Disclaimer: I do not own HunterxHunter, nor do I profit commercially from these writings.

Lucian's Story Part 14

THE FIRST LIFETIME

She was dreaming.

True, there was the possibility that she might have died and had become a ghost, because her body was semi-transparent and her feet weren't exactly touching the ground. However, she knew she was dreaming and not a ghost because she was in a place that she didn't recognise. To her knowledge, according to Meta after all his conversations with ghosts that they had met in their travels, ghosts haunted places that had significance to them. And she was pretty sure that she had never been to this place before.

The place looked like an old abandoned house from the medieval era. However, Bia also noticed that the house wasn't exactly abandoned. There were traces of the place being lived in; only barely and seemed recent. Whoever the occupants of the house was, they must be some very gloomy people indeed. There were no lights around the house. It was dark and cold, although the place was relatively clean. At least it wasn't covered in inches of dirt and dusts and whatnots. The room she was in seemed like a kind of guest bedroom.

And she wasn't alone in that room. There plastered against the wall of the room near the window was a small figure who was trying its damnedest to blend in with the darkness. It was crouching low and crawling its way toward the open window. By the size of the figure, Bia could estimate that it was a child.

A little burglar, Bia thought with a frown. She had never had the experience of being burglarised. Nobody in town was desperate enough to resort to burglary and certainly nobody was stupid enough to even attempt to burglarise a house guarded by a raptor—not that they'd know about Bibi; she was a secret hidden from the townspeople. They'd probably have half their ass eaten by Bibi before they could even get half a foot into the house.

By then, the child had crawled itself under the windowsill and was reaching its hand toward the window when the window was suddenly shut close with a WHAM! It was so sudden and loud that even Bia; in her somewhat incorporeal form, still jumped one foot into the air and made an embarrassing squeak. The child, on the other hand, wasn't screaming bloody murder as Bia had expected. Instead, the child spun around and brandished something heavy in its small dirty hands like spiked club. Upon further inspection, Bia realised that it was a golden candlestick. Whether it was made of pure gold or coated gold, she wasn't sure.

Then, Bia saw IT. A crackle of Nen flying from the thickest fold of the darkness in the room, invisible to the child's untrained human eyes. It flew and whipped at the child's makeshift weapon. The golden candlestick fell like a piece of marble from the child's hand, landing on the stone floor with a resonating metallic thud and rolling across the floor like a ball. Roll and roll and roll it went, Bia's and the child's eyes following the path, until it came to a stop by a shoe protruding from the deep darkness at the corner of the room.

"Little thief." The voice was velvety and deep, and somehow ancient. Like it had existed for a long time but hadn't been used extensively. "You dare steal from my house?"

Bia turned around and peered into the darkness, but she couldn't even make out an outline of the person speaking. It was a man, she was sure of it.

"I…I need the money!" The child shouted, voice squeaky and high-pitched. The voice was so juvenile that it was hard to tell whether the child was a boy or a girl.

"Of course you do."

To Bia's surprise, the voice was neither mocking nor patronising. It was just…neutral. Flat. As-a-matter-of-fact.

"Step into the light, child."

Bia, standing between the man and the child, turned around to look at the child. The child seemed hesitant for a while, fidgeting with its hands in the darkness, before it stood up and walked up to the bright rectangular patch on the floor where the moonlight spilled from the window into the room. Bia wasn't predisposed to making emotional facial and auditory expressions such as a surprised gasp, but this occasion seemed to warrant such reaction.

The child. The little thief. It was Lucian.

A really, really young Lucian, barely five-year-old by the looks of it. Bia didn't know how she knew. There weren't many resemblances between this child and the Lucian that she knew. The child still hadn't developed those cheekbones that Lucian had in his adulthood. Nor did the child have unnaturally pale shade of skin and those grey eyes that Bia presumed he had gotten the moment he became a vampire. There was the same black lock of hair on his head, but the rest was different. It was hard to tell the colour of his skin in the darkness of the night and underneath all those dirt and grime covering him. And the eyes. The child had the most beautiful shade of hazel that Bia had ever had the pleasure of seeing. If this child was indeed Lucian, it made Bia sad that Lucian had to lose his pretty natural eye colour.

"What do you need the money for, child?"

"M, my brother! He's sick, so he needs good food. Nobody would let me work for money, so…"

"Is this your first time stealing?" The man in the darkness asked, voice still devoid of emotions.

