God's Silence

Even the cool breeze up on the roof of the hotel didn’t seem to help Alara clear her mind. She’d known, somehow, that Godric had gone to the Fellowship of his own volition, but to hear him say the words, to see that he had truly meant to meet the sun. A pain unlike anything she’d felt in all her thousands of years stabbed through her chest but she didn’t flinch. Somehow….this pain was somehow familiar but the thick fog that clouded the part of her mind, holding the memories that had been taken from her, kept her from the knowledge she needed. Mercurial eyes cast upward toward the lowering moon, not turning when the two vampires she had beckoned joined her in the fading night air.

“Alara…min lilla, is something wrong?” Godric asked, watching the young woman stare up into the sky. It was at a moment like this, just as it was when she saved them all the night before, that the ancient vampire wished that she had had at least Eric’s blood. He could then get a small glimpse of how she must be feeling. All through the meeting she had been calm but he remembered vividly how her heart had stuttered momentarily when he confessed to willingly going into the clutches of the Fellowship of the Sun. Was she angry at him for that choice? For inadvertently putting Sookie and Eric in danger? Godric moved to step toward her but is footsteps faltered when the breeze brought with it the scent of salty tears. The vampires couldn’t see the woman’s face, and she stood so still that for a moment they didn’t think the tears could belong to Alara.

Eric, having less tact for situations of a sensitive nature, moved past his maker to circle around Alara. “Alara, Godric asked you a…” The Viking’s words stopped short as he looked down at the female, and his reaction put Godric on edge. The older male moved to stand next to his Childe and his usually stoic seafoam eyes immediately locked on the crystalline tears slowly cascading down the angel’s face. His dead heart clenched in a way he didn’t know was possible at seeing the sadness clouding her normally playful silver eyes.

The two-thousand-year-old vampire reached a hand out, wanting to wipe away the evidence of her sadness, find some way to bring back the bright gleam to her eye that he had already become so used to seeing, but she moved away from his touch, and the pain he felt at the rejection was probably worse than seeing her so saddened. His arm dropped like dead weight back to his side and he tried to school his features so she wouldn’t see how much she had hurt him with such a simple action, but he wasn’t used to such strong emotions and wasn’t entirely sure if his mask was going to be convincing. Eric remained quiet at his side, unsure of how to hand a crying woman, and feeling how much Alara’s behavior was upsetting his maker.

Eyes so full of sorrow moved down from their examination of the sky, focusing in on Godric’s own conflicted eyes. In all the years I’ve lived, so many people have come into my life. I remember each face, each name like it was only yesterday that I saw them. Constantly, inevitably, I lose them. I will live forever and I watch them all die, wither away until nothing is left of the vibrant spirits I once knew. Her voice was soft and steady inside their minds despite the tears streaming down her cheeks. She took a step forward, closing the distance between herself and Godric. The vampire didn’t move, didn’t blink. He didn’t know what to think about what the woman was saying. Some of them were even killed, a very few right in front of me, before I could do anything to save them. Never, not in the thousands of years I have been stuck on this Earth, has any single one of those hundreds of people even considered taking their own life.

So there it was, the crux of the matter. Those deep silver orbs had changed drastically with just that last sentence. Gone was the deep-seeded sadness and it was replaced with a fiery anger that Godric was very surprised to see. The young woman’s hands came up, planted firmly on his chest before she shoved him, the strength being the action powerful enough to make him stumble back a few steps. Eric’s fangs came down and he growled a warning down at Alara. He didn’t want to hurt the small female but Godric was his Maker and he would not allow anyone to harm him.

“Eric, no.” Godric said sternly, never once taking his eyes off the shorter woman. For the last few centuries Godric had struggled to feel anything close to the strength of emotion that this woman brought out in him, and seeing her anger, knowing that he was the cause, upset him, while some part of him was thrilled that she seemed to care enough about him to be angry that he had tried to end his life. When she made a move to shove him again, he grabbed onto her wrists, pulling her almost flush against him. “Tell me.”

The tears were back but the anger hadn’t dissipated. How could you think your life was worth so little? Eric is your Childe, the vampires of your area look up to you! You’re one of the few older vampires on this continent who could do any sort of good for vampire-human relations and you were just going to through it all away! Why?! For what? Were you bored? Why would you think you could just give up everything and die?! Is living just too scary a concept for the big bad vampire that he even took his own suicide and placed into the hands of those hateful bigots of the Fellowship of the Sun?! Tell me why Godric! Why would you even think to kill yourself?!

Even though he had asked to hear what she had to say, Godric’s fangs clicked down in annoyance at her suggestion that he was a coward. “I am not afraid of living.” He almost growled, looking down into her fierce gaze. “I do not want to hurt anyone anymore. I do not want people to continue to look at me with that fear in their eyes simply because I am a vampire. I want peace.”

