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Nocturnal Bloodlines Main page | Main story Page Nocturnal BloodlinesFEEDBACK - Oh Yes Please -You can email us docwho2000@hotmail.com author: docwho2100 and mightygupo Consensual relationship depicted between adult women in this story. If you have a problem with that or are under 18 please do not read. ------------------------- Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Tara went to the stables. She knocked on the doors. She waited and finally a young stable boy answered, wiping sleep from his eyes. "Y-yes ma'am?" "I need two horses, the quickest you have. And tacking for them. Make haste and you shall not go un-rewarded." Tara said, pulling out a bag of gold and shaking it slightly. The boys eyes widened and he shook his head running to do as the lady bid him. Soon he came back with two horses and began to saddle them up. While she was waiting, she saw Buffy come from the tavern. She propped up against the stable door and watched as she walked towards the inn. Always searching and scanning as she walked, Buffy could feel something nearby. She shifted the bags slightly so if anything attacked she could instantly procure her stake. She made her way to the building Giles had described and went inside. The slayer was shown to the small room with a bed, a small table and a cot. Putting the lamp on the table; she removed her traveling dress and clothes. Next came the weapons, laying them out on the bed. She stopped momentarily as she realized in the last few minutes all thoughts had been on how each weapon could best be used for a quick kill and for defense. "Is that all my life really is? Could she be right that I am no more than a simple extension of these?" She closed her eyes and let her head fall towards her chest as a few tears leaked out, tears shed for the losses she had experienced tonight and in her life. Suddenly she brought her hand up and angrily wiped at her face. "I must focus. I must be ready to kill her when the time comes. I am only a tool, a weapon and one that can be and will be replaced. That is all my destiny is, to be a vampire slayer, no more, I am never allowed to dare for more." Tara watched her walk into the inn and then soon saw her come into a room. She could see the tears running down Buffy's face and moved across the street and leaned up against the tree to watch, finding some small glimmer of feeling in her chest. The ache of... wanting to comfort the blonde girl. So entranced with watching Buffy she didn't notice the mist gathering in behind her, until she heard the familiar voice in behind her. "Beautiful isn't she... just like your mother." Dracula materialized from the mist and stood in a dark eve. "She is reminiscent of her isn't she, blonde, bold and beautiful. Does she make you long for things you cannot ever have? Does she make your heart cry for your mother long dead, killed by human hands?" He moved behind his daughter, amused when she didn't move a muscle, unafraid of him. "Doesn't matter what I feel. Actually I don't feel... I am your daughter after all." Tara said softly to her father. "As far as my mother, I made peace with her a long time ago." "Peace... surly you jest. I came to offer you one last chance to stop this foolish battle with me. I was going to offer you your rightful place back by my side, but now as ever I can see that you have chosen to help those that killed an innocent. So I tell you to leave this place, call off your attack upon me and do not return. Or I will kill you myself." He swore at his child. "I know in my heart what my mother, your wife, believed in and stood for. You are the one that has forgotten. That is why I say to you right now, that I cannot." Tara straightened up and looked at Dracula. "I will help put an end to you, or will die trying. We will be back soon. Until then, Father, wait for us." Dressing quickly and still angry at her emotional distraction, the slayer had quickly prepared. First strapping the sword to her back, the sheath for her dagger and stakes to her belt as well as hiding many other items away in pockets and other places she had created. Being left to her own often as the training offered by the Council had been brief and only filled part of the day; she had worked on designing a number of outfits. These designs helped to make her a more efficient slayer as she could carry a number of weapons easily. She had practiced much during the last few years and was very comfortable with her system. She hurried out of the inn towards the stable and then stopped before crossing the street as she felt something very dark. She saw Tara speaking with someone and her senses screamed. She froze and stared at the two. "When you return, your blood will run freely on my blade. For you my daughter, I will make it quick, for I've no wish to make you suffer, not like the humans did to you, your brother, or your mother. You say I have forgotten your mother, but I think it's you that have daughter." The snarl was prominent in his voice and his features. "You were the one that watched as they burned her, heard her screams of agony. Yet you befriend those that did these things. NO I haven't forgotten at all!" Dracula spat, lashing out and backhanding Tara knocking her to the ground. "I await your return, make your peace with whatever thing you hold dear." Then wrapping his cloak around him he sneered at Buffy, before turning to mist. Having sensed his strike, Buffy had started running toward the two and released a stake. Chagrined she watched it plunge through the mist and sink into the wall behind having been thrown with such force. She chastised herself for the delay and stopped standing over Tara. Saying not a word she offered a hand to the woman as she noticed a thin line of blood seeping from a cut. Tara reached up and grabbed the offered hand and pulled herself up. "The
horses should be about ready." She said letting go of Buffy and turned,
