While they all had been within the College for approaching three weeks now, Kaius had not spent the entire time within its walls. Shortly after arriving he had managed to acquire further information that the man that he had travelled to meet was no longer present. Esbern's investigation into the location of the Dragon Scroll had left them with the knowledge that an Imperial Scholar named Septimus Signus had written extensively about the Scrolls that had never been acquired by the Elder Moth Temple. Up until a year previous he had made the college his home but thankfully the trail continued a short distance away on an island off the coast and Kaius had chosen to make the journey alone.
He had returned a few days later, obviously more confident and with further success but instead of preparing the next leg of their journey he had thrown himself into a different project entirely. For the first few days he integrated himself into the college, doing favours and the handful of odd tasks or assisting some of the mages with their studies in exchange for favours and various items. He even used some of the coin that they had managed to acquire during their long journey and the various bounties they had acquired to purchase various alchemical ingredients and mystical items before vanishing into the midden to conduct his 'studies'. Only Sofia, Serana and Lydia knew that whatever he was doing, undertaking studies into the arcane like the rest of the college residents was not it.
As Serana entered the stone lined room where Kaius had practically been living for the past days she found herself curious and somewhat confused at what she found. In the middle of the floor was an enormous circle of runes and swirling shapes that somehow hurt the eyes if looked at too closely. The smell of incense and void salts hung heavy on the air and seemingly scattered about at random was collection of candles stuck into the floor at various intervals and marking out four smaller circles like the cardinal points of a compass. It was unlike anything she had seen before and while it shared similarities with the various destruction runes used to create magical traps, for the moment it sat quietly and uncharged.
By now most of the college knew that the Dragonborn was practicing some arcane rite within the bowels of the college, and a handful of the more senior members had even approached Kaius directly for an explanation. Some of them had entered the midden personally to view Kaius' efforts and had left more confused than before. Serana had heard the talk through the college how Tolfdir, Sergius and Faralda had seen what Kaius was doing and simply considered that he was attempting to combine several rituals and spells and wouldn't do anything more than loosen his coinpurse as a result. Staring across the extremely precise construction of whatever the circle-rune-thing was she knew that like always, he knew exactly what he was doing.
He was however, not in the room, but judging by the faint sounds of boots on stone and a strange ripping sound like a bolt of cloth being torn he wasn't far. Following the sounds carefully through the semi-darkness of the midden she found him in a smaller room with a much higher ceiling, stripped to the waist and practicing with his broadsword.
Even though she was not much of a fighter, and had yet to seen Kaius in action against anything more than that hapless highwayman who tried to rob them on their way from Whiterun there was something alluring to the way that he fought. Like most things about him, his skill with the sword was a combination of superb reflexes that were not entirely a result of his vampiric nature and an extreme preciseness that revealed the utter control he had over his every action. Ghosting into the room and moving as quietly as only a vampire could, she watched as he continued to twirl and slice, parry imaginary blows and alternate between using one or both hands as effortlessly as breathing. On at least two occasions he plucked the dagger strapped to his thigh, twirling it in his fingers like a street performer, stabbing into his imaginary foe and sheathing it almost as though he had conjured it.
In a sickening way it was hard not to look at him despite her own misgivings at finding herself in a room with a half dressed man. The scars of countless battles and victories twisted and strained at the flesh, his arms in particular being a mesh of crisscrossing blade wounds that looked almost as old as what he was. His right shoulder was obviously more pronounced and muscular, but not overwhelmingly so as a result of his life as an archer but these minor details paled in comparison to the twisting, plucked scar tissue on his bicep and writhing up his hip and chest. The burn was livid and an angry pink from his exertion of his practice where it consumed to his stomach, side and chest and poking out from under the ancient pink-white burns on his arm the tips and head of the Imperial Dragon could be seen.
"Do you know the problem with sparring on your own?" He said without stopping his movements and fight against his imaginary foe.
Serana stood in silence and while she shrugged she wasn't certain if he had even seen her movement before he continued.
"You never truly learn or improve by doing so. A pretend enemy is always similarly skilled to yourself but yet easily beaten. Practice alone too often and you may become drunk on the pride of victory and found wanting when you cross blades with a true enemy."
All sixty centimetres of skyforged steel kissed the air and stopped in his outstretched arm without the hint of a waver or tremble. He held it for a handful of seconds, before turning and grinning in her direction.
"You need my help with something?" She said quietly.
