TrueBlood Fanfic: Prolouge

Prologue:


Mud, thick and clotted, clung to the hem of her dress, the rough fabric torn and thin from wear. The sleeves, which had once been long, were ripped just above her elbows, dirt soaked into the cotton with no hopes of ever being washed away.

As she stumbled onward, her ebony locks clutched her forehead, and framed her face in a halo of darkness. The rest of her hair was pulled from her face in a messy bun that was slowly coming apart, long tresses falling from the updo haphazardly. Her appearance was overall chaotic, something she knew very well.

As she ran through the dense forest, thorns from vines stuck to trees like glue gripping at her dress, she heaved breath into her chest, the noise echoing around her though she cared little. Her eyes, cursed with heterochromia, focused only on what was in front of her, seeing nothing that was around her. She was too afraid to pay attention as to what was to her left, or her right.

The thought of being caught, drove her to keep running even though her legs protested, her lungs barely holding the oxygen she drew in with each gulp of air. Her arms pumped at her sides as she ran, aching as they did so, sending stabs of objection to her movements. Her body begged for her to slow, but she pushed onward, knowing that capture meant death.

With an easy lift of her feet, she leapt over a fallen log, landing as gracefully and quietly as a cat, wasting no time to recover before darting off once again. She didn't hear their thunderous pursuits behind any longer, but she couldn't take the risk of stopping. Couldn't face the men behind her.

Adrenaline, hot and heavy, was rapidly fading away, leaving only the panic and despair with it. She could feel her body growing more and more tired, even as she rushed forward, pressing her body to its limits. Her legs angled her to the right to avoid a tree, slipping around it easily just as she saw him step from behind it.

Unable to pull herself to a stop fast enough, her feet stopped moving just as she collided with his palm that had lifted in front of him, hitting her square in the sternum. As she felt herself fall, skidding back a few feet, she had the thought that he must have been surprisingly strong to hit her so hard, before panic settled in again as her body began to realize it was unable to draw air into her lungs.

Impacting with the earth back first, jarred her head, shaking her vision as her mouth worked, gaping like a fish out of water. The woman heard herself taking in air, gasping it in as if she were dying, but her body wasn't receiving it. Powerless to move, her body already spent from the heavy running she'd just done, she watched through two-toned irises as a man came to stand above her.

The same one who had knocked her down. As she tried to breath, tried to force her lungs into action, she noticed in the oddly calm part of her mind that he was beautiful, with chin length dark hair and lightly hewn eyes. He was bare chested as if the cold didn't bother him, delicate tribal tattoo's littering his torso and arms, and as he looked down on her, there was a sort of wildness about him.

If this wasn't the only oddity, she couldn't hear his thoughts. Simple silence ringing in her ears for once, which only made her more uncomfortable. Everything about him spelled beast. He remained silent as they watched each other, and finally her gasping was having an effect, air rushing into her lungs in grateful waves.

He studied her, spending a great deal of time looking at her oddly colored eyes. Eyes that had branded her a witch in her town. Her left eye was a brilliant ice blue, while her right was a deep emerald green, and she was ashamed of it, having hid her face from people as much as possible since childhood. Even now, her eyes cast themselves downward as she felt the man staring, unable even in the face of her possible death to meet his gaze.

Finally, he spoke, taking a step forward to stand over her as if he were a predator and she his prey, "Can you understand what I am saying?" His voice flowed forth like velvet running across her skin, and even though his Swedish was rough as if out of practice, and broken somewhat, it rang in her ears as the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard.

'At least,' she thought to herself bitterly, 'I will die with my last thoughts of someone beautiful, whose nasty thoughts I cannot hear.' The thought of her dying, and the thoughts of her entire miserable life flashed through her mind, and her lips pulled back in a sob, a guttural cry pulling form her throat.

Tears formed behind her eyes, threatening to spill over her lids as she lay on the ground, helpless to move. She tried, despite knowing her death was imminent, to move her limbs. To force her legs to work, her arms to push herself up, even her own frame to roll over at the least. However; the most she was able to offer herself was a twitch of her body parts, her muscles extended well past their abilities.

Gritting her teeth as the man looked at her with seeming disinterest; she tried, begged even, for her body to move, pleading with it to not fail her now. To at least die with a fight, but once more her only response was a twitch of a finger that was painful as her body screamed in protest. "I asked," he spoke once again, "If you understood my words."

