Along the beach(Private)

"Any particular reason you're freezing your ass off on that cold sand? I could hazard a guess or you could save me the trouble and just tell me."

Kem jumped, insofar as one could jump while sitting unceremoniously on one's ass in the near-frozen sand. He didn't take his eyes off of the ocean, where they'd been locked since he wandered out here in a cotton-mouthed, hung-over, foul-tempered daze.

He didn't much feel like talking but the person next to him was both clan-leader and trusted friend, and he couldn't bring himself to be entirely rude. He drew up his knees a bit more tightly, wrapped his sweater-clad arms more firmly about them, and rested his chin on them.

"Is it cold? I hadn't really noticed."

He lifted a shoulder noncommitally, uncertain of how to respond to Alfarinn's uncharactaristically blunt question. He'd heard that tone of voice before. It generally meant he was going to end up having to 'fess up one way or the other, but where the hell did one begin?

Hi, no, it's great, I'm fine, I just should have taken a sun-bath a thousand years ago or so.

That probably wouldn't go over so well. He settled for a nice, vague, "Too much to drink; rough night. Cold sand seemed like just the thing."

Had be actually been thinking a bit more sharply, he might have remembered that Alfarinn knew he wasn't a big drinker. Way to go.

Alfarinn sat down next to Kem and stretched his legs out comfortably, breathing in the salt air and sighing as it brought back memories of home.

"Well you know that leads to a lot of questions. Like where did you hear this absurd remedy and why were you drinking in the first place?"

He glanced sideways at his companion a moment, and half grinned.

"You look like hell. It must be a woman."

Of course he was certain it was a woman but Aishe hadn't wanted Kem to know she was here. Alfarinn felt like the high school kid he looked like. "Don't tell him I like him but find out if he likes me.' That wasn't what she said but that is what he felt like he was doing. Kem should know that she was in Nachton but Aishe should be the one to tell him. At least he wasn't passing notes besides if they were bonded then somewhere inside he probably knew she was close. Denial had an amazing ability to overlook the senses.

He leaned back on his hands and turned to watch the Egyptian, waiting for the confession which had to come sooner or later.

"You look like hell. It must be a woman."

Kem winced at the accurate assessment. Damn empaths, anyway. He sighed, finally opting for resting his forehead on his knees instead of his chin, letting his hair fall down over his shoulders and making a little cave in which to warm up his nose. He preferred the warmth of summer, but the cold had its place too. It was settling in and setting up housekeeping in his veins at the moment.

Mulling it over, he capitulated and offered up a bit of information. Alfarinn wasn't likely to quit.

"Yeah," he replied. "'A woman' pretty much nails it." His voice was muffled; he was talking into the fold of his sleeve.

If he continued with the turtle impression perhaps it might help hide the fact that he was literally wasting away. Then again, luck hadn't exactly been a big fan lately.

Well that went slightly better than expected but not quite what he hoped for.

"Care to elaborate there Mr Eloquent? You're sitting out here in the cold, alone, looking like you've been beaten to near death by the bottle, a state I'm quite familiar with, so this has got to be one helluva woman."

Intelligent, spirited, practical, determined and a bit cheeky if he had to describe her, Alfarinn almost smirked to himself. They would certainly be quite good for each other...once they stopped being bad for each other.

"You met her on your trip, I'm guessing? It is good to have you back but I would have thought this journey home would have been a more pleasant experience. What happened?"

Actually, Kem reflected, it had taken rather a lot less of 'the bottle' than he'd expected to get him looking this way. Probably best not to mention that, however.

All right, so since escape from this line of questioning was hardly about to happen until Alfarinn was satisfied, he ground his teeth together with what must have been nearly audible force.

"Did I ever tell you I murdered my wife?"

He wasn't sure why the hell he said it, or why that particular thing came out, or, hell, why any of it. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips together against the pain of actually saying that aloud. He hadn't really wanted to say that, but who was he kidding? Even now, when he wanted nothing more than to simply not exist, he couldn't bring himself to lie to the man who'd been pretty much everything to him so long ago; friend, mentor, guide. So it had simply come out.

