Shahrazád's Ghosts
Chapter 16: Slightly (Edward)
2400 A.D.
Near the end of his travels across the Maghreb, Slightly took the opportunity to visit Augustine again. Slightly always enjoyed visiting Augustine, going so far as to occasionally stop by Tunisia, even when Darling had not sent him there. He had planned on visiting their coven chief already, but he especially looked forward to the opportunity this time. In the incessant motion and constant change of Neverland, Slightly found a brief respite in the ageless, timeless courtyards of the Tunisian ksar. Augustine was never in a hurry and his patience rivaled that of a crocodile.
When Slightly sought the ancient vampire out, sometimes they would speak on strategies and news and politics. Other times, the pair would fall into silence, each staring out into the moon's reflection off the Mediterranean's waves, and Slightly would set himself adrift on Augustine's ocean of thoughts. In his mind, the world meandered by in over two millennia of brilliant colors and frantic transformations. From the Romans to the Vandals to the Arabs to the Byzantines, Augustine remained. From the Normans to the French to the Berbers and Tunisians, his ksar barely changed. Augustine picked up the occasional human language and, sometimes, adjusted his manner of dressing to imitate the customs of whatever empire surrounded him, but still, he remained, very much as he ever had been.
When Slightly arrived in Gabès, Augustine was away. A pretty, petite little vampire, originally from the Igbo, brought him to a guest room and informed him that Augustine would return before the moon was full. She then vanished into the labyrinth of tan stone edifices hewn into the three-story fortress, her mind full of preparations for an upcoming contingent of guests from a rather important coven in Namibia.
Slightly did not mind waiting or taking advantage of the rare opportunity to descend into idleness. The inhabitants of Neverland, he sometimes suspected, were more of a hive than a coven. Within, they were filled with drones and workers, all who served their queen and produced their own honey. At times, he tired of being another drone. As a guest of Augustine, he was neither a general nor Lost Boy, and he could simply be a man calling upon a respected friend.
Slightly let himself stay hidden away inside the stone room for days, in no hurry to leave. It was a nearly barren room. A mat lay in one corner, one low table nearby it. A single painting of embellished Arabic calligraphy hung on one wall, opposite the small window. Slightly lay down on the mat, closed his eyes, and let the gentle hum of the thoughts of the residents wash over him.
He had been away from Neverland nearly five months. He did not intend to return until he wished to return and felt ready to. He was not quite ready yet.
The benefit of his position of general was few would question his movements and if he pretended he was away on a "mission of great importance," none would be the wiser. Darling was not an overbearing mistress and she gave him freedom and autonomy in his position. If he claimed he was on a mission, she would believe him. His stopover in Tunisia would support his alibi, but his true motivation was the overwhelming need to escape.
It was all Peter's fault.
Oh, Peter. That oblivious, willfully-ignorant creature who pretended he saw less than he really did. Peter, who did what none of the rest of them ever once considered doing.
Until now.
Since he was initiated into Neverland as a yearling, Slightly always took his medicine. He enjoyed it as much as the next Lost Boy and never thought deeply upon it. His years with his own beloved Tiger Lily the Third changed his sensitivity to the delicious scent from those black bottles. It wasn't so much that he enjoyed the scent less, but that the scent became associated with more powerful emotions. Whenever one bottle was opened, he caught the essence of the woman he loved and it woke a myriad of powerful longings, not all of which were physical. The Others, well, they were less discerning in their appetites. Thirst and lust were two sides of an insatiable desire, all with one object to claim, one wellspring to drink from, and one siren to claim as their own.
Slightly had lived around Neverland long enough to know what happened to those who sought to find satisfaction in the bottom of a black bottle. It was the bottle which consumed them, long before they found what they were looking for. He had little desire to transform into the wild, wretched creatures he was forced to dispose of, once the emptiness of the bottles was transferred into the souls who drank from it. Granted, the Braves were never given the opportunity to reach such irreparable dissipation. Their fixed amounts did not change and they were never given more than a cup or two at a time.
The Lost Boys were another matter. Since the beginning, self-destruction had been their destiny. Slightly watched his companion-at-arms slowly fade and unravel again and again. They joyfully embraced their own gradual suicides, and Slightly was forced to accept their loss of consciousness long before their physical demise overtook them. When it came time to end them, there was little left of the men they had once been within those ravaged, fragmented wineskins. It was all the worse for his front row seat within their tormented minds.
