Le temps est venu pour l'homme en rouge . . .Jouir. . .

The cycle of the seasons came many times over during her stay in the cave. She learned to live off the land by herself, soon forgetting the life of noble courts. She kept to herself in the mountainous woods never going to the village and isolating herself from humanity. Over the years she became an expert thief since she hated interacting with other people and took to stealing what she needed, but that was only for things such as needles and thread. Also when she wanted to make her food a little less bland she would break into higher class homes and steal seasonings from the kitchens.

Of course she learned how to make her own clothing and boots, she left behind the dresses and managed to stitch together patchwork pants that were tight to her body and practical, her shirt she stole. She became somewhat of an expert at bow and throwing knives, with time abundantly in her hands she had nothing else to do but teach herself how to survive and using her weapons was the only way she would get food. After watching Orion skin the deer she never forgot and after a few hard self lessons she managed to skin her own food and make use of the fur.

For years, she didn't know how many, she sat alone and never saw another human. If a hunter did manage to get close she ran away to a secondary hiding place high in a tree. She would wait for them to leave and then go back to her cave. She tired of that though and took some wild over hanging plants and covered her cave to make it look like nothing more than a rock face. Her cave was never bothered again.

When the horse she was given finally died she went to a village and found a strong young foal in the stables of a farmer. It was a grey and black spotted creature and after looking at the mother she knew it would be a hardy animal. She took it. It became the only friend she knew and had the two became close, the animal sensing her emotions and obeying her every command effortlessly. She came to name him Thomas and no one was there to name him otherwise.

Day after day, month after month, year and year, all came and went and not once did she meet another man. Least of all the one she was hiding from. She grew accustomed to the silence the woods offered and loved her solitude, after the eight year of her imprisonment and torture complete solitude was greatly accepted. With Thomas being the only other creature around she talked to him and he listened, he learned many things that he knew nothing about. He listened to her cry and laugh and yell in rage. The two were the perfect example of rider and animal.

On e a particularly calm day, somewhere between summer and fall, more in the fall season, Nadia came back to her home tired. She had spent the entire night stalking the sleeping fish in the stream and had been successful in catching enough to keep her food supply stocked for a week or so. Many hollows had been formed naturally in the walls of the cave and she used them to store food. She used numerous herbs and other non mentionables to block out the smell of her catch so as not to attract the bears and other forest beasts that she knew lurked in the woods. She had been successful in her time alone.

That day she used the last of her strength to gut and clean them, taking the remains and burning them. The smell they gave off kept unwanted animal visitors away well enough. While letting them burn she lay down on her feather stuffed blanket and let herself drift off to much needed sleep. She didn't bother to pull down the plant made cover to her cave because no hunted had been through the area in sometime. After all, around this time of the year game still usually lingered lower on the mountain, near the valleys. Her home was off any game trail and she never had many people come close anyway.

But there was a man who had strayed from the trails, pulled by an unseen force in her direction. He was an older gentleman over dressed in the latest Spanish fashion of red, his cape smothered in brightly colored feathers of a bird not seen in this part of the known world. He had been hit in the chest with an invisible bolt and was seeking out the source of his discomfort. He wasn't looking for a fight, he didn't even know what he was looking for! Much less what he would find, but he was curious.

Who, or what, would be this far from civilization and isolated so far back in the woods?

Whatever was out there he wanted to see it. He was a curious man that way. He hummed a comforting Spanish tune in his masculine voice as he went along and kept a careful eye out on his surroundings. He was a man of experience despite his pompous appearance and was carefully alert. A strange sword was strapped to his waist; the hilt was white with the head of a fearsome creature embellished on it. He kept one hand on the hilt and one hand held the reigns of his horse.

It was dusk, passed sunset, by the time he smelled the smoke. It wasn't a natural fire, it was something being burned by a human. He stopped his humming and tilted his head as he rode in the direction the smell was drifting from. Coming out through the trees he was abruptly met with a clearing that was spread out before an open cave. As he observed his surrounding he saw a horse grazing in a glen not far from the camp, a fire pit was now just filled with ash and looked like it had been in use for many years.

At the same time he saw the camp he was hit with another bolt of sickness through his chest, it was nothing new and so he wasn't swayed by it. He saw a figure sleeping in the cave and knowing what kind of person it was he knew that he had to dispatch its head from its body, it was the way his kind were. Before his horse could make any noise he gently turned it back and hid it among the trees. He dismounted and thumbed his sword an inch out of the scabbard, it slide out smoothly and he silently drew it as he crept forward. He made each step carefully and quietly as he went along, making sure not to wake his newly acquired target.

