Heart Song to the Moon

Chapter Two

Two years earlier.

He was awoken by such a curious din, plagued by reoccurring dreams that reach out so vividly that caresses the deepest recesses of inquisitiveness. He was forced out of his resting place in search of this….Hypnotic whisper. “Come to me, my long awaited love.” It calls to him. Is it inside of his head, or on the passing autumn breeze? Not quite sure he looks around to see if it’s near. “So this is what temptation looks like?” it asks. “Who are you?” he respond in question. She approaches him and he swore her slippered feet never hit the floor for all the grace behind her strides. She reaches him and turns him to face her. As he turns to face her he moved more into the moonlight so that they both may bask in its cool radiance. She looks him in the eyes and he starts to melt away for he has never met a hungrier gaze. A more heated wanting of flesh and soul that warms his blood that had been frozen for the past 1200 years. As she spoke, she gently caresses the side of his face and presses her soft and ample breast upon his bare and naked chest. Her scent is that of spring, her voice is that of the elohim that sings praises for the Almighty himself. She moved closer as if it were at all possible, the heat of her breath on his lips, she gazed deeper into his cold and heartless eyes and said, “I am love, and I am that which weakens and that which has awoken you from your slumber.” Raising a brow to this notion, “Love?” he whispered softly to himself as he looked into this mysterious and tempting young seductresses eyes, illumed by the streaks of silver moonlight.

His gaze never faltered from this fragile, yet, courageous creature that stood before him and thought, “Where have I felt this before? It seems like an eternity, what has come over me? Who is this woman who calls herself Love and why is that I feel that I can trust her? I know I’d never trust a soul this much not after what she did. Who is she anyway? Why can’t I remember? And why does it feel like this young woman in front of me has everything?” Along with that knowledge he trembled inside. Something was wrong almost out of place. “Somehow it feels that if I lose her I would lose myself as well.” He thought. Shaking his head confused, “Where are these thoughts coming from?” She chuckled mockingly, “Lose me? Lose yourself? Why would you ever lose me, darling?” She asked as she pushed herself away looking upon the naked enigma that stood as if he were royalty before her. Narrowing her gaze, she pressed a delicate finger to her lips thinking, “Why hasn’t he suspected anything yet? Has he slept that long?”

He looked around noticing the chamber in which he was awoken. The six candelabras that lightly illuminate the room to the great sized obsidian doors carved with ancient symbols upon the doors. “Those symbols look very familiar” he thinks silently to himself, “but where have I seen them before?” As his eyes continue to examine the room, he notices the sealing scrolls outlining the walls of the chamber; dust has collected upon them as they have hung on the hollowed walls as tapestries. Feeling suddenly light headed, he stumbles catching himself on something. The ancient one finally gets his bearings and looks down at what it was that “caught” him. “What happened!?” losing all train of thought as he notices that it was a sarcophagi embedded into the dark marble flooring. Looking past this…. Age old coffin, he sees that inlaid in the middle, a pentagram. “It’s a seal!” he whispers; “A pentagram of sealing, then why the sixth candle?” he thought. Rubbing his temples concentrating on remembering, it hits him the 6th candle is the candle of souls used to resurrect ancient beings. Confused he asks himself, “But why was I sleeping in the first place?” “Is there anything y…..”

“Silence woman…” the creature shouted with exuberant force. The young woman was taken aback by the primal and ancient rage that exuded from the creature that she cowered and slowly backed away. She looked into the beautiful yet dangerous man’s eyes, and saw murderous rage and remembered the cold malice within his tone. She nearly tripped over the candelabra holding the Candle of Souls knocking it off as she backed away from the creature which she had awoken. The seal surrounding the man and sarcophagi evaporated around them both, making the creature light headed once more as his memories flooded back into his mind.

