Hugs and smiles for everyone!
The Vampire Pandora
P.S Ok, during the stories of the characters, I won't be using quote marks unless they're talking outside of their monologues. The story will be in normal font, but any conversation outside of it will be in italics. I hope this doesn't become too annoying.
Chapter 9 Part II Of Confrontations and Confessions
FLASHBACK
I could tell Rielle was exhausted after the lesson but too proud and too stupid to ask that we stop. So I saved her from it and called it quits. But I'll never forget that look she gave me as we got up to leave. Even thinking back on it now, I'm not sure exactly how to describe it. Just the way her deep eyes looked into mine, (unflinching, might I add, which is rare for people I don't know.) She was talking to me, telling me everything with that look, and yet, nothing. Only silence. I didn't understand what it was supposed to mean, and I don't understand why I even care. I really don't care for the fact that I'm thinking of it now, as I hold open the door for her as she exits our little room.
I don't know why I was so shocked or why I cried so hard, and I certainly don't understand why I felt betrayed. It was me after all, I had told him to leave. I had plainly asked him to leave me alone, to get away from me, from us. So he did the only thing he could. He simply followed my wishes and left me behind with a cold heart and a broken soul. And here he was, back at the Institute and back in my life, acting as if he had simply been gone on holiday. As if he had just gone out for a while, and now he was back home and expecting what he had once had. Fuck him. He wasn't going to hurt me again.
The light shone garishly on his skin, only making his eyes look all the more dark. How can I describe what I do not understand myself? How can I paint a picture when I do not know what it is I see? Think only of this, Remy, standing alone as he looked upon the spot where Rogue had been standing. Why did my heart hurt so much? Remy didn't even look away from that spot on the floor where she had been standing as I took his arm and led him gently back to the room where we had been earlier that afternoon. I didn't care. It wasn't his eyes that I was worried about. It was his heart.
Remy
I would have held the door open again, I would have! She just didn't give me the chance. All I needed was some time to process what had just happened. I just needed to think, to be alone God dammit! Why didn't she understand that all I wanted to do was be alone? What really bothered me, more than her nosing her way into things that had nothing to do with her, more than her thinking she could help, was the fact that I was letting her do it! I was letting her tell me what to do. Maybe that punch Bobby landed did a little more damage than I thought.
We watched Bobby storm away after Rogue in silence. Rielle let her hands fall to her sides, uncharged and still, and neither of us could think of something to say. Maybe, we really didn't need to say anything. She just turned, slowly and gracefully. Turned herself around to face me, those eyes of hers already illuminated and searching mine. Like two dark shadows peering out at me from her tanned face, a pair of violet crystals glistening at me in the harsh lights that lit up the hall. "We need to talk", she told me, not a question. " I need to as much as I know you do."
"I have nothing to say", I told her, finally able to tear my eyes away from her gaze. I hid my hands within the pockets of my brown coat and played with the cards I had put away in them. I took a step closer to her.
"Remy, cut the shit", she snapped at me. Why the hell was everybody so pissed at me today?
I ignored her and kept walking. The black boots I wore made no sound on the tile floor as I made my way past her. My footfalls were light and silent, as I had been instructed as a youth. The Thief's Guild had trained me well, so well that this girl was no match for me. If I wanted to leave, there was nothing keeping me from doing so.
She let her gaze fall to the floor as I was walking by her, and her lips suddenly clamped shut. Her chest was heaving a little and her usually void face could not hide the emotion that I saw there. Why did she pretend to care so much? This had nothing to do with her. This was between me, Rogue and the ice-prick who was trying to keep her from me.
Rielle's hand reached out and grabbed my arm with surprising speed and agility. The nimble fingers gripped his forearm steadily and still, though I could feel her shaking slightly. I looked at her hand for a moment. Her fingers were long and thin, weak, pathetic. I gazed in wonder at them, and the knuckles and the bones beneath the skin. How easily I could grip her hand within my own and crush those delicate digits. I could simply reach out and touch her, send through her the kinetic energy my body produced. I doubted even Rielle could handle the charge I could give her. Didn't this girl know what I could do? Didn't she care?
Her fingers stayed, grasping the leather of my sleeves. I dared to look at her once more. Her face was serious, but, she still seemed ambivalent. There was a question in her eyes, a question that I knew she needed to ask me. I didn't have time for this.
"Rielle, chère, let Remy go", I said quietly, my voice calm and clear of the anger I felt bubbling in my blood.
