Rise, the Empress is Here /open\

[lullaby]

The night was cold and damp out on the streets of New York. If Elena didn't know any better she could have sworn that the city was crying. It was all the better. The city should cry at her mere presence. For her mere presence was something to cry over. Correction, her mere presence was something to tremble over. A sly grin fell upon her face as she took slow and graceful steps upon the dirty city sidewalk.

People parted ways as for the lady in a long white flowing dress. They darted around her as if they didn’t dare to touch even the hem of her dress. Behind Elena were her two subordinates and one slave who carried the hem of her dress so that it didn’t touch the filthy ground. The only thing that touched the ground was her brisk black British boots. Slave # 7, Elena thought she was called, knew that if so much as dust stained her dress her head would be upon a pike.

The men behind Slave # 7 were far from slaves but more so vampire protectors though she didn’t need them, she was far from defenseless. She could smell their silver weaponry behind her, screaming their smell at her nostrils. It was a clean smell but it wasn’t her favorite nor did she particularly dislike it in anyway. It was just another smell like so many. Unlike the filthy humans who may or may not have been carrying weapons, her men, which were dressed in exquisite dark blue suits, were carrying them openly. Perhaps that was another reason why people parted ways for her.

The only time she darted her head upwards was to check the puke green street signs which hung so high. She wasn’t sure where she was heading exactly but she did not need a reason to head anywhere. Soon she would own this pathetically simple town. She would rid the town of the innocence but she didn’t need to particularly lay her hand upon that for the town was doing a simply fine job for itself. The only thing Elena needed this town for was her shipping district. America, this place in particular, seemed to be full of benefits to reek.

Without even pausing to cross the street with the flow of the light she began her descent across the street. A yellow taxi cab stopped mid-brake and honked at her. Her man, Milson, she didn’t need to turn around and see him un sheath his sword and stab it through the driver of the vehicle. She heard the familiar sound of the slice and glass breaking simultaneously as her nostrils filled with the scent of the mans blood. The smell was simply putrid to her nose! It was an insult!

“His blood disgusts me! Make him feel pain!” Elena ordered without even turning around. With that she picked up her pace and crossed the street. Her men, her men were not the most decent around. They were just like she, they loved to cause the humans pain. If Milson wanted to he could have put an end to the mans life and he would have never knew what was happening. But that wasn’t what had happened, Milson had made him feel pain and would be twisting his blade inside the man so that he felt like he were on fire.

Elena continued to walk down the street as she picked up her arms and crossed them. Her eyes flickered to the homeless man down a short ways sitting and begging for coins. His blood smelt like alcohol and drugs, she didn’t need an open wound to smell his blood. It was a bit enticing though she would never sink so low as to touch someone so filthy. She only feasted from the finest men. All these crazy notions about feeding from the wrong doings, the elderly and animals? That was simply sickening. Nothing but the best would reach Elena’s lips.

“Milson. Bruce. Bid me leave tonight. I want to be alone now.” Her men would never question her but they bowed even though her back was to them and departed. Her men would appear home and prepare for bed after finding something to feast on. It was always like the two to prefer their blood fresh. And of course when Elena said that she wanted to be alone she did, but her slave was non existent. It was just there and she paid it no mind.

She wandered on into the streets of what appeared to be the park, if, of course, the signs pointed the right way. It was surprising to see a spot of green in this jungle of concrete. To her left was a group of young boys playing basketball, though they pretended to not notice her she knew that they were watching. Elena took her time as she turned her backside away from a park bench, preparing herself to sit. It was the job of her slave to pull up her hem and then hand it to Elena in a long bow.

As the slave # 7 began her long bow Elena noticed an obstruction. Disease. Filth. Instead of grabbing the hem of her dress she grabbed onto the girls hand and pulled her forwards. “Filth. Obstinate filth!” Elena was so mad she could spit! “How dare you, you insolent slag!” Her slave had dirt underneath her fingernail. Why if her dress was ruined, no, this girl was already dead. Elena raised her right hand in the air and held the girl by her finger with her left, the slave never had a chance as Elena slapped the girl, snapping her neck in the process.

