The Sleeping Dead (Seraph & I)

Long had he wandered the baron shattered remnants of the kingdom he ruled.Three months had elapsed since his self imposed exile and Palawa had only grown more and more sick of the world he had come to create.Really he had nothing in it, no part in it except to wallow in the filth of his own vile self, for that's exactly what he'd turned the kingdom into, a horrid reflection of Itself rearing it's ugly head on him.So Instead, he decided to find a place to make it all just go away.

It had taken a while to clear the old mausoleum next to the manor of all it's previous occupants, simply discarding the mouldering remains of the less worthy into the dirt.His fingers ran over the solid iron casket of the patriarch of the household, quite a nice resting chamber, solid and sturdy, best of all a solid seal from the world.His face turned into a scowl at the thought he would likely never be allowed to die of natural causes.The disgusting fog inside of his body prevented him from aging, catching any form of Ill or even being poisoned, only physical harm could do him in and even so, the fog warded it off.His thick furs were soggy from the rainy day, laden with caked on mud and filth."I might as well stay warm and dry" he stated, shrugging the heavy garments off, instead leaving only his waist wrapped in a thick cotton towel he had brought with him.Slowly he slid into the cold Iron cask and shuddered.It was a while before he decided to really make the choice, either live in this disgusting world or go to sleep and hope he woke up when It was all gone.

He removed his eye patch, the cover from where the traitorous queen had slain him, right through the eye with a dagger.Slowly a thick black fog rolled forth from the empty socket, surrounding and cradling him to keep him warm and secure before he slid the heavy top over the casket, sealing himself away to the centuries until either he awoke, or some misfortunate soul aroused him.

The manor, if it could scarcely be called such anymore, had apparently been in her family for generations. At least that was the story she had been told when the lawyer showed up on her door and told her that some relative of her had passed away and left her a shiny new mansion. Lie one: the mansion was a decrepit manor that had to have been constructed during the Dark Years, and perhaps, as technology came about, been renovated over the years. She stood with her bags around her feet, and stared at the manor in disgust--four broken windows, three giant cracks in the exterior, and if she wasn't mistaken, a good portion of the foundation about where the kitchen was, was missing.

"This...is my inheritance? I broke my lease for this," she spoke to the empty space around her. Melissa figured that she should have noticed that something was wrong when the lawyer had just handed her the key, given her directions, and told her to have a nice day. She frowned and thought about it; she hadn't even caught his name or gotten a business card so she could yell about this. She looked at the two ornate and old-fashioned iron keys in her hand before she walked haltingly up the steps, all the while muttering, "If I fall through the floor, I am suing. Never mind, I have no money to sue with...I will just sue. I'll call up Mark, he'll call up one of his friends, and I'll have lawyer."

She tried the first key and when the doorknob broke off in her hand, she rested her head against the solid oak door and whispered, "Beautiful. Just beautiful."

Melissa usually tried her hardest to keep upbeat, but the last year had taken a toll on her--graduating university and finding out that no one wanted to hire a linguist whose expertise lay in translating old tomes of lore and magic. Magic had faded away with the invention of technology; the old Gods were no longer worshiped and the world, to some people, was consider a poorer place for it. She took a deep breath before she entered the house and looked at the dusty interior with the white sheets over all the furniture and smiled weakly, "Home...sweet...home." She looked through the dimly lit room until she found a light switch and experimentally flicked it up and down.

No lights came on.

The fair-haired woman's frown deepened and her spirits sunk even lower. This day was slowly going from bad to worse and it wasn't even noon yet. She grumbled as she moved through the dark house; it was just like the start of a bad horror movie. The young woman moves in all alone, the lights don't work, and she has to go down to the basement to find the fuse-box, and while she is there, she is viciously killed. Melissa snorted at her own imagination as she wandered through the halls before finding a door that led downwards. It was dark, darker than she expected and she hesitated before walking down the stairs using the dim light from the door way as her guide. It wasn't the best of circumstances but it was better than nothing as she searched out the fuse box; the first warning that something was wrong, was the groaning off the wood under her feet.

