Blood Ties

by SailorMoonV

A letter from D's past returns the dark memories to thepresent, forcing him to remember the ordeal of being a prisoner in the hands of a pair of dunpeal sisters....

3. Descent into Madness

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust "Blood Ties"

by Troy A. Stanton note: This fanfic follows the events of the original stories "Winds of Change" and "Final Hours" (both written by me), and also incorporates a few elements from the story "Drawing Blood" by Catherine B. Krusberg. I have her permission to make use of her work as a source of material, so anything 'new' you see in here about D's past with Doris that didn't happen in the movie is most likely her original plot material.)

WARNING: This story contains graphic violence and adult content, please do not read beyond this point if you are easily offended by such things.

((Chapter Three - Descent into Madness))

"Stay strong, D..."

He wasn't sure he had heard the words to begin with, let alone who might have spoken them or how long ago. He vaguely was aware of the passage of time as he slowly drifted back up from the depths of near-oblivion and into searing consciousness. The pain had never truly left him, but it was as if a switch had been thrown and the feelings all rushed back to him as a single unit. For one bleak moment he feared that he would succumb to them and what was left of his mind would driven back over the precipice into total oblivion.

The pain remained with him, however, an oddly comforting feeling that was an undeniable indication that he was still very much alive. Whether that was a good thing or not was very much open to debate, but he had neither the energy nor the willpower to spare for such an internal philosophical argument. All he was capable of at the moment was existing in a sea of agony that very slowly began to recede, one white-hot needle of searing pain at a time.

Eventually he became aware of a sound, a low and rhythmic thrum that was more felt than heard. It surprised him to realize that it was his own heart, the muscle continuing to beat at a steady and unceasing pace. A distant part of his still-awakening mind knew that he had almost perfect mastery of how his body operated when he focused hard enough, but that his heart was one of the few aspects of him that he had never been able to directly control. Influence, yes, but not command or dominate.

An eternity passed as he simply listened to the steady mantra, the sound never once ceasing or wavering in the slightest. He knew that his heart would fight to the very end to continue beating, sacrificing all else until there was quite literally no energy left in it for the next contraction. The knowledge that his heart continued to beat started to revitalize his mind, knowing that if an uncontrollable force like his heart could continue to persevere in the face of constant nerve-searing agony, then he could do so too. Granted he was comprised of far more than simply his heart muscle, but he had learned long ago that when there was a will, there was a way.

He began to reach out with his mind, seeking to embrace everything that it could. The pain was the easiest to focus on, of course, but he soon could feel impulses that were almost but not quite masked by the constant flood of agony. His skin hurt like hell, but he could tell it was still largely intact. Burned by exposure to the sun and mostly bruised from being whipped, but still whole.

His chest felt... odd. The constant fire of his cracked ribs had faded down to a dull roar, sort of like the burning embers left behind after a fire consumed most of the fuel around it. It took him a moment to realize that the sensation was variable, as if it were actively coming and going. It took him longer still to realize that it was doing so because someone was touching his chest carefully, probing him for any indications of a reaction.

That was enough to prod his mind into almost perfect consciousness in the blink of an eye, awakening his senses so quickly that he was almost immediately stunned by the flood of information that came back at him. The end result was that he wound back up in a mild daze before things very slowly began to resolve into some semblance of order that his mind could process effectively.

"Oh!" a feminine voice exclaimed softly in surprise as D twitched and drew in what sounded like a very painful breath of air. "Are you awake, D?"

His eyes parted of their own volition, resulting in a blur of color that required several slow blinks to resolve into a modicum of focus. A dark swath of deep purple finally took shape in front of him, accompanied by slender pale tracts of color that confused him until he realized that he was looking at the torso of a woman wearing a purple evening dress.

"My, you're awake early," the voice commented. "Well, maybe not," she added as the unique tingle of the setting sun suddenly shot through him. The feeling was almost lost amid the constant waves of pain still besieging him, but it was still distinctive enough to make itself known. The simple knowledge that the sun had set brought him an immense feeling of comfort, knowing that he was safe from further burning for at least another ten hours or so.

Or so he thought.

"He seems out of it," another voice commented idly. There was a slight pause as he heard a faint rasping of metal, like a lid being unscrewed from a jar before the voice added, "Here, this will wake him up for sure."

"Pearl?" the first voice suddenly said in a concerned tone. "Wait, what is that... PEARL!"

For an instant, D thought she had simply splashed the front of his chest with room-temperature water. That would have made sense, as water tossed on a sleeping individual tends to wake them up painlessly with only a minor mess to cope with. When his skin suddenly seemed to ignite and burn like it was being seared by the sun itself, however, he realized that it hadn't been ordinary water splashed against him but water that had first been boiled beneath a solar convection mirror and later imbued with spiritual energy. Holy water.

Had he been prepared for such a drastic surge in pain, he might have been able to stave off the throat-rending scream that erupted from his chest with all the force and grace of a panicked stampede of cattle. The rest of his body thrashed back and forth in a reflex, trying to throw off the shackles that kept him bound and wipe off the liquid hellfire that ran the length of his chest. So intense was the unholy pain that he almost missed the sharp curse from the first woman as she frantically splashed ordinary water against him to try to rinse the acid-like holy water off.

Her efforts only changed the focus of the pain, letting the worst of it abate from his chest while forcing the liquid to flow down and coat the rest of his abdomen and legs to make the previously unaffected skin burn like it was on fire. Unlike his chest, however, the pain didn't linger for very long as Coral continued to scoop out handfuls of water to dilute and rinse away the lingering traces of the holy water. Eventually the majority of the intense burning passed, leaving behind seared and aching swaths of flesh that almost literally glowed a bright pink color. Drained by both the primal scream and the burning pain, D half-collapsed and hung as limply as the chains would allow him with his mind once again teetering on the brink of unconsciousness.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Coral snarled as she turned on Pearl, grabbing her by the front of her dark blouse.

"He's awake now, isn't he?" Pearl replied in a tone of feigned innocence.

"I will not say this again," Coral said in a very low tone, audibly trying to temper her anger with a note of reasonableness. "He is mine and I will not have him crippled before I'm finished with him. If you can't play by my rules, little sister, then I'm afraid you can't play with him at all."

"What the hell is your problem, sis?" Pearl demanded with a faint snarl, reaching up to try to break her sister's grip on the front of her shirt. The gesture was abandoned after a few moments when it became obvious that Coral had no intentions of letting go just yet.

"The problem, my dear Pearl," Coral said quietly in an odd tone, "Is that I need him alive and intact. Give me a few days and then we can talk about how to dispose of him, but not before then. Stop and think what has been done to him so far. First crushed, then whipped, then stabbed, then left out in the sun for longer than I had anticipated, and now this? Where did you get that stuff, anyway?" she added in a genuinely curious tone.

"You'd be surprised by what you can find being sold in the village," Pearl replied tartly as she made another attempt at loosening her sister's iron grip on her blouse. "Look, he's still quite alive and I got to hear him scream once again, that's all I wanted from him. You're the one who said he should be kept weak so he can't hurt us, so why are you getting all uptight on me when I do just what my big sister wanted me to do?"

Coral growled dangerously before she released her grip with a slight shove that rocked Pearl back on her heels. "You know, Pearl, I've never made it a secret that I envy your skill with certain weapons. Maybe I just got the short end of the stick when it came to such things, but you've always had a certain finesse that I never could match. However, in spite of all that, you don't seem to understand that you also need to use a very delicate touch when doing something like this. You can't use brute force because the slightest mistake or miscalculation can kill."

"So what's the downside?" Pearl muttered as she cast a dark glare at D. She paused and felt the faintest of chills run down her spine as she realized that he was looking at them, his dark eyes barely open but still seeming to be lucid enough to be aware of what was taking place around him.

Pearl's attention was returned to Coral when the other woman reached out to lightly take hold of her chin, gently twisting her head around so that their eyes met once more. "I need him, Pearl," the gray-haired woman whispered in an almost velvety tone. "I will explain it all later, I promise, but for now all that you truly need to know is that I need him alive for the present. Yes, you are right, he does need to be kept weak enough to not be able to resist us, but he still needs to have some strength left available to him for later. Let me make you a deal, dear sister," she purred in a honeyed tone.

"I'm listening," Pearl growled quietly as she felt the back of her left hand start to itch all of a sudden. Maybe it's just an allergic reaction to that tone, she found herself thinking. It's possible, as Father was allergic to carnations and other vampires had been known to be allergic to the damnedest of mundane things...

"If D gets to be too unruly, you can come put him back in his place using whatever means you desire," Coral breathed huskily. "But as long as I can keep him on a suitably short leash, you can't use anything that would hurt him. Too badly," she added with a faint giggle. "You can slap him around like a cheap whore if it pleases you, but I am quite serious about no injury being done to his face. He has such a handsome look, don't you agree?" she purred.

Pearl cast a glance towards D, one ghostly pale-blue eyebrow arching up as she saw the corner of his mouth twitch just slightly. "Perhaps," she allowed in a neutral tone devoid of any hint of emotion. "But on one condition," she said in an edged tone as she looked back at Coral.

"Depending," Coral replied, surprised by her sister's response.

"If you do decide to kill him? I get to handle that," Pearl stated as her eyes seemed to blaze for a brief instant with crimson fire.

Coral blinked at the vehemence in her sister's voice before sighing and seeming to wither slightly like a delicate flower exposed to desert heat. "Oh, all right," she yielded in a weary tone. "You can kill him should it come to that. I wouldn't start holding my breath anytime soon, though," she admonished the other woman in a moderate tone.

"Fine," Pearl agreed as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest and cast yet another dark glare towards D. "He's awake, you know," she pointed out almost absently as she started to study the odd splash-pattern of reddened skin on his chest and upper legs.

"Yes, I know," Coral murmured as she briefly glanced at D's body as well. "I'll be with you in a few moments, D, I still have to finish taking care of some minor business first," she called out, giving him the faintest of smiles.

"Such as...?" Pearl prompted without taking her eyes off D.

"We need to do something about the road," Coral said, gesturing over her shoulder to what seemed to be the ceiling. "It'll take a construction team a few days to put the ballast rock back in position and cement it in place, but at least we can start by cleaning it up and patching the road surface. Did you see the crater that was left when it fell?"

Pearl promptly blinked hard and cast a startled look at Coral. "What?"

Coral sighed and turned to face her sister. "Surely you remember how I dropped part of the archway onto D yesterday?" she prodded in a patient tone. "Well, it's still sitting there and the horse carcass is probably starting to reek now. Since we don't want that stink to filter its way down here, to say nothing of the buzzards and flies it'll draw soon, we need to dispose of it and get it all cleaned up. The carriage remains, too," she added lightly.

The edges of Pearl's lips turned up slightly. "I'll just need a dustpan to clean up what's left of Celene, but I see what you mean about the rest of the mess. Let me guess, you want me to take care of it, right?"

A quiet chuckle rose up from Coral's chest as she smoothed her hands over the front of her satin gown. "I'm sure you can... entice a few strapping young men from the village to help you in your task," she purred in a honeyed tone. "You can probably even offer them a piece of a sexy young blonde as payment for their diligent efforts..."

Pearl threw her head back and laughed, a somewhat dark and sinister sound that sounded distinctly cruel to D's ears. "Oh, Coral, you are so wicked at times, you know that?" she said, giving her older sister a distinctly feral grin that exposed the very tips of her fangs.

"What can I say?" Coral replied with an exaggerated shrug. "It runs in the family." The two sisters shared a distinctly dark laugh for a number of moments before Coral made a slight gesture with her chin. "You may as well go now while the night is still young and the farm-hands are still awake. I'll take care of D, so he should be somewhat refreshed by the time you return to play with him some more."

"Mmm hmm," Pearl said absently, her dark humor almost evaporating in an instant as she glanced back at D. She paused and cast a sidelong glance at her sister as Coral took her hand gently, giving it a soft squeeze.

"You need to relax," Coral murmured quietly. "There is much he and I need to talk about first, or at least once his throat heals again, and I did promise you that you could play with him some more later. But you know how men are, they give you five minutes of entertainment and then they need to rest for an hour or two afterwards," she observed with a wicked twinkle in her eye.

"Something like that," Pearl muttered in reply as she glanced away.

"Have Abby come down here with the mud I asked her to mix up on your way upstairs," Coral said as she squeezed her hand gently before letting go and taking a step back. "Our guest here looks like he could use a bath."

"I'll bet," the aqua-eyed woman said absently as she cast another brief look at D. She started to turn away to head towards the door when she stopped and turned the other way, heading instead over to where D was chained to the metal columns.

Coral's eyebrows promptly arched up as Pearl seemed to study him for a moment before drawing her hand back to deliver a back-handed blow to his cheek. The blow was hardly a powerful one, but it was still strong enough to rock him sideways and into the support column before hanging limply again. "Hmm?" Coral inquired with a loud hum of curiosity.

Pearl turned around and gave her sister a shrug. "You said I could slap him around like a cheap whore," she pointed out in a casual tone as she started to cross the room towards the door.

"Aye, that I did," Coral admitted frankly with a slight shrug of her own. She waited until she heard the metal door closing behind her before she shook her head to herself and sighed loudly. "Oh, what am I going to do with her?" she asked aloud, more to the room in general than to D. "No matter. So let's see how you're doing this evening, shall we?" she said as she strode over to D and tilted his head up, peering into his eyes.

A quiet grunt rose up from her throat as she could clearly see where every drop of the holy water had come into contact with his skin. Nobody was quite sure why such things affected vampires and dunpeals with equal measure, burning both like liquid sunlight to sear the skin and leave them dangerously weakened. All that mattered was that it did, which made it quite a dangerous substance to handle for those with vampiric blood in their veins. Even werewolves, who were tainted with a completely different kind of blood-curse and thus were all but immune to that which could injure or kill a vampire, tended to tread carefully when around even smallest of vials of the purified and sanctified water.

"D?" she said quietly, pausing just slightly as he lifted his eyes up to look directly at her. "I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I didn't know she had picked up some holy water or I would have forbade her from using it. She damn near splashed it on me as well," she groused as she cast a glance at her left hand, blinking as she saw a tiny freckle-sized red mark on her skin where her elbow-length glove ended. "Oh, I guess she did splash me after all. Odd that I didn't notice until now... Hmm?" she added as she heard the door creaking open, lifting up her head to discover her favorite slave entering the room holding a rather large ceramic urn.

D cast a reflexive glance towards the source of the sound as well, feeling the contents of his stomach start to congeal into an icy slush. Women tended to be the favorite kind of prey for vampires of both sexes, and so it didn't surprise him to see that Coral's slave was female. What bothered him deeply though was how young the girl looked, seeming to be fifteen if that much. Her attire bothered him even more, or rather the lack of it as she was essentially wearing only a gauzy loin-cloth held in place by a thin silver chain wrapped around her slender hips.

"Coral?" the girl piped up, her voice marred slightly by the strain of carrying the urn as she carefully walked across the floor. D realized that she was barefoot as well, which explained her ginger steps as she crossed the cold stone flooring.

"Over here, Abby," Coral said as she stepped forward to take the urn from her, almost effortlessly carrying it back over to where D was chained. The girl cast a quick glance at D while her mistress' back was turned, a look of unease evident in her vibrant blue eyes as she regarded him carefully. If she was bothered by her seven-eighths or his complete nudity, she didn't give him any indication of it. Her flaxen hair had been brushed out and tied off behind her with a simple blue ribbon, making her seem more like a china doll than a child slave. Her breasts, no longer hidden by the mass of the urn, were little more than subtle swells topped by fairly large nipples that jutted out in stark contrast to the rest of her shallow curves, further emphasizing D's assessment that she was still more of a child than a woman.

A quick glance at the girl's throat chilled D's blood even further, able to make out the subtle network of scars on both sides where she had been bitten in the jugular more than once in the past. He thought he saw a faint mark on the right side of her neck, suggesting that she had recently been bitten by a vampiric entity. He felt it was horrific enough for anyone to have to endure the kiss of a vampire once in his or her life, but to repeatedly be leeched of the life-blood in her veins, especially at such a young age...

"There we go," Coral purred as she straightened up and turned around to give Abelyne a gentle smile. "Thank you, Abby, that should be all I need for awhile. Wait, where are the brushes?" she asked as she twisted around to peer inside the urn.

"Inside the urn," Abelyne replied as she absently reached over to scratch the back of her left hand for a moment.

"Never mind, I see them," Coral said as she turned back around to smile at the young girl again. "If you want, you can go ahead and tell April to start breakfast for the both of you. I'll probably be down here all night, so don't worry about waiting for me. Just have her set aside a portion for Pearl and I'll handle things myself if I get too hungry or anything. Oh, and do let her know that dinner last night was absolutely wonderful. I take it she used those Westfield potatoes?"

"I think so," Abelyne replied, keeping her gaze on her mistress. "I'll have to ask her to be certain, though."

"Expensive, but worthwhile," Coral commented with an absent nod. "We'll have to see about getting some more before the season is out. In any case, you should go back upstairs now. I'll let you know if I need anything else."

"Okay," the young girl replied before casting the briefest of glances over at D before turning to leave. She froze in mid-motion as Coral noticed the look and called to her. "Yes?" she said as she glanced back at the baroness.

"You don't need to worry about our guest," Coral purred in a silken tone. "He's not going to harm you or anyone else. Run along now."

"Okay," Abelyne replied in a carefree tone as she turned away and left the room, apparently without thinking further of the matter. The loincloth seemed to flutter slightly as she padded across the stone floor, offering alert eyes a few brief and tantalizing glimpses of what little flesh she had that wasn't out on display to begin with. The door creaked slightly behind her as it was shut, leaving Coral alone with D in the underground dungeon.

Coral purred quietly to herself as she turned her attention to the urn and carefully extracted the pair of heavy brushes inside. "It's almost a shame how good girls like her are awful hard to find these days," she mused as she dabbed the larger of the two brushes in the mud to scoop up a blob. She then turned to D and was poised to smear the mud over his arm when she saw the dark glare he was giving her. "Something on your mind, D?" she inquired carefully.

She waited patiently for him to answer, a small frown crossing her face as he turned away and remained silent. She cast a glance down at the mud-coated brush she was holding before sighing and setting it back inside the urn. She then moved over to stand in front of him, gently tilting his head up so that their eyes met.

"D?" she said softly. "I know you have a reputation for silence, even in the face of adversity, but you need to answer if someone asks you a question. I take it you don't like my pretty Abelyne?"

"Why do you keep her as a slave?" D whispered, his voice dangerously raw and tinged with pain as he gave Coral a look that was clearly unfriendly.

Coral shrugged absently, the casualness of the gesture causing D to blink in response. "She was an orphan when I encountered her," she replied as she leaned forward, just enough to reach into the urn to retrieve the brush. "What was I supposed to do, leave her to die in the ruins where I found her? The same goes for my darling little April as well, both found all alone late at night in places where they almost certainly would have become werewolf food or something before the week was out. Certainly you know just how wonderfully delicious a young girl's blood tastes, hmm?" she mused lightly as she started to spread the mud across D's arm.

"A young woman's blood, perhaps," D rasped as he cast a suspicious glance at the dark clay-like mud being brushed against him. "But not a child's," he added, allowing a hint of his anger to color his tone.

"Oh, they're hardly children now," Coral replied absently as she focused on her work, trying to spread an even coating of the mud across his skin. She paused to scoop up more of the mud before continuing to speak. "April will be eighteen soon, stunning creature that she is, and my dearest Abby just turned seventeen. Yes," she added as she saw D blink in surprise. "She's older than she looks, but most think she is still merely a precocious child of twelve or thirteen. Permit her to have enough sugar and she acts like it, too," she muttered with a somewhat rueful chuckle as she scooped up more mud.

"I hope you don't mind me doing this," she said conversationally as she continued to coat his arm with the hydrated dirt-and-clay mixture. "I'm not about to unbind you to let you rest in the embrace of the soil just yet, but we've discovered that a mud-bath goes a long way in restoring the vitality of youth. And not just because it absolutely obliterates wrinkles in the skin," she added with a faint giggle and a somewhat sultry glance.

D said nothing as he cast a glance towards his equipment in the distance, absently trying to gauge the distance. He finally settled on twenty-five feet before sighing silently and closing his eyes, trying to rest. The pain from being splashed with holy water was all but gone now, save for a few unusually sore spots on his chest where he had also been hit the hardest by the falling rock. The searing agony of his ribs had likewise faded in intensity, though he could still feel it quite keenly whenever he tried to draw in a deep breath. The constant weight on his ankles, however, seemed to be preventing them from trying to recover, resulting in a constant barrage of needle-like twinges of pain that made it hard to focus his thoughts for any great length of time.

"So what do you think of my sister?" Coral spoke up as she finished with his left arm and moved behind him to start working on his right shoulder. She paused after a few moments when she realized that he hadn't tried to reply to her yet, using the blunt tip of the brush to poke him in the lower back in the general area of his kidneys. "D, I asked you a question," she prodded in a somewhat unamused tone.

"She's no different from any other dunpeal," D spoke up without bothering to open his eyes, his tone utterly devoid of any hint or semblance of emotion.

"That doesn't sound encouraging," Coral observed lightly as she continued her work. "Surely there has to be something about her that sets her apart from the others of our kind that you've met. Honestly, how many other dunpeals have you met that are skilled with crossbows and whips like that?"

"Several," D replied after a slight hesitation.

"A pity," Coral sighed. "And here I was thinking that my little sister had been given a truly special gift. Oh, well, she's still special to me and Father. Well, I suppose I should say to just me now, seeing how Father isn't with us any longer. A shame, really," she sighed as she scooped up more of the mud and continued to coat his arm, carefully wedging some of the material in the very narrow gap between the adamantium band and his wrist.

D would have cast a slightly disturbed sidelong glance at her had his eyes been open, trying to figure out what to make of her attitude. He still didn't think that she held any animosity towards her vampire father, but her lack of concern or caring over his death made him wonder about her state of mind. It was something to think about, and seeing how there was very little he could do about his present situation he didn't see any reason not to try to devote his mental focus to figuring her out.

