Why had she come here tonight? It was a question that didn't really have an answer. There had been the matter of prey, but that isn't what had lured her into this sleeping giant of a building. Something intangible had called to her from this place, something she could not ignore, and now she stood in the carpeted foyer of the empty Ave Verum Concert Hall, a place she had only been once before, and she had no idea why. The security guard she had fed on lay upstairs, certain not to wake from his slumber anytime soon. She never killed her victims. Not after Egypt.

The first time, that is.

Dark eyes gazed around to make sure there was no one around, and then she cast out her telepathy to see if there were any beings. She sensed none. With a small smile she reserved for the small intimacies she allowed herself, she gave a small curtsy to nothing, her black gown temporarily pooling beneath her feet before rising up again to the elegance of the gown. The world turned around her as she practiced the dances of old with an invisible partner who seemed to please her. The only sound in the quite vastness of the hall was the swish of her fabric.

As the silent song came to an end, Nafretiri allowed herself the small luxury of a laugh, folding her hands together in front of her. She moved some hair out of her face. Long had it been since she'd been in such a good mood. Even longer it would be until she was in such a mood in front of other people. Reflectively, she turned in slow circles, gazing at the ornate ceiling and the decorated balconies above her.

Soft laughter echoed from the two, seemingly drunk footsteps from both parties thundering down the streets in break of the lucid silence, it was far too late for any mortal creature to be roaming the streets, which is exactly why she had kept him out so very late. Aries gave a soft smile towards her date, where he began to lead her up the long steps, her heels clicking softly each time they connected to the concrete structures. She stopped, then, as they turned behind a column, her hands gently placed upon his collar as she pulled him to her in a kiss, nibbling softly at his bottom lip before her hands came up, each nail stroking his throat until penetrating the flesh, the moments he had to scream captured by her own mouth, the barbiturates released into his bloodstream..

He fell limp again her as she gave another laugh, her apparent drunk state having sobered in seconds, teeth elongating before they placed their precious marks within his jugular vein, pulling and sucking the mortal life from him just as that..waiting.. his heartbeat began to wade out, and soon enough she had pulled away, biting the tip of her tongue to heal the two wounds she had inflicted on this most unsuspecting victim of hers.

She removed his bodyweight from crushing her, sliding her gloves up before folding her hands together, walking about the columns aimlessly.. she should most likely have simply gone home, but something drew her..something comforting, familiar, something.. old.

Her steps continued, each pace perfectly in unison with the last as she moved through doorways, stopping not until she found the source of the comfort. A thin smile spread her lips – she knew that the woman had already noticed her, and so, she saw no need to attempt concealing herself. Moving herself, she grasped the elder’s hands, dancing to the same waltz that the other had done just moments before..alone.

As she stood alone in the large foyer, Nafretiri sensed something - or rather, someone. It was a someone that she had not felt in quite a while, such a few centuries. Ironically, this was a person that she had met in her home country of Egypt while looking at the pyramids. Every few centuries, Nafretiri liked to go back and see how things changed; see how the buildings of her time were tumbling into ruin. Even Abu Simbel which had been built just years after she'd been turned had been reduced to a mere fraction of its fomer glory.

The child - for she was still a child in the eyes of Nafretiri, despite what others of her race may beileve - grasped her hand, and started dancing the dance that she herself had only just come to finish. With a smile, Nafretiri joined her in the dance. She had not seen this woman in a while, yet the woman seemed to have remembered her. This pleased the Egyptian.

"Aries," she greeted with a slight inclination of her head. "It has been some time. How are you? What brings you to Demaitre?"

(That's right, Naf doesn't remember mentioning Demaitre. ^^)

“You, my teacher.” Aries said with a slight smile, moving back and forth to the pace that she had been forced to learn as a child, her cold eyes still changeless despite the reencounter with the one that she more dubbed her master than anything else, having guided her when she was most lost in her world, having been the first vampire she had ever came in contact with.. you build a sort of bond with someone like that.

“You mentioned a Canadian town those centuries ago, and I searched, until arriving here.. here where I felt the presence of other vampires the greatest. I hoped I’d find you.” With this she ended the dance, her arms swaying around the other vampiress’s waist, her head nuzzled into the woman’s throat as she spoke softly. “Teacher, I am confused again. I do not understand this world as I thought I did.. guide me, my teacher. Guide me as you did so many centuries ago.”

