Sings the Nightingale

BY: Kash

Okay standard disclaimer thingey...as I've never ever done this before..if I miss somehting sorry...course I've read enough of them to know what to do...or that is the idea right...anyways, I make no claim to any of the characters created by LKH...nor am I trying in anyway to profit from this, except maybe as a learning experience...blah blah blah...I don't know what else to say except...I pray that in whatever parallel universe the characters actually exist in..they never read this because I'd hate for Edward to decide to shoot me...I'm rather attached to my life...go figure.

She'd been running for a long time...a very very long time...and she was so tired of it...but everytime she had ever rested she'd found herself trapped in awful situtations with awful people...but what could she do? She didn't have a choice...even death was denied her. She looked around, she'd made it this far...never before had she sought protection...she hadn't thought to...she should be capable of taking care of herself...the goddesses knew that she should...but every time...she shrugged it all away. Now was not the time.

She'd made it to St. Louis...here the master of the city, Jean- Claude...he and his servant had defeated Padma. The sick sadistic master of beasts. Her master. Well her ex-master. The next time she saw him, she was going to open her mouth and sing til blood seeped from between his ears and his head exploded. She smiled at the thought. It rather pleased her, but she didn't think that her power could do that. She'd never actually tried so she couldn't be sure. She wasn't precisely fond of her new home town. Well the truth was she just wasn't comfortable in towns. She always felt hunted in them, which was absurd, but it was how she felt, besides that, her 'beast' disliked crowds.

She looked around the flat she'd managed to aquire...it was in a very bad part of town, but it was also very very cheap, in a semi- reinivated warehouse. She had taken the entire third floor. The view wasn't good...but that was okay, she wasn't intrested in it...and she had blacked out the windows. The space was almost entirely open. She liked that about it...she liked that alot. The only section walled off was a bathroom. That was fine with her. She had no intention of entertaining so having the bed out in the open didn't bother her. In fact she liked it. She had a very nice bed. It was the one thing on which she'd allowed herself to splurge. A large comfy bed...four poster canopy bed. It even had gauzy drappings, and a feather tick on it....she liked to sleep comfortable. The couch wasn't new, neither was any of the other furniture. She still hadn't bought a T.V. either...she didn't really need one. She'd rather read a book any day of the week. This was another area she didn't stint on...although the book case was old it was already crammed with books...no she hadn't read all of them...but she was half way there...in another three months she'd have to get another book case and another truckload of books. Books were her version of chocolate.

She'd just gotten home from the club, Danse Macabre. She wasn't sure if she loved her work, but she did like it...She managed the live entertainment. She smiled a little at that as she grabbed a cup of yogart from the fridge, raspberry if your intrested. Danse Macabe was a Vamp hang out really...not much real 'live' entertainment...well that wasn't true a lot of lycantrhopes performed at the club. They did have a few human ie non-preternatural acts...very few...she only hired the best, and most Vamps had a way with a voice that was sinful to say the least. She flopped down on the couch kicking off her heels. That was another new thing in her life...her first apartment, her first pair of heels, her first job outside of very menial labor like...washer woman. She smiled digging into her yogart. There was one good thing about having survived this long...she now knew what yogart tasted like...and then there were mangos...yum. It didn't take long for her to finish off the yogart, she had been hungry. She never ate at the club...bottled water that was it...then when she got home she had her yogart, a shower and then it was to bed with her. When she woke up it there would be time for some fruit or salad and then whatever she needed to get done. Maybe a sandwitch later...it depended. It was routine...she reveled in it...she'd never had her own routine before. No before there had always been someone elses routine.



