Heirot

Tenele was quiet as she watched the darkness take them. She could hear herself breathing, and faintly realized she was breathing in almost a paniced quickness. Silence was all she heard aside from her own worried panting. She held tighter to Vlad when she realized nothing was changing and they seemed to be trapped in that darkness.

And then he appeared out of the darkness. A living nightmare that was right there in the darkness that had swallowed them. That smile, she'd seen it before on him. And in the back of her mind she remembered it on that night, having been ported to her room by him. A triumphant smile. That was the most profound thing she could remember. That and his form moving in the darkness. Everything else was what he had shown her. Possibly the truth, Possibly the lie. "Vlad," she breathed fearfully, stepping closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist to hold on tight, so if anything came in the darkness it would have a hard time snatching her away. "Let us go back to Ighten, Verin. We're protected from you."

"Oh, you were protected from me. WERE. In the mortal world, you had mommy and daddy god to protect you. And as promised, I've not lain a finger on you. What a pity somebody else did," he smiled darkly, and began pacing a slow circle around them, like a wolf around its prey. "It takes quite a bit of trust to step into a rune without knowing what it does. You never know what kind of trouble that will get you in. For instance, it could take you here. To my realm, where the rules are mine alone. There is no Thor here," he said, suddenly pressing in close to Tenele's face, threatening and vicious. "No goddess of nature. No powers at all save the ones I allow. You are in my own, personal, Eden. So in short, young maiden, you AREN"T protected. You are here at my whim and my leisure, and will leave only by my will."

Vlad stared at the god in silence, his mind reeling as he tried to grasp the severity of this situation. "What is it you want?" he demanded, his hands holding Tenele harder than they probably should.

"Oh, just a little quality time. A family reunion, if you will. First you," Verin smirked, grabbing Vlad's chin. The vampire jerked fiercely of his grasp, managing not to retreat in the process. "You who have always been mine, but have denied yourself to me. Here we can get to know each other better, until you know your place in my family. And then there is the new arrival," he smiled sickly, turning his gaze on Tenele, but not at her face. "I do hope you and the new one can play nicely. So often the adopted child grows jealous of the blood heir. You should know that I will cherish and control you both equally," he said with cruel amusement.

Vlad's grip on Tenele loosened slightly, and his expression seemed to glaze. It was hard not to be stunned by the god's words, and infuriatingly, his anger only seemed to lend to his mute paralysis.

Tenele looked completely disgusted when Verin got close to her face, and as he stared down at her abdomen she felt even more revolted. Tenele's breath caught and her fingers knotted up against Vlad as she pulled herself closer to him, if that was even possible. She had felt his grip losen, and in this darknes she knew not what lurked. She could feel the cold prickle filtering around her legs where the long slit that ran completely up the side of her dress on either side was leaving her skin exposed. Once again she found herself longing that she had changed into her old clothes before departing on yet another journey. This time, to a place she felt she couldn't escape from.

Screw feeling. She knew she couldn't escape from this. She was not a magic user. She was not a demon. She was not a God. Tenele was a lowly creature to these people. A flawed being that's life was like spider silk. Easy to tear through, and easy to snuff out. So why would he, a God, choose someone as unworthy as her to bear his bastard child. Unless there was some reason she couldn't see, he had to be lying. He just had to be.

Shaking her head she muttered, "I'm not pregnant. You're lying." Tenele smirked darkly. "From what I know, you fell a little short of your goal. I guess sometimes not even Gods can rise to the challenge." The words slipped from her mouth before she could stop them, and as usual Tenele was left to wonder about what consequences her uncontrolable tongue would get her into.

Then again, she had to remind herself that this could all be a trick. That he was telling the truth, and to keep her in the dark so she couldn't do anything about the pregnancy, he could have lied to her about what really had happened. Why was she justifying this? Why was she trying to prepare herself for the possiblility that she was indeed carrying his child? Maybe the fear that it was true, was outwaying the fear of it being a lie.

Verin smiled at her charmingly. "Come now, I'm sure you found my body more memorable than that," he said seductively, letting one hand drift casually over his sculpted torso. There was no avoiding the fact that he was handsome. "But you must come to terms with it. That is natural. I'll give you time. Meanwhile, I have some entertainment arranged. For myself, of course. I'm afraid it won't be as amusing for the two of you."