She looked towards her beloved teacher, her teeth sinking within the dormant muscle inside her mouth, producing the blood that she was most used to giving in the ritual of the blood kiss. She lifted her head, placing her mouth against the other vampire’s openly to let the blood flow easily before pulling back. “I am so lost in these times.”

In response to the title that Aries had dubbed her upon their last encounters, Nafretiri gave a warm smile, not unlike the one you would find upon a mortal mother, although far smaller. This young vampire was the closest anyone had ever come to being a childe of Nafretiri. Never in her long life had she made anyone else, a fact that most of her kind found quite odd. Nevertheless, she held a bond with this child that few others had come close to having with her. The latest of these had tried to kill her recently. Fortunately, her first pupil came back without any need for revenge.

"Did I?" asked Nafrretiri, though it was more rhetorical than anything. Going back in her mind, she thought of the last time both she and Aries had been together. Vaguely, she recalled saying something about Demaitre, but not what she'd said. Nevermind. It was of little importance. As Aries threw herself into the Egyptian, Nafretiri was a tad surprised. It had been a long time since someone had been so open with their affection with her. Overcoming this, she began to stroke the younger being's hair.

Aware of the act, Nafretiri opened her mouth to recieve the blood that Aries gave to her. The feel of Aries' lips stayed on hers for a moment, and she did not know what to say. "I shall help you as much as I can, though this time is almost as much of a mystery to me as it is to you." She stroked the other woman's cheek. "Tell me what ails you."

She smiled, lifting a hand to hold the stroking fingers that caressed her, a comfort they brought, indeed, as though the woman was a mother to her, very unlike her first mother.. she had killed her, she recalled the vivid images in her head with a grimace before returning her attention to the elder, trying to find words adequate enough to address this woman – but she could not, for, she felt so inferior to this vampire, and yet, so comforted by the mere sight of the Egyptian. This was why she had traveled to this town, in search of these moment, the moment where she could find the wisdom of her second mother, the warmth that was so uncommon between vampires not of the same coven.

“Covens. Vampires and mortals as one. The immortal blood that is now soiled by this deceitful technology! I do understand it, my teacher.” She seemed troubled to the point of crying, the truth of the child inside her exposed as she would expose it to so few. She was bewildered, lost, and scared of this new world that she lived in, she craved for the times of her mortal life, the simple times.. where she did not have to fear of anything except her sister, which was strangely a comfort, knowing who and where your fear should lay, rather than accepting the possibility of it existing within every nook and cranny of the streets that were titled home.

“How is it a vampire and mortal can be intimiate? If only not to kill, but they don’t! They continue to live with these mortals..and these covens..I do understand them..vampires, together? Not separate, together, living.. breeding.. I do not understand it! Oh master.” Her voice had lifted with aggravation, and now, she found herself weeping, for the first time in centuries, the tears of blood spilling from her eyes were foreign to her, yet releasing. Her confusion scared her, and here, with the touch of her second mother, she found her sanctuary.

The woman's thoughts were tumbling about in a confused tizzy, leaving Nafretiri scrambling to pick up what she was thinking. For a moment, she caught flashes of the murder of Aries' mother, but did not judge her charge by this. It would be idiotic of her, she who had slaughtered half of Egypt three millenia ago. She would not condemn this one because she made one grave mistake. Nafretiri knew very well what it was like to kill someone you should have loved. It had been that way with her Sire. Another thought she found was one of inadequacy. She held the girl's fingers in a comforting manner. "You do not have to be hesitant to talk to me."

With her words, Nafretiri realized just how much of a child this one could be inside. She led her to the staiwell, where she sat down, patting the spot next to her. If there was anyone in this town that knew what it was like to feel like they didn't belong in a day and age, it was her. "You must take every night at a time. No swift answers will you find. Times have changed, and we now live in a time where technology is important, but the human life has higher value than ever before. They have humans who can find us by teeth marks were we to leave them in our victims. We must be more careful, more secretive, and more aware of the world around us."

She paused, considering how to phrase what she was about to say next. "Humans and vampires... Vampires have had to learn to deal and interact with humans like never before. You must now do everything through humans, and therefore, they can know everything about you. For this reason, vampires have come to trust some of them. Trust eventually leads to love, though how, I do not now. I cannot imagine loving someone who had seen so little of the world."

Seeing that her pupil had started to cry, Nafretiri placed kisses on each of her cheeks, taking some blood with her as she pulled away. "Do not fear. I shall guide you as best as I can." Brushing a piece of hair out of Aries' face, she gave a small smile. "Now, what do you wish to know about the covens?"

