Fuil 'o mo chuislean

Damn the latest chapter had been read over a hundred times before it'd even been up for two hours. Thanks guys you frikken rock! A very special thank you to the many of you who have stuck with me and this story from the beginning; the updates have been far too far apart and it means a lot that you're still here. Thanks to Arabella Whitlock for letting me bounce some ideas around and to KissMeOverTheSwing for pushing me when I needed it (the last chapter wouldn't have happened without her, probably this one, too. lol).

Chapter Ten

Sunday is gloomy,

My hours are slumberless.

Dearest the shadows I

Live with are numberless.

Sarah McLachlan (or Billie Holliday) - Gloomy Sunday

Alistair POV

Maybe my unwelcome guest wasn't such a pain in the ass after all. He'd ruined some of my potential sneaking time but, having my prize suddenly in front of me, I couldn't complain. I knew something was different when I surfaced from wherever it is that I go when he takes a walk topside, so to speak. That scent. It surrounded me. I think part of me wanted to run away from it. I cursed that part and inhaled anew. It was sinful the way her scent caressed every part of me. Although…her fear didn't smell as glorious as it should.

There may be a reason for that.

I ignored my passenger and watched the human's eyes flit between me and the door. I shook my head. Don't go ruining things now; I want to savour you as I have no other, and I can't do that if you force my hand by trying to run.

"Ye ken that's no going to work, little human." The smell of fear increased, and yet my happiness decreased proportionately as it did. That just wouldn't do.

"I…" She was immobile. I guess it was up to me to move things along.

"Time to go." I took us out through the train carriage's window and she passed out shortly thereafter.

"She spends far too much time unconscious. How're we supposed to have any fun if she can't be bothered to stay awake for it?" I mused, waiting for the inner voice to join me.

Ye dinnae need to hurt her. Ye can still see this for what it is.

"She, not it. And she's the Holy Grail is what she is. Do ye ken how many vampires go an eternity without finding their singer? I'm no wasting this chance."

Aye, ye are. And ye dinnae even ken why.

I wasn't used to him sounding disappointed. He was often happiest humiliating me over the slightest thing, and I'd never cared about that before. Why now did I care that the tone of his voice made me feel as though I'd let not just him down, but myself, too?

"Then tell me, damn yer hide. Do ye ken how sick I am of yer mystical bullshit?"

I waited…and waited…and waited…but received no reply. I was so used to his constant harassment that his silence was enough to unnerve me thoroughly. I unconsciously tightened my grip around the soft human body in my hands, where I held it as far from my face as possible. Even so, it did little good. The chaotic colours invaded my mind again and I found myself standing still in the middle of a field, lost in her scent for God knows how long. I was surprised that I hadn't killed her already but I felt a small surge of pride that I could muster such self control.

It was hard, though, hard to make my legs move again when everything about my prize distracted me so. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other for several minutes, mindful not to squeeze so hard as to damage her before I was able to take her back to my eyrie. If I could keep my mind off her until then, I could take my time enjoying every drop of her when I reached my destination, when I reached home.

All I could do as my feet move me ever onwards towards home was to delve into the past again. This time my death, and birth.

Eve of April 15th, 1746. Castle Leod, Scotland

My father had tasked me with organising the men as they gathered around open fires to clean and sharpen their weapons for the morrow but by the end of the day I had grown weary of their drunken infighting. The Chattans, a raucous bunch, had brought far too much whisky with them and had passed it freely. After the ninth argument about whether I had the right to confiscate it from them or not I had tipped the barrels over and threatened to light the fumes aflame if they did not get to their beds and rest before the battle.

So now I found myself wandering through the glen that had been my solace since childhood. The trees crowded me like familiar friends and the darkness gave me no pause. I was comfortable here, had been since I found it, far from the castle, when I was six. My father had beaten me for the first time, for insolence he said, but I knew it had been because I made my sister cry. My poor six year old bum had still been smarting as I wandered to the edge of our lands to slip between the trees, only to discover a small burn with cool water in which to dip my sore arse.

This time it was my heart that was smarting. The morrow we would best the English in one of the most crucial battles any of us, hopefully, would ever fight. If…when we were victorious, the Jacobite cause would be one step closer to being proven righteous and we would soon after see Charles Stuart take the throne. Our country would be glorious once again. And my sister was no longer here to see it. She had been gone nigh on seventeen months now and it still felt like yesterday. I'd wanted to see her grown and wedded in a country of her own, free and proud to be a Scot, not cowed under English rule.