There had only been a handful of Lost Boys, five at most, who had managed to destroy themselves in this manner. Yet, Slightly knew it was only a matter of time until the rest followed. John would be next. The poor varlet would never quite recover from his own role in Tiger Lily the Fourth's death and his own increased thirst was his punishment for the service he gave to his Lady. If he continued on his current dosage, John could potentially maintain his faculties and live still for at least another half century or so. However, it was his own ravenous thirst which would consume him first. He would find ways to overindulge until he orchestrated his own destruction, sooner rather than later.
Slightly understood, too well. After the death of his beloved, his rations of medicine became all the more important. On the days when he missed her so much it cut him to the bone and he wanted to pretend she lived still, he would try to steal extra rations and over-indulge as much as he could. It masked the pain, but it did not cure it. It was like white wash over a rocky wall and one good rain storm would wash it all away and he was left as bereft as before, thirsting with a longing that no number of black bottles would ever fill.
Gradually, as he learned to live with his grief instead of trying to run from it, he did not turn to medicine as often. He preferred to keep hold of his own mind and he did not like becoming so vulnerable and out-of-control. He prided himself on his self-discipline and self-imposed restriction. Despite all his claims to love his Tiger Lily and his cherished reverence for her blood, not even he had ever even considered abstaining entirely.
That is, not until Peter.
In the aftermath of the death of Tiger Lily the Fourth, Slightly decided to change. He could still hear the shattering of that black bottle against the wall of Tiger Lily's camp. It rang through his ears like an interminable bell choir and made him want to cover his ears to keep out the accusations the imaginary sounds whispered.
This is the scent of death - your death. You delight in death. You kill those you claim to love…and enjoy it.
The first month Slightly abstained from his medicine, he cursed Peter from morning till night and nearly recanted his decision at least twenty times a minute. It was excruciating. His hands shook and his mind fixated on those black bottles as if he were a tree and they the sun. The more time passed without, the cloudier his mind became and the more desperate he felt. He knew he would not survive it if he stayed, but he had already given away his rations.
So, he left. He ran as far from Neverland as he could and then he wandered. Outside Neverland, he lost himself in the feel of the wind on his face and the light of the moon in the sky and the bustling thoughts of the humans around him. City noises and quiet camel trains flowed over him as he ran, immersing him in currents of life and distraction and anything other than Neverland. The longer he stayed away, the better his supply of milk tasted. The farther he ran, the easier it grew and the greater sense of clarity washed over his mind. It was as if the wind cleared away the smoke from Neverland's fires and he was able to breathe again, fresh clean air he had never once inhaled before.
He was nearly ready to return home. He needed to seek out Peter and ensure his well-being as soon as he returned.
Of course, he had considered making his departure permanent. He could easily slip away and make his own path in the world. It was not the first time he considered leaving, either. He first thought about it after his mate died. His sorrow then had compelled him to wander, very much like he was doing now, but that was kind of aimless meandering which culminated in the realization that he had nowhere to go.
It was true, he could join another coven in the Maghreb, or anywhere, really. Yet, why would he want that? For one thing, he did not enjoy hunting humans and listening to their final pleas for life diminish within his grasp. It was a terrible experience and one he did not wish to intentionally court. Perhaps, he could do as Augustine had chosen to do and order his own deliveries of milk. But he did not wish to be alone and he had not yet met another coven he particularly enjoyed. With his telepathy, he sometimes discovered their faults and conflicts before he discovered their virtues and he had little patience with the ambitions and vanities of new covens.
For all her faults, Darling had created the largest coven in the world. It was one that did minimal harm to the human world and was nearly entirely self-sufficient. In Neverland, Slightly had a prestigious position which carried influence around the world. Darling trusted him and relied on him and he rather enjoyed that. He was not bound to remain there and he could use his gifts as he pleased. Slightly had heard enough stories of the Volturi to not take his position in Neverland for granted.
Deeper than all this, Slightly knew he would return to his coven and mistress because it was his home.
"We are, each of us, bound in some strange, mysterious way to our sires," Augustine told him once. "Like sea turtles, we must return to our natal sands, no matter how far we roam, but that is not enough. We are also connected to those who give birth to us. In the same way that a duckling follows around its mother, newborn vampires are meant to follow after their sires and learn to live from the safety of their wings. If human infants must be taught how to live, why would vampire infants be any different?
"No, I can always tell those who were orphaned at birth. When vampires are created by irresponsible, dishonorable sires, they become wild, lost creatures who struggle to adapt. That is why our coven is not permitted to sire any young without permission. When we procreate, we must do so intentionally and wisely and then raise our progeny well.
