Author's Notes: It's become painfully clear that I am going to have to jump forward in time in my own story. I hate doing it, but it must be done. I should probably take awhile to seriously think about this chapter, but I want to keep writing at the moment and I don't like to stop and think often. Actually, I just did a bunch of thinking between this sentence and the previous one. For now, this chapter will illustrate the importance of Kain being a jackass when it comes down to be a controlling bastard - something he's very good at. I haven't mentioned Amanda and Raziel much... so I'd probably better do it in the next chapter or two.

- - -

The Tiger
William Blake

Tiger Tiger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger Tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

14 years later

--Amanda--

The castle was finished. The fortress, I meant, which was impressive in size and fairly astonishing considering how much time we had to build it and the amount of workers we had amassed. Kain insisted that it was all my doing that I had convinced so many of the humans to come join us. It felt good to give them something to believe in. The aches in my body began to go away, and although I remembered very little about my dying and coming back to life, it didn't really pose that big of a question for fourteen years.

I was busy; I was writing things down. I was in my room, preparing construction on the wall that would keep the Pillars safe from vandals when Kain called me from my room by sending one of his servants after me. All we had were humans. But that would soon change. I just didn't know how.

The long corridors were bare. The vampire stronghold, it was called. But I wanted to name it something cool, like the Castle of Pain or something. My head was full of plans and I was excited, but I could tell that this place would need some serious remodeling when it came to decor. Even my bedroom was bare, my store room looked miserable, and the only bit of decoration accorded to anyone was Kain's room.

Kain's throne was not exactly homely. There were three banners standing behind one another hanging from the high, vaulted ceiling. The chamber was massive, with chandeliers lighting every edifice to reveal anything that might be hidden. Every banner was in Kain's color, and a soft plush carpet filled the room from wall to wall. Eyeing it, I realized that the vampire never would get over being the dark god he supposed he was. In the sconces of the walls were hung burning braziers, making the stones along the wall turn an entirely different color.

I marched toward him. He was not seated presently, but standing in front of his throne, looking pensive and not altogether pleased. He held the Soul Reaver in his hands, gently swatting the flat part of the blade into the opposite palm. I kneeled before him, only to feel an cloven claw close on my arm and lift me up. "Stop it," he hissed. "You don't bow to me now, not until until we've gathered your brothers."

"Brothers?" I said, rubbing my arm and yawning with boredom. "I don't have any brothers."

He waved a claw at me and winked, circling around toward one of the windows, whose tapestries (also in his color) covered them during the day. Now they were open, spilling gorgeous moonlight onto the floor where the torchlight didn't go. A moment of nostalgia thudded through me. I thought, I love this place. This is our place, damn it. The place we made together.

"You don't have any brothers now," Kain informed me with a slight chuckle. "But regardless, you do have them."

"What are you playing at?" I sighed, growing impatient. "I'm not in the mood. I haven't even begun to start designing the walls that will protect the Pillars."

"Patience! You'll see. I love to keep my hapless children in the dark at all times possible. Even you."

"Especially me," I muttered bitterly, glaring at him. I wore a simple but glorified pair of trousers, a tight black shirt underneath a layer of spider chain mail that hugged my figure. I had a cloak that spread over one shoulder with Kain's symbol on it, which Kain had said made me look like one of his old lieutenants.

Kain had reached one of the windows, and drew back the tapestry farther than the others. His gold eyes glittered even more in the darkness; something was definitely on his mind, and it only pissed me off more that he wouldn't include me. Who the hell else would he tell? With a quiet growl, I prowled up behind him, and then seized a handful of his cape and gave it a pull. He stiffened but gave me no backward glance.

I embraced him from behind with an affectionate purr. "Tell me. Who is going to keep your secrets for you until I get these so-called brothers, hm? There aren't any vampires here, right now. Unless--" I gasped with dawning comprehension. "No!" I said with frank disbelief.