The second sign was when the wooden floor gave way under her feet. And the third was when she plummeted downwards and landed heavily on something that , when she ran her fingers over it to find out what it was, could only be called a casket. She shook her head and closed her eyes and imagined the headlines that the local paper would have when someone came to check on her, "Dead found in Ruined Mausoleum." She coughed at the dust before slowly sitting up, she could see the light from the door up above her, but had no way to reach it. She grumbled, "Right, build a manor onto of an old crypt and call it good. No bad luck there. Oh no! It's all good to build over a grave--that's way this house is the way it is!"

His centuries long sleep had been fevered, unsurprisingly.Each night at a specific time the terror would strike him, a grim remembrance of his past and everything filthy he'd done.The house had been deemed haunted for eons, screams in the night below the floorboards, faint and muffled as though far beneath the soil of the home.If legend held true this was the source.The casket was a thick beast of a resting place, rusted shut at the seems, though strangely warm to the touch, instead of cold as Ice as It should have been.Unlike most nights, his dreams were different, instead of the same one, this time he had a faint vision.The years outside the ten foot area around the casket flashed before him.Years of change and toil, until the crypt had been buried beneath the earth and left to be forgotten.

His conscience began to rouse slowly, rising from it's deep centuries long sleep, though not quite fully awake yet.He gave a roll in the casket, causing a clunk inside before groaning, the groan muffled through the Iron of the thick metal.His one eye was rolling around In It's socket rapidly as he came back from the dead almost quiet literally, the fog re-animating his suspended form slowly inside the casket, the time had come to awaken.

Melissa slowly sat up on the coffin and tried not to think of the rotting body beneath the warm--why was it warm?--metal beneath her fingers. She touched the back of her neck softly and hissed at the tender spot that she knew was going to bruise by evening. She froze when there was groan from within the coffin, and she looked down in the murky darkness and shook her head, and whispered half-frantically, "I was joking about a horror movie...I really was...!" She closed her eyes and muttered, "This is just a bad dream and I'll wake up tomorrow in my crappy apartment with my landlord beating at my door."

She opened her eyes and half-prayed that her statement had come true; no. Not a chance. She sighed and looked down at the casket as another noise emanated from it and she scrambled off of it, landing awkwardly on the debris covered floor as she scrambled backwards and whispered to herself, "The casket is old, it's just groaning from age and my weight falling on it. It's just breaking...no dead things. Just age..."

Nonetheless, the dark-eyed, fair-haired woman, kept inching backwards and hoped for a stairwell up and out of this crypt.

The casket was silent for a while before It began to shudder and jerk, the ringlets on it clanking loudly as a tortured scream began to emanate from inside of it.It was muffled though still audible, a mans voice screaming In what could be considered agony, though It was hard to tell.It seemed the horror movie had come true, and before long the ringlets holding the casket rusted shut snapped off.A repeated banging occurred on the inside of the casket, as If something we're trying to force It's way out.Finally the age old rust-seal broke and the lid spilled off, releasing a dank, moldy black fog into the pit.

Panting came from inside the coffin as a man rose from it, sweaty and wild-eyed.He had the look of a beast to him, one eye turned to fix on her, a deep crimson shade, the other an empty socket.Grunting the figure hauled itself from the casket, stumbling about a bit on his legs before he came to pause in front of the startled woman.Such strange clothes, and such a strange scent upon her.What really struck the groggy warlord was her face....that face, the one that belonged to his woman.His breathing slowed somewhat, a guttural growl resounding from him, a single word."....Maria" he groaned, before collapsing onto his knees, then face first into the dirt, out cold from his struggle to free himself from his self imposed imprisonment.The fog swirled about the air for a moment, curving forward to regard the startled woman before It flitted down to the fallen man, worming It's way back into his body forcefully through the empty eye socket.Then, silence enveloped the area once more, silence and a nearly nude man.

