Disclaimers :
The following is a bit of alternative fiction based on certain characters from the Xenaverse & possibly the world of the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It is not meant to infringe on anyone else's rights. If you don't agree or disapprove, please go read something else.
This story is part of an Altaverse based on "Bite Me" and "The Fonder Heart." It can be found, along with other such stories, at The Realms of the Xenaverse, under Blood and Roses. To sum up the most pertinent details, Xena is Ares' Daughter and Gabrielle is Bacchus' Daughter... and they're involved.
Content Warning : Nothing sexually explicit, though it is an altfic, and while there is some violence at levels appropriate to the two referenced shows, it is not especially gory. The body count is very, very low.
The forest was utterly silent. The soft hunting cries of nocturnal predators and the faint responses from their prey were conspicuously absent, and even the wind had slunk away with only a breathy whimper, leaving the air heavy with an unseen dread. A faint crackle came from the dying embers of the campfire in the middle of a benighted clearing, but the soft retorts were unnaturally loud in the enveloping silence as all of nature held itself frightfully still in the midst of the gloom of the forest. Not even the barest whisper from the leg of an insect, nor the gentlest peep from a hungry owl disturbed night's shroud of silence, and fear lurked behind the twisted shapes of the trees hunched outside the slight circle of light cast by the dying fire.
It was the silence that roused her; the silence and whatever had caused the fear that was smothering the normal behavior of the forest. Her companion slumbered on, but her eyes blinked open, quietly searching the darkness for the source of the disruption.
She had hunted here, early the day before, so the sheer abnormality of the night struck a discordant note in her heart. The web of life that underlay and united all within the forest had welcomed her - eagerly accepting her into its loving embrace, recognizing her for who and what she was. She had bonded with this microcosm, tying herself briefly into the weft of the forest to share in the eternal cycle of life and death, and it had left its mark on her, as she had left her mark upon this small piece of nature.
Her hunt had been glorious, and the infectious echoes of her delighted laughter had brightened the forest, the trills making the strands of the intricate life web pulse with a renewed brilliance and joy. But that brilliance was now a mere shadow of its former glory... something she had never seen before.
To be sure, forests and even whole regions had died and would do so again before being reborn once more, but for the fabric of life to transform itself from a pulsating, healthy vitality to such a shadowed and subdued knot, tense with fear - and overnight with no discernable cause... she would have thought it was impossible. Perhaps it was her, she thought, or her presence, that had so disturbed this place. Maybe it was simply a side effect, an added dimension of sensitivity granted to the woods by melding with the daughter of Bacchus - and the chosen of Artemis.
In truth, it didn't matter. To one as sensitized to her surroundings as she was following the ecstatic release of her hunt, it was a cry for aid as compelling as one from her lover, and one that screamed of a fundamental wrongness lurking within the night. Feeling the darkness lingering in the air, Gabrielle cautiously slipped from under the blanketing covering of furs she shared with Xena, moving slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the warrior's slumber.
Dressing swiftly, she left her staff by her bedroll, choosing to take only her small hunting knife with her. She could not travel at full speed - even using all of the gifts her heritage imparted - while burdened with the well- seasoned pole, and whatever had so disturbed the harmony of the forest as to rouse her from her Morpheus' arms was unlikely to fear the blunt wood of her chosen weapon. Even a small blade though, was often enough to give even the most foul of monsters pause - and she had other gifts she could fall back on that would be far more potent than any mere blade, besides. The tingle from her gums as her fangs elongated slightly testified to that. Slipping into the darkness, blade held ready in one wary hand, she entered the gloomy bower, leaving the feeble protection of her campsite behind her.
A faint rustle from the shadowed limbs above her head voiced the forest's welcome. It knew her, as intimately as it knew itself, and as she slipped soundlessly deeper into its depths, she felt a thread of relief echoing through its heart even as she melted into the shadows beneath the trees.
There was an edge to this hunt, a feeling unlike any other she had felt as she sought the disturbance in the forest, and it focused her attention as she travelled amongst the trees. Guardian... Protector... the soul of the forest silently murmured, a hint of its former joy beginning to return to its heart.
