"Before The Shadow Fell"

By: Sara Angeldust

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Epilogue

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No Darkness Above Me

By: Sara Angeldust

No darkness high above me

No heaven far below

No shameless, empty laughter

And I so wish I could go.

Far from the flowing rivers

Far away I'd fly

Far to a distant land

To a clear, and brilliant sky.

In silence I can hear them

In death they dare speak

In listless waiting wonder

If my soul is theirs to keep.

Tie a rope to my heart

Tie it tight and taunt

Tie it so I can not move

In case my mind they haunt.

No hopelessness beyond me

No loneliness draws me near

No hatred flows within me

It's only you I hear

A hope has gathered 'round us

A light is holding me

A day is slowly breaking

And you're eyes are all I see.

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Disclaimer: Regular disclaimer applies. I do not own, nor pretend to own any of the books or characters created by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. All other characters, including Aura and Tianna, are of mine and mine alone. Use of them without my permission will cause me to get very, very angry. I have gained no profit from writing any of these stories, except maybe the emotional satisfaction, which is not a crime.

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60 miles from the Diometra clan village

1701

Amelia crawled through the woods on her bare hands and knees, her dress completely sodden, eyes filled with fear and tears. She couldn't believe what she had just seen, her mother crumpled before her, blood gushing from the wound inflicted by what could be nothing less then a vampire. She had screamed as loud as she could, but no one was there to help her. They were all dead, all of them. Lying motionless on the forest floor, some in human form, some in panther, their parcels and packages strewn every which way.

She sat stiffly next to a near by tree, her eyes filling with tears, her arms hugging her knees in fear.

Why? She begged. Why mom? Why…Grand Nan?

Amelia searched the bodies with her eyes, seeing the old woman beaten to death on the ground, her hair mussy, her eyes looking off into distant space, never to hold comfort again.

Why… But she never got her thoughts out. As she was thinking, a familiar feeling irrupted in the palm of her hand, the flame growing with every fearful attempt she made to put it out.

"Stop!" She screamed, her voice echoing through the forest.

I'm going to burn to death! She screamed in her head, holding her hand as far out as she could, trying to buy herself the tinniest amount of time.

"Calm down." She heard behind her, the voice soothing, yet strict.

"What?" She said back, still in too much of a panic to really do anything.

"I said, calm down. It won't go away unless you rest your mind."

But Amelia couldn't. She was in too much of a panic to do anything, and the current events she had gone through hadn't helped her in the least.

As the sound of feet crunching on leaves came closer to her, she saw the figure of a woman appear in the space before her. The woman was older then her, maybe in her mid thirties, blond hair tied back in a bun on the lower part of her neck, a few bangs hanging down in her face. She looked tired and weary, someone who had been traveling a long time. Her eyes stared back with a force and power that had been drained from her long before. Her hands were scared and dirty, yet her demeanor told of power.

Amelia watched as the woman's eyes surveyed the scene before her, Amelia huddled by a tree only five feet from the closest body. Suddenly her eyes caught sight of the carnage before her, and her mind panicked. The fire in her hand, which had remained calm before, sprung to life again. She screamed as it did.

