Two Years Before
Fourteen Nights Prior to the Betrayal of Anome
Vanil was leaving Ookami Batsu.
The word had come down from the Pack’s command structure, and before that from the master of the fleet itself. The Exile that had destroyed the dissident Blood Drinker Houses and joined those few that remained beneath his Merovingian banner, the Blood Noble that had been the eminent Gothique’s agent of political power and mayhem before her disappearance and assumed deletion, the monstrously ambitious master of the Batsu fleet and the chosen servant of the Lupine-Mistress Ookami herself, was leaving his charge. It no longer suited him, they whispered, and others whispered that the Packmaster’s designs had grown so grandiose and vile of late that they could no longer be contained beneath the flag of the Batsu without drawing tremendous criticism of the fleet from the rest of the syndicat.
Of course, none of them really knew the truth of the matter, which is why they were all here this night. All operatives of the Ookami Batsu fleet that could make it had made it, under orders to do so from Vanil’s advisors and seconds-in-command, and they were gathered together in the center of the great, vaulted chamber of coded stone that would, almost two years later, serve as the gathering ground of an army of Dire Lupines that would be sent by Ookami herself to retrieve a Fragment of the One’s Residual Self-Image. Things are slow to change within the Matrix, however, and so the monolithic hall of the syndicat would appear and be largely the same when that came to pass as it did now, the very same canine gargoyles perched upon their towering spires of data and the great ‘M’ seal of the Merovingian presiding over it all.The Wolves, as these operatives had come to be called, spoke in hushed tones amongst each other, their various decadent garbs and murder leathers rustling about as they awaited the fleet master’s arrival. One amongst their number; a girl, no older than perhaps eighteen years at most, stood aside and let two ritually-scarred Batsu death twins, their smooth, masculine figures encased in little more than black, muscle-clinging leather straps and their digital flesh painstakingly covered with kill marks, pass her by. The girl worried for a brief moment what a pair like that might try when confronted with her in a more private arena, but such worries were baseless, she quickly realized, and tossed them aside as easily as she might have tossed the crimson fur scarf that encased her slender, freckled neck behind her small back. The girl knew well the reputation of such death twins, and knew that the bond that was shared between two such individuals was skin deep. Very, very literally skin deep.
After all, Chemuel had not risen to her place amongst the Pack without knowing very well what few true allies she might find here. It had been the former Siren’s luck, or perhaps fate, though she doubted this very much, that Lord Vanil had taken interest in her, and had personally seen that her induction be both swift and efficient. And though Chemuel was more used to a professional environment that was characterized by overwrought perfumes rather than loping, sadistic death twins, she had done quite well for herself here, and if Vanil’s rumored departure was to be the truth of why the Wolves had been gathered here, the girl doubted not that she would continue to do so, either amongst these murderers or elsewhere.
Chemuel felt the rush of silence that fell upon the crowd about her as Vanil stood upon the monolithic pulpit that overlooked the assembly. Draped in the customary red leathers of the Packmaster, his raven-hued mane of black stood out against his ensemble like a cancer that threatened to spread, and his eyes were, as always, hidden beneath those shadowy lenses. What digital flesh of his that was visible was as immaculately pale as always, and Chemuel couldn’t help but admire the burgeoning perfection in the older man. The Exile practically oozed human charisma, and an air of charm that seemed to cling to him like a stockade of presence. Vanil would lose both and far more in the following years, but there was no way for either him or Chemuel to know this now, and for the moment, Chemuel had to stop herself short of being enamored with the Blood Noble’s powerful persona.
As Vanil began to speak; to outline his designs for the continuation of Ookami Batsu in his absence, Chemuel silently made note of the two figures that stood at his sides. To his left was a small, cautious looking man garbed in a dazzling white trench coat inlaid with Eastern symbols and bound at the front with a series of metallic silver clasps. His bird-like features were beset by a tiny pair of circular green lenses, which only served to enhance his avian and reasonably unattractive image, and Chemuel recognized him as Urael. Also called ‘the Spymaster’, Urael supposedly at one point had controlled a vast network of shadow informants and clandestine operatives that had answered only to Gothique and himself, and when the woman had disappeared, the Spymaster had decided to offer Vanil her place at the head of the group. Chemuel had no idea as to the current strength of the network, or even if it still existed at all, as did none of her fellow Wolves, but she did know that Urael was not a man to cross.
To Vanil’s right was Agamem. Chemuel wasn’t quite certain what she should make of the Spymaster, but by contrast, she knew exactly what to make of this man. She saw him as a simpering yes-man, something that Vanil carried around as one might carry frivolities in a briefcase, and she had little doubt that, once the Packmaster’s sheltering wings abandoned the big, dumb man, it would not be long before, like sharks drawn to the bead of blood, he would quickly be evicted from his offices at best and butchered at worst. Such was Ookami’s way, Chemuel knew well enough.
Letting the two obviously distraught flankers be, Chemuel let her gaze settle back to the overwhelming persona between the pair of them. Perhaps that’s why the two of them were there, the girl considered. Perhaps Vanil had placed them at his sides to simply enhance the grandeur Chemuel knew he was capable of so well projecting.
Well, it was working, Chemuel acknowledged with a quiet, drawn-out sigh of surrender as she clung to every word of Vanil's. Whatever he was up to, evanescence was only the beginning.
---
Few knew of the catacombs that lay below the audience chamber, which is precisely why Vanil had chosen them to depart through. He had placed the remaining assets into the hands of his coterie and instructed Urael with providing them with that which he had provided the Exile. Vanil had his suspicions that the Spymaster had lied to him with regards to their agreement, but in retrospect, Vanil found that he didn't really care one way or the other.