I sat on the bank of the burn, skimming pebbles on the calmer parts and making the moon ripple on its surface. The sound was comforting, the water whispering over the boulders it had spent centuries smoothing and rolling. I thought I heard a noise behind me but, turning, saw nothing. There would be deer this time of night, wandering through the glen to nibble the dew laden grasses. I thought about killing one to take back with me but it would be a waste; all but myself were likely asleep by now and even I could not stomach a beast in its entirety. Or perhaps I could, but being able to stand in the morning was more important. That…and I did not think my roiling insides would welcome the effort.

I lay back on the grassy slope and listened to the sounds of the deer moving through the trees beside me. If I could find and keep just a little peace within me before I and all the men of the clans went into battle I might be better able to concentrate on fighting instead of mourning. And as much as I never wanted Mairie far from my mind, I wanted to dishonour my family even less. Nor did I wish to lose any more of them. My father, uncles and too many cousins to number would be fighting by my side the morrow, many of them under my command. I could not, would not, fail them.

By the time I realised that the deer in the trees were moving stealthily on two feet and not four, it was too late.

I was hauled from the ground on which I lay, a vicelike grip around my throat. Stars pinged and popped behind my vision as strong fingers clamped around my neck. I was being held in the air by a tall form. How in the name of God could anyone hold a man of my size like this? The fall of the long brown hair looked familiar somehow, and his skin was a ghostly white. I tried to tell him to stop but all that came out of my throat was a strangled gurgle.

"You want me to let you go. I don't need to be able to hear the words to know that," the creature taunted sadly. I was fast coming round to the idea that this was not a man but some kind of demon. "I'm afraid I can't do that. But I do not come here in enmity. What you did…what you took from me, was not your fault, and is eclipsed by what they took from me."

My hands were frantic now, scrabbling at the fingers around my neck as I felt the blood pressure building in my head. I could feel the pulse of my heart in my entire body and there was a rushing sound in my ears, as if the burn has burst its banks.

A moment later the hand slammed me to the ground and instead of pressure I now felt a slicing pain. My vision was still too poor but I could feel the long, thick hair heavy on the skin of my chest and realised that the man, the thing, was biting me. I tried to push him away but couldn't move him, which sent panic spiralling through me, before the pain of his teeth was replaced by something else, something much worse.

"I am sorry," said the creature. "Sorry for what we did to you and for what I do now. We meant you no harm, and we took everything from you, and now I take even more." I moaned as fire licked started to lick against me from the inside out. "This may be my only chance. And it may be yours, too. You will see me again someday, my young friend. Do not think too harshly of me for this when you do."

With those parting words I felt him leave in a swirl of heavy cloak and rushing air. As the fire took hold of me I threw back my head and screamed.

Hours, it must have been hours but it felt like days that I lay there with the fire making an anvil of my body, beating waves of pain upon it without mercy. I couldn't see, the pain so bright that it had blinded me, but I could hear, and I could feel even though it hurt to touch anything. As my body shook under the assault of the pain I managed to roll over onto my stomach and started to crawl. It was slow going, between screaming for the pain to stop and the bursts of agony that shot up my fingers as I groped around for anything familiar to lead me home.

There…under my fingers now, through the white hot needles, I could feel cool cobbles. I had found the track through the farmland that would lead me back to the castle and hauled myself onto it. There should have been a great deal of indignity in this, crawling on my stomach like a worm, and even as a grown man having no other thought in my head than that I needed my da.

I crawled a mile and a half along that track. I hoped in the right direction. My hearing was coming and going, as was my sanity. I had to stop many times to scream my agony to the heavens, or the ground; I didn't have a great degree of control of which way I was facing and the pain overwhelmed my sense of up and down. I needed him. I needed my da, needed him to make the pain go away, needed him to hold me like he had when I was a small boy, crying because I'd fallen in a patch of stinging nettles. Only now the nettles must have been the size of trees to wrack my body with this much pain.

I couldn't tell what time it was when the cobbles beneath me gave way to the flagstones of the courtyard. But it must have been early, very early; there were no sounds of life, no talking, no shouting, no clang and clatter of metal from swords and horses' hooves. Would I lie here for hours until sunup? Would I be dead before anyone found me? I couldn't scream any more, and I tried, God in Heaven I tried, but the flames were licking up my legs and arms now and beginning to touch my chest, stealing the breath right out of me. All I could do was moan and hope that someone had had the forethought to leave a guard awake.

I focused on the cold flagstones for a time, my hands unconsciously ripping the shirt from my torso so I could press my bare skin against the smooth rock. It didn't help much, but even the smallest lessening of the roaring hearth my body had become was welcome.

