Wow, look what's updated! It took me forever just to START this, I knew how I wanted it to begin, but I couldnt get it right for MONTHS. The beginning is still not to my satisfaction, but I just wanna keep this story moving.
Anyway, nothing else to report. I save the self-advertisements for the end note, SO read on :)
It never took Vanez more than a week to fully analyze a student. To observe how they behaved in a fight, whether they predominatly attacked versus defended, or vice versa, or if they balanced both. Whether they fought to kill, to injure, to humiliate, to dominate, to prove something, or to satisfy a personal need for justice, vengeance, honour, heroism, the list of Vampiric traits went on. Vanez also took into account how they communicated, how they behaved in a group. How much they contributed, how much they took, whether they spoke impulsively or carefully guarded their tongue. Did they hide their true feelings beneath a mask of false emotion? If so, what kind? And there were those that left nothing up to the imagination, and bared everything for all to see.
Vanez knew the two extremes, and he also knew the thousands of intricute combinations that could occur between these extremes. Solid black or white was rare, but it happened. Vanez had been doing this for more years than he cared to remember, he could figure out what shade of gray you were with just a few quick glances into your life.
DAY 3
"Well, for starters, he's tough as nails, and completely fearless. Anyone could tell you that. He fights roughly and without regard for his own safety, he over-attacks to the point where he lets his guard down. His basic training is solid, but he needs some fine-tuning. Someday he'll be able to mow straight through a line of the fiercest Vampaneze and emerge without a scratch, I have no doubt."
"Good, good." Paris muttered, deep in thought as he sipped a mug of warm blood. "And how is he faring on the inside?"
"That's what I'm still trying to figure out.' Vanez admitted. "Not even 3 days here, and it's as if he suddenly forgot to grieve-"
"I highly doubt he's forgotten." Paris interjected.
"Well then he's pushed everything into the back of his mind, which is not a good place for it. It's deadly to bottle up something like that."
"Indeed." said Paris distractedly, re-filling his mug.
"But he's an excellent Vampire, Faren made sure of that." Vanez added with a smile. "He's polite-mostly. He doesn't talk unless he has something to say. He's smart and willing to learn. He follows the rules-usually. And he's honest to the point of being painfully blunt."
Paris indulged himself in a chuckle at that.
"He and Mika have bonded already, it's quite incredible. They must have spent at least 24 hours in the Hall of Games so far, I'm suprise they haven't speared each other yet." Vanez continued.
"Mika has wanted a brother for as long as I've known him." Paris noted. Vanez nodded in agreement and filled a mug for himself.
"Thank you, Vanez." Paris added with an air of conclusion. "Excellent early assessment."
"Merely doing my job, Sire. I will keep you posted if anything changes." the Games Master said politely, bowing slightly as he exited the chamber.
###
"What do you think it is?"
"I've never seen one before in my life."
"It looks like fun." Arrow decided, picking up the strange object. It was a thick, sturdy, slightly gnarled, curved plank of wood with a design painted on it in dark red. But that wasn't the interesting part - what intrigued him was the fact that there was a strong silver blade embedded into each end so they stuck out like wide and deadly knives.
It had been Mika's idea to pry open the ancient and smelly crate they'd discovered in the back corner of the weaponry. Inside was a manner of strange and lethal assault weapons that looked like they hadn't been used in centuries.
"I like this one." Mika snickered, pulling out a mace and swinging it playfully, narrowly missing his own head.
"What do you do with it?" Arrow pondered about the object in his hands. "Do you just kinda-" he swung it outwards experimentally. It felt heavy and awkward, "-hit people with it?"
"Oooh, I think I remember Seba and Vanez talking about those." Mika gasped. "They used to be really popular in some other country...you throw them, I think."
Arrow shrugged, and tossed it casually with his right hand. As it spun through the air, thing made a steely swooshing noise that gave him goosebumps. He watched it appreciatevely for a moment, then recieved the shock of his life as the thing made turned in the air, seemingly of its own accord, and made a beeline right back at him. Arrow lunged for Mika, shoved him to the floor, then dropped beside him and got as flat as possible. The thing whirred less that a foot above their backs, then slammed into the wall and fell with a terrifying metallic clatter.
The boys got to their feet simultaneously and cautiously approached the thing.
"Don't ever touch it again." Mika hissed.