Did it all really mean so little to him now? As one heel followed the other, his crimson blood leathers furling outwards behind his figure as he retreated through the torch-lit darkness of the damp tunnels, Vanil considered all that he had built since Gothique perished, and all that he had done to solidify his massive power base throughout the syndicat. He had started with very little, but those who had held the assets he now did had been weak and frivolous, and it had taken only aggressive politicking and oppressive bloodshed to take it from them. His rise had been swift and merciless, and so many had flocked to the wave of violence and freedom that the Batsu banner had apparently provided; his banner.
And now, it meant nothing. Vanil laughed shortly to himself.
Oh yes. There was much more, he now knew. There was so much more.
"You seem rushed." The cold, feminine voice stopped Vanil in his tracks, his stride coming to a standstill in the shadows of the catacombs. "As if a wolf were at your very heels."
"I owe you nothing, Ookami," Vanil said in reply as he turned to see the Lupine-Mistress' ever-voluptuous figure slink his way from the corner in which it had laid in waiting for his passing.
"Hrrr, you owe me EVERYTHING, Vanil," Ookami growled dangerously as she drew closer. Though the light in this place was scarce, Vanil could make out the faint glint of the older Exile's infamously deadly talons, and he knew well that, though she daren't do it here, Ookami could rip him to pieces without batting either of her dark, beautiful lashes with them. "You are mine, as are your Wolves," Ookami continued, her heels clicking menacingly as they echoed ever closer.
Vanil laughed, and the sound of it nearly brought Ookami to her own bout of stillness. It had always been an aloof and subtle thing, but there was something else there now, something that had not been there previously. An edge of the most silent and creeping of cruelties. Vanil had changed, and though he had once been a sword, Ookami knew then that this blade would probably lie best abandoned before she fell upon it. "I will serve him because I must, Ookami," Vanil said simply. "But our arrangement is complete. Stop me, and the Merovingian will have you locked so far away in Blackwood, you will see nothing for the rest of your timeless existence, my dear."
Ookami said nothing, and instead stepped closer until she stood face to face with Vanil, her perfect tanned nose scant inches from his own pale one. Slowly, the Lupine-Mistress raised both clawed hands and took the Blood Drinker's cold cheeks into her palms and planted a long, slow kiss upon his lips; one that hinted at endless volumes of threat.
"The first mistake you make," Ookami whispered to Vanil as she broke the kiss, "and I shall butcher you in your sleep, Vanil."
Vanil smirked again, the same hints of burgeoning cruelty that had shown themselves before making themselves known once more. "Then I shall sleep awake." With a scuff of his boots, Vanil turned on his heel and strode down the tunnel once more and away from Ookami. ~V
Why do things happen as they do in dreams?
He sees neither sun nor sky nor stars, for he knows that all are lies three. He can see that which would lie below them, however, were the world a perfect one. The mists of the eve swirl about him, lending him an indistinct air of ethereality as one may only possess in dreams, for this was indeed a dream of a dream, the waking dream that they all dreamt of out of penance for the sins of their forefathers and their bastard, steel children. The mists themselves curl downwards like the tendrils of some indistinct beast, wrapping themselves about the tombstones, endless rows of moss-ridden slate and obsidian that stretch infinitely in all four directions, for what is direction in dream if not an illusion of the self?
The clouds hide the heavens, and he strides forth into the endless grid of death, his passing all but silent to those ears that listened, for he too was one of their number, dead amongst them like a crow that slowly picked at its carrion before slowly becoming that which it fed upon. For so long had he done so, and yet he knew that this night was different, somehow, that he was here for some…reason, some purpose…
Ah, and that is how this eve differed from its indistinct cousins, he realized. He was not here as much as he ‘was’ here, so to speak. He could feel the mist from without; his breath within, and when he moved, so did the earth beneath him, for it was not earth at all. He had ventured within this night because he had to find something, someone, he remembered now…someone who had been left here so long ago and yet not so long, for time had no meaning here; to him.
And the others…
They were all dead to him, and this place was proof enough. The graves stared at him with eyes they did not have, accusing him and lauding him all at once, for the dead were a part of him, and he knew not what to make himself anymore. ‘Temet nosce’ the Fortune Teller had told him, and yet…
“You’ve come.” Her voice is like that of a thousand birds singing to his soul, to this place.
“As I have many times for you,” he replies. She tries and fails miserably to not giggle in spite of herself at his word-play.
“Clever even in dreams, Vanil. Why are you here?”
A shrug. The mists flow concordantly, as the mist is him. “For you, I think.” He glances at the tombstone nearest him, only to be met with the carved mantra of ‘Know Thyself’ upon its substantially insubstantial face, and as his gaze of burning red coal rises, he sees that every last one has repeated the first. “I know.”
“Why?” she asks with a quizzical little smile.
He shakes his head gently and smiles back. Such a rarity. “We all do what we must, Alexia.” What was that? What was…?
‘KNOW THYSELF’ the tombstones all screamed.
The dream bends as this unreality leaves him as suddenly as it had come, the grave markers and the surrounding mists retreating from him like waves upon blackest of stony shores. He stretches his arm out before him, the black gloves having already found his slender, taut fingers as they always did. “I’ll seek you out!” he calls as best he may as he leaves himself.
She shakes her head and runs an ethereal hand through her chestnut hair. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll find you.” He is only vaguely aware of the rain that begins to fall as he returns to himself in the waking world, the trail of blood pooling from him; from the graves of the dead within.
Why do things happen as they do in dreams? Perhaps because, like all other things, they simply do.
(( Whoo! Creepy, yet wonderful!))
(( Sieges: Does... this mean Mataru is coming back, at least in spirit...? ))
(( Morraeon: Sure hope so, but boy, would she be mad if she know what the brat prince did to mine former host... ))