"Darling is an excellent example. Her sire left her to wander until the Volturi found her and it's by the hand of the gods that she survived. Still, she behaves like a beaten hound and believes all she meets are bound to mistreat her. If she had a sire who took his responsibility seriously, she would be a different vampire today."
Slightly knew Augustine was right about this, as he was about many things, and he knew he would always return to Neverland again. He remained as bound to Darling as Darling was bound to him. She was his sire and he, her progeny, and he belonged to the coven she had created. They were a strange, unconventional coven, but it was his home.
ooooo
When Augustine returned, he was welcomed back with a great bustle from the eclectic band of vampires who made up his immediate coven. At any given time, four other regular vampires stayed in Gabès and chose to dwell in the ksar with the chief of the Maghreb, but guests and nomads cycled in and out with as much regularity as the dry and raining seasons.
"Peter, amicus meus, you are welcome!" Augustine cried in genuine delight, before clasping Slightly's hand in his own. "I have returned from our sister coven in Yemen and they have tales that would amuse even you! I must speak with Farida and Ali and then I will be at your disposal!"
The downside of Augustine's great patience was that he expected the same patience in those around him and it was nearly a day before Augustine was at liberty to meet with Slightly. The stone steps behind the fortress were grooved with a thousand years' worth of footsteps and the once sharp edges of each rectangular block had been rubbed smooth. They climbed up to Augustine's favorite balcony, the one Slightly most associated with Augustine, and watched the waxing moon rise overhead.
They had shared innumerable hours on this balcony and Slightly enjoyed every minute of it. Slightly relied on Augustine's extensive wisdom and experience more than Darling would ever know. She would not approve of the source of Slightly's guidance and he did not intend to inform her. Augustine was as brilliant as he was ruthless. Yet the steel of his battle-hewn mind was wielded against those who would oppose his beloved under-covens and not against those within. Augustine would spare no violence or pain to protect those who fell under his jurisdiction. To the vampires who called the Maghreb home, he was as fiercely protective as a mother bear with her cubs. As such, Darling and her coven fell under his shadow and he welcomed Slightly into his ksar with open arms, under any pretense.
It took time and an extensive number of formalities before Augustine could embark on any topic of great weight. The vampire would not be hurried and nothing was so important that it could not wait until the health and well-being of every vampire in his coven and sub-covens was thoroughly discussed. Slightly had the benefit of the knowledge of the past three generals behind him to not raise Augustine's ire by breaking with this etiquette. Slightly waded through the news of a siring in Mali, a new mated pair in Morocco and a visit from the coven in the Comoros Islands before responding with the briefest of update on Darling and assurances of her well-being.
"Tell her that she is the loveliest of all the pomegranate blossoms in the Maghreb and I will be calling upon her soon," Augustine said, his flattery as sincere as it was feigned. "Now, tell me, what is it that tears you from her side to seek out my company rather than hers?"
This was his invitation and so Slightly took it. He looked down to meet the burgundy eyes of the much smaller man and he nodded. "It is done. She finally listened."
Augustine's thick eyebrows drew together and he clasped Slightly's hands in his own. "I am glad of it. Will she be well?"
"I think so."
Augustine dropped his hands in favor of clinging onto the shallow wall around the balcony. He let his eyes drift back to the dark sea beyond. "Very good. Very good."
"And the other bodies?"
"I have someone I can trust who will dispose of them as soon as possible."
Augustine gave a visible sigh of relief. "Let us hope, for all our sakes, our dear queen is wiser in future."
Augustine preferred to know as little as possible about Darling's affairs. The amount of prestige and respect he gained purely by having Darling under his jurisdiction was more than enough. When stories of the vampire shield impermeable to even the worse of the Volturi's weapons trickled around the globe, she gained the status of almost a goddess in the vampire world. It was more than one coven who was wise enough to know that if they manage to get Darling on their side, there would be very few enemies who could stand against them.
Very few of Darling's admirers knew about her capacity to clone blood. Those who were initiated into the secret of Neverland were those who were too consumed with its wine to give much thought into the wider-reaching ramifications of such knowledge. Those who came to court Darling came not for her wine, but for the favor of the queen.
Darling never realized that, in all Neverland, it was its queen who was the most valuable… and the most dangerous. Augustine knew this, and used it for his own benefit.