It was then that she began to feel herself getting sleepy. It was as if all of her energy was being drained from her body. She looked up and saw the woman looking back at her, her eyes glowing a strange blue.

~~~~~

Modern Day 2003

Aura sighed and continued her walk through the forest, trailing behind Tianna as she did. She shoved away tree limbs and thorns with her power, not wanting them to damage her nice leather coat, or her new jeans. She had no idea where they were going, but Tianna always had a direction in mind, as well as a destination, so it was nothing new to her.

She could barely remember the day that Tianna had found her, huddled in the dark woods, the bodies of what little family she had left, strewn around her like the leaves. It all came back to her as fuzzy pictures, but she did remember her time before that, the happy days, the days she had been known as Amelia, instead of Aura. Yet those days had gone and past, and her mind worked on other things that were a bit more important to her right now. Like why Tianna had suddenly decided that they were going to leave the quiet town they had been living in and walk through the woods.

She was used to the constant moving. She had been since 1704, when she had learned to harness her powers enough that she remained the age she was that day, 17. They had been almost everywhere since then. Spain, Europe, Japan, England, Australia, Brazil, you name the country, they had lived there. They had been in a constant state of movement back then, and only returned to the United states after the Civil war had ended, Tianna not wanting to have to deal with the problems the states were having. And even then, they had moved all over the United States and Canada, eventually coming back to New York, a state which brought back memories for both of them, if not Aura mostly.

So it was safe to say that Aura knew a little bit about moving around. It was her constant state of homelessness that had caused her to kill her old name and adopt her new one. She didn't feel any connection to it anymore, and she wanted one that she could grow new memories on, start again with. But so far, nothing had grown on it, not even a fungus.

Aura sighed as she realized that she probably shouldn't have worn her boots that day. She had assumed that Tianna would have kept the car they had bought a few years before, thinking that all people liked Ferrari's at that time. But apparently Tianna had no problems with selling the thing at the nearest town, which was as of now, ten miles the opposite direction of where they were.

"How much longer?" Aura panted, wanting the walking to just be over and done with, her powers dwindling more and more as they continued the path. It had gotten so bad within the past week, that it was getting harder and harder for her to even make a curtain of heat to keep her warm. Her powers were fazing out for some reason.

"Not much farther." Tianna said, her tone even and un fazed by the walking.

Yet Tianna constantly remained as powerful as the day Aura had awoken from her sleep the first time they had met. Sometimes she even wondered if she had dreamt the weary, tired figure before her the night before, because that was never Tianna. She had more Triste power then Aura would ever hope to have, and used it constantly to show her so. It was life, she guessed, some were born powerful, and some weak. Yet the fact that she had even thought she'd seen Tianna weak constantly confused her. It didn't make any sense.

"Here." Aura stopped, hearing Tianna's voice and seeing her stop a few feet in front of her.

As she looked up, she could feel the twinge of vampiric aura all around her, crawling on her skin like an insect. She stared at the house, its black walls and red symbols staring back with hatred buried beneath. A white marble walk way lead strikingly up to the front door. The gate before the marble was just showing signs of being old, two raven's perched on top, guarding the entrance with deathly stares.

All of this Aura could had seen and still believed it to be of a human nature, but it was the feature that was growing along the entrance and the door which caused her eyes to slant. Black roses adorned the intire house, letting those who knew what they meant to understand exactly who this house belonged to.

"Tianna, this is…" Aura started, slowly making her way to stand next to her mentor, both standing at the edge of the woods which surrounded the house on one side.

"Midnight." She said back, never glancing at Aura as she said the word.

The name hit a chord in her mind, she knew this place. It was a vampire town, a place that had once been demolished, but apparently, recently rebuilt. It had been a place where humans and all kinds of others had been enslaved and tortured. Stories had been passed down for generations, and Aura had heard most of them straight from the original teller. She had even been alive when the town flourished, remembering the day that the news had arrived that it had burned down. She couldn't imagine how a place so sinister could have been built again, and her mouth echoed her anger, a snarl appearing on it.

"And," She heard Tianna say, mostly a whisper, hardly audible. "Your new home."

Aura's eyes widened in shock. She hadn't heard her right, she hadn't. Yet, in the back of her mind, the pieces were lining up. The missing parts of her life were falling into place and revolving around the lies of this Triste, who she had spent her life with. She tried to lash out at her, but all those days of weakness were playing against her, and as she fell to the ground, exhausted, she couldn't even get a mental punch in.

Damn you. Damn you all. And as she fell into a deep sleep, a strange memory floated back to her.

Her sister finished her laugh then smiled. "There is nothing different about you Amelia." She put an arm around her little sisters shoulder to comfort her." It's called growing up, you only feel different on the inside, but on the out, you're the same sweet sister I've known all my life."

But you didn't know me. She thought in her head. You never really knew the real me, I was Triste, not panthera, nor Shifter. No one ever knew me, no one ever cared.

And as sunk into darkness she let it take her, wondering on which side she would wake when she opened her eyes.

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Told you it was going to be short.

The following notes are information for those of you who have been reading this story from the beginning, and have noticed that a few things have changed. They also contain some tiny tidbits on my characters and why I did certain things.

Note: I changed the role of my Shifters from being all animal Shifters (meaning they could change into any animal at will), to Pantheraste, or Shifters which only changed into panthers. This decision was made after reading Hawksong, and seeing how Amelia did it, and after realizing that it was going to be much easier that way. I hope that I was able to change as much information as I could to be able to show this, but some info is probably still wrong somewhere in Parts 1 and 2. I'll go back and look, but I think I got them.

Foot notes: The Diometra clan proceedings and culture come mostly from the Native American culture. The seeking of a spirit guide (the Retearn ritual), the initiation of a young boy to being a man, and joining in the hunting party (the moons hunt), are all examples of this. I never really intended them to turn out that way, but as I was writing, I realized that was exactly what I was doing. I don't confess to being a specialist on Native American culture, but from what I've read, this is the direction that I was going. Just a little explanation so you all know.

Authors Note:

For anyone who has been reading Raven's story from the beginning, you would know that I started these fics BEFORE Amelia released her Shape Shifter book, Hawksong. I will be sticking by my story, I won't be changing it to compensate for Amelia's way she described her shifters, I actually don't think I need to, if you read this story with these tying thoughts in mind:

1. My characters are existing WAY AFTER the ones in her book. The shifter clans she talks about in Hawksong are existing around the early, early AC era. My characters are more along the area of the 1700's, so the differences between how I am describing them and the way she is can be explained by this difference in time. Thousands of things can happen to a group of people within that time. So bear with me. ^-^

2. I am also writing this as if vampires gave a hoot about shifters. It seems in Amy's books that they really could care less, but Vailor will be an exception. Leave me and my delusions alone and just read the story kay?

Anyways, I also want to thank you guys for sticking around with me. The additions of my Junior year of school, severe writer's block, and being just far too busy, have seemed to have caught up with me. I wanna thank ALL the readers of these fics for reading my stuff and staying with me during my long, drawn out explanations, and rate at which I gave out chapters. Like I said before, I really got jumbled around.

I will still be writing my fics, but the times in which they are released could be VERY large gaps. We're talking month's here. I will try my hardest to move on, but I'm not making any promises. I'm probably just going to wait for Snakecharm to come out before I do anything about a new story, as I am extremely happy about how this and Tainted Vengeance turned out. Again, thanks and please visit my Amelia Atwater-Rhodes website at: ., which is still to be updated with this last part, and a Hawksong book review, so bear with me.

My e-mail address, is as always, saiyengirl613@yahoo.com so feel free to e-mail me about anything.

-Sara Angeldust