She didn't speak yet, she simply shook her head at me, her long locks tumbling over her shoulders. Her grip on my arm only grew tighter, more desperate.
"Remy", she whispered, meeting my eyes. "Please, just for a moment...I just, I need to talk to someone..."
I could only stare at her, the shock clearly plastered across my visage. I hadn't known this girl for very long, hell, I had only arrived less than two weeks ago. And training had only started a few days ago, giving both Rielle and I sufficient time to settle into our new surroundings. But never had I seen her like this.
On the first night I had met her, she had shot me down. Called me on my vanity and saw through my bluff, she had refused to let me intimidate her. How had she done so? By what I could see, or more by what I could not, Rielle hid every emotion away, living stoically. It almost seemed second nature to this girl to keep whatever she felt locked away within her. Then why, why was she allowing me to hear the tremble in her voice? Why had she permitted that look of fear come into her eyes?
"Rielle, I'm sorry", I said, gently removing her fingers from my arm. "If ya need ta talk ta quelqun, den dere be more suitable people here. Jean will listen, I'm sure..."
"Oh, shut-up then", Rielle sighed, quickly wiping her hand across her eyes. " I don't want them to pity me any more than they already do. I just thought maybe we could help each other out. But obviously, talking about what is so obviously tearing you up inside doesn't meet with your laws of masculinity, does it?"
My mouth opened and closed, but no audible sound could be heard.
"Then don't", she continued, "Don't tell me what the fuck is bothering you, but maybe... I don't know, you were a gentleman a little while ago. Maybe you could keep pretending for a little while longer?"
Speak, goddamit, speak!
"Thank-you Remy", she whispered to me as she released me from her hold and I followed her back into our little training room.
She flicked on the lights as she walked in and waited for me, pacing a little before the bench. She looked trapped all of a sudden, like some beautiful animal trammelled in a cage. Wait, when did I get so poetic? When did I think her beautiful?
"Now that we're here, I can't think of what to say", Rielle laughed uncomfortably.
God I loved her voice. It was just such a jumble of so many languages, such a mix of chimes and colours. I could make out the french in her voice, that one was easy. But the way she pronounced some letters, like her o's and r's, was that Spanish that gave it such a exotic tilt? I was floored, and I truly loved to listen to it. But maybe, considering the circumstances, I should refrain from mentioning that to her.
"Then sit down", I instructed her, "And talk to me."
She smiled uncertainly at me, almost in apology, and obeyed me. She clasped her trembling hands in her lap as she took in a deep breath. She looked down at her entwined hands, and began to speak.
Gabrielle's Story
I'm eighteen, and I've been on my own for six years. Well, I suppose on my own isn't the best way to describe the way I've been living. It was actually rare that I was ever alone. I've been involved and living with quite a cast of colourful characters, some good, some not so good. Most of whom I want to forget The fact is that I haven't seen my real family since the summer that I turned twelve. I don't know if they even realize that I'm still alive. I don't know if they even care, but I do not that this is the way it should stay, the way it has to stay. My relatives represent a chapter of my life that I have long since finished. But I suppose if I'm gonna say it, I better say it all. And as dramatic as you may think it sounds, my family represent the end of my beginning, the beginning of this, wherever it is I am now.
My parents were rich. Wealth was something they took for granted, something they were in no danger of losing. I'm not too sure of the origins of this money or how they managed to make it grow like they did. Swiss bank-accounts and money hidden away in the Cayman Islands. Vaults hidden behind original Monets and stashed away behind a replica of Michelangelo's La pieta. But this really does not matter, not in any way. I just tell you know that we were far from hard on our luck. My father had inherited a generous sum from his own father, and my mother came from a wealthy family herself. My mother explained to me once that money only attracted more money, and the simple fact that she controlled to some extent my father's check-book kept her happy when her bed grew cold since my father was rarely home.
I suppose now I should briefly explain about my parents. Allejandro and Josephine, Mr and Mrs Javier.
"That's your last name chère", Remy asked me, a small smiled playing upon his lips.
"It is", I told him, a little frightened that I had already revealed so much.
"Rielle Javier', he murmured, the Cajun accent giving my Spanish name a new sound. " Alright, I can like dat."
I smiled at him a little and shook my head.
"Well I'm so relieved", I told him sarcastically, "But if you don't mind, I need to keep going. It'll be so much easier if you not interrupt me, please."
Remy crossed his arms and settled himself more comfortably next to me on the bench.