The noise of a ball bouncing became obvious as Elena ignored the sight of the stillness, limp body of her slave and turned to the baseball game players. All of them had fearful faces. She could practically smell the fear. She didn’t even stand up from her seat to chase them down as they ran. She raised her right hand and closed her eyes playing the music of last nights opera in her mind. She could feel the dirt as it swarm around each of the boys. With the dirt flying mildly into the air, the grass dropping swiftly to the ground not needed, forming an air pocket which could neither take out the air already inside nor let in new air.

Elena hummed the opera to herself remembering the masterpiece. The screams of the boys muffled the sound, ruining her humming. She scowled with anger and closed the excess space between the dirt and the boys making it smaller. They had thought herself to be nice by giving them some breathing room. But here they were being quite rude to her by screaming and ruining her song. After a few minutes the boys had run out of air and dropped to the ground where the dirt disappeared. If she had wanted to, she could have held them up in the air, suspended. But then someone else would come and see the action and then she would have to kill them too.

She didn’t count the bodies as she picked herself up. It mattered not how many worthless lives had been lost. Elena only knew one thing, that it would make headlines. She picked up her dress and proceeded through the park taking a lovely stroll. She would not let their foolishness ruin her evening!

[rowan kestrel amber]

Amethyst fixed the brooch on her cloak as she stopped her fledglings. Once a year she came to New York to see how her youngling was. She had many fledglings, but she spent time with them at a different time of the year to see how they were doing in the world and were getting along fine without her help catching their meals. She didn't teach them which blood to feast on; they had to find that out themselves.

Sensing a disturbance up ahead in the park she stopped the man she turned 100 years before in Boston. She took care of the people she turned when she had the time. She had even feasted with the man when they found a group of teens from one of the richest families in New York. She could see bodies lying around near the basketball court like something killed them in an instant.

Thoughts were going through her mind on what or who could have done this. Even she wasn't that skilled to kill people with a simple touch of a finger. But who did have this kind of power? And how do they get past without being noticed? Her question was soon answered when she saw a woman in a white dress walking on the path as if she was the queen of the world. Amethyst simply laughed at the thought.

She hated it when people thought they were better than others because of their high-ranking status in life. Sure Amethyst had a high-ranking status among some of the vampires in Romania, but she thought of herself equal and helped plenty of them in the past if they needed any. Not many did, as they felt embarrassed to even ask such a thing from her.

Yet now this woman looked scary. Not someone she had seen before. But even Amethyst herself felt scared against this woman. She had turned to her friend and told him to get the hell out of dodge and stay away until she went to go find him. She didn't want to see him get turned into dust just as he reached 150 years old this year.

She slowly moved out from behind the tree to get a better look of the woman that walked like she was the Queen of the World. She didn't know what to expect from this woman so she just asked a simple small question.

"Um. I don't mean to be rude, but why do you look as if looks can kill? I mean your scaring all of the livestock away and its sort of rude on your behalf. Who are you?"

[lullaby]

Elena took in the scent of the air now here in the park, even without considering the fresh dead bodies the air still seemed stiff. There was just something wrong about a forest in the middle of a concrete jungle. It all seemed fake and man made. Maybe she was just imagining it but all she could smell was concrete, the fake stiffness of the smell of old concrete. Anything in this park was because it should be not because nature had made the placement so.

She found herself still gazing at the scenery. Of course this park could not even remotely compare itself to her native homeland park, it still seemed breathtaking in its own way. Conceivably because humans could sometimes be fascinating creatures. Or possibly she was enjoying the park so much because the simple minded humans had covered up all the dirt with the concrete.

It wasn’t a weakness that she longed to be near the dirt it was just a preference. She grasped her hand on one of the bars over the rather large park bridge leading to the other side. Elena, for some reason, had paused to look at the small stream. She couldn’t be sure it was man made or not but then again it really didn’t matter. However still fish were calling it home. The fish thought they were safe but Elena thought not.

Her powers longed to be used, she had kept them bottled up for so long. What was the point in using them on minor killings? The point Elena had been trying to make, no, making, was that she was a force to be feared; she was a force to be reckoned with. Point in moot, if you pissed her off something terrible, then expect to be paid a visit to hell by use of her powers. Death by mother nature was not something to look forwards to.