She ascended into the canopy, using the intertwined branches to speed her travel. Whispering a wordless prayer to Artemis to guide her in her hunt, she shifted her grip on the hilt of her blade before increasing her speed, the gratitude of the forest pushing her onward.
Pausing briefly, Gabrielle crouched in the crotch of an ancient oak, listening as a soft sound reached her ear. It was repeated once more - a breathless gasp of pain... A human sound, distinctly out of place in this uninhabited corner of the wilderness. Rising to her feet once more, she sped through the trees with the agility of a squirrel and the speed of a striking serpent, heading towards the intrusion into the forest's domain.
The fear and the silence grew more oppressive and ominous as she neared the source of the forest's distress, until not even her presence could lighten the air. As she approached a sheltered clearing in the forest, the silence was palpable, the fear a living entity looming ominously in the night. Gabrielle slowed to a halt, then knelt in the shadow of an evergreen, assessing the situation.
A pair of figures embraced in the center of the clearing, the larger, obviously male's arms holding the second, much slighter form tightly against him while he nuzzled at the pulse throbbing visibly in the slighter figure's neck. In the light of the moon's silvery glow, it was clear they were humans, though not even her eyes could make out much more detail given the pool of shadow they stood within.
Despite the situation, Gabrielle almost laughed aloud, so great was her relief. Two villagers out for a midnight tryst had the forest in an uproar! True, it was...
A bestial growl from the male figure interrupted her. Gabrielle started, then looked more closely at the couple, leaning forward to get a better angle. The slighter figure was female, and wore what appeared to be a Hestian gown.
That took her aback. Wait a minute... a Hestian? What was one of the Virgins doing... A thin trickle of black interrupted her thought as it appeared in the moonlight, oozing slowly down the Hestian's neck from where he nuzzled her, the liquid flowing slowly across the sculpted curves of her neck like a spilled rivulet of ink, only to be absorbed into the soft material of her gown. Her nostrils flared as the scent was carried to her hiding place. Blood?
Grimacing and silently cursing her hesitation, Gabrielle strode out from her shelter, calling out, "Let her go!" The male figure looked up from his grisly repast, and the misapprehension she had held that he was human vanished instantly as she beheld his twisted countenance. He was demonic.
*****
Antinoös was quite young as vampires go - both in body and in years since his "rebirth," and didn't handle surprises well. It had been his undoing when he lived, and it continued to plague the demon that supplanted him in his body after he was slain by a vampire. Nothing in his experience, either in life, or after he'd become a vampire, had prepared him for the singular experience of having a barely clothed woman come out of nowhere and interrupt him while he was in the middle of a meal.
Surprised, his demonic instincts came to the fore and overrode his startled indecision. He lifted his face from his victim's neck and snarled, showing her his bloodstained fangs and attempting to induce panic in the foolish mortal who had dared to disturb him.
"What are you?" Gabrielle breathed softly, futilely searching the motionless Hestian's body with her eyes for signs of life. No pulse... pale, pale skin... her chest was still. She was too late... she was dead.
Antinoös laughed, his demonic nature clear in the rough, guttural sound. Now that the surprise of the confrontation was past, he found himself almost enjoying the situation as he rapidly adapted to the new circumstance. The nonexistent gods obviously favored him tonight - they'd sent him dessert.
"I don't know. What am I?" he laughed harshly, wiping his lips with one pale thumb, before licking it clean, savoring a final taste of the young virgin's blood even as he relished the new arrival's clear disgust at his actions.
Pricking his thumb on one elongated fang, he knelt, lowering the woman's body to the ground and concealing his actions behind the covering shield of his body. He smeared the blood welling out of the small puncture across the dead Hestian's tongue, giving her enough of his essence to transform her in turn, as he himself had once been. Rising, he turned to face her, relaxing his face back into its human mask.
Gabrielle sadly looked away from the pale and motionless Hestian to confront the creature that once more looked like a human - but most assuredly wasn't. "You aren't human, nor are you an animal, I know that much, but you're not a bacchae either. You're an abomination... an affront to nature." She stared silently at him for a moment, then concluded, "The forest loathes your very existence. You're... you're kakistos."
