter 36.

A lot centres around Kate being angsty as all hell and Carlisle having had more of an innings than we thought he did (me included, this is a fairly new plot development).

Thank you for being here and staying here. Your beautiful comments mean such a lot, and thank you for taking the time to share your support.

I hope I can make up for things, and I hope the world's been kind to you all.

Peace and love.

Kaamos.

Chapter 39

I've had to give a lot of thought to how I might die.

And dying at the hands of someone I love seems like a pretty bad way to go.

Russia, 1019 AD

The figures trudged through the snow, an old crone, it would have seemed by her hobbling and hunched silhouette, and a child.

The forest wasn't too thick here, though the cold was biting and the moonlight barely made an indentation in the ink-like darkness.

"Mama, you must rest," spoke the child's voice, fair like a sweet violin.

"We have no need for rest, Little King," chucked the woman, humour on her face, which was twisted with pain rather than age and was really quite beautiful.

The agony of walking was warping her marble limbs, blinding her, deafening her.

"You must," the boy continued, his voice alone penetrating her hell. "I insist."

At his command, the woman slumped to the ground, puncturing the skin of snow on the ground.

There was no relief in the action, only frustration.

"How will we reach the far east at my pace, Little King?" she wondered, as the child came to curl up in her furs.

"In time," he whispered, resting a hand on her chest to feel a heartbeat they both knew wouldn't be there.

They rested in silence. A dying mother and her child, with only her ragged breathing challenging the silence of the night.

"Let me see the wound," said the boy at last.

"Vasili…"

"Let. Me. See. It," he repeated through clenched teeth and, as if moved by magic, the woman complied.

Small, careful hands found the stretch of marble flesh on her side, stung black by his own hatred.

A moment of temper had almost taken from him the only semblance of a family he had left. It might take it still, for every moment the woman grew weaker as his poison ate her body without cure.

The woman was heartbroken for her little king as she saw the remorse on his frowning face.

"I wish I could make it better," he whispered, lip trembling, as he traced the irreparably charred skin with a wicked finger. "I didn't mean to. But you made me angry."

I made you vampire, corrected the woman to herself. The fault is doubtlessly mine.

She knew what she was doing in turning him, what he might do to her, what he might do to the world but she loved the little boy. More than anything. More than anyone.

His story itself was a strange one.

The woman had been travelling, wandering the land as her kind did.

Wherever vampires made themselves known, there was fear and hatred for them, but Sasha fancied herself a more noble life and sought to spare the young and innocent, coming from village to village to kindly spare them also the precious bread needed to feed their prisoners and criminals, in turn sating her own thirst.

An outcast, the vampire walked not among, but alongside her countryfolk, who, with grim smiles, had often admitted to her that as winter arrived and many starved, a quick vampire's death was almost a pleasant thought.

Wary respect was hers, as was the welcome understanding that no human should ever, ever disturb her.

Coming from the mountains one day, she stopped to shelter from a storm, not far from a settlement.

She had agreed to wait there for her three beloved creations, two of whom had decided that they had fallen irreparably in love, which Sasha thought odd.

The older vampire had also found that she had rather no patience for taking winding romantic routes to every new place, which is why she had run ahead.

Sasha enjoyed her solitude, and rather enjoyed storms for enforcing it. For reasons beyond Sasha's imagination, Irina would never venture outside in anything but the finest of weather. Perhaps it had something to do with the life of nobility that the woman had lost.

On this night, it was the scent of human blood that disturbed Sasha as the winds carried it towards her.

She wondered if, already, the village was trying to win favour with a suitable tribute.

A sad young man to be punished, or a sad young man who had been stupid enough to volunteer his own life to save that of his kinsmen.

They just didn't understand it, did they?

Sasha sighed, not thirsty and rather not in the mood to explain it, she lumbered gracefully to her feet to greet, and hopefully repel, the mortal annoyance.

The two men she could smell were not unusually appealing, though terrified. They must know what lay before them.

"Vampire," panted the human as Sasha appeared, purse lipped, to tell them to fuck off. "I beg of you…help us."

Help.

Help was something that humans mistakenly assumed a vampire to be capable of and willing to give. Sasha did not know why.

In most of her kind, the lack of any conscience, coupled by the burning scent of blood rendered this quite impossible, and correction of the human's false assumptions would be delivered swiftly and, in most cases, non-verbally.

