A/N Sorry for not updating very often, if you really want a reason, private message me, I'll give it to you, it's sorta a long one. As for guests … uh … too bad... maybe I'll put it in reviews or something. Oh, and if you got an email saying that there were new chapter or something, sorry, but if you want an explanation, same goes for if you want an answer to the thing I said before.
Chapter Thirteen
Memories
Three days passed, and everyday, the Marauders, Parker, and my brothers came by. As promised, my brothers had brought Remus and I a huge assortment of Honeyduke's candy. But, Remus was being discharged today.
-xXx-
"I'll come back everyday, and I'll keep you up to date on all of your schoolwork." Remus said, sending me a sympathetic smile.
"Thanks, Remy." I said, giving him a small grin.
"Is there anything I can bring you?" he asked.
"Yeah, actually. Can you bring my textbooks, wand, and some notes from our classes? I asked, giving him a hopeful smile.
"No problem. I'll bring them here tomorrow, or maybe the guys, Parker, or your brothers can bring them." he said, smiling.
"Please the guys or Parker. I don't want to see any of my brothers." I said, giving him a hopeful smile. He nodded, muttered 'bye', and left. I sighed and closed my eyes, hoping for sleep. I got it, but I regretted it.
I sat on the bed in my bedroom, back in Russet Castle, and I mentally sighed. I remembered this. A person knocked on my door, and I recognized their scent as that of my mother. Queen Angelica entered, and I groaned. She wore a blood red gown, rubies and threads of gold had been woven into the silk, making it glitter. A deep v-neck showed a generous amount of cleavage. A ruby and gold circlet sat in nestled in her honey blond up-do. Her heels clicked against the stone floor.
"Asana, in three weeks, the King, Queen, and crowned Prince of the Vine Clan will be arriving here, for a peace treaty signing. You will be on your best behavior, and I will accept nothing less. Is that understood?" she asked, giving me a piercing glare from her icy blue eyes. I nodded.
"Good." she said, switching from her menacing glare to a softer, fake, expression. This was the same one that a teacher uses when they want to seem nicer, more compassionate. I hated it.
She stood, and clicked out of the room. I groaned, and flopped out on my bed.
"I hate royals," I groaned. Royals were always pompous, arrogant, ignorant, baboons. They never took my opinions into consideration, when my own parents did (although they actually don't take my opinion into consideration all that much now that I think about it). None of the other clans passed the throne down through the women, and the men never bothered to listen to my mother either. They always thought that the men were smarter, and the Russets were idiots for letting the woman take control. Pompous, arrogant, neurotic- and then my dream shifted.
It was two weeks later, and everyone was preparing for the arriving royals. Every Persian rug was being hand cleaned, every stone statue dusted, and every window washed. I had been sent to go hunting with my brothers, so we wouldn't be caught drinking animal blood, when every other vampire drank human blood. Nobody knew about us being wizards as well as vampires, and we wanted it to stay that way, it was supposed to be a secret, that made us stronger than the others.
"Asana, hurry up, we need to drink as much blood as we can." Ryan said, tugging on my arm. I groaned, and stood from my spot beneath the willow tree. He grabbed my hand, and pulled me into a run. The trees and bushes of the surrounding forest blurred as we ran faster. I heard the soft crunching of cloven hoofs on dried pine needles. My gaze sharpened as I looked into the looming shadows, quickly finding the creature's little white tail.
"White tailed deer, four o'clock, alone." I whispered, only loud enough for him to hear me. He let go of my hand, and we slowed down, creeping forward. He approached from the front, while I approached from behind. We both sprang forward at the same moment, and I grabbed it's neck. Ryan skidded to a stop, and grabbed its back legs, to keep it from running. We both lowered our mouths to the creature's jugular vein, and drank from the squirming creature. After a few moments, we pulled back, and let the creature stagger off. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, and turned to Ryan.
"Are we done now? 'Cause I'm not hungry anymore." I asked, looking into the shadows for any sign of another possible meal.
"Yeah, we can go." Ryan said, slinging an arm around my shoulders, and dragging me into a run. We ran until we reached the field that held the castle. Unfortunately, we ran into Queen Angelica on our way back.
"Where have you two been? We've been looking everywhere!" she yelled angrily.
"We went hunting. You know, what you told us to do. So that our blood reputation doesn't get tarnished." I had said sourly. She sent me an angry look, and stalked off. I turned to Ryan and smirked.
"Why do you do that?" he asked, sighing.
"Because it's funny, and it means that she is not happy." I said, giving him a sweet smile. Then the dream shifted again.
It was a week later, the dreaded week. The visiting Royals were two hours late, and everyone in the castle was getting antsy.
"What could be taking them so long?" asked my mother worriedly. I gave her a look that clearly said, 'how should I know?'. She glared at me, but I just shrugged, and sat down on the edge of a statue. I looked up at the statue, noting that it was one of a Gothic angel. When I was younger, it used to give me nightmares. Those times weren't any easier than these were, except that I was younger, and so treated like an imbecile.
The thing about vampires is, we never forget anything, and we are born with as much knowledge as a seventh year student at Hogwarts. We are born with all of the knowledge that we need to survive, and yet my mother still treated me like a mortal mother would treat a mortal baby. It was infuriating. Another thing about vampires is that from the moment that we are born, we are able to talk, and not that normal baby gibberish. So, I was able to talk, speak, complain, whine, all I wanted, but it didn't make much of a difference. In short, it sucked.
After another few hours, those bloody Royals finally arrived. And Prince Vine had to be the most spoiled brat I had ever met.
Arthur Vine, how to describe him? Well, in my personal opinion, he is the worst possible outcome of a Prince that I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. He was a spoiled, arrogant, neurotic, sorry excuse for what he dared call a 'gentlemen'. In short, he is one of the few people in this world that I truly and utterly hate.
