A Princess's Tale
Chapter Four
Immortals, unfortunately, cannot stay together permanently. We end up killing each other because of the Game if we do. After I finished my training, Uncle and I worked on a spaceship, and Micha and I left our planet and began to explore the universe. As we went, I created worlds, civilizations, etcetera. After about a thousand years, Micha and I separated for a while. Two thousand years later, I went insane.
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I have gone completely, truly insane exactly three times. Trust me, it's not a pleasant thing. I settled on the planet Zorikadomar, and so began my reign of terror. I completely decimated that entire planet's population. I staked pregnant mothers . . .I won't go into too much detail. Trust me, you don't want to know.
But there was one man . . .His name was Daren. He had sandy hair falling to his shoulders and yellowish-green eyes. Very interesting, and he caught my mad fancy. After I murdered his entire family, I brought him to my castle one night, seduced him, and turned him into a vampire. Under my teaching, he became as twisted and evil as I was, and we reveled in the pain we brought to the people of Zorikadomar.
After a few centuries, the planet was completely barren, and after a blazing row, I abandoned Daren on Zorikadomar. Once I was in orbit, I blew the planet up.
There was one problem, I found out later. There are two lines of prophecy that have caused me more than a bit of trouble. "And her allies shall defy the grave to serve her," and, "And his allies shall defy the grave to serve him." What that means is that all of my people who die are given one more chance at life, and the same goes for Jonathan's allies. Occasionally, the recently deceased has a choice in the matter, yet at other times, it simply happens. Magic is such a fickle thing, isn't it? Since Daren had once been my ally, and then betrayed me, becoming Jonathan's ally, he got two chances. It's confusing, so don't ask. But we'll get back to Daren later.
So, I kept wandering, still insane. I don't know what broke me out. Everything's still a little fuzzy. All I remember is one day, I woke up, and was me. I spent around four hundred years in self-imposed solitary confinement, on an empty planet I created for the purpose.
Micha came to me there. It was like the first time we had met. I was on a hill, staring up at the stars and playing with the hem of my robe, when Micha came through the trees, sat down beside me, and introduced himself.
I started to laugh, and he soon joined in, opening his arms. I crawled into his embrace, whispering against the linen of his tunic, "Do you know what I've done?"
"I do," he replied just as softly. "And I know that you weren't quite in charge of your own senses." His lips brushed the top of my head as he continued, "No matter what, I love you, and I will always love you." Then his mouth met mine, and the sparks flew once more.
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Let's see . . .I can skip over the next, oh, three or four trillion years. Nothing much happened, except that Micha and I finally decided that no matter how much we loved each other, we need to go our separate ways, permanently. We might see each other occasionally, and probably end up making love, but we could no longer live together. I went through a variety of lovers from then on, and lost track of time. There was nothing to do with Jonathan, or any other evil, so I spent the time developing my already considerable powers. I still haven't found the limits of all I could do, but anyway. So, let's keep skipping . . .Mmm-hmm . . .there was this one time when a whole coven of vampires decided to either have me as their leader or I would die . . .
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There's not much I can say on this. The leader, a bloke named Koren decided I was still very, very evil. I convinced him and his followers otherwise. Nice pile of dust they made.
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Let's see . . .Ah, yes, the Slayer. Officially, though no one knows it, and that's how I like it, I'm the first Slayer. But I got tired of the job (I died a lot), so I invoked a spell so that every time a Slayer died, a new one would be called in her place. And so the Slayers were born, but anyway. Let's see . . .Nope, nothing interesting in that century . . . I went insane once more. I don't remember anything, just the fact that there's now a lot of rubble where an entire galaxy used to be. I've killed a lot of people.
Luckily, during all of this, I never ran into my "grandchildren", the Vorlons, Shadows, any of the first ones. Didn't need to run into any relatives. Yes, I'm part Vorlon, Shadow, human, Minbari, Narn, Hynerian, Delvian, Human, etcetera. I might have mentioned this before, but every single species there could be, I'm part of it. Which is why I'm the Princess. I rule over them when they need it. Which, thank the gods, is not often.