As I said, Mr and Mrs Javier. My father was a Spanish/Dutchman, a stranger combination I know. My mother, on the other hand, came from a french father and an Italian mother. What can I say? My grandparents were very international.
Well, my parents had two children, two little girls that they spoiled and showered with presents. I suppose it's easier to love us with gifts than with hugs and kisses. But don't get me wrong, my mother often petted and primped my sister and I when the urge so took her. But more often then not, we were looked after by nannies and governesses that my parents hired for us.
Don't look at me like that. Don't give me that poor-little-rich-girl look, because you don't know me. Alright, I came from a rich family and I had everything a little girl could wish for. I'm not going to lie and say the only thing I was missing was my parents' love. This isn't some sentimental story about the lost girl who only wanted her parents affection. Of course I loved my parents, but to be perfectly frank I couldn't care less about the fact that I was penciled into their hectic schedules. I had Amelia, my older sister.
She was so gorgeous and smart and, well, perfect. She was musically inclined and could write poetry to make you cry. I admired her so much, and in my young mind I made of her a substitute mother, since it was she that comforted me and kept me safe from the monsters under my bed.
She was five years older than me, only a child herself but robbed of a real childhood. She gave up her own to ensure that I lived mine happily. I love my sister, that is one thing that I want to make perfectly clear.
She always had a way of making me forget my parents, of overshadowing their pitiful attempts at love with genuine affection and heartfelt feelings. What did I care for the dolls that they had imported from across the continent, when my sister offered me things she had made herself, or chosen and personalised for me! Like the gift she gave me for my twelfth birthday, my locket.
"Is dat de one you wear all de time", Remy asked me, a little interest sparking his voice.
I held it out in the light, the silver gleaming in my hand.
"It is", I whispered, "And I told you to stop interrupting."
As I have mentioned, it was my birthday, and in my household, any celebration was not to be taken lightly. Huge parties where women wore beautiful evening gowns and men wore tails are still fresh in my mind. I can recollect the countless events for charity or society that my mother organized, the numberless times one of our mansions was filled with dancing couples and greedy hearts. But I didn't want this.
Somehow my sister Amelia made them see that I didn't want this. I wanted something calm,slow and private with my family. Well, my mother just couldn't understand! She did not comprehend how any daughter of hers could play the wall-flower and skip out on an occasion to throw one of our family's trademark events. God bless Amelia who could talk to them when I could not find the words myself.
My father who was always more reserved than my mother sided with me. He too had grown a little weary of my mother's exuberance. So he arranged for our family and my uncle Santiago's family to stay at a summer villa on the french seaside. I loved spending time with my cousins,although my cousin Karlos was nearing his twentieth year and couldn't be bothered with a child like me. And his sister Maria was my sister's age, and she much preferred Amelia to me. I didn't care. We were going to the seaside and I wouldn't have to wear a girdle!
They say everything in France is a little more beautiful, and that summer I agreed to no contest. Even the water seemed a little more blue, a little more crystalline than the lakes by our home in Spain. Even the sand, every little grain of white sand seemed softer between our bare toes. I will always remember that summer, for more reasons than one.
It had gone by without important incident. The sun had shone and we had explored the french countryside extensively. We grew sad that our wonderful vacation would ever come to an end.
But everything, even such good things, must eventually come to an end. One starry night,as I was walking through the cozy villa, I overheard my parents yelling through their bedroom door. I would have kept walking. It was no surprise to hear them screaming so, Amelia and I were used to it. Josephine and Allejandro yelled at each other all the time. What surprised me was the fact that I could hear Amelia's voice yelling just as angrily back at them.
I remember. I stopped short and froze for a moment before stepping closer to the door. My memories of that night are a little unclear. All I can recall from that particular moment is how the woven door felt under my fingers as Amelia yelled about not being paraded off as some prize to be won. All I have are my twelve-year-old understandings, ones that told me that my parents were trying to marry her off. Her, Amelia, they were trying to send her away from me. I can see a glimpse of pavement at my hands as I fell. Amelia had rushed from the room in such a state that when she opened the door, I was thrown back unto the stone floors. I remember vaguely the sound of my parents voices as they yelled at her to come back, and I remember how it hurt my barefeet to run after my sister. I followed her faithfully, like a puppy. Like a child will follow the only mother it knows. I followed her into the moonlight, and I would give anything today to say that I stopped and turned away.