To say that Melissa was scared would have been an understatement. It would have been more appropriate to say that she was terrified and left years of her life draining away when the muffled scream echoed from the casket followed by banging. The multitude of monsters and creatures that flashed before her mind left her shaking as she pressed closer to the wall and tried literally to climb up it. The wall was rough enough that she could brace herself about an inch above the ground, just enough so when the rolling black fog was spat from the coffin it only brushed the soles of her flat soled shoes. And when she saw the man, the urge to scream was silenced by the hope that if she was very quiet, he wouldn't notice her.

She shuddered as his one eye focused on her and she longed to become one with the wall and fade away, as he moved closer to her. She watched him fall to the ground and somehow, oddly enough, felt a little slighted in the horror department. It felt all of a sudden like she had freaked out over nothing, if one could call a pretty much naked beast of a man crawling out of a casket nothing. She watched the fog slither into the man's empty eye socket and her jaw dropped open as she let her feet touch the ground once again. She hesitantly moved closer to him before poking him in his shoulder, "You...hey you..." She poked him harder, "Wake up! Yooohooo..."

She knelt down beside him, thankful that she had worn her jeans rather than a mini-skirt like she originally planned and poked him again, "Wake up." Melissa pulled back and looked up before squinting; in the corner was a small staircase that looked like it had seen better days but one nonetheless. She looked at the man on the floor and warred with herself for a moment--she could leave him down there and worry, or she could take him with her and still worry. She bit her thin bottom lip before she finally reached down and grabbed his wrist with both of her hands and started to drag him. Or at least try to drag him.

He was nothing short of hunky, a literal beefcake, thick broad toned muscle, covered in a patchwork of scars, battle scars that were centuries old and then some.His form was heavy and weighty, but not too heavy to drag along.On the way up the stairs the cotton towel around his waist caught on a nail and slid off, revealing his toned ass and legs.He was either an athlete or had a hard life where ever he was from, men didn't come built like brick shithouses anymore, at least not like that.His hair was somewhat long, down to his shoulders, a chestnut brown to contrast with his light cream skin, just bordering on pigment.Grumbles and grunts came from the sleeping man, who was now sleeping a normal type of sleep, his body recovering from being suspended for so long.

Melissa had eyes, and when the wrap around his hips was tugged off on the way up the stairs, she paused and stared--he had a nice ass. She wondered what it would look like with a pair of low-slung jeans hugging it, before she shook her head and continued to drag him up the stairs. She winced as he seemed to bounce against the stone steps as she dragged him up, "Sorry...oh, sorry about that too."

With a sigh, and stopped at the top of the stairs and let his arm drop as she leaned against the door catching her breath. She wasn't athletic, and her trim figure was the result of good genetics and a high metabolism but after dragging him up the stairs, she felt the need to go to the gym--she was twenty-three year-old groaned and touched her aching arms with a whimper before she looked down at him. His scars interested her, no one she knew had scars like that, especially now when being pristine was all the rage among the guys. And those muscles...

She took another deep breath before unlatching the door and pushing it open, and frowning when she found herself in the kitchen, "...I...have a door that leads into a crypt? I don't want to know. I really don't." She kept shaking her head as she finished dragging the man into the manor and left him lying on the kitchen floor. She looked at his nude body before dashing off to the foray to pull one of the dusty sheets off a mirror and dropped it over him. She glanced out the window towards her luggage and then at the dead lights above her and shook her head, "I'm just gonna get candles and call it good."

Almost seven hours he slept there on the floor covered by the sheet.Seven hours, right from noon until seven in the evening.His eye slid open as he gave a grunt, moving to sit up on his knees, tossing the sheet over.His eye was stung by the brightness through the window as he gazed around the kitchen."...how long was I down there" he grumbled, gazing at the strange furnishings about the place.Standing up he stretched his sore stiff limbs out and held his stomach in hunger.Where was that blasted wench from before?...more importantly where the hell was the food!.He began to rummage around the bare cabinets, finding old jars of canned foods, old and stale but still edible.He fumbled with the strange screw-cap for a moment before he got it off.Digging his dirty fingers into the jar he fished a pickle out, chewing on It noisily, savouring the acidity of his first bit of food in...what must have been hundreds of years!.

