Immortal Skies
Chapter One -- Cloak and Dagger

Ernie, frowned, and adjusted her glasses stiffly. She supressed a sigh of frustration as she stood up to fetch another lamp to place by her makeshift desk. It was late in the evening, but she had been granted permission to work inside the association's conservatory even at this hour. It paid to be a brilliant scholar.

Right now, however, she wasn't feeling very brilliant at all. If it weren't for Rhett's reports about the wooden artifact she had given him for a more thorough investigation, she would not even be bothering with this. But she had spent long hours of research on the newly unearthed ruins found a little north of the capital city, Vinay del Zexay, and the intrigue was nearly killing her. She had her speculations; and the more she tailed on these hunches, the more she was becoming certain that it was, in fact, an ancient ritual site they had stumbled upon. And it was no ordinary ritual site she was geting all excited about; that the ancestors of the people who established the Zexen Federation had such beliefs and civilization was a much-debated issue within the local Archeology Association. If her findings were to prove her theory right, the knowledge would be valuable to recorded history and and it would greatly influence modern people's view of their long forgotten past. It would bring about changes she could only imagine.

She spread out the chart in the table before her, then after a while, snatched it, and smoothed it over the marble floor, where it was less cluttered and more spacious. Tracing a fingertip across the map of constellations, she jotted down a few pieces of information on a scratch paper and stood up quickly, striding towards the telescope.

After adjusting the lens quickly and efficiently, she set about her task once more. She was not mistaken the first time; there it was, a pattern, a tiny cluster of stars. She walked back to her work table and grabbed a much smaller map, then proceeded to look through the telescope again. She encircled an eastern portion of the map with red ink, and jotted down the date.

It was half an hour later when she fetched an almanac from the library, and she sat down with it on her desk. She leafed through several pages until she came to a page of a full-drawn star chart. She searched for a while, tracing through the map with her fingers, then referring back to the map she had marked earlier. The pattern seemed similar, but a few from the cluster were missing, and she was not at all certain if the remaining ones were the same stars. Heaving a heavy sigh, and dreading the thought of how fruitless her sleepless night's work was spent, she labelled the more distinctive star, Chiki. She looked back at the other map, and labelled the next one as Chimou. She skimmed over the chart critically, and finally, she placed a question mark next to the latter. She would have to verify this information tomorrow with Anthony. Astrology was definitely not her field of specialization.

Winter was at the final embers of its fire, and yet, the cold was unnerving. The sky was a murky black, but studded with a few brilliant stars that seemed to burn holes through the mantle of darkness. Its wonder, however, was lost to the creatures of the night, a pair of them , racing against the tangles of the woods. They were struggling, it seemed, not only to escape the clutches of the wild trees and jagged rocks along their uncertain path, but from their predator. Running for their lives.

It was a hunt. Perhaps their last.

They came at last to a clearing, together, their pale faces scratched and cracked with dirt and dried blood, and their mouths were agape as exhaustion pounded through their veins. Fangs protruded from the crimson slips of their mouths, glinting like tiny silvered daggers against the moonlight. Stock-still, they stood, attuning their senses to their surroundings. Their fear was as tangible as their cold breaths. The male surveyed the the seemingly emtpy area around him, then suddenly grasped the female's wrist roughly, urgently.

"It's the elder," he said quietly. "No mortal could have tracked us so effortlessly. Go now," he commanded his companion harshly.

The female did not move. "What about you?"

"I'll fight her off. Keep the scroll safe."

"No," she hissed. "It's no use battling with her. What can you do against her strength? If we fight her, we fight her both. We are best together!"

He glared at her, his anger rapidly rising to the surface. "Would you rather we die together? We've come this far!"

"Which is why I cannot give up now. If I go off alone, she'll come after me, and I shall be helpless, and all this running will be for naught. But with you, I have a chance! Come with me! We can still escape!"

"No!" he screamed. "You're wasting time, leave this place!"

And with that, he pushed her away with all his strength, causing her to fly backwards and tumble meters away from him. "Take the scroll with you, and flee!"

"How very dramatic, Dymio. I knew at once it was you."

The silvery voice pierced through the thin night mist, and at once, caused the pair of vampires fear that gripped their entire beings. The voice was a delicate sound, and sweet as if it belonged to a young lass, yet eerily cold and detached...and to the two, it sounded like their requiem. Dymio, the male of the pair, whirled around suddenly, only to face the svelte figure of a young girl, hidden by the darkness of the trees--but only for a moment.

She slowly walked towards them, a slight, mirthless smile on her pink lips. Her youthful face stole its color from the moon, her hair, its beams, but her eyes were a shining crimson like the blood that gave her life. Once long ago, someone described her aptly--and to his mortal eyes, she was a vision, bearing a face of an angel, but the eyes of a demon. This was the very image Dymio beheld now, and it seemed to him the vision of impending death.

With a feral growl, he conjured a fireball and threw it at her direction...but he had lost estimation over his opponent the moment he did. In a blink, she was behind him, holding him tightly by the neck.

"Elder...Sierra..." Dymio rasped.

"So the rumors were correct. The people were gossiping about vampires within the vicinity, and I had a hunch that it was the two of you." She lowered her voice ominously. "You've grown careless, Dymio. Harmonians are not the type of people to be trifled with. Crystal Valley is not a place for one such as you."

Dymio continued to struggle against her grasp. "Then why are you here?"

Sierra gave an unladylike snort. "As if my business is any of your affairs." Then she smiled, and leaned close to whisper, "I will enjoy this, Dymio, much as you enjoyed betraying me hundreds of years ago..."