I was dazzled by her bravery as she ran, laughing and shrieking in the night air. She tore at her short black hair as she ran forward, away from the house and towards the dark water. I followed her as quickly as she could, my feet finding her prints in the cold sand. I called out to her, told her to wait, but she just kept laughing, beckoning me closer.
I watched in amazement as she dove under the water in her nightclothes. As she suddenly broke the surface and stood there, spitting the water out, she resembled a ghost, a spectre, and she frightened me so that I hesitated, I stopped running after her. She had ruined her bed-clothes! The white of the cloth was stained and stuck to her lean body, the lace around the edges tearing and beginning to fray. She had ruined her bed-clothes! How simply delicious! How mother would scold!
I heard her laugh again, her clean, pure laugh and I was no longer afraid. Finding my own laugh and shriek, I followed her into the sea. The water was so cold, I can remember that, and it made me shiver. Amelia didn't look at me. She turned away from me and the shore, and faced the moon. She threw her arms over her head and screamed again, flapping her arms like some kind of giant, aquatic bird. The moonlight gleamed silver and made my sister glow. I stood, entranced and raptured by this wonderful creature that loved me.
I joined her by her side, my own arms raised and beckoning the moon. Come closer! And closer! We are spirits here, goddesses, you can not touch us! The water makes us clean! I laughed with her, my chiming laugh ringing with the bell that was hers. My hands were ever raised, and my hair hung in soaked tendrils down my back. Moon! Water! Stars! We are here, take us with you!
My laughs drowned out the ominous sound of humming and my sister failed to notice my glowing fingertips. I, however, could not miss the sudden, strange feeling that had taken over my body. I doubled over, cramped suddenly, and instantly I felt so very, very dry. My joints were on fire and my limbs were shaking. My cried turned to those of pain.
My sister, my nymph and my banshee, turned, distracted. She looked at me for a moment, before her screams were suddenly quieted. I don't know how I must have looked to her, my little body glowing with light and my hair and upper-torso completely dry, as if water could not touch me.
The sound of the waves were not loud enough to drown out the hum, which was growing louder and louder. I felt the first charge, and I screamed.
My sister grabbed me, gripped my shoulders and pulled me into her chest. I continued to scream as the electricity ripped through my body and I clenched myself closer to her. I was too afraid to realize what was happening, and what my sister was doing for me. She tried only to comfort me as this alien pain surged through my tiny frame.
My head was thrown back and my mouth opened wider, my scream mingling with the jets of yellow light that suddenly escaped from my open mouth. The light came from my eyes, my ears, the tips of my finger and the ends of my hair. It was all so bright and so warm that I was not frightened for a moment, only in awe of the beautiful light I was creating.
The light disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. My body was suddenly still, and I shivered as I was once again soaked by the rising waves. I huddled closer to my sister, who suddenly grew heavier in my embrace. I let her go, and she fell into the mass.
Her wondrous eyes were still open, still clear and still looking into mine. Her cropped hair fanned around her face, a silken mane, floating in the water. I touched her warm forehead, fingered the blisters on her cheeks. Felt how leathery her skin had become under my touch.
I didn't scream. I couldn't. I had been screaming just a moment ago, when Amelia had been screaming too. I backed away quickly, stumbling and choking on the water as I fell. I got to my feet quickly as once again threw up my arms to the silver sphere that lit up the sky. The waves crashed against me and the saltwater made me choke, but I still stood. I looked up at the moon and called out one final time.
Me too! Oh please, take me too!
"She died", Remy said. He was not asking.
"She died, in my arms", I repeated, my eyes dry of any tears. I had cried no tears over my sister's demise. I didn't deserve to. I had taken her life after all. Stolen it away among the seaweed and under a perfect moon.
"Your parents...", Remy's voice was barely above a whisper.
"I, I don't know what happened", I explained. "I just ran, ran away down the beach. I ran until my legs gave out and I collapsed on the sand. I couldn't go back, I couldn't face my parents, not after what I had done."
"What did you do?", Remy's voice betrayed his cool countenance.
"I found an empty beach house a few kilometres down the strip. I broke in through a window, and I found what must have been a little girl's room. There were some clothes in there, I stole them and changed out of my soaking nightgown. The jeans were too big and I was almost drowning in the sweater, but they were warm and dry", my fingers picked at a loose thread on my shirt. "I didn't stay, I just kept running."
I haven't seen my parents since. I've never even tried to search them out, I just don't think I could face them. I stole from them after all, I stole from them the thing they valued above everything else. I stole Amelia away. I had held her to me and taken her away, thrown her away into the sea. I couldn't even think of ever trying to find them, or letting them find out what had happened to me.
