The Prey and the Predator

Alistair snapped.
Though, Evoni didn’t know it.
He kept perfectly calm; his composure not changing in the slightest, but within him the rage of a thousand dark storms had erupted.
All he knew was that tonight…he was going hunting.

Evoni smiled up at him.
“What’s with you?” she asked him. “Why are you being so grumpy?”
He broke out of his trance for a moment and gave her a slight smile.
“Wow, that must be the fakest smile I have ever seen.” She laughed. “Alistair, promise me something?”
“…Yes. What is it?”
“Promise me that…you won’t let what I’ve told you affect you. It’s of the past. It’s gone, it cannot be changed. And soon it will just fade out of memory, so don’t worry about it.”
“It may fade out of your memory, child. But never out of mine.” Alistair answered.
“Let me guess, you’re a vampire so you can’t forget anything?”
“Exactly.” He responded unemotionally.
Evoni looked away.
“I guess you’re expecting me to feel sorry for you.” Evoni said to him. “Because you can’t escape bad memories like humans sometimes can, and you’re filled up inside with so many things. But I…I can’t help but feel jealous of you, Alistair.”
“What?” he whispered in shock.
“If only I hadn’t forgotten.” She said. “If only I hadn’t forgotten how to play piano, then I wouldn’t have been unhappy, even if I was unhappy for only a short period of time. If only I hadn’t forgotten how my father had treated my mother, then I wouldn’t have run away to him for refuge and I wouldn’t be living with him now. If only I hadn’t forgotten…”
She pressed the A key of the piano. A single note rang out.
“You know, I was watching you play. You play really well. Really gracefully, like your fingers were gliding through water, that’s what I had thought. It just hurt more because…I knew I could play just as well as you. We could’ve played together, you know.” She laughed. “And then, knowing me, I would’ve gotten really competitive and try to kick your but, and then, knowing you, you would have left me for dead on the keyboard and then I would probably throw a book at your head or something.” She laughed again. “That would have been so fun.”
He couldn’t help but laugh, he imagined it just like that too.
“You know…” Evoni began, smiling softly. “I wish…that whoever it is that makes you forget a talent would at least have the decency to make you forget that you even had a talent.”
She pressed down the A key again.
“You know…right now I really feel like playing Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’, or Rachmaninov’s ‘Vocalise’. They were really pretty songs on the piano.”
She began to hum the familiar tune of ‘Moonlight sonata’. She stopped suddenly and poked her tongue out at Alistair.
“Dude, why do you have to be so depressing?” she yelled at him.
“I haven’t said anything.” Alistair answered unemotionally.
“Exactly! What the hell, man!? Cheer the fuck up!”
“Don’t swear.”
“It was a joke.”
“I know.” He chuckled. “Come on, let’s go.”
Evoni jumped up and started to walk out of the room with Alistair, and then she realized that now Alistair was back to normal she was going to get told off for running off with Conan the night before. She was not looking forward to the punishment from Alistair. She began to bolt out the door.
“I don’t think so.” He said firmly, grabbing her arm and pulling her back to him.
“Err…Truce?” Evoni pleaded.
He didn’t answer her.
“Umm…would it make any difference if I told you that I’m really, reeeeaaaaally sorry?”
“No.” he said just as firmly as before.

After about 20 minutes of Alistair trying to tell her that lying was morally wrong and that sneaking out of the house without permission was just asking for trouble.
“And in the dark no less!” he hissed angrily. “What would you have done if you were kidnapped? Or hurt?”
“I would have kicked them in the balls really, really hard.”
“This is not a joke, Evoni! I’m very disappointed in you.”
Evoni cracked up laughing. Before she had been able to keep a serious, even somewhat ashamed face as he yelled at her, but now she couldn’t help herself.
“ ‘Disappointed in me’!” she laughed again. “You sound like my parent!”
“Somebody has to be.” He answered darkly.
Evoni paused, her face staring at the ground, her eyes wide. She had not expected a hit as low as that.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He said quickly.
“It’s alright!” she said smiling up at him. “Its alright, I know what you mean. You call me ‘child’ all that time because you’re a lot older than me. I guess you are sort of like a parent!” she said, shrugging off the hurt of his hit and becoming childish and cheerful once again.
“Evoni…”
“It’s alright, Alistair. I understand, really, I do-”
He broke off as he pulled her to him.
“I feel obliged to protect you.” He said. “You’re so small and…breakable.”
“I am not small- I’m 15!” she tried to argue.
“Exactly.” He said. “You were merely born a few moments ago. You need to be protected- and in all honesty, Evoni, your parents aren’t doing that. I don’t want to be like a parent to you, I don’t mean to be, but…I can’t help but see you as a child sometimes.”
“But…but you care for me other than a child, right?” she asked.
“Of course.” He said looking down at her. “God, Evoni. You’re so ditzy and clumsy sometimes that it’s funny. You know, I hadn’t laughed in many years until I had met you. You’re awesome.”
Evoni laughed.
“Yeah, you’re right. I am awesome.”
He chuckled.
“But that doesn’t mean…” he said, leaning down slightly, holding her face up to his with a firm hand. “That you can get away with wondering around late at night. I can’t believe you did that- even if I were with you I wouldn’t want you out at night. It was reckless and childish- what were you thinking?”
“I-I won’t do it again.”
“Oh, I know you won’t.” he said in a deadly quiet voice. “I won’t let you.”
“Alistair…” Evoni whined. “You scare me when you say things like that.”
“That’s the point.” He said, chuckling ever so slightly.

“So…where’s the library?”
Alistair looked up at her. The two of them were sitting together at a very long grand dinning table that could easily fit a 500 people. Evoni had already finished her plate of food Sebastian had set at her place, using any random fork from the many that were set at the table.
“Don’t worry!” she said happily, arising to the challenge. “I’ll go find it on my own-”
Alistair caught her arm.
“I don’t want you wondering around the house without me. You could get lost.”
“That’s the point!”
“Yeah? And what if we can’t find you?” he asked.
“Pffft! As if! You’re a vampire; I’m a human- of course you can find me! You have super sonic Ninja powers, remember?”
“No, I don’t remember- you’ve never told me you thought that.”
“Didn’t I? Oh…that must have been a dream- that would explain why the tomato was talking. Anyway, lets go to the library, come on, it’ll be fun!”
He sighed as he got up.

“I was expecting bigger.”
“It’s big enough for you, Evoni.”
They stood standing in the broad doorway of the library. The roof towered over their heads 20 feet above them and every inch of the walls were covered in shelves and shelves over loaded with stacks of books. The room itself was massive, nearly as big as the dark hall Evoni had wondered into before. The wall directly across them was practically just a huge window, draped in deep red curtains that had been pulled back with elegant ropes to let in the sunlight.
There were so many books that there were staircases that spiraled upwards to a balcony where you could choose books from the higher up shelves along the walls.
“Still. I expected bigger.”
“What did you expect?” he asked unemotionally. “There’s over 700, 000 books here. Were you expecting another castle attached to this one solely filled with books?”
She looked at him thoughtfully.
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”