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To Disappear (kikora and Z.G.)

"Ah, of course." Abel replied. He occasionally forgot those close to him, close enough to live on a nocturnal schedule, were themselves creatures of the day light. It was mildly disconcerting to watch Lorian cut into the fish, removing its head and tail before throwing its guts into nearby bushes.

"But Lorian must be fatigued! He has easily now spent at least twenty-four hours of wakefulness, perhaps more, and running and climbing as we did. Surely, fellow, we could wait a few hours for you to nap." Abel did not care about Lorian's general health or welfare, he merely wanted to appear as wheedling kind as possible. Better to smother in hugs than provoke when you wanted to make someone else look like an aggressive fool.
 
Lorian cleaned the fish, and stripped the meat from the bone, making this fillets. He raised his hand over rock, and reached in, with a low note sounding from his lips. He withdrew, and from the black stone came a flat pan, that he set over the fire, and carefully laid the strips in, letting them simmer. He smiled and Kaura once more, and tossed her a piece of sweet fruit, a dark blue exotic looking treat exclusive to the forest... One of Kaura's favorite treats. She smiled, and bit in gladly, grateful for the nostalgia that the treat brought.

And Lorian was glad that the strongly sweet smell of the fruit would cover any smell of Abel on the girl. "I am fine." He told Abel, giving him a tight smile. "I have stayed awake far longer than a day or two."
 
"Wonderful. I never thought that I would be thankful for the stamina you elves seem to enjoy," Abel responded blithely, his attention apparently taken up by watching something in the air. It was a flock of bats, if they could be termed as such, flying between trees as they sought their way out over open water to seek their meals.

The vampire waited until Lorian and Kaura finished eating before, "We should continue on our little journey."
 
Lorian ate slowly, not speaking a word to Kaura as she shifted uncomfortably. A few long minutes pass, and they finished the fish, and Lorian put the remaining fruits and berries in the bag. He'd been careful to save seeds of the fruit, to grow when they reached the castle. Kaura would appreciate having her favorite things to eat close.

He stood and brushed himself off slowly. Kaura moved to follow, looking between the two men with a concerned expression, as if sensing the tension for the first time. "Did I do something to upset you, teacher?" She questioned.

Lorian paused, and turned to face her, a gentle smile on his face. "No Kaura." He said as he set a hand on her head, and stroked down her hair lightly. "You have done nothing wrong."

Kaura's frowned deepened slightly. "You seem angry since you learned my master is my mate...." She whispered, tilting her head to look at him.

"No, no." Lorian assured her, setting a hand on her back to help her forward, ignoring the vampire completely. "I am glad you can enjoy having your master use you. I truly am." He told her, smiling softly at her. "But do not mistake that with him being your mate." Kaura opened her mouth to protest, but Janek shook his head slightly. "So much was held back from you. In the last few hundred years it has grown more and more common for proper Elves to have a mate, and seek out the physical pleasure of others. It is done discretely, privately, but it is done."

"But... Why can't master be my mate?" Kaura questioned, and Lorian gave her a reassuring squeeze, trying to comfort her a bit.

"Lord Abel is a vampire." He said softly, "And he owns you. A mate is an equal, to share your life with, to offer a future with..." He sighed, and drew her in closer. "What you do with him may be pleasurable... But it is not mating... Because a vampire cannot mate. Mating bring children... He can offer you none."

"But I cannot share myself with so many men!" Kaura told him back, pulling away, and stepping towards Abel. "I wont be what the humans named me.... I'm not a woman of questionable character!"

"No you're not!" Lorian told her back. "You're a woman in a complicated situation who is letting her pride rule her actions."
 
Comfortable whispers seemed to dominate the conversation between Lorian and Kaura at first. As their little tete a tete progressed the vampire refused to let out the sheer glee he felt at what was happening before him. What was unfolding before his eyes was amazing for what was being communicated in the silence. It had been so long since Abel had to compete with a woman, not since he was a young thing, fighting over first love, struggling in a war that he inevitably lost. The funny thing was, he had nearly forgotten about her when his mandatory service with the Legions ended. Never even inquired after her when he came back. Funny how a thousand days can change everything.