"Damn you for being so clever." Kain twisted away and smiled with as much affectionate as his inhuman face could muster. "Yes. I plan to go back in time. Just a little ways. I want to take a look for some capable humans to turn. I have the strength, not much... but I am sure that I will be able to change three."

"Why can't you look among the humans here and now? I...I don't want you to go back in time and end up triggering something terrible. I know! I could...I could try to fix the portal to my world. I could convince Darius's father that--"

"Do you think he would abandon his world and his brood to come to a world where vampires are sorely outnumbered?"

"He could bring them with him--" I insisted, scrabbling for some other solution. I know that Kain was desperate for strength, could not have the patience now to build an army of fledglings, but that was what had to be done. He just didn't want to do it the normal way.

But Kain wasn't listening. He refused to listen. Something about his eyes scared me at that moment, because then he said, "There's one Time Streaming Chamber left. So don't you tell me what I can and cannot do, child."

"I can tell you that there aren't any Time Streaming Chambers, and the only one who could send you back in time would be the Elder God, and I don't think he'd be willing to send you anywhere than to the fiery beginnings of this wretched world. Don't be daft, dammit! I know you want to be prepared, and... and even though you're scared to make mistakes--"

"I do not make mistakes!" Kain roared, making the very chandeliers rattle. He lowered his voice, letting the sound of his voice ring in my ears and apparently throughout the entire fortress. He bent close, so that his fangs glinted very close to my face, and I withdrew a little frightened. "I make choices. And what do you know of the Time Streaming Chambers?"

"In my spare time, I looked for them. There isn't a single one left. The Elder God has destroyed them all. I thought you knew that already." I kept my eyes away. Kain tensed, and slowly clenched his talons before walking away from me. He knew I wasn't lying. I hadn't told him a single lie since the moment I met him, and that was the absolute truth. Maybe a small white lie once. But it was a joke and we'd laughed...

I knew the Elder God. I had heard his voice chasing after me in the darkness sometimes at night, and he filled my nightmares during the day. It was as though he knew me intimately, in ways I couldn't fathom. If Raziel had been alive, I would have consulted him...

The Elder God had indeed destroyed the Time Streaming Chambers. Once the Pillars had been restored, Kain's penance was made and all was well... except that the Elder God was still lurking in the earth, and the Pillars still hadn't had new vampires take their roles as the Guardians of each house. I could have been one. In fact, I hadn't even thought about it until recently. How exactly did one become a Guardian? Kain was the Guardian of Balance, and I was just his little girl. Sneering, I turned and left the throne room while Kain moldered by his throne.

Again I went to the library to pluck out my favorite tome - the one that wasn't too hard to read after studying Nosgothian texts. It was about the Pillars themselves, and the pages were almost as old as I was. The book had been rewritten a hundred times over, since the dawning of those monoliths which desperately needed guarding. Every time I read it, I scrutinized the pages about the Nature Guardian, and what it represented. Everything about the Pillars was like magic. Each one represented a part of life and existence that generally had something to do with the way things were.

Balance, Time, Death, Nature, Conflict, Mind, Energy, States, and finally, Dimension. I sighed, reading the words over again with some difficult. I still wrote my journal in plain old English, which made it remarkably easy to encode my stuff. I certainly knew that Kain would never be able to read it. Even if I had nothing to hide from him.

2 Years Later

--Kain--

Three fledglings stood in front of me, torchlight dancing in the throne room. Amanda, being eldest, stood on the left and her two new siblings, Faust and Raoul, stood beside her. Faust, the middle sibling, had dark soft black hair, sharp, angular features and a perpetual dazed look as if he never knew what was going on. But knowing him for a year, I was wiser to that. He was a deep thinker, a powerfully cunning pup, whose uncanny subtle manner of knowing just what to say often grated my nerves. He wore a fresh pair of sturdy, black leathers, a soft white shirt almost as pale as his off-white skin, and buckled boots that made a sturdy knock on even the Throne room's floors.

