Neil hadn't come back after visiting his father, and Tala was pacing his castle restlessly. It had only been a day, but that was all it took. Tala wanted to invade the Arc territory and tear the boy out of that man's hands, but he had no right and could start a war if he did so. The few communications he'd sent had come back unanswered, and he headed down to the dungeons. His prisoner hadn't moved from where he'd left him, and Tala was procuring another mage to heal him, so they were on one of the off weeks without torture.
After ten years of this, Tala was unsure if the man liked it when he wasn't tortured or not. Each time he came down here, Wren Song's pulse jumped in fear, but at the same time, his aura vibrated as if he were happy to not be alone anymore. It was a strange mix, and he met the mage's hollowed, grey gaze as he waited to be dragged away for torture.
That wasn't why Tala was down here tonight.
Something was just eating at him about Neil, and he couldn't bring himself to hassle Shan. Talamayas opened the cell door and crouched in front of Wren, just short of kneeling in the water that coated the bottom of his cell. They'd fed him this morning and he'd had clean clothes for the last few days, but neither made him look any better. The man's red hair was still uneven from the last time they'd cut it at his chin line to keep it out of the way, and a streak of grey was working its way in a few hairs at a time. Wren Song was gaunt, scarred, and terrified.
There are no slaves here.
Tala looked over Wren Song and the man was trembling, waiting to be hurt, and Tala wondered if he hadn't been wrong to keep him around. At first, it had been anger, but it had been near a decade and that had faded once he'd gotten over his grief. Now, he just had a mage in his cells waiting to die, begging for it half of the time, and Tala didn't even feel like torturing him much anymore. On occasion Tala had nightmares about his mother, and it felt better to come down here and beat his anguish out of the man, but more often than that, he wondered about what Neil would think if he knew he had this man down here.
Or those vampire twins. They were so terrified of his kind, and wary of him as if he was going to lock them up. If they knew he had a human down here chained and tortured nearly every day, it could scare them away. No matter how he thought about it though, he couldn't bring himself to kill Wren Song. There was some part of him that didn't want him gone, didn't want that remaining connection to his mother severed. It wasn't healthy, he knew, but he was attached to his prisoner.
Tala reached out a hand to touch Wren, just grazing his fingers across his face as he did with Neil sometimes. The boy liked to be soothed when he was upset, which amazed Tala because he wasn't great with physical affection. He'd always been a fighter. His mother had been the one with the gentle touch around here.
Wren watched his hand as it harmlessly rested on his cheek, and the human swallowed a lump in his throat as Tala touched the other side of his face and brought his forehead to his, inhaling his scent. It was just the dank aroma of water from the dungeons and the sweat of human fear, but part of this man had stolen away into him and latched on. Tala met his eyes, trying to figure out what it was.
He didn't like Wren, but he was starting to wonder if he hated him any longer. The man used to screech at him, curse him for existing, but it had reduced to nothing but tears of late, pleas to die, and it was more pitiful than enjoyable. He left the torturing up to his men most of the time just so that he didn't forget the man was down here. Why couldn't he kill him? Talamayas pressed the cool skin of his cheek to the beating warmth of Wren's face, and a growl of frustration escaped him.
"Please stop..." Wren begged in a whisper, and Tala pulled back from him to see the tears fall from his eyes. They'd sank back into his face and his pupils were larger in a terror that Tala didn't understand.
He hadn't hurt him.
"I can't. Please don't. Not that..." Wren fell forward onto his hands and sobbed into the floor. The man shook so badly that the chains rattled. "Kill me, please kill me. Don't... please don't..."
Talamayas growled in a lack of understanding, and he slammed the cell door before heading back upstairs. Curse Wren Song. What the hell had he even done to frighten him? All he'd done was touch his face. Was the man frightened of his being that close without harming him? Was it the uncertainty of what he'd wanted that had terrified him? Or something else?
It was something for another time. His anger was at its peak, and he wanted Neil.
The travel through his maze of transportation spells out of the desert was always a chore, but it was well worth the protection that that antimagic pillars provided his people. With them, his territory was safe from incursion without them trudging through endless miles of sand, and his cliffside castle was impregnable on top of that.