If one really thought back on it, they would have realized that Elena had been rather cruel when she killed the boys on the basketball field. Aside from killing them she had done it rather cruelly, it was worse to have some sort of sense of freedom and room to struggle then dying without a method and means to struggle away. It was simply because struggling gave a person hope. And it was particularly cruel since the boys should not have had hope but they did. Their screams proved so, as did the blood she smelled from where they struggled.

She glared down at the fishes that were quite unaware as to what she was going to do next. Elena leaned over the edge of the railing and twirled her index finger, moving the dirt and rocks from off of the shore onto the water. She pulled rock after rock into the clear blue water, playing with the fish by making it go where she wanted it to by a simple matter of placing the rock where the fish would then go in the opposite direction. When she finally got the fish near the edge she used one of the larger rocks she had been saving and managed to splash the fish out of the water and onto the shore. Of course she could have also brought all of the dirt into the river upwards, but, she felt that that would have been cheating.

Elena chuckled silently to herself as the fish began to thwart and realize it couldn’t breathe. Her act left her pondering. Would the New York Police Department, NYPD, connect the death of the boys and this fish together? The boys and the fish had both died of lack of air. Of course her servant had died by means of a broken neck. She had no doubt in her that the police would concoct some stupid reason as to connect the death of everyone in the park, even if one minor person had a different means of death. But no, they would overlook the death of the fish.

She had then begun to get excited. What exactly would tomorrow’s newspaper say? Would it give out the names of the boys? What would they say about her servant? They would never know the girls name because she truly didn’t exist. Her mother, Elena thought, had been the daughter of a previously deceased servant. Point in moot again, her servant’s history did not matter at all. The girl did not exist in any records, they would never find out where exactly she had come from. Not even if they could try and trace her last eaten meal or the cloth and dirt underneath her fingertips.

Oh yes. Elena, despite her age knew of the latest advances in forensic science. How could she not? There were no dental records on Slave # 7, no social security number, she didn’t even have a passport. There was nothing to worry about. And Elena had flown out on her own private plane and never saw a face. She had had Baker make all the arrangements with the landing manager, he was her face person. When people wanted to deal with her, they dealt with him instead. She, like everyone else of her age, wished to deal and do business in secret.

Elena heard the soft rattling of bushes. How could she not? Her hearing was beyond average and far beyond any normal vampire. It was one of the perks of being born a vampire instead of being some lucky twit and being turned into an always second rate vampire. She thought about moving onwards but then it would look like she had just fled from a crime scene. She could pretend that she was traveling in that direction and had just paused to view the scenery. No, that wasn’t the reason she stayed still. She was curious about her peeping tom.

She stared the figure down, staring at the spot she knew them to be. It was then she saw a female figure. Vampire. She had a young face and couldn’t be more then twenty years of age. Without even needing her to speak she knew that the woman was an American. But now that she spoke, Yankee came to mind. They were always very bold and always very stupid. Did they never learn to hold their tongues?

Elena sighed. “You Yankees!” Elena’s face looked perfectly innocent. She was covered from her forehead to her chin with white powder which she knew would stay in place without needing another touch up. Elena never sweat and she never blushed. Her eye shadow was perfectly delectable in three shades of gray with a midnight black eyeliner. Her look finished with blood red lipstick. Her hair was parted on either side of her head with a bun covered with a big white bow. It looked like she was late for a wedding or that she had lost her groom. But, when Elena had grown up all she had ever known was white. White, the color of innocence. How could Elena scare away livestock? And where was livestock?

“I was not aware that there were any livestock in New York.” What Elena wanted to know was: Who was this bold vampire? And did they know who they were speaking to? Why if either of her guard where here, they would have chopped the woman into bits making her feel each and every blow. “But, I will say this only once. Watch your tongue around me, turned vampire!” It was an insult upon insults. In the eyes of born vampires anyone who was turned was second class, right below themselves but just above slaves. Elena had no qualms about killing vampires. Anyone who mouthed off to her was dead.

