The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Ch 13 pt 1 - Nataniellus, 1960 (The Scissors of Fate)

He made a little sound, and leaned toward me again, and I stroked his ear with my nose. He knew the story, but it soothed him.

"We walked all night, and during the day, the children made a game of keeping me in the shade. Who can shade him the best? Iovita kept them fed, though it was hard for them. When we reached Misenum, we did not have anything left. Be nice to Iovita, because he used himself to feed them, and he could have left us at any time. But it was a nice port place, and soon he found a little work for himself unloading ships, and this and that, and he became a very good man. He has nothing but love for you in his heart, if you will see him. All is forgiven, if you will forgive."

"Yes, I forgive him, I forgive," he whispered, as if in prayer. He inclined his shoulders toward me, making himself small, and I drew him close and tightly. He is lean beneath all of his silk, thin. Sometimes he seems small to me, as the old are small, and I am reminded of how old he was when he was made. Sometimes there is something in his eyes that is not his years, which tells me of his former life, of long forgotten suffering, worship, and dying.

"It is not your fault, what happened, but it is never safe where the evenings are cool. Misenum was no different. In Herculaneum, surely, the young poachers kept away due to your influence, but without you, they came for me with their claws and their teeth. Young blood drinkers, they had no conscience for children, for going through the children to get to me, and it became apparent that the only way to show them they could not have me, or the little ones, was to make of the bold ones examples to the others. I had seen some blood, and some injury in my former life, and I had always been prone to some violence of the spirit myself, to seizing and seeing gods. We were not then without the stories of dismemberment and blood spilling, that so populated our holy minds. In the beginning, I thought, I am only doing what the gods would do, if faced with the same. In fact, would it not take less for them to be moved to violence? When young vampires shaded my doorway, coming creeping for us, I did what I had to do. And when living blood worshipers came, hoping to find favor with me and be like us, I did what I had to do then, too, because I was needing the blood and they came to offer it so willingly. They disgusted me then, and I was so tired."

"Did you tear them, too, Iellus? For they were only silly living people, probably wounded in spirit."

"I don't know what you mean by wounded. If you will say wounded, there are none who aren't. They had no cause. It was suicide for them or the blood; to them it was all the same. They were looking for a life, or the end of a life."

"I thought that you were so beautiful," he murmured. "You smelled like salt water, with your hair wet and tied back with your white cloth. I felt crazy."

"No more?"

"Oh but you are different, and I like you like this, too. Now that you are not muse but the scissors of fate, you are hard and not foolish, and you are clever. You know what must be done and you do it. It is how I would like to be, how I have been, but I have so many cares."

"They are Escha's cares, Faya. Not yours."

"Oh but I don't know. But I like them," he said, uncertainly. I couldn't see his face, but I knew the look, the confused little pout, the unreadable eyes. When he is unlike himself, the man I think that he is not, he can be soft-seeming, and sweet-seeming. But I think that he has many faces, and they are not all his. "There are many personalities, and they surprise me. Even the ones I dislike, they are making me feel awake, and alert, and needful of vigilance. They are making me spry." I growled at him and he murmured, softly, "Do not growl at me, old one, I will lie you upon my coverlet and tear your throat out. How do you like it?" 

"I dare you."

"You are still well-trained. If you had trained under me, you would not be so bold. You would be obedient. Still you are like this. And you would be kinder. You would not have been abused. You would have gotten what you were due and no more." He touched my ear ineffectually and sighed, troubled by my nature.