Apparently, by estimation, something in the part of Lorian's brain that handled dealing with others was rattled. The message the young elf's former tutor seemed to be trying to deliver was that Kaura should pursue a sexual relationship with him, even if it meant something on the side with Abel. That seemed to be the root of it, beneath the flimsy pretext of the vampire's admittedly useless genitals. He could no more plant his part of the seed of life than he could face the noon sun. Not only to consider that Lorian was advocating polygamy to perhaps one of the most prudish young women not explicitly affiliated with an organized religion Abel had ever met. She was so appalled by the ideal she retreated from her liberator to her captor.

Already the conversation had spiraled downwards. Already Lorian had lost gone on the offensive, pointing out one of Kaura's deepest flaws in a confrontational manner. Abel's best estimation was that Kaura would balk at what Lorian was saying due to the mass of shame and embarrassment that surrounded Kaura's ideas about physical intimacy, not to mention the considerable naivete. To a degree Abel was beginning to suspect that he should lay the blame for that perfect little Gordian Knot of twisted emotion and perception directly at Lorian's feet.

However, if nothing else, they were slowly moving towards their destination. If only Abel were lucky this argument could force Lorian's proverbial tail between his legs and flee the situation, depriving Kaura of a possible ally. No matter how much Abel wanted to make an innocuous comment tailored to enrage the dark elf, he knew that letting their little psychodrama play out in front of him was the best possible course. At this rate Abel would only get in the way of Lorian's rather industrious method of fabricating the rope to hang himself with.
 
The back and forth between Kaura and Lorian was fairly typical of their bickering, the same kind of discussions they had indulged in back before Kaura ever left the village. It was one of the things that Kaura actually found appealing about her tutor, he was never afraid to hurt her feelings, if it would make her wiser for the experience. He was never pointlessly cruel, even if she thought so at the time.

For now Kaura ducked her head, and almost pouted. She did not consider herself a prideful person! Stubborn at times, but prideful? "I am not letting my pride rule me." She said simply, only to be met by the sharp laugh of the dark elf.

"Child, you have always let your pride rule you. You ran from this man not two days ago, you have only been in his service for less than a week, can you claim a mate you do not know?"

Kaura huffed slightly, and gripped the material of her skirt, raising it slightly from the ground as she walked, placed in the center between Lorian and Abel.

"I would never dream of making you do something you were not comfortable with." Lorian said softly. "Not ever. If you wish for this man to be your mate, then I will personally speak to your parents and have them offer their blessing. Just do not allow pride to dictate your life. You deserve far better."
 
"Excuse me, Lorian, but I do find it somewhat rude that you would speak as though I am not here. You seem free to cast aspersions freely though we have just met. Is there something deep within the complex patchwork of your tradition that dictates such rudeness to not only strangers, but apparently neighbors as well?" That was something that had been needling at the back of Abel's mind. Exactly how far outside of Lorian's territory were they going, and did Lorian have a territory for his position as peace keeper? If there was any flaw he could exploit to drive off the dark elf, that exactly would be key. Their argument seemed to cause less of a schism than Abel had hoped. Kaura took the criticism with a surprising amount of acceptance versus Abel's experience with her, though much of the criticism he had dished out had been to demoralize her.

"Perhaps you should afford Kaura somewhat more respect. As she has explained she did have something to do with revitalizing your people. Perhaps you should honor a hero."
 
"No, no!" Kaura said quickly, smiling at Abel as she tried to wave away his concern. "We were wrong, Master." She said softly, and shot Lorian a kind smile. "My teacher has been near me as long as I can remember, it must be startling for him to imagine me grown so fast. To have walked back on us in such a state would have been difficult for him."

