City in The Valley

[Meluivan Indil]

“My aren’t you just a little bit full of yourself?” she asked staring skeptically at the young man. But what if he wasn’t? What if he was exactly what he said he was? That would change a lot about this job and the way she’d handle it.

She stood quickly and backed away from him, looking him over, sizing him up. He didn’t look like anything special, but looks could be deceiving. She was proof positive of that herself.

A sword to the gut was what he was expecting but she very rarely did as was expected. She pulled the sword from her coat and then stood ready judging what might be her best target. She truly did not want to kill her target, but maybe a little slicing and dicing would be in order. So instead of going for the gut as she lunged forward she sidestepped and aimed for the robotic tail she had noticed swishing back and forth.

[Ark]

"Ah ah ah, that's just been refitted a few months ago." Ark hissed, rolling quickly to put his whole form in front of her sword, blocking it with both his forearms and leaving a nasty slice clean to the bone visible on both.

He clenched his teeth in agony. Okay, so she was a bit stronger than an average mortal.

Okay much stronger.

With a sigh, he kicked up with both legs straight for her gut while grinding the sword along his forearms until it reached his hands. Quickly, with a wince, he grabbed it with both hands and pulled it towards him to try to bring the woman into his kick-in-progress.

Immediately, he could already feel his body at work, the wounds literally knitting themselves shut with magic. It had only just begun, though, but the observant eye would notice that blood had stopped flowing and that his forearms, now sliced and scraped to bloody messes, were steaming as the wounds began to shrink.

"Well I guess I can't afford not to fight."

[Meluivan Indil]

Quick, too quick to be normal, that was for sure. Her strike should have removed his tail before he could have blinked an eye, but no, instead he managed to land a hell of a kick to her midsection, which in turn sent her to the ground. She hadn’t expected that.

Neither had she expected him to take the brunt of her slice to both his forearms. Now how smart was that? The tail being lopped off wouldn’t have caused him any real physical harm, but two arms sliced to the bone was downright debilitating.

The smell of blood, pungent but sweet permeated the air and luckily she had recently fed or that would have sent her over the deep end. But instead it just tempted the senses enough to heighten them, turning her normally emerald eyes to that lovely shade of blood red that she so loathed to see. She could feel the change just as she sensed all changes in her own body and surroundings. She just held out hope that her target would not notice.

But then the scent all but died on the wind and she glimpsed steam rising from his arms as she stood again ready to attack. “Self regeneration, no wonder you aren’t all that worried about wounds.” This could pose quite the problem she surmised as she circled him working through her mind what her next move should be. Any blow she dealt him would just knit itself back together, just as her own wounds did.

“By the way, what exactly are you?” she asked trying to stall as her mind whirred with possibilities. She really didn’t want to kill him. It was always an option. She really doubted that he could regenerate his entire head if she lopped it off. But that wasn’t how she worked, or at least it wasn’t how she liked to work.

Looked like it would just be the old ‘wear em down till they made a mistake’ technique. So with that in mind she lunged forward with the sword, this time truly aiming for his gut.

[Ark]

Ark laughed childishly as he sidestepped her sword lunge, moving around behind her and showing her lightly. “Oh, I guess I can tell you; you mortals never believe me anyway, it’s always ‘He’s a freak of nature!’ or ‘Obviously science can explain his body structure!’ when neither are even close to correct. In fact, it’s much simpler: I’m an immortal, an ancient… a god.” He drawled, brushing off his robes.

“Let me explain this to you clearly; I’m only going to do this once. I used to do what you do, mortal. I used to hunt; not because I need to, but because I wanted to. I didn’t need money, but I took it. All I needed to be satisfied was that fantastic feeling of my quarry’s blood flowing freely onto my hands as they ripped out his heart.” Ark whispered, shuddering in a bit of subdued euphoric pleasure. “But there’s one key aspect that separated me from you when I killed for a living; I don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep. I was always hunting, constantly, and as a mortal that’s something you never want to experience, from either my point of view at the time or my quarry’s. Why do you think I’m a bit ‘quirky’ now, huh? Giving up on something that was your entire being for hundreds and thousands of years without even looking back has to have consequences; I’m not who I was, though it feels like I made the change a second ago, not twenty years…” he rambled, looking a bit frantic as he drifted off as he noticed a change in her aura.

He blinked twice before laughing crazily, watching her with contented eyes. “Oh but you know all about bloodlust, don’t you, vampire? I knew your kind weren’t extinct, far too clever a species. Rather interesting to observe; I guess that explains your strength, doesn’t it? Well, I’d be happy to offer you plenty of blood; my body produces more than you’d ever be able to ingest. Bet you’ve never tasted immortal blood before, have you? I’ve been told mine’s a bit spicy.” He stated with all seriousness, rolling up his right sleeve to show his forearm. “What do you say? Give up on trying to catch me for a bounty and get a free blood source instead? Go ahead and give it a taste; it’s not like you have to worry about other people biting, right?”

Though Ark’s experience with vampires was limited, he had encountered no more than a handful since the dark ages, he was quite sure that he was able to do what he proposed; he’s done it once to go undercover and kill a vampires at the request of a village; she hadn’t put up much of a fight once he’d poisoned his own blood beforehand.

Still, his other hand flicked about boredly, sand dancing about his finger tips before forming into a thin glass needle.