Alfarinn let that information sink in a moment. He had figured something horrible had happened to the man who considered himself cursed. Kem was, most of the time, a logical person and for him to assume, as he had, that he was actually cursed and not merely altered in some way, Alfarinn figured something really heinous had to have happened. Vampires tended to have violent lives or at least pasts. He figured it was something about their creation or perhaps their lifestyle which made it necessary to live off of or hunt some kind of prey.

"It happened a very long time ago even by our standards. I do not know the specifics but I know my own story and why I left my family. You were young, Kem, please allow that you have learned since then and realize that the crime of your wife's death is not on your head but the one who made you and gave you no understanding of what you were or what you needed."

That much of Kem's story had been told to him, that he was made as some sort of punishment. He had thought Alfarinn was cursed as well, and while Alfarinn had wondered that more than once himself, his creator had called his turning a gift, a frivolous, terrible gift, that he had not been prepared for. And how can anyone prepare themselves for immortality?

He stood up and reached out and pulled Kem up from the sand.

"You have the right to love again and the wisdom to do better by this woman. Now lets go inside the house and talk about this."

((OOC: permission granted to yank Kem bodily up off the sand ))

Kem allowed himself to be hauled to his feet although weakness from lack of feeding combined with near-numbness from sitting out in the cold nearly sent him right back down again. Alfarinn's words fell upon apathetic ears, for no matter how he looked at it, a murder was still a murder.

He wordlessly allowed himself to be dragged up off the docks in the direction of his house, still staring bleakly ahead, arms and legs feeling wooden. Alfarinn didn't understand, couldn't understand... there was more to it; it wasn't just his wife but their unborn child as well. There was no excuse, no turning around from that.

Aishe had brought back the memories with astonishing clarity. She didn't realize what she would be getting into, staying with him. They'd never mentioned love, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to know how she felt about him, and he, for her. What would she pledge him? Forever?

He struggled with the idea as he ghosted alongside Alfarinn, the short trip to his house feeling like miles as he ate through his few reserves of energy.

Alfarinn made his way up to the house and opened the sliding glass doors. The one light on in the house barely filtered back here but it was enough for one of his kind to make his way through without turning on added lights.

Once he got to the living room and turned around, he was about to say something to his companion when he got a good look at the man.

Seeing a vampire dieing was a painful thing if you had any idea of the amount of time and desperate hunger that was involved. Kem was definitely well past the point that he should have taken some blood. It looked like it had been almost a month since the man had fed.

"Gods.... Kem. What have you been doing to yourself?"

They all dealt with pain differently, it was something he understood quite well; he personally never tried to waste away, commit reckless acts perhaps... It would not help either Kem or Aishe if Kem committed vampiric suicide, however.

He part guided, part pushed the Egyptian towards the blue recliner and pulled the afghan off the back and wrapped it around the man's shoulders. He'd been drinking with so little blood and sitting out in the cold?

"Explain to me, my friend, who benefits from your death because it isn't me, it isn't you and it is not this woman...no matter what you tell yourself."

((OOC: Permission granted to further rough up Kem. ))

Kem blinked a few times, found himself sitting in his own recliner, and registered that Alfarinn had asked him a rather pointed question. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, determined to say something before Alfarinn was convinced he was doing a passable fish imitation.

"I, ah, haven't been doing anything to myself." He meant it; he hadn't really had the motivation to do anything at all since arriving back in Nachton.

At Alfarinn's next question, he simply looked down. "No one benefits, exactly," he said softly. He ran his hand through his hair.

Several long moments passed before he could manage to say anything else. He finally looked up with a sigh. "I just can't seem to get beyond this," he murmured. "It's not as if the creation of a vampire is a pleasant process for any of us, really. Why can others seem to forget their pasts while I dwell on it?"

It was a frustration he'd felt before. He didn't -want- to feel that way, he just did. His thoughts turned to Aishe again, her intelligent green eyes, her bright smile. He sagged back against the back of the recliner.

"How could I ask Aishe to share any of this? She'd have to leave her family, her job, everything she loves if we were to be together. She'd go through the same loss. To gain what?" He gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Look at me."

He shook his head slowly. "Better to just have done with it," he murmured. "Once and for all."

Alfarinn sighed and crouched down next to the chair.

