(This has been a long time coming. I haven't updated this is ages, but now I've got a very Large fanatic out of the way, I can concentrate on this.)

Ewoden couldn't hear anything. Everything seemed perfectly still. Hesitating only for a moment, he stepped out of his hiding place, sword in hand. The library of Vorador was a large chamber with a high arched roof, large wooden beams stretching across the ceiling. A large statue of some angelic warrior made from metal on the far side, distinctly femanine with spread wings and a large, cruel looking spear. Most of his armour had been taken by the vampires servants when they arrived and he had been locked in here with it. Was this what Vorador wanted him for, food for this thing?

"There you are..!" Said a soft voice from behind him. Ewoden yelped and swept around, already stumbled backwards. The female vampire looked amused at his distress, floating over with a playfully look on her pure white face. "For a Sarafan you are certainly easily startled." Ewoden leapt back to the far side of the large oak table, putting some distance between himself and it. Most of his armour had been confiscated when he arrived and he had been left with only his sword to defend himself with. This female vampire was playing with him, like a kitten would a ball of string. She was darkly beautiful, with a slender figure and short blonde hair. Deep black eyes and pale skin, a faint tinge of red on her cheeks, showing that she had fed recently. Dressed in very revealing silk drapes and a tight pair of leather trousers and boots, a dagger at her side.

Ewoden darted behind a bookcase, breathing hard as she began to giggle. His axe and arrows were taken away with his armour, as if Vorador had sensed that he was more skilled with them than he was with a blade. Did he probe his mind to give his creature the advantage in this bizarre came of hide and seek? A though occurred that so far, it hadn't harmed him, not even tried to for that matter. She had only hovered around like some omnipresent spectre, letting himself frighten the living daylights out of him. Ewoden looked back through the space between two large red books and saw nothing but the empty library, not even a shadow large or dark enough to hide the vampire. His sword still at the ready he poked his head out from his hiding place, his eyes scanning the large chamber, the arched roof with banisters above and the corridors between the book shelves. Nothing. Had she gotten bored and flown off?

Only a complacent fool would make that assumption. Vampires were skilled in the arts of stealth, one could be standing right behind you and you wouldn't know it. On that note, he cast a glance over his shoulder.

At the far end of the library was a large set of glass doors that opened up into a balcony, overlooking the swamp. The city of Avernus, the towering white cathedral visible on the horizon. The night sky high above. Ewoden was at a loose as what to do with himself now. He couldn't go back to the Sarafan, not after what he had seen and learned there. This, Hash, Ak, Gik or whatever it was, worshiped by the secret order with the army itself attempting to recruit him into it's devotion. Ewoden just wanted to live with conflict, but it seemed in Nosgoth such a course of action was not possible. There were simply took many conflicts. Caught up in his thoughts, his reflexes were fast enough to make him jump away as the female vampire descended silently from the ceiling, floated beside him for a minute with a seductive look on her face, before kissing him gently on the cheek. He yelped at the touch and darted to the side, already breathing heavily. Suddenly he realized what had just happened and he held a hand to his face, blushing. She giggled at him again.

"Don't worry little mortal, I won't bite." She said causally, but showing him her fangs anyway. "And don't be alarmed by my manor, I'm not one of the master's brides so I'm not breaking any vows by flirting with you."

"You call this flirting?" Ewoden asked shakily, his eyes wide and his fingers still wrapped around the hilt of his sword, trembling slightly. She floated nearer, fixer her with her eyes and suddenly he found himself staring into them. It was then he saw something, something that as a Sarafan, he knew could not be true. He saw a soul, he saw a soul directly through those eyes. He saw life, the spark of wildness. From the moment they received their training, Sarafan recruits were taught that Vampires lost their souls when they became undead, that it was alright to kill them as they were simply empty shells. He could plainly see that that was not true. His sword dropped from his hand, clattering against the floor with a loud clank. A move that Malek would have brutally scolded him for back at the fortress. It was this shock that made him vulnerable to her advances.

By the time Ewoden regained his wits, he found himself lying beside her upon the table, her arm placed around him, thankfully both their clothes still on, although a bit more of her revealed than he thought decent. Her eyes closed and a content look on her face. Some deal of tiem must have passed, as the overcast day outside loomed through the windows, the fait light barley reaching into the room. Surprisingly, his first instinct was not to frantically search for his sword and drive it through her chest.

"Sally." He said, suddenly remembering what she had introduced herself as, before she kissed him again. He rubbed his bare hand against his neck to check if there were any marks. Thankfully there were none.

