Each Chevalier had their own unique reason for ending up in their position.

Amshel had become a Chevalier simply because the scientist in him was desperate to know how his subject's blood would effect a human if ingested, so one afternoon, he simply took the initiative to find out.

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was changed a few decades later, mainly because Amshel saw that Grigori possessed the same ruthless curiosity as himself, and would make an excellent partner. Later, Grigori would be known to history as being the corrupt spiritual healer of the doomed Tsarevich, though in truth, he was secretly treating the young hemophiliac with weak compounds derived from chiropteran blood, only to eventually kill the boy himself.

Karl was made simply because Amshel wanted a completely disposable Chevalier, whom he could do with as he pleased. At the time, test subjects were only available from Asia, and Karl was chosen because, as a moderately well educated man of colonial Vietnam, he already spoke French in addition to his native language.

Martin Bormann was chosen exclusively due to his high rank and influence in the third reich. Amshel had predicted that the nazis would soon become the greatest power in the world, and thus an alliance with them would be a valuable. Bormann also provided him with access to an unlimited number of human test subjects from amongst those imprisoned in the death camps. Bormann would be known to history as the head of the nazi party and Hitler's personal secretary.

James was chosen when Amshel realized that he had made a miscalculation as to what country would become the world's next great super power. By the end of the war, it was clear that it would not be the nazis, but the Americans. So, Amshel ordered Bormann disposed of, and went looking for a suitable US officer to replace him. His search ended with a half dead, dark skinned young captain, and Amshel, knowing something of the US's history of racism, assumed that the young man must have been an exceptionally disciplined, obedient and talented officer to have risen to such a rank despite his race.

Nathan Mahler had been chosen simply because Amshel's plans eventually called for Diva to become an opera star, thus he reasoned that the flamboyant powerhouse of a producer would be a great asset. It wasn't until just before his death that Amshel even began to suspect the truth about his "youngest brother."

Riku Miyagusuku became a Chevalier for no other reason except that he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Only two Chevaliers ended up in their position for the same reason.

Haji and Solomon.

Both men became Chevaliers principally because a pair of scientists were interested in chiropteran reproduction.

In Haji's case, the experiment didn't originally call for him to receive a Queen's blood, but it eventually resulted in it, none the less.

Amshel and Joel Goldschimidt I had decided to bring in a "male partner" for their subjects, both girls were to mate with the same man, thus eliminating any unnecessary genetic variables.

Haji was chosen purely out of convenience.

Amshel had been passing through a small town when he noticed a group of impoverished traveling Romani performers, and amongst them, a boy who seemed to be about the right age to be groomed as the missing piece of their experiment.

Amshel told Haji's parents that he was looking to acquire a boy to become a manservant and chaperone for his friend's daughter. The boy's parents immediately agreed to give their son to the stranger.

This was not out of lack of love, on the contrary, only the greatest and most selfless love could have induced a parent to loose all contact with their child in order to give them a better life.

It is a common misconception about 19th century society, that servants ranked near the bottom. This is far from true, servants were considerably better off than peasant farmers and the workers toiling in the factories of the industrial revolution.

Sadly, if many people of the time had been asked who ranked near the bottom of French society, widespread discrimination would have likely caused them to reply - "Gypsies." Haji's birth family spent many of their days cold and hungry, no matter how skillfully they performed their art, but if he became a rich lady's servant, he would be well fed, dressed and housed, and would likely only be looked down upon by his mistress', instead of society as a whole.

The loaf of bread Amshel offered as payment had very little to do with their decision. The stranger could give their son a better life than they could give him themselves.

This is why they didn't look back.

The other circumstances of Haji's transformation are already commonly known.

Solomon had ended up as a Chevalier for the same reason, though his transformation had been planned ahead of time.

It had been some time since Amshel and Rasputin had become very interested in his subject's reproductive abilities, more specifically, what would happen if she mated with one of her Chevaliers. However, Diva could not be prevailed upon to have sex with either Rasputin or himself. So Amshel reasoned that perhaps a young, handsome man might finally be able to tempt Diva to mate.