And that brought up another question into her mind. Had the woman seen the dead bodies? Because if she had then she certainly wouldn’t have been being quite rude to anyone for fear that she was next. Perhaps Elena should have covered up the bodies first. But that would have been a waste of time. And she wanted to see them in the news, if only, after she had walked away from them had she that idea. Save for, the woman was a damned Yankee. Of course she had seen the bodies. Why else would she have sulked in the bushes in the first place? This woman would soon learn that even though she was a vampire she was still always in danger, if at least only from other vampires.

“Who am I you say? Who am I?” Elena didn’t need to use her fingers or hands or wave anything to make the earth do what she wanted. It was admittedly how she had done it at first but she only needed concentration, the rest, was just habit a very old habit. By the time she had said her first ‘who’ she was already concentrating on moving the earth to form a big hole to fit the bodies. It would be terribly funny when the two went back and found none. Of course it would take a few more days to be discovered in the paper.

Her bright white nails which glittered with red painted on designs tapped on the metal beam to prevent anyone from falling down below. She didn’t need much time but she thought she would be a bit dramatic. Elena was always dramatic. In her youth she was called the Temptress or before, the Lady in White. “They used to call me the Lady in White.” The young American would have no idea who she was though she had been featured in plenty of British and Hungarian history books.

As a child, or at least when she had lived in home she would use the earth to help her walk on water. She would sing her opera songs until the people of the church opened the doors and gazed at her. They would praise her and then she would tell them that she was an angel sent from heaven to take one kind soul with herself. Then she would tell them that they had to fight to the death unless the town choose one soul willingly. They always fought each other. And then Elena would take a willing victim into the large forest, suck them dry and bury them. When she left home she stopped her play acting because she couldn’t afford to be found by the people who would know the rumors for what they were when they heard them.

Elena felt that the hole was large enough. The bodies were all small being very athletic minus her slave who was just underfed and undernourished. She blinked once, a human act, as she urged the dirt to roll itself onto the pavement and scoop up the bodies, pushing them towards the hole. The act was very much like an escalator or you could compare it with moving stairs.

“I do doubt that the American history book has much history in it. Pray tell, who are you?” Elena turned away from the woman and looked up at the moon. It was another insult, turning her head away from the vampire. This showed the woman that she wasn’t scared of her. The woman could do her no harm. No, this young teenage vampire could do her no harm. If the woman dared to move at her Elena could be behind her in a flash, having ripped off both of her arms in the process oh of course!

[rowan kestrel amber]

Fiesty. There were other words Amethyst could think of, but that one seemed to stand out to her the most about this woman. She had read very little about some of the vampires of Europe, but she did know about the The Lady In White. But just a little. Who would call her a yankee? Amethyst wasn't a yankee.

"I'm sorry. You seem to have mistaken. I'm not a Yankee. I'm from Romania. The name's Amethyst Stone. Name ring a bell. My family owned a large castle in Romania during the late 1600's earlier 1700's. I have heard very little about you. I don't come to harm you. I have no need to. I was just simply curious."

Amethyst was trying to be reasonable with her words as to not offend the woman. From the looks of how the woman had reacted with such things she wasn't a person to mess with or get on their bad side. And being careful with her words she was. She didn't even want to know what this woman would do if Amethyst got on her bad side.

Yankee. What an insult. An insult not to be taken lightly. It was a new name for Amethyst. Sure she had lived here during the 1800's, but that didn't mean she was a true Yankee. She really wasn't a fan of such people being called Yankees that actually took the name to use. Sure there was a sports team of sorts with the names, but she couldn't recal what city or sport they played. Maybe it was baseball, but then again she wasn't a fan of those kind of games.

Amethyst glanced up and down of the woman. White. Dress. Frills. White Makeup. Blood Red Lipstick. Creepy. Amethyst thought that was weird. Wouldn't this so called Lady In White be afraid of getting her dress dirty and turned to the color of red? Maybe. Maybe not, but she didn't want to find out if she had to go against this woman for whatever reason.

She was the weaker being, not the full fledge vampire, like the Lady in White. Sure she was a vampire, but she didn't think herself to be pure. So it didn't really bother her very much if she was mistaken as something else or of a lesser being. She was used it always being the one to be blamed for something that wasn't her fault.