"Don't go." She said as he tried to sit up, her eyes still closed. Ewoden blinked, looking down at her face. Were it not for the pointed ears, he would have easily mistaken her for a human woman. "You're the first one that's actually made me feel warm in years." Ewoden remained still for a moment, before lying back down. It felt odd lying her with her, but not as odd as he originally thought it would. "You have many scars." She added suddenly, one eye opening lazily, fixed on the scars and lashing down his arms and shoulder souvenirs from his youth inside the slave mine. She reach up to her shoulder and pulled back her clothes, to reveal her shoulders and the many hideous scars upon them that he had failed to notice before. The only blemish to her otherwise flawless figure. "Willendorf has always been exceptional cruel to it's slaves." Ewoden hesitated.

"You mean, you were a…

"Once a slave like you." The former Sarafan was left stunned, only coming back into reality with a blink. "You were liberated by the Sarafan, I was liberated by the master." Whatever preconceptions the Sarafan had imposed on him were thrown out the window at that point, vampire or not, Sally was another person who had suffered the mines. He sighed out through his nose and closed his eyes. Another Sarafan lesson was proved false. Vampires were not as cold as ice, they were as warm as any living thing.

An hour of so passed and they remained in this position, hardly moving at all. Exactly what Vorador had had in mind when he placed him inside his library he wasn't certain. The light hardly made it's way through windows, as if some kind of sorcery kept it out. Eventually, Sally reluctantly stirred.

"Hungry?" Ewoden asked as she left his side, floating upward. She looked back with a rather sad expression on her face.

"Yes. I know as a Sarafan it's your duty to kill vampires Ewoden, but please understand I've never bitten the throat of a living creature." Ewoden paused, about to ask if that were true, how had she survived when the large set of wooden doors at the far end of the library, the ones leading into the mansion itself flung open and Vorador stepped in, followed by more of his servants. His thin green fur highlighted almost perfectly by the early morning light.

"Good Morning." He said plainly as his servants descended the set of stairs that curved down from the door and into the library itself and Ewoden was surprised to find that they were carrying his Sarafan armour and weapons, all repairs and his arrows replaced. "Sally would you excuse the young Sarafan and myself for a moment, go and get some breakfast." She bowed respectfully in mid air, shimmered and then seemed to vanish. "You're a rare kind." Vorador added as his servants began placing the former Sarafan's armour on him. He thought it best to let them, remaining as still as possible. "You have to be the most open minded human in Nosgoth."

"What makes you say that?" Ewoden asked back. Vorador gave him a side glance.

"You didn't try to kill Sally when I locked you in here for the night, you had a blade, but didn't use it. You saw the truth, you saw that we are living creatures, not empty destructive monsters." Ewoden remained still.

"That much can be said for Sally, but hardly for yourself." he added in an almost calm tone. Vorador's servants hesitated, before continuing with their work, fixing his axe to his belt with a leather patch. "Your performance at the Sarafan stronghold, killing a man before the gathered crowd of new recruits, only enforces the Sarafan's status quo." The vampire elder managed the humoured smile.

"Oh, you were there for that were you?" he sighed. "That was revenge for the slaughter of one of my many brides by a Sarafan inquisitor, goes by the name of Dumah." Ewoden hesitated. "I had hoped to kill him, but he is always too well guarded so I decided to take it out of the newest batch of vampire killers." Ewoden's gaze remained transfixed. "My actions to not reflect the feelings of all vampires in Nosgoth. This is my personal war against them, yet the Sarafan continue to hunt down and kill all vampires within Nosgoth's borders." Ewoden remained quiet and once they were finished, Vorador's vampiric servants handed him his helm and quickly backed off, some disappearing back through the library's door completely.

"I'm taking you and Sally to see my sire." Vorador added sharply, changing the subject. Ewoden blinked.

"You're sire?"

"The vampire that created me." He replied, turning his back and making his way toward the staircase. Ewoden's mind raced and he remembered the profile the Sarafan had drawn up regarding the ancient vampire. Vorador's creator was none other than the infamous Janos Audron. Legend says he lived far north in the ring of mountains that stood towering over Nosgoth, high above the village of Uschtenheim. He was rarely seen, even by the Sarafan hunters, but all reports suggested a winged demon with raven black feathers and demonic golden eyes. Legend had it, his heart could restore life to a vampire long since dead. "You see, every now and then, I take fledglings to study arcane and ancient arts of magic and other forms of lost art. You've impressed me, and so I'm giving you the honour as well." Ewoden followed Vorador up the stairs, keeping one hand near his axe and bow. Vampires may not be what he expected, but he still didn't feel completely safe in this place.

If anyone has any suggestions for plot and other things, feel free to add them in reviews, E-mail, whatever