She continued to weep, despite the kisses that fell upon her face as a comfort, holding her arms around the other’s stomach as she hugged into her, her shoulders shaking visibly – she had needed this moment for far too long, and now with the release of it, she felt herself growing weaker and weaker by the second.. but that didn’t matter, as long as she was with the mother that she had come to so affectionately call her own, she could be weak, she could feel horribly low, she knew that she’d still find the needed sanctum inside Nafretiri.

Aries straightened herself out a bit, pulling away from her teacher as she straightened her back, a hand coming to push away the crimson strands of hair that clouded her vision from what lay before her in the world. “How is that vampires can live in harmony together? So many of them..all together, working under one power..it is a cult!” She began to shake once more as she continued on her rave, falling still for a moment as she allowed the flashbacks she had once been haunted by every slumber to replay inside her mind..

Lips melded together, smooth hands running over heated body parts, gentle flesh breaking under scathing nails, the moment was a twist of passion for the two lovers, but for one of them, it would be a moment of a bought retribution, her soul sold to whatever dark power existed and the bitterness of her own morality's decay.

White threads spilled across bare shoulders as Aria leaned forwards into Aries's form, clinging to her lover's forearms in an attempt to keep balance, to receive very little recognition from the more-clothed figure, bandages wrapped tightly around her figure, covering over most if not all of her mid-section.

Cool metal nestled deep within Aria's heart, the beveled edge being wielded by none other than her twin sister, Aries, who with a cruel smile she had never seen upon her usually timid sister's face, stepped away from Aria's failing form, Aries's eyes cold and bitter.

"Why?", Aria attempted to ask, but was drowned out by the sound of Aries’s laughter. Aries, the pale, dark haired sister, who had cried when children made fun of her liquid-paper white flesh and had cowered inside her sister's controlling hold when commanded to do so. Aries, Ari, Ri, her sister, her lover, her slave, hers.

"You whore..", her sister sputtered, grasping the blade hilt that nestled within her rib cage and bringing it swiftly upon her sister's collarbone, who did nothing but blink in slight surprise. It hurt, the pain going down each nerve ending, but there was no response other than the involuntary shift of her eyes, turning their yellow-surface towards her sister.

Aries, extending her gentle hold upon her sister, with a maniacal grin, turned into the other, nestling against her sister's throat as she brought her hands around the white-haired woman's jaws, sharing the kiss that had meant to end it all, and in those moments, did, her hands shifting to the left and upwards, a faint crack heard and gasp exerted from lips that would never speak or violate her again.

"..only for you, my love.", and with those words, she dropped the body, turning from her sister and sliding the robe she had disbanded upon Aria's order, gliding it over her shoulders and tying the sash off. She, wincing, removed the dagger from the space that it nestled between her collarbone, her fingers curling around the hilt before ripping it out.

Lifting her wrist, she ran the tie that held her hair up, as Aria had always insisted it to be, letting the red locks fall to their length. Aria had been jealous of how Aries's hair had never thinned and fell out as Aria’s would when it got so long, and thus, as it was forbidden to have short hair by their parents order, she had always made her sister keep it up.

Sheathing the dagger she set it down upon the ground, walking calmly out of the room, passing on her way a woman who appeared to be of fifty years older, but decently the same blood line. Aria was already halfway down the Hallway when she heard the scream echo from her mother's mouth, the red-haired girl making the fatal mistake of pausing and laughing.

Her mother had meant to aim for her throat, where she had seen Annalecia's gash, and though land she did, it was in an opposite angle, creating an 'x' mark over her collarbone. Aries, though the pain was terrible, turned about on her heel and as simply as she had her sister's life, took hold of her mother's jaw, a swift snap and her mother was no more.

When her father got home, she didn't know. There was no case against her, none outside the Cyrics knew of her existence. She would never be caught, the world would never know beyond the scar, who she was.

What she was.
And that was a murderer.

She closed her eyes as tears continued to fall, these not out of confusion – but out of reliving the two murders that she herself had committed. She was a murderer. Her hands were eternally stained with blood..and there was no water that could cleanse them.

