Chapter 7: In the Gist of it Allpart 1
"Lina, you know better than to start a fight like that," Lilith scolded the younger vampire.
Lilith, Robert and the two other older vampires were back at the main chamber room. Lina stood in front of the four elder vampires, arms crossed across her chest. Mel and Cathy stood behind her, somewhat wanting to hide themselves as much as possible behind Lina's back.
"I'm not on the wrong, Lilith!" Lina said defensively, waving her arms around. "SHE is the one who started it!"
Lilith crossed her arms and bore her red eyes onto Lina. "You should know better than to be provoked so easily, Lina." She gave a sighing gesture and turned away. "You need to learn patience, especially with the Others. There will be many that you will encounter in the future that will be like Camille. You can't go through beating them all up."
Lina crossed her arms again and tried not to pout. "Says who? I beat her down pretty good."
Snickers were heard from Mel and Cathy as they recalled how Camille had sizzled as a result of Lina's flame arrows. Turns out she wasn't as powerful as everybody had thought. By now the whole ordeal was probably all over Turquoise. Lina felt a little satisfied by the thought, now she hoped theOthers will think twice to mess with Lina Inverse!
"In any case," Lilith continued, ignoring Lina's comments and smugged look. "Because of that performance you gave, I think it's best that you stay here to learn your manners before proceeding to MidNighte." She turned back to look at Lina, her brows knitted as one. Maybe she was just talking out of anger and frustration but the younger vampire needed to learn how to restrain herself. Now that her newborn had caused a commotion throughout Turquoise, another's territory, there was nothing she could say to save her from letting Brandus do as he pleased.
Lina gaped. "B-but-but! Lilith! That's not fair!"
Staying there one more night would make her go crazy! She could take waking up as an Undead, but waking up in a place where they fostered humans to be food was something beyond her limits.Staying there for more than another night just speed lighted its way pass her humanitary limitations.
Lilith hmph'ed. "No buts!"
Lina flinched as Lilith's voice raised so suddenly it seemed to pierced through her undead eardrums. She never saw her this angry before. It was a new thing to see since Lilith has always shown calm and patience to everybody.
"You will stay here while Robert and I take care of some business outside of Turquoise," she said. "You must learn how to abide by the rules, Lina, or I will leave you here forever. I mean it." Her expression softened a bit. "I understand everything is new to you, Lina, but you have to learn how to adapt to it. If you cannot,all ofthis willdrive you insane."
Lina lowered her eyes, feeling somewhat ashamed to have disappointed Lilith.
She saw Lilith let out a breath or something like it, and turned slightly to address Brandus, who sat lazily on his velvet chair, "As you wished it, Brandus, you and Cecil can borrow her for the time being. Robert and I shall return in a short while."
"Where are you guys going?" Lina asked curiously.
Lilith looked up in thought, as if contemplating whether or not to tell what was really behind the ever so entertained city of vampire sins.
"It is...an important matter," she only said, looking towards Lina again. "You needn't know about it right away." She then glanced at the two humans, who caught her eyes and immediate looked down from the red eyes. "Shouldn't you two be off to tend to your masters?"
Cathy took a couple of steps back from Lina, still looking down, and fidgetted with her dress. "I um...I'm not sure where to find my Master...uh...I..."
Cecil blinked. "I believe I saw Joseph near the Fountains."
"Oh! Th-thank you!" Cathy gave a quick bow and backed away. "I-I'll be leaving!" With a young human's quickness, she went through the wooden door, her footsteps echoing through the majestic corriders.
"And you?" Lilith tilted her head towards Mel.
Mel peered from behind Lina's back, intimidated by the elder vampires. Although she had a soft voice and asked with such a voice, he also heard sternness within it. He dared not go against such vampires.
"W-well, I-I'm Mistress Lina's human, s-so..." he stammered under the vampire's red-eyes.
Lilith grunted and directed her face towards Brandus. "You gave him to Lina? Again, WHEN was this approved by us? WE are her guardians! How can you possibly think you have the authority to do that!"
Brandus rubbed his ears as Lilith's high pitched voice pierced through his head. He rolled his eyes at her and asked, "Shouldn't you and your protector there be off by now? I need not remind you that it is important to save time."
Lilith clenched her fists and glared at Brandus, eye brows twitching. How could he always brush the subject aside like that! Annoying bastard!
Lilith turned swiftly around, hersnow whiterobe swishing voilently. "Alright! This will be dealt with when we get back!" She walked towards the door, Robert in tow. He opened the door and held itfor her to go first. She took a step forward and turned around. "Be careful." Her eyes flickered towards Lina briefly. With that they exited the main chamber room, with a slight click from the door.