Past

She remembered hearing the screams coming from her parent's room. Before it had been low moaning, now though the screams were horrible. She wanted to run from the house, down to the lake and dive in, under the water she wouldn't be able to hear her mother screaming. She didn't have a chance though. The midwife kept demanding she fetch and carry things. More rags, hot water, wood for the fire. Her mother kept screaming...it went on all through the first night and then by the second, her mother wasn't screaming anymore...she would whimper but that was all she could manage. She'd been in hard labor for almost two days now. The midwife just shook her head and said that all they could do was make her more comfortable...she'd tried strange concoctions to get the baby to hurry, to make its head appear. She looked at the young girl who'd helped quietly without complaint and frowned wearily. "Iffn it don't 'appen soon she'll die, do ya ken?" The child..she couldn't be more than eight nodded and silently went to sit at her mothers side. In truth she was barely six, and the villagers thought that she was daft...she'd never spoken a single word. If she wasn't daft then she was cursed by the gods...either way they wanted nothing to do with her.

Today though was a monumental day for the child. Today she sat down took her mothers head in her lap and began to croon softly to her, it was the lullaby the mother had always sung to her when she was ill, and she sang it now softly. The old midwife turned and watched in amazement...listening to the clear bell like quality of the child's voice...she'd never heard one so fine...clearly touched was the child...her mother died in her arms while the midwife listened entranced by her song...the baby made it though...a red screaming baby that they named Giliona after her mother. The mid wife took both to the temple..sure she could get some gold out of the deal...and she did, when the priestesses heard the child sing they demanded that as an orphan she be given into the service of their patron, the Goddess Eutrepe...who held divinty over Music and Poetry. The child Seri they called her, was clearly touched by their gentle lady. Seri and her little sister had a home...a rather forbidding one actually.

Seri hated being forced to sing...she rarely even talked....but the women of the temple made threats...what would happen to little Gili if she refused...and so she sang...the voice that she felt had killed her mother was all that kept she and her sister alive...after all they were illgetimate..the entire town knew...they were lucky not to have been exposed on a hill top. So the years passed, she sang to ensure the good harvest, to ensure a mild winter, to ensure the fertility of the animals and people, and she hated it...everyday she hated it more...it is not a good thing to go through life hating one of the things that define you. It was in her twenty second year when the soldiers came. She had snuck away...far out into the forest, it was the little time she had to herself, and when she came back, it was all smoke and ashes...and bodies...so very many bodies. She went crazy screaming for Gili...her only family, the only person who didn't constantly beg her to sing.

She found her...lying bloody and broken in a fragrant bed of clover...if not for the blood...and bruising, it would have been an idyllic scene...the day wasn't dark or cold...it was late winter early spring...and unseasonably warm...a perfect day...and now all this blood. She held Gili in her arms and sang...a song of grief and a demand for revenge for justice...and the godess heard. Poena goddess of retribution was cousin to Eutrepe, they both heard the song of woe...and they both granted her, what she cried out for...so moved by the song. Eutrepe blessed her, saying "Let men hear and crumble when song forms on those lips." Poena not impressed blessed her with a skill of her own...already Seri, stalked through the woods unheard by any when she chose...now she would know how to use that and all her other senses to exact her revenge. She buried her sister, and the women of the temple who had not been taken as potential slaves and went in search of her prey.

She had no difficulty finding them...she had no trouble dispatching them to the underworld...she did it with ease and presicions..making some wonder exactly which Goddess had in fact blessed her...because she never sang a note. She was silent as the grave. Perhaps it was fate, that had led the men to her town to her temple...or fate that had made their leader beloved to the Godess Fata. Who knows how fate works...but Seri found him and killed him...she had in fact made her slow silent way through Fata's entire army...it had taken four years, but she had managed. Fata was displeased when she found her lover still in their bed, lacking his entrails...she tracked Seri down and once again the girl was touched by a Goddess. Fata's touch was more of a punch to the gut then the gentle pat on the head that Poena and Eutrepe had given her.