When the man she had dragged up the stairs didn't wake up in the first hour she sat there and poked him, Melissa decided she had other things to do, such as bring in her luggage and try to see if there was a room in the house that didn't smell of mildew and dust. There were several rooms in decent condition and she claimed the first that had minimal months, dust, and its own adjoining bath to it. She wasn't sure if the water was turned on yet, but it was going to be the best room in manor when she was done with it. For a few hours, she made herself busy as she made her bed before she tested the water and took a bath. At first, she had been leery of the rusty colored water, but when it turned clear after a few moments she jumped for joy and relaxed.

When seven o'clock rolled around, Melissa was dressed in a camisole and a pair of low hung flannel pants tied loosely at her hips. She had put band-aids on some of the cuts she had received from her fall into the crypt, and wrapped up one of her ankles just to be safe. It was tender to the touch and hurt to put too much weight on it, so she hobbled along. She cobbled down the stairs, and tied her hair up into a loose bun as she walked towards the kitchen. Just because there was a comatose man on her floor didn't mean she was going to stop her life; she was hungry, and damnit, she was going to find some food. Even if it meant a rather unappetizing meal of tuna and asparagus spears.

The young woman froze at the entryway to the kitchen and stared in shock as she watched her not-so-comatose guest, stick his grimy fingers into a jaw of pickles and dig one out before eating it noisily. She shuddered and considered walking back upstairs and pretending she didn't see him before she thought better of it--it was her house, and she was armed with...she glanced around the kitchen before she spotted an old rolling pin next to a set of flimsy looking pans. Her grip was loose as she held onto the rolling pin and walked forward; it wasn't that she thought he was dangerous, he just looked a little crazy and she wanted to be on the safe side of things. She commented dryly, if not a bit shakily, "That's disgusting, y'know?"

He'd damn near finished the whole jar, tipping it up to chug the vinegar they were preserved in, caring not that It spluttered down his chin.He gagged and coughed a tad as he heard her voice from behind.Turning sharply he gave her a glare colder than an arctic wind, his eye taking her in for a moment.God, she really did look like his beloved Maria...his beloved and hated Maria.He turned fully around and folded his arms quietly over his chest.His member was nestled between his thighs, thick and long, and pierced...a thick ring through the head of it.

He spoke commandingly but softly, hoping the language hadn't changed."Who are you, and why have you disturbed my rest" he grumbled out in what was now and then known as english, though he had a thick accent reminiscent of someone from the czech republic, very Russian sounding but with much less edge than a Russian.He obviously had a somewhat displeased look on his face from the lack of food this paltry woman had in her home.

When he turned around and gave her an eyeful, her eyes widened at the piercing, before her eyes shot back up at his face. That was safer, she thought, her cheeks slightly red--she had only heard about piercings like that and never thought she would see one. Hadn't that hurt? She thought, why would someone want to do that to their body! His eye, she decided was not much better with the frigid glare he gave her, one she all to happily returned, scowling at him. He was the one who was standing in her kitchen, naked mind you, who was he to act like he owned it and she was trespassing!

Melissa had to pause at his accent and for a moment she couldn't make heads or tails of what he said before looking at him oddly, "Rest? You were in a casket. And it's not like I wanted to fall down fifteen feet and land on the damn thing, near break my back, and twist my ankle. Why would I want to do that." She glanced around him to look at the food in the cupboards and frowned, "...I really, really, really hate this place."

She kept wide-berth around him as she looked through a few of the cupboards he hadn't rifled through, hoping that maybe there was a can of fruit, or a bottle of liquor somewhere. She still gripped the rolling pin in her hand as she searched through them, coming up empty handed. She looked at the empty jar of pickles and then back at his face, the bottom half covered in vinegar and frowned; that was probably one of the last edible things in this run-down manor.