So I wandered. I walked, rode, hitch-hiked and begged my way across Europe for the next three years. I slept in doorways and under trees. Whenever I managed to get a hold of some money, I spent my nights in the European hostels, which could almost be worse than staying outside. I learned many things over the course of that time, things that I girl like me should never have to learn. Please don't think I'm conceited when I say a girl like me. I'm not placing myself above everyone else, playing the martyr when there are countless children still in that position today. I'm just saying,
nothing that I had grown to know and take for granted had prepared me for poverty and hardship.When I think back on it now, it's no wonder that the show had held such promise for me.
It was Mariselle that I met first. I encountered the fiery red-head on the bustling streets of Paris, during the spring of my fifteenth year, dancing with some other girls while tourists and on-lookers cheered and tossed coins into an open guitar case. I was enthralled.
I watched the three girls dancing and laughing together as the sound of raining coins was heard above the guitar music. I envied them so much at that moment, I was so spiteful it frightened me! I wanted what they had, some kind of income and the happiness that seemed to overcome them.
I wanted it, and I would have it. Damn my mother's greedy nature.
I waited for a few more hours until I saw the guitarist pack up his instrument and signal to the girls. They stopped their dance and put on long coats over their summery dresses, long, colourful tunics that sported no sleeves or straps and fell below their knees. The smiles seemed to fade with the crowd, but Mariselle's quickly returned when she saw me coming closer. I didn't have to explain, to any of them. They didn't need to know my story, nor even my name. They only knew that I was like them, and that they would welcome me among them.
The show's name was painted jovially on walls and posters all over Paris. Le Théâtre des Martyrs, a fitting name, or so I thought. A collection of rogues, vagabonds and runaways that came together as dancers and acrobats, preforming shows for the slums of France. They taught me to dance like them, painted my face and starved my spirit. They taught me how to live without love and without the need to depend on others. We were cruel, vindictive and cold to each other. I loved it.
I was still young and naive, and the show became my home. I stayed with them for three years. For three years, 36 months I moved with them, danced for them and starved with them. We became our own little family, but of course, like any large collection, smaller, more intimate families began to appear.
When I first met him, Zephyr was eighteen, an acrobat and the most intriguing person I had ever met. He was blonde, blue eyed and the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. The first time I met him, the girls had brought me before him. Standing there before his scrutinizing eyes, I had tried to look as cool as I could as he undressed me with his eyes, with Mariselle hanging off his shoulders. Never before had I felt like that, like I could be pretty, that I could be beautiful in the eyes of someone other than my sister. And so I joined them, I gave my blood to the show. For my sacrifice I received everything in return. Friends, food, love and even a new name, my stage name, Riella Delaluna. Rielle of the moon. I don't know, it still strikes me as fitting.
It didn't take long until Zephyr forgot his current mistress and began to take an interest in me. I couldn't understand and could in no way prepare myself for him. No one warned me that Zephyr went through girls like our audiences went through programmes. All I knew was that Zephyr loved me, or so he said, and that I had grown to love him too. I loved his beauty, his charm, his touches and his kiss. I loved him so completely that I didn't realize that my love was unrequited. He had never loved me, just the idea of me.
Zephyr took good care of me, and I was once again showered with gifts and affection. I blossomed under his care, and I grew to trust him completely, even when it came to selling myself to our customers.
" You mean you, you were a...?" For once Remy didn't seem to know what to say.
I shook my head. "I never got the chance. Sure I had danced for men on countless occasions, but Zephyr had mostly kept me for himself. It wasn't until my third year with the show that things changed."
"He found a new fille", Remy offered knowingly.
Once more I nodded my head.
Other girls worked as prostitutes for the show, I know Mariselle did. She and I grew so close over the course of the next few years, it was almost like having a sister again. She was my age exactly, younger by only a few months. However, she had been with the others since she was only eleven years of age. And she had been working as a whore for Zephyr for two years before I arrived. She explained to me how she too loved Zephyr, and he had loved her back, for a while. He just wasn't about to get tied down to one girl. It was understandable after all, she explained to me,
it was the least we owed him since he had saved us. What little it meant to give him ourselves, our bodies.