Nodding and moving over to the wall, he took a couple of mouthfuls from a nearby waterskin and dried some of the sweat off himself with a rough towel. The towel, waterskin and a collection of other items were sitting alongside his armour where it had been laid out in a neat arrangement and it was obvious that he had also been sleeping in the Midden rather than the room allocated to him in the Hall of Attainment. It was something that all his other companions had noticed that he was purposely staying away from the members of the College. He had also been pushing himself harder in his training since their stay with Habd and his family.
"Yeah." His spare sword and its scabbard was plucked from where it lay and he tossed it underarm to her, the leather straps fluttering in the air before she caught it. "I need a sparring partner."
Looking surprised, Serana looked down at the weapon in her hands, and back up to Kaius where he was grinning enormously. "You can't be serious, I'm not a fighter. Not to your skill at least."
"Doesn't matter. I can only train with Sofia and Lydia so much before it becomes stale and stops providing as much of a benefit. You're a vampire which means that you can keep up with me far better than they can."
"Doubtful." She muttered, taking another look at the sword he had provided and grimacing. After a few moments hesitation she growled in annoyance, shrugging off her cloak and heavier outer layers of furs still partially frozen from her time on the roof and leaving her in just her pants and tunic.
His grin was still as large as ever as she stepped closer, gripping the weapon in a tight, yet relaxed grip with both hands. There was a wariness filling both of them, like a pair of wolves circling and gaining the measure of each other as they moved closer.
Lashing out with her blade in a feint, she saw the way that Kaius twisted out of the path with the grin ever present on his face. The first blow had been half hearted and barely faster than what a mortal could perform and he knew it.
"Come on Serana, I know you can do much better than that."
The next blow was painfully loud as their swords struck together and the impact jarred its way up her arm. Any lesser forged weapons would have been chipped by the blow but the incredible blades had been forged by Eorlund Gray-Mane in the Skyforge itself. Both were incredible weapons, and each have been gifted to Kaius as a result of his deeds in the past years. His Broadsword had been the gift from Jarl Balgruuf along with his title of Thane after slaying the dragon of Whiterun, and the other sword had been his gift after joining the Companions.
The next few seconds were a blur of movement and sound, metal ringing through the room's cramped interior as they traded a number of blows that should've taken a minute or more had they been mortal. Each blow was strong enough to shatter shields and snap lesser blades and despite herself Serana found herself enjoying the simple nature of the sparring session.
With both weapons ringing faintly in their hands, they separated and began to circle each other warily. Kaius as always seemed to glide over the uneven floor as though he was floating and only Serana was capable of matching his liquid grace.
"So why are we doing this?"
Kaius flicked her sword thrust away, twisting the blades around with nothing more than his wrist as he weaved an arc of steel in the air between them. "Like I said. I need a sparring partner."
"That's not the only reason why you wanted me down here."
Silence fell between them, broken only by the odd metallic crash and soft footfalls. "Sofia told me about what happened at the Lighthouse," He said suddenly as they continued sliding their way around the edge of the room. "how when the Falmer came you hesitated and resisted your nature."
"It wasn't as simple as that." Serana replied, moving almost on instinct as Kaius' sword flicked out and slapping it away with a parry that was too fast for the eye to see.
"That I can believe, but it concerns me that you are struggling against who you are."
"Who says that I'm struggling?"
Their blades came together and the way that Kaius twisted his wrist left the air filled with sparks as he neatly twisted her blade out of her hand and flung it away. He stopped in place for a moment before stepping back to allow her to retrieve her weapon, holding his own to his side in a deceptively open stance.
"I don't have to be a vampire to see that you have concerns and troubles dealing with being one yourself. Strangely enough it is one of the few reasons why I don't have an issue with you being with us."
"I thought that you have me around because I'm bait for the rest of my clan."
"Not entirely true. That may be a part of why I originally considered you coming along but things are more complicated now." With a simple, effortless roll of his wrist he twirled his sword about until it made a deep thrum sound in the air. "How many times have you tried to kill yourself?"
Serana stopped, her mouth opening in shock at his casually spoken words before clamping her jaw tightly closed. "I don't know what you are talking about."
All of the joviality had vanished and Kaius' motions had become slow and controlled. "Yes you do."
Seeing the way that she refused to answer, and the way that her eyes moved away from him he sighed and gave a very mild smile that was infuriatingly calming. "I can hazard a guess that it hasn't been once or twice, and certainly hasn't been the same method for each attempt. I also know for personal experience that it wasn't a polite word from someone caring that made you fail, but something else entirely."
"Six times." her voice was cold and impossible to hear without the hearing of a vampire.
"Cutting, drowning, taking poison and possibly jumping?"