"Ah, dammit," Coral sighed as she stepped back, causing D to open his eyes and glance over at her. "I knew I shouldn't have picked a dress for this."

A simple glance down at her slightly extended leg revealed the cause of her concern, a small dark speckle of mud that had dripped off at some point to land on her evening gown. He dismissed it as inconsequential and started to close his eyes again when she made a rather ugly snarling noise to herself, sounding more like an upset werewolf than an irked dunpeal. Already wary with the situation, he kept his eyes open so that he could follow her movements.

"Hell with it," she sighed as she reached up and placed the brush in his right hand. "Hold this for me, will you?" she said absently as she took a short step back and reached behind her to try to grab the zipper.

Startled by the move, D absently kept his grip on the brush as he watched her pull the zipper down to the base of her spine. The dress was promptly slipped off of her shoulders and pushed down far enough to where she could step out of it, leaving her clad in a dark purple bra and matching panties. Both undergarments appeared to be made out of the same satin-like material as the dress, shimmering faintly in the dim light cast by the torches spaced out along the dungeon walls at regular intervals.

She carefully folded the dress and set it aside before standing up to look at him, a coy smile brushing her lips as she noticed his attention. Her boots were made of black leather and came up a few inches past her ankles, while the elbow-length glove on her left arm appeared to be lambskin. "You like?" she purred softly, almost seductively as she carefully posed for him, letting him see the majority of her curves. "D?" she said in a faint lilt as he once again remained silent. "Come now, be honest with me. What do you think?"

"Purple suits you," he rasped quietly, keeping his eyes on hers. He knew there was a number of things that he could have said that would not have been either a lie or aggravating to say, but something in the back of his mind was warning him to still tread as lightly as possible until he got a better idea of what her state of mind was like.

"Mmmmmmm, thank you," Coral purred as she moved to take the brush from him. The reminder of the forgotten brush almost came as a physical shock, not believing that he had been able to forget about such a simple thing as what he was holding in his hand. The analytical portion of his mind immediately edged the threat potential up a notch and suggested that he try to be more vigilant in the future. Granted he had rarely been distracted before by a woman who had cause or otherwise felt the need to undress in his presence, but the symbiot's warning about how she seemed to possess a hypnotic controlling power of some kind suddenly took on a higher note of importance.

"Pearl seems to think it clashes with my eyes," Coral continued in a soft, almost seductive tone as she resumed the task of covering D's body in mud. She finished his arm with a simple flourish and took a step back to try to decide where she wanted to start next, dipping the brush in the mud before smearing the dark sludge across the base of his throat. "But both April and Abelyne have said they like the effect as well. Not that purple is an ideal color to begin with, or so they say, but I think they know fashion when they see it. And I'm glad that you do as well," she added as her voice softened by several degrees, almost becoming inaudible.

D remained silent as the baroness began to quietly hum to herself, her mind obviously drifting at random as she painted line after line of the dark mud across his neck and upper chest. She had coated half of his chest before she blinked hard, a thought visibly forming in her eyes that snapped her out of her reverie and back into cohesive focus. She glanced up at him in concern for an instant before she carefully reached out to lightly tap his sternum with a fingertip.

"Oooh," she winced as D made a soft hissing noise at the explosion of pain that swept across his chest. "Still a little tender, I take it? D?" she added in a faintly edged tone when she didn't get an immediate response.

"So it seems," D said in a neutral tone, not wanting to give her any sort of indication as to just how badly he was still hurt. The pain wasn't nearly as bad as it had been earlier in the day when Pearl had pressed against him, but it still was sharp enough to indicate that he likely still had a few small fractures in his ribcage to mend.

"Yes, I can imagine," she murmured before she edged back and raised the brush to swipe across his chest again. She paused before the mud-coated tip could make contact, another sudden thought springing to mind that D could see in her eyes. She craned her neck to peer over her shoulder, casting a look at the suit of dark armor that was lying on the far end of the shelf where D's equipment had been gathered together. "That reminds me," she said in an uneasy tone as she turned back to him, her pale yellow eyes filled with both concern and mild curiosity. "That armor you were wearing... what exactly is it made from? The plating, not the weave holding it together," she amended. "I've never seen anything like it, and believe me when I say I've run across some very exotic metal amalgams before."

D cast a glance towards his armor, wondering how best to answer her. It would have been a lie to say he didn't know, as he once needed to have part of it replaced after exposure to a truly vile acid. Fortunately it hadn't been an overly vital component and so he had continued to use the damaged armor until he had been fortunate enough to encounter a metalsmith who was able to identify the proper mix of metals and recast the ruined plates. However, he wasn't sure he wanted to impart that information to her given the fact that it was more than likely that he would have to combat her directly at some point. Whether the odds would be in his favor by then was in of itself seemingly unlikely, but he had learned that every fraction of the odds still in his favor made things just that much more likely to go the way he needed them to go.

"It was my father's," D spoke up just as her expression darkened and she started to draw in a breath to chastise him for not answering her. He had very little reason to be cooperative at this point, but he also know that he would only make his situation that much worse if he wound up antagonizing her.

"Ah," she said quietly, casting another brief glance over her shoulder at the form-fitting armor before returning her attention back to her task. "It's pretty solid, I know that much. That's probably what saved you from the same fate as your horse," she added, giving him a somewhat unsettled look as she reminded herself of the distinctly gory scene.

He cast the briefest of glances over at her before closing his eyes and trying to shut out the outside world. The mud was starting to have an effect on his arm where it was starting to dry out, easing the burning feeling of his sun-seared skin and starting to restore vitality to the muscle tissue beneath. He doubted the minor recuperative effects would do much in of itself, but he had to remind himself that even the tiny amounts of elemental life-energy that he could absorb from the earthen mixture was still a lot better than having to keep using his own dwindling supply of energy to heal the damage.

The faintest of growls rose up from his chest as she resumed smearing the warm mud across his body. He knew that his energy reserves were dangerously low at this point and the prospects for recovering that energy were not overly encouraging. He wasn't truly at the danger point yet, the point where neither his willpower nor the strength of his human side could keep his vampiric nature fully contained, but he was also painfully aware of just how thin the margin was right now. He had both heard the stories and seen the after-effects of a vampire gone mad from blood-hunger, the once-keen intellect reduced to a mere spark of bestial hunger that lashed out at everything and everyone around it in search for that life-sustaining blood.

The slightest of tickling feelings caused his stomach to twitch slightly, refocusing his mind on his current situation. Coral had already painted the entirety of his chest and was working on his lower abdomen, a look of amusement forming on her face as she realized that he had reacted to having his navel accidentally tickled by the brush.

"Just a little ticklish, are we?" she purred in a coy tone as she brushed around his navel again, resulting in another subtle but still visible twitching of his abdominal muscles. "It's okay, D, I'm ticklish too. In fact, if you came at me with a pair of feathers and knew how to use then, I'd probably be helpless and very much at your mercy. You would be gentle with me, I trust?" she added as she looked up at him with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Maybe," he replied in a hollow tone, narrowing his eyes slightly as he dearly hoped she wasn't slipping into a playful mood. He could handle combat, he could handle vampires and werewolves and all the horrors of the night that were associated with such entities, but he still found it quite unsettling to try to deal with a woman who was in a playful mood. Especially one who was dressed in just her underwear and had him in a most untenable situation, or at least untenable from his perspective...

"Maybe," she mocked softly with a knowing smirk on her face as she resumed coating him in mud. "Come now, D, why so vague about your intentions? I've heard the whispered stories about you and your oh-so-gentle touch when you let a woman take you to bed. I even spent a few years researching them, just to make sure," she added, giving him a faintly chilling smile as she noticed the look of sudden unease that crossed his face before he could mask it. "And not once did any of your... companions describe it as anything other than gentle and tender."

It took D a moderate amount of effort not to sigh or give any outward indication that his blood temperature felt like it had just dropped by a good thirty degrees or so in the span of a few seconds. It had started when he had accepted a contract from the Elbourne family after Charlotte was kidnapped by the vampire Meier Link, a payment of twenty million if he could either bring her back to them alive and unchanged by vampirism or peacefully put her soul to rest if she had been transformed. He hadn't been the only vampire-hunter hired for the job, however, and soon he came into contact with Leila and the Markus brothers.

In the end, only he and Leila survived to explain the story to others. Charlotte had not been the damsel in distress as everyone had feared but had fallen in love with Meier and willingly went with him to try to reach Castle Chaythe, the home of the legendary vampiress Carmilla. The plan was for them to use her shuttle to reach the City of the Night, a massive space-station that hovered high over the planet where their love for one another could be allowed to play out without interference from others. Carmilla, however, had other plans and had preyed on their hopes in order to try to reanimate her physical body and return to corporeal existence to once again terrorize humanity. The Markus brothers had fallen one by one to various traps and ambushes along the way and Charlotte had died in Meier's arms after being taken by Carmilla's evil hunger for blood.

D had allowed Meier to live, watching impassionately from a distance as the vampire took Charlotte's body up with him to the shuttle and from there fulfilled their dreams of leaving the planet together. It had been a deeply bitter experience, more so for Leila than him, and it had haunted them both as they tried to make their way to a town where they would part ways. At least that had been the idea until Leila passed out from exhaustion in his arms just as a sandstorm approached, forcing him to seek shelter.

Being confined together in extremely close quarters for two days ended up changing them both for the better. Leila was finally able to extinguish the dark fires of vengeance in her human heart, and it was with her help that he was finally able to realize what it was to truly be human, to open his heart to another and have his soul touched in return. She had needed to seduce him to finally make the full connection and the memories of the encounter were one of the few that he continued to treasure to this day.

Near the end as they held one another she had asked him to make a promise to give other women the same chance that he had given her, to open up to them and not refuse their willing offers of blood or the pleasure of their bodies. Leila then went on to explain about human needs for comfort and reassurance after going through truly dark times, such as the ordeal they had gone through with Meier Link and Carmilla, and how she felt that he would be learning more about his own humanity even as he helped others by reaching out to them. At the time he hadn't truly grasped the significance of the promise but made it nonetheless, seeming to bring her still-wounded human spirit a great amount of comfort and solace.

"It's part of being human, D," she had explained in a soft voice as she held him. "It helps comfort us in a time of need. It reminds us that we're alive, that we haven't lost our hold on our humanity like so many of those creatures out there. We know we have needs they don't, needs they can never have. The need to touch and be touched, to hold and be held, to love and be loved. A need to make love, to take and be taken," she added softly as she reached out to him once more...

Many years and several encounters later, however, he was all but ready to smash his skull against the nearest solid object whenever he thought about it. Not that he disliked winding up in bed every so often with a woman he had just freed from a vampire's clutches, but rather it was the social implications that was driving him up the proverbial wall. Word had circulated for centuries of how he had never expressed an interest in women like that, even in situations when it was made bluntly obvious as to what they wanted from him. Not even a month after the first night he had to fulfill his promise to Leila, however, word of the encounter had spread with almost terrifying speed across much of the landscape. By year's end, literally every human village and town he came across was aware of the change in his demeanor, attracting more than a little casual interest from a number of women who were curious about him.

He could handle being viewed with open suspicion because of his dunpeal heritage, he could deal with the sometimes hateful comments of humans who were intimidated by his silent and seemingly uncaring demeanor, and he could easily cope with the truly vicious actions of some other vampire-hunters who wanted to prove themselves by 'besting' D in a contest of one kind or another. But what he still had yet to figure out in the dozens of years since he had fallen in love with Leila and made that promise to her was just how to handle the coy, sultry, playful, and sometimes openly brazen attentions of women who wanted to sleep with him just to see how accurate the gossip and rumors were. Normally that didn't bother him too much, as he simply chalked it up to the inherent unpredictableness of women as a species, but every so often a less-than-comely woman would try to cozy up to him and make a suggestive comment that would sour his stomach at the mere thought of having to share a bed with her...

His mind suddenly disconnected itself from the rest of his body for the briefest of instants, akin to a phonograph needle skipping over a scratch in a vinyl record as it spun past. That prompted a mental blink as he tried to refocus on his surroundings and figure out what had just happened. He quickly realized that the momentary disconnect had been caused by the sensation of the mud-coated brush sliding across his manhood, ostensibly to continue to coat his body with the slightly-revitalizing earthen mixture.

"I see that got your attention," Coral purred with a faint smile as she continued to paint his anatomy, glancing up at him with a fairly wicked twinkle in her eyes. "You looked like you were zoned out on me for a few moments, and I was starting to worry that you were going to pass out or something. I don't suppose you'll tell me what's on your mind?"

He simply closed his eyes, not wanting to converse with her unless he had to. Her demeanor continued to bother him the more he thought about it, knowing that she was up to something but neither knowing nor truly wanting to know what exactly it was. He knew he would find out sooner or later, but for once he found himself wishing that it would be later instead of sooner.

His eyes snapped back open as she reached out to grab his testicles in a gentle but firm grip, sending up all sorts of warning flags in his mind. He doubted that she would actually injure him, but the gesture still sent a primal shiver of uncertainty and perhaps even fear down his spine. One of the other things he had learned from his encounter with Leila was that when a woman had you by the genitals, even when it was with a warm or inviting touch, it was definitely not the time to argue with her over anything.

"D?" Coral said in a somewhat flat tone, her lips compressed into a thin line of unamusement. "You are irritating me now with that silence of yours. As I said, I have no wish to hurt you, but let's get something understood right now. If I ask you a question, hunter? I expect an answer from you. Are we clear on that?" she inquired in a neutral tone, giving him a gentle squeeze in an unmistakable gesture of warning.

"If you insist," D replied in an empty monotone.

"Oh, I do, believe me," Coral purred softly as she very gently massaged the sac of flesh. "You'll find that things go... much more smoothly if you respond to me when I talk to you. Pearl, too, though I doubt she will be of a mind to ask as nicely for a response as I am. Manners, you know," she added as she gave him a final squeeze before letting go and taking a single step back to resume her work.

D was more than a little grateful when she fell silent after that, her gaze becoming slightly unfocused and distant again as she started to coat his thighs with the hydrated mud. He wasn't sure what she was thinking about all of a sudden, but it was still better than having to endure her questions about his own thoughts and what he was like.

Seeing that she didn't appear to be inclined to speak in the immediate future, he closed his eyes again and turned his focus inward, trying to assess his body's condition and response to being slowly ensconced in a veil of soil and clay-like compounds. The stinging of his sun-burnt skin was almost gone now, as were a number of aches and pains in his shoulders. The surface pain in his chest was likewise receding at a slow but measured pace as the bruising was allowed to heal. The deeper muscle-related injuries continued to throb and ache intensely, however, warning him that he was not anywhere close to being out of the proverbial woods as far as his injuries went.

In another time and place, he found himself thinking, he might have been able to enjoy the mud-bath experience. He had heard of it being done as a sort of luxury skin-treatment in some of the more better-off human townships and those communities built around thermal springs. The more he thought about it, the more intrigued he became by the possibilities. Being immersed in a pit of warm mud and later rinsing it off with a hot shower sounded far better than burying himself in a dirt-filled pit and later wading through a lake or a pond to get the worst of the trail-dust off. Of course, he rarely had time for such luxuries as there was almost always one more human down the road ahead he had to rescue before having to confront her vampire captor...

"There we go," Coral purred as she stood up and took a few steps back to study the mud-covered half of D's body. She giggled quietly to herself before looking up at him, the faintest hints of a blush tinting her cheeks. "Sorry, D, but you look absolutely wretched covered in mud like that. Still, it's the best I can do under the circumstances. Okay, time to take care of your back," she said as she walked around behind him, pausing only to scoop up another glob of mud from the urn. "How are you feeling?" she inquired before he felt the cool sensation on his upper back.

It took D a moment to decide how best to reply to her. "Weary," he said calmly, settling for a somewhat nondescript statement of truth. He was indeed more than a little exhausted and worn-out, but he still saw no reason to give her any sort of indication as to just how depleted his strength was.

"Anything specific, by chance?" she inquired absently as she used a series of broad strokes to paint his skin. She paused and glanced up at him as she didn't hear an audible reply, her eyebrows arching up slightly as she realized that his head was twisted to the side just enough to give her a truly dark look out of the corner of his eye. "Well?" she prodded him carefully.

"Use your imagination," D allowed himself to say, letting the faintest hint of contempt color his tone. She was hardly the first one to play games with him like this, and he found his level of tolerance to be sorely tested by her continued casual demeanor.

Coral seemed to be genuinely surprised by his response, blinking in mild disbelief before tilting her head at a slight angle to study him. "I'm not too sure about that, D, as I can imagine an awful lot," she replied in a calm and steady tone. "I don't suppose you have anything specific you'd care to say?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, suddenly getting the chilling feeling that she wasn't intentionally feigning ignorance about his pain and suffering. If that were true, then it would mean that she was either a psychopath who simply didn't care enough to notice or a mentally unbalanced individual who was quite incapable of making the proper associations between cause and effect. Or more likely one who was dangerously casual about which associations she chose to make...

"D?" she said in a low tone, a dark snarl starting to form on her face as he remained silent. "Answer me."

"What do you want from me?" D inquired, moderating his tone so that there wasn't any hint of contempt or antagonism that could be detected. He realized that if she indeed was mentally unstable, then he would have to play along with her little games until he figured out how to deal with her... and how not to accidentally step on any landmine issues that might set her off.

"I said I'll explain later," she sighed quietly, seeming to withdraw just slightly as she scooped up another brushful of mud and smeared it across his upper back. "Later tonight when I rinse the mud off of you. It needs time to set and dry out," she added absently.

They both paused and glanced towards the door as it creaked loudly to let the scantily-clad figure of Abelyne slip into the room. She quickly crossed the distance at a rapid pace, seeming to be in a haste for some reason. "Is something wrong, Abby?" Coral said in a concerned tone as she took a step back from D.

"April said the village elder is here to see you," the girl puffed as she reached out to brace one hand against the support column D was chained to. "I think he just wants a formal meeting since you've got the title of nobility. I didn't stop to ask April about the details," she added sheepishly. "She just asked me to find you while she entertains him since she's dressed and all."

"Oh, yes, I would imagine he would be keenly interested in asking what I plan on doing," Coral murmured to herself with a quiet sigh. "I completely forgot about that. Oh, well," she sighed as she tossed the brush into the urn and moved over to the half-empty basin of water. "Give me a moment to wash up and get dressed, and I'll be right up. Sorry, D, I'll have to finish up your back later," she added in what seemed to be a genuinely apologetic tone.

Abelyne risked a quick glance at D's back before turning to look at her mistress. "Coral?" she said in an uneasy tone. "If all you're doing is giving him a mud-bath, I can finish it up for you while you're dealing with Mister Largo," she offered.

The baroness promptly froze in mid-motion before glancing over at her youthful-looking slave. "Abby?" she said in a dangerously calm tone before stepping back and shaking the water from her hands. "I'm not sure that would be a good idea."

"I can handle it," Abelyne assured her as she scampered forward to scoop up Coral's dark purple dress. She quickly unfolded it and snapped it once to try to remove any trace of dust before kneeling down at Coral's feet, holding the dress open for her to step into. "I've done it for you and Pearl before, so I know how to put it on smoothly enough. That and I know you don't want it to dry out before it's evened out."

"Mmmm," Coral hummed quietly in a noncommittal tone as she stepped into the dress, lightly resting one hand on Abelyne's shoulder for support as she did so. A look of sultry delight crossed her face for a brief moment as the dress was slid up and across her skin, carefully tugged and tucked into place before the zipper was snugly closed. "Mmm, thank you, Abby," she purred as she turned to give her a soft smile before leaning over her. "You are such a good girl..."

Abelyne's eyes closed as she tilted her head back, accepting the gentle kiss from her mistress. "I'll take care of him for you," she promised in a quiet, almost dreamy tone. She yielded to a second, deeper kiss before opening her eyes once again. She carefully watched Coral's progress across the room and out the door, exhaling very quietly as the metal door was closed with a faintly ominous thump.

She seemed to shake her head violently for a moment before she turned to focus on D, absently reaching up to scratch the back of her left hand. "You're the vampire-hunter everyone was talking about earlier, aren't you?" she asked in a low tone, suddenly no longer seeming to be as innocent and carefree as she had a few moments ago. "The one who killed Baron Winters."

D regarded her carefully before parting his lips to speak. "I am," he replied in a perfectly neutral tone, wondering if this was some sort of trap or attempt at deception on Coral's part.

Abelyne slowly nodded her head in understanding. "April said she thought it was you," she said in an openly uneasy tone. "I was... busy earlier so she came down to check on you instead. I'm sorry about the sunlight," she added, almost in a whimper as if she feared his wrath. "I can't disobey Coral. I have to be a good girl for her."

"I know," D said gently, figuring that the girl was very much under the baroness' hypnotic influence.

Abelyne cast a nervous glance towards the door before she quickly padded over to the urn and picked up the brush, scooping out a large dollop of mud. "How bad are you hurt?" she asked very quietly as she started to spread the mixture across his back, picking up where Coral left off.

D hesitated for a few moments, still suspicious of the conversation and the motives behind it. Part of him doubted it was scripted, as it would mean that Coral would have to have been acting since the beginning. The paranoid part of his psyche, however, was still insisting that he couldn't trust her just yet. Maybe he would have reason to change that, but for now his sense of caution would have to take precedence over his other instincts. "Don't worry about me," he spoke up in a calm and measured tone.

The constant movement of the brush on his back seemed to pause for a few moments before resuming. "...D?" she finally spoke up, her voice little more than a frightened whisper. "I know I can't help you, but April might be able to since Coral doesn't... love her," she said after a noticeable pause.

D twisted his head slightly, just enough to bring her into the very edge of his peripheral vision. He really didn't want to look at her directly given her state of undress, but he still wanted to keep a relative eye on her for the moment. "What do you mean?" he prodded, hoping he had misunderstood her words.

A slight frown tugged on his lips as the brush on his back started to tremble before it was brought under control. "Coral loves me," Abelyne said, her voice still unsteady and almost inaudibly soft. "She often lets me hold her when we sleep. She kisses me when I ask her to, but she hasn't kissed April yet and won't let Pearl kiss her either. I can't disobey Coral and I can't help you, but April might be able to."