The vampire silently licked his teeth clean, clearing them of the lingering crimson taint as he digested her scathing critique. He had to smile at this child's arrogance; he hadn't had anyone stand up to him like that in years, let alone call him "the worst of the worst..." He felt a hint of amusement. "I like that... It's so much more fitting for me then my given name." He chuckled mirthlessly. "Kakistos..." he hissed the last syllable sibilantly before returning his face to its true, demonic appearance. "For that, I think I'll give you a gift despite your naïveté." He laughed aloud. "Don't you know Bacchae are mere stories told by idiot bards to frighten credulous children? I am the reality, and soon you will be, too."
Gabrielle's lip curled in disgust, even as the color slowly began to fade from her skin. One of her own fangs was briefly visible against the bright crimson of her lips as she grimaced. "No thank you," she retorted, changing her grip on the knife she clutched in one hand while shifting her weight in preparation for the coming attack.
The newly-renamed Kakistos raised a deformed brow at the sight of the tooth. Pausing, he barked in a harsh, grating tongue for several sentences, then waited expectantly. At Gabrielle's blank look, he simply shrugged. "I guess you really are one of the... locals." Growling, he flexed his fingers into claws and slowly stalked towards her.
Gabrielle closed her eyes briefly, then shivered as she felt the subtle shift within her, the flicker of lightning racing through her spine as she embraced her true nature and felt her blood begin to sing. The transformation always affected her, but with the creature standing threateningly before her, she willingly acceded to the siren call of her heritage, willing herself to become once more what she truly was...
When her eyes opened, the irises had shifted in color to a glimmering yellow, a thin ring of blood red separating it from the silvery moonlit glow of her sclera. Sharp, horny claws, a dull black in color, sprouted from her fingertips, the dark nails elongating and curving slightly as her hands flexed to shape them into needle-sharp talons.
Her transformation froze the vampire momentarily, but he swiftly recovered. With a bestial growl, he leaped for her throat, leading with his claws.
Rolling to the side, Gabrielle avoided the attack, then ducked beneath the follow up kick he launched towards her head. With a snarl she kicked out, catching him in the ribs.
Grunting from the impact, the vampire staggered back momentarily before recovering and dropping into a protective crouch. Grimacing, Kakistos rubbed his side, his surprise clear in his voice. "Stronger than you look," he muttered.
"How could you just kill her like that?" Gabrielle demanded, throwing a punch that he easily avoided. "Animal blood is just as nourishing... believe me, I know." She lashed out with her knife, missing him completely.
"But it's not nearly as tasty," the vampire retorted, raking her overextended arm lightly with his claws, making her lose her grip on her weapon, "nor as satisfying. What kind of demon are you that you don't even know that?"
Gabrielle jumped backwards, cartwheeling across the clearing as she gingerly felt the slashes with tentative fingers. They were superficial, but painful. The iron smell of her own spilled blood filled her nostrils, and despite her attempt to control it, she felt a surge of instinctive anger begin to well up inside her. The forest's fear and rage at this unnatural intruder rang in her soul, and joined in harmony to knell with her own.
The vampire licked the single dark droplet of her blood from where it had gathered on the tip of his clawed fingernail, then almost purred, shivering in delight at the flavor. "Delicious." He was more curious than ever now about what she was. Blood never lied, and the taste told him she wasn't human - not entirely anyway - but she also wasn't a demon. Whatever she was however, her blood was singularly potent... and delicious.
A fresh surge of power filled him as he watched her recover from the glancing blow. She was strong, nearly as swift as he, and he could sense the pulse of life within her, even from within the shadows across the clearing where she crouched. Despite his recent meal, he ached to drink of her and steal that life, to make her his. He felt an anticipation that was almost sexual in its intensity as he gazed upon her, hungering to consume her and still the glow of life that surrounded her. His eyes burned with the intensity of his focus as he stared almost mesmerized at the ivory skin of her neck flexing with the hidden throb of her pulse.
Growling slightly in the back of her throat, Gabrielle stalked across the clearing, stepping carefully over the Hestian's body. "You know... it takes a lot to make me angry, but I think I'm actually going to enjoy ramming a dryad bone through your heart."