Sasha was not compassionless, but was old, and what constituted an emergency worthy of her assistance after having seen so much of life was more of an asteroid impact, and less of a bad harvest.

"No," Sasha said bluntly, and turned on her heel to go back to her weaving - a tunic for Tanya.

It would be nice for her to wear some clothes on occasion, Sasha thought.

"Please, you don't understand," panted the man. "He…he's going to kill us."

Now, the situation made a little more sense. Clearly the humans thought that the nice old-woman vampire would save them from another.

Humans mistakenly believed also that vampires had a good rapport with others of their kind and would be able to strike deals with them, reason with them.

Sasha chuckled darkly, not caring much for their perceived peril.

"Then I suggest that you take what you can and leave that place," she growled. "I won't speak with other vampires on your behalf."

She spat on the ground. Other vampires, indeed!

"Now go!" she barked, thinking of her poor unravelling stitches. "Or it'll be me you have to worry about! And I can promise you that you don't want that!"

"It's a boy a…a human boy! He is working magic!" stuttered the human before Sasha had intended to vanish.

She froze. A boy?

"Our village is at war! Half…"

The man stopped to allow himself a breath, seeing that the vampire was intent upon staying to listen to him.

"Half the village wants to kill him," the man said with an incredulous, hysterical laugh. "The other half are killing to save him! It's a slaughter! Father against son! Husband against wife…"

"His own mother died casting himself in front of his father's blade," insisted the second human, whom Sasha decided she preferred since he hadn't spoken until that point.

"You are sure he is human?" she asked them, doubting very much that was true.

"Human as I am," breathed the first man.

"Which side are you on?" Sasha wondered.

The man's fist tightened around the axe he held, which would surely do no good against vampire's skin, but clearly made the human feel better, bless him.

"He needs to die."

As disinterested as Sasha could sometimes be, when she did find something of interest, the fire could not be doused.

Humans did not kill their own young. In fact they were startlingly opposed to it, so this was curious indeed.

Turning slowly, so as not to look too keen, she started to carve a message on a nearby rock-face.

Her new skill - 'letters' - care of the carelessly literate Irina, Sasha found a chore and a lazy nail had barely finished the word 'village', which her darling Katerina would surely be dutiful enough to read, when she swept away in a gust of wind, leaving the humans dazed and alone in the snow.

As the village approached, the first thing Sasha smelt was fire. The next: fear.

She ran forwards.

With mounting interest coupled with mounting unease, she counted the dead she could see in the fields.

One…two…six…fifteen…thirty-five…

Men, women and children.

Her pace quickened.

Reaching what passed for the centre of the village, she saw that the battle was lost. A small golden-haired figure was held roughly by the shoulders, ready to be set-upon by the torrent of hate he had somehow inspired which had triumphed over his devotees, most of whom lay lifeless outside their homes.

Finally, the vampire looked at the boy.

Sasha did not feel herself to be a creature of greed.

Surely she was, talking the lives of others to sustain her own and dragging a poor lost soul to damnation for awe of her power over lightning, but it was for the world that she often chose to act.

This boy could not, could never be allowed to leave the world.

He was young, and small. If she had cared for the ages of humans, she would have decided him to be four years old but, despite his youth, his presence was overwhelming.

Sasha had to fight the urge to free him by clawing at his attackers, for she would kill them swiftly. And for what? One boy?

One boy.

The only boy.

An arrow stuck the youth in the chest, moments before the archer fell, inexplicably to the ground stone dead, and quite remarkably ignored by the other villagers who had eyes only for this little king.

On the boy's face was the most heartbreaking agony, not for his pain, but for his lost life. For all he wouldn't see and all he wouldn't do.

And that was so wrong, it sickened the vampire to her core.

It was at this point that the townsfolk, writhing in celebration or anguish at the boy's slow descent to the ground - as something as plain as an arrow took the life of what was surely a god - realised that a vampire was present.

Sasha had the boy in her granite arms before she knew where her legs had carried her.

The boy blinked, and smiled radiantly.

"Can you help me?" he asked so hopefully, so innocently, that, committing one of the more grievous of immortal crimes, Sasha decided yes, she supposed she might be able to.

After that, the story changed and Sasha was not the disengaged onlooker to human civilisation, rather the accessory to one of the greatest slaughters the region had ever known as the boy's magic poured out of him like smoke, killing and rotting.

As the frenzy cleared, Sasha realised what she had done. The control she didn't have. The daughters she would have to leave without a goodbye.