Rarely if ever, he left his own territory, and he honestly couldn't recall the last time. Within him, his connection to that boy boiled, just as it did for Wren Song, and despite trying, he couldn't separate the emotions nor understand them. Talamayas knew he loved Neil, as his mother had loved him, and he wanted him to have the best life, a safe life, one away from his father's torture. Why then did the same feeling exist for Wren song? It wasn't so much that he wanted the same thing for the man, but that he didn't want to lose him, like he couldn't lose Neil. Emotions were complicated and he'd avoided them on the battlefield. Now that he was alone to sort this all out, he wasn't doing so well.
The Arc territory was forested and more humid than his desert, and his first general Shan Sol did the introductions at the gates. They allowed him in, of course. To decline him was to drive a wedge in their alliance. It was nearly an hour waiting in the throne room with Shan, and by then Talamayas could recreate the exact jagged shape of the main throne as well as the curve and swell of the one meant for the house head's mate. By the time Vincent walked in, Talamayas' patience had run out.
"Talamayas. I did not expect to see you here," Vincent said with a smile, as if that would disarm him. The man's warped crimson eyes met his as if they were friends, and Talamayas wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp.
"We had an agreement that if you wanted my assistance, Neil would remain with me until his change," Talamayas said curtly, expecting some sort of excuse, but instead Vincent's eyes glowed as if his own words had condemned him.
"Yes, I did," Vincent said. "And I am no longer in need of such assistance."
Talamayas blood felt colder than he remembered as what Vincent was saying dawned on him. "You changed him?" Talamayas uttered so quietly that it was a strain to here even for a vampire.
"Yes, and he survived. The change was so recent he must be kept in the cells or else he lashes out at anything with a heartbeat, but he will calm with time. Once that happens, you are welcome to educate him here, if you wish to be of further assistance."
"Show me to him," Talamayas said, the strain in his voice promising this man's demise if he declined.
It darkened Vincent's gaze in anger, but he motioned for the Arc men to lead him. Both of them knew who would win in a fight as well as whose army would triumph over the other. The Sols were superior on both fronts.
The peace of shit actually had Neil down in the cells. That was no place for a newly sired vampire to be. Once they were raised as one of his kind, they were hungry yes, but also frightened and desperate for understanding and comfort. Down three floors of stairs, in the furthest bowels of the cells, Talamayas stood in front of the boy he'd spent the last decade with. Curled up like a kicked dog, Neil shivered in the corner, his clothes drenched in blood from whoever he'd fed on, and Talamayas nearly ripped the cell door off as he went to him.
"Stay away," the boy whined, pushing further into the wall. "I can't hurt anyone else. Please." A sob tore through him, and Talamayas lowered his hand to his long hair, now white as bone like his father's.
"Neil, it's me," Talamayas said, and the boy's gaze jumped up to him. Tears lined Neil's eyes, and Talamayas had to clench his teeth to keep from growling in anger as he met the boy's frightened crimson gaze. If Tala showed any hostility, Neil would misunderstand and think it was toward him.
"Tala..." Neil said his name, and Talamayas smiled until the boy curled up further away from him. "Stay away," he repeated, sobbing into the floor. "I'm a monster."
Vincent had broken the boy in a matter of days. Why had he been thinking letting him return home, even if for only a day?
"You changed him too soon, Vincent," Tala said, turning back to him, but the man didn't seem to care. "He won't grow anymore, nor mature much past when you changed him. Do you understand that? Why did you change him when he had years left to acquire the optimum physical form of a human?"
Vincent said nothing, but Talamayas saw it in his eyes. The man had changed him out of fear, fear that he'd lose his son like he had his wife, yet also fear of losing control over him. If Neil had been allowed to grow, to make his own decisions, to become his own person, then it would have put Vincent's control in danger of disappearing.
"Allow me to take him," Talamayas said bitterly. "By vampire law, you can have him back whenever you ask. My declination to return him would be punishable by council law if we had an agreement. Newlings require a lot of work, and it will be years until he can function properly. They must learn to feed, yes, but also to touch without breaking, and to process the overwhelming flood of sensations–increased sound and visual perception, as well as weakness to the light, and the flow of magic within him will rupture if he isn't trained properly."
"You want to do all the grueling work for me and then return him?" Vincent asked with a gleam in his eyes. "Very well, Talamayas Sol. Prime my son for me, and I will return for him in a few years' time. You will keep me updated on his progress or I will come for him."
"As you wish," Talamayas ground out, and the man did as he had before, turned his back on his own son and left.