"A dryad bone?" Kakistos' amusement at the threat was plain. "You spend too much time listening to bards, little girl. A dryad bone will do nothing to me." He thought not, anyway.
Pausing in her advance to impatiently rub at the scratches, Gabrielle brushed at the crusted scabs on one bicep. They flaked away to reveal the pale lines of scar tissue, the already fading keloid only a shade darker than the surrounding backdrop of white flesh.
Wearing the full mantle of her heritage, fresh from a hunt, and with her father's blood surging strongly through her veins, her power was at its zenith. Such minor wounds as he had inflicted would heal almost instantly, and she felt the power raging within her demanding release... but she controlled it.
Kakistos noted the rapid healing - far faster than even his own demonic nature could have effected such, and asked in surprise, "What are you?" Unease began to dim his anticipation as he recalled the power contained within the single drop of her blood he'd tasted. Perhaps easier prey was called for, despite her tantalizing allure...
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she retorted. "Surrender now, or I'll have to kill you - and I don't really want to have to do that. I don't like killing - not even murderous things like you."
"I don't think so." Looking over her shoulder, he called, "You can get up anytime now."
Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Gabrielle pushed the warding hand that he held before him out of the way and nailed him squarely in the nose with a swift, solid blow from one pale fist.
"By dose... you boke by dose," Kakistos snarled while backing away from her, roughly pulling the broken member back into position with a sickening crack.
With a clearly visible cocking of his arm, he threw a punch that almost hit her despite the blatant telegraphing, so swift was its speed. Leaning to the side, Gabrielle barely avoided the blow, then had to lean the other way as his other arm lashed out in turn. Again and again, he threw crushing blows at her, his fists coming closer and closer to striking her as anger and a hint of fear fueled his attacks. Eyes burning with a desperate hunger, he drove her back across the clearing until they neared the still body of his victim.
Gabrielle stopped retreating, one heel resting on the slick fabric of the Hestian's gown. She'd gauged the extent of his speed and had his rhythm down... Now she could take him down at her whim. Fangs bared in triumph, she tensed her muscles to attack, thighs clenching as she shifted her weight...
The clawed hand grabbing her by the ankle took her completely by surprise. Off balance as she prepared to launch her attack, the solid grip holding her leg made her stumble. Windmilling one arm desperately, she backhanded Kakistos roughly away with the other before turning to see what had grabbed her.
A familiar demonic visage snarled up at her from under the cover of the Hestian's veil.
"Finally!" Kakistos growled, shaking off the heavy (and almost incidental) blow from Gabrielle that had almost broken his neck. "Get her!" he commanded. He almost sighed, so relieved was he at the reprieve. He'd beheld the triumph on her face, and seen his death - his true death - lurking in those frightful yellow eyes. He backed away from the fresh combat, equally prepared to join the fight or flee, depending on how the newly "born" vampire fared against this opponent that was so alien to his experience.
Gnashing her fangs, the Hestian vampire slithered through the dirt towards the leg she pinioned in her grip, impatiently tearing the veil from her head as she strained to reach Gabrielle.
Adrenaline surged through the demigoddess' veins, giving her the strength to wrench her foot free from the monster's grasp. Once free, she tapped into her powers and flew to the far side of the clearing. The maneuver gave her a reprieve from the vampires' assaults, while also giving her invaluable room to maneuver. She flipped in midair in an acrobatic spiral, to land in a crouch under a tree.
Kakistos watched her fly - literally fly - across the clearing and quietly faded back into the trees. Knowing when to flee had kept him alive through ten long years of the Trojan War, and his finely honed survival instinct served the vampire inhabiting his flesh well. Without a hint of qualm, he turned and ran.
He'd call this a victory; the drop of her blood he'd ingested had strengthened him, making him stronger even than his own sire, and he'd managed to feed well before she interrupted him. The new name she'd bestowed upon him pleased him as well; he'd wear it as a badge of honor.
Most importantly, by fleeing now he'd also survive the night, which was the most important mark of victory, after all.