D closed his eyes for a brief moment and tried not to either snarl or shudder with revulsion. It was obvious that she was very much under Coral's charm, perhaps not so much her hypnotic powers but simply the innately powerful charisma that most vampires had. It was that kind of 'natural' charm that made it all too easy to bind humans to their will, wooing them as one would another he wished to possess as a lover. Thus blinded, their victims came to believe that they did love their captors, willingly offering themselves in every way conceivable in order to please them. Rescuing humans who had fallen under such an enchantment was always the hardest on him, having to first endure their rage at having their 'beloved' taken from them, then trying to soothe the grief and horror of realization once they were able to come to their senses. However, he could remember where more than one human was beyond hope of recovery, little more than empty shells of broken spirits who continued to breathe but no longer experienced any true life or emotions in the ruined husks that was all that remained of them and their humanity.

"You shouldn't worry about it," D spoke up in as gentle a tone as he could manage. "The business I have with Coral and Pearl isn't a danger to either you or your friend. You should stay back and not get involved in it."

"I'm not worried about myself," Abelyne replied softly as she continued to paint lower. "April... isn't happy here. I know I shouldn't say such things as Coral won't like it, but... can... can you find a way to take April with you when you leave here?" she suddenly blurted out, her quiet words spilling forth in a torrent that was almost incomprehensible. "I know Coral loves me, but I'm worried what will happen to April if Coral doesn't love her too..."

"Don't worry," D said calmly, the lingering doubts in his mind suddenly evaporating like so much fog beneath the sun. "I'll look into it when I can."

It seemed like an inane thing to be saying, calmly discussing the rescue of a young girl from a pair of dunpeals while he was currently stark-naked and not too far removed from death's doorstep while he lay bound in a dungeon by literally unbreakable metal chains. It was still something he felt he had to do, however, compelled by honor to try to reassure an obviously frightened and enslaved young girl. Yet another innocent at the mercy of a vampire...

The image of the carriage exploding in front of him suddenly returned to his mind, turning the pit of his stomach into an icy void. He had tried to save them too, only to watch in horror as they were mercilessly slaughtered almost literally in his face. He would have gone first to lead them out had he not been uneasy with his knowledge of the precise boundaries of the minefield. Letting Celene go ahead of him had not sat well with him at first, but he felt that he could trust her knowledge of the terrain. Indeed, she had very much justified his decision to trust her after skillfully navigating the minefield without incident, but he wondered just how different the scenario would have been had he been in the lead instead of following the carriage when they made their approach to the supposedly abandoned archway that none of them said they could ever remember being used or manned...

Enough, he told himself as he closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do about the carriage and its passengers now. Perhaps others might have found a measure of peace and comfort in the knowledge that they most likely didn't suffer and that they died as free men and women instead of slaves of a despotic tyrant like Simon Winters. All that was left for him to do was continue his seemingly endless work of trying to bring an end to the menace his kind posed to the innocents of the world. His kind...

We are bound in blood, you and I, a voice rose up from the dark depths of his mind, taking on the slender and distinctly cold beauty of a countess he had killed some time ago. How can you betray your own kind like this, D? Yes, my flesh and yours are not of the same lineage, but we are both kin in blood! You claim we are the ones who are blinded and uncaring, but what do you see in the mirror when you look at yourself? Does the kiss of the sun not burn you? Are your teeth not sharp? Is your thirst not for the blood of others? How can you justify slaughtering your brothers and sisters like this, D? HOW?

He was spared the ordeal of having to answer the ghosts of his past by the unmistakable feeling of another instantaneous sensory disconnect, almost as if his mind had stopped to hiccup for a brief moment. It took a moment to realize that it was caused by another tickling feeling from the brush, only this time it was inside his thighs and dangerously high up.

Abelyne froze in mid-motion as D turned his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry," she apologized as her cheeks started to turn bright crimson, "But you need to be completely covered by the mud for it to work properly. Please don't be mad at me, Coral will be upset if I don't do this the right way..."

D just shook his head gently. "I was just surprised, that's all," he said quietly, turning back around to stare over at his equipment in the distance. He blinked hard as the thought sprang to mind, wondering if she had enough free-will to retrieve something for him. The idea was dismissed almost just as quickly as he realized that he didn't have anything among his gear that could possibly have any effect or impact on either tempered titanium chains or their adamantium cores.

The lockpicks? he suddenly thought as he cast a quick glance up at his wrist. His second moment of hopeful inspiration was crushed just as easily as the first when he realized that there wasn't any sort of locking mechanism that could be finessed, the bands held together by a series of bolts that appeared to require special tools to unscrew. Or at least tools tough enough to not be shattered by the torque when the titanium bolts started to resist any such force being applied.

The other sets are titanium, the symbiot's voice suddenly spoke up in his mind as he remembered its words earlier, but the ones here were replaced with carbon-tempered iron. You might be able to pop them if you had your full strength back...

"There, all done," Abelyne said as she put the brush in the urn and took a few steps back, casting a critical eye on both her handiwork and Coral's. She paused for a moment before stepping around to examine his front as well, making sure that the mud was both applied evenly and smoothed out so as not to crumble easily once it dried.

The faintest of inaudible sighs rose up from D's throat as he noticed her gaze lowering down to his midsection, resulting in a fairly moderately blush springing to her cheeks. It was not the first time a young girl had been given the chance to study his naked body, even as unintentional as was the case now, and in almost every case the result had consisted of two things: a blush of one degree or another, and a significant rise in their levels of sexual desire. The former was of no concern to him, as it was a simple and completely natural biological reaction to a number of emotions. He supposed that it should have equally applied to the latter, as it too was a natural reaction. But for all that he was wary of playful women and how dangerous they could be, he knew that the level of danger was all but dwarfed by the level posed by a playful woman who was also in an amorous mood.

She glanced up at him and the blush promptly tripled in intensity, making the sharpness of her blue eyes and the golden-yellow of her hair stand out in starker contrast. "Coral should be back soon," she managed to murmur as she turned to look towards the door, reaching up to rub her left wrist without thinking about it.

D said nothing as he closed his eyes, more out of a sense of offering her a semblance of modesty than anything. She seemed to be comfortable with her state of undress, though he couldn't be sure how much of that was the influence Coral had over her. That wasn't to suggest he wasn't appreciative of her body in a purely objective sense, as she was quite beautiful despite her dangerously youthful appearance, but there was a time and a proper place for such things and he was all too aware that he was in neither.

"Are you alright?" she suddenly spoke up, her soft voice sounding worried.

He opened his eyes to glance up at her before nodding slightly. "I am," he assured her, not wishing to worry her with his current situation. He knew he was a far cry from being 'alright' in any sense of the word, but he knew that he was very slowly edging back from the abyss of oblivion, one tiny step at a time. Already he could feel the restorative effects of the mud seeping into his energy-starved body. Granted it was not a truly significant amount, as large amounts of elemental energy like that could only be drawn from contact with the ground as a single, unified entity, but like drops of rain into a water barrel for collection every little bit did help in the long run.

Abelyne cast a quick glance towards the closed door before she hesitantly edged closer to him until she was close enough to touch him. "I'll... I'll ask April if she can find a way to come down here to talk to you herself," she said, her voice slipping into a frightened whisper as if she feared being seen or heard talking to him. "Please, D, don't worry about me, but you have to take her with you. You have to," she pleaded as she looked into his eyes, her own eyes seeming to be ready to fill with tears. "She's not happy here and I'm worried about her..."

"I'll do what I can," D said calmly, looking at her and trying to project a feeling of comfort and solidarity. On the inside, however, he was trying not to cringe at the thought of being anywhere close to a crying woman. It was bad enough that he didn't understand women's emotions when they were in a normal frame of mind and understood them even less when they were crying, but there was the added danger of the fact that tears burned his skin as if they were droplets of holy water. "You have my word of honor," he added.

His words seemed to reassure her greatly, soothing the subtle trembles in her body and letting a faint smile touch her lips. "Thank you," she murmured as she started to reach up to touch him. She froze as she heard the door start to open, quickly taking a step back and lowering her arms to her sides.

D felt a faint chill course through his blood as Coral returned, holding a slender silver goblet in her gloved hand. She seemed to be a content mood as she calmly crossed the floor to stand next to her slave, absently reaching out with her other hand to caress the back of Abelyne's neck.

"I just finished," Abelyne spoke up calmly, a somewhat hazy and dreamy look returning to her eyes. D wasn't quite sure if her shift in mood was faked or not, but he had the suspicion that it partly due to being exposed once again to Coral's innate charisma.

"Mmm, have you now?" Coral purred as she slowly walked around D to examine him from every angle. "I see that you have," she said demurely after a moment, bringing a smile to Abelyne's face that soured D's stomach. There were only two instances where he could remember seeing that kind of smile on a human's face before, and the first was right after they had injected themselves with any number of mind- and mood-altering drugs. The second, of course, was when they were dominated by a vampire and were basking in the satisfaction of having pleased their master to one degree or another.

"Very well done, my lovely," Coral murmured softly as she came back around D and moved to stand close to Abelyne, leaning down to nuzzle her cheek gently.

It took D a moderate effort not to visibly react to the tableau taking shape in front of him. The look on Abelyne's face was nothing short of bliss, tilting her head slightly so that Coral's lips brushed her cheek further back towards her ear. A hand reached up to very lightly caress Coral's neck with an almost feathery touch, very gently guiding her lips down to the side of her throat where the scars were.

Coral kissed her throat tenderly before lifting her head up, twisting her neck just enough to glance over at D. A truly chilling smile formed on her lips as she noticed D's obvious unease with the scene. She then deliberately moved around to stand behind her slave, still leaning over to let her lips roam up and down the faintly pulsing expanse of Abelyne's bared throat.

"Coral?" Abelyne whispered very softly, still caressing the side of her mistress' head in an unmistakable gesture of gentle urging. Her other hand slid up to brush against her bare breast, gliding a single fingertip around the dark circle of her areola in a deliberate motion.

Coral raised an eyebrow as she saw D's face darken considerably, almost as if he was daring her to take the young girl on the spot. The faintest of dark smiles brushed her lips as she allowed her vampiric nature to assert itself, elongating her vampiric fangs and infusing her corneas with a soft golden glow. A simple tilt of her chin brought the points of her fangs into contact with the girl's throat, very lightly raking across the skin without breaking either the soft flesh or eye-contact with D.

Only those with a vampire's super-sensitive hearing could detect the very soft and subtle creaking of the chains as D became tense, his hands curled into tight fists as he began to unconsciously strain against the titanium bonds that imprisoned him. The faintest of blue glows became discernible in his eyes as his vampiric half started to assert itself, barely held in check by his will.

"Coral?" Abelyne whispered again, her nipples visibly tightened from the excitement and anticipation. Her fingertip ceased the slow swirling motion and moved up slightly higher up, gently rolling and pinching the hard and throbbing nub between her thumb and forefinger.

The baroness chuckled very softly to herself as she leaned closer to her slave, letting the softness of her lips brush across the girl's throat. "Not now, my sweet," she said in a very quiet tone. "I still have things I need to do, and we both know business has to come before pleasure. But later tonight, I promise you," she added as she moved up to kiss her ear, her ungloved hand sliding around to gently squeeze both Abelyne's fingers and the nipple captured between them.

The attention seemed to send a shudder through the young girl, almost as if in a gentle orgasm. "Please?" she whimpered, her lips tugging down in an almost heart-rending look of disappointment that only D could see.

Another soft chuckle rose up from Coral's throat as she leaned back, her hand leaving Abelyne's breast to touch her chin. "Later, my sweet," she purred as she tilted her chin so that their eyes could meet. "Just think of the wait as adding the sweetness of anticipation. You did a wonderful job with the mud-bath which saved me a bit of work, so don't think I'm not grateful. I'll make it up to you later tonight," she purred in a honeyed tone as she leaned forward once again. "I promise..."

Perhaps Coral might have been able to hear the soft snarl of contempt and anger that rose up from D's throat, but it was most likely drowned out by the volume of the hum of pure pleasure Abelyne made as Coral kissed her, a deep melding of their lips that seemed to take both women's breath away. D found the sight to be almost physically nauseating, not because it was two women who were kissing but because he knew that Coral was taking full and open advantage of the young girl.

"Go on," Coral murmured softly as she edged back and stood up straight, her gloved hand still carefully holding the silver goblet well away from their bodies. "The sooner I take care of this means the sooner I can come see you again, my sweet..."

"Okay," Abelyne replied, giving her a dreamy smile before she turned and left the room, seeming to shiver slightly for no apparent reason. D watched her carefully as she left, able to catch the way she started to rub her left hand just as she left the room. The door was gently closed behind her a moment later, the soft metallic sound seeming to echo unusually loud in the room.

"Like I said," Coral said in a somewhat sultry voice as she took a few steps closer to D, "Good girls like her are so hard to find these days. I take it you're like my sister and don't approve of such tender things?" she inquired lightly, gently swirling the contents of the goblet around.

"I don't think your sister and I have anything in common," D managed to reply without snarling or baring his fangs. The faint blue glow in his eyes faded a moment later as he got a firmer control on his darker half. "And no, I don't approve of anyone preying on innocent young girls, even under the false guise of tenderness or love."

Coral seemed to wince slightly at the rebuke. "Oh, such harsh words," she sighed, apparently genuinely disturbed by his comment. "I've taken good care of Abby since she came into my possession."

"Humans are not possessions," D stated, giving her a flat look.

"Odd, they've been ruled by the nobility since longer than any of us can remember," she pointed out, making a gesture with her goblet. "And I'll bet it was that way long before you were born or even an idea. Just how old are you, anyway?" she inquired absently as she took a careful sip from the goblet.

D narrowed his eyes even further before replying. "I don't remember."

"Come now, D," she chided him, giving him a faintly disappointed look.

D simply shook his head, knowing that he was telling the absolute truth. He had long ago lost track of the ancient calendar used to record his birth, the days and years and even centuries having slipped past him in the interim largely without notice. His present awareness of time consisted only of the turning of the seasons, adjusting his equipment and supplies based on what the weather patterns were likely to be in the months ahead.

"That's sad," Coral observed with a faint sigh. "I'd almost go so far as to say depressing as well. Okay, so maybe I'd be just as depressed to see the years rack up after the second or third century, but still... you can't know where you're going to go in the future if you don't know where you've been in the past. Or when," she added lightly.

D knew that the wisdom in her words was quite correct, and had he not come to believe his future lie only in the embrace of oblivion he might have kept a better eye on where he had been so he could look forward to where he otherwise might be going. It was, he reflected a moment later, probably the reason he had given up trying to reconcile the old calendar to the one most humans used these days. If neither the future nor the past mattered, what use was it to waste the energy being concerned with keeping abreast of what arbitrary point in time you were at between the beginning and the ultimate end?

"In any case," Coral said conversationally as she edged closer to him, "Abby was right about the village idiot simply wanting to say hi now that I'm the one who rules the region. He said the crop fields were a little shaken up from the collapse of the castle and that everything was now... how did he put it?" she mused as she briefly stared off into empty space. "Dustier than his wife's sense of humor, or something to that effect. I'll have to admit I had a bit on my mind and wasn't paying close attention to the rambling old fool, but he did give me a nice bottle of wine as a gift. Care for a taste?" she added as she held the silver goblet up to his lips.

D cast a wary glance down at the amethyst fluid as it rippled slightly in the goblet. A very subtle sniff indicated that it was a rather fragrant wine and didn't appear to be tainted with anything. He figured that it was safe to drink after noticing her sip it earlier, but the hair on the back of his neck was still at rigid attention.

"I'll pass," D said calmly as he glanced up at her.

"D, don't be such a sourpuss," Coral admonished him gently as she drew the goblet back. She glanced down and gently swirled the wine around before taking a measured sip. "Mmm. It's probably no more than three years old, but it has the most wonderful aftertaste to it. Try it," she urged softly as she brought the goblet up to his lips again.

Several moments passed in silence as D kept his gaze on her, not making any motion to accept. The edges of her lips started to tug down slightly as the silence went on, her mood slowly darkening at his continued resistance.

"D?" she finally said calmly with a faint undercurrent of disappointment to her tone. "What's the problem? You do drink wine, don't you?"

"I'm naked and chained down in a dark dungeon," D said in a matter-of-fact tone that was both empty of emotion and flatter than the surface of an anvil. "I'm not inclined to do you any favors or otherwise play games at the moment."

A soft sigh rose up from Coral's chest as she took a step back, absently taking another sip of the wine. "It's not like I have a choice, you know," she pointed out, not seeming to be apologetic in the slightest. "Pearl likes to play to a captive audience when she shows off her skills with weapons, and I'm pretty sure turning you loose without the proper restraints on your activities would be unhealthy for both her and I. You do want to kill me now that I'm the Baroness, correct?" she prodded carefully.

"Unless you change your ways, it may come to that," D said as he tried not to fantasize too hard about being able to run her through with his sword right now. He knew that he would indeed have to kill her at some point in the near future, especially if she seemed ready to continue her father's cruel ways.

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," Coral admitted with another casual sip of the wine, "But I'm still getting the feeling that you don't like me for some reason. And believe me when I say everyone knows what happens to nobles whom you don't like," she added in a faint tone of both warning and unease.

D raised an eyebrow in dry and remote amusement at her words. "It's hard to like someone who uses children as slaves and abuses others for pleasure or amusement," he pointed out in a flat tone. "Many would call that evil."

"Oh, not this argument again," Coral sighed in open resignation. "D, you know as well as I do that things like 'evil' and 'good' are both very relative exercises in judgment. Some of us think what you do is evil, hunting down and killing your own kind in a one-dunpeal attempt at genocide, but I'm sure you believe that what you're doing is good, right?"

"To kill without cause is evil," D countered quietly, giving her a level look. "To harm innocents is evil. Righting an ancient wrong and freeing the world from the darkness of our tainted blood, however, is not evil."

Coral's pale eyebrows arched up slightly. "Righting an ancient wrong?" she echoed, seeming to be slightly amused by the notion. "Oh, do tell."

D sighed on the inside, knowing that it would be extremely difficult to explain things to someone who hadn't studied the ancient archaeological records of what the world was like ten thousand years ago, before the rise of vampires as the dominant life-form on the planet. His father had collected a number of artifacts and relics from that era and as a child D had found them to be more than a little intriguing. They had all been destroyed when his father's palace fell during the Blood Wars but the idle fascination with them had remained with D during his adult life, pausing in his journeys for a few moments when time permitted to study an ancient ruin or historical area whenever he passed by.

"Surely you know about the red moon," D spoke up, trying to get a feel for both her historical knowledge and how much interest she had in discussion and debate. He wasn't about to waste his breath if all she wanted to do was toy with him, but she was indeed open to negotiation about his fate then what did he have to lose at this point?

She gave him a disturbing smile as she moved over to the control levers, pulling the one that opened the ceiling hatch. D cast a glance upwards as it opened, blinking in surprise as the mirrored surface of the tunnel was promptly flooded with a dull crimson light.

"The red moon," Coral said with open amusement. "Yes, I think I've seen it before. A big red thing in the sky, right? Larger than the big white thing in the sky? Is this what you're talking about?" she added with a gesture of her goblet to the distorted reflection visible halfway up the tunnel.

D gave her a classic 'we are not amused' look before carefully drawing in a deep breath to speak. "Ten thousand years ago, the red moon didn't exist in the evening sky," he explained slowly. "It wasn't until it was summoned here from another world that it began to influence the humans, corrupting a number of them into mutants and allowing vampires to emerge from the shadows."

"Oh?" Coral said, turning to give him a surprised look. "How interesting. I'll admit my knowledge of history probably pales in comparison to yours, but what you've lived through would mostly qualify as ancient history in my book," she observed with a chuckle and a twinkle of amusement in her pale yellow eyes. "Go on," she added as she tilted her head at a slight angle.

"The world was reshaped, but not just because of the new moon's gravity," D continued in a weary tone. "The vampires quickly dominated the planet and enslaved the human survivors, thus beginning ten thousands years of pain and unjust suffering. The summoning of the moon was no accident, and thus neither was the aftermath of evil that covered the world in darkness that continues to this day. That was the injustice, the ancient wrong."

"Ahh," she replied with a slow nod, a faint hint of a smile touching her lips. "So you simply seek to undo what is done, then? Turn back the clock by ten thousand years and destroy all that our kind has accomplished since the beginning? Bring an entire race to oblivion," she said slowly as she advanced on him, one measured step at a time. "And that will... what, bring back the ancient humans? Undo their so-called pain and misery?"

D narrowed his eyes dangerously at her as she stopped in front of him, barely less than a foot away. "What is done, is done," he said in a low tone, unconsciously straining at the chains. "I can't undo the deeds of the past, but I can try to make sure the evil of the past remains there. This world has suffered beneath the yoke of vampires long enough, it needs to be freed once and for all."

"Evil of the past," she purred very softly, taking another sip of wine. "How quaint. Tell me, hunter, did my father have anything to do with this... summoning of the moon? Was he responsible for the reshaping of the world or this veil of darkness you believe we are all living under?"

"Of the moon, no," D replied calmly. "But he spread his own darkness to those he enslaved and murdered. How many innocents suffered and died because of him, either by his own hand or by those who followed him? How many others have likewise suffered and died because of those just like him, drained of blood to slake the hunger of vampires and cast aside like so much garbage when they were of no further use?"

"Countless, I would imagine," Coral replied with a shrug of indifference. "However, that seems to be the natural order of things in life, the proverbial food-chain. Surely you know what I'm talking of, the predator and the prey. It is as old as life itself, the strong shall live and the weak shall die. I see that philosophy bothers you," she added as she saw D's lip curl back before he could control the dark emotions raging inside him.

"That works for animals," D spat back, almost literally spitting as he continued to reign in his temper. "It works for those who are innocent, who don't know any better and don't have the capacity to comprehend concepts beyond hunger and thirst. But humans are not animals, they are every bit as sentient and intelligent as vampires imagine themselves to be."