Growing seemed harshed to her. Out of her siblings she was the one to be blamed for all the fights even if she had no part in any of it. First of all, Amethyst was just trying to be a lady and how to do certain things in the presense of another being. Something she still isn't very good at to this day. She's not very good with her manners quite yet either. Sure she knows how to keep her mouth shut, but not the words she uses to speak her mind.

She stepped back a bit to give the elder vampiress space and room to do whatever she was doing to cover up the bodies of the boys. She had seen what the woman had done, but she wasn't going to speak a soul of it. She had no need to. It wasn't her buisness to do so. And if the woman wanted to brag about her kill she could, but Amethyst wasn't going to do anything to help give honour to the boys' names. That was their fault for coming out at such a time.

"May I ask why you are here in America? Not very many elder vampires venture out of their homelands to visit somewhere else. Very few do."

[lullaby]

Elena kept her gaze on the moon. If she was not mistaken it was a waning crescent. The moon was twenty-five percent full. It was not an important matter for her to learn the moon phases but after you got around to living so long you picked up pointless knowledge. But knowledge of the moon was never really pointless, it helped you predict when the dogs would be unleashed.

Werewolves were never scary, far from it. Still, she would prefer to not meet one in the flesh. For they were nasty creatures, germy and full of all the filth one associated with owning a pet. If she had wanted to rid her territory of wolves it would only be too easy. It was much like tossing a stick and making them chance an automobile. That was at least how she saw those furry beats and her own opinion was naturally the only one that mattered.

Elena laughed a beautiful glorious laugh. It was said that when she laughed angels died and went to heaven. Her mistaken? Her afraid of being harmed by this slapper? “My,” she paused hastening to use the word ‘darling’ though it was only natural for her. “Darling,” she continued. “It is you that must be mistaken. For I am never wrong!” Elena turned her gaze against from the moon and looked down at the creature that called itself Amethyst Stone.

With her right hand Elena brushed her hair back though it was already in place from every single strand. Her hands were covered with two white gloves which protected from both the elements and prevented theft of fingerprints. She used her right hand and gave a phony yawn. “And it is you who must be mistaken if you think I care who you are or where your castle is located.” She could honestly say that she had never heard of an Amethyst Stone or a Stone family before.

There were such vampires that she had no interest in. They may be older than three hundred and they might have been quite wealthy but they were old money who had no current business affairs. Perhaps if the Stone family had been rather wealthy she might have heard of them but she had not. That told Elena that she had nothing to worry about. The only sort of vampires she heard about were the ones who had business affairs the same as hers, or those who could rival her own.

The only motto vampires seemed to follow was ‘keep your friends close, yet your enemies closer’. The same was of course interchangeable with business partners. Elena never would have gotten as far as she had without her powers and business partners. Of course Elena had far, far been past the days of sucking up. She could not recall a time when she had ever been weakened and needed to shake all the right hands of all the right people. No, it was others who did the sucking up to Elena. It was Elena who decided whether a business stayed or failed. If anything wanted to happen in her city it was her to give the yeigh or neigh.

A smile was brought onto her face. It seemed like only overnight centuries ago had she risen up to power overnight. Once people had seen what she could do, what horrors could be unfolded did she simply just take over. She had had some problems like all the good leaders had, but she had taken care of the problems. There was no pity, there was no sympathy, there was no second chances. The problems were eliminated and her rise to power had transgressed quite smoothly.

Elena focused on the girls face. She could find no visible perfection. She blinked her eyes once though there was no need. She was focusing on giving the girl a deathly stare. She should know when to back down. It would disgrace a person of Elena’s position if she were to answer her other comment. How would Elena be afraid of this girl? If Elena wanted her dead it would only take half a second.

She removed her white gloves again revealing her pale, hairless arms. Her nails were long and painted with a fresh red coat of polish. “Do you see my nails?” Elena stepped forwards until she was right in front of the girl. If she had to breath her warm breath would have been pressed against the own girls nose, for Elena was slightly taller in height and with her high heeled shoes. “I coat them with a special polish. One scratch and any vampire will be on their knees writhing in pain. No, it’s not silver and it won’t kill them. But it hurts, pardon my language, like a bitch!”