Arrow, however, was enthralled. It must be posessed by some freaky old magic or something.
"What country did you say these things came from?"
DAY 4
It was called a boomerang, Vanez informed Arrow over breakfast the next day. It returned to the thrower because of contours, flexibity, design, and a few other things that Arrow didn't understand. It was from Australia, an ancient clan of indigenous Vampires had taken the idea from watching humans fling them around, and developed them as weapons by adding lethal blades to their versions.
Vanez also said (sounding like an older Mika), "Do not throw it again under any circumstances. Those things have decapitated wiser Vampires than yourself."
Naturally, Arrow envisioned himself in a hundred years, scarred and battle-hardened, crashing into the middle of a fight, whipping his boomerang and watching the Vampaneze scatter in terror, screaming for their mothers.
"Well, can you show me how to use it?"
Vanez chuckled. "I have no idea how to use the damnable things. I'd probably lose an arm or two."
"Nothing risked, nothing gained." said Mika wisely.
Vanez rolled his eyes at the young Vampire. "You listen to me way too much. And I thought you were on my side, eh? Do you want to get chopped in half?"
Mika arched a dark eyebrow and said,
"Arrow, hurry up. I wanna go on the bars today, but I can't get up there by myself."
"I've been meaning to try those!" the elder agreed keenly.
"Not today, boys." Vanez interrupted. "I'm going to be training Yebba in there all day, he's got his Trials coming up and the idiot hasn't a clue what he's getting into. Seba has some tasks for you in the storage cavern."
"Charna's butt!" Mika moaned, slamming his forhead onto the table in a mock display of suffering.
"That's guts, Mika." Vanez snapped back, pulling his young friend's head up off the table. "If you're going to curse, do it properly."
Arrow suddenly found himseld laughing, truly laughing, for the first time in days. It felt weird...but good.
He hoped it would happen again.
###
Arrow sneezed mightily, the force of it sending up a cloud of dust from the gigantic bag of flour he was toting.
"Mika, you missed a spot." he huffed.
"Because you took it from the pile I haven't cleaned yet, imbecile!" Mika groaned.
"There's just one pile."
"No! There's two! See look- wait a minute, there used to be two piles. What did you do?"
3 and a half hours of this. Seba had ordered this particular storage cavern -a medium-sized room on the lower west side of the Mountain- to be fully cleared of all items. One wall was lined by stacks of bags, some holding flour, others holding salt, or ground-up corn, each labelled accordingly. Mika's task was to wipe years worth of dust off the bags so the labels were visible, then Arrow pulled the bags over to the doorway where he sorted them into piles. Once piled, more of Seba's assistants took the bags to other rooms.
Arrow's task was strenuous, demanding, and exhausting. He loved it.
Not the repetitive, dusty, pointless part, that could be done without. But the familliar stiff ache in his shoulders brought him back to long days in the forest with Faren, whether climbing rocks or moving logs. In fact, he felt like he was about 3 years younger, on an isolated rocky plateau with his mentor. A deadly snowstorm was oncoming, and the windchill would cause the temperature to drop beyond even Vampiric endurance. Together, they constructed a shelter out of the most heavy-duty logs they could find, to lean against a rock face. It turned out to be so comfortable that they'd spent 2 weeks in it, hunting deer exclusively.
Arrow burrowed so far into the memory that the dust before him became snowflakes, and as he reached downward he strongly anticipated the feeling of rough bark on his hands, and the scrape of wood on stone as he picked up the log- the sudden texture of a bag of flower slammed him back to reality with such force that he flinched.
Mika glanced up for a second, studied him with a curious expression, then went back to dusting and expelling dust from his nose with frequent snuffles.
Arrow felt a rush of guilt as he realized he'd barely thought of Faren in the last 4 days. Sure the attack still tortured his dreams, but this wasn't the same as thinking about Faren himself, all the years they'd spent together, all he'd learned from him, the memories, his mentor's funny grin that made him look like he had fangs...
Then he thought of the purple-skinned fiends, out there hiding who-knows-where, gloating over their believed victory.
Finally, his tired mind landed on the arsenal of weapons within this very mountain. The odd device known as the Boomerang stood out more boldly than the others in his mind's eye.
I'll get them. I swear.
He slammed the bag of cracked corn down on top of the others with so much force that Mika dropped his dust rag in alarm.
