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 6 Tara traveled for another hour or so until she got to the place she was looking for. She pulled to a stop. "We will rest here. The sun will be up soon. You need to sleep." Tara said dismounting and pulling the horse to a small clearing next to a stream. "Is this acceptable to you, Buffy?" Tara asked. Buffy’s head snapped up, having been in a daze. "I was not sleeping, I was resting my eyelids." She looked around sheepishly. "This is great. "Stiffly she got down and led her horse besides Tara's. "Can you walk in sunlight?" She then had to ask the question going through her mind the last few miles. "Do you feed?" "Yes and yes I feed. Everything eats." Tara said taking the reigns and leading the horses beside the stream and tying them off. Then she moved back to the clearing and took off her cloak and coat. She spread her coat out. "Now, lay down. I'll watch over you as you sleep." Tara offered Buffy the makeshift bed. She looked at Tara and then looked away not thinking any further about how Tara looked having removed her outer garments. "What do you feed on?" She pressed further wanting to know how much of a demon controlled this woman's actions. "And I can watch for you. You may walk in the sunlight but his ways are linked to you someway I am sure and perhaps you can see the sun but I suspect you are much more accustomed and attuned to the night hours and the darkness. I should watch you." "I've just woke from a century nap, Buffy. I'm not that sleepy. I prefer meat, as rare as I can get it, even better if freshly slaughtered. The blood still running. Been known to eat it raw at times. And you need more sleep than I do." Tara explained to Buffy. "I need blood, but I don't have to kill humans for it." Buffy stood across from Tara the spread clothing between them. "Have you feed off of humans?" She demanded quietly but forcefully. "Those that killed my mother and brother, when I was filled with rage and hatred. I did a great many things to them." Tara answered honestly. "But before that and since then, no. They were my first and last. Not my most proud moments of my existence." This time Buffy did not flinch away from the dhampyer's eyes as quickly, needing to think over the words. Seeing truth, Buffy made a decision and decided to test the woman. She walked around the cloak and stood by her side. "I think you should sleep too, I feel your father is happy to toy with you for now, and the daylight will actually protect us." Buffy then turned her back to the woman. She took off her sword and other visible weapons and laid them on the ground. She then swept her hair back from her neck as she kept her back to the woman. She took off her travel cloak and also her main shirt so only her thin under garment was left. Her last preparation was to take the dagger from the sheath that had been hidden under her main shirt, laying that down as well before kneeling on the spread out garments. "You should rest." "Then I will rest as well." Tara said standing up and moving to the horses, and began taking off the saddles, to pull the thick saddle blankets off to make herself a bed. She made sure not to look at Buffy, once she started disrobing, her fathers words about the beauty of the woman coming back to haunt her. Her hands shook slightly as she could smell the woman behind her. She had never met anyone so willing to look into her eyes, seeing the good and bad of her, and not walking away, hells not running away screaming into the night. Buffy twisted to look at Tara, she still could not allow her self to trust this person. But then besides Giles there really was no one she had ever trusted. She sighed and continued to watch. "Why do you feel you need to do this?" She asked seeing the blonde finish her make shift bed as a small errant thought wishing the bed was closer to her own sleeping place flitted through her head. "What do you mean?" Tara asked sitting down on the blankets, her back towards Buffy. "This is more comfortable than sleeping on the ground." Tara hedged, thinking she knew what Buffy was asking, and trying to avoid it, but she was also worried that this would push the slayer away. "Besides... I'm not used, to sleeping... next to somebody. And I..." Tara said then paused for a moment, her voice dropping. Tara faltered on, knowing this was the one place that she had no common knowledge on, so she decided to slip it back to a more comfortable place. “Besides, do you really want to be sleeping next to a vampiric thing” She stood back up and began collecting dead limbs and small sticks, then began setting them up for a fire. She worked quickly and efficiently, using her vampiric abilities to speed the process. Soon she had it ready and took out a tender box and struck fire to the dried leaves and moss, catching them afire. "I have never slept next to a vampiric thing so I do not know if it is something I would want." The blonde retorted not really thinking about what she was saying as she watched the fire spring to life. "And that is not what I was asking, and you know it. I may look like one who would be more suited to tea and sitting watching the conversation fly by understanding nothing, but I assure you I am capable of string more than three words together. I meant, if you really are more than you seem, why do you fight your true being? Why struggle and defy what you are? What is it that would cause a vampire to rise up against her own kind?" "Like all humans, they see the vampire only. Yes I am a vampire, yes the blood of my father runs in my veins. But if you stab me in the heart which you are so fond of referring too, do you think I would just go poof? Look well slayer, my fathers blood is in my veins." Tara said angrily, as she grabbed her sword from her side and ran it along her arm, slicing the cut deep. "But so is my mothers. My mother was a human, not a vampire, never was she a vampire. Or did somewhere along the line you forget that." Buffy turned away, partially angered that this person would dare speak to her as she did, admonishing her like she was a child an partially ashamed that she had assumed Tara was simply a demon using the situation to further her own goals. "I am not aware of your history. I was barely told anything about your father. The Elders seem to have felt it would be better if I knew a name and only that he and anything, ANYTHING," she almost shouted the word feeling frustrated that she was so misinformed. "Associated with him should be destroyed. That is what I was told, that is what I came here to do and that is what I will do or die trying." She turned completely away from Tara then as she stared at the ground. When she was sure that the fire was going, and she had her emotions under check, she pulled a mirror out and inspected her face. The faint darkening had started and the blood flow had stopped. The blonde checked her arm finding that the bleeding had slowed. She stood up and walked back to her bags and pulled out some ripped cloth. "Then I will teach you what you need to know, so when your mission is over you can at least kill me efficiently. Sleep well, Buffy." Conflicted, Buffy did not move instead remaining kneeling as she heard the blonde walk off. "Way to go slayer," she said. "It should be simple, she vampire, you slayer, you kill vampire, that is all. Why must things be complex? I just wish she was not so..." Buffy left that thought unfinished and sighed. contact: docwho2000@hotmail.com page last modified - March 18, 2008 graphics from www.eosdev.com |