He found the ideal candidate in the recently orphaned, fourteen-year-old son of his late lab assistant. The boy's mother had died some years ago, and he had been sent off to boarding school when his father remarried. When the boy's father died, all of his assets were left to his widow, who wanted nothing to do with her step son, thus leaving the boy with out a home, and no money to continue his education. Naturally, Amshel hadn't given the fate of his dead assistant's son a second thought, until he met him, the day of the funeral. The young boy had a pleasant, peaceful disposition, a graceful manner and more importantly, a very pleasing appearance that would, Amshel believed, prove irresistible to his subject. So, in order to bring young Solomon under his power, he adopted him.

Amshel never became anywhere near a father figure to him, rather he simply paid for him to continue on at school. For this reason, Solomon referred to Amshel as his "big brother."

A few years later, Solomon, like every other able bodied young man he knew, became a soldier in the great war, only to be taken away from the front lines a year later, by a cloud of moldy-hay scented phosgene gas.

For the rest of his long life, he would dislike the smell of cut grass for this reason.

The year he had spent in combat had a great effect on the young man, and his guilt prompted him to pursue a career in medicine, so that he might save lives to make up for the ones he had taken. Amshel knew all about his ward's humanistic sensibilities, as well as the fear of death that inevitably takes hold of mortals who have seen a great deal of it. He used both these things to great effect when convincing Solomon to cast off his humanity and mortality to become his brother, by blood.

Solomon excepted the offer partially due to Amshel's making it look attractive from the perspective of his principles, but also out of a feeling of obligation to the man who had adopted him, not knowing the cold and calculated nature of his "big brother's" supposed altruism.

After a few months of trying to throw the Diva and Solomon together as much as possible, Amshel's patience ran out. He virtually locked the young Chevalier in Diva's bedroom, with the specific instructions to seduce and impregnate her.

Solomon, for his part, hadn't objected as much as he probably should have, himself having the same inclinations towards beautiful women as most young men, not to mention that his new found, fundamental devotion to his Queen was easy to mistake for a much deeper feeling.

However, a mating was not to be. As fond as Diva was of her handsome new Chevalier, years of abuse and neglect had left her mentally and emotionally disturbed, and she was completely unwilling to even approach this ultimate form of physical intimacy. Instead, she asked him to lie, to tell Amshel that they had done as they were told. Disappointed though he was, Solomon was happy to oblige.

The same thing would happen with all her subsequent Chevaliers, Karl would never get over that rejection, and James lived in constant denial about it. In rare moments of introspection, Solomon would occasionally wonder if Diva's rejection had the same effect on him, but he was just better at dealing with it than his brothers.

Or perhaps it could be said that he dealt with it by falling in love with her twin sister.

The two chevaliers with a common explanation for their respective pasts, and a common hope for their respective futures, sat in the living room as they patiently but eagerly waited for their Queen to finish her dinner. They did their best to ignore each other as they kept themselves occupied, Haji looking over a new book of sheet music and Solomon checking his stocks on his palm computer.

Both stood when Saya finally entered the room, followed by the rest of the household.

Solomon approached her. "Saya, I was wondering if I might have a word with you outside."

His brief glance toward Haji clearly indicated that he wanted to speak to her alone. She caught this message, and a large part of her wanted to say 'anything you can say to me, you can say in front of everybody.'

Unfortunately, she knew he was exactly the sort of open person that might just take her up on that, and she didn't want Haji to just have to stand there while another man blatantly pitched woo at his fiancée, and she certainly didn't want everyone else to know about the agreement she had made with Solomon.

"Alright," she said, trying to sound as unenthusiastic as possible.

"Would you accompany me on a short walk, then?"

She hesitated. Too late to say no now. "Alright."

He noticed her give a brief, apologetic glance back toward Haji.

Solomon glanced back at Haji as well, who was quite clearly not happy with him. "We are only going to the canal at the end of the cul-de-sac, you can keep an eye on her from the porch if you like," Solomon offered, his polite tone masking his attempt at making Haji look like a possessive jerk.

He escorted Saya out the door.

Yuki rested her head on Freddie's shoulder as they sat on the front porch, taking a break from training. Their eyes followed Solomon and Saya as they walked past them and down the driveway.

"I'm not sure, but I think that guy Solomon has a thing for my sister," Yuki whispered to her Chevalier.

"Yeah, and whatever that thing is, he's got it bad."

Yuki watched the expression on her sister's face. "She doesn't look to happy about it."

