Greece, 1230BC
Arcadius folded his arms over his chest. "You want me to find you someone so you can feed?" He repeated, a dark brow arched in something akin to disbelief.
A small smirk tugged at the blonde immortals face. "Yes, lest you wish for me to lose control and drain either yourself or Lysandra, neither of which I assume would appeal to you." He stated and the dark haired giant of a man hummed. "No, it doesn't appeal to me. Do I have the right to trust I won't return to my sister dead at your feet?"
Black eyes, darkened with thirst, shone slyly at him. "Depends how long you take," he commented airily, the dark haired man's blue eyes darkening considerably before he stiffly turned around and walked rigidly from the cave, his strong jaw clenched.
Blue eyes watched as the immortal man whom she'd since learnt was called Caius switched his black gaze to her. He arched a brow. "You have something you wish to say?" He questioned and the corner of her lips tugged up. "No. I think it would be best if we were to both remain silent. You said breathing in with me so close is like swallowing fire. I would rather not have to incite such pain upon someone, even you, with such acts." She answered softly.
Caius raised his brow higher. "Is that so? Perhaps I will remain silent, for a moment, at least until your brother returns." Dark eyes shone with ill concealed dark amusement. "You can speak, human. You can tell me about how you feel about being made to marry such filth when you bleed?"
Lysandra stilled in her repairing of his tunic, the blunt needle in her hand stilling, the thread pulled tight. She looked at him, her eyes filled with pain, a pain, that, much to his ire and fury, caused something he'd never in his century and a half of life felt and had never watched to feel either. Damn these humans, already changing him, something he pushed down with an inward bitter, darkened scoff that would've put a laugh by Hades to shame.
Her small, bony shoulders rose and then fell. "I feel horror. I knew I recognised them, deep down inside me. They would have been part of the same clan that destroyed my home and my family those four years ago. I don't want to become a wife to that man. Anyone who would attempt to do that to a child of my age is a monster in themselves, much less the act of forcing that onto a woman. I don't want my life story to be of that nature."
His dark eyes watched as a small smile spread across her face, her clear blue eyes looking to his onyx coloured ones. "I want a life where I chose to do what I wanted to do in it. I don't want to marry because I'm forced to. I want to marry someone of my choosing, someone who would do anything for me and I them. I don't want to be forced to marry someone to breed them a new generation." Her shoulders raised and fell again. "I want to marry for love, to marry because I found that one person who makes my soul complete, the one person whom the Gods have chose me to be a half of."
She gave a small smile as she looked at him, aware of his intensely burning gaze, one that looked more intrigued than hateful as it usually was. She gave a simple shrugging of her shoulders as she looked to him. "Is that so wrong to want?" She asked quietly.
Caius was silent for a moment as he mulled her words over, using the last of his air intake as he spoke. "No," he mused coolly. "It isn't wrong to want such a thing, but you humans rarely find such love. Love is such a human emotion. Immortals, vampires, we find that soul consuming love that your kind can only dream about."
Lysandra gave a slightly wider tilt of her lips. "I suppose I shall just have to prove you wrong when I find that ever so elusive love," she mused and his pale lips curved into a sadistically amused smirk at the challenge she had put forward. "I guess we shall see then, human."
Arcadius returned when it was dark, and the blonde immortals eyes immediately narrowed in on the man who was slung over his shoulder, the dark haired man not even looking fazed by the obvious weight of the man as he carried him in. Lysandra was asleep in the far corner of the cave, her petite form swallowed whole by the numerous pelts and homemade sheets they'd managed to scavenge from the village after it was destroyed. There was numerous pelts and sheets piled high, one on top of each of each, in order to make her sleeping area somewhat comfortable. Her blonde tresses were cast around her head like a golden crown, a halo for the perfectly angelic looking preteen, who, although he still held disdain for her and her kind, Caius had to admit, albeit reluctantly, had seen too much for someone of her age.
The blonde smirked as the man, albeit unconscious with a gash to his head, was dropped to his feet, Arcadius folding his arms across his chest. "I assume the bigger they are, the more blood they hold for you," he clipped and the smirk widened. "You would be somewhat correct, human. I suggest you go over to your sister. I doubt you want to be within reaching distance when I'm finished." He plucked the man up effortlessly from the stone floor, Arcadius eying him warily before doing as he suggested.