Lina raised one of her eyebrows. Be careful of what? And who was she talking to?
Lina heard a clearing throat from behind her and turned back around to face her supposed captors. Now she had to deal with THIS!
Brandus leaned back into his velvety seat. Smirking, he asked, "So. Now that the protective guardians are gone! How are you liking Turquoise?"
"I could be in a better place," Lina said in a dry tone.
Hearing Lina say that, Mel clung onto her shirt more tighter. Lina glanced at him, wondering what was wrong and found him looking sadly at the floor, or their feet, or something.
Brandus chuckled. "I thought you liked this place. Afterall, you have made a friend."
Lina snorted and crossed her arms. "If you're refering to that old hag I charbroiled not so long ago, a friend like that I can do without."
"Hmm, I was quite impressed you had been able to do that to Camille," Brandus said truthfully. "She has about fifty years over you, y'know."
Lina put a hand on her hip, "Hohoho! That'll teach her to pick on me!"
"Your magical powers are quite something, Lina," Cecil said from behind Brandus.
Lina blinked his way. "Is it that rare to see a vampire using magic?"
"Hmm...not rare," Cecil said. "More like uncommon." He smiled, seeing Lina's curious look. "Well, most who are Turned end up forgetting their human abilities and fully adapting to the vampirical ways. Perhaps it has something to do with time." He looked up as if in thought.
"Orrrr...they had no abilities as a human to begin with," Brandus said. "I, for one, was endowed with no such powers."
"...I see," Lina said, rubbing her chin. It was an interesting fact to know. There were so much she needed to learn about her new nature. It was indeed overwhelming but it is still inevitable to find out what the Creatures of the Night were all about. What other place to learn this than vampire's central city, Turquoise.
Brandus gave Lina a bright smile and said, "Well! We are done for the evening, I believe! We must be off to attend OUR business." He stood up and together with his companion, made their way around Lina towards the exit.
"Wuh? Done? Wait a minute!" Lina protested as the two elder vampires proceeded towards the door.
"Hmm?" they echoed, turning slightly around to look at the younger vampire.
"Aren't you guys gonna explain to me WHY I'm here? And what was Lilith talking about letting you two BORROW me! Or, once again, why I'm here! And where the hell did those two go! Leaving me here!"
Mel gaped at Lina's actions towards the two elder vampires. None whatsoever, that goes for both vampires and double for humans, would ever even dare the thought of raising their voices to these two. And here she was, shouting, yelling, pointing, everything possibly offensive. She was the darest newborn or vampire for that matter that he's ever met.
But Brandus chuckled at her reactions. "My, aren't you a curious one!"
"This isn't funny!" Lina shrieked, getting pissed by the second. "You two BEAT me down, sucked me dried, and took me to this place! Where, by the way, I woke up with a HUMAN beside me andaaghh!" Lina was cut off as Brandus' fangs was upon her throat. She once again felt her blood coarsing through her body into his mouth.
Just as she thought she was going to black out again, he let go and laughed. Dizzy, and not to mention queasy, she fell to her knees and clutched her punctured throat. Mel yelped in surprised and tried to support her from falling face down onto the marble floor.
"Yum! Young blood!" Brandus said, laughing. "Don't worry, little one, all will be explained in due time! But at the moment, please, enjoy your stay at our humble home!"
"Oh and for your information," Cecil said all of a sudden, holding the door open for Brandus. "HE is the only one who beat you down, sucked you dry, and suggested to keep you in this place." He gave her a wide smile, "Have a good evening!" and winked as the door slid closed.
With that, the door closed with the same click it did when Lilith and Robert exited.
"Ugh, I think I'm going to throw up," Lina said holding her mouth. Only problem was there was nothing in her stomach to throw up, so she just laid down on her stomach on the cold marble tiles, not that her dead skin actually felt it.
"M'lady! M'lady, please hang on!" Mel frantically tried to roll her over to her back. Her being a vampire also meant her body was already dead and that meant it doubled its weight. Mel struggled, being a small boy still, with no help from Lina at all, he managed to roll her slowly onto her back.
Her eyes closed, a cold hand on her forehead, she groaned. Mel noticed the dark circles under her eyes, it meant that her body was reacting to the second closest to being paler. Being a vampire, her body was already drained of blood, the only thing to show that she needed any bodily fluid were the dark circles forming under her eyes. This Mel knew well, growing up in Turquoise, he was to learn vampire's bodies and anatomy, their reactions to certain situations, to certain liquids.