This time her eyes bored into his and there were the tinges of fire within them. Too faint to see with mortal eyes, it was still enough that Kaius could see that they had begun to glow. "You can't possibly know that."
"Maybe not for certain, but I know how it feels to be… cursed."
"You have no comprehension of what I have been through." Her words crawled out of her mouth like a hiss and for the moment the sword in her hand was forgotten.
"I reckon that I do. You're a pureblood vampire, one of the very first of our kind and gained the curse directly from Molag Bal himself. I have seen and read enough to know exactly what that entails. While I couldn't possibly hope to imagine what it was like I know all too well how becoming a vampire changes you."
Rage filled her and she looked at the way he stood there, casually smacking the flat of his blade against a leg. "Don't talk to me like you know me or know how it feels to be a… a monster."
"A monster? Serana, I am a monster... We have a lot more in common than you would like." His laugh only served to fuel her anger further. "Do you know how I became a vampire?"
Seeing the way that she paused with hesitation he shrugged his shoulders and slid his sword back into its sheath. "I was bitten and while I cured the infection from its fangs I had inadvertently missed the fact that the… disease was also spread by blood. When I killed the one that bit me its blood got into a wound on my arm and for the next few weeks it spread. This was during the weeks before the Oblivion Crisis truly began and when I fully turned into a vampire it happened to be when I had first entered Oblivion itself."
Gesturing to her while wearing something of a regretful expression he sighed loudly. "The very first creature that I drank the blood from was a Dremora. Not just any Dremora mind you but a Markynaz by the name of Reive. It appears that when a vampire drinks the blood of such creatures it changes them and turns them into a different breed."
"So you are one of these 'different' vampires." She stated flatly.
"I'm not one of them, I am the only one." For a moment she was about to ask the obvious question but her forestalled her with a raised hand. "At least as far as I can tell. There may have been others over the millennia who did something similar, but the trick is that the very first being a vampire feeds on has to be a daedra to have the effect that it had on me. I am certain I am the only one to have succeeded and believe me, I have spent most of the past two centuries searching for records or evidence that I am not the only one."
Moving closer while gesturing to her his grin slowly began to regrow on his face. "Now, I know very well what kind of creature your father is. I've seen enough of his type to know a power mad tyrant when I see one but when he showed his true form to me I saw what a pureblood can be. This leaves me very curious on a number of things; first and foremost is whether you share more than just your blood with your father."
"Enough, I don't want to discuss this."
"Oh? Are you just going to turn your back and close your eyes and pray that it's all over soon? Isn't that what you did that got you stuck in this situation in the first place? Giving in to him and a daedric prince?"
Her roar of anger as she twisted around shook dust from the ceiling and of its own accord her arm snapped out much faster than the eye could follow, grasping Kaius around the throat and lifting him off his feet. Despite their difference in size and bodyweight she held him aloft for a heartbeat without any effort before throwing him with enough force that he bounced off the far wall.
"Well, I deserved that." He said, painfully pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and looking up to where Serana was staring horrified at the way her flesh began returning to normal and her fingernails shortened. For those few seconds her flesh had turned from the soft, porcelain like colouration to one that was greyish and sickly with the texture of leather.
Growling through a throat that was still softening and relaxing and feeling the tingling of her incisors as they slid back into her gums she tried her best to ignore the purring in her mind to fall upon him with fang and claw. It was infuriating to see that he also knew exactly what was going through her mind as he rose to his feet, pressed his hands to his side and groaned.
"Besides angry, how are you feeling right now?"
Her lips were pursed and tight as she gave him a stare that would have left anyone else's blood running cold with terror. "What do you think?"
"Obviously insulted, but I know that you are currently hating yourself for reacting like that and for losing control. Every minute of every day I know that you are struggling with that little voice, or sensation in the back of your head that is driving you on to hurt and kill and drink the blood of everything and everyone around you. I also know that there is a lot of times where you have been left wondering whether that voice or whatever is actually part of you at all or some Oblivion spawned creature, possibly even Molag Bal Himself driving you do all the things you really don't want to. Then there are the days when you worry even more that it isn't something dwelling in your mind but actually you instead. You are terrified that there is a part of you stained as black as the night that revels in drinking blood, in dominating and hurting people."
A finger tapped against his temple and while he had returned to grinning it was not the same infuriating grin as before. "I've had that little voice in my skull for a while, although for these last few decades it's had company. It is the one thing that all vampires share and the fact that just then you looked guilty and upset with losing control than me pissing you off shows a great deal about you."
"Like what?"