And she did it all without hesitation for her little king.

"Stand up," he commanded, jolting Sasha back to her present and her pain, her battle through the snow.

When the action was less immediate than he intended, his sweet voice softened to silk.

"Please get up, Mama," he pleaded in a whisper, a god turned back to a child in but a moment. "I'm so, so sorry I hurt you."

"Some people are worth suffering for," the woman whispered. "And you, Vasili, are one of them."

She hacked a laugh as she pulled herself up onto her weaker limb with the child's help, who was himself much stronger than she was.

"I wish I could have seen the man you would have become" she continued, more to herself than the boy, who no doubt caught every word and with it every nuance. "Women would have flung themselves under the thundering hooves of galloping horses for your attention."

"Seems a silly thing to do," the young voice replied with the wryness, so inappropriate for his age, that Sasha so adored.

She stopped to brush his cheek, as though she were his real mother and when he allowed it, she felt she might burst with happiness.

"Mama, I don't want to hurt anyone," the boy continued

"I know, my Little King," she crooned.

This was true. Most of the time, at least.

"I don't want people to have to get hurt to love me," he continued, with insight he shouldn't have, as the small boy took it upon himself to consider what it would be like to be universally hated.

For many more days and nights they walked, the boy urging the woman forwards, sometimes with kind words, sometimes with violence.

Minute by minute Sasha grew weaker and minute by minute Justice caught up to them.

"There's someone coming," declared the boy at last, alert to sounds even his creator could not hear.

A marching guard.

"They are going to kill us, Mama," the boy decided, but, with a glowing smile, proudly remembered that he could prevent this.

He summoned smoke between his hands.

"I'll stop them, Mama! I'll…"

But she was motionless in the snow.

"Come here, child," said a voice, extending a spidery hand that Vasili didn't want to take.

It was not his mama, and they were not in the forest, rather in a beautiful but strange place that Vasili thought he'd rather like, if the others weren't there.

"No, thank you," said the boy, as if it had been an offer, not an order.

The court was silent.

The Russian peasant boy had spoken in Latin.

"Aro…" spoke a voice.

The speaker cringed as Vasili redirected his gaze to him.

Vasili was upset because his mama was crying and strong guards held his sisters in this strange room.

Today they were all was wearing clothes. Very much so.

Vasili was interested to meet his sisters for the first time. Evidently they were interested to meet him, too.

The tallest sister was frightened, Vasili decided. Frightened for her life, for mother's, particularly for the littlest sister's, who was crying.

The middle sister stared at him. She was angry.

In fact, she was furious, but particularly with him, which annoyed Vasili a little bit, because he'd be damned if this was all his idea.

He understood they were going to kill him for that anger, the hate he had created, but rather than fight as the flames came, the little king felt peace. It wouldn't be the end.

"Don't worry," the boy called, clearly and evenly as he burnt.

He addressed the Volturi kindly, as though they would worry about him and he was taking the care to reassure them.

"I'll be back."

"I'll be back," Kate murmured to herself in the glowing late-afternoon light of the Alaskan present day.

It had been days since she had thought about blood, about anything other than that day.

The last meal she'd had had been swans with Carlisle, and it had been during that meal, while Sasha's death replayed itself again and again in her mind that the revelation she never wanted to have, had writhed against, fought against, had finally arrived.

"…I'll be back…" Carlisle said politely as his phone rang.

The intonation, the smile, the brief moment of eye-contact. The reassurance. The confidence. The threat.

It was the same.

Numb she had pushed herself up from the table and run, waiting for the wave to break violently of her head.

That little boy. Who was that little boy? If he weren't a little boy, who would he be?

She threw herself to her feet, crackling with sparks. Her body shuddered with revulsion as she realised who or what she had allowed to touch it so many times.

Something had always been wrong, so wrong. So very wrong.

Doubling over, Kate heaved up blood where it splattered over the rock. Their rock. The rock where he…dared to share his sympathies for her mother's death. Their mother's death.

He was, indeed, back.

Did he know? Did he remember? This whole time…

Did he toy with their mother the way he was toying with his human? Torturing her, deranging her, hurting her? Making her leave behind all she had for the promise of his love?

Knowing the answer to be 'yes', Kate threw her head back and screamed. Screamed and screamed until lightning lit the sky blue.

Unwittingly repeating the sentiment of the poor axe-man, begging before a vampire in a storm, Kate began to run.

He needs to die.