[Meluivan Indil]

An immortal. A freaking immortal… a god no less. Well didn’t that just take the prize? If he had expected her to be surprised he shouldn’t have. She had never actually met up with one before but after all the other supernatural bull she’d dealt with in her life, she believed. She believed in just about everything that the normal world thought was crazy and impossible.

She had stilled and wasn’t even bothering to attack anymore. What good would it do? Being a god he wouldn’t tire, he wouldn’t give in, and making a mistake was probably the last thing he’d ever do.

But she could make mistakes. She had many times before. Her species though immortal in their own way, were not infallible. And what he was offering her was tempting, but it felt like a mistake. A full supply of immortal blood at her disposal whenever she wished was an intoxicating thought.

But she wasn’t that way anymore. She didn’t feed like a beast in the night. “It seems that one way or the other, the bounty on you will probably be unattainable. And though your offer is very tempting; more tempting than any I’ve received in my entire lifetime…” She paused then, the refusal stuck on her lips. She wanted to say no. It was right there. The word would flow easily from her lips if she just forced it but a smidge.

But the remembered smell of his blood lingered on her senses. Her mouth was watering just thinking about it. She wondered if this was how a drug addict started. Just a small whiff and they were hooked.

She stared at his forearm and the thought of sinking her teeth into that skin sent shivers up her spine. She tore her gaze from his arm and turned stepping away. “You better leave,” she whispered. A whisper was all she could manage. Her voice was choked with the rising bloodlust, which she knew should not be tempting her this much. But his blood was different, something most of her kind would fight, kill, and even die for.

She had to wonder at how foolish she was being. Any other of her race would have shoved him to the ground in their rush to receive such a banquet of sweet decadence. But not her, not the reluctant fiend that she was.

[Ark]

“Oh I don’t think I’m going anywhere, miss.” Ark said quietly, appearing very subdued. “This isn’t meant to serve as a temptation; you’ve got to get your food from somewhere, don’t you? And with willpower like yours I’m willing to bet you don’t jump helpless idiots in back alleys during long moonless nights.” He continued, walking forward timidly. “So in a way, my offer fulfills my goal of protecting life as best I can; you wouldn’t need anything else, there’d be no risks to either of us, or to anyone else. I’ll even put it in a bottle or something if it’s the whole civility aspect of it you’re worried about.” He added sincerely.

“I get it, alright? Not a big deal at all, really.” Ark added awkwardly, trying to reassuring. “I mean, I suppose it actually preserves your humanity even more; you don’t have to hunt anymore if you take my offer, wouldn’t that make you less of what you don’t want to be? Paradoxes, paradoxes.” He muttered, gingerly placing his hand cautiously on her shoulder.

Ark was actually uneasy around this woman, to an extent. Primarily, it was rare that he encountered vampires, sure, but even rarer to encounter ones who were not entirely accepting of what they were. He could understand the mortal appeal of classifying their species as monstrosities; their feeding habits were more than undesirable for human beings. He tried to be as human as possible in form and mental tendencies, and blood sucking still made his skin crawl; he never actually liked the metallic taste of the stuff anyhow. Either way, he had always found their species as intriguing as their culture, and had taken pleasure in their company from time to time; many especially wise members of their species were quite in control of their desire for blood, and made invaluable guides in the darkness they often dwelled, a place he himself was helplessly lost in many times.

Ark sighed deeply; having compassion was really an inefficient characteristic, if not an evolutionary marvel.

He tried to wrack his brain for any other topic of discussion, and settled on the plainly obvious one. “So… the moon is nice tonight…”

[Meluivan Indil]

He said he wasn’t trying to tempt her, but did he really know how much of a temptation he was? She could feel the warmth of his skin through the cloth on her shoulder and tried desperately to remember what it was like to be warm like that. Now the only time she felt even the slightest of warmth was after a fresh feed. Something she no longer partook in. The refrigerated bags of blood she kept on hand at her home did not warm her like a fresh feed, and she had to admit she missed the feeling. Even if he were to bottle his blood before a feed it would still have the desired affect.

And hadn’t she just thought a few hours before how her arrangement with Curtis was becoming just a little too much on the personal side? An attachment to a human could only lead to trouble and possibly death on his part. If she took this immortal’s offer there would be no need to worry over someone weak and unprotected. He could care for himself. But then again she’d be basically tying herself to him for all of eternity. She knew once she tasted his blood there would be no going back. Mortal blood would soon not be enough to slake her thirst. Did she really want that? She had to admit that the mere smell of it had already invaded her senses and there was no way she’d soon forget it.

But there was one other thing that gave her pause. “You say you want to do this to save human lives, and that’s all well and good. I understand that. But there has to be something else in it for you. No one, not even gods, do something for nothing.” She turned back to him to look him in the eye as she talked. She had an uncanny knack of reading people, and she liked to analyze their every move and every action. To look through their eyes and see into their souls. It was the only way for her to be sure that whatever this was, it wasn’t just a trap. “So if I accept your offer, what do you want in return? What is expected of me? I may be a bounty hunter, and I may commit a few crimes here and there to procure sought after items, but I do have my own twisted sense of standards.”

She waited patiently to see his reaction. She needed to see his reaction. She needed to gauge for herself if he was the real deal, or of this was all just some elaborate hoax to get at the blood-sucking monster, which just so happened to wander into his eternity of boredom.