Representatives from covens around the world came to seek the truth behind Darling's gift and forge alliances, knowing well the benefit of having such a powerful shield on their side of potential future battle lines. Augustine reveled in this new position of global authority he gained as chief. He now wielded more influence in the affairs of the vampire world than he ever dreamed would be possible. He treasured Darling for this gift she had given him. It was nearly enough to make him forgive her for her inability to resurrect his mate. Oh, he had been bitterly disappointed and angry when he realized he had to forever give up hope of seeing his lost mate again. It was as if he held an incorporeal manifestation of her in his arms, only to watch her die before him all over again. He had raged and blamed Darling, but the anger had been a distraction to keep him from facing his grief again.
Over the years since their tenuous alliance began, Augustine developed quite a fondness for Darling. He was no fool and he willingly exploited all the benefits that Darling could provide him, but it was not only her gifts that made her the favored queen of all his covens. To him, Darling was the divine Venus incarnate, but endowed with the spirit of Hercules. Since her origin, Darling had narrowly escaped certain death and was constantly plagued by the ghosts of her conception, like Hercules, who was always plagued by the fury of Juno. Both overcame to become the protectors and champions of the weak. Darling carried all the cracks and fissures, born out of the trauma of her origins, but these compelled her to wish to aid others like herself.
In this, Darling reminded him so much of his own lost mate that sometimes Augustine even fancied himself in love with her. It was not the blinding, all-encompassing inferno that the mating bond gave, but more of the pleasing, beckoning warmth of a hearth fire, the kind of love only those who had lost their mates could know. Yet, he was content to admire her from afar and warm himself by her flames when she wished to give him leave to. Of her many worshippers, he was her most devoted.
He had always known of Darling's intended wrath. He rather delighted in it. As long as she limited her range of destruction to the Volturi and his enemies, Augustine encouraged her. He wielded her desire for vengeance in ways that were amenable to his own. He knew well what fate befell those who entered Darling's kingdom and he gleefully sent her every nemesis he could muster. Slowly by slowly, with the patience of a spider, he anonymously invited ever more important former enemies (or those they relied on) to visit Darling.
It wasn't so much that he wished to abolish oversight of the vampire world, but that he held longstanding grievances against the Volturi's philosophy of rule. His goals began to broaden and his ambitions grew when he realized he could do more than torment the Volturi. He could replace them.
"The Volturi are outdated," he explained to Slightly one day. "Their reach and control should be either limited to one specific geographic region, or their council should have more voices. The ways of ruling the covens of Europe should not be the same in the Maghreb or the Indus Valley or the South Pacific, since the ways of life in each location are not the same. The humans adapt to their environment and so should the vampires who coexist with them. Simply because England decides to hunt down vampires and hang garlic on their houses does not mean Argentina will follow their example. What do the covens of the Great Lakes have to do with those of the Sahel?"
It was shortly after the guests to Neverland began to arrive that Augustine made his first orders for milk. He was so impressed that he began to request regular orders for his entire coven. Drones delivered crates of the sealed bottles the first of each month and Augustine's coven could choose to hunt for pleasure rather than necessity.
"This production of blood will transform our entire society," Augustine proclaimed to Slightly. He held his bottle aloft to demonstrate his point. "This is the way of the future. This is… this is… why, this is as world-shattering as iron…and gunpowder…and the combustion engine! No, my friend, we are sitting at the precipice of what will someday be. Not all of humanity relies on hunting and gathering from what nature freely provides. No, they plant and cultivate and domesticate. Why should our kind be any different? Why should we avoid change when the world around us constantly changes? We must adapt!
"Think of it, just think of it! If we produce our own food without harming the human world, both our species can coexist together, as we have done before, but without fear of each other. Vampires could come into the light and no longer hide in the shadows. We could return to being a transparent, open part of the human world. Instead of a vampire council determining rules and laws for the vampire world alone, the human world can give their own voice to our legislative oversight. Instead of the law of secrecy, we would create a legal code that supports the well-being of both humans and vampires."
"Wouldn't the humans fear us?" Slightly asked.
"Of course! As they should! The Volturi fear humans rising up to destroy vampires everywhere and they fear the humans almost as much as the humans would fear them. But, humans are as capable of evil as the vampire world, and our kind is as capable of good as they are. It is not only vampires who have delighted in the death and consumption of human flesh and blood and not all of the vampire world evolved a predatory relationship with humanity. There have been vampire communities that have created symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationships with their host communities. We must decentralize control and grant it back to the humans and vampires in each locale and move past the antiquated world the Volturi insists we enforce."
"You are overly optimistic," Slightly answered.
