She was faced with a long journey before her, one that would take her far from the place she had called home. She had been stripped of her memories, though she did not know it, her mind filled with 'other thoughts' as she made her way across the vast frozen wasteland. She was alone now, her Mother, and Grandmother, taken from her, forbidden to see or speak with her, ever again.
She had sinned. She had broken the rules, she had interfered.
But in what? What had she done that was so wrong? She had saved a life, how wrong could that be?
She pushed on, past crumbling walls and worn down streets. Past shadowed caves and deep waters, and along what she had named, the Forgotten Road. She had forgotten, she was, forgotten, and she was now trapped here; wherever here was.
Weeks passed by,months even, and she had just barely survived, but the morning she woke, to find a ship close by...
It wasn't her fault that she had scared the first soldier she had found.His hand on his fire arm, cocked and ready to fire. It had hit her shoulder, the bullet had, and then lodged in a tree nearby, and for the first time ever, she experienced pain. It shot through her body,dredging her mind and causing a thousand and one images to rush past her eyes.
When she had woken, the glare of the light over head, and the smile that looked down upon her...
'Rest now! You'll be okay!' The voice said to her, and the long dark hair and honey colored eyes gave comfort.
'Who, are you? Where am I?' She managed to let out, her voice groggy, and her mind still spinning.
'This world is called Vash, and you, are going to be just fine!'
'I don't remember....'
'I know! But it will return, in time! It always does!' The female smiled again. 'Our kind never forgets for too long! Now eat, rest! The worlds await you, Navina, and you do not want to miss a thing!'
"Lync?" She called out as her eyes opened. "Lync?"
A groan came from across the room, and when she managed to look up, she saw her male, flat on his back and tied down, and there was some sort of bubble....
"What the hell?" She gasped, wrenching herself from her own med lab gurney, and tried, so very hard, to reach him.
"I wouldn't do that!" The voice warned her, and a moment later, the Warrior appeared before her. "Unless you think you can handle him!"
"Lync is my mate, of course I can handle him!" Navina snapped at her, trying to push the female out of the way. "He will not harm me!"
"It's not you, I'm worried about!" The Warrior laughed, "But everyone else on this ship!"
"He'll be fine! Just let him out of that hideous bubble!"
"That, bubble, is what's keeping us from getting our asses beaten! Do you not remember what he did to Nyx and Markus?"
"Do you remember what I did to Kion?" Navina argued back, "And I'm still out and about!"
"So, not the same! Your male, took out two of our best fighters, and claims he doesn't know how!"
"If he claims it, it's true! Lync doesn't lie! Unlike some people I've met!" Navina glared at the Warrior, and pushed one last time, to get past her.
"Markus thinks he's a Vampire! A very old, very lost Vampire!"
"So what if he is?" Navina shook her head, looking down upon her male, looking so lifeless, so...
"No one knows how the Vampires came to be, they have their stories, but I don't think the Vampires even know for sure!"
"And?"
"And he may be able to give us some answers!"
"You think Lync, my Lync, knows this, whatever? You're delusional, Mal! He can't even remember what his Mother looked like! Let alone how a species of blood hungry savages were created!"
"One of those blood hungry savages,has saved your life, twice!" The Warrior snarled at her, the wings she hid amid a mist, fluttering in frustration.
"More than that!" Euphamia sailed into the room, and one look at Navina, she put the charts down, and came to stand beside the Warrior. "What is she doing, Malice?"
"Malice? Your name, is Malice?"
"And what's wrong with Malice?" The Warrior let out.
"Other than being sort of morbid, nothing, I guess!" Navina sighed, and turned back to Lync. "Let him out of here, I want to speak to him!"
"When did she start giving orders around here?" Came another voice, deeper, darker, grumpier; and the Demon appeared in the door way.
"You need me!" Navina replied. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"
"Like I need a hole in my head! Which I feel like there is, because of that Mother Fucker!" He growled and nodded towards the male within the bubble."What the fuck, is he?"
"I don't know!"
"You have visions! You're supposed to be able to see past, present and future.... and you're telling me, that you have no idea what he is?And you want to release him?" The Demon growled again, his markings beginning to glow.
He was right! She was supposed to know! But she didn't!
"The Order? They're the ones stopping you, right?" Malice inquired.
"How do you know about them?"Navina replied with a question of her own.
"Um, did you hit your head when you seized up on us? Cause you were spouting some pretty crazy demands! Well, they were, or whoever was pretending to be them... Shit, this gets confusing." The Warrior sighed, rubbing at her temples. "I encased you in a shell, you went nuts and got yourself possessed by what claimed to be the Order, and I had to kill you..."
"Ouch!" Nyx laughed, "No love right there! You're a wicked female, Malice!"