"So I see"

He listened to Kem and had to agree with the wisdom of those words. Giving up his family and his human past was difficult, as it was for many of them.

"Perhaps you should give her that choice? Maybe she'd rather be with you than without you. Give her a chance to think about it,- make- her take the time to do so but if in the end she wants to be with you then why would you fight that? You would simply be making both of you miserable."

Alfarinn watched Kem push his hands through his hair. They were so much alike sometimes.

"She would have you. That is different than both of our creations. We had nothing to look forward to but you would be there for her. Love for eternity is not such a bad thought. You could at least give her the chance to decide."

Moving his hair to one side, he leaned towards the Egyptian. He sent reassurances to Thaddeus and explained his actions and the reasons before continuing, lest his lover worry or wonder of the sensations he was likely to feel.

[Kem is near dead with starvation. I can't let him feed elsewhere like this. I am giving him some of my own blood and will hunt again later. Don't worry, Beloved, we'll both be fine.]

"But you'll need to be a lot healthier before you consider those options. Quite frankly I could hope this woman is level headed and decides to accompany you through out eternity. You could use someone looking after you know. "

He meant it lightly but it was true, none the less, loneliness had taken its toll on Kem and its cure could not be found even within Evenhet. He could not imagine going through the ages without sharing it with someone though he had spent a large portion of his life without that closeness, having it, he realized what he had missed. It was like seeing the world in colour where before every thing had been merely grey. At that thought, he smiled slightly to himself, Grey, indeed; ironic that a Grey brought his world into such vivid brightness but there it was, the truth.

Thaddeus habitually closed his eyes when he felt Alfarinn send, concentrating on listening to the words and for the moment shutting out his surroundings.

His lover’s message was troubling on many levels; his heart could hardly help but go out to a starving vampire, knowing as he did what a miserable thing that was, but with that came a concern for Alfarinn’s safety. His companion seemed to have thought things through, though at times he knew that Alfarinn thought of necessities first and logistics such as his own personal well being became secondary. That Alfarinn had warned Thaddeus beforehand and seemed to have a clear plan in mind indicated that was not the case this time, however, and he settled for an affectionate word of caution.

[Be careful, love. Let me know if you need anything.]

He wasn’t certain of the situation but he knew if he were in Aishe’s place he would want to know what was happening. Of course, were he in Kem’s place he absolutely would not want anyone else knowing about it, so it was a somewhat awkward position all around.

He opened his eyes to take in the sight of the Japanese Gardens once more, smiling slightly toward Mai and trying to keep the worry out of his expression. He remained alert for any further word from Alfarinn, though he felt he was safe enough in returning to reading the book resting in his lap.

The book had, along with several other more personal items, made its way into one of the safes that made up the bottom portion of his bookshelves, and he couldn’t resist a smile upon seeing it again. Once he had located the item he had initially been searching for he found he was hard pressed to put the book away immediately. Fortunately, Mai was ever tolerant of such whims.

“Alfarinn is fine. Back to Donne, then.”

He looked down once more at his book, though he hardly needed to refer to it with this passage.

“As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love…”

/ooc A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, first two stanzas. One can assume that Thaddeus is reading merrily along through the poem, though if you wish I can quote it in its entirety.

Ah, it can be found here: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/mourning.htm

Alfarinn felt infinitely better when Thaddeus's words filtered into his mind. The impressions from his lover were ones of peace and contentment which helped him remain calm in his own situation.

[I will do my best. Promise ]

He turned back to Kem and moved closer.

"Take what you need."

He wondered if Kem was going to be sensible or if he'd have to use more convincing. It would be better for them both if he was agreeable now instead of later.

Kem was still staring straight forward, and hadn't really noticed that Alfarinn had moved closer. He was still caught up with the possibility that Aishe might choose to be with him over a natural life. She shouldn't, though. And he shouldn't encourage her to. But was it really his place to dictate to her?

"Take what you need."

His eyes slid sideways, and now he realized what Alfarinn was offering.

[Alfarinn... please, no. I can't.]

He couldn't trust himself to speak. Not with Alfarinn that close, it was too tempting. Hunger was something he'd almost grown used to but with nourishment so close, his traitorous body was making its needs very well known. It was painful, an ache that seemed to reach deeper than bones or joints. Each vein was screaming; each one wanted to feel fresh blood running through it. He wrapped his arms around his sides, sternly grinding his teeth together.