Fata cursed her...she had heard how the girl blamed her song...and she knew that this mission had been a suicide mission...and she felt that was all the information she needed. She granted Seri imortality...eternal life...never would she age, never would she see her mother or sister in the after-life. No for the rest of eternity the Goddess told her. "You will sing each night for me...I shall hear your song and laugh at your pain...we will share eternity together." Seri did not know what to do...for long ago on that day she'd sang over her sister, she'd cut out her own heart, it had hurt to much to keep it...so she had willingly given it up...but with the death of the last man...it was revived....and she wept...and as she wept she changed into a small ugly brown little bird...that had the most beautiful voice, and sang the most haunting melody...the nightingale.

She stayed in that garden for many years...though she could not keep count and she did not wish to. Then one day a man came and took her from the garden...he stole her away, making her a gift to a Kaliph, one as imortal as she, and she thought she would share eternity to with him...and this saddened her, for every night he woke and tortured the poor young girls he found and Seri's rage at him grew with each blow, each whispered plea...and the song of the nightingale grew more haunted. It seemed an eternity she spent with him....when she was discovered by a guest of his. The woman was stunned at the first sight, though Seri knew not why...no other had ever been shocked...awed, or jealous but never shocked. It turned out that Lavinia was a sorceror, and she read aura's...and she was quite shocked to see a Nightingale with such a dark aura....animals usually aren't affected by the suffereing of the people around them...though with pets that is sometimes not entirely true...with birds it is very rare to see an aura that is truly troubled.

When she did a revealing spell she saw Seri's true form and was amazed. It would be nice to say that Lavinia was a good kind woman who took pity and changed Seri back to human form, bu that is not the case. Lavinia was a bored, bitter woman, who saw Seri's curse as a challenge, and a good one at that. She set out straight away trying to find a way to change the girl back to human form. Lavinia did not worship the old Gods...they were now all dead in the minds of most people...Seri had been a nightingale for many long centuries before meeting Lavinia. It took many years for Lavinia to determine the right spell to change Seri back...but it was faulty and incomplete. Seri was once again a female...but when the moon vanished she returned to her nightingale form...Lavinia's power's like many witches of the time was linked to the moon...and her spell was in constant battle with Fata's...leaving Seri, neither human nor bird...but both.

When first she changed she looked down at herself..at a body she had not seen in over fifteen hundred years, and wept...it had been so long since she'd had the ablity to cry, and now she needed to, and so she did with all her heart. Lavinia laughed with glee, she'd unwrapped a spell of great power or so she thought. This brought Seri's attention back to the woman and her companion Kaliph Or'gandry. Her eyes narrowed and she snarled at them. Perhaps Lavinia should have taken a longer look at Seri, and examined her powers more closely...if she had she would have realised that Seri, hated them...she had seen their cruelties, their evil deeds against innocents over and over again. The Kaliph she remember very very well.

She had seen more than enough to know that he was evil, and now she would kill him. She would not remain in his power...not any longer. She smiled a silly little smile and attacked him. He was far stronger than any mortal...but Seri wasn't mortal...and Fata had not been able to take Poena's gifts away. Her godess had been true to her...and she fought the vampire with skill and ease, but she was not winning....he was good very good, but then he too was a very old hand at combat. Seri realised that she would be forced to use the other gift as well...and it displeased her, but she would kill him. He would not be allowed to do to anyone else what he'd done to the young woman last night. She sang, low and sweet, trapping his mind with her song...a siren of the first degree, luring him to her, then she swiftly ripped out his heart and crushed it in her hand, throwing into the sorceress' fire.

Lavinia gasped, then began readying a spell. Seri looked at her. "You have given me my freedom....by honor I am forced to return the favor...go." She said...the woman paused her eyes narrowing. "You have killed him....that was not a wise thing to do...he had friends...he is council...they will hunt you down." Seri' s head cocked to one side, examining the woman in a truly bird like manner looked perplexed, her brow furrowed. "Perhaps they will...I do not care now...I shall leave and if they find me...I shall fight...I have little else to do." She shrugged. she had eternity to fill...what else could she do...or perhaps the witch had broken the entire spell and she was mortal once again...perhaps she thought. The idea filled her with hope. "Let them come...I shall be waiting." She smiled and disappeared out a window. She was still unclothed, bare in the moonlight she fled her old 'home'.