A faint chuckle rose up as Coral regarded him carefully. "You might want to rethink that last one," she pointed out in an openly amused tone. "Oh, I've met some fiendishly smart humans before, trust me, but the majority I've met are about as intelligent as a rock in a box. It often makes me wonder how they managed to exist before we came along, but that's a topic for debate at a later time. I'm sorry, D, but I guess we won't be seeing eye-to-eye on this one for quite some time," she apologized with a shrug and another sip of her wine.

"However," she added as she raised the goblet to peer over the rim at him, "That doesn't mean we can't behave like civilized people and simply agree to disagree. You are, after all, as noble as I am in spite of our births to human mothers. Not that I'm saying having human blood is a bad thing," she allowed as she lowered the goblet and held up her ungloved hand, studying it carefully. "After all, that is what allows us to exist in the sun without turning into a pile of ash after a minute of casual exposure. Which is good, as I happen to like watching sunrises. It's quite pretty the way it turns the sky all pink and orange like that, don't you agree?"

"Maybe," D said quietly, suddenly aware of a change in his condition. The reflected light of the red moon continued to shine down him, focused by the way the surface mirrors were set and concentrating the resulting lunar radiance on his mud-covered body. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but it felt like he was starting to heal faster on the inside now that he was being bathed in the blood-colored light. "But I'm not exactly a morning person," he added quickly, deciding it might be best if he were to stall her so that he could spend more time in the moonlight.

"Oh, the irony," Coral murmured as she shook her head slightly. "Imagine that, a dunpeal who isn't a morning person. Not that either I or my sister are morning people either," she admitted lightly with a soft smile, "But it's still the thought that counts. How's the mud?"

"Drying out," D said, casting a glance at his arms. "It should fully cure in another hour or two."

"Mmm," she hummed absently as she took another sip of wine. "I had hoped it would dry faster. Oh, well, no matter, I'll peel it off of you once it sets properly. You know, D," she said in a faintly hesitant tone, prompting a wary look from him, "Scarecrow look aside, you really don't look too bad like that. I'm almost tempted to ask to borrow the lithograph from the village. Oh, I'm just teasing you," she sighed as she caught the look on his face. "Honestly, D, you need to relax a little."

It took him a considerable amount of effort not to sigh or shake his head at her casualness. "Under the present circumstances," he said in a perfectly neutral tone, "That's going to be more than a little difficult."

"Mmm," she replied softly, seeming to be more of a grunt than a hum. She took an absent sip of the wine before pausing in mid-motion, starting off into empty space to think for a moment. "D?" she said as she refocused and looked up at him. "How about if I make you a deal?"

"I'm listening," he assured her, wondering what she was thinking. He was fairly sure that she was a borderline psychopath who genuinely didn't make the connection between her actions and the sufferings of others. Part of him still thought that it was deliberate callousness on her part, either because of her upbringing or her own dark tendencies, but in any case he knew that she was far more of a danger to both him and the humans than someone like Pearl or even the late Baron Winters.

"I will unchain you and let you do as you please," Coral said in a very slow and deliberate manner, "But only if you promise me two things. First, you can't try to hurt or act against either me or my sister in any fashion. That means you can't kill us," she added in a pointed tone.

"And the second condition?" D prompted in a moderate tone, knowing that he couldn't possibly agree to her 'deal' because of the first point alone. While he might indeed be able to spare her life depending on how she treated others, there was very little hope of redemption for a twisted soul like Pearl. As long as she continued to delight and revel in the pain of others, she had no place in this world and was thus needed to be returned to the abyss of oblivion that she and her kind had come from so long ago. Her kind and his.

"Second, you can't leave here or try to escape me," she said, giving him a soft smile that chilled his blood. "Oh, I'll take you out with me whenever the mood strikes, but I can't have you just blithely running off or otherwise left to your own devices and machinations. You'd be a safety hazard," she added in a stage whisper, her eyes twinkling with impish amusement.

"You don't ask much, do you?" D observed dryly, prompting a very quiet giggle from the other dunpeal that failed to amuse him in the slightest.

She shrugged and crossed her arms, absently swirling around the last bit of wine in her goblet. "Try to consider it from my point of view," she replied with casual indifference. "If I let you loose without those two promises, you will probably try to kill me before hunting down Pearl as well. And even if you don't, you'll still leave here to keep killing our kind. I'm afraid I just can't let that happen, D," she added with a sigh that almost seemed regretful.

"What makes you think I won't do that even if I promise you?" he prodded quietly. He was fairly sure by now that the concentrated light from the red moon was indeed helping him recover. He wasn't sure why it was doing so, but he figured that he would have ample time later to try to come up with some sort of answer that was both plausible and easily tested.

"You will," Coral purred in a honeyed tone, giving him a sultry smile as she approached close to him. "I know you, D, and I know about your reputation. A man of unshakable honor, many have said. Not once in my research did I ever hear even the slightest hint of a rumor that you ever broke a promise made in good faith. I know you'll keep your word if you give it to me in this case," she breathed, leaning over to let her lips brush against his ear. "I know I would be putting not just my life at stake by trusting you like that, but my sister's as well. And you know what, D? I do trust your word that much."

"I'm flattered," D said in a hollow tone devoid of any emotion.

"Mmmm, I'll bet you are," she murmured huskily. She paused for a moment before edging back, giving him a curious look before craning her head to look up at the crimson-tinted tunnel above them. "Oooh, that feels weird. Do you feel anything, D?" she inquired, giving him a faintly concerned look.

"I'm not sure," D replied in a measured tone. "It's hard to feel much in this sort of situation."

"We can solve that, you know," she prodded him gently, reaching out with her ungloved hand to tilt his chin back slightly. "All I'm asking you is to promise me you won't hurt me or Pearl, and that you won't try to leave me."

"I'll think about it," D said calmly, giving her a look that was extremely difficult for her to read or interpret.

She sighed heavily to herself in open resignation, her breath brushing his cheek in a gentle exodus of warm air. "Very well, D, I'll let you think about it. I don't see why you would need to, however, as I really am not asking very much of you at all. Or am I that abhorrent to you that you wish only to kill me and be done with it?" she prodded in a slightly uncertain tone, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Let's just say that actions speak louder than words," D spoke up calmly. "Evil is as evil does. Should you continue to do evil, then I will indeed seek to strike you down like all the others."

"I see," Coral replied very quietly in a subdued tone. "I don't suppose there's anything I can do to change your mind?"

"There is," D said as he gave her a piercing look. "Simply do no evil."

"I see we're back to the discussion about what constitutes evil," she said in a neutral tone as she stepped away from him. "Apparently we're going to have to sit down together at some point and iron it out between us until we're both on in agreement about what truly defines 'evil' in this world."

D said nothing as he closed his eyes and exhaled softly, not wanting to continue the discussion. He had lived his entire life with the understanding of what the differences were between good and evil, and he strongly doubted that she would have anything to say that was either new to him or was valid enough to make him sit back and re-examine his own values.

"Very well, hunter," she said in a faintly cool tone, "We shall speak of this another time then. I shall return once the mud has set," she said as she moved past him.

The sound of her footsteps remained awfully close, prompting D to open his eyes and glance over to where she was moving. "Coral," he spoke up quickly as he saw her reaching for the lever that would close the ceiling hatch.

"Mmm?" she inquired with a faint hum as she glanced over at him, one hand resting on the lever.

"Would you leave that open for me?" he said gently after a brief pause to decide how best to phrase things. He was about to say more when she jerked on the lever, closing the hatch and cutting off the glow of the red moon.

"Make those promises to me first, D," she said in a faintly edged tone as she turned away from him and headed for the door. "Then we can talk about what kind of... favors I can do for you."

D said nothing as she left the room. As he expected, the door made a soft creaking noise as it shut, followed by a loud click as the locking mechanism was engaged from the other side. Sighing quietly, he turned his focus inward and closed his eyes, acutely aware of the subtle emphasis she had put on the word 'favors' moments ago.

((D?)) it spoke up after the room was deathly silent for a few moments.

"You must stay quiet," D murmured softly. "The room may be monitored."

((It's a dungeon, D,)) it scoffed quietly. ((Besides, I checked earlier and I'm not sensing any sort of electrical devices anywhere around here. Look, I don't know if you've started to pick up on this, but I'm pretty sure that your lovely captor is, shall we say, missing a few buttons. And I'm not talking about yesterday's blouse, either,)) it added dryly. ((Damn, those were some nice breasts out on display when she decked you. Not that you would have noticed or anything, but still. I wouldn't mind giving those beauties a taste-test...))

"Quiet," D growled, more out of a simple reflex than actual irritation.

((Just listen for a few, okay?)) it sighed. ((Maybe I'm missing something, but Coral doesn't sound like she's playing with a full deck. Either that or her blood is cold enough to make a snake's blood in the dead of winter seem to be warm in comparison. Pearl's just evil to the core, but Coral has some very serious issues. If I were you, D, I'd worry more about her than her sister.))

A very quiet grunt of agreement rose up from D's throat, knowing that if the thing in his hand had picked up on it as well then it wasn't just his own perception and judgment reaching that conclusion.

((Also, in case you hadn't noticed, she's working that hypnosis power of hers pretty hard,)) it continued, causing D to open his eyes and glance up at his hand. His left hand, he suddenly realized with a hard blink.

"How so?" he inquired carefully.

((That's... a good question,)) it admitted. ((I'm not quite sure what it is or how it works, but my nerves have been going haywire whenever she uses that voice. You know, the slinky, sexy, come hither and I'll please you if you'll please me first tone. It's hard to miss, really. Well, maybe you could miss it as you tend to ignore women who try to cuddle up...))

"Enough," he muttered. "I know what you mean. Can you counteract it?"

((Er, in case you hadn't noticed,)) it replied in a somewhat tart tone, ((Her wily wills have been affecting me and not you. Notice that your hand isn't itching like everyone else's when she gets all lovey-dovey?))

"How bad is it?" he inquired, suddenly leery at the prospect of having the symbiot fall under her sway and start working against him.

((Hah, please,)) it chuckled quietly. ((Believe me when I say that you'll be putty in her hands from normal feminine charms long before she'll be able to dominate me with her will. After all, you've never been able to do so, right? And don't tell me you've never tried before, either,)) it admonished him.

"Let me know if you encounter any difficulty resisting her," D instructed as he closed his eyes again. "I'll see if I can change her focus. As I said, you need to stay silent and undetected until I need you."

((Yeah, yeah,)) it sighed quietly. ((So I take it you're going to try to do something about April and Abelyne, then? April was down here earlier when you were five-sixths unconscious, by the way, and she didn't appear to be under Coral's dominion. Or at least not as bad as Abby is, poor thing. She's cute as hell, though, you have to admit. Oh, for a taste of such sweetness...))

D ignored it as it prattled on quietly to itself, no doubt trying to cheer him up with the reminder of its presence. Not that it wasn't working, as D was extremely grateful it was with him. The commentary could be dispensed with, but for once in quite awhile D was more than willing to put up with it so long as it didn't reveal itself to anyone else. He could handle being tortured, or at least up to a certain degree, but the thought of being unable to protect it should it be discovered galled him far more than the thought of Coral feeding on the crimson nectar in Abelyne's veins. For all that it annoyed him on an almost constant basis, the symbiot was more than just a powerful and useful ally. It was quite literally a part of him now, and one that he would just as soon not have taken from him.

A muted grumble rose up from his chest as he thought of Abelyne and Coral. The girl was clearly enchanted by her mistress' vampiric aura, as nobody in their right mind would willingly seek to have their blood taken from them like that, or at least not with such excitement and fervor. A number of women had eagerly offered him their blood in the past, mostly as thanks for saving them and sometimes even out of genuine curiosity, but to a woman they had all been wary of the pain that would result of his acceptance. And with good reason, as a majority had confessed afterwards that they wouldn't have done so had they known just how bad it would hurt.

The dark memories surged up from the depths of his mind without warning. The pain in Doris' blood as he fed from her, the first time he had ever dared to take blood from a human before. She had cried out when he pierced her but tried to keep the noise to herself, the pain audible only as the softest of sounds that D's sensitive ears had almost missed.

Leila had likewise cried out in silence as he bit her thigh, the singing of the tension in her body serving to convey the depths of her pain every bit as effectively as a vocal cry could. The pain was likewise palatable in her blood, fading one agonizing degree at a time as he sipped the dangerously hot fluid that welled up to coat his tongue.

The other women he had yielded to had likewise reacted similarly, some remaining perfectly quiet while others cried out softly and shed tears of raw pain. One by one their faces drifted past his mind's-eye, permanently etched into his memories by the force of their human wills, their human desires, and their human souls. All had painfully sacrificed their blood for him, and yet they had all smiled and thanked him in the end, even as they wiped the last of their tears away.

So why would Abelyne be any different? the darkest part of him thought. Why couldn't she gain pleasure from letting Coral feed from her? Or use her? She may seem like a child, but she is not. What if she is one of those who finds pleasure in her own pain? Is it evil to revel in pain, even if it only your own? Where is the wrong in this if she is willing?

((D?)) the quiet voice cut through his darkened thoughts.

"What?" he murmured as the faces and voices suddenly receded back into the depths of his memory like a dark tide flowing back into the sea.

((What are you thinking about?)) it inquired in an unusually cautious tone. ((You had this god-awful look on your face a few moments ago, and quite frankly it scares the hell out of me when you get that look...))

"What kind of mud is this?" D asked calmly, not in a mood to try to share his own personal demons with it. He opened his eyes later as he felt a very odd sensation in his palm, glancing up at his wrist as he tried to figure out what to make of it.

((Mmm, mmm, good stuff,)) it hummed, causing D to grimace at the realization that it had used its tongue to scoop some of it up for analysis. ((The clay has a high salt content, but otherwise it's quite tasty. I'm not sure about how it compares to a dirt-nap, but rest assured that you've been covered in far worse mixtures of dirt before.))

Sorry I asked, D thought with a silent sigh as he closed his eyes and tried not to think about what else was going to happen tonight.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He opened his eyes again at the sound of the lock being withdrawn, shortly followed by the now-distinctive creak of the door being opened up. He watched with only remote interest as Coral wheeled a small cart into the dungeon room. It became clear as she got close enough for him to hear that it filled with a liquid of some sort, presumably water as it gently sloshed back and forth.

An icy chill slid down D's spine as he made note of the look on her face, a distinctly pleased and almost rosy look of satisfaction. It took a moment for him to figure out the reason for his unease, able to see the faintest of traces of red around the corners of her mouth. Both the glance and the smile she gave him as she wheeled the cart next to him only added to his discomfort, knowing that few things put vampiric entities into relaxed and openly cheerful moods like a leisurely meal of fresh blood.

"So how are you feeling, D?" she purred quietly as she set the wheel brake to make sure the cart wouldn't roll away. "Is the mud helping any?"

"The sunburn should have healed by now," he said in a neutral tone.

"Oh, that's good," she replied with a warm smile. "The last thing I need is for you to come down with a case of heat exposure on me. Has it all dried out yet?" she inquired as she leaned over to examine his back.

"I haven't checked," D responded neutrally.

She paused as she finally picked up on the subtle undertone to his reply. "It's not irritating you, is it?" she inquired in a faintly worried tone. "I know some kinds of mud tend to itch and chafe when it dries, but I've never had any problems with this mixture before."

D simply closed his eyes, knowing that had been a wall in front of him he would have been sorely tempted to bang his head against it. He had dealt with his fair share of mentally-unbalanced people before, but never could he recall being forced to endure a disassociative disorder as strongly as Coral seemed to be suffering from. If you could call it suffering, he thought to himself in a rare fit of sarcasm, remembering the words an intensely chaotic but still sane young human woman had told him once a very long time ago.

I don't suffer from insanity, she had said, giving him the exact same type of predatory grin that had genuinely scared the werewolf during the stand-off less than five minutes ago. Trust me, I enjoy every second of it...

He opened his eyes again as he heard a faint rasping sound, lifting his head up just in time to watch the baroness remove a pair of scraping tools from a tiny drawer set into the opposite side of the cart. Both had flat edges on one side, but neither looked to be sharp enough to inflict injuries unless they were applied with significant force or pressure.

"Let's see what we've got," Coral purred quietly to herself as she tapped the edge of the larger tool against his bicep. The dried clay-like coating immediately fractured where it was struck but remained in place. "Oh, good, it dried all the way through," she observed as she used the smaller tool to pry a small piece of the hardened material off.

D remained silent as she promptly slipped the flat edge of the first tool into the gap, using it as a sort of wedge to edge between the mud and his skin. A simple tug broke off a fairly large chunk of dirt, falling to the floor with a muted thump to expose more of his skin.

"Yes," she cooed as she methodically started to pry the dried mud off of him, letting the fragments pile up on the tunnel cover at D's feet. "I do love this stuff. It's drawn from a river delta well to the east of here and mixed with seawater before being dumped into sealed storage containers for transport. It almost always dries out by the time it makes it this far west, but all you need to do is add a bucket or three of rainwater and it softens right up. I'm not sure what makes it so unique from other mud mixtures, but I've never seen anything else that revitalizes the skin quite like this stuff does. Both Abby and April use it as well, but not quite like Pearl and I do," she added with a soft chuckle as she continued to break the mud apart and discard it.

"Tell me about April," D impulsively spoke up, surprising them both.

Coral paused to give him a faintly uncertain look before she resumed her task of breaking the mud apart. "My darling little April," she murmured softly to herself. "I guess I shouldn't say 'little' anymore, as she's an inch taller than I am these days, but she's been with me since she was... oh, I'd say nine or ten. She's a good girl and rarely gives me any trouble. She's quite the chef, too, far better than Abelyne is. Not that Abby doesn't try," she added with a faint sigh, "But things just turn out better in April's hands. Even Pearl likes her cooking, which I assure you is saying something," she chuckled.

"So how many other slaves do you keep?" D asked in a level tone, keeping his eye on Coral's hands as she moved over to work on his other arm.

"Before or after you killed the rest in the castle?" she inquired in a faintly arched tone, casting a sidelong look at him before resuming her work.

D blinked at her tone, feeling a faint chill of unease work its way down his spine. "I'm not the one who destroyed the carriage or went out of my way to deliberately target one for assassination," he pointed out in a dark tone.

A faint huffing sound rose up from her chest. "Talk to Pearl about that, not me," she said primly. "I was busy trying to deal with you at the time. What I meant was you grabbed Celene and her rag-tag band of traitors, but what about those in the east tower? I keep Abby and April with me whenever I'm out travelling, but the rest were quartered in the east tower when I don't need their services. You didn't get them out, now did you?"

The realization hit D in the chest with the force of a mace, his breath silently leaving his lungs in a shocked exodus. He had scouted the castle as best he could, knowing he had to get everyone out before going back in to kill Baron Winters, but Celene had assured him that they were the only group. And as with the minefield, he had taken her at her word and trusted her to lead the slaves to freedom. All of them...

Enough, he told himself as he closed his eyes. He had found one of the slaves in the hallway and was quickly taken down to where Celene and the others had been imprisoned. He had been in the process of escorting them out to the courtyard stables when Baron Winters had attacked, braving the last rays of the still-setting sun to try to stop him. D had no choice but to engage the baron right then and there, yelling for the others to run for the stables while he did his best to buy them some time. The baron had pressed his attack with an intense ferocity, however, leaving D little choice but to end things as quickly as he could. The ancient castle had started to decay before the desiccated remains of the vampire had finished crumbling in on itself, forcing D to make a break for the exit while he still could...

"Why so quiet, D?" Coral said demurely as she finished his other arm and began to pry the dried mud off of his chest. "Don't tell me this is the first time the famed vampire-hunter and champion of humanity failed to save a few humans from being crushed to death by tons of rock and rubble..."

"How well does news of your failures sit with you?" D spoke up softly as he opened his eyes to look up at her.

"Mmm," she hummed absently. "I suppose you have a point. I've never been much of a graceful loser, to be honest, but I'm not as bad as Pearl. Okay, so I'm out four slaves," she sighed. "They were all cute, but I'm not going to drown my sorrows in a bottle of wine over the loss. Especially when the wine will probably cost me more than they did," she added with an absent shrug as she carefully pried a large chunk of clay off of his pectoral muscle.

It took D a few moments to quit gritting his teeth at her attitude and draw in a slow breath to respond. "Do you know what the difference is between good and evil?" he asked her in as calm of a tone as he could manage, ignoring the burning pit of anger flaring up in his chest.

She paused in mid-motion and regarded him carefully, one pale gray eyebrow arching up. "No," she finally said calmly. "Enlighten me."

"Good feels remorse over their actions, or inactions, when it results in the death or suffering of innocent people," D replied in a low tone, his eyes narrowing. "Evil does not."

"I suppose," she allowed as she resumed her work. "Although I don't see how you can think of me as evil when you're the one who killed my father and thus condemned them to death when the castle came down around them. Or does that mean your idea of freeing slaves is to free them from their lives?" she prodded carefully.

D simply looked away from her and stared at the far wall, a haunted look forming in his dark eyes. "I do the best that I can," he said in a hollow tone. "I have always accepted the consequences of my actions, both deliberate and unintentional, but I do not accept unconditional blame. If you would hang their deaths on my conscience, then know that I likewise hold you responsible for putting them in jeopardy to begin with. The difference between you and me, however," he added as he turned to look at her with a truly blistering look of fire in his eyes, "Is that I regret such things no matter whom is to blame."

Coral simply raised an eye at him. "Who's to say I don't regret it?" she countered in a mild tone as she continued to remove the mud coating. "I'm not about to let such things haunt me in my sleep, however," she added. "Things like that happen, D, and all that can be done is to try to make sure they're not repeated if it can be helped. Oh, wow," she purred a moment later, the abrupt shift in tone from brisk to somewhat sultry causing him to blink at how sudden her mood had changed. "I see the bruises are healing nicely."

D glanced down at his chest as best he could, idly making note of the fact that most of the purple-and-blue bruises had indeed faded. The flesh directly over his ribs was still visibly colored and it was easy to tell where the worst of the damage had occurred. His chest muscles, however, were still quite sore and tender, sending up small but sharp jolts of pain whenever he inhaled beyond a certain point.