"Ah, too true, too true. Tell me, Peter, which of the great empires of the human world did not have an overly optimistic idealist somewhere in their inception? Where would we be without the ambitions of Ramses II and Mansa Musa and Suleiman the Lawgiver? No, to have both the seed of greatness and the will to bring it to germination is what will bear the fruit of the next empire!"
Thus, as slowly and steadily as the growth of a seed in soil, Augustine worked to overturn the established ways of the vampire world. As long as Augustine's purposes were not contrary to his mistress', Slightly assisted.
It had been at Augustine's insistence that Slightly advised the necessity of disposing of Tiger Lily. As loathe as Slightly was to the idea, he could not avoid the wisdom behind the advice.
Darling was convinced that as long as her generals shared memories and imitated each other's appearances, then Augustine would not be able to differentiate between them. Perhaps, with a younger vampire this plan could have held merit, but after two millennia of experiences, Augustine could see with more than just his eyes.
"So, Peter, tell me – what happened to the ones before you?" Augustine asked one day, years earlier. Slightly was grateful for the warning Augustine's thoughts gave him or Slightly would have sputtered out something incomprehensible in his surprised response.
"I do not know what you are referring to," Slightly responded, a crooked half-smile on his lips.
Augustine did not believe him and Slightly did not intend to be believed. Augustine only chuckled and shook his head. He did not bring it up again, but it remained between them as an unspoken acknowledgement of the reality they both would continue feigning ignorance about.
It wasn't the nearly imperceptible differences in their appearances or mannerisms that gave it away, but Darling's responses to her various Lost Boys that first raised his suspicions. In Augustine's interactions with Slightly and those that preceded him, Darling freely placed her arm in theirs, clasped their shoulders, and met their eyes during a conversation. They behaved as lesser coven members dutifully accompanying their queen, and not as mates. He had always assumed this "Peter" of Darling's was a loyal member of her secretive coven, and one with a mate left behind him in the safety of their coven.
One day, John stepped in to escort Darling during Slightly's absence. The Lost Boy had received the same thorough training as all his predecessors and he performed his role flawlessly. It was not a complicated event and John barely spoke with Augustine throughout the brief introduction to a coven from Mauritania. Yet, it was enough for Augustine's suspicions to expand like water when the temperature plummets.
Throughout the evening with John, his eyes covertly sought out his mistress, lingering on her whenever he thought she would not notice. His head was tilted towards her and his body kept angled between her and the room, no matter where she moved, as if she were the sun to his sunflower. Darling, on the other hand, only met his eyes twice, and never once permitted physical contact. She avoided him as if he were the same pole to her magnet and he repelled her.
Augustine could notice the pull between mated vampires, but he could also taste a subtle difference in the air and manner of mated vampires and unmated vampires. Something within them shifted and settled when the mating bond occurred. The "Peter" he met on this evening was indistinguishable from the previous, other than the fact that he behaved as a mated vampire could be expected to behave, but it was obvious that Darling was his mate. The difference, while most likely unconsciously done and unnoticeable to anyone else, was jarring to Augustine. When had a mating bond ever been a one-sided affair and why would "Peter" not have exhibited this behavior before? Why would Darling avoid her mate? Not in all his thousands of years of life had Augustine known of such circumstances
It was this revelation, combined with Augustine's prior knowledge of Darling's creation, that made him realize more of Darling's activities in Neverland than was prudent for him to know. It was a simple enough for the other pieces of the puzzle to fall into place.
Augustine intentionally chose to remain ignorant of the details of Darling's affairs and refrained from ever visiting her in Neverland. All diplomatic meetings and alliances were conducted well outside of Neverland. All guests sent to the underground fortress were organized through complicated layers of intermediaries and drones. Darling's secrets were to remain safe within the vault of her impermeable head. Yet, the suspicions that niggled at Augustine's mind made him wonder if he needed to concern himself more into her decisions.
It took years for Augustine to voice his myriad of questions and concerns. Slowly, over official and unofficial visits, Augustine hinted at what he wished to know and Slightly answered as judiciously as he could.
They were in southern Chad when Augustine learned about Tiger Lily. After the Tanzanian coven left and Darling returned to Neverland, Slightly stayed on with Augustine for another day. He had noted the vampire's keen observations during the week, the way he watched both Darling and himself, and the various suspicions as to the "real" state of affairs he had concocted. Finally, he pulled Slightly aside.
"Peter, I am no fool. Tell me truthfully, is there another Darling?"
"Yes," Slightly answered, not wishing to hide the truth that Augustine plainly knew.
