Lover, Assassin, Witch....

Hello, you've reached Surreal SaDiablo. I'm not available at the moment, but please leave me a message, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

So, here we are on the historic occasion of Sam and Surreal FINALLY getting married.

The wedding will be October 31st. Because it is in the Realm, time is all bendy anyway, and feel free to still come even if you want to do Samhain parties around the 'verses. Wedding and reception will go on as long as they go on. We'll probably write up the wedding itself as a post, then let the reception go from there.

All muses, all universes, who know Sam or Surreal or are coming as dates of people who know them are more than welcome. Methos is officiating, so yes--that means he and Wes and Fred will be out of hiding for the event. *g* Also, just wrap your minds around that for a bit--Methos is officiating. *mad giggles*

We hope you all can make it!

It was hard won, and bittersweet, and there were more losses than I think any of us had reckoned on. Dorothea was dead, painfully so, and Hekatah thrown into the Darkness as well. The Blood were purged of their taint, and only a few remained in Terreille at all. In Kaeleer, even, there were fewer left than we might have wished, more tainted by the immigration than we realized, I think.

Daemon and Lucivar were strained, separate, the vision of what he had done to Marian and Daemonar's shadows lingering between them. Saetan, I think, understood more, but still, the words had hurt and his torture had taken a toll, and what they were forced to later, even now I do not know. My own body was bruised, by my own insistence, and I think for a long time Daemon was broken. But more than that, he came home expecting Jaenelle. He came home expecting a wedding band.

I came home expecting my mother still to be there.

We were both perhaps too hopeful in what we expected.

Everything has a price, you see. Even triumph. It's a lesson we Blood learn young, and the price of forgetting that there will be a price is often far higher than what we reckoned on paying.

I did win one, of sorts, though I can’t say that it’s one I’m personally proud of achieving. Though, I suppose, one should always take pride in one’s work. It isn’t my work anymore, of course. I gave it up from the night I found Jaenelle bleeding and broken on the bed, but it was before, and I always had mixed feelings.

I hated many of the men who came to my bed, but not all. With a few regulars there was at least a sense of familiarity, and sometimes there was even pleasure. No matter how I came to it, I rarely hated sex itself after the things I learned. There were days I despised myself for that, that I could take pleasure even in the games of the bedroom. But it was that ability to find pleasure, as well as the complete ability to control it that made me what I was.

I was, quite simply, the best. The highest paid whore in all of Terreille. I graced a house by deigning to practice there. No madam would turn me away, because I paid her price, and I made us both rich when I worked there. I set my price, and when I raised it—they paid. Few women in my line of work can truly say that. Few had the freedom I had. I traveled. I went where I pleased. I had homes, times away from work. I was recognized. I was admired. I was free.

But that appellation—that was how they knew me. “The highest paid whore in Terreille. I suppose it is some sort of award in a land known for it’s cruel games between the sexes and a place in the only profession where men were allowed to dominate. I made the rules. I overcame my past. I prospered. And that means something.

What part of "assassin" don't you understand, sugar?

I've killed countless members of my own species. Mostly males, but a few females as well, and sugar, believe me, I'd do it again if it all comes 'round again.

I like to think I never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, at least, but honestly wondering that is not something that keeps me up at night. People who knew to hire me, knew that I went for honest kills. No rivalries. No wanting to get someone out of the way who had slighted you. I killed males who hurt little girls. Males who raped and broke witches. Males who left children bleeding in the streets when they were done taking their pleasure with them. Males like my father, and males like the man who raped me, and all those clients who preyed on me when I was on the streets. Who hit me. Who tried to get away without paying for the things I let them do to me.

I killed the first one while he was still inside me, after he'd beaten me beforehand. I killed him, and I took his money, and I ran. It was instinct, pure and wild and broken, and it earned me a reputation that at least stopped them from hitting me most of the time before they took me, and made sure they paid for the "pleasure." Then Daemon honed it. He had me trained. He found me contacts. Finally, there were clients who paid more for one flick of my knife than I made in a month on my back.

I'm retired, now. I don't hire myself out for pleasure or death. That doesn't mean I won't kill again. "Murder" is not a crime among the Blood, and I always have my blade at the ready.

If you could pick anyone in the world, alive or dead, to be your parents, who would it be and why?