"Yes," she continued to purr, setting aside the scraping tools and using her fingertips to gently pry the remaining dirt clods away from his abdomen. "You've healed quite nicely, hunter. Very, very nicely..."

A small flag went up in D's mind at the continued shifting of her tone, going from sultry to coy and husky. He still wasn't sure why she was keeping him chained as a prisoner, but he was starting to get the impression that she had a few ideas in mind that he probably wouldn't like. The fact that she was deliberately caressing him as she worked only increased his unease, as it was obvious that she was in a playful mood all of a sudden.

Enough, he told himself with a silent sigh, briefly closing his eyes as he tried to gather his courage together. If she did have something in mind, it was best that he find out about it now while he still had enough time to think and possibly even do something about it.

"Coral," he spoke up quietly, causing her to pause and glance up at him. "You promised me earlier that you would tell me what you wanted from me. I'd like to hear that explanation now, if you don't mind."

The baroness immediately froze in mid-motion, silently staring into his dark eyes before sighing quietly. "Yes, I did promise you that," she murmured as she took a step back and picked up the scraping tools again. "It's a long story, D, just to warn you," she said as she moved around behind him to resume her work.

"I'm listening," D assured her in a tone that was empty of emotion.

"I've always preferred the blood of other women," Coral said quietly as she worked. "I can't help it, it just tastes far richer than the blood of men. That's why all the slaves I've ever owned were women. Well, long before I had either April or Abelyne I had a slave named Elora. She was sixteen when she came here, a truly beautiful creature with soft brown hair and eyes like a pair of dazzling emeralds. Her blood was so rich and sweet, I'm surprised I never hurt her by savoring too much of it.

"About a good six or seven years later, I noticed a sudden change in the taste of her blood. At first I thought she had taken a drug of some sort that did something to the flavor, and believe me when I say we had a very long and serious conversation about it. As it turns out my darling little Elora had had one too many encounters with one of my father's slaves, a stable boy who was about the same age as her, and had become pregnant."

D's blood immediately turned as cold as ice at the realization. Vampires universally preferred to feast on the blood of the young, as it was full of the vitality and exuberant energy of youth. It was said among some, however, that the ultimate treat to be savored was the blood of a young pregnant woman, laden with not just her own life-energy but that of the unborn child as well. To D the thought was a physically revolting one, almost to the point of nausea, and more than one vampiric entity had likewise expressed distaste at the notion of violating a pregnant woman's veins when she was fulfilling her 'sacred role' as the bearer of future life.

"I found it to be... utterly fascinating," Coral continued, her voice softening considerably as the memories returned. "She feared my father's wrath and begged me not to let either her or her romantic interest come to harm. I have to admit I was tempted to have him killed for taking liberties with my darling little slave. After speaking with him in private shortly after the initial discovery, however, he managed to convince me of the sincerity of his feelings for her and made a very solemn oath that he would always try to be there to help care for Elora and their child.

"What followed was probably the most intriguing year of my life. I let Elora carry her child to term and studied her the entire time, curious about how such a thing went. I quit feeding from her, of course, as she needed the blood and energy for her child, but I occasionally drew small samples from a vein in her wrist to taste what it was like. D, it was amazing," she purred, pausing in her work and leaning forward to rest her cheek against a patch of skin that had been cleared of the dried mud.

D frowned and cast a sidelong look behind him at the gesture but otherwise remained motionless. "Go on," he prodded quietly.

"Her blood grew richer and richer with each month," Coral sighed as she straightened up and resumed her work. "Even those tiny samples I took, little more than thimblefuls of blood, were sweeter than honey and richer than the finest of chocolates. She began to figuratively glow from the sheer amount of life-energy contained within her, making her look all the more beautiful. I remember one time just holding her in my bed, marvelling at how her skin looked and how soft and supple it was beneath my fingertips.

"Her body changed, too, but that is expected to a degree. I have to admit that I had no true idea how large to expect her breasts to swell or her belly to grow, so measuring her from one week to the next was... oddly exciting," she confessed with a blush. "At one point I almost feared she was carrying twins, but the doctor I summoned to examine her assured me that there was only one child. When asked how she knew this, I was simply told to listen."

An icy chill slid down D's spine as she sighed longingly and pause to rest her head against his back again. "D, you can't imagine what it was like that night," she murmured quietly. "Elora was laid out in my bed and I must have spent the entire night with my head pressed to her, just listening to the very quiet but distinctive sounds within her womb. I could hear a tiny heartbeat, and when it moved I could hear her body moving with it.

"Elora went into labor right around the time the doctor expected her to, giving birth to a healthy baby girl. The process was just a little unsettling to watch, but I'm grateful to have witnessed it nonetheless. When tiny baby Jenna was first handed to her father, the stable-boy Thomas, you should have seen him break down and cry. I found it absolutely amazing at what sort of emotional impact a newborn had on others, myself included," she added in a faintly wry tone. "Even Pearl was intrigued by her, although she refused to even consider holding her or anything.

"Oddly enough, part of the glow of motherhood remained with Elora even after Jenna was born. I eventually released her from my service and persuaded Father to release Thomas as well so that they could focus on being parents. They were married shortly thereafter and allowed to move to a village not too far from here where they lived peacefully as a family. Or at least until the village was decimated by a pack of rampaging lycanthropes a few years later," she sighed quietly.

"What did you do about them?" D inquired quietly, wondering how she had reacted to news of the probably violent death of her former slave.

"About what, the werewolves?" Coral replied absently as she resumed the task of removing the dried mud from D's lower back. "Not too much, really. I made arrangements for a shipment of silver ore to be delivered to the village blacksmith and had him rework it into silver crossbow bolts for Pearl. As you can imagine, the pack was promptly exterminated during the next full moon."

D had to suppress a soft sigh of resignation at her words, knowing that it was possible for the lycanthropic disease to be purged from infected humans and that it was likely a bunch of newly-infected innocents had been slaughtered along with the original group of werewolves. He wasn't about to second-guess the situation, as he hadn't been there, but he would have laid moderate odds that Pearl hadn't bothered to even consider capturing any of them alive with the intent of seeking to cure them of their shape-changing disease once the moon had waned and the danger passed.

"In any case, the whole experience with Elora made me realize something," Coral continued quietly. "Granted it had been quite captivating to study her on an almost nightly basis since she learned she was with child, but it wasn't until I actually held little Jenna for myself that I... I found myself..."

"Wanting a child of your own," D spoke up when she trailed off, trying not to let the horror of realization show in his voice. The puzzle pieces suddenly fell into place, leaving him filled with a dark dread the likes of which he had never felt before. It was enough to turn his blood into a frozen slush that left him dangerously numb inside, fervently wishing with his entire being that he was mistaken in his conclusions of what she wanted from him.

Her fingertips slowly slid across his upper back, lightly caressing skin that had already been freed from the mud. "I see you understand," she murmured very quietly, almost too softly for him to hear.

"I don't," D replied calmly.

"I think that you do," she countered gently as her hands slid lower along his back until they encountered his buttocks. She squeezed the exposed flesh gently before starting to break apart the remaining dirt clods. "In any case, D, you're right. It took awhile for it to truly sink in, but I decided that I would like to have a child of my own. Someone I can care for and teach and love. The next question, naturally, was not so much how as whom. Whom did I wish to have a child by. It's actually a fairly important question, once you stop and think about the implications.

"Should I lay with a noble?" she continued as she stepped to the side and knelt to start working on his legs. "My child would then be more vampire than human and thus probably couldn't survive exposure to the sun. What about a human, then? I actually gave that consideration and discussed it with a human doctor only to have him point out that he hadn't heard of any such children being born to a human and a dunpeal. Or a vampire and a dunpeal, for that matter," she added with a sigh.

D blinked hard at her words, suddenly realizing that he couldn't remember having encountered any such entities himself. Noble vampires were like humans in the sense that they could bear children of their own kind, giving rise to a number of bloodlines like the noble offspring of Simon and Valentina Winters. Vampires and humans could interbreed as well, with the result being a dunpeal like himself, but apparently dunpeals couldn't interbreed with either vampires or humans.

It startled him to realize that he had never stopped to think of or even contemplate the matter. How many women had he rescued from dunpeals where they had been used as sex-slaves, and yet not a single one had ever become pregnant during their captivity? Countless women had been impregnated by vampires under identical conditions, usually against their will, but never once by a dunpeal. And the reverse was also true, female dunpeals never conceiving a child by male humans they had seduced or otherwise used by various means.

In one sense, it relieved him greatly to realize that he no longer needed to worry about unintended consequences from keeping his promise to Leila. Not that he hadn't taken steps to begin with to ensure that such unions would not be fruitful, mostly through the use of condoms, but there had been occasional instances in which that option had not been available and refusal was likewise not what he could have considered a viable option either. The night he spent with Leila herself, for example...

"I'm not sure when you came to mind," Coral spoke up softly, not so much disrupting his train of thought as shattering it into chilling fragments. "I realized my only true option was another dunpeal like myself, but I also knew that I had to be a little selective about my choice given the wide disparity among our kind. I just had to look at the differences between Pearl and myself to see a perfect example, despite having the same parents."

D felt his blood grow colder as she stood up and moved to stand in front of him, her gloved hand coming up to caress his jaw. "What can I say, D?" she murmured softly, her eyes seeming to be unable to meet his as she spoke. "What mother doesn't want the best for her child? I want a father who is both strong and gentle, concerned and caring yet unafraid to do what he feels is the right thing to do. It took a couple of decades of searching for prospects before I came to the conclusion that... you... were my best hope."

"I'm flattered," D replied in a tone that was utterly empty of emotion.

She finally looked up at him, seeming to be hesitant as she studied the depths of his dark eyes. "I didn't think it was possible at first, as everyone knew you were... I won't say frigid, but cold and distant," she murmured as she reached down with her other hand to lightly caress his abdomen, pressing inward against his skin gently to let her break apart more of the dried mud and brush it off of his body.

"Then of course there was the matter of how you seem to be bent on killing every single one of us, vampire and dunpeal alike," she sighed. "That put a damper on my... thoughts of you, but it all came back to me when I saw you following the carriage out of the castle yesterday. I knew then that I had a chance, that if I could capture you alive then you and I could sort out things between us, that you would then be willing to share with me what you've shared with so many others in recent times.

"I knew of the stories, of course," she continued softly, "About how you would allow a woman to seduce you for a night after you both went through some dark trial or trauma together. I was as curious about it as the next woman, of course, especially about why you started doing so after a supposed lifetime of isolation, and so I tried to do a little research into it.

"For six years I travelled across most of the continent, trying to follow the rumors to their source. I soon began to meet some of these women whom you had allowed to seduce you and got to talk with them. Cassandra. Megan. Cori. Cheyenne. They each had their own stories to tell, and they all mentioned two things... that they were rescued from a vampire, and that you allowed them to find comfort in your arms because of a promise you made to a woman who seemed to hold a special place in your heart a long time ago. A promise you made to a woman named Leila," she whispered, giving D a slightly predatory smile as she saw the almost electric shock of recognition in his eyes.

D remained perfectly silent, trying not to let the rush of memories become a distraction. He had indeed kept his promise to Leila, even after her death and his fulfillment of his second promise to her. After her burial and once the other mourners had departed, he had left a bouquet of white flowers on her grave as she had asked him to when they were both in pursuit of Meier Link and Charlotte. He had saved a single petal from that bouquet and preserved in a crystal shard, weaving it into the clasp around his knife belt. To others it was simply a beautiful decoration, but to him it was a memento mori of her love and a reminder of all that she meant to him.

Coral said nothing for several moments, looking down at her ungloved hand as it moved lower to brush against the base of his manhood. She very carefully began to use her fingernails to break apart the mud coating, not wanting to be rough or accidentally scratch him in such a sensitive and tender area.

"I tried to find where this Leila lived and pay her a visit," Coral said softly, glancing back up at him when she heard a soft but exceedingly sharp intake of breath. "Oh, don't worry, I wouldn't have harmed her or anything, I just wanted to speak with her myself, that's all. Unfortunately all I ever found was a white marble tombstone in a valley not far from the eastern coast of the continent. I was able to share a few words with her granddaughter when I arrived, as she was just leaving after a brief visit, but she said she had only met you once and really knew nothing of what had transpired between you and her grandmother."

D just grunted very softly, having little reason to believe Coral had lied about spending so much time trying to research the details of his promise. He hadn't kept the truth from the other women, feeling compelled to let them know just why he was accepting their often quiet offers of both their blood and the warmth of their bodies, and so it didn't surprise him that Leila's name had become known to others actively seeking such information. He was all too aware of where his one-time lover rested in eternal sleep, and the flowering valley region that was home to her descendants was indeed where Coral had said it was.

Which meant that the baroness was quite serious about what she wanted from him. And if things kept going the way they were going right now, he had very little reason to believe he was going to be able to walk away from this one in the visible future. He had no intentions of cooperating with her, of course, but as Pearl had already proven his body could be broken beyond the power and control of his will. And when he added Coral's distinctly unbalanced state of mind to the equation, the results he kept getting were far from comforting.

He cast a reflexive glance down as he felt her fingertips very delicately rub the tip of his manhood, brushing off the last traces of dried mud. He was not in a mood for anything and the deep chill in his blood was more than enough to ensure he wouldn't be reacting to her touch anytime soon, but it was still a situation he would really, really rather not be in right now.

"D?" she murmured quietly as she let go of him and took a step closer. "Tell me what you're thinking right now?"

"I'm thinking you're out of your mind," D replied calmly, deciding it was best to try to jolt her out of her fantasies of him. Just as he expected, she blinked hard enough to be heard and jerked her head back slightly as if she had been lightly slapped.

"What?" she blurted out, clearly surprised by his words.

"You had me whipped and chained in your dungeon," D summarized in a flat tone. "I'm still sore from being crushed by the rock you dropped on me, and to be honest I'm still upset about the deliberate and callous murder of the humans in the carriage. Even if you ignore all of that, I'm not even remotely close to being interested in giving anyone a child, let alone to someone I'm not sure I would be able to trust to raise a tank of fish properly."

She simply stared at him in open disbelief for a number of moments before a very faint giggle rose up in her throat. A second soft giggle soon followed the first and it wasn't too long before she was laughing quietly, her gloved hand still lightly touching his cheek.

"That's amusing," she finally said, giving him a soft smile that disturbed him greatly. "Okay, so the time Pearl and I went spear-fishing when we were children was an absolute disaster, but that was ages ago and I've learned a lot about fish since then. And if all else fails, my darling little April can cook them to an absolutely delicious golden perfection."

D tensed as her other hand came up to hold his face firmly in place, not leaving him room to move or edge away. Another soft giggle rose up from her chest as she leaned forward to bring her lips into contact with his, giving him a very light kiss. "It's okay, hunter, I'll be gentle with you," she murmured in a honeyed tone. "I've been keeping track of my temperature every morning for ages, so I know when it's time to start stocking up on the feminine items. I'll be ready for you in two days," she breathed in a husky tone. "Possibly three depending on how cooperative my blood is. But now that I have you here? It should cooperate just fine..."

"What makes you think I'm going to give you a child?" D prodded, trying to keep a straight face and not either cringe or throw up.

An odd smile crossed her face as she ran a gloved fingertip over his lips, very lightly tracing the soft contours. "You will, hunter," she murmured in the honeyed tone that D suspected was related to her charming influence. That he had yet to even feel the slightest twinge was a mixed blessing, meaning that he wasn't in danger of falling under her influences but he was still worried about what it was doing to the symbiot in his hand.

"I've waited years for you," she breathed as she moved her fingertip and leaned forward to kiss him softly again. D held perfectly still, not making any attempt at avoiding her but not yielding to her in the slightest either. If she noticed his unwillingness to be kissed, she didn't give any indication when she leaned back with a faintly smug smile of satisfaction. "But as with all things, business does come before pleasure. You're still somewhat dirty," she observed as she took a full step back and studied his entire body with open admiration. "But that's what the water is for. Clean water, I assure you," she added with a faintly sour grimace. "I still don't know how Pearl managed to get her hands on that much holy water, but I assure you that it won't be happening again. Just give me a moment, okay?" she said as she turned to the cart and opened the drawer again.

D just sighed and closed his eyes, knowing that his situation had just became significantly uglier. It was clear to him that Coral was essentially insane, not able to understand that he didn't want to give her or anyone else a child despite her supposed understanding of his intent to rid the world of the taint of vampirism. So how could she possibly think that he would spend virtually his entire adult life doing such a thing and still be willing to father children to carry on the same dark blood that he felt needed to be cast back into the abyss of oblivion?

He did his best to ignore Coral as she dipped both a brush and a washcloth in the water before starting to scrub his body. The water was distinctly warm and scented with a very light fragrance that reminded D of a field of flowers. It wasn't strong enough to constantly distract, a minor fact that D was quietly grateful for. Being chained in a dungeon and informed that you were liable to be raped was one thing, but reeking of an obviously feminine scent was simply adding insult to injury.

Rape. It was not something people tended to think of happening to a man, as it was almost universally a case of a man forcing himself on a woman instead of the other way around. However, it was not unknown for a physically strong woman to take matters into her own hands, more so when it was a vampiress who was intrigued by one of her human slaves. The power of their charisma and the naturally weak wills of men for such things usually ended up with the man being an active participant at the end, but not always. And now that D was stripped naked and chained down so that it was impossible for him to escape or otherwise offer effective resistance...

Could she do it? he found himself thinking. The force of his will was considerable, even when applied to control over his own body, but he knew that even he had his limits. His body had its own instinctive notions of how things should work, as all living things did, such as how far it can be pushed before protesting in strident terms. While his willpower could usually overcome that to a certain degree, he knew that there were two things he simply couldn't hope to prevail against: the fight for self-preservation, and the fight for life. While the former was very much a survival instinct, the latter was of a more primal and basic nature and included not just his own life but the universal desire of life as a fundamental entity for propagation.

He knew the battle would ultimately be lost if she was persistent enough and if he truly had no means of offering physical resistance to her. Granted he could thrash around to make the task difficult for her, but he wouldn't be able to actually go anywhere and would only drain his strength in the attempt, to say nothing of possibly inflicting even more injuries on his already-wounded and still-healing body. If she managed to get him inside her then that was it, as he knew his body would succumb to the sensations sooner or later and cause him to orgasm. Whether or not that would result in a conception was another matter entirely, but by that time the question would be quite academic.

D did his absolute best not to think about what he would do if she indeed became pregnant with his child, not sure he would be able to bring himself to kill her. Killing the child, unborn or not, was very much out of the question as it would be a true and genuine innocent in the conflict. Not that he had the slightest idea of what he would do with it, assuming things ever got to the point where he would have to be concerned with its welfare, but the whole idea was simply a gallon of gasoline thrown onto the raging fire of chaos swirling around inside the dark recesses of his mind.

"Ugh," Coral huffed quietly, the edge to her tone drawing D out of his thoughts to refocus on his surroundings. "Such a mess. Hang on, let me dump this stuff," she said as she moved over to the control levers and pulled.

D shivered faintly as the floor below him suddenly spiraled open, sending the pile of discarded and dried mud chunks plummeting into the tunnel below. It was almost impossible for him not to watch as it soon disappeared from view, vanishing into the darkened canyon that he was kept chained above. The tunnel was sealed a few moments later as Coral shoved the lever back into position, causing the metal covering to spiral shut into a solid floor surface once more.

"There we go," Coral purred softly as she returned to the cart and resumed the task of brushing the remaining dirt off of D's body. "So how's your skin feel?" she inquired as she started to briskly scrub his back.

He would have ignored her had he not felt it would have been hazardous to do so. "Clean," he said simply, knowing that it was the literal truth. His skin felt a lot better after being revitalized by the elemental energy he had been able to absorb. The same couldn't be said for the bruised muscles lying beneath his skin, but it was still better than nothing.

"I would hope so," Coral replied with a quiet chuckle as she moved the scrub-brush lower. "If it's any consolation, the whip-marks on your back have healed as well. Well, except for the one on your hip..."

D cast a mild look out of the corner of his eye as he felt the washcloth slide over his hip, right where Pearl's final stroke of the whip had landed to rend both skin and fabric. The contact with the damp cloth sent minor sparks of pain up along his nerves that were easily ignored as inconsequential. Much to his discomfort, the washcloth was then slid around to scrub the inside of his thighs with a gentle but firm touch.

"Such muscles, D," she purred softly to herself as she worked. "And such hardened skin," she added as she brushed her fingertips across his thigh in a caress that was dangerously close to a tickle. "How long have you been riding horses like that? Oh, wait, you don't remember time very well," she sighed as she suddenly remembered. "I still think that's a pity, D."

"Time is what you make of it," he pointed out quietly, closing his eyes to try to better focus his senses. Her soft touch on the inside of his thighs was already starting to produce that faint tingle in his blood that he had come to identify as a precursor for arousal. It would take far more than a light touch to overcome his willpower, of course, but he knew that every little sensation was like a drop of rain hitting a sandcastle. Eventually it would erode the foundation and the castle would crumble, it was all just a matter of time.

"Mmm, tell me about it," she mused absently as she paused to rinse both the brush and the washcloth. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to get an idea of what she had left to do, a somewhat coy smile crossing her face. She then set the brush aside and made sure the washcloth was both dirt-free and warmed up a little before carrying it back over to him.

D had started to open his eyes even before he felt the washcloth's scented heat on his manhood, but the sensation prompted them to open faster. He cast a glance at her and felt a chill sweep through him at the distinctly playful look in her pale yellow eyes.

"So how are you feeling, D?" she murmured in a honeyed tone as she washed him in a rather intimate fashion.

"I've had better days," D replied in a noncommittal tone.

"Have you now?" she purred quietly with a gentle flex of her fingers. "If that's the case, then I think I might be able to help improve your mood..."

D blinked and swallowed hard as she started to massage his manhood, a look of what might be described as casual lust forming in her eyes. "Coral..." he started to say in a warning tone.

"It's okay, D," she assured him, her hands never ceasing their motions. "I know I won't be ready for you for another couple of days... but there's nothing wrong with a little practice, right?"