Lorian gave the girl a smile, and reached out to pat her head slightly. "Kaura is a special young Elf." Lorian told Abel softly, letting his hand fall away after a moment. "I have far more respect for her than many of my kind. Which is why I do not cushion my words, and she does not expect me to." The smile bright on Kaura's face more than confirmed the fact, and she laughed softly behind her hand. "But I was ruse. I cannot stop thinking of Kaura as my student, and she still has much to learn."
 
"Ah, yes, Lorian, I often find myself forgetting about simple social courtesy while endorsing polyandry." There was a very dry tone to Abel's voice with that little rejoinder of his. It would be difficult to tell if Abel was being sarcastic behind his carefully stoic demeanor. Just as in a fist fight it is advantageous to lower your profile as much as possible so you're showing your body as little body as possible to hit in more social confrontations he attempted to act as a man of few words for exactly the same reason. He would not forget that the dark elf was here to attempt to steal one of his toys. That would not do. It would only be a few more painful hours before he could show Lorian what passed for a receipt and then this would be done with, if the whole situation did not climax with Abel bathing in the intrusive fence sitter's blood.
 
"Perhaps not." Lorian returned. "You are kind enough to offer your slave to another while she is suffering the effects of the potent aphrodesiac that your species is notorious for." He retorted, in a perfectly calm tone of voice. "A thoughtful and polite person, to be sure." Lorian said, tilting his head slightly to flash Abel a tight smile.

"Look, I see the castle!" Kaura exclaimed, in an attempt to break the tension between the two men. "We should arrive shortly."

"Ah yes." Janek responded, smiling again at Kaura. "It is indeed a fine place to live, Lord Abel. Very different from the structures of our people."
 
"Perhaps you should be more careful with your words. I merely asked Kaura if she wanted to play with you. Leaving it up to her, she decided not to. Is the legal system of dwelling kin similar to your own systematic projection?" Abel asked academically, furiously scrubbing malice from his tone. He felt mildly relieved to see the broken spire Kaura had escaped from. Finally they were close to home.

Finally he would be able to shed himself of this Lorian fellow.
 
"It is comfortable at times." Kaura responded brightly, smiling up at Lorian. "Wait until you see the markets, Master has imports brought in from regions miles away, and hundreds of humans come to buy product. There are performers and entertainment as well."

Lorian chuckled softly to himself. "Oh, really?" He asked, beaming at the girl.

"Yes. You can ask Master Abel about it when we arrive." Kaura shot Abel a wide grin, and moved next to him, tugging his sleeve lightly. "Perhaps my tutor might stay for a bit?" She asked softly. "A speaker for my people to mend ties of our races? If he stays, I will not run again, you would have my word."
 
Now Lorian had to die. With one well placed fall of the hammer he could pulverize the dark elf's head, he would have Kaura's binding word she would not leave and all would be said and done. He would give Lorian a few days of hanging about and then off he would be to wherever it was the pointy eared freaks thought they went when they died. Abel gently grasped his slave's gently tugging hand and pulled her fingers up to his lips. "It would take more than Lorian and I talking to cure the bonds of war between our peoples. Perhaps he and a delegation could travel to the new territory. However, if you'd like him to stay for a little while, and I have your word you will stay with me, then that is acceptable."
 
"I do thank you for your generosity." Lorian responded, and for once he was honestly grateful for the chance to stay closer to Kaura. He had a sdark suspicion that the vampire was planning something... But he could take any kind of plean the vile man could devise, for the sake of his student.

"This has been the longest we've been apart since we met." Kaura explained with a sad laugh. "Since I stumbled into the dark woods when I was five."

"Kaura's parents did not want to raise a child just to bury her in a few short decades." Lorian explained softly. "They mourned her death when she was three, and her condition became known. They cared for her, provided food and clothing, but she was dead to them, as were many other aged children. I was a teacher at the time, and Kaura showed promise. I took her as a personal protege'." He shot the girl a smile, and patted her back softly. "But, when it was time for her to leave I could not come. Kaura left to protect her people, and I stayed to protect mine."
 