"Well, no…" The boy looked down to his bare toes. "But usually it's just enough for us to survive. But brother…"

The boy's voice was quivering, the tell-tale sign that he was on the verge of tears. Tears of shame of being caught stealing or tears of frustration of failing to steal enough to give his brother good food, Bia had no idea which one.

"I see." The man said at length. There was finality in his voice, as if he had just decided on something.

Bia noticed from the corner of her eyes that the man was moving. His shoes shifted as he took a step forward. Intrigued, Bia turned around to fully face the man and almost fell over in her surprise. She knew this man. She had seen this man in a picture before. Lucian had shown her a picture of him before. This was The Count of Wallachia, Sire of Lucian. Bia remembered thinking that the man in the photograph looked like the complete opposite of Lucian in terms of personality; the man was cold and steely, while Lucian was warm (although Bia had to admit that even Lucian had a certain coldness to him; but perhaps it had something to do with him being a vampire).

And the man, now that she was seeing him in flesh, was downright intimidating, Bia would give that hands-down. He was tall; taller than even Lucian, with skin paler than Lucian's. His eyes, though… Bia found herself unable to look at him in the eyes without feeling an icy shiver down her spine.

The man raised one of his arms slowly, with his hand curled into a loose fist. Little Lucian—Bia was going to assume that the child was indeed Lucian—flinched at the gesture, but kept his ground.

"Come, child. Take this." The man said with his flat voice.

Little Lucian stared at the man's fist, and then to the man's face, and then back to the fist. With tiny hesitant steps, he stepped out of the patch of light and extended his little hands toward the man's fist. When his open palms were under The Count's fist, the Count uncurled his fist and two silver coins dropped into the child's hands.

"Use them." The Count simply said as he lowered his now empty hand.

The child stared at the two silver coins resting on his palms as if it was the greatest treasure on earth, before he burst into tears.

"Thank you! Thank you so much, mister!" The child said excitedly as he bowed low several times and made a dash out of the window.

Bia stared at the open window with bemusement. Should she follow the child? What was she supposed to do? Before Bia could make a decision, another voice came into the room. One that she recognised too.

"How very unusual of you to indulge a little human child, Domnul Meu (My Lord)."

Bia whipped around so fast that it was a wonder that she hadn't suffered from whiplash. Her eyes widened as she saw the woman standing beside Lucian's Sire; it was the woman who appeared in her consciousness, who asked her to be Lucian's tovaras. The woman was dressed differently; she was dressed in something more graceful and refined, like a proper court lady.

The Count didn't respond to the woman's statement for a while, eyes still glued to the still open window that allowed the cold night breeze to drift in.

"The child has enough courage to step into this house," He said at length, "when even human adults dare not step past the gate. For that only, the child deserves a reward."

"Indeed." The woman chuckled as she made her way to the window; passing through Bia's body like a ghost, and closed the window.

"Besides," The Count continued as he bent down to pick up the golden candlestick, "the child will not last long. He smells of sickness and death."

She barely remembered what had happened. One moment she was trying to digest The Count's words that implied that little Lucian would die soon, and the next moment she was trying to recover from a nasty bout of vertigo. After her head had decided to stop spinning, Bia found herself clinging to the bedpost of the same room she was in previously. She looked around and confirmed that yes, it was the exact same room and somehow she got the feeling that this was a few nights after the previous 'scene'. There was no little thief trying to sneak out of the window.

There was only little Lucian standing in the same patch of light made by the moonlight, holding his little shaking fists to his chest. He was looking around, eyes wide and glassy and bloodshot.

"M, Mister…? Are…Are you here…?"

Silence answered the boy, and the boy swallowed hard.

"Mister…? I'm… I'm here….to return this…."

The boy uncurled his little fists, and there on his little shaking palm was one silver coin.

While Bia was staring bemusedly at the little Lucian, she suddenly felt a shift in darkness in one of the corners of the room. She shivered as a presence seemed to materialise inside that darkness. The little Lucian, of course, was oblivious to it.

"Why?" The Count's voice suddenly drifted inside the room.

"Mister!" Little Lucian cried out in relief.

"Why are you returning it, child? Do you not need it?" The disembodied voice asked again, tone slightly curious.

At The Count's question, the boy visibly deflated. He looked down at the silver coin on his hand and began shuffling restlessly on his feet.

"I… My brother doesn't need it anymore…"

"Why not?" The Count's voice asked again, but there was a knowing tone in that voice. As if he knew why, but simply wanted to hear it from the boy's own mouth. He even deemed it important enough that he revealed himself from the fold of darkness in the room. He half-stepped out of the darkness, only his pale face visible by the dim illumination of the moonlight.