Her fingers caressed the female vampires soft cheeks as she trailed her nails against the girls soft flesh. If she wanted to, she would have the girl trying to rip off her own face flesh! It would be quite amusing, actually. But it would require Elena to re do her own nail polish. She would have to remove her current polish and wait till her nails dried. And then and only then would a new coat be applied. It would be quite frightful if the color of her nail was too light or dark then her other nails. It was then that she realized she had no nail specialist!

The bastard had displeased her. She had him killed. She was far too important to kill such a simplistic human herself. Elena hadn’t charged someone with finding her a new nail specialist. She put that mentally on a list inside her mind of something to do when she arrived home. Hopefully the newest one wouldn’t displease her.

She grabbed the woman’s chin and held it tight so she could not escape. “What. I. Am. Doing. In. America. Is. None. Of. Your. Business.” She spoke each word low, emphasizing each and every word as if they were truly important. Which of course they were. She tightened her grip on the woman’s chin. If she applied a bit more pressure the jaw would break and the poor thing wouldn’t be able to talk. What a shame.

She released the girls jaw with a push and trotted back to the court where no bodies would be found. “I suggest you learn manners. Perhaps by picking up a copy of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell’s book on manners.” Of course Gaskell was a woman’s author in the eighteen hundreds who unfortunately passed away in 1865. “Auh the Victorian Era.” It had been a lovely time period. If several parts of time it was being picked up. If only, however, it spread worldwide. She had said that only as a comment towards herself, not to in spark conversation with that Amethyst slapper Yankee woman.

Elena’s feet walked over on the sidewalk, her back was now to the woman called Amethyst. She grinned to herself as her eyes scanned the court and park area without so much as moving her head. She could see that the hole in which they were tossed looked undisturbed and un dug up. Grass was growing over it. However, if someone were to accidentally walk over it they might just find themself falling inward and joining the bodies.

It would only be too easy to correct the dirt. But she did not wish it. The bodies could be hidden for months, years, perhaps. But wouldn’t it be much fun to have someone discover the bodies the hard way? She could just imagine it now. The headlines. Traumatized Youth Falls into Body Pool. Of course her fun wouldn’t happen overnight but she could wait. That was the only thing vampires did, wait. She could wait away the centuries.

Elena sighed. “You’re still going to follow me, aren’t you? Is your life so unimportant that you’d wish for a spice of adventure, even if it might mean death?” She shook her head as if answering her own question. “Yankees!” That was said to herself but they both knew the woman would hear her say it. Instead of turning out of the park, Elena took another path. She smelt something delicious.

[rowan kestrel amber]

Amethyst stood still as the woman talked on about such things. Though she was still when the woman gentle brushed her nails across Amethyst's cheeks. She would have thought the woman would harm her. She also looked surprised when she felt the woman grab her chin. Assulting wasn't something Amethyst was used. But she wasn't going to report it to the Police in fear of what the woman would do to her if she did report it.

"I do have manners. They just aren't ones your acustomed to, Miss."

She watched as the lady in white started to move toward where the buried bodies of the teens laided hidden at. Am moved slowly toward the woman trying not to be disrespectful. The woman was her elder and upsetting an elder was not something she wanted to be disrespectful of.

"You just want to amuse yourself with this. Don't you? You could say I would follow you, but then again what else is there to do? Its not every day you meet an elder from a few centuries or more older than yourself. Now is it? No. Don't answer that.

I am not a YANKEE! My father was a Duke! Not some pleasant and I was born in Romania and still live there to this day. I was never born here. SUre I may have stayed here, but there was plenty of food here to keep me fed for years to come."

Now Amethyst was getting defensive. She now hated being called a Yankee by this woman. But not only did she raise her voice it also sounded as if she insulted the woman herself. Amethyst didn't want to know what the woman had in mind in tormenting, but she just wanted it to stop soon, not that she could do anything to save herself.

The woman was probably stronger than herself and Amethyst would be no match to the Lady in White even if they did come into combat. She backed away slowly as to not cause any trouble. Her head was bent as she moved backwards as to not upset the woman any further.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to get defesnive. Its a bit of a habit with some animals."