Abel just barely restrained himself from making a snappy crack about the darkies and the palefaces. It was an open, gaping invitation to shove a little bit of the dirt and grime beneath Kaura and Lorian's smug demeanor, their arrogant noses. Vampires made no bones about what they did and very rarely attempted to define themselves; they were predators, symbiotic, parasites all rolled together in one. As diverse a pool as their far flung roots. Equally opinionated. The kind of person who felt the need to discuss their philosophical-cum-political philosophy was officially wet brained in Abel's opinion.

Why share that information with a potential resource competitor?

"Aged children?" Abel was compelled to ask. He had to. These elves fascinated him on a deep level. He was having the first real interaction one of his kind had with Elves in many centuries and it had thus far revealed a wealth of information to him. On the other hand he had managed to get away from explaining the particulars of his people's situation.
 
"Aged children is not longer relevant to our race." Lorian told him with a smile, and patted Kaura on the shoulders. "Some years ago there was a problem with our children growing old too quickly. They developed and grew into adults while children born at a similar time could not yet walk. Many named these Elves "Aged Children" and their deaths were mourned when their condition became known."

"Many aged children wore black." Kaura continued. "To symbolize their demise. A veil hid their face to keep Elder Elves from viewing the face of the dead, and they lived off in their parents home until their deaths."

"But, as you likely know, aged children are no longer an issue in our societies. All those named previously shed their black garb and veils, and are the "Reborn", many are attending schools with those twice their age, and are doing quite well." He smiled down at Kaura once more, an honest thankful look in his eyes. After a moment he raised his eyes to Abel's, "And of yours?" He questioned. "Many rumors of the fate of vampires has passed through to Elven ears, would they be true?"
 
"Given as I do not know these rumors, I cannot say. Sufficed to say our kind has been driven literally to the other side of the continent. I believe I am the only one of my kin this close to Elven civilization." Abel explained slowly, mulling over what Lorian had just told him. There was something about locking away disabled children that managed to raise an uncommon ire in the vampire. Making children where black and a veil, keeping them inside--the vampire may have ended lives, but at least he did not warp them from the get-go. What foul attempts at parenting.

They were so very close to his compound now. The sound of the music of the Night Market was wafting through the air, carried on winds of merriment. Lights shined brightly against the cloud covered night sky, the occasional brief flash of fire flaring. "Only a little bit now and we shall be at home."
 
"An unpleasant topic, to be sure. The rumors have been for centuries that the war between out kind had left yours fractured and your social structure all but collapsed." Lorian said with a sigh, taking a moment to silence himself to show he meant no offense to the undead man.

The sound of music made the elf lift his head slightly, and he listened with interest to the sound of merriment as it floated to their ears. "I assume that is the market?" He asked, tilting his head to smile at Abel slightly. "It must be sizeable indeed to be heard from this distance."
 
"Yes, it is somewhat large." Abel itched to be back home, in his compound, surrounded by his servants and his slaves as opposed to making chit chat with a scavenger who wanted to take away one of his toys. Though the vampire did his best to not let it get to him, that was what it came down to; Lorian had threatened to take away something he wanted. The vampire did not appreciate it when people tried to take his things away, even if those things were themselves not only ambulatory but sentient. Here this scavenger was inquiring into exactly how his people's world had fallen in around their heads, how a carefully laid hierarchy had been smashed, the traditions of centuries lost, an oral history stretching back millenia splintered because of the amount of death.

"I had heard something similar happened to the elves, though I wonder how the effects of the war extended across your two societies' divisions. Were you ground dwellers afflicted with the same taint as the wood elves?"
 
Janek laughed for a moment, dying into a chuckle. "It is not so much that the light and dark elves are socially divided as it is that we are incapable of living united." He explained softly. "Light Elves need the sun to survive, without it they perish. Dark Elves are burned some by sunlight, and if we do not stay enough in the shadows grow weary."