His glare softened somewhat under her scolding, It was something he wasn't really used to hearing and It always brought him back down off his high horse.He sighed heavily and slid down the cupboard to sit on the floor."Forgive my rudeness....I've been out a long time" he stated, rubbing his face."There is some gold in the casket downstairs, not much maybe four hundred pieces or so but, enough to stock the cupboards" he finished, unaware gold was worth more ounce for ounce now then anything, four hundred one ounce gold pieces ran about eight hundred dollars per coin....three hundred and twenty thousand dollars was sitting in her basement, in his bed."If you must, you can...sell this too" he stated, looping his finger through the thick ring in the end of his member and wriggling it a tad, it too was solid gold.

When he apologized, she gave a curt nod and watched his sit down on the floor before she set the rolling pin down and sat on the counter as he spoke. When he mentioned the gold, she paused before she coughed, "F-four hundred pieced of gold?" Her brown eyes stared at him in silence and she looked at the still open door that led back down into the crypt; there was three hundred and twenty thousand dollars sitting in a casket underneath her house--that was more money than she hoped to have saved in her life-time! She could go back to school with that and get a more useful degree and not just translate books for her own pleasure.

When he jiggled the gold ring at the end of his member, she shuddered and grimaced, "You...can keep that right where it is." Melissa was okay with going back down into the crypt and picking gold out of the casket, but no way in hell was she going to touch that ring after he was wearing it. He didn't look like he had a bath in centuries and he was bound to be pretty ripe by then. "I'm pretty sure that 400 gold pieces will suffice..." She was still reeling from doing the math; that was a lot of money...and she would have to trade it in with a dealer, or a special collector if she wanted to get an even better deal. The bank would give her the eight-hundred dollar flat rate that was promised but private buyers, from what she had heard, would pay more if it caught their fancy.

He grunted as he stood up and sighed, rubbing his tense neck and grumbling."Where Is your bathing chamber, I smell like death Incarnate" he stated, striding by her.He didn't really smell foul, just musky, musky like raw sex."Do you also have something I might perhaps be able to wrap up in?, unless you prefer staring at my manhood, in which case I can remain nude" he stated with a wide smirk towards her.He was ever the chauvanist, at least in part anyway.

She frowned at him slightly before pointing upstairs, "Third door to the right." Her nose wrinkled at his scent, finding it not as unpleasant as she thought it would have been and blinked in surprise. The smell caused her to lean back a little unsure of the reason; it seemed to scream masculinity before she caught herself and straightened up. When he asked for clothes and then smirked at her, she arched an eyebrow, "Honey, I've seen bigger and better."

Once again, she pointed towards the sheet, "But you may cover up in that--I may have an ex's boxers somewhere in my luggage though...maybe."

He chuckled and began up the stairs as he spoke."I'm a grower not a shower, babe" he retorted as he tromped up the stairs.He shuffled along the floor to the bathroom, gazing around and simply sighing at the dirtiness of it.He reached down and turned the taps on, not used to their being two, as hot water had been manually heated in his day.He blinked at the other knob and turned it, feeling the water go hot under his fingers and grinning."Seems the world has come a long way" he stated simply.With no stopper in the tub he couldn't well bathe, though he'd found a knob and had tugged it, turning the shower head on."Artificial...hot rain" he stated, staring at the droplets of falling heated water before he slid in.Groaning his fingers began to rub himself down, washing the muck off his skin, having him go from a dirty brown colour to a milky cream complexion under the water.

Melissa watched him leave before she rolled her eyes and muttered, "Could have fooled me." She went over to the dusty and now slightly grimy sheet and picked it up by the corner and with only two fingers as she dragged it back towards the living room and let it settle on the worn out carpet, that back in its day had probably been stunning to stare at. But like everything in the manor, it was faded, shabby, and dulled by the number of years it had been in service to the family that lived there. She listened to the hot water heater loudly echo through the hall from the basement and frowned--she still had to turn on the lights, or light enough candles...

She didn't want to go back down into the basement, not with its rickety floors, and the gaping hole over the crypt. One fall a day, was more than enough for her. She went back into the kitchen and scoured it once more before coming up with a jar of berry preserves. She stared at it blankly for a moment before setting it on the counter, "If only I had some crackers to go with you. It would be a wonderful night."

