~~~~~~~Another month has passed~~~~~~~
Well, not a lot has happened. Like ordered by Stan, I took two days off our physical classes. Come day three, I was ready to go, despite Dimitri's attempt at stopping it. Stan was on his side in the end, but they couldn't stop me doing what I wanted. Even with my broken ribs, I was fighting harder than ever. I was taking back my old role of being the best in my physical classes... well, I'd never surpass Dimitri. After what happened with Mathew, I didn't want to be walked over like that again. Everyone was so shocked by my comeback, especially with the extensive pain I am in everyday. I still have a couple of weeks before my ribs are 'healed' if not longer with how I've been treating my body.
It's not long now till we graduate, I was honestly getting nervous about it all. The pups have been doing so well, they're growing so quickly! I haven't really seen Lissa since the last time she appeared at our door, which I am glad about. I probably shouldn't be so hostile towards her, she did after all bring us back from the living dead, but I just don't have it in me anymore to deal with her. We were once the best of friends, but even in that stage of our life, she still honestly treated me terribly. It's time for me to put myself first for once, I would always drop everything and be at her waking call, 24/7.
We still don't talk to other students unless forced to. We just keep to ourselves, it's better that way. We had just finished our last day of school for the week, thankfully. I was so damn tired, and I could see that Dimitri was too. We had just gotten home and were about to sit down on the couch, then there was a knock on the door. I sighed as I made my way over, both pups followed and sat either side of me. "Who is it babe?" Dimitri called from the kitchen. I opened the door to find out. Who was on the other side shocked me. "Christian?" I sighed and went to shut the door again, but he stopped me.
God, what is with these people. Why can't we just be left alone. "Ugh, what do you want?" I growled. "You need to stop being such a bitch." And then he pushed his way inside, at that moment Dimitri appeared to join us. "Why are you her Ozera?" His tone was harsh too. "I'm here for revenge, Rose has ruined Lissa. You meant the world to her, and you turned your back on her when she needed you most. She's been threatening to kill herself because you threw her aside like trash!" I could see the anger flash through his eyes, then the fire formed in his hands. Dimitri was too quick for him though. Within a split second he had Christian in a head lock, and the pups were in his face, waiting for the order to attack.
"I could end you before you could even utter the word mummy. I suggest when I release you, that you get the fuck out and do not come back. If you come around threatening Rose again, I will not hesitate to kill you. Incase you haven't noticed we only have each other to live for now. Nothing else in this pitiful world matters to us, especially not your measly life." Dimitri was so angry, and so hot. He released Christian and shoved him towards the door. He just scrambled to his feet and left without another word. I walked over and shut the door. What a great way to end the week... "You okay?" Dimitri asked as he pulled me into an embrace. I sighed, hugging him back. "Yeah I'm okay, I'm just sick of this place and the people."
He kissed the top of my head and gently squeezed me. "I know, it would be great if we could fast track our graduation and just get away from here." He sighed into my hair, the warmth of his breath giving me sweet comfort. I abruptly stepped back so I could look him in the eyes. "What if we did?" I said with a little excitement in my voice, giving him a confused look. "What if we did what?" He asked, intrigued. Then I just grabbed his hand and dragged him out the door. He was trying to get me to speak the entire walk to our destination. The pups were happily running circles around us during the walk, never venturing too far.
Then we reached our destination. Kirova's office. I banged on the door until she answered, with a rather annoyed look on her face. "Rosemarie, what is the meaning of this outrageous interruption." Without a word I pushed past her into her office. The pups followed and sat at my feet, Dimitri joined in the seat beside me. "Well?" She asked as she looked pointedly between us, her eyes falling on Dimitri. He just shrugged, as he was just as clueless as her. "Headmistress Kirova." I decided that addressing her properly might've given us some extra points. "I'm sure you don't understand how difficult it is for us being here, but it is terribly horrible for us."
I was laying it on thick, trying to play a real sob story. "And I feel that our studies are being compromised because of this. We do want to become guardians and get charges when everyone else does. But for now, we just want to graduate. I know we are ready. Please, please let us go through the graduation process and get our promise marks. Then we will stay away from the students until they all graduate and we will return for the charge distribution. We know that we are disrupting the peace so much being here. A lot of the students are scared of us as well." I was going to keep piling it on, but the look on her face was very unpleased. I decided to just see how she was processing it so far.