"…I think my brother is dead…" The child mumbled.

"You think?"

"Well… He's not breathing and his body is very cold. And he's not waking up no matter what I did. That means he's dead… Right?" The boy looked up and stared straight into The Count's grey eyes. But the tragic part was the boy's hopeful tone, as if hoping that he was wrong and his brother was still alive.

"Correct." The Count said, firm and steady.

"Oh…." The boy's shoulders dropped and again he stared at the silver coin on his hands. They felt so heavy now.

Silence reigned inside that room. Little Lucian had grown very quiet and still as his hazel eyes were glued to the coin, and The Count was staring at the boy's small hunched figure.

"Keep the coin, child. You need it." The Count said at length.

"No." The child mumbled obnoxiously. "It was for brother. But now…"

The Count tilted his head sideways, as if bemused by the boy's logic. He stepped out of the darkness to stand before the child. He didn't kneel to the boy's height. He simply stared down at him curiously.

"What will you do now, child?" The Count asked, voice softer.

"I don't know!" Little Lucian suddenly burst into tears. "Brother won't be around anymore. What should I do?"

Under normal circumstances, Bia would have noticed how The Count was actually startled by the sudden outburst, but the hilarity was overshadowed when she saw little Lucian crumpled to the floor, burying his face to his knees and began wailing his heart out. This scene reminded Bia of what the Spiders had told her about growing up in Ryuusei-gai; about how someone as young as one-year-old would have been introduced to the concept of death in Ryuusei-gai. Was this place; the place where Lucian had grown up as human child, the same kind of place as Ryuusei-gai?

"Ah…You've made the child cry, my Lord. Tut, tut."

Bia turned around and saw that the woman from before; the woman from her consciousness whom Bia had decided to call The Lady for now, had stepped into the room by using the door like a normal person would—much unlike her Lord. Her tone was playfully reprehensive, but her eyes were nowhere near as playful. She was regarding the child with a curious look, with a tinge of empathy in it.

An exchange of glance and a wordless communication later, The Count stepped away so The Lady could kneel before the crying child. Obviously comforting a child was out of his depth.

"Child. Look at me." She waited until little Lucian had finished sobbing and wiping his tears and his snots on his filthy sleeves and had finally looked up to face the woman. "What is your name?"

"I don't have one…"

"No? Then what did your brother call you?"

"He just calls…called me 'Little Brother'…"

"I see. Shall we give your brother a proper burial? So he can rest in peace?"

To everyone's surprise, the boy shook his head.

"Brother said he doesn't want to be buried." Little Lucian mumbled in between his sobs.

"No?"

A shake of his head.

"What else did he say?"

At the woman's words, little Lucian's eyes glazed over, like he was staring at the not-so distant past, recalling his brother's words.

"The sea." The child muttered at length. "Brother always said that he wanted to go to the sea…"

"Then we can give him a ship burial, so he can go to the sea. Do you think he would like that?"

From the boy's face, it was obvious that he didn't know what a ship burial was, but he bought the idea when the woman said that his brother would be able to go to the sea.

"How….How do I do it?" The boy asked.

The Lady looked rather surprised that the boy would attempt to do it by himself. Nonetheless, she put her pristine white gloved hand on the boy's filthy hair.

"We'll help you with it." The Lady declared softly, completely ignoring The Count's raised eyebrow.

"Would you?" The boy asked with timid small voice, as if unbelieving that someone would help him that much.

"Yes. Take us to your brother?"

And so Bia found herself trailing after The Count, The Lady, and little Lucian down the streets of this old town that she didn't recognise. The living conditions were quite bad, although it was nowhere as crazy as Ryuusei-gai. Tearfully yet silently, Lucian led the way to his pitiful hut that he called home. It was just a haphazardly assembled pieces of woods, with some kind of worn out canvas spread over the top to prevent water from leaking into the hut. And inside the hut, still freshly deceased and had yet to decompose, was the dead body of Lucian's older brother.

It was a child no older than ten years of age.

Little Lucian immediately perched himself next to his older brother's body, eyes darting between the dead body, The Lady, and The Count. The Lady had knelt next to the dead body and put a gloved hand on the older boy's cold forehead. The hand glowed very slightly, but it seemed invisible to little Lucian's eyes. Bia deduced that perhaps it was Nen. The Count, meanwhile, took a discreet sniff around the hut and, with the same kind of creepy discreetness, took a whiff of little Lucian's body.

