Does the chapter title make you think of something humorous? Maybe, maybe
not. I don't think it is, but I thought it was rather appropiate. This is
in Adrian's POV. Once again meant to calm down the drama.
************
That boy. He was still so human that it hurt to watch him pain himself. I myself was confused on why I had actually cared for this new fledgling. I guess it was because of that stupid Nada girl that never left my mind, no matter what I was doing. Her mother had lived with me for several weeks. I had fed her when she she could not reach the food in time, kept her warm when she trembled. I was like an older brother to her and we never even spoke a word to one another. It was odd how relationships could work out that way.
What really confused me was the fact that Dieta had never done one physical thing for me. She never fed me, never did anything. I was the one to aid her. And yet, still after all these years, it seemed as if I owed HER something still. That thought plagued me. Why did I feel that way when she had done nothing for me?
She had though, I reasoned with myself. She had done nothing to my body but she helped my mind. I, when I could have been broken in that Midnight. But she kept reminding me of what humanity and love was.
That word. LOVE. I thought of it as an insect that needed to be squashed. When I had seen Nada for the first time after Jaguar had bought her, she was a fly. Yet one another side of the force field. Jaguar would have splattered me against the wall like jelly if I had injured her. Or he would have at least tried to.
I had loved Nada's mother. As a sister. A little thing that needed to be kept well fed and warm. I had done so. She was my own little sister, the replacing the siblings and parents I had lost to selling, abandonment, and culling.
Retching myself away from the sleeping boy, I went back downstairs to see the place where Jaguar had layed dead a few days ago. There was no blood, no nothing to show what that spot meant to all of us. Deep inside me, it felt as if Jaguar had known the dagger was there. I mean, how could he have not seen it? Blinding anger? I doubt it. I have seen Jaguar's blinding rage, and he could still see weapons. Had he ran into it on purpose? I was not sure why he would even consider doing so, but he was dead now. It did not matter what little theories we placed into our heads. The Master of New Midnight was dead. Ran through by his own fledgling. A vampire not even half a year old and already stronger than most of his line. The Katama Line.
Katama. I remember seeing her once or twice. She would always pass my cage in the basement and pause to gaze at me. She had sometimes stop to talk to me as if I was a dumb-witted monkey of some sort. Thinking back fondly, I remember the day where I had pushed Katama, the original Vampiress of Midnight, a bit too off the edge.
***************memory******************
"Little human," the vampire cooed on the other side of the bars. I kept my eyes down on the ground, the little girl in my lap. I continued to stroke her as if she was a precious kitten. Her eyes were closed and I knew she was fast asleep. I usually did this everyday right after we got something to drink or eat. The food made her tired, or so it seemed. I never really knew. I never said much as a word to her.
As I continued to run my fingers through the girl's hair, to stroke her dusty yet silky cheeks, the vampire on the other side of the cage seemed to grow more impatient. "Come on, please look at me!" I knew she was mocking me. Her kind thought humans as weak. What they forgot was that they were once like me, mortal and weak. But of course they did not wish to think themselves as weak. I personally thought that they did not want to think of their old selves capable of killing, but that was my opinion.
After about another minute of the continues callow (A/N: yes I spelled that right. If you want to know what it means, look it up in a dictionary) whining, I grew fed up. My eyes shot up from the ground and connected with hers. "A fiesty one, aye?" She almost giggled with delight. "Never thought one of these things had the smarts to understand what I was saying." I couldnt help but glare at her. She smirked and got down on her knees, which was odd in itself. Did she enjoy angering slaves? Probably. Katama probably enjoyed picking on things while they were behind bars. She was safe.
For those who have not ever met Katama would only need to know a few things. Number one, she is a direct fledgling of Siete. Number two, her first fledgling is her younger sister, Jeshickah. Number three, she enjoyed toying with us more than Jeshickah did. Rather than being disobediant puppies as Jeshickah saw us, Katama saw us purely as a form of fascination and enjoyment. Sometimes she could just sit infront of cages for hours, examining us, watching what we did. We were more of a hobby or a collection rather than slaves.
And Number four, the one that had been beaten into many of us, was that her temper was almost two times more volatile than her sister's. I have seen Katama joke with a guard for one moment and have the guard near death the next. And she was very good at breaking us. VERY good. In vampire opinion that is.
If you would ever ask me, which you would not, about what made Katama tick, it was her intelligence. She was very smart as a human, or so I was told. Well, not to me, but the guards would talk about her while she was elsewhere.