Alone, in a cell meant only for animals or men waiting to die, Neil cowered even after Vincent had left. Talamayas slid his hands under the boy and lifted him to his chest, and Neil thrashed against him. The strength of newly changed vampires was immense but too volatile to harness with any effect. It allowed Neil the strength to pop Tala's shoulder as he tried to keep him from hurting himself, and Tala swallowed a grunt of pain.
Just that sound stopped Neil, and he met his gaze, his eyes widened, and he fell against his chest in tears. "I'm sorry," he croaked as he quaked. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I'm okay, Neil. This body is as sturdy as it looks. Everything will be okay now. I'm going to care for you and help you through this. This isn't how I wanted it to be, but I'll help you as best as I can."
"I'm sorry," Neil mumbled into his chest, but Talamayas didn't have the faintest what he could be apologizing for. There was no way of discerning it either as the sun had risen outside and it took Neil's consciousness with him. Even so far below the earth, their kind could sense the rising of the light that suppressed the darkness within them.
It was time for him to rest, but not in a cell.
They returned home, and Shan understandably followed him to a free room. There was so much blood, Talamayas had to ease him into a bath and scrub it away before drying him and giving him new clothes. It was only the normal garb of his men, but it would be most comfortable for Neil in the fluctuating heat and cold of the desert. While such things didn't so much affect creatures that didn't perspire like vampires, the sensation was strong enough to be bothersome.
Talamayas tucked him into the bed and reached for his face, recoiling back when he remembered the tears that had streaked Wren's. For a moment he stopped to look at his hand and wondered if this somehow was his fault? Perhaps Vincent had caught onto his desire to change Neil himself and steal him away. This could have been a preventative measure to make sure he didn't lose his son.
Talamayas rubbed his eyes and knew he was being paranoid. There was no way that Vincent had gotten word of a plan he'd only once half whispered to Shan. The man would gut himself before betraying him. This was Wren. The way he'd reacted to him had been predictable but it had bothered him.
Why?
What had he expected?
The man to just let him touch him and relax into it like he didn't regularly burn his flesh off for entertainment. Frustration ate at him and her ran the backs of his knuckles over Neil's face one time before he tucked him into the blankets and looked to Shan. The man nodded and took up sentry outside of Neil's room as Tala headed out. There were no words needed. Shan would watch him until he awoke, and then Tala would take his place.
For now, he needed to see about the twins as he had been gone for a bit too long and worried about what they might have gotten up to. Neil needed rest and Tala needed to fill his time with something. A craving shook him to return to Wren, to smother the man, but not violently. It was confusing to him, but he wanted to just sit with him, be with him, absorb him, and he didn't understand the urge.
It was best he focused on something else. The twins. Talamayas took a slow breath to breath in his castle and ground him in reality. Wren was his prisoner. A man tortured by him, terrified of him, and he couldn't imagine him being anything else. They weren't friends, as much as the man's presence comforted him.
But Tala wasn't sure if they were enemies either. At the time, he'd been furious about his mother's death, seeing the man as an aggressor and a monster, but now... it was fading. A monster would still rage at him for taking his people, curse him as something foul. Instead, Wren pleaded time and again for forgiveness for the life he'd taken, and it would ring as nothing but the words of a man desperate for his end were it not for the nightmares.
Often, a guard would dash down there when Wren woke screaming, and Tala had been down there a time or two. The man mumbled in his half asleep state, apologizing again and again, to the Songs, to Tala's mother, and then he begged for it all to end before he slipped back away. The man wanted redemption, which all did nearing death, but Wren song also wept for Tala's mother, and that was not the action of a monster.
Sometimes, instead of asking for his end after the nightmares, he begged for someone to come for him. Not to safe him. Just to be with him, and that, Tala felt worse than any other words in his life. Tala felt the same, alone in this world with no one who was really close enough to understand his anguish. Once, he'd considered going to Wren Song, but there was nothing he could give him with his presence.
Tala didn't feel the need nor desire to hurt Wren anymore, not like he was entertaining the thoughts with Vincent. How he would relish having that deranged man shackled and strung up for his torture. One day, he would rip the flesh off of Vincent Arc and he would pay for this. If it took him years, decades even, Vincent's time would come, and it flushed a rush of power and strength in him to look for the twins instead of sinking down into the emotional crutch Wren was.
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