"He's infected with the same disease." The Count said to The Lady in an archaic form of Romanian language; one that was extinct and the little boy in their presence did not understand. How Bia understood them, she had no idea.

"I know…" The Lady said thoughtfully.

After that, things happened in a blur and Bia found herself standing by the cliff facing the sea. There, at the distance, was the burning ship that contained the body of little Lucian's deceased older brother. Little Lucian was staring at the burning ship, standing at the edge of the cliff just within grasping distance of both The Count and The Lady. The Count had a blank look on his face, as if he couldn't care less about the burial and he probably really didn't care. Instead, his cold steely grey eyes were trained to the horizon, as if he was counting the minutes when the sun would rise. The Lady, meanwhile, wasn't paying attention to the burial either. She had her eyes on the boy who was clutching the silver coin to his chest, tethering close to the edge of the cliff that he could slip and fall into the sea anytime.

After a while, when the sky started to turn brighter and dawn was approaching, The Count silently turned around and walked away. Little Lucian noticed his sudden departure and stared at the patch of darkness where The Count had disappeared into. He then tilted his head up to look at The Lady.

"Is mister angry?" He asked timidly.

"Hm? What makes you say that?"

"Because he wasn't saying much…"

"Oh, he is just not used to this kind of situations." The Lady said with a chuckle. Indeed, when was the last time The Count attended and arranged a human's funeral?

"So he's not angry?"

"No."

"Then why did he leave?"

"Well…" The Lady glanced at the lightening sky. "He doesn't like the sun."

"Oh…"

They watched the burning for a little while, until it was swallowed by the sea and nothing was left behind, only smokes and drifting ashes. At length, The Lady knelt down so she was eye-level with the boy, and she stared into his hazel eyes. His eyes were still bloodshot and puffy and red-rimmed from all the crying and mourning. They also seemed lost and confused, unsure what to do now that he was all alone in this world.

"What would you do now?" She asked him softly.

At that question, the boy's eyes drifted back to the still smoking spot where the ship had been swallowed by the sea.

"Brother always said that he wants to get out of this town and see the world." The boy turned around to smile sheepishly at The Lady. "So I want to see the world, too."

The Lady's eyes took on a faraway look, as if remembering things from days long forgotten. She then took off her gloves and held the boy's bare filthy hands in her own bare hands. She could feel the calluses marring the boy's small hands. The Lady's hands suddenly started glowing slightly, warm glows in the darkness of dawn. Again, it seemed invisible to little Lucian, although the boy could feel the warmth spreading from his hands to his entire body.

"The folks back in town say horrible things about the people living in the mansion." Little Lucian said as he stared into The Lady's eyes. "But you're nice. Mister is also nice."

The Lady gave a small sad smile.

"That's nice to hear."

At this point, Bia wasn't paying much attention to the exchange between little Lucian and The Lady. For a fleeting moment, she had imagined that she was in little Lucian's position and the one lying on the burning ship was Meta, and she soon found herself silently crying and praying that it would never happen. Her earliest memories since she was awakened from Bensalem was of being carried in Kurapika's arms, Kuroro's arms, and Lucian's arms...and holding hands with Meta. If she was to lose Meta….

Bia hadn't managed to finish that train of thoughts when the ground suddenly opened up and swallowed her into the darkness.

She is falling. She is falling through a tunnel, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. However, instead of floating objects, there were only voices and scenes for her to hear and see. Snippets of Lucian's life as a human, growing up under the care of The Count and The Lady and their retainers.

xxx

"You healed him of his sickness." There was no disapproval in The Count's tone, simply curiosity.

"Indeed I did."

"You were not under obligation to do so."

"The same way you were not under obligation to give him those two silver coins." The Lady smiled coyly at him.

The Count leaned back in his seat, but didn't refute The Lady's statement.

"Why?" He asked at length.

"He said he wants to see the world. I simply want to see how far he will go."

xxx

"Oh, look. He's giving us offerings. Isn't it cute?"

They were only small little things. A particularly beautiful pebble from the rivers. A strangely shaped shell from the shores. Flowers of different kinds; the prettiest ones, the ones with the best fragrance, the rare seasonal ones. They were probably things he found as he scavenged for his living. And he always left them in the same spot; always in that guest room where he had met The Count for the first time and was given the two silver coins.