I would not trade my mother for anyone. There is nothing that would tempt me to choose anyone else. She risked her life for me, just to have me, and died for it eventually. And then again, in the end, she gave up her existence as demon-dead to step back into the Darkness to save us all. She was strong and she was courageous and she was beautiful and did what she needed to do to keep her child safe and fed, and I loved her.

My father on the hand, I'd be happy to be rid of even more than I am. I look in the mirror and I see his skin, his hair. I sent him to Hell and I would gladly erase him even further if I was able. I think, instead, I would choose Saetan. I know Lucivar and Daemon have had their issues with him, but those were not of his making, but Dorothea's. He's a good man, and a good father. Jaenelle was lucky when he stepped in as hers. He is kind, and he is wise. He understands what it means to Serve in a way that keeps the Blood strong, and he wears his Jewels with authority, even now as a Guardian. He took that step to wait, to serve, to protect our world.

Who would not want such a man to be their father?

If you had asked me this a hundred years ago, I would have said no. Demon-dead, perhaps. Guardians, possibly. But not ghosts. The dead who are strong enough make the transition to demon dead. Those who are not fade back into the eternal night. The concept of being caught between the two was too terrifying to contemplate.

It still is, but now I feel I must believe, because I have seen them.

Everything grew misty, farther away. I felt the world spin and the air crackle, and then there they were.

The first was a girl, hanging by her neck in a tree over a patch of witchblood. Her leg brushed over me, and but for Jaenelle's presence, I would have screamed. There were others. Girls missing their hands. One missing a leg. A leg the men who raped and killed her served for dinner. Misty shapes unable to move on, unable to leave Briarwood, unable to leave their bodies. They had been so very strong, surviving so much, but in the end, they were too damaged, too broken by the things done to them to make the transition to cidru dyathe.

I didn't want to believe, but how could I not, after that? I have not seen a ghost since that night, never seen those girls again, never been back to Briarwood after I fled with Jaenelle.

But I will never forget.

"Mother Night, that hurts," Surreal gritted out between clenched teeth. Women did not do this every day. It was impossible to think that anyone went through this much pain for something that was supposed to be a joyous event.

Of course, said joyous event was weeks early, which had to mean it wasn't even the actual pain she would have later. She squeezed her eyes shut, fingernails biting into her palm until she drew blood, trying to deflect the pain from her abdomen and the tightening there. She had held off her moontime before, and knew how horrid it would be the month she let it come, and somehow she had expected it to be like that, not this.

She had fought. She had been beaten. She had been raped. And, possibly, if she really cast her memory back to the latter she would admit that pain was far worse than this, but that wasn't somewhere she liked for her memory to go, and so right now she clung tightly to the thought that this was possibly the worst pain she had ever felt. Making it worse was that laced over the pain was fear, cold and clutching at her in a way nothing had since possibly that night at Briarwood.

It was too soon. She didn't know nearly enough about babies and how they were supposed to come, but Morghann had said not until the beginning of March, at least, possibly the middle of the month, and it was not anywhere near that yet.

Another contraction clutched at her, and she felt tears seep out from under her squeezed tight eyelids.

Scared, and hoping he could somehow stop this betrayal of her body of her and the baby it carried, she sent for Samael, and then she did something else she never thought she would do.

She prayed.

This concept of kissing under a plant is something that is new to me. In a culture such as mine, I'm surprised we didn't come up with some sort of tradition along these lines, but there is none I know of. Oh, there are Winsol kisses, of course, but nothing such as your mistletoe.

It was an interesting experience, hanging the plants. Rather, I ordered them hung, after Samael explained, because clambering up on ladders is not something I find myself able to do with any sort of grace at this time.

Even with the explanation of its purpose, I did not expect it to become the focus of our entire party, but that is what happened. Perhaps it is just the excuse for licentiousness? The approval to meet others who are not your mate under a plant and have it all be acceptable. I admit to participating in it, but only on a small scale. The Doctor is a most agreeable man, and quite a proficient kisser. In another time and place, I might have sought to pursue something a bit more with such a man, but it is not that time, nor that place and the kiss will slide to a momentary still shot from an agreeable evening.

The second kiss will linger longer, for all that there have been many others between us. It was different, perhaps, than kisses I am used to. There was familiarity in it. The kiss of lovers well settled with each other, and that alone is something new. Triumph in it, that so many were enjoying our hospitality. Excitement for the coming year and the changes it will bring. Happiness in finding our way through this year. Want, need, yes, but not the overwhelming force of it.

A kiss between lovers.

I think, perhaps, that it is more memorable than any other I have received.