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 7 Tara left the Slayer, not looking back as she went to the stream, and began removing her vest and shirt. Buffy managed to wait all of two minutes before thinking Tara had been gone too long. She grabbed her sword and got up going in the same direction Tara had taken earlier. She tried sensing the woman and as she broke through the clearing she saw a form up ahead and called out not wanting to startle the woman and also not realizing her current state of undress. " Tara, I wanted to say I am sorry if I slighted your mother..." She trailed off and froze as it had finally sunk in that Tara was not fully clothed. "It doesn't matter now. She is long dead, so really you can't slight her now, can you. You can just blame her for loving a vampire enough that she had two children by him, and since that has been done before... well at least you are not trying to kill me yet." Tara said with a shrug, keeping her back turned to the slayer so Buffy couldn't see her face. "So no harm done." ~Yeah right, it feels like your heart is ripped out of its chest and constantly being pierced by stakes.~ "I'm fine, so head back to camp, I'll be back as soon as I am done dressing my wounds." ~Maybe licking them too?~ Buffy had not really seen the woman in the moonlight and the paleness of her skin was more evident in the pale light beginning to tinge the sky as sunrise approached. As Buffy continued to remain rooted to the spot unable to tear her gaze away from Tara; her eyes traced down the golden hair and shoulders, taking in the gauntness and realizing that the vampire, if she had slept as she had stated to Giles, might have not feed for years. Unable to think clearly as she found her heart beating faster and her breathing coming slightly faster she blurted out the first things that came to her mind, the words tumbling out uncensored, "How could someone love a vampire? You look cold, do you need help?" ~Okay, that was the lamest thing you have ever done Buffy Belmont.~ "I'm sure I don't know. If she were alive you could ask her." Tara said slight bitterness creeping through her voice. "Anymore than I know how a vampire could love a human, but at least you can ask my father before one or the other kills the other. I just know that when my father was with my mother, he wasn't a monster." She paused, the word Monster leaving a foul taste. "He... he loved her as I have seen no other, then or since. Humans have it so easy and they don't even realize it. They look for heaven in so many different places. The cold stars at night, a garden full of flowers, a forest where they played as children. They can find God everywhere. But vampires... they don't get that benefit, so they are always striving, always searching for something to make them complete, to fill the emptiness and loneliness inside." She raised a hand to back her words, needing to convey the emotion. "To have just one taste of something that is pure, and good. When they have found it, then to lose it so viciously... how do you think Giles would feel if he had found the lost books of the library of Rhodes, that they hadn't been burned. He spends years taking each cherished book, piece by piece to somewhere he thought it would be safe, only to have someone find him, beat him, and destroy it all in flames before his very eyes." Tara reached out to grab her shirt, plunging it into the chilly water and began scrubbing the blood from it. "Why do you think we are so very different than you?" "I never allowed myself to think why we are, I just... I am a slayer and I have a destiny, that is all I am allowed to know." Buffy admitted. "I don’t think all humans have it easy, I think you demons are not the only ones to know deep sorrow and loneliness." She stood there watching the half-breed. "Then follow your destiny and when I teach you what you should know, kill me. I am tired anyway. You would be doing me a favor... maybe I should have... oh it doesn't matter anyway." Tara said standing up and putting her wet shirt back on, and grabbing her vest. "We well be at the Belmont estate on the nightfall. I will show you what others have thought unimportant. Then you can kill me. But I warn you..." Tara turned facing Buffy. "Don't expect me to just go poof into dust, or to mist. We die like humans, so that's why I ask to make it quick, I would prefer not to suffer overlong. The dawn is approaching, and even if you can't hear them, the chimes of hells bells have began. We will be safe. At least from the creatures of the night, humans we still have to be wary off. But no one should be around, so we are reasonably safe." Tara amended. "I do not tease or taunt or take any pleasure in what I do." The blonde said softly watching the way the damp clothing molded to the woman's body accentuating the curves and muscles that Buffy had glimpsed earlier. She brought her eyes up the length of the woman's body and settled once again on her eyes, eyes that somehow drew Buffy like a moth to flame, a flame that seemed to burn intensely in the vampire. Buffy found once again her gaze held firm by Tara, "I would never allow you to suffer, ever." The promise sprang from Buffy's lips surprising her and yet as she said it she felt something deep in her stand behind the promise. "Good, then I fully expect you to keep your word and make it quick. And then my misery will be over and you have done what you promised. Suffering is so much more than physical pain… the physical you can ignore, be it a broke cheekbone, or a sliced arm. That is the least of human suffering." Tara said her eyes going soft for a second, before hardening again. "There are much worse sufferings in this world, and those will what you will truly be putting to an end." Tara chuckled bitterly, thinking about her words, thinking about the slayers eyes, and the kindness in which she said it. She had to harden herself with this one, this was indeed the most dangerous Belmont she had ever met. This one had the ability to make her see a future that didn’t involve gut wrenching loneliness and despair. This one could make her hope, and hope was the most fragile of the human emotions, and the most destructive to the human soul. Hope was what she had when they had came and captured them, hope that her father would be there soon and would rescue the three of them, hope as she had been lain on the magical cross as it burned deeply into her flesh as the kept the fire burning underneath it. Hope was what she held onto as the magical enchanted brands were stuck to her flesh. Hope that her mother would just leap from the fires and rescue her once she had stopped believing in her father to keep them all safe. And with the last of the death screams of her brother echoed on the winds, and the harsh painful hands ripping from the hateful pain laden cross on her back, hope had shattered, like a mirror crashing into a million pieces upon the stone her heart became in what felt almost only and instant. No this one was dangerous because with that one little statement, so honestly given she felt a place deep within her soul mend slightly. In that moment the anguish that had become such common place that she no longer felt the pain, came raging up. She gritted down on her jaw, and whirled away from Buffy. "But don’t speak kindly to me about it slayer. Just do it quickly and stop the pain." Tara felt something then that she hadn’t experienced in over three hundred years, a warm wetness dripping from her eyes; a wetness that she knew from experience were tinged with red. "I had better get back to tend the fire, and you need to sleep. I will catch us something for when we wake up then will follow you into sleep." And now she had to get away, get away from this woman. She jumped up into the branch of a tree and began running across the thick limbs, moving at her top speed. Before Buffy could respond, she heard the woman draw in a breath and suspected that something had disturbed her. She watched with awe as the woman displayed the superior strength and agile skills inherited from her father. Unable to further question Tara, Buffy turned to go back to the camp site and made to lie down. "Good night Tara, I hope you rest, you will need it." She curled up in a tight ball and closed her eyes hoping to catch some sleep as her thoughts continued to focus on this curious enigma that she had found and that she now traveled with. contact: docwho2000@hotmail.com page last modified - May 13, 2008 graphics from www.eosdev.com |