Running with the easy lope of a hunting wolf, he rapidly increased the distance between himself and Gabrielle. Maybe he'd go back to Sumeria; it hadn't been too bad the last time he'd been there - the drought made the humans there easy pickings. Turning his direction towards the east, he resolved never to return to his homeland. He had eternal life, after all, and so had no desire to risk it by facing anything like her again.
The imminent death of his spawn concerned him not at all. She'd keep that... that... whatever she was busy while he escaped. Almost giddy with relief at his survival, he fled into the night, leaving the still raging combat far behind him.
Back in the clearing, Gabrielle snarled as she fended off the latest attack from the former Hestian. Unlike the other one, this creature seemed almost stupid; it hadn't spoken once during their fight, despite her attempts to draw it into conversation, and used only the most rudimentary of tactics in its attempts to bite her, compared to the often subtle and clever tricks the male had used. More, this one was far slower and weaker than he had been. Was it sexual dimorphism or a simple age difference, she idly wondered.
Whatever these creatures were, they were certainly no bacchae - even the spawn of Bacchus were part of the natural order of the world. But this girl she was fighting had been human - her scent and the smell of her blood assured her of that - and she had been dead - she was also absolutely sure of that - but then this... creature had taken over and reanimated the body; that was the only explanation she could think of to explain what she'd observed. Reaching above her, the snapped off a thick tree branch to form a rudimentary club as she pondered the surprising similarities and differences between whatever this creature was and the bacchae it so resembled.
To Gabrielle's surprise, the simple branch she held appeared to actually give the Hestian vampire pause. She added that odd bit of data to the mental list she was compiling, then forcefully shoved the vampire away, using the branch to provide leverage.
Where was the other one? she wondered, taking a moment as the vampire tried to recover itself to look around the clearing. At first she'd thought he meant to ambush her while this one kept her busy, and her constant efforts to locate him had made this combat last far longer and much more of a challenge than the feeble skills of this creature truly merited, but there was no sign of him.
Now that she was devoting more of her attention to this opponent, the fight was much more in her favor. If it wasn't such a grotesque situation, it might have almost been enjoyable, as the fire burning in the depths of her eyes showed. But where was the other one? Had he fled? she wondered.
A cry of triumphant rage from her opponent hastily returned her attention to the fight at hand. She was barely in time. The vampire was midleap, fangs bared and claws outstretched, her blood stained gown flapping in the faint breeze as she hung poised in midair about to strike down the distracted daughter of Bacchus.
She was too close to avoid the attack, Gabrielle realized, cursing her inattention. Discarding her weapon, she rolled underneath the vampire's arc, then rose fluidly beneath the leaping monster, pushing up on its legs with the strong muscles of her thighs and altering the creature's flight path, spinning her in midair and sending her crashing uncontrollably against the unmoving pillar of a tree's thick trunk.
The Hestian's angry shout ended with a dull thud as she thumped into the tree. For an eternal instant, she hung there, head down and flush against the rough bark of the tree, in total defiance of gravity. Eyes opening wide, she looked down (from her perspective) to see the jagged stump where Gabrielle had freed her weapon poking roughly from between her blood-stained breasts.
Gabrielle watched aghast as the creature's head thumped back against the tree trunk, her eyes automatically meeting the vampire's as she snarled at her. One clawed hand delicately touched the sharp tip of the branch impaling her, then reached out towards her killer. The fanged mouth opened, though whether in a curse or a blessing, the demigoddess would never know.
Faster than even her eyes could follow, the creature's flesh turned a dirty grey brown, the color of old, dusty ashes. As its eyes opened wide in horror, it shook, then exploded in a cloud of dust. For a moment, the outline of its skeleton hung against the surface of the tree, then it too succumbed to the dissolution of its flesh, showering its killer with the decayed remnants of its body while a swirl of pale light faded into the darkness.
Coughing and furiously brushing herself clean, Gabrielle stared at the tree. Nothing remained of her attacker save for a small metal clip that had held her gown closed. It dropped to the ground with faint clatter, ringing off a small stone. Her clothing had vanished along with the vampire's body, and the small clip was all that remained to remind her of the combat.
"Gabrielle?"