Being a vampire did not mean that they all had to stick to a blood diet. They can drink any liquids, that includes inedible water or any liquid poison, although why they'd do that is beyond Mel's comprehension, but they would still live off of it but it would not satisfy their thirst. Even "dead" blood was not enough sometimes to satisfy the thirst. The only thing that would is of course, the human "living" blood. Something in human blood makes it the ultimate food for these nightly creatures.
Mel took a small pocket knife from his pockets and knick his arms enough so that blood can flow through his slitted smooth skin.
Lina was mumbling to herself, her eyes still closed. She did not see or noticed in the slightest that Mel moved his blooding arms over her face so that the blood can drop into her moving mouth.
As a drop of blood drip into her mouth, her red eyes instantly popped open, solid and eerily slitted, just like any other vampires. Her fangs protruded through her upper lip as her elongated tongue reached for the source of the flowing blood.
Mel winced at the pain on his wrist. It hurted more to give blood through the wrist vein rather than the neck, at least for him, it was. The veins on his arms popped up more than it did on his neck so when blood is roughly sucked out of his veins, it always felt like it would pop up from under his skin. He heard a gasp coming from Lina and his arm suddenly dropped.
Lina was back to normal, like magic, the dark circles were gone, she looked healthier than not a few seconds ago. Her solid red eyes were glossy ruby red again, her fangs disappeared, her human tongue licked off a drop of blood from the side of her mouth.
"Mel..." She whispered, maybe more to herself than to the boy, and hung her head. "Why did you do that?"
Tying his wound with a piece of white cloth, he looked at Lina with a quizzical expression. "What do you mean? You needed it so I gave it to you."
Lina sweatdropped and once again fell onto her stomach. "I give up..." She will never understand this stupid city of sin! L-sama knows what ELSE goes on around this place!
She can bitch and complain about it all she wanted but truth be told, she felt much better.
Mel helped her up, even though he knew she did not needed it, and walked over the door to open it for her.
As she walked passed him, he heard her say, "I guess I really need to learn about the things around here, huh?"
She stepped outside into the somewhat crowded hallway. It was weird to her because in the chamber room, it was dead quiet, as though the people in the hallway winked awake, just a few seconds ago, again.
"Oh, it's not too complicated around here, m'lady," Mel said and walked beside Lina. "Just an ordinary home for all of us vampires and humans."
Lina grunted. "Easy for you to say, you were raised here! That's the biggestproblemI find hard to adapt to."
Mel smiled an innocent smile.
Lina looked around the crowd, a mixture of both vampires and humans hanging around casually in the mansion. "Are we allowed outside? Why are they all hanging around inside for?"
Mel looked up in thought. "Well...the vampires can but...it's very unsafe, especially for the newborns. We humans are really not allowed outside unless Master Brandus and Master Cecil is okay with it." He stopped to side step a bigger human rushing the opposite way. He stuck his little self closer to Lina.
Seeing Lina's curious look, he continued, "You must understand, m'lady, that the Night belongs to every Creature and to no Creature at all. It is like a No-Creature's land."
Lina raised an eyebrow, "Meaning?" It was really amazing to not understand the words coming from a nine year old's mouth. He may be young but he knew his stuff here.
"Hmm...meaning, if a newborn vampire is to step outside of Turquoise, a vampire territory, into the Night where there are no protection, any Creature is allowed to hunt them, kill them," Mel said. "It's like a lion cub being released into the wilderness, leaving its territory, it is in danger of other predators hunting it. A free-for-all, you can say."
Lina hmm'ed in thought. Interesting...
"Only those with much confidence their abilities would dare to go outside," Mel said. "Which reminds me, m'lady, Master Brandus brought you from the outside, didn't he? Were you outside by yourself all this time?"
Lina sweatdropped as Mel's blue eyes sparkled of stars of admiration.
"Well...not alone really," she said modestly. "I had a few...comrades with me at the time." Who ditched me once they knew I wasn't any use any more!
"So Mistress Lilith and Master Robert were with you all that time? No, that couldn't be, or else Master Brandus wouldn't have been able to touch you," Mel said.
Lina blinked. "What?"
Mel looked at Lina and blinked too. "What, what, m'lady?"
"What do you mean Brandus wouldn't have been able to touch me?" Lina asked.
"Well, according to MidNighte's rules, a vampire cannot touch another's newborn," Mel explained. "Unless you are released from Mistress Lilith's hold, he cannot get away with it."
"But he did! Lilith didn't even say anything to him! What's with that!" Lina exclaimed and put her hands on her hips.
"Er..."
"If that's the rules then why didn't he get in trouble with Lilith? Instead I have to be here for PUNISHMENT!" she continued to shout to no one in particular.