"I see." She said with an unamused tone. "And what makes you think we would go out of our way to organise this for the two of you?" She turned her nose up at me as she spoke. "Because, like everyone else here, you don't want us here. We are here because someone somewhere high up ordered it. It is out of you control. But I'm sure that as long as we graduate and that we are here for the assigning of the Moroi, I'm sure this 'higher order' will be satisfied. This way we will be out of your hair for the next couple of months, so you can put your entire school at ease." I could see that my idea was getting to her, she was going for it. She sat there silently thinking about it for a while. Then she sighed and nodded.
"Fine, we will organise it for two days from now. So I suggest you both cram and get yourselves ready." She said sternly, and with that we got up and left. We got outside and shut the door to her office, then Dimitri pushed me up against a wall, standing close to me. "Are you crazy?!" He asked in a stressed, hushed voice. "We are in no way prepared for the graduation process." He was still trying to talk quietly as for no one to overhear. I just smiled and kissed him. "While that may be true my love, you have graduated before, so you know what the fuck goes on for the process. You know what we need to do to pass. I am confident that we will pass, you're our cheat code." I said as convincingly as I could, then a small smile played at his lips. He kissed me then grabbed my hand, leading me away from the administration building.
We walked for a bit, then we stopped. It took me a minute to figure out where we were, then I realised... it was the cabin. All the memories from here came flooding into me, nearly knocking me to the ground. Naturally for old times sake, we got hot and heavy in the cabin. It was 'night time' for the academy, so the sun was out and shining bright. He cuddled for a while, the sun coming through the small caps in the wooden walls was enough to keep us toasty warm. "Right, shall we get started on our cram session?" Dimitri asked as he gently brushed my hair out of my face, sending little shivers around my body. "I hope you're ready for no sleep up until our final exams. Because we need all the time we can get to prepare." So we got up and got dressed then we started our training.
It was fast and it was hard. And it was what the next two days consisted of. And he was right, we didn't really sleep, between our own training, our appointed extra training, and our regular school days, there really was no time to sleep. The poor pups tried to stay up the entire time we were, it got to the point where they would fall asleep standing. And then the exams came. And boy was it hard running on no sleep for 3 days straight. But... we passed. We graduated. They insisted on holding a ceremony like when everyone graduates, for us to receive our promise marks. They actually gave Dimitri a second one. Then, we were free. We were free to leave the academy on the condition that we would return once everyone else had graduated.
We got our stuff packed pretty quickly, and we got hooked up with a nice car. They were more than happy to let us leave, they all felt at ease again once we walked out those gates. So we headed off, all packed into one car, the pups weren't very happy being left in the back seat. They would have much rather been on our laps in the front. I myself was finally at ease, the freedom was amazing. "So what now my love?" I asked as I looked over at him, he smiled as he turned to look at me. "I don't know, I suppose we'll just have to keep driving till we figure it out." His smile turned onto a grin then he leaned over and kissed me.
We drove for a few days, stopping when we were too tired to keep driving. Eventually we got sick of the non stop driving. We decided to do something productive with our lives, what we had been doing while we were Strigoi... Hunting Strigoi. We were combing the news for mysterious deaths and disappearances, until we picked up a scent of a Strigoi pack. Now packs for the strigoi were uncommon, but in these recent years they seem to be willing to put differences aside and band together. Making them that much more dangerous. It didn't take us long to find their hideout. We weren't knew at this. Not only had our hunting game been strong before we were changed back, we had also experienced being Strigoi, so it was a lot easier to think how they would think. Even being dhampirs again, we demolished their pack, like they were nothing.
Leaving a massive bloody mess behind. Between us we killed 10 of them. With the job done we headed back to our hotel to clean ourselves up. I was still getting around with somewhat broken ribs, but I was managing. We had just showered and were getting ready for bed when we heard movement inside our room. We were both instantly on high alert, both pups were ready to attack, also. Then out of the shadows stepped a young woman, hands up as if to surrender. "Don't attack, I mean you no harm." She said boldly, but I could hear the nervousness in her voice. "Who are you!" Dimitri demanded, stake poised and ready. "I'm Sydney, an alchemist." While I had no fucking clue what that meant, Dimitri had a look of understanding in his eyes.