Amanda wore what I considered a far too masculine attire, but it suited her. She'd cut off most of her hair, and it spiked back and out of her furiously blazing hazel eyes. She was glaring at me furiously.

Finally, to the far right, was Raoul, my sadistic, worrying child. His brown hair was combed back into a loose pony tail that hung down between his shoulders, much in the manner I often wore my bone-white tresses. His embodiment of vampire royalty was dark green pants, black shirt, and a barbed wire necklace around his throat that sometimes cut into his skin, making his pale flesh bleed.

"Three. And I am in sore need of the rest of you. But I am at my energy's end. For now, you will have to do. You understand my house rules?" I purred at them, pacing back and forth in front of the trio like a prowling wolf. I suspect Amanda didn't care much for the rules. She was old enough to wander where she pleased. Her siblings understood that much. Raoul had already learned his first painful lesson during after six months of his new life... he'd fallen in with a very bad crowd, and came out burned from the shoulders down. It took weeks to get him back to health again.

Therefore, Raoul nodded with a sneer and Amanda just sighed, as if she couldn't stand a word more. I looked at Faust. The chin nodded slowly up and down, melancholy grey eyes meeting mine.

"Goodie," said Amanda tiredly. "We are all of us accounted for. Remind us why we're standing before you, please."

I straightened stiffly, pinning them each with my stare. "I'm leaving for awhile. Lieutenant Amanda will look after the fortress. I will be pleased if I could return and find it still in one piece, is that also understood?"

Amanda went straight to her question, growling, "What do you mean you're leaving?"

"Is that understood?" I repeated harshly, taking her chin roughly in my grasp and giving it a shake. She winced, smiled, and nodded.

Raoul gave a derisive sniff, yawning so that everyone could see his pierced, pink tongue. The way I met this would-be fledgling is an endearing tale. Perhaps I'll relate it later on, but not now. Raoul said, "Are you going hunting for that old squid you told us about? Why can't you take us along?"

"I'm not baby-sitting you two," I said. "The Elder God needs to be reminded who is now the Scion of Balance, and who is the fallen deity. He needs to learn his place."

"It's going to be dangerous," Amanda murmured, while she took hold of Faust's hand and held it tightly. He leaned in slowly to whisper something to her, and she looked at me again, her brow furrowed. "We have, what...two-hundred vampires in this castle alone, mostly by my doing... and if... if the humans decide we're not worth the risk of being taken over, what will we do?" She did indeed appear haggard. She had somehow managed to find a simple, magical way of raising the dead, but it was as draining as any other way.

Not to mention that some of them had begun dying for no apparent reason other than sheer exhaustion unless they were given monthly doses of blood - blood I rarely could afford to give up. But I steeled myself and did it, because I knew that if I did not, we would fall back in numbers and the weakened peace treaties afforded us through several human links would fall apart and they would storm the fortress. Period.

"I can't promise you my safety," I murmured, and drew her close to me. Faust blushed and stood back, while Raoul rolled his eyes and walked to the windows, staring out of them. "But I can promise you that I shall return, and you can bet your life on it."

She peered up into my eyes; she touched my forehead with her cool fingertips, and bit her lip. "And if I wanted to come with you?"

"I don't need your protection."

"You say that now--" Amanda shook her head, and hugged me. I bared my teeth in distaste, because Raoul was watching out of the corner of his eye with a look that was clearly held nothing of the sort of love Amanda had harbored for my black, shriveled soul.

I drew out the Reaver, and the blade forced Amanda to back away. She eyed it with a mixture of awe and dreaminess. She touched the blade gently before she yelped, drawing her touch away. I hissed, "Careful! I am armed with the Soul Reaver. I'm the Scion of Balance - the Elder God sits underground, waiting for an execution that unfortunately is slow in coming. I'm doing him a favor."

Amanda still gazed at the Reaver. Something about her eyes gave me a slight fright. How they glowed a mixture of blue and green... mostly blue. With stupendous effort, she looked away and at the floor instead. "Just go. And make it fast. But not... too fast, eh?"