"By Pluto, I did not think she would be such a fool!" he cursed and spluttered. His mind spiraled in a thousand different ways a multiplicity of Darlings could be catastrophic… or incredibly useful.
"She is human," Slightly supplied.
Augustine placed his hand on Slightly's shoulder to keep him from continuing. "Do not tell me! I do not wish to know how many there are or anything else about them! What I need to know is, how did she find you? Not you, specifically. I know there are more of you. Do not tell me how many. Most especially, do not tell me what that woman plans to do with you all, though if she is going to be as foolish as this, perhaps I should ask more questions. I cannot understand why, after finding her mate, she would clone you? It must mean she found you as a human, but she has failed to let the bond materialize on her side. I've never seen such a thing! Why? How?"
"We are duplicates of her sire," Slightly answered. "He created a human clone of himself before Darling was turned."
At first, Augustine fell entirely still, then his curses began with renewed vigor and a greater lack of verbal filter than Slightly had ever seen pour from his mouth.
"That filthy dog should have been strung up on a rope and watched each of his limbs burn before drowning on his own poisoned venom!" Augustine clenched and unclenched his fists while he spoke and his teeth ground together so firmly that Slightly could hear them squeak. "His mate? She was his mate? This is beyond depravity! Did he possess no honor? No sense? To commit such atrocities on his own mate? It is unheard of! It is beyond belief! It is utter madness! Never, not in all my years, has there been such a deplorable excuse for a vampire!"
Augustine's mind filled with the memories of mummified corpses, each with straggly brown hair, hollow cheekbones, and skin stretched thin and dried like paper. There was an entire room with shelves filled with skeletons, and massive piles of intertangled bodies, thrown anyhow into a hastily constructed grave. Despite the gruesome, ghostly appearance of the bodies, Slightly could see enough to know what he was looking at.
The original Neverland had been filled with an entire army of Darlings…human Darlings…and their ruler's appetite had not been quenched from glass bottles. Slightly had known very little of Darling's history and all he did know came from fragments he gathered along the way.
"Is she… is she…," Augustine began, his mind stumbling to word his question properly. "Is she consuming human creations of you? No, she couldn't be. Her eyes are still gold… but the others? Did she clone herself and then feed her cursed sire to herself? It would be a sadistic vindication and I would not blame her…" He trailed off before he could continue his raw musings out loud.
"No," Slightly answered, his own mind aghast at the trail Augustine's had taken…and the memories he could view.
"Well, there is that, I suppose. So, she has cloned her own mate but has refused to allow the bond to take hold? I would assume, then, that she has cloned herself in order to direct the mating bond of the others on her counterpart…or counterparts. Has she considered the danger such a situation poses?"
"I am not sure she has considered the ramifications outside of her own aims."
"Of course, she doesn't. I doubt she fully recognizes how dangerous she could be…the extent of her shield, the ways it nullifies the greatest vampire assets… why, she is a force of nature! I am not convinced she is purely of nature. She must be forged partly of the divine!
"Peter, I am telling you this so you may protect both Darling and your coven and all our covens. If any other coven hears that it is not only possible to produce more Darlings, but that it is possible to manufacture her as part of a perfectly mated pair, it will not end well. You see, to those in search for power, Darling alone would be worth more than nearly any other vampire, gifted or not. Those in search of protection would feel the same.
"In truth, there is already a war brewing across the vampire world, and since she first fell into Aro's hands, Darling has always been at the heart of it. If anyone, and I mean anyone, knows she can be replicated… they will not stop until they move heaven and earth to obtain her… and as part of a mated pair? Well, surely you know of the depths we vampires would go to in order to protect our mates? All it would take to control Darling would be a single threat against her mate. She would not hesitate to give away all Neverland to keep her mate alive."
Slightly gasped internally. Augustine did not know of his gifts. Slightly knew this for a fact. If he did…he was sure it would only increase his warning exponentially. He had never stopped to consider what covens around the world do to obtain such a gifted pair, especially under more malleable conditions.
Even worse, nearly all of Neverland was bound to Tiger Lily. If someone did manage to break in and take Tiger Lily for themselves, the army would be theirs to command without a second thought.
If Tiger Lily herself were turned, it would nullify Darling's advantage on the battlefield.
Augustine was right.
"What should be done?" Slightly asked.
"Dispose of any clones Darling has made of herself…and remove all possibilities of future clones of herself. I will send you the report from the archeologists who first conducted digs in the area and you must, I repeat, you must, remove her DNA from existence everywhere."