[I will... tomorrow, perhaps. Really.]

One more night would do it. Just alone for one more night, and he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

"You can"

Alfarinn sighed at looked at Kem, shaking his head.

"Do you really think you can hide your intentions from an empath?"

He contemplated the reluctant vampire in front of him for a moment. Aishe's turning would end this craziness but Kem would have to live to see that first and that wouldn't happen if the stubborn bastard was allowed to die before she got the chance.

"Don't make me sit on your chest and force blood down your throat. I'd do it, you know."

Reaching out to take hold of one of the thin wrists, he encircled his long fingers around it. Kem was larger boned than him and normally more muscular but at the moment he appeared to be wasting away, the faint foreshadowing of a shriveled mummy of his homeland. Kem's features were stark and sharp, the shadows clung unkindly to sunken cheeks as if they could suck the last bit of blood out of him by blanketing that normally proud but calm face with their depths. Hunger was so evident as to be painful for Alfarinn to look upon and he wondered how the Egyptian was able to withstand the terrible gnawing agony of his insides and the burning fire that was the wasting away of the last of the blood that fueled their abnormally long lives.

Kem's state of being was to him like finding a friend standing on the edge of the Meridian Towers planing to jump; he would do what he could to stop that decent whether it was ethical or not. Kem could hate him later, so long as he was alive to hate him that was all that mattered. Alfarinn believed that such states were not permanent no matter how much they seemed to be. It this same fact that was forcefully pointed out to him many years ago as well when he too wished to die.

"Do you think this girl wants your death on her conscience? She loves you doesn't she? You would not be this way if she didn't and yet you are here. So you left her alone? And plan to die in order to what? Save her the pain of loving an intelligent, warm and caring person for the rest of her life...which could be as long or as short as she wants it to be. Or is it that you are afraid Kem' Raaisu? This girl has gotten the better of a man who has lived for over a thousand years by doing the unspeakable and seeing something in him worth loving. So you returned that love and trust by running away to hide and die in some dark hole instead of taking it and nurturing it for the great gift that was given to you."

Alfarinn stood and walked into the kitchen and found what he was looking for. Coming back, he gazed sadly at his friend before crouching down beside him once more.

"You are better than that but if this is your answer to love then perhaps you do not deserve it."

He took the kitchen knife and made a shallow cut across his neck, his eyes never leaving his clam mate's as the blood seeped along the line he had made.

" I, however, believe you that you do."

He sat the knife down and stayed were he was, waiting.

Kem's mind flashed back to when he'd first met Alfarinn, and the feeling of being a mouse trapped under the talons of a hawk. That feeling was revisited as Alfarinn spoke. What irritated him was that he knew the words were true, and he wanted very badly to believe them, but he felt as if he were stuck in quicksand, thrashing wildly and unable to make any purchase.

Alfarinn crouched in front of the chair and revealed the knife he'd gotten from the kitchen. Kem saw what was coming, tried to lunge forward and stay his hand, but fell painfully short of that goal. He ended up on his knees on the floor right in front of Alfarinn, looking into his determined grey eyes.

He stared, his own eyes locking with Alfarinn's. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the trickle of blood along the line of the cut. Kem was shaking. He took shallow breaths, but his sensitive nose knew what it was looking for and picked up the scent quickly enough. His lips parted; he growled and ground his teeth together even harder, his elongated fangs digging into his lip.

The pain of starvation intensified; that alone almost caused him to collapse in a useless heap. He found his eyes were no longer glued to Alfarinn's but had drifted down to the shallow cut, the welling of blood there.

Alfarinn's words were echoing through his mind. He was struggling to believe that leaving Aishe was the right thing to do, that his disappearance hadn't caused her that much pain. She was a strong woman, she'd have gone on with her life. Wouldn't she?

What if Alfarinn was right, though? The image of the small human sitting alone, tears in her eyes, flashed into his head. No, he didn't want to be wrong on this score. He didn't want to see her in his mind, growing old by herself. He had to find her now. At least to explain why he'd left, why she would be better off without him.