A dark blue light formed around them, illuminating the black world and revealing its contents. All around them were walls, too high to reach over. "Do you recognize what you're standing in?" Verin asked them. Too pleased with himself to await an answer, he continued. "You stand at the center of a maze. It is my maze, and it changes at my will. I feel it fair to afford you the opportunity to escape of your own power. Being who I am, a fair competition just wouldn't be very interesting, so I'll offer you this wager. The maze has one exit, a giant mirror. However, it is nothing but glass and metal. To step through it and return to your precious world, it must be activated."

Tenele felt disgusted at the very sight of Verin despite his obvious good looks. She even flinched at the idea of his body even coming remotely close to hers in contact like that. Then, the darkness faded away around them and was replaced with a gray blue world. The rugged brick walls were high. Cracked and old they loomed over them menacingly. The ground was stone as well, dirty, with dead twigs and branches lying about, weeds growing up between the cracks.

Her green eyes flickered to Verin. "You're actually going to give us a way out? You swear?"

"Absolutely," Verin smiled, his voice a little cruel. "But there are some rules. First, you'll be wearing these," he said. Black iron braces formed around each of their right forearms, and a short chain formed between them, giving them about a two foot berth from one another. The non-ergonomic choice to have the braces on matching rather than opposite arms already promised that the god was up to something. "Second, I'll have some prizes waiting for you as you make your way through. Half the fun is in the process, after all," he smiled. "Third, the portal will activate under only one condition. A betrayal, one of you against the other."

He raised his eyebrows as Vlad's eyes glowed dubiously. "A what?" the vampire scowled.

"Oh, I understand your skepticism," he said with a sympathetic nod, "but trust me, there's not all that much to do here, and that chain is very short. You'll find the inspiration eventually," he smiled.

Tenele lifted her small wrist to look at the heavy manicle around it. Her eyes followed the chain around to Vlad's own arm. She wondered if the location of the chain would make it difficult for them to walk. She glared at Verin at the mention of betrayel, but what could he possibly do that would cause either she or Vlad to betray eachother? Nothing. She wouldn't do that to Vlad...

It suddenly struck her that Vlad probably assumed she already had betrayed him. What could she do to convince him otherwise? If she mentioned anything now in front of Verin she was sure the God had already figured out a way to convince him otherwise. "We won't betray eachother, Verin." Tenele took a brave step forward. "Not even if it means escaping. We won't give you that satisfaction."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so bold, there, maiden. Neither of you are nearly as innocent as you seem to think you are. And it's not as if you have unlimited time. How long do you suppose your bodies will last without food?" he smiled. "You may find that time passes differently here. But I understand this may be a challenge for you, lovely couple that you are. So I'll provide a few bonuses to get you started."

He snapped his fingers, and a pair of what appeared to be sunglasses formed on Tenele's face. They were stuck there, as if they were part of her body. "Looks can be deceiving, my dear. With those, you will see the true nature of things, including your little vampire Adonis." Through the lens of the glasses, Vlad's form transformed next to her. He no longer appeared human. He was immense and surreal, with glowing red eyes and the twisted, hell-fanged face of a true demon. His whole body seemed larger and more threatening, powerful and horrifying, though he was no taller than before. His skin was black and opaque to the faint light around them, like a living shadow. He did not seem alive anymore, but like something apart from reality, a monster from hell itself. Only the faint familiar bone structure of his face remained to identify him as Vlad.

"And to you, Vladimir, I give you this," Verin said without giving her time to adjust to his new appearance. "I'm sure the two of you have shared many things, but have you shared your dreams?" he smirked. A flood of images began to come into Vlad's head, like an in-flight movie that couldn't be turned off. He saw sunny courtyards, the queen. He saw Tenele, and he saw children with her, vibrant and playful. A handsome man, a human, was with them. He was like Vlad, but subtly and importantly, he was not actually Vlad. The man walked up behind her and draped his tanned arms across her chest. She reached up to weave her fingers around his neck, kissing him with a playful laugh.

Vlad closed his eyes, trying to turn it off. It felt like an invasion of her privacy to watch this, and he knew from the burning impression of longing and utter hope that come along with the vision that this had truly come from her mind, not some fabricated reality Verin invented for him. More images came, in greater detail, of a life she wanted and wouldn't have. The need that accompanied them was so intense that the vampire stopped breathing, immersed in this dream world that was so convincing and so full of contagious hope that even he wanted it. When the images stopped, he drew a stunned breath and had to contend with the inevitable flood of confusion, anger, and odd disappointment at the realization that it was not real, and couldn't possibly happen.