This time a helpless cry choked from her throat, and she let her head fall to the side limply. "Yes," she whispered, refusing to look at him as the tears slid down her face, marking trails of peach against her dust covered face. The feeling of helplessness just as she had felt all her life, overwhelmed her, filling her mind with the knowledge that in the end, she was still too weak to even fight off the monster before her.

"You are the girl they call a witch in the village are you not?" he asked as he lowered himself to his knees before her. His closeness should have made her flinch, should have made her try to get away no matter what. What was he going to do to her?

Her eyes slid over to look at him from the corners, probing, despite knowing she wouldn't want to, for a look into his mind. But she was met with silence no matter how hard she tried, and she simple remained looking at him through slitted irises. "Why do you not just kill me and get it over with? Is there some absurd reason that me being a witch would change what you plan on doing to me?" she responded after a minute, her tone was harsh reflecting all the hatred she had towards the world.

"I saw what those men did to you. I watched you fight against them, and in the end I watched as you fled after killing one of them," he answered, his oddly light colored eyes watching her face with intense rapture as he gave a single chuckle, his lips lifting into a brief smile.

From his smile she saw blood caked in his teeth, and upon closer inspection of his person, she saw that his hair formed dreaded tendrils from filth, spots of blood covering his skin like a puzzle. She inhaled a sharp breath, her eyes looking away again as he spoke, and her lips pulled back in a silent snarl of disbelief.

She cursed herself for being unable to move, for being helpless and weak. It was true she had fought, and killed, one of her previous assailants, but in doing had left herself open for this one, who was sure to kill her. No one would ever notice her missing; she was no one in town, no one but a thief. A nuisance. They would be glad she was gone. She exhaled in an angry huff of breath, her eyes darting to look at the man, "Kill me. You will do them all a favor. Myself included."

Another chuckle followed her words, and she growled with disdain at his patronization of her. "If I could move," she spat, "I would make sure to kill you just like I did him." A grin lifted his features, showing those blood soaked teeth that made her skin crawl with the surety of her demise.

"What if I could offer you...something else?" the man asked, his expression sobering slightly. He leaned over her more, his face directly above hers as the left side of his face lifted in a crooked smile.

Her eyes narrowed once more, lips pursing into a tight line, "What do you mean?" Pulling her head up, she now looked at him dead on, her expression still angry but curious. She tried once again to move part of her body; still it refused, groaning in complaint as she forced her fingers to curl inward, that simple action leaving her wanting to pant.

"I will be your father. Your brother. And your son, and in exchange you can reap your revenge upon the villagers who have so mistreated you, and the men who tried to take your body as their own," he explained all in a voice that was so silky in her ears it made her want to melt, made her want to agree. He made it sound so inviting, so simple.

Revenge. What a lovely word it sounded as it rang in her ears. What a beautiful offer he made. And in all her time in this life, no one had ever treated her as he had. Treated her as if she might possibly be worth something, as if she might be...wanted.

With an effort, she lifted her head so that it was a mere inch and a half from the man's, the man whose name she didn't even know. Her lips lifted in a snarl, baring her teeth with an animalistic air as she hauled in a nervous breath wondering if maybe *he* was a witch. Or even worse...a demon.

"Offer accepted," she hissed.

Producing a sneer that bared his teeth as her grimace did, he emitted a chuckle before a set of fangs unsheathed and he slammed into her neck pushing her head back down just as she felt twin stabbing pains that were quickly erased by a wave of ecstasy.

Everything took on a blurred quality, and the world shifted colors in and out like a rainbow, euphoria rushing over her erasing the pains of her body. She hardly noticed the new addition as he slid form the shadow of the trees, standing watch, perhaps guarding them, either way in that moment she cared nothing about it.

Slowly, the colors became slower, the flashing tones fading and fading till it left her world of shifting objects, and swirling backgrounds in only dark hues of black, white, and grey. It didn't bother her though, she only felt bliss as the world around her drifted away, and she felt herself as if she were out of her body. Weightless, drifting, floating away. Darkness surrounded her, and everything, even the darkness felt very far away. She was sliding away, and she knew it was from death. She wanted to laugh at the irony.

Then something happened, just as she was floating blissly through the black a slamming force hit her right in her center, reminding her of only moments before when the man had hit her in the sternum, knocking her back. The sense of gravity returned to her and she felt heavy, solid, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a more substantial darkness that consumed her mind and sent her into a comatose slumber. The last thing she had a brief notion of was hearing the words, 'Magnificent.'


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