Epilogue

Dawn song
Copyright © Stephanie Pui-Mun Law 1999.
Used with permission.

Venetia gathered all her strength and will to open her door. She wished she was with Rusalkan; the nazdravan was normally able to find the words to soothe her, but she had distressed him too much. She scolded herself:
"You're not tough enough, girl! You're far too much dependant of Draz! You shall stand on your own, fight alone, as you always did. Lucy may be dead, but you're still the strigoļ huntress of Gethsen. People need you, even if they despise you..."
She sighed as she closed the door behind her. She was on the point to fall in an armchair when she felt she wasn't alone anymore. She turned quickly on her heels, stake in hand.
"Angelan!" she exclaimed, half-relieved.
But she didn't lower her stake. In her ears sounded her own words:
"As for Angelan, I think it's already too late."
Then she had thought he was Sergeļ's puppet; she had thought it till she had seen Sergeļ, then she had understood everything and, most of all, that Angelan was not Sergeļ's puppet, but rather Damian's.
"Viny! Where... where is Lucy?"
"Where nobody can harm her."
"Where are the others?"
"They are dead, Angelan! Do you understand that? Dead! All of them! Beth-Lynn, Sane, Vladan, Gerkelan, Lucy, dead! As are Sergeļ, Damian and Ileni!"
"Lucy, dead? No, no, impossible! He promised me..."
"He promised you what? To let her alive or to reunite you for ever? Whatever Sergeļ and Damian promised you, I had promised something else a long time ago to Lucy: to never let her become a loajnice! She begged me to kill her! What did you want me to have done? To force her to live a life she didn't want?"
"But I love her! How could you kill her when I love her?" cried Angelan.
"I love her too, Angelan," said Venetia wearily. "That's why I killed her, keeping my sorrow for myself. Perhaps she would have accepted to live if I had begged and wept, but she wouldn't have been happy and she would never have trusted me after that. Her happiness was the only thing that mattered, Angelan, not our own pain."
"You always have been my enemy," muttered Angelan, angry.
Venetia looked sadly at him.
"Is that really what you believe? Were you thus voicing your own thoughts when you said to Lucy you wanted to kill me? Was I thus wrong when saying to her that you didn't want to kill her beloved sister? For I had to tell her that, so that she could die in peace, thinking of you instead of thinking of me! I gave her all my life, and she died thinking of you! I wasn't jealous, I was just happy to see her happy with you, but if you try to snatch her from me as you tried, then you're rewarding a whole life of dedication in a very evil way... Her last moments should have been mine and they were yours. I should have felt anger, I was only sad... Tell me I didn't lie to her, Angelan! Tell me that, even if it's not true!"
"You did all you could to separate us and when, at last, she would have been fully mine, you killed her, you monster!"
Venetia sighed and put her stake back in its place. Strangely, she looked almost resigned. She tried to find a reason to hold on life, had a thought for Rusalkan but then, sadly, she dismissed the thought:
"No, he doesn't need me... Nobody needs me anymore... I may be dead or alive, nobody will ever care!"
She didn't move when Angelan, enraged, walked on her. As the fangs pierced her throat, she only thought:
"Lucy... I'll be what you had the courage to refuse to be..."
It was her last coherent thought before collapsing on the ground.

She knew who was near her when she opened the eyes.
"So my doom is fulfilled at last," she said.
"Who told you such stupidities?" growled Rusalkan.
"Azrael, Angel of Death. I was supposed to become a strigoaļca when I died in Damian's lair, but, thanks to Gerkelan - and you - it didn't happen. Then I thought it would be during the fight with Sergeļ, but no! It had to be Angelan..."
"Stay calm!" Rusalkan ordered her.
"He's a fiend, Draz. Worse than his grand Sire was! He may have been kind and gentle, but now his heart is only the one of a monster that only Lucy would be able to chain. But her death broke everything in him! That, and Damian's scheme..."
"Stay calm, I told you! He doesn't know you're... still alive."
"Of course he knows, Draz! Don't try to fool me. Angelan knows me too well to be sure I'd rise from the dead to fight him."
She sat and noticed she was in her own bedroom.
"Which colour do I glow now?" she asked with curiosity.
"Something between red and blue," said Rusalkan, shrugging.
"Blue! I would hate humans?"
"They despise you, Vic."
"What happened, Draz? Why... why are you here?" she asked, looking hurt.
"Well, perhaps you remember..." began Rusalkan, quite uneasily. "You were... hum... very eager so see me again so, when three days ago, I didn't see you, I began to worry. I looked right and left for you until I found you. Nothing complicated."
"No, nothing," sighed Venetia. "And are you still ready to help me now, Draz?"
"Do you still need me?"
"I do need you, Draz, and you know it."
"I mean: do you still need me as you said you needed me three nights ago?"
"Yes, I do. But the situation is not the same now..." she said so softly he almost didn't hear her.
"Why? Because you're half-strigoļ, half-fiend instead of half-strigoļ, half-human? I have a fiendish part too, as well as a strigoļ one. All in all, I'm certainly more dangerous than you are and you should be the one reconsidering the situation carefully."
"But you're far more gentle than I would ever be," smiled Venetia, skipping the last part of his sentence.
Her smile transformed into a grimace and tears fell down her cheeks. Rusalkan immediately took her in his arms and whispered softly:
"What's the use of crying? You'll find that life is still worthwhile if you just smile..."
"My smile was Lucy," sobbed Venetia.
"No. Lucy may have been your sun, may have been the centre of your life, but your smile is still only yours. It belongs to you whatever happens to you. If you smile, you'll smile for her, but if you weep, it will only be wasted tears."
"No, they won't be wasted. They will counterbalance all the drops of blood that fell on earth because of me," said Venetia looking up at him.
He wiped away her tears and smiled to her.
"Smile, Vic, smile and Lucy will smile too and will be alive in your smile."
"I lost everything with Lucy," she replied, shaking the head.
"No, you didn't. I'm still here and I have no intention of abandoning you," he whispered, growing bolder as he saw her feeling so dejected and miserable.
"Help me, Draz..." she said softly and it was half a question.
He understood her fear, for he had driven her away last time she had asked for his help. His throat tightened a bit: she was usually so strong, so willing, independent and free, and then, in front of him, she accepted to appear vulnerable, to ask for help, and she was afraid of being rejected once again. He wondered a moment if that wasn't the real reason why she had let Angelan transform her into a strigoaļca.
He pushed back all those thoughts and looked at Venetia; she was waiting for his answer, but he couldn't even think of something to tell her, to reassure her, so he kissed her, that same soul-seeking kiss that had moved her so and when he looked again at her, a light smile was slowly appearing on her lips. This smile, as shy as it was, gave rise to hope in Rusalkan's heart. He released her and she stood up. She didn't feel different at all. She went out her home, followed by Rusalkan and there, in the middle of the night, surrounded by her so familiar darkness, she looked at the eternity she had in front of her.

Text © Azrael 2000 - 2001.
Dawn song. Copyright © Stephanie Pui-Mun Law 1999. Used with permission.
Set Gothiquesque, from Moyra/Mystic PC 1998.