"Why, that is the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Nyx! Mia, I think he and I may actually be friends one day!" Malice grinned wildly as she leaned against the wall.
"What do you mean, you killed me?"
"Someone had to vanquish the host, so the entity would leave!" Nyx cut in,"Just wish it had been me, but then, your male would have gone ape shit then, and we'd have probably lost hold of the Eno'tai who controlled your mind..."
"Nyx!" Mia slapped his shoulder. "Holy shit, my love, shut the fuck up!"
"What? You can't lie to her anymore!"
"I wasn't lying! I was withholding useless information!" Mia snapped back at him. "But you're head is so wound up in wings and titties..." She stopped short, "Malice, would you please just acknowledge his obsession for you? Maybe give him a kiss, and a shot to the face?"
"Mia? My love, you are so wretched and divine!"
"Ha, I'm wicked,and you're wretched and divine! " Malice cut in, "Do you really think it's wise to toy with us?" She glared at Nyx, whose face lit up like a child's in a toy store. "If, you behave, I may let you rub my feet!"
"Thank you!" Euphamia sighed, "Now, can we figure this shit out?" She added, looking at her mate.
"What is there to figure out? Let Lync out of there, or you can find another lab rat!" Navina replied, her eyes never leaving those soft lips that slumbered before her.
"We can't! Not until we can be sure he won't go psycho on us again!"
It was Markus, and he was far from pleased. In fact, it looked as if the Vampire had not slept in weeks. So strong and powerful, and now...
"Why did he flip out this time?" Navina asked him, "What did you do to him?"
"Not him! You!" Nyx replied, "He fed you, and even though that male was bound, he broke through the bindings and it took all I had to get his ass into the hall..." The Demon went on,running his hands through his long, dark hair. "When Markus was done, we had a little chat with your mate, and when I woke up..."
"I was there! Sort of!" She replied, the image of the Demon and Vampire laying there, unconscious, and Lync was nowhere to be seen.
"Well, just as you hit the mats, you're homeboy appeared out of nowhere..."
"Which is a Vampire trait, I might add!" Malice cut in, looking at Markus. "On top of the insane strength and speed, and the fact that Markus here, is literally, a Vampire King, if there were Kings and Queens in their culture anymore..."
"And he just got his ass handed to him..." Nyx blurted out, and the look he got from Markus...
"Thanks, asshole! I'll remember that the next time I catch you cheatin at the cards!"
"I fucking knew it!" Malice exploded towards Nyx, "You owe me twelve large, my brother!" She sneered at him. "And paydays coming, Mother Fucker!" She added, clenching the family jewels between his legs. "Payday is coming!"
"I warned you!" Mia laughed, as she watched her mate try and balance against one of the consoles.
"Female's got skills!" He let out, shaking his head.
"Wait... What are you...?" Mia added, breaking through the laughter and glaring at Navina, whose hands were, at this moment in time, inside the bubble.
"What the shit, Mal?" Nyx grumbled, best he could, and pointed towards Navina.
"What the...?" She too added, turning to glimpse as Navina walked right through the bloody shield and not stood over her mate. "How did she? She couldn't just... What the fuck?"
***
"Kember? Kember wake up, we've got company!" Madrina shook her shoulder, and she rose up in her chair.
"How long was I out for?" She inquired, rubbing the sleep from her eyes , just as they caught sight of the blip on the monitor. "Is that...?"
"I don't know! There's no signal!" Madrina replied. "There's nothing!"
"How far out are we?"
"Half hour! We could make a run for it!"
"They'd catch this little shit box for sure!" Kember let out. "Doesn't look like they've spotted us!"
"Doesn't look like they're even active!"
"A lost vessel?"
"Or a ransacked one!" Madrina replied.
Whatever it was, it was drifting about, half hidden by one of Pentar's moons. They were too far away to tell exactly whose orders it followed, not was it displaying its usual comm signal, Madrina was right, they had to be dead in the water but Kember didn't want to take any chances.
"We head in slowly!" She told Madrina, "If we're lucky, the old quarry will be clear and we can land there!"
"And if we're not lucky?"
"I don't like to think like that!" Kember grinned.
It was all fun and games, until the guns fired up and someone let off a warning shot across their port bow. Then the chaos started, with the chasing and the dodging of cannon fire, the spinning out of control, and the sudden jerk as the shuttle craft began to pull apart. All of it whirling about in her mind, if it hadn't been for Madrina, and the feel of her hand in Kember's....
Where they'd ended up, she wasn't sure, she was just glad to be alive. Both of them, alive.
"Madrina?" She whispered, keeping a watch on the shadows that surrounded them. "Madrina?" She whispered, louder this time,searching the ground at her feet.