She wondered what she was to do with herself now...everyone she had known was dead now..dead and burried, her language and culture were dead...she had watched as times changed...she had heard the Kaliph speak of the world..of its politics and progress. It was not the same world she had lived in. She went to the forest. She was familiar with its ways...the forest did not change...nature was constant. There was just less of it now. Days weeks months years passed with her alone in the wilderness. She enjoyed it and forgot about man, here she was free, to worship the old gods, to dance in the moonlight...and when the moon was new she found herself a nightingale again. It saddened her but she refused to dwell on it. It was on such a night when she was captured again.

Lavinia had spoken with the council...she'd had no choice...they discovered her alone with Or'gandry's body, and someone had to be responsible. Now they had found the little bird that had done it. Padma was pleased. He was new to the council, he had in fact taken Or'gandry's seat. The others on the council frowned on this, but they felt there was no option. They took the girl to his quarters, and he waited for the moon to rise. Lavinia had been extremely annoyed to find her spell hadn't worked entirely. Padma was pleased very very pleased. Now on the morrow he would have fun calling the girls beast...manipulating her. He did enjoy himself, to a point. Seri had seen his kind before and he kept her gagged having heard of her singing from Lavinia. She knew his kind, she could see the cruelty in his eyes. She cursed fate and her voice...even as a bird her song was coveted by rouges of all sorts. It had never brought her anything save pain...that wasn't strictly true...it had brought her the patronage of two Godesses...and she was grateful.

Padma watched her standing there proud, he looked in her eyes trying to roll her, it didn't work...lycanthrops weren't very susceptible to being rolled, neither was this girl. She was pretty in a small elfin manner. Her hair was in a thick long braid down her back. He doubted it had ever been more than trimmed. Her eyes were large black pools...they had taken on the characteristics of her animal. She even moved bird like, and she looked entirely too fragile. He wondered if her bones where hollow...like a birds. Perhaps he'd find out later. He sent his power seeking into her...calling the animal to the surface. She didn't waver she stood there watching him. He increased the power and saw confusion flicker in her eyes. He grasped it, her beast pulling it to the fore...smiling nasitily at her as he did it. Seri felt his power, she felt him pulling at something inside of her...the nightingale...it was almost an entity unto itself...in fact, after all this time it was the larger of them both, she had more experience and more life as a nightingale then she had a human. She debated the problem.

He obviously wanted her to be a bird...she didn't know why...perhaps he thought this hurt. It did. He wanted her pain she understood that...he could call her bird part out...her eyes dropped to the ground. He laughed. "Good, you see that I am master and you are slave...that is how it shall always be, you will be my pet to use as I like." He walked around her, caressing her cheek, brushing against her body, as he continued to pull at her animal. Her eyes snapped up to his and she smiled. He wanted her to be an animal...fine she would be. She let go and let her greater side take over, the stronger part of her...it was more developed and had a magic that she as a human could never use. She flew up and perched on the back of a chair a few feet from him. He was frowning. She would have smiled if she'd had lips. "What a weak creature you must be, to give in so easily." Oh she deffinetly would have smiled now. He didn't understand. He couldn't hurt her as a nightingale...he couldn't violate her, he couldn't wound her. She would stay thus until she escaped his confines.

He stopped exerting his power and waited, and waited and waited. She would not change back. He felt her thoughts begining to seep in as he reached out to her with his mind. He felt her amusement at his expense and he was enraged. He smiled. "You think I can't hurt you and that later you will escape me...I will take care of that." He said mysteriously. She waited perching on his chair back as he marched from the room, locking it soundly after him. She stayed safe in bird form. When he came back hours later he brought with him a pair of silver jesses...tiny and delicate...not at all the size for a falcon...the perfect size for her. He captured her before she knew this, and then fitted them to her feet, the silver burned, and she struggled to get away...to turn back into a human and break them...but they effectively bound her in this form and she looked at him with sad eyes...so it was to be this again. She sang.

