Mature: Desert Moon

[Emora Deen]

Tenele took the map slowly with both hands. "Thank you, my Queen," she whispered, bowing her head.

"We need to leave our daughter in your care," Atul announced, rising from his chair. "You are the only person we can trust to protect her."

"I'll also be leaving Stalker," Tenele echoed, glancing to the Hell Hound. "He comforts her when she's frightened. It will help keep her from feeling completely abandoned by us..." Tenele's heart wrenched at the idea to the point her throat closed and she couldn't speak.

"We should also gather supplies. I know you want to leave immediately, Tenele... But, its probably best if we stayed the night and got a fresh start in the morning." Atul brushed a hand through her hair. He was affectionate with her, even in front of Sinead. He trusted the woman had grown used to the relationship he had with her servants.

[Soran Nightblade]

Sinead stiffened a little at his casual caress. Though she'd accepted it now, it never got any easier to believe Vlad really trusted this man with Tenele. "Please leave in the morning. I will send a servant to gather anything you need that is not within the castle walls," she said. "You may choose from the stables whatever you need. I recommend steeds with warm coats and strong ankles. That is very bad territory, and many hazards may not be noted on the map or could have already changed."

"Another thing," she realized. "Maxwell's powers are largely fed by heat and fire. Abovo 10,000 feet, the air will be too thin to feed flame. You're looking for a valley, not a peak."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele nodded. "Is there anything you can tell us about a weakness? Anything that might be of use to us in a fight with him? You say to throw out all the options that first come to our mind when we think of an assault... Can he really predict us that much?"

[Soran Nightblade]

"He's built a career out of making predictions accurately," Sinead said, shaking her head. "He's a demon, so he'll be prone to holy magics, just as Vlad is. He'll be expecting those. He'll be expecting a frontal attack, and he'll assume Talon can talk to us."

"If I were to choose an approach, I would find his heat source. It's probably a large furnace or hearth inside his stronghold. He'll be linked to it, powerless without it. I would need to be constantly fed to protect him in such a cold place."

"His other weakness, of course, is ego. Vlad learned from the worst."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele nodded. "We have plenty of time to plan while we travel. Maybe we'll come up with a good enough plan that we won't all die," she laughed, but it wasn't funny. Talon's argument was starting to flair up again. Was she really going to leave her daughter an orphan?

"Okay," she sighed. "I'm going to make a list of the supplies we need and check on Tenara... I'll see you in the morning, my Queen."

"I'll be right behind you," Atul nodded to Tenele. She paused at the door with a curious look, but ultimately closed the door behind her. "I'll take care of her," he whispered to the woman. "If it looks hopeless... I won't let her die for him. If I have to bring her kicking and screaming, I will."

[Soran Nightblade]

Sinead met his eyes, measuring him, re-estimating. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "I hope it never comes to such a thing."

"Atul," she caught him just before he could leave, "The Vlad you get back...it's possible that you won't find him the same as the one you know."

[Emora Deen]

Atul turned slowly back to her. "Can you elaborate a little more?" the king asked. "Will he be dangerous?" An image of the vampire in the same state as when Verin had removed his limiter sprouted to the king's mind.

[Soran Nightblade]

Sinead smiled sadly. "No more than he is already." She looked up at him. "Calloused."

[Emora Deen]

Atul nodded. "Maybe we will reach him before he can become so," the King whispered. "Tenele won't stop loving him, no matter what shape he is in when he comes back... I won't either. But, I have to think of the health and safety of Tenara and her mother. They are my priority until the Vlad that we all know comes back to us. Thank you for the information, Aunt Queenie."

Atul tipped his head to the woman and exited the room.

[Soran Nightblade]

Sinead thought to snap at him for the pet name, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It reminded her too much of Vlad, and that was a get out of jail free card at the moment.

After they had left, she turned to Tenara and her strange lupine companion. "Well then," she said. With all this grown up stuff out of the way, what do you say we find some pudding?"