"I will do it," Slightly said.
And he did. But he failed to voice his suspicion that Darling may have found her mate.
Oooooo
Slightly returned home to Neverland and dove headfirst into work of his mistress. Five years passed without Slightly taking a single drop of medicine. When he felt its call too loudly in his bones, he sought out Peter and the pair explored the Tibesti Mountains in companionable silence. They both enjoyed the reprieve from Neverland and the opportunity to soak in the land and air outside.
Not all was well within Neverland's tunnels and chambers. For one, Darling behaved in increasingly erratic and unpredictable ways. Even Augustine grew worried about her and sent more gifts than usual to try to cheer her. For another, their situation with the Volturi had been deteriorating quickly. The Volturi's suspicions had been roused some decades back when they caught a disgruntled exiled guest and they had been sending out search parties ever since. Most were easily dealt with. More often than not, they could be bribed into acquiescence and kept in Neverland as very willing guests. Rumors circulated around Volterra of all that could be experienced in Neverland… and it only made Aro more determined to discover their location and the vampire who reigned within. It was only a matter of time before he figured it out.
Augustine had been contacted repeatedly by Aro's minions, each inquiring if he had heard anything about the mysterious vampire haven hidden within the Sahara. Augustine could easily deceive the minions, but any day Aro would choose to call upon the chief of the Maghreb himself, and Augustine could not lie to Aro's touch. While many of the details of Darling's affairs could not be found within Augustine's mind, he did know the location of Neverland, the name and face of its queen, and the fountain of wine that flowed from its heart. Worse, he knew of the possibility of creating more Darlings. Aro would not wait to return to Volterra before he summoned his guard to invade Neverland.
They were on borrowed time and they needed to know if and when Aro decided to seek out Augustine. The day that occurred, well, that was the day their army must be ready for the purpose for which it was born.
Darling was preoccupied with her preparations and her anxiety evolved exponentially. In the same way that Darling could only know of the plans and purposes that Slightly chose to share with her, so Slightly could not read his mistress' mind. It was more than a surprise, then, when she summoned her general to meet her at the north tunnel hatch to show him something new.
"I told you I would figure it out," Darling said, the barest hint of a smile on her face. Slightly followed after her quick, light steps as she brought him through a tunnel he had never been in before. Darling had created this one herself, without the assistance of any of the Braves or Lost Boys. For months, she had disappeared a few days a week to work on some mysterious project, one which she refused to divulge to her general until it came to fruition.
Slightly didn't begrudge her secrecy. Privacy was a much-coveted gift around Neverland and Darling was the only inhabitant who truly had it in abundance. Yet, Slightly didn't always trust Darling's judgement, especially in matters which involved either her myriad of fears or her even more terrifying heart.
They had entered this tunnel from a surface-level grate, far outside both the boundaries of Neverland and those of Garden City. It was an old tunnel, and one so removed from the other Braves and Lost Boys that Slightly lost range of their thoughts. Darling's bare feet made footprints in the sand on the floors and she opened a series of doors until she came to a small room. There, laying on a hospital bed and hooked up to a series of machines, was the unconscious form of a woman.
Not just any woman.
It was another Tiger Lily.
Her scent, still weak and emerging, clung to the room like lace curtains on an open window. Her chest rose and fell with forced breaths and he could hear the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.
Slightly hissed out loud and his frown grew tempestuous, but he did not care. "My Lady, you promised! We agreed! There would be no more!"
"I know, I know," Darling said, waving her hand in a pleading dismissal. "But, don't you see? This fixes everything!"
"How, precisely, does this fix anything at all?"
"Augustine has spies nearly everywhere. They gave given us invaluable information on our potential enemies and allies. But we do not have one in the heart of Volterra. You have bemoaned this lapse for decades. We know any day, Aro will come for us and we need to know what he knows and what he plans."
"You plan to send Tiger Lily the Fifth as a spy into Volterra?" Slightly asked, one eyebrow raised. He leaned against the wall and stared as Darling fiddled with the machines and checked over the vitals of her newest pet.
"This is not Tiger Lily," Darling answered. "I promised you. No more Tiger Lilies. This is Tinkerbell."
Slightly's angry expression did not please her and she frowned, her defenses rising like the hackles on a hound.
"I do take your advice seriously. None of the Braves or Lost Boys will know of her existence. I will never bring them into contact with her for any reason. She is simply the barrier, or the silent intermediary, between Neverland and Volterra. Peter will raise her and she will raise our spy into Volterra. We will adjust her appearance so she is hidden in our spy's mind from Aro's recognition. Our spy will not even know he is a spy."