Freddie shook his head. "She acts like she's the one in an unfortunate situation, but it's that poor underdog who'll probably get his heart broken. I fear Haji has had too much of a head start, if only Solomon had met her sooner, things might be very different."

Yuki removed her head from his shoulder and looked up at him, head tilted inquisitively. "Hmm?"

"Never mind," Freddie said sweetly as he tenderly stroked her hair.

Yuki returned her head to his shoulder.

They both approached the railing at the edge of the canal. Saya leaned over it, putting her elbow on it and resting her chin on her hand. Solomon casually leaned his back up against it and glanced back toward the house to see if Haji had called his bluff.

But the only people on the porch were Freddie and Yuki, sitting with their backs to them.

Solomon gave a polite smile as he spoke. "I wanted to apologize for my actions the other night. I didn't realize how uncomfortable I had made you until I noticed that you have been avoiding me ever since."

Solomon took notice of her engagement ring as she nervously pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face.

Hmm. Amshel often referred to Haji as "Saya's dog," how fitting of him to mark his territory.

It looks like a garnet, such a cheap stone – Saya, I wonder if it has occurred to you that I could replace it with a diamond twice it's size and it would be nothing to me. True, I was fired from my position as CEO, but they couldn't take my decades of business experience away, so I was able to recover assets through some good investments – but you aren't the kind of woman that would be swayed by that sort of thing, are you? I suppose that is one of the many reasons why I love you. Still, what could Haji give you? What sort of home could a wandering street musician provide? You deserve better than an eternity of money problems.

The moonlight glinted off it the surface of the ring's jewel, some how daring him to defy it, but he knew that he shouldn't press his luck two nights in a row.

"Saya," he continued, "I think you know me well enough to know that I am not the sort of man who hides his feelings, however, I do want to apologize to you for allowing myself to be ruled by those feelings the other night. I know that you are in a relationship with Haji, and if you are truly happy with him, then I am happy for you, but your relationship with Haji does not change the way I feel about you. Just as my life will last an eternity, so too will my love for you."

She stared at him in disbelief. She knew from the transparency of his expression that it was not just empty romantic rhetoric, which somehow made it even harder to believe.

Naturally, he noticed the look on her face. "Is that so shocking?"

"I don't understand -why do you -" she said, in a stuttering whimper. "How can you be so-," she didn't know what to say, the word she kept coming up with was "sweet," but she knew that to accuse him of sweetness aloud could easily be interpreted as flirting.

"Saya, have you forgotten what I said all those years ago? Even if I am never rewarded, I will be your Chevalier. It is of my own accord, it is beyond blood…"

She felt her knees begin to collapse beneath her as reality quickly faded away.

It happened fairly often, where visions of the past would overcome her conscious mind, and occasionally, it would cause her to faint.

A psychologist would have called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a mental illness common in people who have lived through traumatic events, such as combat veterans and rape victims.

The flashbacks would sometimes seem to come out of nowhere, but were just as often triggered by something. Generally, they were just brief images of tragic moments in her life – the mansion engulfed in flames, with Diva in the foreground, Riku's crystallized body or Haji, lifeless at the foot of a cliff. It wasn't like just recalling an image, it was like she was seeing it, like it was real.

But sometimes it was worse, it would be a longer piece of time like the slaughter in Vietnam, or the final battle with Diva. It wasn't like just remembering what happened, it was like she was living it all over again.

It was a different moment this time, one that had caused her extreme guilt and pain like the others, somehow triggered as her lovesick Chevalier repeated what she had once believed to be some of his last words to her.

It had occurred at the MET, while Saya and Haji were on their way backstage.

…

"Haji, do you think Solomon will show up to help us fight Diva?"

He lowered his eyes and said nothing.

"Haji?"

Saya had spent so much time with him, she was able to read his silences to some extent. Something about his silence now gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Haji, what is it?"

He hesitated for several seconds. "I thought you knew," he said quietly.

"Knew what?"

He hesitated again. "When he defended you against that Chevalier, I saw him get cut by your sword."

She gasped. "It had my blood on it," she murmured. "Then he must be -"

Saya couldn't bring herself to say it. She turned her back on Haji, and quietly choked back a sob.

He waited several seconds before putting his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I thought you had seen it too."