"That despite all the shit that you have gone through, that deep down you are still human. Most vampires lose that little spark of humanity within the first days of being turned or just go insane instead."
With a loud metallic clatter, Serana dropped her sword and gestured about the room hopelessly. "What difference does all this make? Why are we even having this conversation? Better yet, why do you even care? I'm a vampire, you're a vampire, and we're both going to live out the rest of our days until we die and become playthings for Molag Bal. I used to think that if I killed myself that all this pain would simply go away and that would be that. I'm not standing here because I'm incompetent or can't even commit suicide properly, I'm still breathing because this curse will not let me go! Can you even imagine how it feels to cut your wrists and for the world to go dark, only to wake up drenched in someone else's blood because you fed on them to survive? How about throwing yourself from the battlements and just before striking the rocks something else takes over your body and you find yourself flying?"
Kaius tapped on a thin scar on his chest that sliced in the grove between his pectoral and sternum. "A few years after the Great War I found myself in a battle against a group of dissidents within Menzoberranzan. The Underdark is a cruel place but at that point I was so drowned in my sorrow of losing my children that I let a Drow Blademaster stab me in the chest. Her technique was flawless and for all accounts I shouldn't be here either. Instead, the hardest part of the fight was reigning in my own excesses before I turned on those I was fighting alongside. Even after all these years there truly isn't a way that I can effectively shackle what I am. I can only direct it, not tame it. Unlike you I especially can't try to lock it away forever."
"Even if we 'control' it, in the end it doesn't matter. We are damned."
"Not necessarily." Sighing and feeling his side where the impact against the wall had cracked a rib Kaius gave her a very pointed stare. "It's rare indeed for vampires to be able to breed, but a few of our kind are capable of doing so. The Vampyrum Order has spent centuries trying to cure the vampire's sterility but it still mostly comes down to luck. By all accounts Viconia and I shouldn't have had children at all, but we did. Caiden began showing signs of vampirism when he reached puberty and Astinoa was the same and once they reached twenty years old they had effectively stopped aging at all. Caiden joined the Blades, and Astinoa became a mage and a student of a good friend of mine."
Serana listened despite herself and her simmering anger. During their time together she had never heard him mention much of his history. From what she had spoken to Sofia and Lydia about she also knew that he had never really told them much either. As they stood there, she could tell that he was struggling to keep his composure.
"Caiden died just before the Great War began when the Aldmeri Dominion killed all of the Blades in their territories. His skull was one of those delivered to Titus and Astinoa and I were captured three years later when the Imperial City fell. Naarifin had been using my connection with the Dremora Reive who he had bound to this plane to gather intelligence about the Empire. In doing so I had been serving the entire Empire up to them on a silver platter without knowing. They ambushed us in the catacombs under the City, killed her and threw me into the slave pits to die."
Taking a moment to calm himself, Kaius looked down at his hands where the faint hints of talons were shifting under the surface of his fingertips. "Anyway, after the war ended and I left the Surface I spent the next few years learning everything I could about the daedric realms. Valas; Viconia's brother and I did everything we could looking for the souls of my children in Coldharbour but in the end it was fruitless."
"You couldn't save them." Serana whispered.
The laugh from Kaius was not the reaction that she was expecting, nor the fact that it was actually a pleasant one and not tinged with bitterness. "It was fruitless because we couldn't find them in Molag Bal's Realm. They weren't there. Neither of us are entirely sure of where in Aetherius they are but they are certainly not in Rape God's clutches."
Again the silence fell between them and the smile on Kaius' face was a pleasant one and not the taunting one that he had been using before to test her. She watched him carefully for a minute or so while she tried to make sense of the jumbling thoughts in her mind. "What would you have done if you found them?"
"If they were in Coldharbour?" he shrugged. "Go in and get them out of there of course."
"You were going to willingly enter a daedric realm?"
"Why not? During the Oblivion Crisis I entered Oblivion on three separate occasions. Hells, I was present when Mehrunes Dagon Himself appeared at the end of the Crisis. It also wouldn't have been the first, second or even third time that I have had to fight a god or demi-god before. If it meant getting the souls of my children or anyone away from the likes of Him then I would do so without hesitation." He glanced back at her and saw the tiniest hint of understanding begin to blossom within her mind. "There is absolutely no guarantee that any of us, vampire or otherwise will be forced into any of the realms of Aedra or Daedra but there is guarantee that this curse of ours is not undefeatable. It can be controlled just like any of our other physical or mental desires, but we need to understand what drives it."
"And you understand your desires?"