"Isn't honesty refreshing?" Verin asked conversationally as the two dealt with the realities they'd each been confronted with. "To be frank, I don't know what do-good type folks see in it. After all, it can do a lot of damage. But you two have a strong, healthy relationship with no snags to catch on, so I'm sure you can handle it fine," he encouraged. With a cryptic laugh, he faded away and left the two standing 'alone' in the maze.

Tenele's looked at Vlad in petrified horror. It had to be a trick, Vlad didn't look like that. He was forever young, forever handsome. Not a beast. Yet, here stood a menacing vile creature that looked as if it would rip her to shreds any moment. She pulled and tugged on the glasses to yank them off, but they refused to move. "Damn it," she muttered aggravatedly when she was unable to remove them. "I get it already! Take these damn things off me!"

It was no use, the God was already gone, and Tenele was left to view the unimaginable. She averted her eyes from him, but he probably wouldn't be able to tell with the contraptions over her eyes. Silence consumed the isle of the maze that they were on, and Tenele wanted desperately to say something. What could she tell him? She felt suddenly nauseated again, but that could be from the situation, or Nadia's food again.

"What did he do to you?" Tenele asked him softly, putting a warm hand on his large monsterous arm. He was Vlad, she thought. Despite what she was seeing, he was Vlad.

Vlad twitched slightly under her touch, looking down at her like he'd been distracted by something. "Nothing important," he blocked uncertainly. "He just showed me a happy ending." His mouth turned downward.

Tenele blinked at his reply, utterly confused. So she got to see a monster that couldn't possibly be there, and Vlad got a happy ending? That was nice. If it was so happy, why did he frown at the mention of it. "Okay," Tenele replied in a whisper, glancing up one end of the path and down the other. Both seemed to T off in different directions. How could they figure out which way was the right way to go?

The nausea grew in Tenele's stomach and she put a hand flat on her belly as if that would settle it. "We should get moving. The sooner we get out of this place, the better." Tenele for the moment would ignore the fact that the only way to get out was to betray eachother. She couldn't even fathom how they would do that. What could possibly happen that would make them betray eachother?

She took several steps forward, but felt resistance around her wrist as the chain tugged against Vlad's sturdy body. She glanced back at him, only seeing a monster. Her head turned swiftly away, for she didn't want to see Vlad like that. She wanted to see him as she normally did. "Vlad..." she breathed, glancing to the ground. "Do you believe him?"

"I believe he'll hold us to his rules for as long as they work for him," Vlad said, taking a step in the directing the chain was tugging him as if its pressure were only an afterthought. "I believe him that we'll die here if we do nothing. I suppose that means I believe his game is the best change we've got." He tilted his head slightly, trying to catch her gaze as she seemed to avoid his. "What do you see with those?" he asked quietly, moving closer directly in front of her.

Tenele walked gentle down the path. "I see you," she muttered. "But not you. I see... something underneath your skin. A monster." It was the only way she could discribe it. "It can't be really you, though." Tenele wrapped her arm about her own waist as it welled in her throat again.

She glanced around, wondering if there as some place she could go behind to be sick. There was nothing. So she decided to hold it if she could. Her face paled, and she realized that holding back nausea wasn't something intellegent to do. So, without giving Vlad much warning, she tugged hard on the chain and went to the wall. She leaned against the wall with one hand, bent over to hold herself up. Her arm grasped her abdomen and she heaved three times, finally spitting the taste from her mouth. Afterwards she felt weary, but only for moment. She stayed still, her damp forehead pressing against the back of her hand as she leaned against the rough cut wall.

"I actually meant... do you believe him..." She spat again, before swallowing hard. "When he says he has fathered a child in me."

Vlad grimaced, knowing there was no unsaying the question now that she'd said it, and there was no way to avoid the issue further. He stood next to her, looking away. "I wouldn't believe his word alone, but... you're sick, Tenele," he said, his tone carefully even. "You were undressed when I found you that night in the palace, and you had nothing to say for yourself."

Tenele clenched her teeth as she leaned against the wall. It was true. She had been nearly naked. She had only been wearing the underdress and corset. She had looked a mess, as if she'd been roling in bed all night. Her memory told her a story of Verin attempting the act, but after that everything was black and fuzzy... and the next thing she knew she was wondering out and stumbling into Vlad. "I guess what remains to be asked, is if you think I slept with him of my own accord. Surely that was what he was hinting too. I mean... after all, if I was protected then he shouldn't have been able to do that without my permission." Now she was digging her own grave, but she realized with sudden horror that it was true. She hadn't thought of that. Because of her so called protection, Verin should not have been able to touch her. So if she was pregnant... then... She felt suddenly sick again.