Heirot

Tenele didn't lift her head to look at him, she only pressed her hands to her ears tighter. "They are not dreams. It is true. You have saved people that you love. You saved me, Vlad. Many times, I'm sure. I don't know what you dreamed, or why you are calling me Lelana... I don't know how to fix you. I'm worried." She lifted her head to him, wiping her eyes again. "You are scaring me."

Vlad looked directly at her, deathly calm. "You've lost a toy and earned a playmate. With someone as broken as you sitting right here, are you going to continue this useless game? Abandon that form, Lelana. You owe me, for what you did to my bloodling on the ship. Playmates are not toys, Lelana. Playmates can reject each other."

Lelana blinked. She'd forgotten all about those nights with Talon. She forgot corrupting his thoughts with her blood because her father made her do it. Threatened her. Hurt her. Tore her apart.

Tenele's form faded, leaving the beautiful mad visage of Lelana. Her eyes blinked around, like she was trying to send away an image.

"Playmates?" she asked him hoarsely.

Vlad nodded, his thumb stroking her hair back. "It's like this, so I may as well be useful."

Lelana smiled. She moved in closer to him, curling her arms over her chest and pressing her cheek to his chest, just under his chin. She hummed softly. What was it that playmates did? What happened when there was no coercion, threatening, or trickery? "What do playmates do?" Lelana asked him innocently.

"It depends on the playmates. Is there something you want from me?" Vlad asked.

Lelana blinked at him. He wouldn't... She turned her eyes up to him, big, round, and vulnerable. "You won't give me what I want," she told him softly. "You won't betray your wife."

Vlad frowned at her, empty and dull. "It not a question of willingness now. You cannot break a toy and then expect it to function." Even his wife couldn't make his body respond. Not anymore. "If you need stimulation, I will provide it. I expect my indifference would hurt you," he observed, neither recommending nor warning. Simply stating the facts.

Lelana thought quietly. "Hold me?" she asked him softly. She could pretend he liked her, maybe even that he loved her.

Vlad drew her into his arms and lay back across the floor with her folded securely against him. "Who made you this way?" he asked calmly, like he was asking where the curtains were made. "Was it the same?"

Lelana glared at the wall. She stiffened in his arms. "He was my father. He gave no reason why. He just needed to assert his control over one more person... I don't know how many... I lost count. I stopped counting. I couldn't tell anyone. They wouldn't care. No one cared. No one would have, or could have, stopped it. Because, I'm not human... I had no protection from a God. I don't think I was evil. I like to think I would have turned out like Atul... Sweet, beautiful, Atul. When I was afraid I would climb into his bed at night, or after Verin left, and he would hold me really tight. Sometimes I hid there in his bed when I knew Verin was going to come, but... someone always made me leave. When I tried to get help, people just turned their backs on me. No one would stand up to him, and why would they? They couldn't. The world just grew loud and fast and out of control, so I grew meaner. I realized that if I garnered the same fear as my father, that people did what I asked them to do."

"I see. Were you upset when I killed him?" the vampire asked vaguely, as if Knight's secret was common knowledge.

Lelana shook her head, tears dripping onto his torn shirt. "No," she replied sorrowfully. "I was only angry that I could not watch. When I found out he was dead, it took me months to realize that he wasn't going to come to me in the night and demand my body or make me sleep with someone to manipulate them. I was free to go where I wanted, and do what I want, but I couldn't escape what I am now. I came here, thinking I could, but I ended up killing people and destroying lives because the pain hurts less when someone is hurting more. I don't notice how unloved I am when other people are screaming."

Vlad just listened, and petted her hair by instinct. "Okay," he assessed. "It makes sense." That was the most reaction he could muster. No judgment, no sympathy, no anger. On a logical level, it made sense. And there was no sense in finding it sad, or foolish, or frustrating, because it was done, and she was broken, and she was this now.

Lelana smiled at the feel of his gentle petting. It felt nice. Then, she frowned. "I am sorry... I am so sorry for what I showed you. I couldn't... I couldn't make the noise in my head stop. I just... I went too far. I can fix it. I can try to make you forget it. I can make it into something beautiful."