D's mind promptly went into a hyperactive frenzy as he tried to think of a way out of his situation. A flash of insight came to him and he was about to tell her that he was still quite sore and that her touch was hurting him when she leaned forward, melding her lips to his in a searing kiss that caught him completely off-guard.

He wasn't quite sure what precisely happened then, as his mind suddenly experienced a momentary disconnect for some reason, but the next thing he knew he was having to fend off a minor invasion as the very tip of her tongue slid between his lips. The feeling was extremely electric and more than a little erotic, resulting in an increase in the temperature of his blood. The kiss went on unchallenged for another moment before he finally was able to scrape together enough focus to lean his head away from hers, breaking the contact.

"Coral..." he started to say in a low tone. His voice was cut off in his throat as her hands gently squeezed his manhood in a gesture that was both a warning and a caress.

"D?" she said very softly, her voice little more than a honeyed whisper as she gazed into his eyes. A faint gold luminescence was evident in her corneas, a result of her allowing her vampiric half to exert itself freely. "You don't need to fight me, I'm not going to hurt you. Far from it, my dark hunter. Now just relax and let me take care of everything..."

There was very little he could do as she leaned forward again, brushing her lips against his before moving off to the side to kiss the firm lines of his jaw. His own vampiric side promptly began to struggle against the bonds of his willpower as she started to nuzzle his throat, sending a series of shivers up and down his spine.

D quickly found himself in a crisis, not able to split his focus to keep his vampire blood caged and maintain an iron control over his body's response to her gentle ministrations at the same time. A distant part of him doubted she was doing it deliberately or was even aware of his attempt at controlling his body's reactions, but that still didn't help him one damn bit.

A dark shiver that came too quickly to suppress ran through him as she kissed his throat, letting her fangs brush against his skin. The feeling only further increased the fires of his vampiric side, causing it to thrash against his will like a beast against iron bars. He could feel those dark tendrils starting to leak through the proverbial cracks, very slowly infusing a faint blue glow in his corneas and causing his gums to itch where his vampiric fangs resided when they weren't needed or called upon.

He was seriously considering giving up the proverbial ghost when she edged away from him, the golden glow quite prominent in her eyes. Her hands slid up the length of his body from his groin to caress his chest and face, giving his senses a much-needed reprieve from her attentions. His sense of relief proved to be short-lived, however, as she took another step back and reached for the back zipper of her dark purple dress.

As focused on very specific internal control as he was, he didn't bother to try to conceal his surprise when the dress slid down her body to leave her as naked as he was. The rational part of his mind, or what was left of it at that point, suggested that she had discarded her undergarments earlier when she had taken Abelyne's blood, a visual that was violently quashed and ejected from his mind an instant later.

The primal look remained in her eyes as she flexed her ankles slightly, slipping out of her boots as she stepped forward to press her body against his. All that remained was the lambskin glove on her left hand, a minor curiosity to absently ponder until a truly chilling thought suddenly slammed into the center of his mind with the force of a baseball bat.

What if she has a symbiot in her hand? he thought as he felt his blood slow to a crawl. He himself had once been dressed in only a solitary glove when on the cusp of intimacy, back when Doris had bade him to join her in bed and he hadn't been able to refuse the call of her woman's blood. It had been ages since he had bothered to keep the thing confined by gloves, as it not only complained at regular intervals but it interfered with several of its sensory powers and he was forever having to take it off for one reason or another...

His worries of her having a symbiot of her own was shortly put to rest as she reached up with her right hand, gently slipping the glove off and setting it aside on the utility cart. A soft smile brushed her face as she reached up with her now-ungloved left hand, casually brushing her fingertips against his lips before turning her hand over to repeat the gesture with the metal implant that he barely had time to realize was there before it was touching him.

A sensation unlike anything D had ever felt before promptly flooded his veins, seeming to both tingle with electricity and burn with an icy fire in a truly bizarre fashion. He knew at once that the odd metal implant was the most likely source of Coral's hypnotic influence, explaining why the left hands of her victims would throb and itch. However, now that it was in direct contact with him instead of being exerted from a distance where the effects would only be felt by his symbiot...

"So what do you think, my dark hunter?" Coral purred softly in a tone he couldn't remember hearing before. Her voice seemed to throb and echo inside his mind like a ghost, seeming to caress his ears as it slipped inside to tease and tickle the core of his soul. "Do you like what you see?" she whispered.

His eyes were immediately drawn down to the soft curves of her naked body. The gentle swells of her breasts were not overly prominent but would still make a very nice handful to hold. Her nipples, visibly tightened to what he thought should have been an almost painful intensity, seemed to throb just faintly in the open air, begging to be touched and tasted. Further down was another soft mass of pale silvery hair, ultra-fine strands that did very little to conceal the velvety folds of her sheath from the admiring eyes of others, a haven that he would soon be allowed to enter to bask in the unearthly pleasures of delight found only in that most sacred of gardens...

"You're beautiful," D found himself saying before something clicked deep in his mind. He knew it was very much the absolute and obvious truth, so what was the problem with him saying so? Something clicked in his mind again, not so much of an idea trying to spark but a very subtle prod of some kind. Almost as if something was inside his mind...

Warning him that he was falling under her influence.

Which he was.

Idiot.

The realization was sharp enough to allow him to rally his mental focus, breaking free from the deep harmonic in his mind that was trying to lull him into a complacent void. He knew that it had been the psionic thoughts of the symbiot in his hand trying to reach out to him without speaking up, making use of the tiny segment of the nervous system that they both shared to reach him.

He had barely reoriented his mind to his surroundings before he was thrown back into half-chaos again, this time by the feel of her nude body pressing against his in a distinctly suggestive fashion. The metal plate was thankfully removed from his lips a moment later, serving to reduce the level of mental uproar he was struggling to control. The rest was effectively subdued when she pushed herself off of him with a gentle thrust of her hips that came close to impaling her sheath on his manhood.

D blinked hard as the world largely came into focus a moment later. She was moving around behind him, reaching up to unlock the padded flaps and move them into a closed position behind his back. He realized that he had lost the fight with his body somewhere along the line, his pulse throbbing in his ears in time with the gentle pulsing of his manhood as it jutted out at an angle from the rest of his body.

The world promptly tilted back without warning, the frame he was chained to slowly rotating until he was flat on his back. The change allowed his body to rest on the padded backing and take his weight off of his ankles, producing a welcome feeling of relief from the constant pain. The shift in weight also produced a new host of minor aches from stiff muscles that hadn't been allowed to stretch or move, but he was so used to such minor pains that they barely registered on his consciousness.

His reprieve was short-lived as she returned to his side and climbed up onto the flat padding, giving him a distinctly mischievous look as she moved to straddle his waist. "I knew you'd want to cooperate with me," she purred as she reached down to grab his rigid member, very gently massaging it.

"I don't," D blurted out in a level tone, actively straining against both the metal chains and her largely unwelcome touch. It would have been a bit of a lie to say it was completely unwelcomed, as the singing of his hormones in his bloodstream made her intimate touch feel more than a little pleasurable. Not that he was interested in pleasure at the moment, but simply that his body had other ideas and that it no longer wanted to cooperate with his willpower.

Coral simply raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Oh?" she said in a tone of mock-surprise. "So what's this then?" she inquired with a playful tug that sent an undeniably delightful shiver through him.

D paused for the briefest of instants to consider his options. He could fight her as best he could, which would have been laughably futile and would accomplish nothing constructive. However, he suddenly realized with an almost electric jolt of insight, if what she said was true and that she wouldn't be ovulating for another couple of days, then there was very little risk that she would conceive today if he yielded to her desires. But could he handle that?

He remained silent as he gazed back at her, not bothering to try to erase the dark look on his face as he tried to sort his thoughts out as best he could under the circumstances. A sudden veil descended on his mind as if a switch had been thrown, bringing him a measure of peace as he decided on the path he would take in this. If push came to shove... or if push came to thrust, as the thing would no doubt have phrased it if given the chance, D thought in a truly rare moment of gallows humor... he would rather see his own life ended before allowing himself to run the very real risk of impregnating Coral, even if forced into the act.

His mental focus was promptly shattered as Coral moved forward, holding him steady with one hand while she pressed her sheath against the tip of his hardened manhood. The amount of resistance was negligible at best and D soon found himself exquisitely ensconced within her depths in the span of a single heartbeat. Unprepared for her to make such a rapid and decisive move, he was unable to control his reaction as he both gasped and moaned softly at the wave of pleasure that crashed over him like a tidal current on a beach.

"D..." Coral gasped in an almost haunting moan as she rested her groin against his, her eyes three-quarters closed and a blissful look on her face. She carefully braced her hands on the padding on either side of his ribs, not wanting to risk putting her weight on his still-healing chest. A simple flex of her hips backwards almost pulled him free from her before she reversed her motion, this time taking her time in sliding down the length of his flesh as she used her internal muscles to squeeze him.

D simply closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, taking a small measure of comfort in the knowledge that his choice had already been made. He would save his energy for when it would count the most, fighting against her even if it would mean his death to avoid releasing his seed inside her when she was at her most fertile. But for now, he could afford to yield to her lustful greed as the danger wasn't truly significant. Yes, it was possible her timing was off and that her ovaries were about to or had already released an egg, but given the seeming intensity of her desire for a child he had little reason to believe that she had been anything other than vigilant to the subtle clues of her own body as it progressed through its cycle of fertility, her own circle of life.

He allowed his eyes to open slightly as she whispered his name, her voice clearly marred by the intensity of passion and lust she was experiencing as she worked her body against his. The world was tinted a mild shade of blue as his vampiric half continued to slowly break free from the cage of his willpower, a phenomenon that tended to occur whenever he was intimately occupied. It rarely was enough to trigger the full transformation and cause his fangs to emerge, but it still tended to bother him with the way it distorted his perception of the world around him.

His eyes closed once again as he felt his body responding to her, keenly aware of that truly wicked grip her internal muscles had on his manhood as she continued to withdraw and impale herself on him. There was precious little he could have done to respond to her attentions even if he wanted to, given the tightness of the chains that bound him and left him with virtually no wiggle room. He realized that it was probably a good thing he was tied down, as he could still feel a ghostly echo of her hypnotic influence resonating inside his mind, urging him to reach out to caress her, to taste her, to take her.

"D?" she whispered huskily, reaching up to carefully stroke his chest with her right hand. She waited until he opened his eyes to look at her before she readjusted her weight and leaned forward slightly at the waist. "I want to see if something is true or not. Do you mind?"

"You didn't listen to my objections before," he replied, trying to keep the worst of the bitterness out of his tone. "I don't see why you'd want to listen now."

Much to his surprise she immediately slowed her pace, letting the weight of her body impale her sheath on his throbbing manhood before leaning forward to put her weight on her wrists. She gently eased herself up a few inches only to just as slowly slide back down again, her breath drifting up from her chest in a deep sigh with each slow thrust. "Objections, D?" she echoed in a tone that he couldn't immediately read.

He took a cautious breath, not entirely sure if he should let himself get his hopes up or not. "I don't want this, Coral," he said carefully in a level tone. "I don't want to give you or anyone else a child. Or even 'practice' for that matter," he added in a faintly edged tone.

She tilted her head slightly to study him, her hips still moving in a slow but steady rhythm. "How can you say that?" she whispered, seeming to be quite surprised. "I've been waiting years for this. You are mine now, hunter," she cooed as she began to pick up the pace again. "You would be dead if I hadn't captured you, as my dear, sweet sister surely would have used her rail-gun to kill you. No, I need you, my dark hunter. You are the only one who can give me a child, the only one strong enough to be worthy..."

D suppressed the urge to snarl as he glanced away, realizing that he was wasting his breath trying to reason with an insane mind. Her increase in the pace of her rocking motions was starting to light the proverbial fuse, setting his blood on fire with the intense tingles of an impending orgasm. Perhaps he might have been able to fight it, to stave off his natural biological response to such pleasure for a number of minutes, but that would only prolong his... what, agony? Suffering? Could pleasure truly be classified as torture?

There were far worse things she could be doing to him, he admitted with a truly heavy sigh of resignation. And to be honest, Coral was doing a rather good job of pleasing him. Or rather pleasing them both of them, if the way she was starting to growl softly to herself was any indication of how close to the edge she was. He certainly couldn't take any credit for anything, as all he could doing was lie there like a sack of wheat and sport the proverbial sundial for her own selfish pleasures.

He paused as he caught motion off in the distance, glancing over towards the door to find Pearl standing in the open archway. He figured she must have just arrived a quarter-second ago, as her eyes were still in the process of widening in surprise and shock as she realized what was going on. Her mouth fell open for a moment before it set into a truly furious snarl, her aqua-blue eyes suddenly igniting like red-hot coals as her vampiric nature erupted into full prominence.

Her simmering gaze shifted slightly and D found himself almost physically recoiling from the sheer intensity of the evil look directed at him. If such looks could kill, then both he and Coral would have been reduced to piles of ash in an instant. Much to his surprise, she quickly turned away and left the room instead of charging in to unleash pure havoc as he feared. That only gave him a brief moment of comfort, as he quickly realized that he would undoubtedly be confronted with her rage later rather than sooner, and much like a volcano the longer such hatred was allowed to simmer the more violent it would be when it finally erupted.

The volcano metaphor suddenly proved to have apt timing as Coral drew in a deep breath and almost literally slammed her groin against his in a sharp thrust, contracting her internal muscles as tightly as she could while forcing D's manhood to squeeze past them. The result was an almost quadrupling of the erotic sensation of having him inside her, both from her perspective and his. The sheer intensity of pleasure impulses seemed to sear their nervous systems in an instant, obliterating what conscious thoughts had been running through their minds at that particular moment in time.

Their orgasms were almost simultaneous, his seed promptly surging out from his manhood in a geyser-like fashion while her own spasms were triggered by the sensation of him pulsing inside her. Conscious and rational thought was quite literally impossible for either of them for a number of seconds afterwards as they tried to recover, and had she not prepared for it earlier she would have collapsed onto his chest like a lead weight. As it was, she had started to twist to the side when she had tried that muscular technique she had overheard being whispered between women in a very quiet corner of a bar once, a notion that intrigued her with the possibilities but she hadn't been able to test out for herself until now. The end result of her motions was that she would up on her left elbow in a quivering heap that missed compacting his ribcage beneath her weight by little more than an inch.

It took a few seconds for D to recover from the intense daze, his vision slowly fading from a blinding white back down to a moderate blue as his mind began to process nerve impulses correctly. He wasn't quite sure what she had done to him, but it was not unlike the same tactic Leila had used on him the first time they had made love back in the cabin during the sandstorm. The ache registered on his mind a moment later, warning him that his manhood had just been significantly abused by friction despite being amply lubricated by the exquisitely warm wetness of her sheath.

He blinked as he felt his hand shake slightly, realizing a moment later that it was the thing wiggling back and forth in a subtle motion to try to get his attention. He immediately clenched his hand into a fist, the usual sign he gave to tell it to stop doing whatever it was that was annoying him. D had the feeling that it was simply trying to get him to refocus on his surroundings, but he felt that now was not a good time for it to risk detection by trying to rouse him.

"Coral," he rasped, pausing as he noticed how raw his voice sounded.

"My god," she whispered very softly, the upper half of her body lying in a heap next to him. Her sheath was still firmly impaled around him, her inner muscles holding onto him as best they could while she panted for breath. Her whole body was wracked with gentle tremors and spasms, suggesting that her climax had been far more intense than she had anticipated. Normally that would have impressed D, or at least a somewhat remote part of his mind, but given the fact that she had essentially raped him...

"Coral," he said again as he tried to edge out from beneath her. It was an exercise in futility, as he literally had no place to go in any direction, but he still persisted in the very faint hope that it would convince her to get off of him.

"Mmmm, give me a moment," she murmured as she slowly rose back up to put most of her weight on her lower body again. She seemed to wiggle her hips in an odd way before settling back down, keeping his still-throbbing manhood deep inside her. "D?" she breathed, giving him a truly dazed look as her chest heaved in a most inviting fashion. "Please don't take offense at this, as I don't normally use such language... but holy fuck," she moaned blissfully.

D had to briefly fight the impulse to grunt softly in agreement, knowing that it had probably been one of the most intense orgasms he could remember having. A part of him genuinely regretted that it had to have happened under the current circumstances, as in another time and place he might have truly enjoyed the experience of being dominated like that. It wasn't the first time he would have been on the bottom like that, as Leila had certainly showed him how wonderful it could be, but with things being what they were with Coral...

"D?" she murmured as she gingerly settled her weight on her knees, still keeping him inside her. "Are you alright?"

"I suppose so," he replied in an empty tone, glancing up at her and not bothering to mask the somewhat unhappy look on his face.

"You suppose so?" she echoed, giving him a rather bemused look. Her left hand came up to briefly brush her hair out of her face, giving D a somewhat decent look at the metal implant on her hand. He blinked as he thought he saw something reflected in the smooth surface, a faint flickering that could easily have been a result from the way the torches in the room wavered slightly as they continued to burn.

"I'll let you know when I'm sure," D replied calmly, prompting a very soft giggle and a gentle smile from her. "I have a question I'd like to ask you," he continued, figuring that he had very little to lose by asking at this point.

"Mmmmmm," she purred as she briefly squeezed her internal muscles, almost causing his eyes to pop out of his skull at the sensation. "D, I'll be honest with you. I haven't been a virgin since I was twenty and I've never been what you would call an overly celibate girl, but you are absolutely the best lover I have ever had. Trust me," she murmured as she leaned over to give him a very deep kiss that he didn't react to, gently jiggling her body to let the points of her nipples brush against his chest. "You can ask me whatever you want, my dark hunter," she added as she leaned back and settled her weight against his groin once again.

"I'm curious what happened to your hand," he said in a moderate tone, as if he wasn't concerned about his current situation in the slightest. He was, of course, but he was reflexively walling off his emotions while he tried to get a better understanding of his own thoughts and feelings about what had just taken place.

"Ah, yes," she said, sighing softly as she glanced down at her left hand. She raised it up slightly to study the smooth metal implant before reaching out to very lightly rest her fingertips on his chest, letting him get a close look for himself. "Nobody is perfect, D," she murmured sadly as she glanced away. "Much like Pearl prefers her whip and crossbow, I prefer a pistol whenever the situation permits. An old flintlock model," she amended as her cheeks took on a pale blush. "One powered by gunpowder in the breech."

"Brave," D commented absently, knowing just how dangerous such weapons were even in the hands of experts and weaponsmiths who knew how to build them.

"What can I say, I like the way it gets attention," she admitted as her blush darkened, still not looking up at him. She glanced down at her chest and reached up with her right hand to cup her breast, using her thumb to trace the outline of her areola. "To make a long story short, I was in the process of loading a charge when the breech-lock slipped and created a spark."

D blinked as she held up her left hand and made a gesture as if she were holding an imaginary pistol. He nodded in understanding a moment later as he could imagine how the gunpowder would have exploded and just where the fiery burst would have impacted against her hand. "I see," he said calmly.

"I don't know why it never healed, but after a few days I realized that I needed to find a way to protect it," Coral whispered softly before she sighed quietly to herself. She lightly ran the tip of her finger over her throbbing nipple before sighing again and moving her hips back, letting him slip free from her depths. She then moved to lay next to him, curling up on his right side and ignoring the awkward way D was spread-eagled from the chains binding his wrists and ankles.

"So where did the metal come from?" D inquired as he ignored the way her head rested on his shoulder and studied the implant. He narrowed his eyes as he again thought he saw something etched on its smooth surface, only to vanish an instant later as he tried to focus on it.

"I'm not sure," she admitted in a quiet murmur, suddenly seeming to be sleepy. "A trader passed through the village shortly after the accident and he had a small sheet of what he claimed was 'fabric metal' he had found in an old ruin. It was very light and malleable, able to bend and twist yet remain quite solid to the touch. Intrigued, I purchased it and had the village blacksmith reshape it for me with the intent of making it into a glove that would protect my hand. There wasn't enough of it for a full glove, so he used it to make the backing and used some scraps of sandworm hide for the rest. It fit nicely when I put it on, but then the metal suddenly dug in to my skin and I couldn't pry it off. The hide portion eventually fell away, but the metal remained behind. I eventually gave up trying to get it off and just got used to it. It looked strange at first, but it hasn't let anything hurt my hand since."

D blinked hard and cast a suddenly leery glance at the implant, wondering if he had been right the first time in the sense that she had picked up a very different kind of parasite than the one that resided in his own left hand. If that was indeed the case, it was the first he had ever heard of such a metal entity in all his travels.

"Unique," he commented after several moments of silence. He blinked as she lifted her head up and leaned over, a very soft purr rising up from her throat as she gave him a deep kiss.

"D?" she murmured softly once the kiss was broken. "Please promise me what I asked you earlier, that you won't hurt either me or my sister and that you won't ever try to leave me. After making love to you, I don't want to ever lose you. You truly are everything the legends have ever said about you."

D cast a sidelong glance at her, still not believing that she wasn't able to understand that he wanted nothing to do with her like that. "I don't think I can do that," he pointed out in a neutral tone.

"Mmm?" she murmured as she looked at him, her eyelids starting to droop. It was obvious to him that she was more than a little tired all of a sudden, leaving him with the feeling that further conversation was probably just be a waste of breath.

"You look tired," he pointed out, wondering what sort of reaction he would get from her.

A faint chuckle rose up from her as she leaned over to lightly brush her lips across his. "What can I say, D? I wasn't prepared for you to feel that good. Mmmmm, god," she added as she shivered lightly. "I can still feel how hard you came inside me, and believe me when I say it was without the doubt the most intense feeling I have ever felt before in my life."

Great, D thought with a truly sickening feeling as he saw the dreamy look in her eyes. He realized that perhaps it might have been better for him to have tried to resist her earlier, as it was likely that the experience would only fuel her twisted desires to use him to conceive a child. While the notion of a woman desiring a child in her life wasn't anything unusual in of itself, even for a dunpeal, he found it to be extremely bothersome to contemplate how she was trying to have his child by force. And unless he could come up with an alternate plan soon, preferably one that didn't involve his death, she just might succeed in getting what she wanted.