DAY 5
"This might be the dumbest thing I've ever seen anyone do. And I've seen a lot of dumb stuff." Mika announced as he combed the weaponry in search of a helmet with a face guard to match his gigantic shield.
"So why are you watching?" Arrow demanded impatiently, standing outside the weaponry, running his thumb over the blade of the boomerang- he'd just sharpened it. Vanez was busy again today, the Hall of Games was deserted, and Arrow was itching to figure out how to work the boomerang.
"Because it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen anyone do!" Mika replied eagerly, emerging wearing full body armour -about 5 times too big for his small frame, dragging a shield -taller than he was, and of course a gigantic battle helmet with a raised visor that all but restricted his vision. He looked like he was preparing for the end of the world.
"Where should I stand?" Mika inquired.
"Beside me?" Arrow suggested.
Mika yelped. "What if you miss catching it?"
"Okay then... how about over there?"
"But you don't know how to aim!"
"Um, behind me?"
"That's right by where it hit the wall last time!"
"I dunno, if you see it coming at you, just run!"
"I like that plan." Mika declared, slamming down the visor on his helmet.
Arrow took a moment to decide whether or not he should make a dash back to the weaponry and find some better armour for himself, as he was only wearing a thick leather guard around each forearm. However, his impatience got the better of him, and he simply flung the boomerang with all his might.
It went on the same angle as it had 2 days previous, but travelling at least twice the speed. Mika gasped in awe. Then the thing whipped sharply into a turn, and came sailing straight for its thrower.
Mika bolted for the door, armour clanking loud enough to wake the entire Mountain. For a moment, Arrow nearly followed him, but a sudden gut feeling transported him backwards through his life, to a moment where he wrestled his first grizzly bear. The thing was bearing down on him, teeth bared, claws ready to rip flesh from his bones. And he heard his mentor's voice in his ear, deep and slow:
"Hold your ground. Don't ever run. Fight. FIGHT!"
The boomerang whipped closer...closer...
Arrow plotted its course, considered where and when to grab it, it was 3 feet away, now 2...
He reached upwards...
And heard the leather of his arm guard ripping, or was it his flesh? There was less than a second's pause where he realised he'd missed the boomerang, then he heard it slam roughly to the floor at the exact same time his right forearm let loose a spectacular geyser of blood.
One more second, and the pain hit him. He heard Mika screaming in horror, or was it himself? He crumbled to the ground, clutching his torn arm. He couldn't tell whether he was screaming, sobbing, hyperventilating, or doing all at once. The pain, as bad as it was, wasn't nearly as overwhelming as the sight of all that blood on the floor, and on him, on the boomerang that lay 10 feet away, looking perfectly benign.
Lying on his side shaking, he heard Mika's voice hammering into his ear;
"Are you okay? OH MY GODS, YOU'RE BLEEDING! Does it hurt? Can you stand? You gotta go show Paris! You should really put a bandage on that. It looks real deep, the bone's not broken, is it? Vanez TOLD you not to mess with the boomerangs you big idiot! You gotta get up! You can walk, right?"
"Shut up! I dunno!" Arrow groaned painfully, trying and failing to sit up.
"What are you talking about? It's just your arm, of course you can walk!" Mika snapped back impatiently, latching onto his un-injured arm and pulling with all his might. As Arrow got onto his feet, he looked around blearily and shook his head slightly, trying to clear his blurring vision. This did not help in the slightest, then his eyes fell upon the rapidly spreading puddle of blood on the floor, on his feet, legs, chest, hands... how was there so much of it? How was there any still inside his body?
And he remembered nothing else after that.
Ouch.
Anyway, I'll be moving quickly with this story now that Arrow's fairly established in VM, i'm getting tired of writing them as kiddies. It was cute for a while, but this story is like 2 years old now, SO.
Usual notes:
Check out/enter me and StayBeautiful1's CHRISTMAS CONTEST.
TVF and Onyx updation in near future (actually.)
OH, and PLEASE, for the luvva God, REVIEW. I've gotten out of the habit of grovelling for reviews this year because they run so bountifully for TVF. This story may not be as good or as entertaining, but it's extremely important to me myself and I because I adore this character, so please take that into consideration and leave me a note!
For all those people that sub/favourited, thats's awesome and I appreciate it, but could you please take a few minutes and send a review along with it? That would make my day like you wouldnt believe!
xoxo
*Roxxy,