"Human?" I had looked away before,and I did not wish to see her again. "You with the blond hair and blue eyes petting the little one." I arched a brow yet still did not look up. If she wanted my attention, she would have to get it in a better manner. The first time had been a mistake.
"Fine," she snapped. "Guards, bring that one out of there so I can bring it to my room." That caught my ear. Her room? I slowly moved the small girl off of my lap and began to stand up as gradually as I could. If there was one place I did not want to go, it was Katama's room. Most humans who were taken up there were broken and sold to some other vamp the next day.
"Yes ma'am," A hawk guard replied as he slowly undid my cage door. The others stirred at the sound. Flare and his group of teenagers watched me, shaking their heads. Never would Flare admit that I was the one to give him that name. If I would ask him tomorrow what his real name had been, he would not know. That was one of the many differences between me and many other Midnight vampires. Most would not recall their true name. Others refused to answer the question, although they knew what the answer was.
"Hurry up," Katama complained like a child waiting for icecream. I was in the guard's grasp and was being pulled out before I could properly think.
"He is the rougher of his age group," the guard warned her as he tied the leash onto my neck and began leading me into Katama's room. She, unlike others, had her room in the basement. Our sleeping habits made her curious. While some nights she watched sleeping positions, others she listened to different tones of snores. Rarely a night went by that she did not spend at least two hours out here, listening and watching. It unnerved most of us, me included. Were we that interesting?
"I think I can handle it," she assured him sarcastically as she held the door open for us. When I passed her, she pinched my butt. I jumped and turned to meet her gaze. "Hmm he is a bit wild is he not?" She thought aloud after the guard had released my neck from the brace he had put it in. "He meets my gaze without hesitation to do so. Do you think he thinks me interesting?" Before the guard could respond, she waved him off. "Go now, and leave me with him." To my dissappointment, he obeyed and left me with her.
"So, do you remember the name your parent's gave you?" She tilted her head, looking me over. I did, but I shook my head. I did not wish to talk to her. If she wished to beat me, then let her do so. I just wanted to go back to the girl. She might be upset that I left. "Can you even speak?" Slowly, I nodded. "Good." I wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. "Was that black haired one on your lap your own offspring or a litter mate?"
"Neither," I snapped, drawing back as if I had already been smacked. Not to my surprise, I found myself on the floor. I had set off her volatile temper with just a simple word. And now I could all but feel the bruises pregrowing and the blood already dripping down my skin. All of this I had already begun feeling and Katama had not drew blood yet.
"An abandoned runt that you thought would die if you did not take her under your wing then?" She continued asking as if she had never struck me.
"If you want to beat me," I growled, surprising the both of us, "then just do it. I did not come here to play 20 questions." Back then it was not even a game. But now you know where the name came from. Makes you wonder about the game industry owners doesn't it?
"The black sheep of the herd," she noted aloud. "You know what we do to the black sheep?" I did not get a chance to respond. I felt her foot pressing against my neck even before I felt my head crack against the floor. "We either bend them to our will, kill them, or make them one of us. Black sheep are one in a few hundred, as you have already noticed." She smiled sadistically. "The question is now, are you going to die before you are broken, are you going to be broken at all? If you aren't and actually survive this, then I am putting you on potential list. And once you are on there, you can never get off."
Kicking me in the ribs, she began to beat me. The last words that were a full sentence were, "But the matter is, you are going to die by the hands of Midnight."
**************************end memory*********
I smirked as I lounged in one of the couches. That had been one of the worst beating I had ever had to endure, and it was probably one of my last, now that I came to think about it. That beating had been a month before my change.
I actually wondered where Katama was at that moment as I layed down and closed my eyes slightly. I could sense it was mid morning. I was quite tired. But I was afraid of what might happen when I slept. Would Lucia try to kill Eric while he too slept? I feared for the boy's life.
Which brought me back to the original question at hand. Why did I care for him? First off, he was strong. He would be able to kill me in a year or so. Second, he needed help getting Nada back, or at least planning to get her back. But mostly most likely, it was the fact that Nada loved him, and I owed it to Dieta to protect her family. Eric was married to Dieta's daughter, and so I felt a duty to protect them.
How odd. I had never said a word to the girl named Dieta and yet here I was, pledgling my life to protect her descendants. Sighing, I closed my eyes, put my hands behind my head and drifted off into a light sleep. I never understood love. Which would probably explain why I feared it.. Anything anyone does not understand, they rejected and feared it. That was probably one of the major things I learned in the past centuries of my life.