It was a lowly and cheap ambush but by the looks it this new rival was small and young, an open fight just didn't seem fair.

"Better to put the poor boy out of his misery before any of the others get to him first," He thought to himself.

It always pained him to see young ones pulled into the Game, they never stood a chance against the more blood thirsty of the players. He had come across a couple of them here and there and it was always the same; he'd either teach them, put them out of their misery or watch them fall at some other heartless player's sword. More often than naught he'd train them and then let them go, hearing about how they were viciously attacked and beheaded by someone less compassionate soon afterwards. And the way they were murdered was never pleasant. Some Immortals got pleasure out of seeing the helpless players suffer.

Sometimes they begged for death after learning what they were their young hope of life dashed when they realized they could never have a normal life. Living became a bleak existence to them.

The force emanating from this new player was especially weak, more emotion that power or force. It was obvious he would never stand a chance and so to spare him from the abuse of others, the Man in Red decided that beheading the poor soul in his sleep was the better way to end it. Another quickening, and another child spared from the brutality of the Game. A mercy killing.

He stood over the dark haired figure and raised his sword ready to deliver his merciful blow. He looked down sadly at the unknown Immortal and had to forcefully tell himself that this was for the best. Just as he swung his sword down, the blade cutting silently through the air, the figure turned over onto its back and revealed its self to be a young woman.

The blade stopped half a foot from the female's delicate skin. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped in surprise.

What was this feeling he had so suddenly been struck with?

It wasn't the woman's Quickening force. No, this was a feeling he hadn't felt in many hundreds of years and one he never wanted to feel again. . .

He stayed his blade and stared at her. She reminded him of a wife he had had early in his long life and after looking down at her innocent face, framed by her long ebony hair, he couldn't bring himself to behead her.

Was this the young woman he had heard of? The one who's entire family, and their small army, had died to protect in France? Only to have them all fail and herself disappear into a monster's lair in Croatia. . .

Her story was a famous mystery among the world of Immortals. As the story goes she was a very rare female Immortal to have entered the game but had vanished after her supposed first death at that monster's hands.

That sad tale had spread far and wide over the past thirty years since it had happened. By all accounts, the Man in Red knew it had to be her. No other young woman could be so beautiful, not be a noble, and be all by herself, unprotected, in the mountains of Suisse. Besides that, the last known sighting of Nadia Belmont had been on the borders of Croatia heading north. If she had stayed on a somewhat solid course her journey would have taken her near this area.

The Man in Red had to gulp down a glob of saliva to quench his suddenly dry throat. For a couple years after her disappearance, she had been among the top most sought after Immortals on the face of the Earth, and he had found her by accident. Also, if they stories were right, she had the saddest story among them all. Her whole family had been murdered because of what she was and none of them ever realized her true purpose. None other but the most brutal of them all had found her first, and what he had done to her was unspeakable. It made the Man in Red sick just thinking about the rumors that had come out from that castle.

He silently backed away and sheathed his sword. He would stay his death blow and wait to explain to her what she was. No doubt the poor girl had always asked unanswered questions of why. He didn't believe that man had the decency to tell her what she was, it would add to her torment and horror.

Why had this happened to her? Why did her family have to die in vain? Why hadn't she aged in thirty years? Why her?

With pity overwhelming his senses, senses that told him to put her out of her misery, he decided to let her live. At least long enough for her to have the questions she undoubtedly harbored answered. He normally wouldn't do so, but she deserved to have an explanation for the horror she had gone through. Answers to the seemingly meaningless evil that had been brought down on her at such a young time in her life. He went back to his horse and led it a little farther away to wait in secrecy for her to awaken.

Answers. . .

Side note:

I see some of you have been concerned. I am very sorry my updates are more spaced. For a while there it was a new chapter up every day, but the ways things are going it looks like it'll be three to four days between them. (Workin on Together in Death) Half the reason is simple; I fell ill with a condition known as writer's block O_O but only slightly...That has passed! (I hope) The other half...well...it involves me being human (even though I'm not actually completely human) and meeting another human. Due to this new development I have been inspired. Huzza! ALSO, the way I write is weird, as in I write in chunks. I have most parts written before hand and go through them to add or correct, sadly I reached an unfortunant end point to my prewritten stuff. BUT FEAR NOT! I am working on all new material and now that I've finished the fillers, I'm gettin to the juicy meat and the writing should be more fluid...Hang in there my friends! While I may be slow I will not fail to dissapoint. Thank you for sticking with me! I write for you. . .