"Bloody hell!" She heard the voice she had longed to hear since they'd arrived here.
"You okay, Madrina?"
"I said think of your apartment!"The female groaned, trying to pull herself from the darkened rubble.
"I did!"
"But this, is not your apartment, Kember!"
"I can see that, Madrina!"
"Then where the hell are we?" Red and white hair flashed before her eyes, and the dark green cloak fluttered right behind it.
"They couldn't have sunk the city, not that quickly!" Kember muttered, looking around at the broken blocks and hunks of wall coverings. "It looks as if a bomb went off, and yet nothing had registered!"
"They came up from underneath! Their machines, burrowed through the rocks below, it wasn't long before they city came crashing down, I just didn't think your apartment had been included in the destruction."
"Neither did I! But..." Kember nodded towards the shell of a building that was left. "That book has an energy about it, I could feel it whenever she handed it to me! You think you could find it?"
"No, but... my sisters could!"
"Zahara and Euphamia, are not here, you are!" Kember smiled, "And I'm pretty sure you can do anything they can, perhaps more!"
"Says the female who can play with emotions and control the masses of Man with a thought!"
"I would never!" Kember grinned, "Only those worthy of the death that awaits them!"
There was nothing to do but shrug this off! Kember was more than capable of surviving in what had become a war torn catastrophe, but they had a job to do, and without certain things, she was kind of stuck there.
"You can't see anything?"
"Nothing!" Madrina sighed. "It's all dark! Not even a glimmer..."
"At least we know it's real then!"
"Yeah, at least!"
They had to move! They're arrival had to have alerted someone, and if not,it was going to get cold, real quick, as the clouds of ash began to fill the sky overhead. If this was supposed to be her apartment, then the looming tower that lingered above them, supported by just two walls...
"We have to go up!" She told Madrina, who was pacing back and forth to get a lay of the land; or what was left ofit. "If Navina's apartment is untouched..."
"You're serious?"
"That's where she kept it!" Kember snapped back, "Not my fault!"
"Why didn't you just grab it when you had he chance!"
"Cause when I went to get it, she had it out on her bed! She was using it..." Kember rolled her eyes.
"Shit!"
So, they had to go up! Madrina could just whip up there and take a peak, but Kember would have to climb. Gods, why hadn't she grabbed her satchel before they fled? Oh that's right,their ship was about to explode! She was stuck using her own two feet.
"It's under the floor boards at the foot of her bed!"
"Uh, why are you telling me?" Madrina blurted out.
"Because you can get up there way faster than I can!" Kember rolled her eyes. "Unless you want to chance the whole place coming down on top of us? I start climbing where I shouldn't, and we'll have a shit show that will attract the Insid, if it doesn't kill us first! But you, you can whip in and out, never once having to touch the ground!"
"Shit!"
"Buckle up, Buttercup! It's your turn to play hero!"
***
"Someone get her out of there!"
The voices squawked about her, but there was nothing more important, than the male who lay before her. His hair, hanging down over his slumbering eyes, his chest rising and falling with each breath. He was her male, and she would not let them touch him, nor would they confine him either. He wasn't some animal, he wasn't a beast in some laboratory to be studied, he was her mate...
"Navina? What are you doing?"
His voice was dark, almost heated and spicy. It was the Vampire,though why his voice was so intriguing, as if calling to her, to listen to what he had to say... but she tried to resist.
"I will release him, and we will have answers!" She snarled back at him, but Markus stood his ground.
"We don't have all the answers!" He told her, "In fact, we want to find some of our own..."
"Like what? What could I possibly have that would answer your wishes?"
"Each vial you have taken, each time my blood has passed through your lips... Your visions, Navina! They are the key."
"The book is lost, how am I ever to remember all that was written within it? Let alone what the Order has locked away from me?"
"We can help you remember, but you must think about what you're doing, Navina!"
One moment she was staring down at Lync, his eyes closed in a peaceful sleep, and the next, she was being restrained, taken totally unaware by the Warrior who had slipped in behind her.
"What are you doing?"Navina screamed, "Let me go! Lync?"
"Hold still, Navina!" Malice let out, but she was struggling against her hold.
It was no use though, for one minute her arms were behind her back, and the next, they were clung about his arm, as he stood alert and ready for a fight before her. She melted just a little, the sight of him, large and in charge, awake...
"Take it easy, buddy!"Nyx growled, and then turned to Mia, "You'd better get Nissa!"
"You want me to take it easy, when only moments ago, I heard my female screaming for her life? No, buddy! I think not!"
The room hushed, even the monitors dimmed their lights. Lync stood there,protecting her, guarding her. "We weren't going to hurt her..."Markus replied, and Lync let out a growl.