* * * *

Dusk took forever to come. Vlad watched the colors leaking across the sky above the ice wall, but he couldn't see the horizon. "Up, Vladimir," a cold splash of water brought the man to attention, the droplets freezing as they dripped along his skin. "How are you?"

It wasn't a concerned greeting, but a scientific inquiry. Vlad scowled at the man.

"Pain scale," Maxwell prompted impatiently.

Vlad took stock of his throbbing muscles. "7.5," he snipped.

"Unfasten yourself," Maxwell said. Vlad glanced sideways at the buckles holding him to the table. Such a thing would normally be easy, but using his power with the holy water in his system was worse than teleporting. The psychic exchange earlier was still costing him.

Maybe I'll sleep here," he muttered.

"You'll sleep in your new chambers. Your whelp will guide you there," Maxwell said. "I've just sent for him."

Vlad's expression stayed neutral. "You unbuckle me."

"No. I want to see what you're capable of."

Anger flared in the vampire's eyes.

[Emora Deen]

"I'll unbuckle him," Talon whispered as he crossed the snow. He looked like a black dot against the white in his dark attire, save his silver hair. He didn't spare Vlad a sympathetic look, he knew it would only annoy the vampire more. He stepped up to the table, taken in Vlad's injuries with an involuntary wince. Then, his hands reached for the buckles.

[Soran Nightblade]

Maxwell smacked his pencil against Talon's fingers. "Do not interfere. Vladimir, enough of this petulance."

Vlad didn't meet Talon's eyes, but he was too proud to lie bound in front of him. He closed his dark-rimmed eyes, and grimace in pain as he focused. One by one, the buckles snapped open, until only one was left. Vlad reached for it with a violently shaking hand, which Maxwell swatted back. The vampire glared at it and snapped it open with a snarling cry of pain, then stopped breathing, simply shuddering against the steel table. The world swirled and bent in his vision.

"Good," Maxwell noted, scribbling something in his journal. "You can take him now."

[Emora Deen]

Talon reached forward and lifted Vlad off the table. He wasn't about to force the vampire to try and walk back to their room. He wouldn't torture him more. So he carried his master back to the house.

"Tenele loves you," he reminded Vlad, hoping hearing about his wife would take his mind off the pain. "Tenara went on an adventure to Ighten with Tenele and Atul. She was very excited to be on a boat."

He was careful with Vlad as he carried him up the stairs to their room, and even more careful with him when he laid the vampire on the bed.

"What can I do to ease your pain?" Talon asked him softly, brushing his fingers through the vampire's hair. "Tell me."

* * *

Atul slipped into Tenele's bed, even if the maids had given him a room across the hall. It felt empty when he knew she was so close. Tenara was sleeping in her own room next door, with Stalker at he foot of her bed like usual.

The king rested on his side, his fingers brushing along her cheek and through her hair. He wanted to comfort her, because the pain in her eyes made his heart ache. "He'll be okay," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. Even if Sinead told him the truth, he wanted her to hold out hope.

Tenele nodded, burying her face in the crook of his neck while his arms looped around her back. It felt wrong to be comfortable while Vlad wasn't. It felt wrong to be in Atul's arms when Vlad was being tortured.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad just rested in the younger vampire's arms, too far past pain to care what the man thought of him at the moment. It was the first kind touch he'd felt in weeks, the first thing that didn't hurt him. Maybe with Talon there, he could keep himself sane. He felt the gentle arms lower him onto what felt like feather down after the past few weeks. In fact, it was an ordinary straw mattress.

"Talon," Vlad murmured shakily, catching the man's hand in his. He clenched it tightly to his forehead. "You dumb fuck," his voice broke.

[Emora Deen]

Talon smirked. "Yep," he replied, stroking fingers through Vlad's short hair. "That's me. But, I'm here now. I'll watch over you. I'll take care of you. And when Tenele gets here she will take over. I'm sure she'll be more pleasing than I am. I tried to talk her out of coming for you, but you know how negotiating with her can go..."