His castle was under siege, there was fighting in the courtyard. The clash of steel upon steel, explosions, screams of women and children blanketed the area as they were slaughtered and raped without remorse or thought. One scream catches his ears, a screech filled with fear and agony that he drops the corpse that he was feeding on and breaks into sprint in search of the host of the scream. Every corridor is filled with destruction and devastation and it pains him so. “What went wrong?” he asks out loud as he darts past a woman holding the headless body of a child. He hears that terrible screech again. “I must find her. She has to be safe. I never should have left her alone. Please, Please….” He pleaded to the heavens as he searched each room and corridor, until he came to a familiar door. “Please let her be safe, she has to be!” He exclaims as he pushes the fiery debris out of his wake to enter the room. The sound of slurping and gurgling of feeding hits his ears as the debris hits the floor. He looks in the direction of which the sound is emitting and is frozen in his tracks by the horrific and nightmarish scene before him.

His beloved wife was feeding on the corpse of his daughter. “Wha…Why Tsubaki? What have you done? Oh… Orihime, my precious.” He cried pleadingly. Pain, misery, anguished all plagued him at once. “Because I needed to feed.” She answered and simply went back to sucking the life out of the child. Raising her head once more from the girl’s neck she looked her husband dead in the eyes and thought to herself; “Such a painful look. How you must feel watching your precious Orihime die in front of your eyes.” Then she dropped the lifeless body upon the floor. He watched helplessly as his daughter’s body hit the floor. The sound reverberating through his head, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…..

The memory of those once joy filled eyes, now glazed over as the life was drained from them. He looked up into his wife’s emotionless eyes, an amused smirk touching her lips. “How could you Tsubaki? She was the last of our kind.” He asked. “Because my dear, I wish to make you suffer, that is all.” She answered plainly. With amazing and uncanny speed and agility, she ran towards him, pulling a dagger hidden in her sleeve. He stood there numb by the cold and senseless death of his daughter as he watched his murderous wife plunge the dagger deep into his chest feeling it pierce his heart. He held onto his wife plunging the dagger deeper into his chest. “Why do you hold such hate, Tsubaki?” He asked her in a whisper. “Because it is my nature, my love.” She responded.

He looked into her eyes and saw nothing but the reflection of mayhem and destruction besieging his castle and daughter’s room. He casually stroked a strand of sweat filled hair out of her face and placed it behind her ear, memorizing the face of the woman he fell in love with so long ago. He took one last look around the room that had been his daughter’s. Her bed posts had been broken as if they had been snapped by ogres, her silk scarlet and violet sheets torn asunder. The sheer canopy that once draped her bed; set aflame and billowing as if it were trying to escape the m******e that plagued the room. The picture of her and him burned on the nightstand beside her bed. “She loved taking pictures,” he thought as he saw the wall crumble under a massive wave of fire. The tapestries that once hung on the wall now float and fly in the air simmering away at the edges reminding him of dragon fireflies. “I bought them for her 90th birthday,” he reminded himself.

The ceiling started to cave in a little here and there, her room, his castle now all but ruins. He looks through the side of the room that was missing a wall, torn down and destroyed by a great boulder that now rests where his daughter’s bookshelf used to be. He can see his tower being battered with projectiles from catapults and the ancient beasts known as dragons dropping large stones upon the castle. None of it matters because his precious Orihime, his daughter is gone. He looks back down at his wife, holding the dagger that is in his chest and despite the rising heat from the flames filling the room; coldness creeps in and fills him. She sees the rage and hate in his eyes and tries to escape his grasp, but he refuses to let her go. He feels her shiver and cowers under his gaze and the realization that he hasn’t died yet. “Why are you still alive, Ta’Keo?” She asks horrified. He squeezes her, breaking her back. She screams out in agony, as she collapses falling to her knees the pain shoots through her entire body. He grabs a handful of her dark and wavy hair, twisting it to wrap around his hand, placing a foot upon her shoulder he pulls ripping her head and half of her broken spine from her body. Slowly he pulls the dagger from his chest and tells the corpse that was once his wife. “Because Tsubaki, it is in my nature to live!”