"I can smell you on her! And it makes me think that you, touched her, and if she tells me it was not willingly..."
"My blood runs through her veins, my brother! You were there, you watched me feed her, to save her life."
It was true, she felt the surge, and knew now what it meant, and where it had come from. She had felt that same surge, the night Euphamia had visited her the first time. And again,when the female appeared in her room on this very ship. It was his blood, his energy, and it had heightened her senses, and as he had pointed out, enhanced her visions.
Lync looked at the Vampire,and then back at Navina. "Did he harm you?"
"No, my love!" She whispered into his shoulder, "But they would not let me near you!"
"And why, may I ask, is that?" Lync growled again, and his eyes began to glow.
"Because we have no fucking clue what you are! How about that?"
Everyone hushed while the sudden brightness dimmed, and standing beside side, was the Angel, Nissa, and beside him, another female; one with long, black and red hair.
The female approached the Vampire, and taking his hand, held his wrist up to her lips, dragging them across the freshly healed scars. "I have missed you!"
Such confidence as she approached the massive male, such love emanating from her darkened eyes. That had to be the third sister, the one they called Zahara; but why was she here?
"It is good to see you, my love! Though I wish it were under better circumstances!"
"Nonsense! If there is any way I can help..." The female replied, gazing over everyone who stood in the small room.
Her Vampire, his aura that same rose color that she had come to crave when he was not around, and then there was Nyx; his dark purple outline, right beside Mia's more robust blue-gray. Nissa was shining bright, his white shadow marking the blood of Sanctuary that ran through his veins, and then there was Malice...
With a tilt of her head, Zahara looked her over. "You, have no aura!"
Well, that was one way to meet the newest member of your sisters crew! Malice had heard a lot about the female, but as for actually meeting her...
"I am but a shadow of what I was!" The Warrior smiled.
"But even a Valkyrie bears an amber aura...You, do not!"
"There must be thousands like me..." Malice started.
"Valkyries? Yes! But I've only met one other with that fade..." She paused a moment, turning towards Navina,"Or,perhaps, two?"
"What are you saying, Zahara?" Mia inquired, coming to stand beside her sister.
"They share the same aura!" Zahara laughed, "Faded, but there. Like diamonds that glitter, but hide in the dark."
"That makes no sense!" Lync let out, and her gaze turned towards him.
"No, my friend! I am afraid it is you who makes no sense!" Zahara told him her smile fading with the curiosity. "You're aura is all wrong!"
"How so, my love?" Markus asked his mate, glaring back at the male. "What do you see?"
"One moment it is silver, dusted with the stars themselves, and then, it is a multitude of colors, like a galaxy, newly formed."
"Vampire, and?"Mia inquired.
"I do not know!"
"I am no Vampire!I may not know what I am, but I have never hungered for blood..."Lync grumbled.
"But you are not a true Vampire." Zahara reminded him, and malice let out a little laugh. "Nor..." Zahara turned, "Are you Valkyrie!"
"I am as much a Valkyrie as you are... What are you, exactly?" Malice stopped short, and she thought Madrina was snarky. No way, was this female telling her she wasn't what she was. No, way.
"She's not saying you're not a Valkyrie, just, that's not all you are!" Nyx cut in.
"Who else holds an aura like theirs?" Mia asked her sister.
"Well, there is Malice here, and the female Navina... and Mara!" Zahara let out.
"Mara?" Mia's mouth dropped open.
"Yes! I would have picked up on it by now, but I had never met the Warrior until now!" Zahara explained. "They're identical, and I have never seen auras like those, anywhere else."
"Who, is Mara?" Lync asked, "And what the hell does this have to do with us?"
"The more we know about you, the better we can help you unlock those memories!" Markus replied.
Navina cringed at the thought, remembering the pain she felt each time she'd tried."And what if I don't want to remember?" Navina mumbled. "What if I just want to wallow away in a dark hole? Or disappear to some far off planet?"
"You cannot force her to do anything!" Lync added.
"Of course we would not force her, but she is a Traveler, and from what my Mother has said, no one knows where they came from , or who they truly are, but the knowledge they hold..."Zahara pointed out, "Your mind is capable of such incredible things, Navina, you just need to remember how to access them."
"It's all gone!" She laughed, shaking her head before burying her face in his arm. "All of it, they left me with nothing really! I couldn't even tell you where I come from, which world I was born on, or which world I supposedly laid to ruin..."
She felt the anger rising within her, felt the numbness set in, and the tingles that followed, "Oh Gods..." She let out, "It's happening again!"
"Let it come, Navina!"
"No! No, I don't want to!" She whimpered, feeling the cool fog surround her, watching as the world faded to black.