We grew only the more closer when Katia appeared one cold fall morning, the morning that Zephyr took one look at the Russian beauty and forgot me. I was cast back and forgotten, placed on a shelf with Mariselle and the other girls, cast my lot and expected to play the role. Perhaps I was still a selfish child, perhaps I was just naive and foolish, but I did not understand how Zephyr could have professed his love for me, only to replace me with a fresher face. He had told me her loved me, loved me and only me. When words like those are pronounced to any lost child, they are sacred. They are blood and they are flesh and they are life. Zephyr was my altar, my god. I was the ever ready sacrifice, prepared to give it all for him. This is My Body, this is My Blood.
I hesitated for an instant when Mariselle informed me of my first ever "customer" outside of the show. I was not really surprised, but I felt a little insulted that my former glory as a dancer was so quickly forgotten. Men had flocked to see me. They had herded to the tents to see me prance and twirl in my sheer costumes, and they had come to whistle, howl and try and touch me as I played just beyond their grasps. Had those years meant nothing?
But when it came the time for me to meet with the man who had bought me for the night, all I could think of was Zephyr. Zephyr who still held my heart, Zephyr, who had taught me how to love. I find it ironic that he loved to take from girls their innocence before casting them to the wolves. I had secretly wondered if he kept a tally of the virgins he took to his bed, and I had hoped his tally would end with me.
Zephyr was the only man I had ever known that way, so when I met with the fish-smelling man in the dark alley that night, I was afraid. I was terrified of being unfaithful to Zephyr and ruining the purity that his love had given me. How blind I was.
The man tried to take me quickly, roughly. Zephyr never used force, he didn't have to. But as the fish-man's rank breath hit my face as he suckled my face, I panicked. I kicked and screamed and fought to get away from him. It was then that my dormant power re-surfaced. He saw the light and he knew me for what I was, a mutant. Mariselle had been one too, she had explained it all to me. That some of us were cursed for the sins of our former lives, this she told me. So that was why we had these powers, as punishment. Mariselle, you see, was terrified of her power but used it well. She was a weak telekinetic. So I knew what he meant when the man called me a mutant in his fear. I also knew how dangerous he now was. He could have me killed! The slums of Paris did not take kindly to those who posed a threat. Zephyr knew that most of his troupe members were mutants, and he had instructed us to lay low, keep hidden, shut-up. I ran from the man as the sun began to rise. I ran away from the dirty streets and out of the city. Luckily, the show had put on a performance near the country a few nights before, so I did not have far to run. It was safer, I knew, to get away from everyone else, and take care of my problem where the troupe would not be endangered. How was I to know that he would assemble a gang of friends to chase me down the country lanes? That they would be armed? That they would shoot their terrible, metal bullets at me in their rage. I, who had done nothing but love the man who did not love me. I had done nothing but fufill the sacrifice. I was going to die. But what did death matter? I only wished that I had been sufficiently good to not be cursed in the next life, as Mariselle had told me.
There, running in the cold and fog is where the professor and the others found me. That is where they saved my life, and closed another chapter of my life forever. That is where Rielle Delalune died forever, only to be reborn under new circumstances. A mutant again, but no longer the same person. A mutant again, forever.
"Donc, Rielle isn't your real name?", Remy asked me, politely bewildered.
"Non", I replied honestly.
"Will you..."
"Non, Remy", I interrupted. "Perhaps one day, but for now the only name I can give you is Rielle."
Remy smiled his understanding as he looked on at me in wonderment. Had I made a mistake in telling a perfect stranger my life's story? Maybe the fact that I did not know him only made it all the more easy to pour out my heart. I only hoped that maybe, he would follow my example.
"Remy don't think it's fair", he said suddenly, breaking the silence that had descended on us.
"What isn't?", I asked him.
"That you be de one who has to talk, alone", he answered casually. "Remy think he could talk to ya some, if de p'tite willing ta listen."
I turned on the bench to face him as Remy began to speak.
Author's note: Ok. Well. IT WAS TOO LONG! I promised I wouldn't do this, but it looks as if I'm going to have to cut this into three pieces. No more than three, I swear. Well, I hope that this clears up some questions you may have had about Gabrielle, but I'd be glad to respond to any you may still have. I hope she didn't come off too Mary-Sueish, it was never my intent. Next chapter, the real story of what happened between Rogue and Remy. Shout-outs to all of you who have reviewed, hugs to Silverbells for the advice and to Chaotic Jinx for her support and for being my OFFICIAL (lol) cheerleader. Thank-you all!
Until next time, The Vampire Pandora
P.P.P.S Longest chapter yet! Woot woot!