"Peter?" Slightly said, his frown deepening even further. "Why drag Peter into this? Why don't you raise her yourself?"
"She won't ever know me. She won't ever set eyes on me. She won't even know my name. She will be safe from all Neverland, including from me. You know Peter is the most capable person for such a task. Who has better control? Who would do this task with such earnest dedication?"
"My Lady, far be it from me to criticize a plan you have already implemented…without consulting me… but this is cruel and foolhardy. Why make Tinkerbell or Peter go through this? Having copies of yourself is dangerous! How can you not see what a risk this is?"
Darling shook her head. "It is not cruel. Peter has never recovered from Tiger Lily's death. Now he will have a new little charge to help him recover and raise his spirits."
"Oh, and he can just as easily exchange one for the other?" Slightly hissed back, his anger spiking.
"Yes… except better. He always wanted to teach Tiger Lily to speak. Now, he can do just that with Tinkerbell."
"And then you will kill her as you did Tiger Lily? I do not believe Peter would enjoy that."
"No!" Darling said. "No! I won't kill her. Peter can keep her as his own, here. I swear it! She will be safe in the quarters I have created. They are large and well-protected. She will never leave here and so she will not be a danger to us. Peter can ensure she has everything she needs and take care of her for as long as she lives. He will like that, I think."
Slightly's mouth fell open and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "So, he can keep a pet human in a cage in Neverland and watch her age until she finally dies? She is not a goldfish or a pet hamster."
Darling threw her shoulders back, her eyes smoldering. "What would you have given for such an arrangement?"
Slightly deflated. He thought of his own Tiger Lily and just how much he had once dreamed of such an opportunity with her. It was true. He would have delighted to see her and speak with her every day and spend all his moments in her presence, even if she never left her cage and remained human all her days.
"My right leg and possibly right arm as well. Peter will never see it that way. And if you are trying to bribe his forgiveness with this twisted act of charity, it will not work. And it will not fix anything. You have given us another liability."
"It is done. I made my decision."
Slightly shook his head. His ire was piqued, but also a morbid curiosity. Could Peter actually recover from his mating bond to Darling and form a new bond on Tinkerbell? There might never be such an excellent opportunity for an experiment like this again, in the entire history of the vampire world. It's implications…what it could reveal about their natures and the mating bond… it was positively tantalizing.
Slightly did not see how Peter could end up worse off than he already was, unless Darling decided to renege on her agreement. If he could not form a mating bond with Tinkerbell, then they would all know for certain that the mating bond was cemented once and for all. If he could, then they would know that it could be transferred and that cloning had profound implications for vampires who lost their mates. If all vampires could gain access to the human DNA samples of their mates, they would never need to fear the complete loss of their mates again. There was hope of replacement, of resurrection from the ashes, of a kind of immortality that not even the long-lived vampire world had ever dreamed of.
Augustine's dire warnings echoed in the back of his head. If someone captured her, if someone found out about her, it really could lead to disaster, but he could not go against his mistress. In truth, he did not want to. Augustine was correct. There was no limit to how far a vampire would go for their mate and this brewed a traitorous amount of hope for Neverland's general. Slightly would do whatever was possible to gain his own mate back again… even if he knew it would put all Neverland in danger.
He bit back the slight bitterness welling up in his throat that it was Peter who was first granted this opportunity and not himself. However, if it succeeded, Slightly would ensure that he was also rewarded in a similar fashion. Then he could steal his mate away to start over, far from Darling's kingdom, far from everyone's kingdom, in a little kingdom of his own. His rational mind whispered there was no distance far enough and no kingdom safe enough, but that poisonous hope in his heart overpowered its voice.
The strategist in him, while still skeptical, still had to admit her plan had merit.
"How will this work?" he asked.
"We will send our ignorant little spy to Volterra as a gift to Aro. Aro likes such presents. He won't be able to resist."
"But how will he be useful to us?"
Darling gave a wicked smile. "The Volturi are nothing if not predictable. I have a plan."
Oooo
Author's Notes:
Well, this chapter changed perspective like four times before we ended up on Slightly. Hope you enjoy!
Also, Augustine was first introduced to Darling's escort as " Peter" (because he was Peter the Second at the time) and so that is why he calls Slightly "Peter". He knows its a different guy...but he isn't supposed to know it so he continues to play Darling's game.
What do you think – in this case, is the mating bond permanent or transferrable? I'd love to hear your theories!