He glanced over, his brows furrowing together briefly. "Your kind knows of the taint you cast upon the last source?" He asked. "Lust for power nearly drove the world to hell, and all Elves were effected, until now." He sighed softly. "We now have Elves as powerful as those that fought hundreds of years past, in the same numbers. That is the purpose of my job, to hold tightly to the reigns. We cannot allow brash action that will destroy a species."
 
The brash action is allowing one person executive and judiciary control, Abel noted, careful to keep that opinion to himself. He would have to deal with Lorian for a few days more, and in that time he expected to resist urges to bash the fool's head in with a wide variety of implements, chief among which would be his hands. But this was interesting. All of this knowledge he continually soaked up about the elven people, from Kaura and Lorian, storing more of that useful information away until such a time as he could really use it. The more he heard the more feasible a little tete a tete between the elves and vampires seemed--Kaura had told him that they were still collecting their resources, still growing back to their power, and were still less than they had been before. It did not seem out of the ordinary that Lorian would adopt a more positive attitude about the whole thing, as a matter of fact it would be advantageous for him.

"I managed to... Pry the details of Kaura's previous adventures out of her soon after she fell into my lap."
 
"Is that so?" Lorian questioned, and glanced at Kaura, remembering her many welts. "Were you badly beaten?" He questioned softly, reaching up to stroke her hair gently.

Kaura shook her head slightly. "I will be fine, teacher." She whispered.

"How much does he know of our social structure?" He asked, a note of curiosity in his voice.

"Mostly what you have told him, I have not revealed much of our ways." Kaura told him with a smile, and listened to Janek give a soft, sad laugh.

"I see..." He whispered, tilting his head up to view the sky as a smile spread across his face. Interesting indeed, Janek wondered how much Abel thought he understood of their system based on the interaction between him and Kaura.
 
Having the discussion about how much Abel really knew concerning the lives and times of the elven society at large within earshot was a poor choice on their part. It meant that Abel would have to take Kaura aside and pump for further information, by hook or crook. If only there was some way to work around Lorian's ability to teleport--then he could just keep him in a dark, dank dungeon and have some of the hard hitting freaks Abel employed roll through and occasionally sodomize him. After a few years of being chained to a wall, repeatedly raped and completely malnourished the vampire was sure Lorian would give in. Of course, that would limit the amount of skull bashing the vampire wanted to carry out. Decisions, decisions.

They were so close to the compound, finally so close to the vampire's domain. While traveling was enjoyable he felt vulnerable, with the two elves, no one he could truly trust or rely upon to guard his back. Though day by day Kaura seemed to slowly slide into her role a little bit more, slowly rounding off her razor sharp edges. "What kind of music do you like, Lorian? Woodwinds, percussion, perhaps the fair bit of string?"
 
It wasn't as if the social structure of Elven society was a secret. True, there were secrets that Abel had not learned, but many were kept by Lorian alone, and not his student. The complexities of their powers that Kaura had not learned, such as the ability to move as light or shadow...

But now was not the time for such thoughts, "Master Lorian was an excellent flute player, and he took up the human violin last I heard." Kaura chimed in.

Lorian laughed again. "I have learned much about playing the instrument while you were gone, I think I prefer it to the flute. And you child do you still play the harp?"

Kaura made a face, and shook her head. "I sing from time to time, but I dislike that instrument."

Another brief laugh before Lorian's attention was on Abel once more. "And you? Any music you prefer, or can play?"
 
"The trumpet." From his days in the Legion when music made you just as popular as women did. It had been a long time since he played--he had one sitting in a chest in his room. He remembered; the saxophone that used to accompany him, thunder's laughter, and the drums with their infectious rhythm, the flute's manic accompaniment. It was good, to be young. The vampire cast a sidelong gaze at Kaura, She reminds me of my youth.

"I rather enjoyed jazz. Have you ever heard it? It was a human fad, circa four hundred years ago."
 
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