Never fear what you do not understand, for one day you might become what you had feared.
************
That boy. He was still so human that it hurt to watch him pain himself. I myself was confused on why I had actually cared for this new fledgling. I guess it was because of that stupid Nada girl that never left my mind, no matter what I was doing. Her mother had lived with me for several weeks. I had fed her when she she could not reach the food in time, kept her warm when she trembled. I was like an older brother to her and we never even spoke a word to one another. It was odd how relationships could work out that way.
What really confused me was the fact that Dieta had never done one physical thing for me. She never fed me, never did anything. I was the one to aid her. And yet, still after all these years, it seemed as if I owed HER something still. That thought plagued me. Why did I feel that way when she had done nothing for me?
She had though, I reasoned with myself. She had done nothing to my body but she helped my mind. I, when I could have been broken in that Midnight. But she kept reminding me of what humanity and love was.
That word. LOVE. I thought of it as an insect that needed to be squashed. When I had seen Nada for the first time after Jaguar had bought her, she was a fly. Yet one another side of the force field. Jaguar would have splattered me against the wall like jelly if I had injured her. Or he would have at least tried to.
I had loved Nada's mother. As a sister. A little thing that needed to be kept well fed and warm. I had done so. She was my own little sister, the replacing the siblings and parents I had lost to selling, abandonment, and culling.
Retching myself away from the sleeping boy, I went back downstairs to see the place where Jaguar had layed dead a few days ago. There was no blood, no nothing to show what that spot meant to all of us. Deep inside me, it felt as if Jaguar had known the dagger was there. I mean, how could he have not seen it? Blinding anger? I doubt it. I have seen Jaguar's blinding rage, and he could still see weapons. Had he ran into it on purpose? I was not sure why he would even consider doing so, but he was dead now. It did not matter what little theories we placed into our heads. The Master of New Midnight was dead. Ran through by his own fledgling. A vampire not even half a year old and already stronger than most of his line. The Katama Line.
Katama. I remember seeing her once or twice. She would always pass my cage in the basement and pause to gaze at me. She had sometimes stop to talk to me as if I was a dumb-witted monkey of some sort. Thinking back fondly, I remember the day where I had pushed Katama, the original Vampiress of Midnight, a bit too off the edge.
***************memory******************
"Little human," the vampire cooed on the other side of the bars. I kept my eyes down on the ground, the little girl in my lap. I continued to stroke her as if she was a precious kitten. Her eyes were closed and I knew she was fast asleep. I usually did this everyday right after we got something to drink or eat. The food made her tired, or so it seemed. I never really knew. I never said much as a word to her.
As I continued to run my fingers through the girl's hair, to stroke her dusty yet silky cheeks, the vampire on the other side of the cage seemed to grow more impatient. "Come on, please look at me!" I knew she was mocking me. Her kind thought humans as weak. What they forgot was that they were once like me, mortal and weak. But of course they did not wish to think themselves as weak. I personally thought that they did not want to think of their old selves capable of killing, but that was my opinion.
After about another minute of the continues callow (A/N: yes I spelled that right. If you want to know what it means, look it up in a dictionary) whining, I grew fed up. My eyes shot up from the ground and connected with hers. "A fiesty one, aye?" She almost giggled with delight. "Never thought one of these things had the smarts to understand what I was saying." I couldnt help but glare at her. She smirked and got down on her knees, which was odd in itself. Did she enjoy angering slaves? Probably. Katama probably enjoyed picking on things while they were behind bars. She was safe.
For those who have not ever met Katama would only need to know a few things. Number one, she is a direct fledgling of Siete. Number two, her first fledgling is her younger sister, Jeshickah. Number three, she enjoyed toying with us more than Jeshickah did. Rather than being disobediant puppies as Jeshickah saw us, Katama saw us purely as a form of fascination and enjoyment. Sometimes she could just sit infront of cages for hours, examining us, watching what we did. We were more of a hobby or a collection rather than slaves.
And Number four, the one that had been beaten into many of us, was that her temper was almost two times more volatile than her sister's. I have seen Katama joke with a guard for one moment and have the guard near death the next. And she was very good at breaking us. VERY good. In vampire opinion that is.
If you would ever ask me, which you would not, about what made Katama tick, it was her intelligence. She was very smart as a human, or so I was told. Well, not to me, but the guards would talk about her while she was elsewhere.
