Useless as a mage, Silvia Copse finds herself so upset that she goes and gets black out drunk at the bar. So drunk that she can't tell up from down, she picks up a man with red eyes, white hair, and skin of ice.
What does a useless mage do when the...
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The far side of the Copse territory was so quiet, right between the western cliffs and the lake that shared a border with the Charge territory to their west. Their only mage allies that bordered them were cut off by steep jagged cliffs that kept them from traveling much between the territories without transportation spells. With the constant struggle on their northern border, the Charges rarely patrolled here.
It was silent. Empty. What he needed to walk into vampire territory without notice from his peers. He had to trust that Neil Arc wouldn't imprison him. Silvia asking this of him was no simple thing, and it took him swallowing years of ingrained beliefs about the Arcs to approach the border. In that cell, Neil had been kind to his daughter, had pushed her away rather than hurt her, and had trusted her with him in his sleep. Certainly, that must mean something.
There were other issues though. It had been a week and Alec still hadn't shown up. Tide was antsy, and it was making all of the mages who patrolled the borders tense. There had already been too many close calls from mages snapping at the vampires on the border. Forest was eager to calm his second general, and he hoped that Neil could help with that. Neil Arc had been hostile with all the mage representatives present, but perhaps he would lower his guard for the father of the woman he loved.
At least Forest hoped that Neil's love was genuine, because Silvia's was and she'd be heartbroken if she was just a passing fancy to this vampire. Staring out into the Arc territory, he wondered just what he'd gotten himself into accepting Silvia's request. It wouldn't have been fair of him to deny his daughter while she was in tears.
They trimmed the trees where the Copse Territory ended so no one accidentally walked into the Arc territory, and the vampires always had someone watching it. It wasn't more than a moment that he was on the precipice before a vampire appeared before him, lying in a tree albeit, but it was there to watch him.
This one had an interesting fashion sense, with half his hair bone-white and the other black. It was braided down to his lower back with overlapping colors, but more than that, Forest was drawn to the outlines of his bare, pale, muscled arms crossed over his chest. It was so dark out that they and the bright color of his white hair were all that were easily discernable. His eyes were so pitch they sank into the night.
"General Forest Copse," the man said, a smile curling his lips and showing off his fangs in the moonlight. "What can the Arcs do for you?"
"I wish to speak to Neil Arc," Forest said. If he crossed the border, all he'd need do was demand to see the man, but he didn't want to go there in shackles. As it was, Forest didn't know if he could avoid being imprisoned, but he'd try.
"Do you now?" The vampire dropped to his feet and shifted to stand directly in front of him. There was a breath of space between them on the borderline to their territories. "What for?"
"All I want is to speak to him without prying mage ears." If this vampire thought he was here for nefarious reasons, nothing he said would convince him otherwise, but it didn't hurt to act as passive as possible here.