She purred softly as she leaned over to kiss him gently. "D?" she said very quietly, her voice taking on a soft honeyed undertone as she tried to use her charming influences. "If you make those promises to me, I'll be able to free you so you won't have to stay here all day. I know I wouldn't mind having you in my arms as we fall asleep in my bed..."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," he spoke up dryly, giving her a faint look of contempt.

Her expression seemed to crumple slightly into sadness. "So you're not going to promise not to hurt me?" she whispered. "After what we just shared? D, I know you're not heartless or cruel like that. Please, promise me..."

It took him a few moments to decide just how to reply to her. "Let's just say that I have a number of reservations against being bound by such things," he replied in a calm tone.

She seemed to study his eyes in silence for several moments before finally drawing in a subtle breath. "It's Pearl, isn't it?" she murmured in a sullen tone. "You won't promise me not to hurt her because you're mad at her."

"I wouldn't say I'm mad at her," D replied carefully. "But yes, I have my doubts that I could trust her to end her harmful ways and change her attitude towards humans."

A chill started to run down his spine as he noticed her eyes starting to fill with tears. Much to his unease, she leaned forward to kiss him yet again, causing him to instinctively brace for the stinging sensation that would result from her tears dripping against his skin. A sense of relief washed over him as she leaned back with no evidence of any tears having been shed just yet.

"D, please think about it?" she pleaded softly, reaching up with her left hand to brush her fingertips against his lips. Another icy chill crawled down his spine as he feared she would touch him with the implant again, exposing him directly to her charming power that seemed all too capable of dominating him. "I want you to stay with me, to help me raise the child I know you will soon give me. Two days, my dark hunter," she whispered as she gave him yet another soft, almost tender kiss. "I can hardly wait until I'm ready for you, and I know you won't disappoint me. Please, just relax and think about it, about how you'll be able to hold her after she is born. Or he," she added with only the faintest hints of humor to offset the somber and saddened look in her eyes. "I don't care if it's a boy or a girl, just as long as I have a child... and you. Please think about it, D. I'll be back down once the sun sets to take care of you. I promise... my love," she breathed, her voice so soft that he almost wasn't sure that she had spoken those last two words.

D said nothing as she uncurled herself and moved off of both him and the padded backing in silence. She moved over to her discarded clothes and scooped them up, not bothering to put them back on. She seemed to hesitate briefly as she glanced down at the exposed metal of her implant, tilting it slightly to study it in the light before casting the briefest of looks over her shoulder at him. She then turned and left the dungeon chamber without a word, her bare feet making no noise that he could detect as she padded across the room to slip out the still-open door. The door squeaked closed a moment later, followed by the deep clicking noise of the lock being engaged.

((D?)) it spoke up after it was sure the coast was clear.

D frowned and cast a glance up at his hand, knowing that the voice sounded to be more than a little rattled. "What?" he said quietly, trying to silence the echoing voice in his mind. He could hear Coral whispering those two words over and over again, acutely aware of the look that had been in her eyes when she gave him that final glance before leaving him alone in the chamber.

((You... didn't hurt anything in that, did you?)) it inquired cautiously. ((Look, you know as well as I do that good sex is absolutely fantastic, and that bad sex is still pretty damn good when you get your rocks off, so let's just skip that whole aspect and focus on the real problem. How are you feeling?))

D cast a truly disturbed look at his hand, unable to twist his palm around to look directly at it but knowing that it could probably somehow 'see' the dark glare anyway. "Sore," he admitted.

((You enjoy it?)) it asked calmly. ((Hey, hey, settle down,)) it added in a hasty tone as D's expression twisted into a truly dark snarl. ((Look, I'd have played along as well and with a smile on my face to boot, so don't think I'm trying to needle you or anything.))

"Then remain quiet," he said in a faintly edged tone, trying to get the minor flaring of his temper back under control.

((D, listen carefully for a moment, okay? That metal in her arm? I'm not sure why I didn't notice it earlier, but the moment she took that glove off my Astral senses lit up big-time.))

"Do you know what it is?" he asked as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm his body down. A faint tingle shot through him without warning, causing the corners of his mouth to twitch faintly as he recognized it as the warning sensation of the sun starting to rise above the horizon.

There was a faint hum in his mind for a number of moments, almost as if the thing was sighing very quietly to itself. The sound wasn't one that he was able to hear in the air, but instead felt along the mental half of its voice. ((I'm... trying to remember something,)) it finally spoke up. ((A long time ago we passed through a series of islands, one of which had that dead zone around it that glowed at night. You know what I'm talking about, right?))

"I do," D replied as the distant memory returned. It had apparently been the site of a disaster of some sort, probably caused by the destruction of an ancient legacy-era energy source. The blast had left a truly massive crater in the ground that to this day was still little more than a blackened pit. It was surrounded by a ring of dead land where nothing could grow in the soil and was actively avoided by both wildlife and intelligent life. A shallow pond formed by rainwater in the very center of the crater gave off a faint and distinctly eerie green glow whenever the sky was dark. He hadn't bothered to enter that tainted land, and not just because of the plethora of local rumors about how anyone setting foot inside the crater became infected with a fatal disease that killed within days, or how the water was really alive and would turn anyone who touched it into a zombie. It was obvious that none of his vampire quarry would ever seek to hide there in such a lifeless land where the dead earth couldn't sustain them, and so he knew that he didn't need to bother searching it.

((Well, I'll admit I wasn't paying too close attention to anything other than that really chilling energy field surrounding the place,)) it went on, seeming to shudder briefly at the memory. ((But for some reason that chunk of metal reminds me of that place. The trick is, I haven't the faintest idea why. I mean, it's not giving off that same kind of energy or even anything like it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen any sort of metal like that at all. It just shows up as this big bright beacon on my Astral senses, and that alone is enough to worry me. Not knowing why I can feel it like that only makes it that much worse.))

"That might be the source of her charming power," D spoke up, trying not to shiver at how easily it had dominated him earlier.

((Might be?)) it countered with a dry chuckle, drawing a dour look from D before he closed his eyes again. ((D, I felt it mold your mind like dough in the hands of a baker. Now we know why that poor girl Abelyne is so thoroughly under Coral's thumb. I mean, if you had the devil's own time trying to resist such a power, how do you think a mere human girl would have fared?))

"Enough," D murmured, trying not to think of it and failing. The image of Coral's smile when she had entered earlier continued to haunt him, the corners of her mouth still stained with faint traces of crimson that could only have come from drinking blood.

His eyes snapped open as he heard the sound of the lock being withdrawn, glancing over towards the door as it creaked open a few seconds later. He felt a pit of ice form in his guts as Pearl entered the room and carefully closed the door behind her, a dark look of brooding still evident on her face. Her eyes had lost their vampiric glow at some point but still seemed to simmer with barely-controlled anger as she gave him a truly irritable look.

He reflexively curled his hand into a fist, knowing that he didn't need to prod the symbiot to keep silent but doing so anyway just to make absolutely certain it would remain quiet. The sound of her footsteps could be heard a moment later as she made her way over to where he was chained down, seeming to take her time and moving with a measured pace. Her hands were empty and he couldn't see a weapon hanging from her belt, but that didn't give him much in the way of comfort as he knew that his own stash of weapons were still on the shelf not more than a few paces away.

She reached the bank of levers and pulled the center one, slowly bringing the frame back into an upright position. D did his best to keep his expression unchanged as his weight was shifted back onto his ankles, resulting in a series of sharp stabbing pains that indicated they still had a significant amount of healing left to do.

"You know what?" Pearl said in a measured tone as she moved to stand in front of him, her mouth still compressed into a thin and bitter line. "I have absolutely no idea what to think of either you or Coral at the moment. I know I've walked in on my sister and some guy before, so it really isn't anything new, but this one just leaves me speechless. What happened?"

D raised an eyebrow as he regarded her carefully, not entirely sure what to make of her demeanor. It was obvious that she was quite pissed at him, but he was also getting the impression that she was genuinely curious about what had taken place. Surely she of all people would know... or would she?

Ah... damn, Coral, what's with you all of a sudden? her voice echoed in the depths of his mind. He's mine, dear sister, and I'll explain it all to you later, Coral had replied. Sis, about what you said about not ripping his balls off... Don't worry about it, Pearl, I said I would explain things later...

He winced as her arm lashed out, the back of her fist glancing off of his cheek hard enough to bounce the back of his head against the padding. "Answer me," she demanded as the fiery glow of her vampiric side flashed into her eyes, illuminating her aqua-blue irises with a crimson aura. "What happened?"

"Didn't your sister tell you?" he replied calmly, bracing himself for a second blow. He winced again as she leaned forward against him, bringing one knee up to painfully rest against his inert manhood while she grabbed his chin in an iron grip.

"Do not play games with me, hunter," Pearl snarled in a low tone, her lips pulling back slightly to expose the tips of her vampiric fangs. "Not unless you want to say goodbye to your little friend," she added with a sharp jab of her knee into his groin.

D couldn't help the tiny droplet of sweat that crawled down the back of his neck, knowing that the truth was just as liable to set her off as anything else he could have said. "Coral wants to have a child," he replied in a low tone. He paused for the span of a heartbeat as Pearl suddenly blinked, the red glow vanishing from her corneas as if a switch had been pulled. "And it seems she wants me to be the father."

Pearl blinked again before her expression darkened. "Bullshit," she said in a soft growl as she leaned slightly closer to him, a faint flickering of red starting to return to her eyes.

"Go ask her if you don't believe me," D countered flatly, returning her gaze with an unflinching expression. Their eyes locked in tense silence for what seemed like a minor eternity before she very slowly edged away from him, shaking her head to herself in denial.

"You've got to be shitting me," she breathed.

"Let me ask you this, then," D spoke up quietly, still giving her a very solid look. "Why would I bother lying when all you would need to do is ask her for the truth?"

Pearl snorted quietly with contempt. "Easy, to try to save your ass," she snarled in a low tone. "And we both know how men like you would lie, cheat, and steal to bed a woman. I've heard the stories about you, hunter."

"I doubt you have," D replied calmly. He quickly braced as best he could as Pearl lashed out again, the back of her hand connecting with his jaw hard enough to briefly make him see sparks. Her hand came back to grab his chin in a fierce grip, forcing him to look up at her.

"Are you calling me a liar?" she snarled in a dangerously soft tone as her lips curled back to bare her vampiric fangs.

D simply gazed calmly at her as his thoughts suddenly organized themselves with startling clarity. "I'm not saying you haven't heard stories about me," he countered, deliberately keeping his tone steady to suggest that her anger wasn't fazing him in the slightest. "The truth of what those stories have said is another matter, however."

"Really, now," she said, her voice almost literally dripping with scorn.

"Whom do you think would be more credible?" he pointed out. "A nameless patron in a tavern talking of whispered rumors and decade-old stories that she overheard from someone else, or the words of someone who was actually there and knows first-hand what truly took place?"

Pearl narrowed her eyes as she stared at him before making a soft huffing noise deep in her throat. "Alright, then," she spat. "Tell me about Meryl."

D closed his eyes briefly as he searched his memories. "A werewolf hunter who slew the minion of a noble vampiress named Rebecca D'Caden," he replied. "Enraged by the loss, she led a hunting party after Meryl and her companions. One was able to escape the ambush, which is how word reached me of what had taken place. He hired me to free the rest of his team, though by the time I arrived at the castle two days later only Meryl was still alive. Freeing her and fighting our way out through Lady D'Caden's traps and counter-attacks took another day. Lady D'Caden pursued us into the forest and ambushed us on the trail with her remaining forces. It was all we could do to fend her off until the sun rose, allowing me to finally put an end to her and her pet werewolves."

Pearl nodded, having heard that much already. "Keep going," she prodded.

D narrowed his eyes slightly. "It was nightfall when we reached her home town. I was wounded from the effort and asked to borrow the couch to rest for the remainder of the night. I awoke later to her touch and didn't resist her desires, giving her what she wanted from me. Her companion, however, the one who had hired me, had apparently been a former lover at one point and didn't take kindly to hearing her confession a few days after I left. He started the rumor that I had forced myself on Meryl, taking advantage of her weakness when she was wounded and thus not in her right mind."

A faint sneer crossed Pearl's face. "Right, of course she came to you," she drawled. "And you can prove your innocence, I trust?"

"What did Meryl say?" D asked simply. "Or did you not bother to ask?" he added as Pearl seemed to sober up slightly and remained silent. "Regardless of what you or others think of me, Pearl, I know what I am and remember all that I've done in my life. You are free to believe what you want to believe, as it won't disturb my conscience in the slightest."

"Conscience," Pearl spat, bringing her hand up to grab his chin again. "You of all of us have no room to speak of having a conscience. After all that you've done to our kind, your own blood? How many vampires have you killed, D? How many of your own brothers and sisters have you murdered?" she demanded. "For all our desire and need for blood, your hands are the bloodiest of all."

"If I didn't have a conscience," D replied calmly, "Then why else would I have done this? Yes, I have cast countless vampires back into the abyss that spawned them, and it is conscience that drives me to continue to do so until this world is free from the taint of evil in our blood."

He grimaced as she shoved her palm against him, throwing him back against the padding in a sharp gesture that kinked a shoulder muscle. "You dare," she seethed through gritted teeth. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you here and now for your crimes against us."

"Who's us?" D asked. "The family of your human mother, or the dark blood of Baron Winters and your half-siblings born to his noble wife?"

It immediately became obvious that it wasn't the best of things he could have said to her. She seemed to blink in surprise for a fraction of a second before a truly unholy rage filled her eyes, the crimson glow of her corneas flashing with such an intensity that it made him squint against the forceful glare. The punch that she promptly threw caught him by surprise, not that he wasn't fully expecting it but simply because her fist moved faster than even his finely-honed combat reflexes could pick up on and thus allow him to brace for the bone-jarring impact.

His whole body rocked with the blow as it tore along his jaw, slamming him against the padded backing hard enough to give him a very light concussion. His shoulders promptly screamed in protest as they were pulled back only to be jerked to a sudden halt by the metal chains holding his arms, coming close to tearing a few tendons. The bitter taste of his own blood started to fill his mouth as the inside of his cheek was torn open by the blow, a rather revolting sensation that required a concerted effort to not immediately spit out. As it was he couldn't stop a small rivulet of blood from oozing out from the corner of his mouth, flowing down to collect in droplets on his chin that then fell to splash against his chest.

"You dare," Pearl growled, her whole body trembling with rage that she was barely able to keep in check. Her hands kept clenching and unclenching as she fought against the burning desire to simply tear him apart with her bare hands, to coat both the floor and her in his blood.

"Why do you let me live, then?" D challenged quietly, his tone unchanged from the steady tone used moments earlier. "If you think I've committed a great crime and are convinced of my guilt, then why haven't you executed me? Surely the world will thank you for putting an end to such a menace as myself."

Pearl scowled at him, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on all of a sudden. "What, you wish to die so soon?" she demanded. "Oh, believe me, hunter, you will not be getting off that easily. No, you will suffer for a great long while before I will even think of letting you die," she said as she shook her head slowly. "Your guilt is obvious, D, but your punishment will not be death but pain instead. Lots and lots of pain..."

D glanced up at her for a few moments before he took a measured breath. He craned his neck forward as best he could and turned to one side, spitting out the blood but making sure that none of it got even close to her. "I see your sister has as much control over you as she does over Abelyne," he spoke up calmly, as if he were commenting on the weather. He then braced himself for a second outburst of her temper as best he could, knowing that he would indeed be in for a significant amount of pain.

As expected, the taunt briefly shattered her control over her temper. He closed his eyes as hers suddenly ignited with rage again, idly wondering where the blows would land and only partially concerned if he would survive them. A searing pain immediately erupted across his jaw on the other side, followed by the sensation of the room spinning as the punch knocked him back against the padding once more. Another pair of blows followed, each landing on alternate sides of his chin that twisted his neck painfully and left more blood flowing from the corners of his mouth.

It took a few moments for him to summon the strength to open his eyes once the blows stopped and his sense of balance was allowed to stabilize. He cast a bleary glance up at her, making note of the look of barely-caged fury on her face as her chest heaved sharply with each ragged breath. He lifted his head up slowly, waiting until he was sure that he had solid eye-contact with her before letting a small smile of triumph form on his bruised and bloody lips.

The gesture seemed to completely catch her off-guard, resulting in a very hard blink at the realization that he was smiling at her. It was hardly the look she expected to receive from him, and it was enough to both throw her rage off-balance and make her suddenly question his sanity.

"What?" she demanded in a low tone, her voice marred by a tiny measure of uncertainty at the unexpected development.

"You have quite a temper," D murmured, trying to keep his voice steady and even. Both his lips and his jaw immediately began to protest being forced to move, sending waves of agonizing pain shooting across his entire face. "Such raw anger must make it difficult for you sometimes, always wanting to lash out and destroy everything around you. I would imagine it makes it difficult to find and make friends."

Her face immediately twisted into a vicious snarl, baring her fangs yet again as she visibly teetered on the edge of another outburst of rage. "You know absolutely nothing about me, hunter," she hissed as her clenched fists started to tremble from tension once again.

"I know you're a dunpeal," D reminded her calmly. "Believe me when I say I know more about you than you think I do. After all," he added as he lifted his chin up defiantly, "Aren't you and I related, having a vampire's dark blood in our veins? Or do you think Coral is the only one who understands what that darkness inside you is doing to your thoughts and state of mind?"

He quickly had to brace himself as she exploded into a spinning kick, the heel of her boot slamming into his stomach hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs in a mad exodus. His senses suddenly grayed out for a few moments before slowly returning as he was able to draw in a ragged and suddenly very painful breath. He didn't think that any significant internal damage had been done, but he knew that he probably hadn't mended enough on the inside to be able to withstand too much more punishment.

He allowed his eyes to open into narrow slits as she grabbed his hair and hoisted, yanking his head up so that their eyes could meet. "Keep talking," she growled, her jaw set so firmly that he suspected it had to be aching quite painfully by now. Not nearly as painful as his own jaw was feeling, of course, but she still had to be feeling the tension to one degree or another. "For a supposed legend, you sure aren't too bright. Go on, insult me again. I want a reason to kick you in the balls next," she whispered with a cruel smile.

"Why do you need a reason?" D replied, unable to keep the rasp out of his voice. "Why fight the rage inside you? What stays your hand, Pearl?"

She seemed to hesitate slightly, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him and tried to figure out why he was goading her into hurting him. "You're up to something," she finally said in a very soft tone.

"You can't answer the question, can you?" D replied in a tone that was equally as soft. He ignored the warning snarl in her throat as she tensed up again and continued. "I know there is a struggle inside your heart, Pearl, one that rages even as we speak. Part of you wants to kill me, to use your fangs and slice open every vein in my body."

"Damn straight I do," Pearl hissed, unconsciously baring her fangs again. "And you deserve it for what you've done."

"So do it," D replied calmly. "Prove me right. Give me the satisfaction of seeing you surrender your humanity and becoming nothing more than an animal in a lustful frenzy. Go on," he prodded her as she snarled and drew her fist back before halting in mid-motion.

"You must be mad," she breathed hoarsely, her fist wavering as her arm remained dangerously tense from remaining cocked back.

"I'm not the one shaking like a rabid dog slipped from its leash," D said in a neutral tone, hoping that he would be able to break through the veil of rage that was blinding her. "Go ahead, Pearl, hit me for the insult. Show me who is the better person."

He felt the faintest of twitches in his left hand but ignored it, keeping his concentration on the intense look on Pearl's face. It was obvious that her rage was only being held back by the thinnest of threads of control, but he could see the briefest of flickers of emotion in her eyes as she struggled to keep that thread from breaking.

"You're still fighting on the inside," he pointed out gently. "Something is keeping you from lashing out. Do you know what that is, Pearl? It's your human soul."

"You know nothing of me," Pearl breathed through clenched teeth, her fist still poised to lash out in an instant.

"Then show me what you are," D said simply.

He waited patiently for her to react or at least give him some indication that his words were reaching her. He knew that whatever she did now would be the deciding factor in how the rest would play out, either giving in to the rage inside her and likely killing him or stepping back to listen to whatever else he might say.

His expression remained perfectly composed as she very slowly lowered her arm and stood up straight, her chest still heaving from raw tension. Her rage was still very much present, the crimson glow in her corneas seeming to pulse slightly with her heartbeat, but he sensed that the thin thread keeping it in check had just gotten slightly stronger.

So it begins, he thought as he very gingerly drew in as deep a breath as he could tolerate. He knew that he only had one chance to truly reach out to her, to try to awaken the tiny spark of her humanity that he knew still burned within her hybrid soul. He also knew that he would have to continue to push her to the very edge in order to reach her, and that a single mistake or error in judgment could quite easily be his last.

"I see I was wrong about you after all," he spoke up, allowing his body to visibly relax as best he could. "I haven't met many other dunpeals who didn't act like rabid animals, bent only on killing and spreading destruction to all those around them."

"Is that why you hunt us?" she rasped. "You see us as animals? Mere game to hunt at your leisure?"

"I take no pleasure in what I do," he said, lifting his head up to give her a firm look that caused her to blink. "There is no leisure to be found in putting my life at risk every single day that I still breathe."

"Then why do you do it?" she demanded darkly as she folded her arms over her petite chest.

D sighed quietly and shook his head gently in resignation, dropping his emotional guard to let her see his weariness. "I have no choice," he said in a quiet tone. "In all my travels and for as long as I have existed, I have yet to meet a noble who didn't view humans as property or livestock, mere slaves or cattle to be used for a purpose and discarded without a second thought once they were finished with them."

"And?" Pearl prompted him. She blinked and unconsciously stepped back as D looked up at her, the sheer intensity of emotion in his eyes sending a dark shiver throughout her blood.

"Your mother was human," D said in a low tone. "She gave you life. Does that not mean anything to you? Or do you view yourself as being born from an animal and never looked back once you emerged from the sanctity of her womb?"