The elder was beginning to understand the sheer depths of the emotions that were running through the child at her side. For once, Nafretiri was unsure just what to do or say to make the young one at ease. Even she herself had not had such a troubled time when she'd entered this new century. Perhaps it was because she had been out and among the mortals, learning what she could from them as she saw it would be useful. Unfortunately, Aries hadn't done this, and was bound to the old ways by invisible tethers that were not so easily cut.

Reaching out a hand to touch the woman beside her, she reconsidered and pulled it back. "By all accounts, they are cults," admitted Nafretiri soothingly. "Most come together for one purpose, or for protection. I suppose that what keeps them from killing themselves is the fact that the people in a coven share most of the same views. I myself am in one: The Amman. We are all elders who watch over the veil of secrecy that has been placed upon the mortal world."

Aries' memories seemed to penetrate her shields with blinding force. All of the sudden, Nafretiri was looking through the yes of the woman beside her, sharing her thoughts. She watched as the body she was in killed the sister and mother, and the final parting thoughts before she found herself in her own body once again, a small crimson tear flowing down her cheek. At last she had gained some insight as to what made Aries the way she was, and it was most definitely not something she would wish upon anyone. She pulled the younger of the two closer, holding her in a tight embrace.

"We have all commited things that we regret, but we must go on. If there is anyone in this room who deserves to be called a murderer, it is I, and I would that I cast the first stone upon my spirit. I have killed many, much more than you. I made the streets run red with innocent blood." She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, before giving Aries a kiss on the head. "You must learn to go on."

"We have all commited things that we regret, but we must go on. If there is anyone in this room who deserves to be called a murderer, it is I, and I would that I cast the first stone upon my spirit. I have killed many, much more than you. I made the streets run red with innocent blood."

]Murderer! Murderer! Murderer! Chants of voices that had lain dormant inside her head rose, each voice thick with accusation and bitter with hatred, all flying within her mind as she heard the word.. murder. Had she exposed herself to her mother? What was she to do now, she had possibly lost her only sanctuary.. kill her as well? No, she couldn’t kill the only mother that had yet to betray her, but what was she to do! Blood seeped through the crimson cloth that lay over her collarbone, the scar that lay so still after centuries having reopened – panic reinvested within her mind as she, instead of having the flashback, felt as though she were reliving it.

Her hands held the dagger, her sister’s blood.. Aria.. Tears spilled further from her eyes, her head bowing down in shame as she recalled the moments of her sister’s death, the frightened look in her eyes.. the times when she could just scarcely remember the little details of her life, but now, laying here, she remembered it all, every moment that Aria took an advance on her smaller form, every time her mother merely shut the door so she wouldn’t have to see the moment it happened..

Every bruise, scar, blood dripping wound that was ever produced from the platinum blonde sister of hers, every moment of abuse that she had to relive.. yes.. she’d murdered her.. but that wasn’t enough, she’d taken her mother’s life as well. What was she to say to her teacher? That she simply could not, for she was far too weak? That it had permanently scarred her no matter how many centuries would overturn her age?

“I.. cannot simply go on. You, you are a beautiful creature of darkness, but I, I am but a long-lived vampire with a mortal heart.. I see them every time I close my eyes, I think of Aria every time I feel another’s skin.. oh mother.”

She wept further, falling almost completely to the ground.

Mother. I am so lost..please stay with me, I fear what I would do if I were alone.

Nafretiri became a tad concerned with Aries as she felt the words running through the girl's mind. The Ancient sincerely hoped that her pupil did not try to kill her. While she was almost certain that it effort would not succeed, it may cause a permanent rift between the two of them, and that was something Aries could not afford at this moment. She needed someone to guide her, and it seemed that Nafretiri was the only one at this point in time that could do it. Perhaps she'd always been the only one. She knew not, but she would not abandon the being closest to a child to the darkness.

Her eyes widened slightly at the blood that was flowing from Aries, seemingly without cause. Seeing how drenched in blood the cloth that was held there was getting, she removed a handkerchief from her pocket. Gently prying away the other's hands, she held her black cloth there instead, letting it absorb the blood.

Being short payed off in these circumstances, and Nafretiri lowered herself down beside her blond companion, hugging her to her bosom. "I thank you for your kind words, but it has been a long struggle for me to become what I am, though perhaps not as hard you own. You must become at ease with who you are, because anything less shall your undoing. You have hurt those you loved in the past, as have countless others, but remember, even if you do not think that you wish to live, I wish you to live."

Placing a small kiss on the girl's head, she layed her cheek atop the others. I shall not stray from your side until you wish for me to do so.