5. Situations

Books: 1-12

Author's note: This is a bit more freeform that usual, but enjoy it if you can. 3

All the numbers are unrelated. Allow me to warn you; there might be a couple subtle hints at certain, unspecified pairings in here, but it's all in the eye of the beholder. :o

EDIT: A few were added, and many rewritten to improve their clarity.

1. Fraction

Kurda had bullied, dragged, blackmailed, and threatened to get most of the vampires present into the dark little cavern they were sitting in. Beside him – his ego thoroughly inflated – Darren was grinning like an idiot. A few yards off, Harkat was scratching his head in puzzlement at the algebraic equation Kurda had scratched onto the smoothest wall of the cave. The young man regarded the chaotic scene dryly, and wondered why nobody seemed even vaguely upset that they were being left in the intellectual dust by a boy no older than fourteen.

2. Muck

As Gavner and Larten carefully crossed an immense, bleak grey swamp, Gavner couldn't help but give into temptation – and so, he gave the red haired man the smallest of pushes. He already knew very well that the deed would return to bite him in the ass, but he was more than sure that it had been worth it when Larten resurfaced covered in muck, gasping furiously and growling like an irate dog.

3. Company

Only on the way to vampire mountain – when the valleys lay spread beneath them like hills of butter beneath the magnificent quarter moon, and their breathes rose is little puffed clouds of vapor in the frigid air while they huddled together for warmth – did Darren truly forgive Mr. Crepsley for snatching him. It took a great leap of thought, but, he concluded, the man wasn't quite as terrible as he had made him out to be.

4. Directness

In public – before all the others, where Steve played the master and Gannen played his obedient, if reluctant, mentor – the two vampaneze were formal, icy, and emotionless with one another, playing the roles that had been bestowed on them when Steve managed to exit the coffin of fire unscathed. It was only in private, when the older vampaneze sat beside his student and wrapped one strong arm around his shoulder in a comforting gesture, did Steve admit that he was afraid, and that every day he felt a little bit more of that part of him he was afraid of rose to the surface, like a bloated, sunken body rising to the surface.

5. Mild

He knew that his death – a grain of sand in an endless desert – would count for little in the long run. He also knew that dying now would be so much easier than living on as all the others would, when the clan faced destruction at the hands of the vampaneze lord. The thought brought a mixture of unwelcome feelings; fear, disgust, pity, and a sick, backward, vengeful delight that he did his very best to ignore all together. A kind of panic rose in his throat as the huge doors to the hall of death opened, and he took a deep breath, fighting for calm in the storm of sensations and feelings. The boos and shouts of the vampires melted into a slurred roar, and he knew all he could do now was hope that the next person to be executed would not be the lithe, brown haired boy that he had shared so many good times. He sighed and his composure – his failsafe and his trademark – prevailed and he walked toward the pit without regret, strong and gallant to the very end.

6. Laceration

It wasn't so much the fact that Kurda had slapped a industrial-sized bandage on the nasty, infected cut he hadn't been able close with his spit. No, it was more the fact that the bandage was a brilliant shade of lavender that had caused Gavner to break into a frenzied fit of laughter.

7. Crowd

The idiom that 'three's a crowd' seemed to ring the truest on the days that Larten and Arra were completely unable to shake the young apprentice off their tail. Some days Harkat took pity on them, and went so far as to drag the boy away from them for a couple of hours each day.

8. Engine

When Darren – who, like many boys his age, had never quite gotten over the 'car' phase - heard two of the older vampires discussing horsepower he became very excited, only to move closer and discover they were discussing actual horses.

9. Concern

The nawing sensation that was almost omnipresent in his gut now that he had accepted the task of keeping Darren safe (spare a dog from a tiger and its life is yours to defend for the rest of your own) had slowly become familiar enough that Harkat learned how to ignore it all together.