The demigoddess spun in shock, fangs bared in reflex, only to slump in relief as she beheld Xena standing on the edge of the clearing, sword in hand. "Xena..."
"What happened?" the warrior asked, eyes reading the subtle clues the fight had left in the dirt and grass carpeting the clearing.
"I'm not sure," Gabrielle began, turning to look for the second, missing creature. "But I think... I need to have a talk with Artemis..." She paused, and a hint of the strain she was feeling was audible as she added, "Later."
Free of the alien presence, the flood of joyful life returning to the forest washed over her, disturbing the already precarious grip she held on her emotions. Bonded with these woods, the ecstasy of the purified web of life raced through her like a bolt of lightning, setting her nerves aflame and starting a warm ache deep within her core.
Xena examined Gabrielle minutely, seeing the fading cicatrice of a vanished wound on one pale arm and wordlessly noting the complete transformation she had undergone. Gabrielle almost never changed completely, not even during her hunts; she rarely felt the need, and sometimes actually feared to give in to her nature so completely. What had she encountered that had caused her to...? The warrior let her mute speculation fade from her mind. The feral light burning in Gabrielle's golden eyes was much more important.
Sheathing her sword, Xena swiftly began undoing the straps holding on her breastplate, her blood instinctively responding to the fire raging within her mate. She recognized the symptoms of a form of battlelust; it was something she'd felt herself, more times than she could remember. She knew what Gabrielle needed, both as a release and to aid her in recovering her balance.
As the sun rose above the edge of the horizon, Xena bared her neck and let her armor drop silently to the ground, welcoming her bard into the warm circle of her embrace. Warm, pale limbs wrapped themselves snugly around the warrior's body, joining them together and melding them into one as they fit perfectly together like the two halves of one whole. Her desire surged as she felt her love's sharp teeth gently pierce the skin of her neck, and together they sank down into the enveloping bed of grass.
A sigh seemed to pass through the forest, as the last taint of the alien presence was thrown off. A faint cry broke the silence of the morning, and as soft, sweet sounds of love filled the air, the birds cheerily began greeting the dawn. Life had returned to the forest, banishing the lingering darkness that had so disturbed its harmony.
The forest had been cleansed.
The End
Bonus Featurette :
I wrote a little of the backstory for Antinoös while working on this story, but couldn't really work it effectively into the flow of the story - other than as a few side comments; it's a little too snarky in tone to fit well with the rest of the story. Here's how he became a vampire - and an atheistic one at that.
Antinoös' / Kakistos' Tale
In life, he had been a soldier in Ulysses' army, and unlike most in the Danaän forces, he'd been a volunteer. He'd loved it - a little rapine, a little looting, an occasional killing... he'd had the time of his life. After his king's slighting of Poseidon, though... then things had started to get a little messy for him.
After Troy's fall, he'd looked forward to returning home to Ithaca - after all, it had been ten years since they'd embarked on their mission of vengeance, and the pickings (both in terms of food and captives) were getting pretty slim around the besieged city. Poseidon Earthshaker didn't care about his nostalgia, however. Angered by Ulysses' ego and his disrespect, the god raised a great storm that smashed the king's ships and started him on his long, long journey home.
Of course, Antinoös didn't know or care about any of that - at the time he was too busy trying to swim to safety while his fellow shipmates were drowning in the raging seas and being eaten by the bloodthirsty sharks that swarmed around the wreckage of his ship, summoned by the furious god.
He was lucky; he'd actually managed to find a resting place atop a floating door (only having to kill two people to claim it for his own), and was thereby able to ride out the storm, perched atop the dubious shelter of that fragile raft.
After drifting for days, until he was half mad with thirst and from the punishing heat of the sun, he washed up on shore in an alien and barbarous land, far from both his homeland and the city he'd besieged. Loudly thanking the gods for protecting him, his praises echoed to the heavens... and drew the vampire hunting nearby directly to his location.
Celesta rather rudely shoved him towards the nearest convenient entrance to the underworld, and he descended to his final judgement, all the while calling down impotent curses on the heads of the gods.
He was gone - but his body was not. The demon that awoke in his body may have known everything that Antinoös knew - his thoughts, memories, and dreams - but he (if such an entity can be considered to have a gender) was not the hapless soldier from Ithaca.