It was past seven, and even if she did collect the gold downstairs, she wouldn't be able to exchange it until tomorrow so they would have to make do with what there was in the house, which was nothing. Melissa wrinkled her nose at the prospect of walking down the road into town to get groceries...and most likely clothes for her guest before she kicked him out. It would be too cruel to make him leave while completely bare.

It was half an hour later he strode downstairs bone dry, his pubic hair trimmed up neatly and his actual hair cut short, only highlighting his masculinity further.He gave a yawn and strode up behind her, pinning her against the counter, an arm at either side of her before he leaned down, giving her lips a quick but heated kiss.He let it linger for a moment before breaking the contact, striding across the floor to explore the house out of both boredom and curiosity.

Melissa jumped as his arms descended on either side of her and she was pressed against the counter with no escape. Her brown eyes widened at the heated kiss. She pressed her hands against his chest and pushed him away, just as he broke contact and strode off to explore. She stood there shell-shocked for a moment, lightly flushed and annoyed by his sudden action, when her voice finally came back she all but shouted at him, "What the hell was that?"

She stomped after him, before she stumbled and hobbled because of her twisted ankle, "Who the hell do you think you are? Kissing my like that! You're supposed to ask!" At least that was how she had been raised; perhaps things were different when he was raised? But because it was her time now, and not his, he would have to play by her rules.

He paused and turned as she strode after him, putting a finger to her chest and softly pushing, forcing her off balance to fall into one of the old recliners."Stay off that foot, It'll rot and fall off If you don't" he stated, flopping down in the other across from her."What do you mean why did I do that anyway?...and since when do I have to ask to kiss a woman?....judging by the flush on your cheeks I'd say you haven't been kissed in a long time".

She waved her arms in an attempt to stay upright after he pushed her off balance, before she landed heavily in one of the old recliners before sneezing at the amount of dust the action brought up--she really needed to get this place cleaned. She looked at him, "...rot off? It's just sprained! It's not like I cut it open."

Nonetheless, she didn't get up and curled up in the seat. She frowned at him, "You just can't kiss someone! It's mouth-rape." Melissa's blush deepened slightly at his comment because it was true that she hadn't been kissed a while. Her last boyfriend had been a year ago, and she had been so busy since that the last kiss she had, had been from her littlest cousin on her cheek. "T-that doesn't matter. You just can't kiss people like that, it's just...you have to ask."

"You know a kiss really isn't as good tasting unless you steal it" he remarked, quickly leaning over her and kissing her again, deeply and slowly, letting his smooth fingers brush down her arm before he pulled back."Besides, I can tell you like it...you shiver each time" he stated with a wide smirk.Sitting down he folded one leg over the other and chuckled."If I were to presume, I'd say you're...in debt?....or perhaps you simply felt the idea of exploring wonderfully fun and, here you are in what I presume to be a deceased relatives manner?".He shrugged softly and sighed."Either way, I think you're going to be stuck with me for quite some time yet".

(Oh my god I'm so sorry I took this long to post.I've had alooooot of crap going on in real life lately, I apologize.I'm very thankful for your patience <3)

Melissa gasped into the kiss and a fine shiver danced down her spine as his lips once again pressed against hers. She made a soft noise as he kissed her slowly and deeply and leaned into his gently touch against her arm. She didn't know when her eyes closed until he pulled back from her and started to speak. She gave a little unbecoming squeak as her fingers came up to touch her lips softly. She finally got her voice back and she shook her head, "N-no...well...yes, but no? I don't know...." She slumped in her seat and sighed, "All I know is--you can't stay here. I don't even know you and, frankly, you do scare me a little."

(No worries, I hope everything is better now or at least working out?)

A sly smirk slid across his face as he stood up and folded his arms."Well I can always take my gold and go elsewhere with it, I mean the least you can do in exchange for some of my gold is allow me to stay" he stated simply."If I'm not mistaken about your debt, I'm sure MY funds would go a long way in paying that debt up hmm?" he spoke in soft cooing tones before he leaned down to face her eye to eye once more."Besides, male company might do you some good".