His hand crept to Alfarinn's shoulder, hesitant. He bent close, too close now to change his mind. Still, he paused. He was troubled now by uncertainty and doubt, and the distressing lack of courage that had kept him from standing in the sunlight over a thousand years ago. So it came down to courage, again, never his forte, and this time he was to have the courage to live? Ironic...

[Alfarinn... I don't know. I'm not sure...]

He was pleading now. Confusion had set in, perhaps because of what he'd been doing to himself, what he'd almost done. The room seemed to be spinning wildly about, adding another layer of insecurity to that. He turned to Alfarinn as he had so long ago, for guidance, for answers.

Alfarinn reached out for Kem as he fell in front of him. Carefully pulling his friend upwards; absurdly a part of his mind thought of the Egyptian as fragile and he was afraid of looking down to see the man crumble away into dust as he had so recently watched Lykaios do before his eyes. It was perhaps that vivid image of their own vulnerability that made him push Kem the way he had but it was clear to him that his clan mate was on the verge of death.

He kept one arm around the Egyptian's waist to help hold him steady as Kem leaned forward at last. Alfarinn waited for the bite to come, that momentary sting that so quickly passed from a vampire's bite. It did not come. It was startling that Kem could still manage to resist the blood that was right before him.

Reaching his other hand up past the long strands of silver white hair, he gently pressed Kem closer to the rapidly healing cut.

[I am. She loves you.]

Alfarinn was glad at this point that he did know Aishe and could return Kem's sending with a depth of feeling and certainty he would not have been able to do otherwise.

[Drink and we will sort this out together. Just drink first, my friend.]

Kem was shutting down, past the point of arguing, beyond resistance, beyond caring about being uncaring. Alfarinn was pressing him closer, and he just couldn't fight anymore.

Blood-thirst was permeating every sense as he sank his fangs into the cool flesh of Alfarinn's neck, struck by the contrast of the warmth of his blood. Kem closed his eyes, the pleasure of it filling him to the core as the burning pain of hunger slowly, slowly receded. And as always, the pleasure of feeding was soured slightly by the ever-present fear of going too far, losing control, causing harm.

How long he lingered he wasn't sure. When he forced himself away he wasn't quite sated, was still hungry. But the burning ache was mostly gone and he felt like something approaching 'alive.' Cleaning the last drops of blood away was a polite courtesy, as he almost reluctantly sat back on his heels. The tremors that had shaken him were subsiding. He slumped forward a bit, his forehead coming to rest upon the closest object, which happened to be Alfarinn's shoulder.

He couldn't say 'thank you.' It would sound too trite. He had to hope at this point that Alfarinn would be able to sense his way through the tangled emotions to the root of it all, but if that weren't possible...

[Whatever gods chose this fate for me, they were kind enough to grant me at least one true friend.]

It wasn't poetic, but perhaps it would serve for the moment. He was still floundering and trying to find his way back from what seemed like complete hopelessness, but for the moment the feeling of having to do so entirely alone had faded and that gave him encouragement.

Alfarinn closed his eyes as Kem sank his fangs into his neck. He let the sensation of it, as well as Kem's feelings wash over him, having learned long ago that it took far more effort to fight such things.

His friend's pleasure and sating hunger eased his worries and he simply held on as the Egyptian continued to feed. Alfarinn resisted the urge to insist Kem take more than he had, feeling this amount was enough to keep the Egyptian alive and healthy for a while. He'd have more brought to the house if necessary, even tasteless as bagged blood was.

Kem, like Thaddeus, was worried about hurting him. He found himself smiling at all the thoughtful sensitive people in his life, vampires with souls so compassionate that even feeding brought out qualms of conscience.

Holding still as Kem rested against him, Alfarinn waited silently for his friend's thoughts and senses to settle into something closer to calm before moving. It would take a few minutes for the blood to filter through his system and start making right all the unhealthy side effects of starvation and who knew how long it would take the emotions to become something closer to tranquil; it was likely that dawn might arrive first, perhaps more than one.

Alfarinn squeezed Kem's arm lightly in return for the sentiment and then pulled the afghan back over his clan mate's shoulders.

[Remember that the next prank I pull on you.]

"So tell me about this remarkable woman."