stalking towards the stables. "Family argument." Tara said with a shrug. "That was the one you came to fight. See why I am worried about letting you go in as you are now? He isn't like other vampires, like those you hunt from where ever you came. He is... unstoppable. You hit him with a sword he mists. You put a piece of wood in his heart, he goes down and then mists and comes back. There is no way that anyone has found to kill him, put him to sleep for a hundred years, yes, kill... no." Tara turned to look at Buffy, ignoring the pain, both on her face and in her heart with the words just spoken. "And only the Belmont’s have managed that. On my best day, maybe I could as well, but I am not at my best. I won't be for a few days." "Anything can be killed," Buffy replied softly. "And I still do not understand your Belmont references." She admitted reluctantly. "I am truly sorry if you really do feel as you say about your father. Family should be..." Buffy stopped and turned to walk towards the mounts Tara had mentioned. "I will finish my job. I will not fail. No matter what the cost, including my own life blood. He will be stopped or I will be stopped; there is no other possibility." She turned suddenly to face the blonde. "And I am not like other slayers, so perhaps we are meant to face each other and die." She looked away then. "I do not feel one way or another. I know life and death, and this way is death." Tara said moving to the stable and opening the door. She inspected the mounts and turned to the stable boy. "Very good, I am pleased. Here you go, boy." Tara threw the bag of money into his hand. "Thank you." He yelled, smiling at the women. "Fare thee well." Tara nodded, leading the two horses out. She handed a set of reigns to Buffy, then grabbing the ones of her horse she jumped up on its back. "I am waiting for when you are ready." She announced to Buffy. The slayer mounted and moved beside the other woman. "A slayer only knows death. I have spent my life learning how to move in the ways of death that is all I am allowed to know and feel." She looked into the night air, "Which way and what are we going to do?" "Then you are just as soulless as the things you fight." Tara said and then kicking her horse into motion and headed out of the town. Following Tara Buffy silently agreed as she knew that a slayer could not afford to listen to the soul or the heart. That had been made clear to her from day one. She brought her horse even as the blonde slowed finally. "So who are you really?" She asked knowing that could be answered in many ways and curious as to how the woman next to her would dare speak. "I am just another thing." Tara answered the question, wondering
what the other woman wanted from her. She had told the woman time and
again who she was. "I know your name, I was asking about your..." Buffy broke off not sure what she wanted. "I guess I am wondering if the legend and the th... woman are really the same thing." She caught herself and adjusted eliminating the word thing, although she could not help seeing this person as a vampire that... ~That you find intriguing and something more.~ The slayer thought. Tara stopped and just thought. She didn't know what to say, no one had ever asked her that question before. Finally she just tried for the truth. "I am what people need me to be. There is nothing else. I fight, I bleed, I sleep, until it's time for me to fight and bleed again. That is all. It is all I have known since I was a child. I don't know how to be anything else, and never had a reason to be." "You were a child once?" Buffy asked scanning the dark woods. "How old are you?" She asked almost not wanting to hear the answer. "Of course I was a child one." Tara snapped, then sighed and softened her voice. "Old... I was born in 1345. To Elisabeth and Vlad Tepes Dracula. I had a twin brother, Terran. My mother and Terran were killed in 1360." Tara recited the history as if by rote, not thinking of what the words meant, just recounting facts in her life. "I watched as they were burned alive. I was hanging from a cross made of silver, and blessed with magic. The villagers and the red priests had whipped the skin off of all our backs, we were scourged, and then they set my mother and then my brother to the holy flame while I watched. I would have been next if some of my father's minions hadn't come along and destroyed most of the town. I lay in my father's castle for weeks before I healed." Buffy could just make out the woman's features in the dim light. She settled into the saddle some as Tara's voice shifted ever so slightly. "I had known only happiness playing in the fields and woods with
my brother and my mother, and then this happened. The pain grew to hatred
and I hunted those responsible down with a vengeance. I danced in their
blood; laughed at their pain and suffering. Then one night about a hundred
years later, a man came to the castle. One who knew my story, our story.
We fought, and in the end he spared my life. That man was Simon Belmont.
Is this what you wanted to hear?" "They did that to your mother and family? I am..." She trailed off feeling something between a slight anger and wonderment at how people could become like that. She focused back on the dates Tara had mentioned. "You have been alive for that long?" Buffy could not keep the amazement out of her voice. "How could you stand seeing those you knew and loved, if you can love, die?" She asked before realizing what she had said. She suddenly blushed at her forwardness. Tara pulled her horse to a stop, her back to the slayer, as stayed in front and didn't turn around to face her. "You can't. You can never stand it. It burns in the pit of your soul until you want to take an knife and cut it out… But, it becomes the past, and you find a way to live with the ghosts, because the ghosts are better to have, than to have never had them at all." Tara said, hoping that the slayer didn't catch the slight waver in her voice. "Now let's ride, we have places we must be." About to continue pushing, a slight change in Tara's voice caused Buffy to stay in her pace. She watched the slight flinch in the blonde's back as she seemed to be fighting something. Buffy pulled up next to Tara and looked her in the eyes, holding them a moment before the pain made her turn away. "Lead on and I shall follow. I find I am very good at that," she said sarcastically thinking of how blindly she had followed the Council all these years and how she was learning she had been a fool. contact: docwho2000@hotmail.com page last modified - June 19, 2006 graphics from www.eosdev.com |