| The Slumbering Dark; The slow awakening of an ancient... | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 18 2016, 03:58 PM (32 Views) | |
| Satsuriku | Oct 18 2016, 03:58 PM Post #1 |
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His mind moved at a sluggish pace. With every faint beat of his heart, with every slow creep of the ancient blood thin in his veins, there came tiny glimmers of thought, dancing just beyond the reach of consciousness. Overhead, the world continued its endless cycle of death and birth, and his home, his sanctuary was destroyed without his knowing in one of the many human wars he would miss. The world changed from his Victorian London, moved beyond the Blitzkrieg of World War 2, marched past the cold war with indifference to the vampire slumbering deep underground. Humanity advanced, slowed, advanced, slowed, and time moved on without him. The years turned to decades, decades to centuries, and centuries into millennia until nothing was left of the world as he knew it. Humanity reached for the stars, and learned to traverse the emptiness of space, built ships, met races in alien worlds, formed alliances, and made enemies. When the vampire began to waken, humanity was at last in an age of peace, lasting and real. Its men and women were bound again by honor, duty, and the need to protect and help maintain this utopia through diplomacy. As the vampire fought and clawed his way to the surface, the alliances humanity had formed allowed his kind to blend in seamlessly with the alien life around them, and pretend they were no more from Earth than they were. But Satsuriku knew none of this, mindless with an ancient thirst, desperate for air, for the light of the moon on his skin. The shadows trembled, darkening the corners of the building above him, scaring the training officers of the planet-side Academy base of New London. There were a few among them who realized what was going on to some degree, and they swiftly and carefully persuaded the more living-inclined students away from the area with assurances that they were needed elsewhere. A dirty clawed hand punched through the concrete of the Academy basement floor. Then another joined, breaking through it as though it were paper and annoyingly in their way. Then a head emerged, roots and clumps of clay caked onto his pale Japanese face and normally silken black hair. His face was monstrous, completely lost in the blood thirst, animistic and lined in rage. His black eyes rolled wildly in his head as he fought the hold of the earth around him and pulled himself out of the ground, his clothing falling to tattered pieces around him on the floor, mere scraps of the silk and velvet they had once been. Completely nude and covered in earth, he looked around, crouched on all fours, sniffed at the air in a strangely delicate way, before growling low in his throat. He could detect no life nearby. Which is why he was blindsided by the sound of a large tub being set down right beside him. A pale face framed by pale blonde hair, the underlying scent of old death, of youth, and a flash of fangs let him know what it was he was dealing with. The blonde uncovered the tub, and he was struck by the smell of blood as the other younger vampire stepped back with a grin. He was on it before the human eye could blink, head stuck in and drinking ravenously. As he drank, the veins that had been so dark and prominent in his white skin faded from view, and his heartbeat fluttered with satiation and pleasure. He drank his fill, emptying the whole tub (nearly twenty gallons), and sat back on his knees, his mind slowly returning with the nourishment flooding through his veins. Blood dripped steadily from his hair and face onto his skin and the floor, cracked and ruined as it was. Neither paid it any mind. "So you're one of the sleeping Ancients. Nice to meet you! I'm Avric Gru-Vaer. How old are you?" The man asked in crisply accented English. "What year is it?" He asked, voice quiet, near a whisper. The other tilted his head, blinking. "It's Stardate 7758453.9. The Earth year is 3412 STST." He answered. The elder stared at him blankly. "I was last awake in the year 1872 AD." Satsuriku said finally. "And I am named Satsuriku Fujiwara." He added as an afterthought. The younger frowned, ticking his fingers as he seemed to calculate that, then his jaw dropped. "AD? You're, like, seven millennia old... Well, sort of. How old were you when you went to the ground?" He asked, seeming to shake himself like an overeager puppy. "Nearly nine centuries." He responded flatly, before standing. The younger blanched again, but shook his shaggy hair and turned quickly toward a shelf, for the entire basement was filled with shelves and boxes and the like. He there retrieved some clothes, a slim metal sort of thing, and a pair of shoes. The clothes themselves were a simple pair of black trousers, a plain black and grey shirt, and underclothes. He jerked his head with an indication to follow him, and so Satsuriku did, silently moving behind him, mind reeling from the information the other had thrown at him in a few short sentences. He was led up a staircase, where several others awaited him, each pale face watching him with apprehension in their eyes. He was led past them toward what he could only assume was a bathing room, given the tub at its center, and there he was shoved in and cleaned thoroughly of any blood, dirt, or other grime. He was then dressed, his hair brushed extensively, and, much to his consternation, told in no uncertain terms that he was to play the part of a female. Having done so before, this was not as difficult as one might presume, and easier in the long run, given that his hair was down to his knees now. It was easier to maintain the image of a female than to try and maintain his hair at any given time and be his real gender anyway. He was given a 'data pad', the small little metal thing that lit up and seemed to project a screen that housed thousands of years of history, which he was to read extensively, and then he was briefed on his new life, which the vampires of this age set up for the Slumbering Ancients, as he was now called. It was a program that allowed elders to rejoin society without being conspicuous. He was then led to his new sleeping quarters, where he was registered as a new recruit to this Academy, from a planet called Kheita, a land where people had elemental powers that were reflected in the color of their eyes. His was a rare power, and would benefit the Starfleet Alliance, as it was suited to covert operations and remained a largely passive skill otherwise. He would spend the next week in isolation to learn what he needed to know, and he did. He was to be give a new name to suit his new background, and then given time to recover his strength. From then on, he was on his own, and would have to be careful, he was warned. He received weekly hormonal injections from female Kheitans of his particular element to enable a more complete mental transformation, as well as surgery to remove his male features and replace them with female ones. Even his voice sounded different. All in all, looking in the mirror was a strange experience when all was said and done, but this was the best way to become apart of this new society. Thus, he became a part of Starfleet Academy, and was a young woman called Kiyra of Turuvar. He learned, was careful to pay attention to the history of his new home planet, and created a whole new background for Kiyra, a childhood of careful isolation, a frightening encounter as teen with an enemy that all of the Alliance hated, the Naeu, a people of utter depravity who were nicknamed Reavers. They mutilated themselves and others, committed any act in fits of madness and lucidity, ate anything that crossed their paths, family, friend or enemy, and only became what they were through traumatic conversion. Kiyra would have barely escaped them by hiding her tiny shuttle in a nebula before finding the nearest planet that could take her to the Alliance, where she would be determined to train to never fall back into that helpless position again. And then his isolation was over. He braided his long hair, coiled it in the style that was common among Kheitan women, and went to report to the Academy director for his... her, first day. She was led from the office to her first course in Temporal Mechanics. She bowed to the class and introduced herself, her voice quiet and airy, similar to how many other Kheitan women spoke. The research had been very thorough. "I am Kiyra of Turuvar. I thank you for your hospitality." She greeted, black eyes looking out over the class of mixed races, some blue, some horned, some with ridges, others with breathers over a set of gills and webbed ears. At least she would not be singled out, he thought to himself with some amusement. He went to the only empty seat, sitting with his legs together and curled to one side in a lady-like posture, eyes fixed ahead as the teacher went on to explain the basics. His fingernails tapped quietly against the chromium of the desk, and other students seemed content to tap everything down in these 'image pads' as they were called. He wondered how he would grapple with the new technology available to him. His new life would seem to be interesting indeed. |
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9:46 AM Jul 11