She wiped away a tear that had just begun to form and mentally repeated her mantra one last time as turned to face him and spoke in a low, wavering voice.

"It's alright." She drew in a trembling breath. "After tonight, no one will ever die because of me again." She forced a listless, lie of a smile. "It'll all be over soon. Please keep your promise."

…

Suddenly, she felt something running down her throat, warming it like liquor.

Blood.

Her eyes fluttered open as Solomon held her limp body with one hand, and poured blood from the other into her mouth.

She virtually jumped out of his arms.

He simply smiled magnanimously as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe away the drop of blood coming from the corner of her lips.

She could still taste it in her mouth.

There were elements in it that she could sense, subtle flavors that varied from person to person, tastes that didn't exist on the same plane as that of ordinary food. But Saya had been raised eating human food, so she always thought of blood in the same terms, likening it to conventional flavors.

This blood was sweet somehow, like Haji's, but still completely different. Haji's blood had a warm, spicy, ever so slightly sour aspect to it, that she had always likened to apples and cinnamon. But this was different, it had the same pleasing sweetness, but also notes of something quite bitter, something that would have been repulsive by itself, but combined with the sweetness, produced a potent combination, like that of chocolate.

"You fainted, have you been feeding properly?"

"It's not that."

He looked at his feet. "Did I really trouble you that much?" he asked, his voice heavy with genuine remorse, recalling a time in which ladies routinely fainted whenever they heard something extremely shocking or disturbing.

"It's not your fault."

"What's wrong?"

She said nothing.

He took a step toward her. "Saya, if something is troubling you, you can tell me about it – I am here for you."

She was silent for a moment before she spoke.

"You almost died because of me." She paused. "It's my fault you got hurt," she said quietly as she looked away.

She didn't know how he did it, but suddenly, he was standing even closer to her.

He put his hand on hers.

He gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist and lightly pulled her hand toward him. He tenderly pressed her palm to his scarred cheek, but high enough on his face that the tips of her fingers were immersed in the straight black hair on that side. He closed his eyes as he indulged in the warmth of her hand against his cheek.

"You know," he said with a smile, "I could have my hair dyed and styled to look like it did before, but I choose to leave it the way it is, to remind me of how far I am willing to go for you. As for the scars – I suppose they do mean I don't get leered by strangers at as much as I used to, but that is a good thing, since being stared at like that used to irritate me to no end, not to mention, there is only one woman who's gaze I care for." He opened his eyes and looked deep into hers. "Saya, you know I would do anything for you, and because of that, I wear these marks with pride."

The moment she seemed to muster up enough nerve to regain control of her hand, he turned his head slightly and placed a slow kiss on her palm before releasing her wrist.

Just as she was about to start feeling extremely uncomfortable, he turned to her and smiled.

"I suppose we should be getting back, I don't want to make Haji too angry with me," he said, once again trying to subtly call attention to Haji's jealousy, despite it's being well justified.

He extended his elbow out to her, silently asking her to walk arm and arm with him.

Refusing this friendly gesture would be rude, but she also had a feeling that it wasn't the sort of thing she should encourage, especially after the other night.

She was in a complicated position, and she was giving herself no small amount of pity because of it. To accept Solomon's affections would be a betrayal of Haji, but if she out right shot him down she knew it would break his heart and she would risk him refusing to go through with their agreement, thus dooming herself to hibernation and childlessness.

Coy acceptance was her only option. She accepted his attentions because she had no choice, or at least this is what she told herself.

On some level, even she knew that it wasn't the whole truth. At it's core, the relationship wasn't completely one sided. Anyone who had seen them waltz could tell you that much. But, if there was anything that Saya was better at than handling a sword, it was denial.

As for Solomon, her ambiguous reactions to his advances seemed to only fan the flame in his heart, creating an almost exhilarating suspense that made even the smallest bit of affection from her all the more tantalizing.

She placed her hand in the crook of his elbow, thus taking his arm without the intimacy of walking so close to him.

Hāku'i : to echo, reverberate; to flutter, palpitate (as in a heart).

I had a hard time making this chapter work, I was more than a little tempted to just throw it out and move on. I'm still not sure I succeeded with it, but I don't want to keep you all waiting too long.

The Chevalier stuff is my own personal theories.

Don't forget to review! I crave feedback and validation! (yes, I am pathetic and insecure)