Okay . . .let's just say a lot of time passed. I don't know how much, but a lot. The world was created, and I did that favor for God . . .
Oh, yeah, that favor. Might as well tell you about it. You all know the story of Cain, right? For those of you who don't, Cain killed his brother and was punished for it by God. Severely. What God did was to curse Cain with vampirism. But since vampires are considered "evil", God would not change Cain himself. So, he asked me to, and I was more than happy to oblige. And that started one breed of vampire. His type has evolved (kinda) through the generations, and has separated into clans, like the Brujah, Gangrel, Tremeres, Nosferatu, Toreador, and the Ventrue, just to name a few. And then there's the type of Akasha and Enkil. A spirit inhabited them, a spirit of my making when I went insane the second time. Amel was as close to me as a son back then. I'm the one who gave him the thirst for blood he had, the thirst so great he took over the King and Queen of Egypt six thousand years ago. I only semi-regret that. If I hadn't created Amel, I never would have known the beautiful Marius, Louis, my darling Lestat, Armand, all the others. So there is good come from almost every evil, it seems . . .There might be a few more breeds of vampires such as Daren's, but those type die a very painful death if they come to this planet, so no biggie. And I'm part of all of them. Impossible, you might say. Bingo. I am impossible. I'm the exception to every single rule there is, and a few that aren't. I'm also quite a few contradictions, but don't worry about that.
Let's see…nothing really hit the fan until about thirteen million years ago, when my rather strange, yet somehow adorable granddaughter was born. Let's see, how much can I gloss over? Brenna's birth was not…the way it should have been, we could say. I'm ashamed to say I had a hand in it. I needed a second hand that could be me when I wasn't around. Most who know Brenna thinks she's more dangerous than me, and that's what I want them to think. I'm telling you now, I'm not boasting. I am the most dangerous person I know. I could wipe out the entire human race, in any galaxy or universe, with nothing but a random thought. I even have more power than Q. Scary, eh? Anyway, back to Bren.
Unfortunately, I allowed the girl to be spoiled. When she was born, she was born full-grown, much like Zeus's daughter, Athena, only with slight differences. Now, I was at her birth (she doesn't remember it because I was invisible at the time), and I knew who she was and who she would be. Therefore, I made more exceptions than I should have in her case. A mistake in some cases, a blessing in others. Her temper, for instance. That needs to go unchecked, at least for now.
Justin once compared our tempers. "Man, Princess," he said, "When you get pissed, you're like ice. And Brenna's the exact opposite. She blows up! I don't know which one I would hate the most to be pissed at me."
Darling Curls. Pity he cut his hair. He needs to grow it back out. (AN: Oh, hell yes!)
Once the Duchess was born, I was swamped. Literally. Everything and anything that could possibly happen did. I shudder just to remember. For example, in one week, I had to prevent eight assassination attempts on my granddaughter. Jonathan wanted his hands on that girl. If he managed to subdue my will, we would have had a son (the only exception to the fact that Immortals cannot have children), and our son would have married . . .bingo. Brenna. I swear, I hate prophecy at times.
So things started to get really sticky back then. The few Immortals new to the game were quickly killed, because the "oldest" Immortal was a very specific person. You might know him, but we'll get there eventually.
Right. So, I was dealing with all sorts of crap, including Atlantis, my family, and a few other things. Ah, yes, Sebastian Valic. A . . .thing I made sure went to the very deepest pits of all the hells. I'm not going to go into much detail, but there're a few things I can tell. My life, and usually the life of those close to me, run in repetitions. Brenna was kidnapped by Sebastian and raped. He broke her, she escaped, etcetera. And then he kidnapped her again. It was not a pleasant experience. She escaped with the help of Jean Claude, a vampire almost as old as Bren. They, of course, fell in love.
Sebastian, to say in the least, was not happy. He abducted them both and staked them just before dawn, Jean Claude facing the east, and Brenna facing him. She watched her true love burst into flames, the only thing on his face the love he held for her.
Before this, Brenna had been stripped of her powers by Zeus. Not his wisest decision, and I let him know.
And when Jean Claude died, Brenna regained her powers by . . .going insane.