"Human?" I had looked away before,and I did not wish to see her again. "You with the blond hair and blue eyes petting the little one." I arched a brow yet still did not look up. If she wanted my attention, she would have to get it in a better manner. The first time had been a mistake.
"Fine," she snapped. "Guards, bring that one out of there so I can bring it to my room." That caught my ear. Her room? I slowly moved the small girl off of my lap and began to stand up as gradually as I could. If there was one place I did not want to go, it was Katama's room. Most humans who were taken up there were broken and sold to some other vamp the next day.
"Yes ma'am," A hawk guard replied as he slowly undid my cage door. The others stirred at the sound. Flare and his group of teenagers watched me, shaking their heads. Never would Flare admit that I was the one to give him that name. If I would ask him tomorrow what his real name had been, he would not know. That was one of the many differences between me and many other Midnight vampires. Most would not recall their true name. Others refused to answer the question, although they knew what the answer was.
"Hurry up," Katama complained like a child waiting for icecream. I was in the guard's grasp and was being pulled out before I could properly think.
"He is the rougher of his age group," the guard warned her as he tied the leash onto my neck and began leading me into Katama's room. She, unlike others, had her room in the basement. Our sleeping habits made her curious. While some nights she watched sleeping positions, others she listened to different tones of snores. Rarely a night went by that she did not spend at least two hours out here, listening and watching. It unnerved most of us, me included. Were we that interesting?
"I think I can handle it," she assured him sarcastically as she held the door open for us. When I passed her, she pinched my butt. I jumped and turned to meet her gaze. "Hmm he is a bit wild is he not?" She thought aloud after the guard had released my neck from the brace he had put it in. "He meets my gaze without hesitation to do so. Do you think he thinks me interesting?" Before the guard could respond, she waved him off. "Go now, and leave me with him." To my dissappointment, he obeyed and left me with her.
"So, do you remember the name your parent's gave you?" She tilted her head, looking me over. I did, but I shook my head. I did not wish to talk to her. If she wished to beat me, then let her do so. I just wanted to go back to the girl. She might be upset that I left. "Can you even speak?" Slowly, I nodded. "Good." I wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. "Was that black haired one on your lap your own offspring or a litter mate?"
"Neither," I snapped, drawing back as if I had already been smacked. Not to my surprise, I found myself on the floor. I had set off her volatile temper with just a simple word. And now I could all but feel the bruises pregrowing and the blood already dripping down my skin. All of this I had already begun feeling and Katama had not drew blood yet.
"An abandoned runt that you thought would die if you did not take her under your wing then?" She continued asking as if she had never struck me.
"If you want to beat me," I growled, surprising the both of us, "then just do it. I did not come here to play 20 questions." Back then it was not even a game. But now you know where the name came from. Makes you wonder about the game industry owners doesn't it?
"The black sheep of the herd," she noted aloud. "You know what we do to the black sheep?" I did not get a chance to respond. I felt her foot pressing against my neck even before I felt my head crack against the floor. "We either bend them to our will, kill them, or make them one of us. Black sheep are one in a few hundred, as you have already noticed." She smiled sadistically. "The question is now, are you going to die before you are broken, are you going to be broken at all? If you aren't and actually survive this, then I am putting you on potential list. And once you are on there, you can never get off."
Kicking me in the ribs, she began to beat me. The last words that were a full sentence were, "But the matter is, you are going to die by the hands of Midnight."
**************************end memory*********
I smirked as I lounged in one of the couches. That had been one of the worst beating I had ever had to endure, and it was probably one of my last, now that I came to think about it. That beating had been a month before my change.
I actually wondered where Katama was at that moment as I layed down and closed my eyes slightly. I could sense it was mid morning. I was quite tired. But I was afraid of what might happen when I slept. Would Lucia try to kill Eric while he too slept? I feared for the boy's life.
Which brought me back to the original question at hand. Why did I care for him? First off, he was strong. He would be able to kill me in a year or so. Second, he needed help getting Nada back, or at least planning to get her back. But mostly most likely, it was the fact that Nada loved him, and I owed it to Dieta to protect her family. Eric was married to Dieta's daughter, and so I felt a duty to protect them.
How odd. I had never said a word to the girl named Dieta and yet here I was, pledgling my life to protect her descendants. Sighing, I closed my eyes, put my hands behind my head and drifted off into a light sleep. I never understood love. Which would probably explain why I feared it.. Anything anyone does not understand, they rejected and feared it. That was probably one of the major things I learned in the past centuries of my life.
Never fear what you do not understand, for one day you might become what you had feared.