As soon as the Prince saw me, he sauntered over to me.
"Hey, Ana, you've grown up a bit, haven't ya?" he asked cockily.
"Don't call me that." I growled through gritted teeth.
"Aw come on." he wined as he slung an arm around my shoulders. I heard a low growl form my right, and slid my gaze over to see Billy, Ryan, Derek, and Kyle glaring at Arthur Vine. The right side of my face began to smirk, until Arthur spun me around so that we were very close together.
"Release me, now." I growled, my eyes turning black, and my fangs coming out. Arthur merely smirked, and wined again.
"Arthur Michel Vincent Vine, release me this instant if you wish to be able to bear children in the future." I growled, my voice becoming one that echoed my experiences, betraying what and who I was. It was the voice of a demon.
Arthur's arm quickly retracted, whether it was from my voice or my threat.
"Well all you had to do was ask." he said smirking. He turned and stalked off toward his parents, no doubt to whine and complain about what had just happened, but he would twist it to make it seem like I was the one who had gone to him. Like I was the one who made advances on him. Like I was the one that was rejected. I rolled my eyes and walked over to my four youngest brothers.
"Was that creep giving you trouble again?" Billy asked, his hands balled into fists. I shrugged and said,
"No more than normal." They all groaned.
"So does that mean that you went about your normal means of dealing with him?" Derek asked.
"Perhaps." I said, my eyes traveling around the room. At the moment we were in the ballroom.
The ballroom, like every other room in all of the castle, it managed to maintain a Gothic look, while still maintaining a look of elegance. Curtains of black silk covered the windows, candelabras illuminated the otherwise dark space. Dark Persian rugs covered the dark mahogany floors. A band played eerie chamber music from a raised platform on the far side of the room. Royals and nobles from the two clans filled the room, dressed in what was probably some of their best dresses and suits. Some couples danced to the music.
"May I have this dance?" Kyle asked with a formal bow. I rolled my eyes, and gave him my hand. As a rule in our family, we had to partake in at least one dance for every formal ball that was held at the castle.
Kyle took one of my hands in his own, while his other went to my hip. I held one of his hands, while the other grasped his shoulder. The music changed and became a waltz. That particular song was long.
And then the dream shifted again... And it was one of the worst days of my life...
That memory started, but I woke with a start. I sat bolt upright, screaming at the top of my lungs. Poppy came running from her office, toward me. When she finally reached me, she put a hand on my back, and started murmuring comforting words. But I didn't hear them, I couldn't hear anything over my own terror. I jumped twenty feet in the air when her hand touched me. Normally, I don't like being touched, but when I have that dream, nothing calms me down for hours, short of sitting in a corner and rocking back and forth in a tight ball.
When Poppy realized that I wasn't on the ground anymore, she looked up, to see me sitting on top of a chandelier. My eyes were wide in fright, and my breath was ragged, coming out in pants. My grip on the chains holding up the chandelier left my knuckles white. I faintly heard Poppy call something up to me, but I didn't understand what she said. I heard the doors to the Hospital Wing open, and heard the sound of running feet, but I never looked down. Some minutes later, I heard the sound of two people running to the Hospital Wing. Out of the bottom of my sight, I saw a blond head. I recognized that blond head.
"Asana! Asana, please come down! It was only a dream! It's not real!" I heard Remus yell. I looked down, and saw him looking up at me with worry. I wanted to believe him, I really wanted to, but my mind wouldn't allow it in my current state. But a voice echoed in my head, but you trust Remus, you know that he would never hurt you, not on purpose. My body was no longer listening to my mind, and I jumped off of the chandelier. I propelled myself forward, doing a few flips, before I landed in a crouch in front of Remus and Poppy.
They both looked at me in slight shock. It might have been because of what I had just done, or because whenever a vampire is extremely worried, threatened, or scared witless, their vampire side comes out as a defense mechanism. And whenever I had that dream, I was more terrified than at any other time in my life. I fell to the floor, and curled my arms around my legs, tears leaking out of my eyes. I felt warm arms embrace me, and a calm voice murmuring in my ear,
"It's okay, everything's okay, you're safe." It took me a few minutes to realize that I had stopped trembling, and my tears had stopped. Nobody had ever been able to stop me that quickly before. Huh, go figure.
He continued murmuring and holding me for several more minutes, before he realized that I had calmed down. He rubbed my back as he softly said,
"Do you want to talk about it?" I violently shook my head. I was never able to talk about that dream. Countless people had tried to get me to talk about it, but I was never able to. And I doubted that I ever would be able to talk about it.
"Okay, you don't have to." he said softly, pulling me into a hug. I hadn't realized it at the time, but I really had needed a hug. Honestly, I think that was what calmed me down so quickly. Nobody had ever hugged me as a way to calm me down. Maybe that was what I had needed, instead of freaking out and hiding in a corner. We broke from the hug a few minutes later, and Poppy came over looking worried.
"Asana!" she said worriedly. I turned to her, and raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?" I asked cautiously.
"Are you saying that you haven't noticed it?" she asked, sounding perplexed.
"Noticed what?" I asked curiously.
"Look down," she instructed. I looked down, and saw that blood had started seeping through my shirt.
"You ripped your stitches, and you never noticed?" she asked curiously.
"Apparently." I said, confused. That seemed like the kind of thing that I should have noticed.
"Well, we must fix this right away!" she said, grabbing my hand and jerking me up. Of course as soon as she pointed it out, then it started hurting. I hissed in pain, and her pulling on my arm wasn't helping matters. She dragged me over to my bed, and pulled the curtains around us. She scurried over to a cabinet, and came back a few moments later with the dreaded needle and surgical thread. Merlin, I really hate needles...
