I don't own anything in the Twilight universe, only my OCs and drunk ideas. Please don't repost any of my work.
Thanks to everyone who's read so far, I hope you enjoy this one!
Despite Athanasia's last observable change in age occurring well over a century ago and my concerns over her lifespan had mostly died down, we both thought it wise either way to maintain a distance from any other populations of vampires for now.
Athy's one-of-a-kind still made me slightly uneasy. For one, she was half human and therefore, potential prey (especially to an out-of-control newborn). But if someone like Aro got his hands on her, she'd be chained to a life sentence with the Volturi.
We had settled somewhere just west of the great lake Baikal and been living here for a while, a modest distance away from the settlements of the human steppe nomads.
There was definitely something violent brewing. A change within the human realm. I knew well the hallmarks of greed and bloodlust as well as how to read the signs of coming change. The tribes of Mongolia had recently united under the guidance of Chinggis Khan and I wanted in on this brewing powerhouse, taking advantage of Aro's advice to become part of the change.
I'd already experimented with my power and infiltrated the upper ranks of the Kheshig (Chinggis Khan's imperial bodyguard). I posed as an advisor and told him of some of the battle techniques that made the Romans such a force. As awkward as it was, to the outside world, Athanasia played the role of my foreign wife and we enjoyed a somewhat integrated life with the humans, choosing to feed only upon the enemy, or towns that had fallen to raids. Athy even took to eating human food for her role. She relished the opportunity to flex her acting skills.
The power that I received, working under Chinggis Khan was more than I ever had whilst working for the Volturi. He was as fair as he was cruel and truly valued his advisors. Even though he was a human, I secretly preferred serving in his army for the freedom and power it gave us both. I wondered whether I should turn him into a vampire, but he was ferocious enough as a human and it was his ability to integrate the conquered that made him so formidable. Replacing that with an untamable thirst for blood seemed like a sure way to deviate him from his course.
We were never short on food and finally had an interesting purpose to pursue. Maybe living amongst the humans wasn't so bad after all.
But in one reckless decision, I nearly lost all that we had built here. One night, whilst Athanasia and I were out on night patrol, which we used as our cover for hunting, we were seen. Not by a vampire, but by a child. The settlement we hunted at had already been mostly wiped out by what seemed to be a foreign invading force, I'd have to call this breach in immediately. It was the smell of blood that attracted us there.
We cleaned up the seven dying survivors that we had identified and were about to leave only to find that our path had been blocked by a small boy that neither of us had smelt prior to our hunt. His swollen and tear-stained eyes looked up at us curiously, having just witnessed us drinking the blood of his community and the thing that was even harder to explain, me shifting back into my male disguise from my natural form. I don't know how we'd both missed him in our initial scan of the area, his heartbeat was perfectly audible now.
"Can you save my mother? You have magic, you can save her! She told me to hide, but they- but they-" he stuttered, his tree-bark brown irises full of both scrutiny and pleading. We didn't answer. I held back Athy, who had begun to lunge towards the boy to finish him off. I don't know why I stopped her. Maybe I'd gone saft after spending so much time around humans. There was something in his eyes that made me hesitate. I recognised that look. It was the same look that I had in my eyes all those years ago when my parents had been taken from me. He craved his revenge.
The boy repeated his request again, but I could hear no other remaining heartbeat aside from that of the boy and Athy. It was too late and the boy knew it too. We had given him false hope as he misinterpreted my shapeshifting for a good kind of magic.
"What's your name, boy," I asked softly.
"Mum, what are you doing?" Athy hissed so that only I would hear, but I dismissed her.
"O-Oktai," the boy stuttered.
"Can you take us to your mother Oktai?" I continued. He nodded and led us inside a partially destroyed yurt. The majority of surfaces were covered in red, to the extent that if we had not just fed, the boy would have been sent to rejoin his mother already.
It was an unfortunate sight to behold. The blood on the yurt walls appeared to be that of the boy's father who lay in pieces unrecognisable as being human. His mother looked to have received a more merciful death. One large wound in her chest suggested that she had not had to suffer for long. Her heart was not beating. Even my venom wouldn't be able to save her.
"I'm sorry, kid, there's nothing we can do for her now. But she's no longer in pain," I tried to reassure him, not knowing why I suddenly cared so much for his wellbeing. "Who did this? I can tell the Khan and he can bring the guilty to justice."
"The rebels, the Song rebels," he answered, venom in his voice as he said the name. This poor child really reminded me of myself. I wanted to help him. I wanted him to get his revenge as I had done.
"We'll take you to Karakorum with us and you'll be safe there, you can come and live with us," the words escaped my mouth before I thought of what exactly I was saying.
"Mum, think of what you're saying, please," Athy begged in a hushed whisper.
"Athy, can you make him forget what he saw us do?" I asked urgently.
"I don't think I can make him forget, but I can try and make him think nothing more of it," she said warily.
"Then we have no reason to not let him live," I decided. Athy gave me an unsure look, but obliged, trusting my judgement. She took Oktai's hands and looked into his eyes.
"Oktai, please forget about what you saw us doing earlier, we are here to help you, not to hurt you," she whispered to him. He nodded and looked a little more at ease.
