Vampiric Diversions

Visions

Time stopped, it literally stood still. Fred saw beside him a hideous beast.

Time flashed; the melted wax of the clockman's candles dripped to the basin of the copper bowl. Memories washed over Fred even as the fanged beast slid from view.

Remembrances. Recollections. A life already lived. These are the things that Fred saw, felt, heard, tasted:

seventeen years ago he swam within the amniotic fluids of his mother's warm body. Seventeen years ago that fluid washed away from him, left him high and dry. Alone in a world that once was two; alone in a world full of strangers. Fred screamed and he heard his own nascent lungs spit out what was left of his mother's warm fluids and fill abruptly with cold, cold air.

fourteen years ago the odors of meat and fire mixed with that of fresh blood. His father, 'Duke,' 'Daddy,' 'Dredrik,' 'Dred,' the man who held his mommy at night, the man who scolded him, who beat him, who trained him. His father had come home from the hunt. The greatest of the deer was slaughtered, cleaned, and cooked on the open court of Montefort. His father called to him, he hesitated. His father yelled out his command, he ran with little legs that could just barely hold up his stretching frame of ligaments and bones and flesh. The blood and juices of the freshly killed animal spilled into his mouth and onto his chin, dribbling down, hot to the touch, dribbling down onto his tunic and his toes.

seven years ago the smile of a peasant girl caught his eye: Cynthia from the fields. With the eye came his mind, his heart, his head and other parts. He saw himself panting with desire, moving towards her, smelling the urine of lambs upon her skirt, touching the softness of her arm, closer, closer, closer.

five years ago the sound of trumpet and of drum thundered across the hills about Bannock. He was invested as knight, in the Order of Thatcher, under the name D'Honaire. The jousts, the tournaments, the fighting and the feasting, and the ladies and the nobles and the Kingsmen all.

two years ago the sound of a closing gate echoed across a stone-strewn pathway. Admittance to the Halls, admittance to the ranks of Dragon Hunters. The books consumed him as did the Teachers, the Elders, the Mages with their white-fingered tattoos. Studies ephemeral and physical consumed him day and night.

four months ago the sounds of Festival and of Commissioning resounded throughout Caemlyn; the Dragon Hunter had come of age. From feasting to riding to climbing to making decisions: which of two cave entrances?

three months ago the feel of blood and sweat and near-terror as the behemoth of a man called Clark nearly killed him...and it was only a test! Three months of planning and scouting within the caves, of skulking and hiding and bribing and creating the perfect set-up. The one of all ages, the one needed to kill the dread beast of the Southern Caves.

today. now. Blood and loss of blood. Memories mixed with precognition. Demon's fangs and monster's claw, the falling of a trapdoor, the sealing of a tomb. Light and darkness, and then black altogether.

The trapdoor burst open as Buffy lept down into the darkness. She instinctively rushed the form of the undead assailant, but it was faster. It whirled, fangs flashed as light from above illuminated the small space below. A somersault barely saved the Slayer's life, three kicks landed nowhere. A hiss, a scream, the falling of a body. Clark jumped down. Fists pounding on flesh like rock, flesh like death itself. Claws raked at flesh, hands searched for splinters, legs came crashing down. A sigh. Then nothing but heavy breathing.

two hours later, in a hut within a higher region of the Dragon's labyrinth.

"He is alive, no?"

"Just barely."

"Will he change?"

"I don't think so."

"We need to hunt down the one that did this."

"And what of the Dragon?"

"We can't split up."

"Damn, damn, damn it all!"

1. the group hunts for the undead beast in the lower regions of labyrinth
2. the group waits for Fred to heal to continue their plan to kill the Dragon
3. the group continues their plan to kill the Dragon without Fred

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