Gleefully, The Lady would start leaving things for the little boy too. Sometimes it was food; bread, cookies, jerkies, fruits. Sometimes it was articles of clothing; a small blanket, jacket, trousers. Sometimes it was trinkets that she did not care for; so he could sell it for some money. She even saw The Count leaving a coin or two in that room for the boy.

xxx

"We are staying in this town only for a little while, and now we have to go back. Do you want to come?"

"Can I?"

"I'm offering you, am I not?"

"Does that mean I get to live with you and mister?"

"Do you want to?"

"YES!"

xxx

"You should have a name."

"I concur. Calling him 'child' has become rather tiring."

"He doesn't seem to appreciate it either."

"No, I don't." Said child pouted.

"So what will be his name, love?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"You are the one who found him first, so you should name him, silly."

"You were the one who first made the suggestion of adopting him."

"You want to adopt him too."

"I do."

"…Oh, fine. Let's see." The Lady put the boy at arm's length and began scrutinising him. "Lucian."

"Lucian?"

"Yes. Your name shall be Lucian. It means 'light'. Lucian Virgiliu."

"Lucian Virgiliu." The boy muttered, as if tasting the name in his tongue. He then beamed at The Lady. "I like it."

"Why Lucian?" The Count asked curiously.

"Because the castle seems brighter since he came here."

The Count chuckled, and Lucian stared at him incredulously. It was the closest thing to a laughter that the boy had ever heard from The Count.

"Indeed."

xxx

"Catch him!"

CRASH! THUMP!

"Got him!"

"NO! I don't want to go for the classes!"

"You are the Young Master, therefore you shall be educated as the Master was!"

"The Master has charged us the Solomonarii with your education! We have never failed him and we certainly will not fail him in educating the one he has chosen to be his heir!"

"But I'll die before him anyway!"

"That is irrelevant!"

"NOOOOOooooo!"

xxx

"Gargoyles! Did you see the Young Master?"

Has the Young Master escaped again?

"Yes he has. Now have you seen him?"

Perhaps we have seen him. Perhaps we have not… The gargoyles rumbled amusedly.

"Oh great. Search the entire castle! Find him!"

Why don't you use your magic to find him?

"The brat has filched one of the amulets that can render him invisible to our magic." One of the Solomonarii wizards grumbled.

Surely the Master or the Madame can find him?

"They refuse to cooperate!" One of the witches threw her arms up in frustration. "They think this is so funny!"

It is funny…

The witch glared at the gargoyles, before spinning around in a huff and marching to a random direction of the corridor. When all the Solomonarii witches and wizards had deserted the corridor, the gargoyles rumbled in laughter.

The coast is clear, Young Master. You may come out.

"Gee, thanks! You're the best!"

xxx

"Escaping your tutors again?"

"Eep!" Little Lucian; about ten-year-old or so, spun around with a hand over his heart and the other hand grabbing the door handle in case he needed to make another quick getaway. "Oh. Hi Mami (Mom). What are you doing here? Hehe…"

"Surely I am allowed to be inside the library that I share with your Tati (Dad)?" The Lady said as she raised an amused eyebrow. "And hiding in the library, hm?"

"Weeeeelll…. I notice that they never look in places that you and Tati (Dad) frequent."

"Clever little devil, aren't you." The Lady winked at him. "In that case, would you like to come along with me?"

"You aren't going to hand me over to them, right?"

"Oh, pui. I wouldn't be so cruel." The Lady made a dramatic hurt gesture. "I am merely on my way to assist your Tati (Dad) with some of his personal projects. Would you like to see?"

"Oh yes yes yes!" Little Lucian bounced around and immediately parked himself next to The Lady. "I heard he has his own labs! Are we going to see them?"

"Yes we are."

"What does he do?"

"Oh, he does a bit of alchemy."

"Alchemy?"

"You'll see."

xxx

His eyes were sparkling as he saw the apparatuses and the chemicals and the charts and the glowing liquids and the floating…things inside the jars. Meanwhile, The Count was giving The Lady sceptical look.

"See. He really is your son." The Lady said with expressions hovering between incredulity, amusement, and I-knew-it.

"I just hope he is not formulating three hundred ways of creating things that will allow him to successfully escape his lessons for indeterminate time."

"Oh... I was hoping that this would encourage him to attend the classes."

Well, both of them were wrong. Little Lucian still resolutely escaped his lessons as often as he could, and when he managed to ditch his tutors he would hide in The Count's labs to watch him worked. The Count hoped he was making mental notes from his observations and really not devising diabolical escape plans.

xxx

"Tati (Dad)?" Little Lucian asked from his seat on The Count's lap and leaning his head against his chest.