Once the boy had fallen asleep in my arms, we ran again at our normal pace. We arrived back to the capital and by the morning, everyone knew of the city's new addition.
Over the coming years, Oktai was able to enact his own revenge just as I did. He had joined the army as soon as he was old enough and his determination saw him rise up through the ranks until he became a commander at the age of only fifteen.
His bloodlust could have given Athanasia and I a run for our money. He was ruthless on the battlefield and I toyed with the idea of turning him into a vampire too. But I remembered just how uncontrollable the thirst was at first and wasn't sure if I could take on the responsibility just yet. Plus I wasn't ready to give up playing kheshig.
Even Athy seemed to have warmed to him. After witnessing the merciless killer the once grieving boy had become, her perception on humans seemed to have mellowed. She didn't find as much joy in humiliating her food anymore.
My mind however was made up a few years later when I returned from a mission to the smell of Oktai's blood, but it was everywhere.
His arban (small army force of 10 people) had fallen victim to an ambush and he was the only one who had managed to make it back to camp. But by the smell of it, he'd lost too much blood already. I burst into the yurt and rushed to his bedside, not caring about using a more human speed. In the decade and a half he'd been my human foster son, I'd grown to care for him as if he were my own. Athy's feelings however had grown even more than I initially perceived. Although they both tried to hide it from me and each other, I knew now that it was inevitable that they would be mates after I saw the scene before me. Recognising that I'd witnessed this kind of bond before, my heart sunk further.
I'd never seen Athanasia this distraught before and it hurt me as well to see her suffering like this. She was squeezing his hand between hers and telling him to stay alive. Oktai was falling in and out of consciousness, the doctor unable to stop his bleeding. His shoulder-length black hair that was usually immaculately coiffed into a bun was now knotted with blood and stuck to his almost unrecognisable face, covered in deep gashes and bruises. But the largest wound was the one in his abdomen, the blood from which had already soaked completely through the tourniquet. Despite this, I'd never felt less appetised.
It was then I noticed the most recent of his wounds; multiple bite marks starting on the hand that Athanasia was holding which travelled down his arm. She bit him again and then cried harder.
"Athy, why are you…" he began, laughing at her peculiar gestures, too close to death to feel the pain of her bites. I knew that she was trying to save him. But for some reason, it wasn't working… Maybe she wasn't venomous enough to turn him...
The doctor acknowledged my entrance and saw my heartbroken expression displayed on my disguise's visage. His face confirmed what I already knew to be true, he hadn't long left for this world. The doctor placed a hand on my shoulder and nodded on his way out, leaving our little family to be alone.
"Mum I don't know why it won't work, I can't save him," she cried hysterically.
"Athy, you've gone mad. Why are you calling your husband, mum," Oktai jested breathily, but she shushed him and cried harder. I knew what must be done.
"Oktai, listen son, I'm going to save you, but it's going to hurt like nothing you've ever felt before," I said, cupping his face.
"Dad, the doctor said there's nothing that can be done," he sighed.
The game was up. I shifted out of my disguise and although there was shock present on his face, he didn't seem as phased by ability as he should have been.
"I wasn't dreaming, you really are magic," he gasped. "Athanasia, my darling, if I had known this I would have asked for your hand in marriage sooner," he chuckled and Athy giggled too through her tears, squeezing his hand as she wept. I hesitated no longer. The smell of his blood had ignited my throat and I knew I had to do it now, or I'd end up going into a frenzy and breaking my daughter's heart; leaving her a husk of a being as Marcus was.
I bit into his jugular, holding my breath as I did so, fighting every instinct I had to drink. I'd never done this before, but I knew it was working as he began to scream. My venom was doing its job. I bit him in as many places as I could, trying to make sure there was enough venom to make the transformation as swift as possible. Athanasia's tears of grievance became tears of happiness; not at her lover's pain, but at his salvation.
As soon as the cover of night fell, we left with Oktai to the mountains. I wanted him as far away from the capital as possible to avoid suspicion and him feeding there when he awoke. I returned to the capital as I could not abandon my post, though I knew that I'd have to have left by the time he woke up. Although they were soulmates I was again crippled with worry for Athy's safety due to her humanness.
I played the part of the grieving father, who went into battle distracted by his emotions. The perfect cover under which I could fake my death and return to my children. We moved Oktai again, this time further away from the capital and into the Gobi desert. He had been out for two days now, no doubt he was through the worst of it.
Athanasia had not left his side the whole time. She sat holding his hand and occasionally stroking his hair as he struggled through the pain of the venom fixing his body.
"Athy, why don't you go and hunt, you'll be back before he wakes if you go now, I can't bear to see you so worked up like this," I said, rubbing her shoulder.
"I don't want to leave him, mum, I just can't" she sighed, placing her free hand over mine.
"I understand, fy mach i, but you want to be at your strongest for when he wakes, you know he might not be able to control himself around you."
"He'll be fine, mum, I know he will. If we bring him some people to drink, he'll go for them first."
"Okay, well if I have to incapacitate him to stop him from attacking you, you better not rip my head off," I warned and she shot me a dirty look. Deep down I knew that he should be fine because they were mates, but it never hurt to exercise caution around newborns.
Massive thanks to my friend for helping with some of the historical points here, you know who you are.