And by animals she meant humans. She had gone back to feasting on humans instead of pig's blood after growing tired of drinking the same thing over and over again for the last hundred years or so. She looked to the Lady In White to see what her response was hoping it didn't meant htayt she was going tobe called a Yankee again and harmed for being disrespectful and not having any manners.

[lullaby]

Elena closed her eyes and laughed a sweet innocent laugh. Manners she wasn’t accustomed to? Obviously. Any sort of manners Yankees claimed to have were not ones she wanted to familiarize herself with. It was a well known fact among anyone that was not American that Americans were nothing but rude, un intelligent and lacked a common sense of decency though they held a high sense of self preservation.

If vampires were decent then Elena would not be counted as one. However, she was fair, if only by a bit. That brought a snort of laughter to her. Her fair? “Heh.” It was only Elena’s way or the high way! Anyone who dared to do something different then the norm was killed or at least tortured until they conformed.

She would have to stop and ponder for a while to remember who the last person was who dared do something against her judgment and firm ruling. Elena would not be able to remember the story and history off of the top of her head. And the subject would most likely have not been interesting enough to note down on paper. If it had, which it had not, there would be hundreds of years to read.

Her older employees and servants would most likely remember the incident even if she did not. However there would be no plausible way to bring up the subject with them, and she did not care enough to remember the incident. If she were to remember it, it would have to be important, which it was not, the reason for banishment upon her memory. But she knew this, whomever it was, they had deserved whatever they had received.

Elena yawned silently. She continued to walk as she replied to bits and pieces of Amethyst’s questions. “My dear, what else is there to do besides amuse ones self?” What was the point in continuing to live if life was elementary boring? The woman had seemed to make it sound as if Elena was simply barbaric for her entertainment. What did this vampire do to pass the time? Did she paint? How boring! How normal!

She did nothing but sigh, her annoyance rapidly increasing with every word the American vampire spoke. “Do not give me orders!” Elena’s voice carried a soft but very hasty warning. She was familiar with the fresh Americans, but to think that one would even dare request that she not reply! American vampires were quite stupid. They should be dancing on their toes, bowing to her every word spoken and every order given. She was not feeling enjoyment towards this disrespectful American, if she wanted to have people speak to her like that then she would have went to a theater musical or a new fangled club, whatever those were.

In a haste she hesitantly stopped. Without even turning around or moving her hands in any certain direction she began to concentrate upon the earth. Without even looking behind her or smelling the earth she knew it was flying and circling around the woman. She could tighten her grasp on the earth and choke the death out of the woman or she could make her implode. There were so many options and none of them seemed to let the woman live.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you? One reason why I shouldn’t force your lungs to burst. A reason why I shouldn’t force your ribs and cage to dust!” To be even more delightful Elena had stated her question in a terribly friendly the voice, the sort you would use when asking a friend if they wanted some oderb the servant was just pondering over on a tray with.

Elena turned around slowly, watching and enjoying the looks of the female vampires face. The scent of her emotions was delightful. Though of course another’s vampires blood would never fully Elena, it was delightful all the same. The drinking of another vampires blood was sometimes a very intimate thing. An intimate thing she could never imagine sharing with another woman, even so a vampire.

The brown dirt flew around the one who called herself Amethyst. Aside from dirt flew a variety of rocks from small to large, grass, including roots, and a variety of bugs, though the eye would have to be very keen to pick up on such detail, especially from afar. To any human looking over the scene may look like wind or even a mini hurricane.

The air was sweetened with the scent of fear but also with the lingering scent of human. Elena’s human was somewhere in the park, close. She would not let this woman ruin her meal. She would be damned if that happened! The human male’s blood was sweet, very sweet. And unlike the living un dead, it would fill her and quench her thirst and lust, for tonight at least.

The woman’s father was a Duke in Romania? Her father had been King of Romania! 1409 and onwards, of course she had not kept up with Romania in all her years away. When she had lived in what was now Romania, it had just been a providence of Hungary.

With just once glance the dirt wall tightened. “What say you, Yankee? I have other pressing matters to attend to tonight.” This Yankee seemed incredibly daft, stupid. The whole matter was ridiculous. The woman should have just accepted being called a Yankee. It mattered not if from North or South, all American’s were called Yankees.