Then make peace! With yourself, with God, whoever! Killing yourself won’t make people fear vampires less! How does that make any sort of sense to you Godric?! Even with two thousand years of experience you can still be a stupid child! He could almost physically feel the sting of her anger in his mind as she yelled out at him. Alara tore her right hand out of his grip and lashed out to slap him across the face but Godric moved quicker, pushing against her smaller form, bring them both to the ground with him looming over her. He quickly pinned her wrists down to stop her from lashing out again. “You will not hit me again.”

I will hit you as many times as it takes for you to feel anything again. Feel that need to live, let it come to life inside of you until you’ll never again contemplate meeting the sun. I will hit you until you realize just how much you have to live for. She growled at him, and the animalistic sound surprised him, although realistically it shouldn’t have. Growls and such were not made with the vocal cords so even though the young woman could not speak, making such sounds was not out of her reach, which became obvious as she bared her teeth at him in quite the striking resemblance to a vampire. He could almost picture fangs clicking into place as she glared up at him.

“Why is my living so important to you? You came to find me because of Eric, not from any loyalty to me. What I decide to do with my life should be no concern of yours.” He wanted, no, needed to know why she was fighting so adamantly for him to live. “What is it in me you find so worth saving?”
At his words, Alara’s body relaxed underneath him.

Everything. It was such a simple answer and it puzzled Godric but he didn’t get a chance to tell her to elaborate before she began speaking to him again. People hardly ever see themselves the way others see them. You hate yourself, which is very obvious. Why? Because you are a vampire? Perhaps because of all the lives you have undoubtedly taken in your two thousand years of existence? Not good enough. Those reasons are trivial in comparison to why you should live. With your experience and the humanity you have within you, you could teach the younger vampires the value of human life. Each vampire used to be human, just because you have been changed doesn’t make that go away. Just because you technically die doesn’t mean your humanity has to die with your heartbeat. You. You are the reason I want to save you, Godric. All of you. Your experience has shaped you in a way no one will ever understand and that is what will make you a great leader for the newest generations of vampires.

The petite woman squirmed underneath his grip gently, making no harsh movements to make Godric think that she was going to act violently toward him again. The sun was going to be rising in a little under ten minutes. The brunette male released Alara’s wrists but did not move from his position over her. Her mirrored eyes had softened considerably from the fierce anger that had just moment ago made them spark. She raised up her hands, laying them gently against his cheeks. He relished in the feeling of her warm seeping into his frozen skin. I want to hear your stories, Godric. What you have done, witnessed, thought over all of the time you have lived. Please, share those with me. Live again, from this point forward, better this time. Forgive yourself, and for each bad deed you did in the past, rectify them with an even greater number of good deeds from here after. Believe in yourself, as I believe in you.

Her small hands slid against his cheeks as her arms circled around his neck. She pulled herself up and Godric’s arms instinctively came around her back to support her as he lifted both of them into a sitting position. Alara hugged herself tightly to him and his hands splayed out across the bare expanse of her back, the warmth of her skin soaking into his fingers.

Eric watched the two sit for what felt like an eternity. He had known, deep down, that Godric had been more distant in the last few centuries but he had never even considered that his Maker could be suicidal. The pain in his un-dead heart at the thought of Godric ending his own life tore at the Viking. Godric was his everything; Father, Brother, Son. Godric had promised him life when he’d laid dying, now perhaps it was his turn, with Alara’s help, to give Godric that same promise. They would give the man reasons, many reasons, to live, to stay with them. Already he could feel Godric’s contentment as he held the miraculous woman in his arms. She was special, there was no question about that, and Eric hoped that she could become Godric’s reason to stay, perhaps even come back to Shreveport for a time in order for all of them to settle down.

He didn’t want to break the silence, he wished the three of them could stay in this serenity forever, but his senses were already warning him that the sun was too close, and he had to get himself and his Maker inside and to the safety of their light-tight room. He walked closer to the pair, kneeling down at Godric’s side and placing a large hand carefully on the smaller male’s shoulder. His Maker’s green eyes turned toward him and Eric could visibly see the difference in the ancient gaze. “The sun is almost upon us. We must go inside.” Godric simply nodded, looking down at the small form curled against him.

Instead of pulling away from the woman, Godric smoothly moved one arm under her legs, pulling her into his arms to carry her bridal style. Eric could smell that she was still crying as she buried her face in Godric’s neck but he knew that now everything would be alright. He moved to Godric’s other side and smooth a hand over the woman’s hair, going so far as to bend down and give a gentle kiss to her head. As the tall blonde followed his Maker back into Hotel Carmilla and to their suite, he sent a gentle thought toward the small woman in Godric’s arms. Thank you, little angel.