"Better than most, the darkness in me is almost like an old friend these days but it has not been easy. I believe I can show and teach you how to live with yourself but only if you are willing and let me."
"Why though?"
"Why? To be honest it's partially because I see in you a lot of myself when I first turned. Back then I was simply flowing wherever the winds of fate seemed fit to take me and it took me nearly two centuries to start to make my own path. It's also partially because several storms are on the horizon and this world is going to taste war and destruction on a scale not seen since the Oblivion Crisis. I can no longer do this on my own. I need friends, and allies in what is coming and you are potentially one of them."
Chewing on her lip in thought, Serana looked about the room and all the little signs of the man who had been living in there over the previous days. His armour was well cared for and stacked neatly but the dents and scratches across its surface showed that he was not one for skulking when danger approached. She also didn't need to see the overwhelming amounts of scar tissue across his body to know that he was a survivor.
"So, if you are going to teach me, then what are we going to do?"
This time his grin was dangerous and slightly feral with the hints of lengthened incisors. "To take a page out of Sofia's book, I was thinking that we might try something like 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
"Show you my what?"
"Your true nature, the real vampire."
"What if I can't control it? What if I attack you?"
Every inch of her scarred companion was oozing confidence and it was hard not to feel some measure of safety in his presence. "I have personally fought and slain three dragons and a demi-god, I reckon I can handle anything that you can dish out. But to put your fears to rest I'll show you what happens when you drink the blood of a daedra and a dragon."
Shuddering and tensing he growled and rolled his neck as he called upon his darker nature. Serana watched with horror and fascination as his body shifted and grew, bones snapping and stretching as he changed. The first centuries of her existence had left her as a witness to hers and her parents ability to transform into what they called 'Vampire Lords' but Kaius' transformation was different again. His fingers didn't lengthen like theirs did but instead grew black talons right out of the tips of his fingers, and she couldn't help but feel nauseous at the sounds of his jawbones breaking and elongating until his mouth had stretched into something vaguely reptilian in appearance.
His skull also stretched and widened as his brow grew more pronounced as though he was in the process of growing horns and for a moment she was struck with the way how he appeared somewhat draconic in appearance. There was no humanity left in his eyes as they turned into dark pools of ink-like horror, sinking into the depths of his skull where they burned with terrible intensity. Strange bony protrusions also writhed and twisted under the flesh of his shoulders, chest and arms and made the mass of scar tissue pucker and tighten but within seconds he stood before her as a vison from the worst of nightmares.
"As powerful as I am, I know almost nothing of your father's abilities and strengths." The growl from his throat and through the maw of fangs reverberated through her chest with its potency and she could even feel it through the soles of her boots. "I have to admit that part of the reason why I wish to test and teach you is it has been a long time since I had a truly worthy adversary. Rest assured though that I will not take advantage of you, and that whatever benefit I gain from this I will repay tenfold."
Staring with some fearfulness at the hard-skinned being standing before her she struggled with her own desires and fears. Facing such a monster wearing the flesh of the man that she had willingly left Castle Volkihar to seek out left her less worried about her own nature. He had experienced what it was like to fall to darkness and had clawed his way back which meant he could lead her out of the abyss if she fell.
He stood in complete silence, watching and waiting to see what her decision would be and other than the horrid, rasping noise he made breathing through the maw of serpentine fangs there was utter silence in the Midden. The whirlpool of thoughts threatened to overwhelm Serana's mind as she considered Kaius' words and intent and despite her fear there was a new niggling sensation creeping into her consciousness.
Here was a man who had faced his demons, both within and without and had refused to back down. He had faced everything his curse could provide and fought tooth and claw against anything and everything. When they had first returned to Castle Volkihar after her awakening he had walked into the den of her family without any concern and while she now knew that he considered her and her father to be terrible threats he wasn't afraid. This was the same man, who when faced with her father's vampiric form and offered a measure of his power had turned his nose up at it and laughed. Staring at the thing that was Kaius' vampiric form she could feel the same confidence sitting just out of her reach, but also knowing that all she had to do was lean that bit further into the void and dare for something different. If Kaius wasn't afraid of her father, the very terror of her waking hours or the shadow of her soul, then perhaps she didn't need to be either.
Making a conscious decision, Serana looked into Kaius' blackened eyes and began breathing. The first few breaths were slow and purposeful as she tried to force her body to relax but within seconds she was almost hyperventilating, feeling the overwhelming hatred and fear within the depths of her being. With one last look into Kaius' true form she forced her natural inclination to supress everything away and allowed her own changes to take hold.