10. Mentality

Strangely enough, a few years after the death of Vancha March it became a standard practice in the mountain to teach his fatalistic fighting mentality to all the new general recruits – something that might have pleased him if he'd been anywhere below paradise.

11. Rushing

Seba had always chided his assistant for his impatience, but rushing into a decision and blooding a child managed to change the course of history and prevent, if only for a while, the destruction of the world as vampire-kind knew it. As far as Seba was concerned, that mistake really took the cake.

12. Protective

"Ahhhh…" the red haired teen yawned, leaning back onto his arms beside his female counterpart. He raised his hand to his mouth again, another little yawn gracing his lips – and out stretched the hand, just aching to secure itself around around the limber form beside him. Closer, closer, closer – THWACK!

"AH!" Larten yelped, recoiling from the blow. A wooden broom handle now separated the pair of young lovers, held tightly in the arms of a middle aged woman. Her dark eyes were narrowed and her lips pressed together tightly.

"None of that, Master Crepsey!" the woman snarled, tapping the wooden handle on the ground with a sadistic grin. Beside him, Arra simply rolled her eyes at her mentor, although she could feel a smile edging its way onto her lips.

13. Successor

As Paris slipped out of the tunnel and into the night for the final time he couldn't help but wonder who would take up the gauntlet and fill the soon to be vacant position. There were so many options, each one distinctly promising – a new generation would put a prince on a throne, much as they had done with young

Darren. He only hoped that whoever it turned out to be would have the skill needed to end the war with the vampaneze and help the clan come out on the better side of it.

14. Tonight

"What're we going to do tonight?" Gavner asked, glancing at Kurda out of the corner of his eye. The hungry glint in his eyes was not particularly comforting, but it sent a powerful shiver down the blonde's spine, just the way he liked it.

15. Structure

When Darren showed up at Gavner's door one night (or, rather, day) complaining that he was bored and couldn't sleep and no one else was in their rooms, Gavner decided the boy could do with more structure (after all, that's what all the child psychologists said). Still, he couldn't help but marvel at how cute he looked when he fell asleep in Gavner's coffin, even when he woke up in the morning with a stiff back from sleeping on the floor.

16. Revenge

It proved to be a less than wise idea to try to pull a prank on Arra Sails, as Gavner and Larten discovered the morning after they had trapped her in a coffin overnight at one of the waysides just west of the mountain. The next evening they woke up itching and burning, covered in the waxy leaves of a poison oak.

17. Resignation

There was a certain amount of resignation in his voice when Darren agreed that taking a sack of hard candy to the mountain on foot would have been a somewhat impractical endeavor.

18. Shaping

Sitting by the restless, heavily burned boy who had just come through his third trial he realized just how intimately these examinations were shaping his assistant. The paternal, sensitive side told him that he should be more protective and defend what is comparable to his adopted son; the other growled and spat at the idea, arguing that the survival fittest. After all, if he was unable to complete the trials on his own, what would he do with the child when he reached physical adulthood and had to learn how to live unattended? He never reached an official position on the matter.

19. Assertion

Arra Sails had easily disproved the assertion that female vampires were useless slabs of meat, but she certainly hadn't changed the men's opinion about woman during that terrible time of the month that everyone within her striking range learned to fear.

20. Agreement

When he and Steve had been friends as children some people were under the impression that Darren's continual agreement with his friend had been because he had been somewhat intimidated by him. They were very much mistaken. Looking back, it was only another piece of the puzzle when they were informed of their blood connection; two sides of a coin, night and day, the sons of fate in all it's fury.

21. Life

When Mr. Crepsley finally worked up the gut to explain the birds and the bees to his now psychologically scarred apprentice he had been forced to enlist the help of both Kurda Smalht and Arra Sails. Kurda was given the duty of holding Darren still and keeping him from covering his ears, while Arra had the pleasure of filling him in on the more feminine side of things. Darren was released at dawn, and walked away wide-eyed and knowing more than he had ever wanted to.