From behind them, the other female vampire screamed like a banshee, and lunged at Sierra, long claws unsheathed. In time, Sierra released Dymio and reappeared in front of them, avoiding her. Her cloak had come unbound from the attack; it had not even touched the ground when she came to stand before them. She looked at the interloper now, regarding her silently, her face betraying no other emotion but for a hint of curiousity. "Ariah," she finally said, calling her by name. "Still as feisty as ever, I see."

"Leave us be!" Ariah cried desperately. For a moment, she thought that the elder vampire's crimson eyes reflected pity. But it was masked so quickly that the apparition was doubted.

"I cannot do that," Sierra told her simply. "As the humans are your prey, you are mine."

Screaming, Ariah lunged again at Sierra, ignoring Dymio's shouts. She continued to claw blindly against her opponent, desperate enough not to have noticed that all her efforts were in vain as the elder was too quick for her. Her preternatural senses could not even guide her movements that were comparatively slow to the much older vampire. In a single motion, Sierra drew back and projected a spell of lightning that struck the woman down. In an instant, the elder vampire was upon her, pinning her body with inhuman strength as she chanted the words to break her captive's soul. Ariah's eyes glassed over, but before she succumbed to the darkness, she heard the last words spoken to her in an almost inaudible whisper..."I'm sorry."

Dymio apprehended the scene that unravelled all too quickly with hooded eyes, cursing under his breath. He clenched his fists in anger. He was next.

Sierra's face was inscrutable when she finally stood up from the lifeless body of Ariah, which was rapidly vanishing from sight. She faced Dymio, tilting her head slightly as she did. "She shouldn't have run away. She should've faced the consequences and died with honor." She shook her head. "You brought this upon yourselves. And you," she finally scowled, breaking the expressionless facade she kept until now, "cowardly ran away when your treachery was discovered. You even had Ariah to back up your lies, innocent as she was." She was walking towards him now. "But just the same. You ran away from your fates, both of you. But you can never go back, and you can never escape. And may I add it was too foolish to plot my demise those fifty years ago?"

With all the courage left within him, Dymio laughed. "I would kill you a thousand times over if I could."

He drew a rapier from his side as he openly attacked the elder vampire. Dymio was a vampire much older than Ariah, and therefore much more formidable. It was the reason why he had managed to escape the generations of skilled humans who hunted his kind, since fleeing from the Village of the Blue Moon. Now he was facing his greatest enemy yet, a creature such as himself, and it unknowingly gave him the strength despite his fear. Sierra evaded his swift attacks as if she were naught but a ghost, but she was drawn backwards into the woods. Finally, in mid-air, she conjured up another bolt of lightning and projected it at Dymio. With nowhere to fall back on to evade the direct attack, Dymio blocked with his armed hand, and caused the rapier to fall. Quick on his reflexes, however, he launched himself at Sierra with his barehands. The elder vampire held him at bay as he snarled at her. "Why do you do this? Why do you hunt vampires when you're one of us?"

"Spare me the desperate speech, Dymio," she replied. "Do you think in my years as a hunter, not a single vampire asked me that question?" She pushed him back with all her strength. "You were not meant to dally with the living. You were not meant to flee in fright at the loss of the rune, and turn to humans and feast upon them and steal what is theirs!"

"You created us! You made us into this abomination! How dare you accuse us of what is right and what is wrong!" He bared his fangs and lunged once again, causing Sierra to take flight into the trees.

"I dare because I did make you into vampires. I alone will atone for that mistake. That is my responsibility."

Dymio caught up with her, jumping from one thick branch to another, weaving through the leaves and twigs that barred his way. In a flash, Sierra came down upon him and grasped him by the neck, hurling him towards the ground in a heap. His rapier, the same weapon he had used against her before it fell from his hands, appeared out of nowhere into Sierra's grasp. She pulled the blade close against his throat to discourage him from attempting to unseat her from her position.

Dymio closed his eyes, and hissed, "You gave us this life, and now you take it away from us."

Sierra smiled ruefully, but Dymio's eyelids remained closed and he did not see. "I gave you life when you had none. I gave you hope when you wanted it. That's how the village came to be in the first place. It is the only place in the world we vampires were meant to be..."

Sierra fell silent as she closed her eyes now, as well, and prepared to cast the song that would break the vampire's soul and return him to nothingness. Dymio ceased his struggle as he felt the coldnees creep into his immortal body, breaking his defenses. He opened his eyes, but the anger was gone, and there was unreadable sadness in their depths. His breathing began to slacken, and when Sierra opened her eyes, she was surprised to find that he was looking at her beseechingly.

"If we were not meant to be in this world," he struggled to whisper, "then for what purpose does the Blue Moon Rune exist?"

Sierra did not answer...could not. Before her eyes, Dymio crumbled into heaps of ash, betraying his age as one of the oldest vampires in the world.

The vampire-hunter stood up, and threw away the blade she held just moments ago carelessly. She walked back into the clearing where she had dropped her cloak, retrieving it from the ground where Ariah died. But as she bent over to pick it up, she noticed a tiny parcel wrapped in leather and bound in twine. She held it with her fingertips as she looked it over. Had Ariah been holding this when she attacked her?

She had thought it strange when she heard rumors about vampire sightings in Harmonia, but she had gone off in pursuit anyway. She didn't ask Dymio their reasons for being in Crystal Valley, and she doubted he would've easily told her even if she did. Could this scroll be of some importance to them, attesting to their sudden appearance in the Harmonian capital?

Sierra took the scroll in her hands and tucked it inside her cloak. She decided she was going to find out.

Disclaimers:
Suikoden and its characters are property of Konami. I have included original characters, though, and some made up villages/places in the future.