He had just stepped beside Lysandra, bending down to check she was alright as he always did when she slept, when a snarl ripped around the cave, along with a gurgling noise. He glanced back over his shoulder, seeing the blonde immortal man bent over the man, his nostrils flaring as he drank ferociously, a crimson red colour flooding his eyes as he drank the blood of the man whose eyes were now wide open, a hand pressed tight against his windpipe being the only thing stopping him from screaming out as something akin to fire burned through his flesh, something hotter than fire embedded in his throat.
Arcadius turned his eyes back down to Lysandra, his only surviving sibling frowning in her sleep before she shuffled around, the pelts that she'd woven together falling off of her. He leant over, pressing a kiss to her head before he pulled them back up over her shoulders, her brows furrowing once more before they smoothed out.
A groan of what could be described as something akin to a dehydrated man who'd just finished drinking water sounded behind him, and he turned around, his blue eyes landing on the blonde haired immortal as he leant against the cave wall, a drop of blood evident on his lower lip as the man, now a limp and bloodless corpse, dropped to the ground with a sickening thud.
The dark haired man stood up, walking over and leaning against the cave wall as he distastefully eyed the blonde haired man. "Feel better?" He clipped, arms folding across his muscular chest as he spoke.
Ruby red eyes flashed open as landed on the human man. "I do, somewhat, but it would feel better after one thing," he commented airily, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Arcadius raised a brow. "And what would that be?" He asked back, just as tightly,
Before he could even blink or utter out a surprised exclamation, a blurred blonde image shot in front of him and a ice cold hand locked around his throat, slamming him against the cave wall. A smirk tore at pale lips, although, it was pained due to the white hot fire that lanced across his chest, the barely healed claw marks tearing once more and oozing thick black sludge into the bandages that were tapered tightly across the planes of muscle on his chest.
A hiss left his throat. "Now, why shouldn't I kill you, wait until the girl as healed me, and then kill her too? You both bother me with your irksome displays of affection for one another!" He spat. "Sibling love! It is pathetic! You truly believe you have a chance in this world, a chance to live out how you want while you share land with such vermin such as yourselves!"
Arcadius gasped for air, the hand loosening a little to allow him to speak. "Lysandra believed you could be saved," he wheezed out, eyes wide as his face began to turn red. "I told her you couldn't be saved, that you would only bring death and destruction from yourself or the wolves! I warned her!" He choked out, shaking his head all that it could manage in the position he was in. "I love my sister more than life itself. If I was asked to choose between myself and her, I would chose myself to die, because, she is the only thing pure in this world."
Caius scoffed, ager pulsing across his face. "Lies! Nothing is pure in this world!" He snarled and Arcadius shook his head. "Is that why you haven't killed her yet?" He countered in a desperate wheeze, a look crossing the immortals face before he gave a disgusted scoff and dropped the dark haired man, air desperately rushing back into his lungs as he gasped and wheezed for it. He turned back around, ruby red eyes full of rage and disgust, grimacing as he sat back down, feeling the black sludge ooze from his wounds once more.
Blue eyes looked at the immortal. "I see how you look at her," he mused quietly, red eyes snapping around to lock with blue. He went to retort but Arcadius shook his head, rubbing his throat. "I don't know what happened to you in order to make you so cold, so shut off to any emotion other than hate and anger, and honestly, I don't care. Lysandra and I watched our mother, our father, our seven brothers and sister get torn apart in front of our eyes while we hid like cowards in a tree that I had to restrain her in and cover her mouth because she was screaming and crying so hard. Am I resentful? A little, I'll admit that, but I have never, ever let that stop me from seeing some of the good that still resides in the world, and do you know who reminds me of that every day?"
Arcadius motioned back to the sleeping blonde, still oblivious to what was happening only three dozen feet from where she laid. "She saw what I did, and still, even though she didn't speak for a month afterwards, that girl wakes up with a smile on her face and goes to sleep with a smile on her face. She's seen some of the things that a girl of only twelve winters old should never ever have to see, and still, she smiles as though she's the happiest person in the world. I don't know how she can do that. I desperately wish I could do that, I do."
He shook his head. "As I said, I don't care for you, but she does. She doesn't care how you treat her, how badly you hate her, all she does is care for you without asking for anything back. In your debt," he continued, "means nothing to her. You can tell her that until the day she takes her last breath. If you say something like that, prove it," he breathed and red eyes narrowed before they returned to normal, and the blonde immortal hummed curtly. "I don't like how she makes me feel," he hissed lowly.
Arcadius gave a wry smirk, folding his arms over his chest once more. "I suggest you learn to live with it, as long as you reside here, because she won't stop until she's made you believe some good still resides in this world."
Caius scoffed, his mouth curling down into a scowl. "Now that we will agree to disagree on."