"Hm?" The Count hummed in response as he leaned against the chair with one hand playing absentmindedly with the boy's hair and the other holding the book he was reading.

"When is your birthday?"

"My…birthday?"

"Yeah. When is it?"

"….I forgot."

"You forgot? How can you forget your own birthday?"

"I don't celebrate it. And it has been too long a time since the last time it was celebrated."

"What about Mami (Mom)?"

"She doesn't remember her birthday either."

"That's sad…"

"When is your birthday, pui?"

"…I don't know."

"You don't?"

"Brother didn't remember his own birthday too. Mother and Father were never there to celebrate for him. And Brother didn't remember mine. So I don't know…"

"Then your birthday can be the day when you are given the name Lucian Virigiliu."

"The day I was adopted by you and Mami (Mom)?"

"Yes."

"Will we celebrate it?"

"If you so wish."

"I'd like that…" Little Lucian yawned, and fell asleep on The Count's lap.

xxx

"Lucian…"

"…I'm sorry?"

"Saying sorry will not restore my destroyed laboratory. If you skip another class, you will be banned from entering my laboratories. Am I understood?"

"But—!"

"Are we clear?"

"…Crystal."

The Solomonarii witches and wizards in charge of little Lucian's education celebrated that day as the long-awaited day when the Master finally made the necessary enforcement to make the Young Master attend the damn classes.

xxx

"Spying on him again?"

"What? I'm not allowed to keep an eye on my boy?"

"He is twenty-year-old this year. Certainly he won't be very pleased if he finds out that Mommy Dear is spying on him in his solo travels. And this is not his first travel either."

"Well, he WON'T find out about this, will he?"

"…If you wish."

"Yes. Now, come and see. I think Lucian is lost in one of the deserts."

"Again?"

xxx

When she hit the bottom of the tunnels of Lucian's human memories, she didn't reach Wonderland like Alice. Instead, she found that she had landed on her back, paralysed, on a wet rock in some god-forsaken cliff in a heavy downpour. However, what surprised her most was the person lying next to her.

It was Lucian. Adult Lucian. Lucian as she knew him, with the same cheekbones and hair, only with slightly tanned skin and with those beautiful hazel eyes. But his face was twisted into a grimace of pain, and one of his legs was twisted into a grotesque angle. Clearly he had fallen off the cliff and had broken his leg upon the harsh landing.

"Oh, come on, come one. Not today." He hissed in pain as he tugged at his broken, useless leg. "Not on my birthday!"

Thunder rumbled and the world was momentarily turned into searing, blinding white canvas. Despite the brightness of the thunder, Bia's eyes were still open—she couldn't close them—and she saw the thunder striking the cliff above them. She saw the cliff falling apart as the thunder lashed at it in full power, destroying the foundation that held the bedrock of the cliff together. She remained paralyzed as she saw the avalanche of solid rocks falling towards them—no, toward the immobilised human Lucian. She didn't exist in this reality. This was Lucian's past. This was… This was Lucian's first death as a human.

"O Doamne (Oh God)…" Lucian whispered in horror as he, like Bia, watched the rocks free-falling toward him.

The last thing she noticed before the rocks crushed them was Lucian's bloodied hand clutching a necklace with a silver coin as pendant. Somehow, Bia recognised that silver coin. It was the same silver coin that The Count had given little Lucian during their first meeting.

"Tati, Mami… I'm so sorry…"

And everything went black.

She floated in the darkness, and she could feel neither her body nor the world around her. She was just…floating in a void. In the distance, she heard voices. Soft, heartbroken feminine voice and a choir of ominous voices.

"Please…"

…a price…

"…anything….just….my boy…back to life…"

…the bind…this world…

"…The Count's blood…"

…he lives….as long as his Sire lives…

"….yes….."

…forget….memories…you….

"…mind…okay…if he lives…"

She drifted away from that conversation, leaving behind the heartbroken whispers and the ominous voices. She drifted further and further, until she came across another faint conversation. A conversation between two males, one with angry tones and the other with calm resignation in his older voice.

"…You promised!"

"…I know…"

"…why…?!"

"…we don't….lose you…"

"…who…she…?"

"…not…remember…?"

"…should I…?"

Bia suddenly felt really tired and sleepy, and she allowed herself to be swallowed into oblivion by the darkness, leaving behind those voices from the past.

Author's Note: Flashbacks to Lucian's past as a human! Love it? Hate it? Tell me what you think!