Since no one was jumping to explain, I butted in. "A what?" I said as I stepped closer to examine her, making her terribly uneasy apparently. Interestingly she had a golden tattoo on her face, I'd never seen anything like it before. "They protect the human world from knowing about our world." Dimitri said simply, stepping closer to my side. "They're like the clean up crew for out in the real world." He chuckled. I was still somewhat confused, but it was nice getting some understanding of it all. "They're humans that know about us?" I asked, shocked. They both nodded. "They have their ways to get enhancements that help them do their work." Dimitri added, motioning for everyone to sit down. "So why are you here Sydney." I asked, growing impatient. I wanted to go to sleep. "You are causing a commotion, and you must stop." To this I laughed. "We are ridding the world of Strigoi's, since when is that a bad thing?" I asked in disbelief.
"You're threatening the whole existence of your world, you are too messy." She kept talking. I just laughed again. "Well if it's your duty to clean up messing like this and stop the humans from finding out, why don't you just do your damn job." I said angrily. She looked like she too was getting angry, but her unwillingness to be around us shone through. "While yes, it is our job. You are making it a lot harder to keep hidden. This isn't the first time we've had to follow a messy trail of dead strigoi by you two." She said spitefully. I look at Dimitri with a confused look. "Wait, you were cleaning up after us when we were strigoi?" I turned back to face her, my quick movements always made her jump. She just slowly nodded.
"We didn't want to be, believe me. But Some higher up order came through to do so, and be stealthy about it. You couldn't find out." This was making less and less sense by the minute. "Who would've ordered that. If they knew where we were and what we were doing, why didn't they send someone after us? Someone to... kill us?" I sat down on the edge of the bed, surely they didn't know that we would get turned back? Why were we so important? "Well, that I do not know." She said simply. "But, as I said, you have to stop. You're endangering a lot of people." My earlier attitude returned. "And as I said. We are not going to stop ridding the world of the monsters. So, either keep doing your job, or try and stop me." I said defiantly, standing up from where I was sitting, being as intimidating as possible.
She instantly took more steps away from us. "That's what I thought." I laughed. Then she sighed, and pulled a card out of her pocket. With shaky hands she held it out in front of us. She flinched as I grabbed it from her. "If you are not going to listen to me and stop, at least call when there is a mess to clean up. No more just leaving bodies behind dumpsters and hoping the sun gets to them before someone finds them. Just use the number, someone will come deal with the bodies. Just do your part to keep this world hidden from the humans. The last thing you need is to be getting hunted by the entire human world with flaming pitch forks." With that she damn near ran out of the room, without another word.
Once she was gone I sat down on the bed to look at the business card she gave us. 'The Alchemists' was all it said in bold golden letters. Underneath there was a number and that was all that was on the card. "Well that was really weird." I said with a shrug. "Hmm." Dimitri said as he sat down beside me. "It definitely is strange how they were following us around as Strigoi's. There is certainly something going on, but what is the real question." He grabbed the card from me to look at it, then he put it in his wallet. "Well, I'm tired as shit." I said as I stretched. "I hope you're not too tired." Dimitri said as he wrapped his arms around me from behind, gently kissing the side of my neck.
We were in the midst of making out when there was a small knock at the door. "Argh." I sighed as I wiggled my way out of Dimitri's embrace. "Who the fuck." I said angrily as I opened the door, stake ready in my hand. Then appeared Sydney. "Seriously?" I asked annoyed. Only she wasn't alone. "Who the fuck is this." I asked, sizing them up. "This is a tattoo artist, he does our tattoos. I seen the tattoos you both have for killing the strigoi... I figured you would want to keep up to date with them, I know they mean a lot to you people." We were both shocked by this. "Why would you do this for us?" Dimitri asked suspiciously. "I figured it would be a bargaining chip, if I provide you both with the tattoos after your strigoi kills, you both make sure you tell me every single time there is even one body to clean up. That way your 'work' doesn't get overlooked. Everyone will know what you're doing to better the world."
She was still so uncomfortable around us, but it was a really nice thing she was doing for us. We agreed to the terms then sat down to get our ink. We got another 5 molnija marks each. As we both killed 5 strigoi each tonight. My first tattoo I got made me feel pretty uncomfortable, back from the two strigoi I killed that had killed my best friend Mason... But now, I was starting to like the feeling of them. The guy did them so quick, then they left us alone again. "Well, that too was awfully surprising." I said as I sat back down on the bed. I gently touched the back of my glad wrap covered neck. It was hot to the touch, and the skin was raised in the shape of the tattoos. Now, we were free to enjoy the rest of the night.