Regardless of the source for the longing, the vampire retained Antinoös' longing for home. After feeding on a shepherd to regain some of his strength, he'd embarked on the long journey back towards his body's home.
After years of wandering (the twin necessities of his vampiric state (avoiding sunlight and feeding) had slowed him down), he'd eventually reached his homeland... or at least the outskirts of it. Once more in a land that spoke his language, and among people that looked like him (until the feed was upon him, anyway) he'd been quite simply overjoyed. To celebrate his return, he hunted down and kidnapped a beautiful young maiden. The fact that she was a priestess was truly irrelevant to him, though it did add a certain piquancy to the whole situation.
As a youth, Antinoös had never been one to pay attention to storytellers. He liked wine, women, and killing... not necessarily in that order. He'd spent his later years on the battlefields surrounding Troy, and on various expeditions of conquest led by his king. And, as he'd died in the cold grip of a vampire's clawed hands, the conclusion that the gods don't exist (and that the universe is really, really unfair) had taken hold of his mind rather strongly. It wasn't until after his soul had left his body, and Celesta had arrived to send him on his way that he realized differently, but that experience was not passed along to his body's new tenant. Consequently, the vampire in his body felt clergy were as open to his depredations as any other human.
And that is how it came to be that Antinoös, soldier in the armies of Ulysses, Sacker of Cities, veteran of the Trojan War and sole survivor (for a day or two, anyway) of the doomed fleet of Ithaca, was dead, and for his sins was consigned to an eternity in Tartarus. In the empty vessel that was his corpse, a demonic spirit took up residence and transformed it into its host. Thus was reborn Antinoös, the vampire, who came to be renamed Kakistos after a confrontation with Gabrielle (she is a bard, and has a way with words, after all), and who would die at the hands of Faith, the Vampire Slayer, many, many years later in the town of Sunnydale.
Here endeth the lesson.
*****
End notes :
Well, this one's been sort of percolating for a while, and I wanted to clear my palette so I can finish Deus Ex Gabrielle. Do you realize it's been a month since I posted the last DExG part? I couldn't believe it when I realized that... Anyway, I finished off this one, and a Callisto story for Tim Wellman's adult site so I can concentrate on DexG once more.
I've read about a half dozen or so BtVS / X:WP crossovers, and so far I don't think there's even been one that manages to entirely maintain the continuity of both shows. Not to say they aren't good; most of them are thoroughly enjoyable - I'm waiting with bated breath for the next chapter of Dark Promise even as we speak (PLEASE, PLEASE POST IT!). Ahem. Still, one show or the other usually has continuity sacrificed to the crossover story.
I came up with an idea for one that both worked, and maintained canonical continuity for both - within the Blood & Roses Altaverse anyway. I wrote about 100K, then started focusing on DExG, so it sat idling on the back burner.
Then Joss Whedon (creator of BtVS) introduced Kakistos - an ancient Greek vampire of unusual power. (His name is supposed to mean "the worst of the worst," BTW) How could I resist such a kind inclusion? The muse was upon me, and I started writing this little vignette/story too, which is at least partially inspired by a HK flick called "Vampire Vs. Vampire" in which a western Dracula-like vampire goes against a Chinese-style hopping vampire. Short, sweet, and not too bloody... this was the result.
Thanks for all the kind comments and words of praise that respondents have sent in on my stories - feedback keeps bards working, don'cha know, and I promise I'll get back to DExG now that my plate is a lot less crowded, and I'm not as stressed by real life.
Late addition : Yet another thing will delay DExG 11. Have you ever had a corneal abrasion? Essentially it's having the skin scraped off the surface of your eye. It hurts like you would not believe, and the ointment that's supposed to help it has to be applied to the eye also (which is no picnic either). Anyway, somehow I managed to get one, and even though it's healing, oh boy, does it hurt. Add in light sensitivity thanks to the doctor's eyedrops and... In sum, I can't work on a PC much without some pain. Even though this is supposed to heal quickly, its causing me yet another delay. Hang in there, though... the next part is coming - I promise!
- Chris