Mel looked around, embarassed of her getting weird looks from passerby.
"M'lady," he whispered to Lina, trying to bring her down from the window sill she jumped up on all of a sudden. She was shouting out of the window and into the Night. "M'lady, please calm down, you are drawing attention..." He pulled on the edge of her shirt.
"I don't care! I don't care!" she threw a tantrum like a little girl.
They wrestled with one another, the boy trying to pull down the vampire down from the window when both of heard a chuckle not far away. They stopped instantly and looked where the laughter came from.
It belonged to a red-eyed vampire with rugged black hair, tied behind his back.
"Mistress Lina!" Cathy appeared from behind him, a punctured wound on her neck. Her face lit up when she saw Lina. The vampire in front of her noticed and hmph'ed.
"So you are the newborn that everyone is talking about?" a deep voice came out from the vampire.
Lina let go of Mel, as did he let go of her. They straightened themselves, Mel stood behind Lina.
"Yeah, so?" Lina said. She hoped he wasn't going to pick a fight with her too.
He looked her up and down, to the point of rudeness in Lina's opinion, thenshrugged. "I don't see what's the fuss about. Just because you beat Camille."
Lina narrowed her eyes. L-sama! Were all vampires this conceited? She crossed her arms across her chest. "If you don't see what the fuss if about, then beat it, buddy! I'm not in the mood to beat down another vampire!"
Mel tugged on Lina's shirt. "M-m'lady, please contain yourself, don't you remember what Mistress Lilith told you?"
Lina's eyes twitched. That's right! If this happened again, she'll leave me here forever!
The vampire smirked. "Able to use only force and violence, it shows what a commoner you were before you were Turned."
A big vein popped on Lina's forehead. "Grr! Why you!"
The vampire felt a tug on his black over coat and looked at Cathy. "What?"
"Please Master Joseph," she said softly, her brown eyes unable to meet his red ones. "I beg you, please leave her be...she-she isn't like the Others. She was very nice to me." She cluthed his coat tighter.
He grunted. "You don't need to protect her so much, Cathy. I wasn't going to do anything to her. Now let me go, I have something more important to attend to!" He yanked his coat out of her hands and turned away with an annoyed look on his face.
"M-master Joseph," she said lightly, looking at his retreating back in the crowd.
"Er...sorry, did we get you trouble?" Lina asked, somewhat guilty to put the girl through that...whatever THAT was.
Cathy turned herself towards Lina and shook her head with a small smile. "He is always like that. Don't worry, Mistress Lina, he's not like Mistress Camille. That's just his way to speak with the new ones."
Lina sweatdropped upon hearing that. "Gee...that's a great way to make new friends, huh?"
Cathy blinked. "It is? I don't think so because he really doesn't have many friends...I'm usually the only one around him all th time."
Lina sighed, or gave the gesture, and pushed her red hair back from her face. "It was sarcasm, Cathy!"
"Oh! Haha, I had not caught on," she said and giggled. "It's just every vampire in Turqouise are serious, Mistress Lina, it is very confusing if you are joking or not."
Lina rolled her eyes. "This Mistress and m'lady thing HAS to go! It's really annoying me!"
"B-but we have to address you that way, m'lady," Mel said.
Cathy shook her head in agreement. "It's to show respect."
Mel nodded. "Or else we will be punished for not doing so!"
Lina grunted. "Then just Miss is far more than enough! And if anybody wants to pick on you two for THAT, then tell them to come to ME!"
Cathy and Mel looked at one another and shrugged. They turned simultaneously toward Lina and smiled, nodding in agreement. "Then we will call you Miss Lina!" They giggled as if it were a joke.
"You guys..." Lina rubbed her temples. Yes, a very long night, indeed.
Author's notes: OMG! is it late again! AND short (two parts AGAIN!)! geez! I'm slackin'! But-but! skool's givin' me a hard time! PLUS work! dear readers, please forgive me! I swear next chapter wont take long! AND it'll contain more story developement (yknow, continuing with the D thing)! oooh and i'll put in some character developments too! tee hee! which one would youreaders like me todevelopemore first!as always THANKS TO ALL THE GREAT REVIEWS AND COMMENTS! IT KEEPS ME GOING!
Proles Draco: I love to satisfy my readers in any way with the story line, however, because of this particular storyline, I can't have Lina meet up with the others(Gourry, Amelia, Zel, etc.)YET! SORRY! but but but! i swear at the end of this story i'll throw in something between Lina and Gourry! Just for you! PLEASE COME BACK! don't get me wrong i'm a BIG fan of L/G coupling!