It was like that that they had found me, stretched out on the courtyard stones, moaning in pain and unable to open my eyes. I felt a hand grip my shoulder to turn me over and cried in relief that I wouldn't die alone.

The burning agony was like a tide within me, ebbing and flowing as I listened to the panicked voices around me, rising and falling like the waves that crashed against every nerve in my body. But then, some little peace. I felt a touch against my cheek and I knew even without my sight that it was my father; I would know the calluses of his sword hand anywhere, with or without my senses.

"Och, laddie, who has done this to ye?" I couldn't answer him, could only bite back the next scream and the next and the next as he prodded and poked my scorching flesh. He paid particular attention to the wound on my neck, which I could feel was still slick and gaping. "Get him up," I heard him bark at the men. "See to my son, damn ye. Ye're all awake now and we've nae time to waste so put him on the wagon and get to yer weapons. The Beaton can work on his wounds as we march."

Still rougher hands manhandled my leaden limbs into the back of what smelled like a horse drawn cart. It shocked me that I could still smell, that my nostrils couldn't pick up even the slightest stench of my skin cooking. Was I trapped inside my mind with an inferno that wasn't real? Try as I might I couldn't outthink it even the fraction that would have allowed me to open my eyes. Beneath me I could feel straw prickling my face and chest. It wasn't nearly as soothing as the stones had been and I worried that the heat within me would kindle it to flame.

This, only this, this terror and burning fugue were all I knew for many hours, my mind dipping in and out of it like an unlucky village crone on a ducking stool. I came out of it less and less, but the furore around me had grown each time I surfaced. Before I knew what was happening or how much time had passed I breached the nightmare only to hear the sounds of battle, bloodlust and fear on all sides, cries of pain mixing with cries of courage as my kinsmen charged a battlefield I could not see.

I had failed. Failed my father, failed myself, failed the Jacobite cause. What good was I, laying in my own piss and panic while clansmen I had known since birth were spilling their heartblood on the moor and on English swords? A coward who couldn't even get out of his bed to fight for his own blood. My hands that should have gripped the hilt of my Claymore could only clutch and curl into talons that pierced their own palms with bloody fingernails because there just had to be some kind of pain that was greater than this.

I was losing. I thought I had already relinquished every part of myself to this horror and yet I was losing…more. As the flames intensified my mind spiralled backwards, sputtering with sharply illustrated scenes. I saw mountains changing, coastlines fattening our shores as they pushed outwards to join islands and mainland together. Valleys flooded and reappeared, home to herds of great beasts that were hunted with featureless, stick-like spears by people whose innocent hands painted shapes on cave walls. There were others, like us, yet not, shorter, bow legged; they were talking with grunts and hand gestures but they were talking.

We are old. We are so much older than we ever knew.

My mind streaked forwards, a garish brushstroke on the canvas of the night sky, and so much farther. Unencumbered by a physical form it reached out to the ends of time and hung mistlike above the many worlds that we had chosen as our own, planetary outposts that harboured more lives than I could count. We survive. Are we still us? By the time we journey to the Heavens and beyond, do we still love?

I can't…I can't know this. It is too much. Oh God in Heaven take my soul, take me from this place. Do not forsake me in my hour of need. Let me see my sister, let me escape this agony and live with you in love and in light. Take me. Please TAKE ME!

Help me.

I waited what seemed an eternity, a drop of water ready to fall, gathering mass, beckoning gravity. Only it wasn't water, it was a bead, a barrel, a torrent of molten metal pouring straight through the heart of me. And with the greatest pain came the greatest silence. The war drums no longer beat in my head. Nor in my chest.

With no memory of reaching my destination, I found myself standing at the top of my mountain, looking down at the place where it had all begun. I remembered waking to the wheezing of the injured clansman in the cot beside me. Remembered the flames that, not wanting to abandon me completely, had risen in my throat as his heartbeat rose in my ears. I could not bring myself to be disgusted by my new appetite, for it helped him and it slaked me. I had been left for dead, the battle long finished, only the dead strewn over the land, and the dying, the dying whom I helped in the only way I was now able to know.

I retreated into the depths of the castle, keeping my eyes averted from the limp form in my arms. I could not think of feeding now. She would keep, and I would be more myself after a time. I deposited her on the stone floor of the cell and swung the ancient iron gate closed, flinging the lock home. She would be going nowhere. For now.

Well, I wasn't expecting to get another chapter out so soon. I know you lot sure as hell didn't think there'd be one. But I hope you liked it. Until next time. There will be mistakes. But it's 4AM and I will have to get to them tomorrow. Goodnight!

~Sin~