The burning rage suddenly gripped Pearl with an intensity that worried D, her body becoming as rigid as steel and the vampiric glow in her eyes becoming almost searingly bright. She very slowly raised a hand, pointing a trembling finger at his chest as she struggled to speak coherently. "Do not," she said in a tightly-controlled tone, "Speak to me of my so-called mother."

Her words suddenly sent a dangerous chill down his spine, realizing that he had most likely stumbled across a part of the source of her rage and not in a good way. He knew he still had to press on, however, no matter how bad the situation looked to be.

"What did she do to you, Pearl?" D inquired calmly. "What could she have possibly done to make you hate her and humans so badly?"

He could see the thread starting to break, becoming thinner and thinner with each passing moment. She suddenly took a sharp breath, and for one brief instant D thought that her temper had finally snapped. A very ragged whisper followed shortly afterwards as she exhaled through her nose, giving him a tiny measure of hope that she was still able to control her inhuman rage.

"Nothing, D," she finally rasped through gritted teeth. "My mother did absolutely nothing. You say she gave me life, but she did no such thing. She died when I was still in the womb, and my father had to free me from her body before she dragged me into the grave with her. I had no mother, and I was certainly not born from one," she spat, her entire being rigid with tension.

D blinked before he could recover his composure, knowing that his uphill battle had just turned into a mountain. He looked at her in uneasy silence before he slowly nodded his head in understanding. "How old was Coral when you were rescued?" he said, hoping that he wasn't pushing things by asking.

"Four," Pearl replied in a truly dark tone. "And she doesn't remember her either. Not a face, not a name, nothing. We didn't have a mother, only our father. And now, thanks to you, we don't even have that much," she snarled as her temper started to flare to the breaking point once again.

"I share your pain," D said calmly. He tensed up and braced as she became a blur, lunging forward to slam her fist into his abdomen in the same spot her boot had impacted a few minutes ago. The blow had virtually identical results, causing his lungs to deflate almost to the point of collapse and rendering his senses all but useless for the span of a few seconds.

"You know nothing of pain!" Pearl screamed at him, her face flushed with primal anger. She seemed to struggle for a moment before she lashed out again, her fist slamming into his guts once more as her snarl of rage echoed unusually loud in his ears.

D wasn't sure how he managed to hang onto consciousness long enough for his body to recover and start to function once again. His breath made a very odd hissing sound as he inhaled, sending intense jolts of pain across his chest like so many lightning bolts.

"My... mother..." D tried to say, fighting against the pain of trying to both breathe and speak, "Was raped... and murdered... by vampires. My... father... was later... killed by them."

Pearl suddenly paused to take a very sobering breath, his words seeming to blunt the edges of her vampiric rage. "Is that why you hate us, D?" she said in a low tone. "Is that all this is? Simple revenge?"

It took D a few moments to gather enough energy together to lift his head up, trying to fight the urge to throw up as his stomach continued to roil from her attacks. "Not revenge, but justice," he hissed as his body was suddenly wracked with a series of tremors and spasms. "Justice against those who would murder innocents for their own amusement, who would rape women and burn human children alive for the sole crime of living on land owned by a rival vampire. Justice against an evil that should never have been released upon the world to begin with, justice that has been denied for ten thousand years while countless millions have suffered and perished beneath the rule of the nobles. You claim I am the one who is evil for trying to rid the world of our blood, but what of your crimes, Pearl?"

"My crimes?" Pearl snarled back as her eyes lit up once again.

"How many humans have you killed, humans that you are related to because of your human blood?" D demanded hoarsely. "If I am related to vampires like your father simply because of vampiric blood, then why aren't you related to humans like my mother because of your human blood? How can you condemn me for what I have done without condemning yourself as well for what you've done?"

Her breath suddenly seemed to snarl in her throat, leaving her standing as still as a marble statue. She stared at him in edged silence for what felt like a minor eternity before she very slowly raised her hand, extending a lone finger to make a very subtle gesture.

"Do not try to compare us," she said in a low tone. "I may have the blood of a weak human woman in my veins, but I am not like them or you. I have not made it my purpose in life to prey on my own kind, to hunt them down and make them cower like rats before butchering them."

The faintest of snorts rose up from D's chest, little more than a spasm that could easily have been mistaken for a cough. "You're right in the sense that you're not like me," he replied calmly. "Unlike you, I have respect for my origins. And if you think I deliberately make anyone suffer for any reason, then you haven't been paying attention to what anyone else has said. Or do you think I find pain and suffering to be as exciting to watch as you do?" he added in a faintly challenging tone.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she stared back at him, her body once again starting to tense up with anger. "Alright, hunter," she spat. "Tell me what everyone has said about you that I seem to have missed."

"There is no honor in making others suffers," he stated. "This world is overflowing with enough pain and misery as it is. It would be an injustice for me to willingly or deliberately add to it, and so I don't do it. I've learned many things during my life, and the one thing that stands out the most, the one thing that sets me apart is my honor. Without it, I'm no better than the evil I've tried to subdue my entire life."

"Honor," Pearl sneered. "Tell me, D, what honor is there to be had in killing your own kind?"

"What defines my kind?" he countered in a level tone. "You seem to have nothing but contempt for your human mother, so why shouldn't I look down on my vampire father?" He waited for her to blink in surprise before he continued. "Like you, I can't undo the circumstances of my birth, but neither will I try to deny it. Humans like my mother are the ones who taught me about concepts like honor and love, and how actions speak louder than words. I didn't become a hunter of vampires simply because of what my father was, but rather because of what he and the others did, both to each other and to innocent humans like my mother.

"I was barely an adolescent when the Blood Wars began, a series of brutal and senseless wars among the nobles. When unable to directly strike at one another, they often turned their rage on the human villages that populated the domains of their opponents, humans whose sole crime was living under the yoke of their 'masters.'

"I saw it all from my bedroom window, the horizon turned orange from the flames of burning villages. I saw houses torn apart by werewolves and mutants, the occupants drug out into the streets to be violated and murdered. Children were brutally tortured for no reason, women violently raped until they couldn't scream any more, and not a single noble stepped forward to try to protect them, not even the ones who weren't under siege."

D paused for a moment as he saw a dark flicker of emotion in Pearl's eyes. He knew his own expression was openly haunted at the moment, unable to shut out the ghostly voices in his memories as they once again rose up to torment him.

"My mother..." he started to say before his throat briefly closed up. It took him a moment to refocus his mind and force himself to relax before he was able to continue. "My mother, my human mother, tried to forbid my father from retaliating in kind, and for awhile she was successful because of the strength of her human love for him. But then she was kidnapped by an opposing group of nobles, seeking to hurt my father through her. She..."

D wasn't quite sure why his voice quit working again despite his efforts, his eyes closing of their own volition a moment later. Much to his surprise, he felt a gentle touch on his chin, tilting his head up slightly. He took a deep breath and forced his eyes open, finding himself being studied by a pair of aqua-blue eyes that were only tinted with a lingering resentment instead of being overshadowed by a crimson veil of rage.

"Go on," she said in a neutral tone that he wasn't able to read. "Tell me what they did to her."

"We found her body on the palace steps three days later," D managed to say, his voice barely more than a broken whisper. "Naked, beaten, raped, empty of blood and life. She had been defiled in every way possible, a woman who had never raised her hand or acted against a noble in her life. What had she done to deserve such a fate? All she had done is loved my father with her entire human heart and bore him a child, the ultimate fruit of such love."

D felt a faint chill creep into his blood as he noticed the dark emotion flicker in her eyes again, suggesting that something he had said was striking a very deep chord within her. "As you can imagine," he continued after a brief stretch of silence, "My father didn't take kindly to that act and immediately unleashed a brutal attack on whose whom he suspected were behind it. That led to a chain-reaction that ultimately resulted in his death, but not before most of the planet had been cast into ruin by their actions."

"I know how the Blood Wars played out," she assured him in a flat tone, the edges of her mouth still curled down in a frown.

They both glanced towards the door as it creaked open and a young girl wearing the simple garb of a peasant entered, coming to a sudden halt once she realized that the room was occupied. Her hair was a rusty shade of red not unlike dried blood that contrasted sharply with her sea-green eyes. She was carrying a copper goblet that sloshed slightly at the way she abruptly stopped.

"What is it?" Pearl snapped as a faint snarl rose up from her throat.

"Forgive me, mistress," the girl said softly as she made a hasty curtsy. "Lady Coral asked me to give this to her... guest," she said, hesitating for a fraction of a second on the last word, making a gesture with the goblet.

"And what is it?" Pearl demanded, the harshness of her tone drawing a dark look from D that she didn't appear to notice.

"Water, mistress," the girl replied, clearly uneasy with the situation.

D glanced back at the new arrival, suddenly reminded of the fact that he hadn't eaten or been allowed to drink anything recently. As if on cue, he felt the faintest of rumblings from his stomach, a less-than-subtle reminder of his body's current condition. A casual tingle in his crotch registered an instant later, a very quiet message from his bladder that it was starting to become full and needed to be emptied soon. The faintest of disgruntled looks passed over his face briefly as he became aware of the sensations that had been quite overshadowed by the constant pain and events within the past day or so.

"Bring it here," Pearl ordered, her eyes remaining fixed on the girl as she quickly approached and meekly held the goblet out for inspection. She cast a quick glance inside before reaching out, taking the goblet from her with a none-too-gentle jerk of her hand. "I'll take care of it," she assured her with a faint sneer, casting a distinctly cruel look of amusement towards D.

"Thank you, mistress," the girl replied with another brief curtsy before she turned away and started to leave.

"April," Pearl suddenly spoke up, seeming to relax as she folded her arms over her chest. She cast a sidelong glance at the suddenly uneasy expression of her sister's slave before looking back at D, a dark smirk crossing her face as she took an idle sip from the goblet. "Tell me what you know about our... distinguished guest," she mocked with a soft chuckle.

April blinked and cast an openly nervous glance towards D, uncertain what to make of the situation. "H-He's the vampire-hunter known as D, mistress," she said, her voice wavering slightly.

Pearl huffed slightly and took another sip of the water. "Surely you know more about him than that, girl," she prodded in a dark tone.

"Mistress, please," April whimpered quietly, giving Pearl a look of pure terror. "I don't know anything else about him, only that he is a dunpeal like you and Lady Coral are..."

"Pearl," D spoke up quietly as Pearl's expression suddenly turned dark. He gave her a moderate look as she glanced at him, figuring that she was about to vent some of that seemingly endless rage at April and trying to divert her attention to him. "Surely the daughter of a noble like you shouldn't have to turn to a mere slave for such information. Or do you expect a girl like April to be as knowledgeable as you are?"

He could tell in an instant that his attempt at being a decoy had worked, her eyes narrowing and starting to flicker crimson once more. "I was merely seeing how wide-spread your so-called legend is," she snarled in a low tone. "And apparently it's not as great as you think. Return upstairs," she added flatly, not taking her eyes off of D.

"Yes, mistress," April blurted out as she made another quick curtsy before leaving the room at a rapid pace that wasn't quite a run.

Pearl continued to glare at him in heavy silence for a number of moments before the corner of her mouth twitched up in a faint smirk. "Cute, D," she said as she took another sip of water. "Not that I think she's the ignorant wench she would like us to believe she is, but at least she knows her place."

"Her manners must make you feel important," D commented in a neutral tone, his eyes still locked on hers. "But then again, I've never had to resort to being a bully to garner the respect of others, either real or imaginary."

It didn't surprise him in the least to hear the sudden groan of imploding metal, casting an absent glance down at her hand as the goblet was crushed in a white-knuckled grip. "I see you have a lust for pain," she said in a very soft tone akin to a whisper. The goblet was cast aside with a flick of her wrist, sending a cascade of water across the floor as it bounced before rolling into a corner. "Come, vampire-hunter," she snarled as her hands curled into fists as she advanced on him, "Let me satisfy that lust for you like you did for my sister..."

"If you think you can truly hurt me, go ahead," D replied calmly, causing his left hand to twitch briefly before becoming still again.

She paused for a moment, one pale blue eyebrow arching up in both surprise and mild amusement. "I see you forgot how easily I made you sing yesterday," she growled in a mockery of a dulcet tone. She glanced over at the utility cart and moved over to it, picking up the dagger she had left imbedded in his abdomen the day before. The blood had long dried out, leaving it coated with streaks of what could have been mistaken for rust from a distance.

"Physical pain is one thing," D replied, seeming to be unconcerned as she approached him with the dagger held tightly in one hand. "But you could make me scream until my voice dissolves in a gurgle of blood and still not get from me what you truly want."

"And what is that, hunter?" she inquired with a soft hiss as she leaned forward, her nose almost touching his as she held the tip of the blade just beneath the large vein on the underside of his manhood.

"Respect," D said simply. "True and genuine respect instead of the hollow echoes you're used to seeing from those who cower around you. Go ahead and cut me if you think it will do anything, but I can assure you that it won't. You can obviously force me to cry out in pain, but there are some things that can never be obtained by force. Respect. Honor. Love. So what are you waiting for, Pearl?" he added as she remained both silent and motionless. "Go ahead, prove me wrong. Cut away my flesh. Spill my blood. You can strip me of my life like you did my clothing, but you can never strip me of my honor."

Her eyes remained narrowed as she stared at him, the heavy veil of silence broken only by the very soft rasping of her breathing. She continued to stare into his eyes as she moved her hand slowly, dragging the tip of the blade down along the length of his thigh. She stopped after a few seconds and glanced down at what she had done, her eyebrow twitching slightly as she realized how deep the wound was and how much blood was flowing from it. A quick glance back up at him showed that his eyes hadn't changed in the slightest, still focused on her with an intensity that continued to disturb her in a way she had yet to truly figure out.

"What?" she demanded, her voice little more than a muted whisper as she edged the tip of the dagger back just far enough to give the wound a chance to close on its own.

"Take your time," D said in a perfectly calm tone, as if the searing pain radiating up from his thigh was inconsequential at worst. He knew it wasn't, of course, as the added blood loss was the last thing he needed right now, but he continued to project an outwardly calm presence so as not to give her the satisfaction of seeing his pain. "I can wait until you're finished playing pointless games."

Pearl visibly paused for a moment before glancing down, making absent note of the way his upper thigh was essentially covered in a sheet of blood now. A small pool of blood had formed under his foot where the crimson liquid had ran down his leg in a minor cascade, oozing forward until it began to drip off the narrow shelf and onto the metal surface of the tunnel covering.

She looked back up at him with a wary look in her eyes, clearly not sure what to make of his resistance. "What the hell are you?" she breathed as she took a single step back, still tightly gripping the dagger.

"The same thing you keep telling yourself that you're not," he replied in a level tone, "One born from the seed of darkness and given life by a human woman. I may have my father's physical attributes, which we both know are far superior to that of any human's, but both my soul and my heart are human. That is what keeps me going, Pearl, not my vampiric blood but my human spirit.

"Consider this," he pressed on as he saw her expression change. "If what you believe is true, that half your blood is weak because of its origins, then aren't all dunpeals like that? That we are weaker than our vampire ancestors? And if we are, then why is it I've been able to defeat so many of them? Tell me how it can be that a half-vampire like me can overcome so many full-blooded vampires unless I was their equal in strength and power? And if only half of that strength came from my father's blood, where did the rest come from?"

She remained perfectly silent and motionless for a number of moments, her eyes never once leaving his as she considered his words. "I have no idea," she finally said, her lips barely moving as she spoke in a somewhat subdued tone.

"I think you do," D countered in a tone that was equally as quiet. "You just don't want to change your mind about humans since it would mean you were wrong. There is no shame in being wrong because you didn't know, Pearl. I've been wrong before and I had the courage to admit it. It saddens me to hear of your mother's death, as it appears that you never got the chance to be exposed to the human love your mother would no doubt have shown you and your sister."

"Do not speak of her," Pearl growled in a very low tone, her eyes starting to flicker with rage again.

He simply gazed back at her with an unreadable expression, absently trying to ignore the faint hollow roaring in his ears from the loss of blood. "Now I know why you're so angry with the world," he said calmly. He didn't react as she lunged forward to press the tip of the dagger against the hollow of his throat, breaking the skin just enough to cause a single droplet of blood to well up and start to slide down his chest.

"You know nothing of me," she hissed flatly as her body shook with barely-controlled rage. "Nothing!" she barked again.

"I know enough," he replied. "You don't care enough about your mother to show her memory even the slightest respect. Even animals treat their own blood better than that."

"Shut up!" Pearl snapped as she drew her fist back, slamming it into his jaw hard enough to leave an instant bruise.

"You are without honor, Pearl," he murmured as he closed his eyes. "And I have no reason to respect those who don't even have the decency to honor or respect the ones that gave them life to begin with."

He kept his eyes closed as her fist slammed into his jaw again, once again coating his tongue with the bitter and metallic taste of his own blood. "What do you know about honor?" Pearl snarled. "You are nothing, hunter! Nothing!"

D tried to ignore her as best he could, turning his focus inward while he braced for the onslaught of rage that he knew that was coming. He figured that seven seconds at most had passed before it began, her fists lashing out in a series of powerful blows that he tried to roll with as best as possible while continuing to shut her out and deny her a reaction.

His senses soon began to gray out, his mind beginning to retreat from the pain and agony of remaining conscious during the ordeal. The blows were quite powerful but not enough to break any of his bones. It surprised him to realize that none of her attacks had landed in vital areas or places that could have further crippled him, making him question the nature of the fury that he was trying to weather. Had it been a truly mindless rage he expected he doubted he would have been left alive, which made him believe it was more of a case of extreme frustration for one reason or another.

He had no idea when it finally abated, fully expecting to feel the sting of the dagger slicing open flesh to spill blood and cause him to cry out as he had been forced to do previously. It was a metal sound that finally caused him to open his eyes slightly, a curious echoing noise that took a few moments to resolve as the sound of his dagger being thrown against the wall and clattering back to the floor. A sharp boom followed shortly afterwards, the sound of the door being slammed shut with enough fury to rattle both him and the chains that he hung from.

The air was dangerously still for some time, broken only by the quiet and ragged sound of his breathing. The constant thrumming of his pulse in his ears continued at a steady pace, assuring him that he was still alive for the time being. However, he wasn't about to place any bets on how much more he would be able to withstand in his current condition. Whatever respite the mud-bath and exposure to the light of the red moon had given him was long gone, leaving him even more depleted of energy than he had been before. What was worse was the loss of his life-force, both from the blood that had been spilled and when he had succumbed to the pleasures of Coral's sheath. Granted that essence of life wasn't something he could use for another purpose, but his body would continue to try to create more of it by instinct and simple biological design, drawing off what little energy he had left and leaving him all the more drained. Such a thing could even kill him, as one only needed to look to the animal kingdom to see countless examples of males dying after mating, sacrificing themselves to deliver as much life-energy to their mates as was possible.

((D?)) it spoke up in a very quiet and openly worried tone.

It took him a few moments to find the energy needed to speak. "Quiet," he murmured, his voice barely audible to his own ears.

((D, for god's sake, what the hell did you do that for?)) it protested in a soft but clearly rattled tone. ((I know you like to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity and all, but why'd you deliberately piss off Pearl? You knew she would go psycho-berserk on you...))

"She wants my respect," D replied softly, trying not to breathe any deeper than he had to. He had taken several blows to the chest that had come close to cracking his ribs again, and one blow in particular had almost compressed his sternum to the point of impacting his heart and his lungs. The pain of his chest expanding with each breath was almost exponential in intensity, seeming to sear him once he got beyond a certain point and essentially driving the air back out of his lungs.

((So what did goading her into using you as a punching bag accomplish?)) it inquired in a leery tone.

"I wanted to show her that force couldn't do it," he replied. "That she would have to try something else if it was to be obtained. I have the feeling that she won't get much sleep today thinking about it, and that she might be back down here to see me before Coral does. Maybe even before the sun sets."

((Oh, brilliant,)) it sighed in heavy resignation. ((So she'll not only be pissed from earlier, she'll be cranky to boot from being short on sleep. Good thinking, D, I like your style. You might get us killed yet.))

"Enough," D muttered softly, pausing as he suddenly found his conscious mind starting to lose focus and waver.

((Uh, D?)) it spoke up, the tone once again becoming openly worried. ((Not to sound like a sissy or anything, but do you have any idea how bad you look right now?))

"I know," D said simply.

((Do you also know how we're going to get out of this one?)) it prodded in an uneasy tone. ((I hate to say it, but you're hurting pretty bad, D. If you don't stop pushing Pearl's buttons like that, the next right cross that she decides to toss out could very well be the one that punches your ticket. I've never been fully clear on how you view death and beyond, D, but I for one am not exactly looking forward to finding out the hard way.))

"Have you figured anything else out about Coral's implant?" he whispered.

((Huh?)) it said, caught off-guard by the change in conversation. ((D, that strip of metal is going to be the least of your worries if you keep on running your mouth. Don't get me wrong, both I and everyone we've ever met have been trying to get you to open up and talk a little more and all, but you might want to seriously think about shutting up for a day or two. I'm well and truly not kidding, D, you're not up to... uh, D? Hey, stay with me here...))

D found himself unable to answer it for several moments as his mind became a blur. Things refocused a few seconds later but a deep chill remained in his blood, warning him that he was on the brink of slipping into unconsciousness at any given moment. He knew that perhaps it was best for that to happen, as it would give his mind a chance at recovering from the sensory burden of pain it had been laboring under, but he also knew that there was the very real risk that he might not be able to claw his way back up into consciousness again.

((D, listen to me,)) it said, the voice sounding unusually faint in both his ears and in his mind. ((If April comes back down here and I'm sure she's alone, I'm going to try to talk to her. I know it's a risk, but... dammit, stay with me!)) it hissed as D's senses briefly grayed out again. ((She's not under any influences like Abelyne is and she can probably help. If nothing else, she can get you some water which I know you need right now. Food might be asking a bit much, but if she could try to give you water earlier... D? D!))

His senses suddenly grayed out again and remained that way, leaving him suspended in a quasi-ethereal frame of mind that wasn't too different from what one feels just before falling asleep. The waves of pain that had besieged him on a constantly basis slowly receded like an ebbing tide, taking with it shades of brightness until the gray finally faded down to a cool, comforting black.

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