He had never heard her sing...few had...he decided to keep her, though he did not tell the council her true nature...he kept her always with him. She was once again the witness to the depravities of vampiric kind...on a larger scale...for this time she saw the entire council...though only what Padma did in private. It was not an existence she enjoyed and so she sang her sorrow, and they adored her song. What was a bird to do? There was one though that she saw, who did not seem intent on harming others, he would feed her seed from his hand and she would perch easily on his shoulder as he stroked her breast. This was a small pleasure that she premitted herself and that Padma seemed to not notice. The council must have know there was something about her....after all most nightingales do not survive for hundreds and hundreds of years, but she never heard any comments being made.

It was just three years ago that she had escaped. Padma went on a long journey, to a new place called America. One day soon after a young vampire was feeding her and was careless and she flew away...jesses and all. She did not know where to go or what to do...but she flew away...she was lucky when a young boy found her and removed them, they had become caught on some bushes and she was struggling hopelessly to be free as his cat stalked her. She wouldn't die...but she'd still rather not be eaten by a cat. She was free. She left the boy standing with the jesses clasped in his hand...they wer antique and worth a tidy sum...he was rewarded. She was free, but she wasn't stupid...Padma would find her again. It was a few months later that she heard of his humiliation in America and she decided to go there, to St. Louis, to see if they could help her. They had defeated Padma, maybe they could help.



Present

Seri woke up, later than usual, she'd dreamed all night about her past, all the things she had seen. It had not been a restful sort of slumber but had held her in its grasp very easily. She rolled over in the bed staring around the apartment assuring herself that she was safe and that she needed not worry that Padma would come and reclaim her. Through out the time they had spent together, he had never forgotten that she was realy a woman...he had constantly told her, what he would do to her when she was human again and had spoken to her often while he did those things to others. She would always have nightmares about those things. Now though she had to get up and get ready for the rest of the day. It was only noon. She was due at the

club at seven today. She was auditioning a new act. She wondered vaguely if he would be there. She tried not to think about him....about Asher. She remembered him...though he didn't know her. Why should he remember her, she'd been a nightingale the last time he'd seen her. She remember though that he'd been the only one to ever show her kindness. No one had ever done that...save Gili and mother of course...but they were both dead and had been for over two millenia.

She got up and showered again. She showered as often as possible. All the things she had seen conspired to make her always feel dirty. Besides she'd missed centuries of showering...she had to make up for all that time. She smiled at that silly thought and managed to make it through a breakfast of fruit and toast without worrying again about Padma or Asher or anything else, except which outfit to wear. Actually today she needed to go shopping. She didn't have very many clothes...she'd never had time to amass a wardrobe. So she decided to go shopping. Fortunately she had a tidy sum of money in the bank. It grew quickly, since she rarely bought anything, beyond food, which wasn't a large expense when one ate very little beyond yogart, fruit and vegitables. She managed to find a nice black dress, it wasn't really her style exactly. It was missing a back, but hung in straight classic lines. It was simple and elagant. It suited her, and the job she now did.

She'd been surprised at how easy it was to get her job. Asher was running the club for Jean-Claude, but perfered not to deal directly with the entertainment...he disliked having people gape at his face constantly, he was rather sensitive. She did not care, she remembered a gentle hand that had never harmed her, and so when he interviewed her, he could see she was not appalled or horrified and was at ease in his company. He'd hired her right away. She still had not apporached the Master of the City with her tale...perhaps that was Asher's fault. She did not want him to know who she was...she perfered her annonymity...and she was sure Padma would not look for her here...well she hoped that he would not. She seemed to have found a life...and a comfortable one...she did not want the ghosts of her past revisting her...she deserved some small happiness.





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