Kem was inclined to let Alfarinn get away with any number of pranks at that moment, but he was wise enough not to say so. He sat back again, assuming his familiar comfortable crosslegged position on the floor at the foot of the recliner where he'd ended up. Alfarinn had been there often enough, he figured, to be able to make himself comfortable.

"So tell me about this remarkable woman."

Kem ducked his head, somewhat embarrassed, feeling a bit like a teenager with a crush.

"I, ah, met her in Egypt. She moved to the US with her parents when she was younger, but she studied archaeology and was back in Egypt doing some research." His voice warmed, remembering the first time he'd seen her strolling back into Giza from a late-night session. "What can I say? She made me realize what I'd been missing. She's clever, funny. You'd like her, I think, if you were ever to meet her." He didn't go too much into detail; it would burn too closely to the wounds he was trying very hard to overlook and overcome.

"It's... the strangest thing. My imagination's been acting overtime, that I know, but it's like I can hear her voice in my head even now. I have to constantly keep making sure I'm not sending by mistake."

His thoughts wandered a bit as he picked and chose what to describe. "She's stubborn. She can charge right into something without realizing what it might do."

Suddenly Kem's head snapped up, eyes wide and slightly alarmed. "I keep forgetting. She knows what I am. She found out some time ago, didn't say until the night I... the last time I saw her. She did..." he gestured vaguely, hating to admit the fact, "...pretty much the same thing you just did. Only she was meaner.

"It was the texts, the old glyphs she found in Giza. They had written it down, my entire story, what happened. She put it all together. I don't know how long she actually knew. It must have been months. But in the end she didn't care. She accepted what I am."

An incredulous expression crossed Kem's face, as he let his head fall into his hand. "She accepted it and I left her."

He glanced up at Alfarinn, gauging his friend's reaction. "Why didn't you tell me what a complete idiot I am?" It was a weak joke at best, but he wanted his clanmate to know he would be all right, of sorts, for the time being. He would handle tomorrow tomorrow.

Alfarinn leaned back on the edge of the recliner sitting next to Kem. Smiling at the very accurate description of Aishe, he said

"So long as she can take a joke, we're alright. I'd hate for you to introduce her to the family and her walk right into one of the "very rare, almost never happens" pranks that run about the place because that would be terrible for your dating relationship."

Pulling his knees up, he rested his arms on them as Kem continued to speak of their time getting to know each other in Egypt. It would seem that what Aishe had said was echoed by Kem's story and he could somehow see her being pushy enough to make an unwilling vampire drink.

"Like that but meaner? I like her already."

He was quiet for a moment, thinking about what Kem said and how his friend was feeling. It was likely that he would hunt Aishe down and it was only a matter of time before he found her in Nachton. Should he decide to go back to his starvation tactic Alfarinn felt that Kem should know just how much he was likely to affect Aishe.

"Kem...what you are saying, about being able to feel her and sense her. It sounds like bonding. Did you do anything that might form such a thing between you?"

He fed from her and from Alfarinn's own ability it would take his blood to fulfill that bond but certainly that was something that Kem would notice if the act was something so conscious. Simon and Carol seemed to have found Simon's ability by accident which made him wonder just how Simon's bonding worked.

"If you're bonded then what you feel she feels so things would not be so simple, my friend."

Take it from one who knows...

Smiling at Kem's claims of stupidity, he put an arm around him.

"Well it just not something a friend brings up...."

He chuckled and then turned to Kem in seriousness.

"You know we would be here for both of you. If she knows what you are then bring her into the clan; you can both take you time deciding whether you want to live out eternity together or take what time you both have. Don't waste it sitting here with me.. I know I'm irresistible and all but I'm taken."

Which was something he could explain further at a later date. Thaddeus would probably enjoy talking to Kem and vice versa. They should invite Kem and Aishe over to the Chapel once they bought it and got settled in. Smiling at his future plans of things so normal as friendly get togethers, Alfarinn shook his head and looked over at the bottle still on the table.

Standing up, he went over to it and picked it up.

"Want a drink? You know what they say... take a hair of the dog that bit you."

He found a glass in the kitchen and poured him a glass of what was left in the bottle while he waited from Kem's answer.