(-)! I don't know why, but my proxy server doesn't like long replies, stupid server.

Well, I'd better post something before Copper gets mad and gets her cronies, cobalt and nickel to rearrange my face.


Chapter err, 32 I think


"Okay then, what about fire? I've seen that used lots in movies, maybe-"

Tier smiled grimly. "Hold out your hand then." Michelle did as she was told. Calmly Tier picked up the small lighter by the table, lit it, and held it beneath an outstretched digit, after a few seconds it blackened, a short while later the sulfurous smell of singed fur permeated the air. Michelle removed her hand and stared at it, where the flame had flickered was barely charred, as they watched the fur regrew. "You're moist, as in, mostly water, you're gonna need one hell of a fire to do anything, and believe me I know, besides, this condition comes with instincts, if she knows it'll kill her, they'll take over."

He stared at the group, it was quite a cozy setting; everyone clustered around the fireplace, deep in discussion about Michelle’s condition. They’d considered everything, from crushing to freezing, fire to magic, and every time they’d come to him, asked, and been disappointed. If there was a way to end his condition, he hadn’t found it in a thousand years, but they never gave in, it was a characteristic of the living.

Tier walked off, leaving the group in further discussion. Michelle had taken a shine to the vampire, and they spent a lot of time talking, which was only to be expected, they were in the same situation, more or less. She hadn't had to go through the hell of regular feeding, the estrangement, lack of sleep, but she knew what was coming, she had immortality and all its horrors to face. They'd tried to talk to him of course, since he had a lot more experience, but the conversations always died, ebbing away into those uncomfortable silences, he knew he could never tell them what it was like, they were too alive to understand.

He smirked, a vampire? Too alive? I bet that hadn't been said too often. He sighed, it sounded like someone squashing a wet sock, and went back to work. Work, he was good at that, just as long as he had something to do, no matter what, or how long it'd take he'd get it done, even if it took a hundred years, literally.

"Hey, thought you might want these, take a bit of filling out of course."

Tier turned to face the rabbit behind him. His mind flickered a bit, ah yes, Thomas, the one who read books. He stared at the rabbit’s outstretched hand.

"Citizenship papers? What for?"

"Well, I just thought-"

"That I might want to vote? When everything will be the same in a hundred years? And I'll be around to see it? Hell, why not? Who's the guy you want to win?

Tier spent the next half hour filling out the forms, it was just something else to do, people got all excited about the most insignificant things, he'd seen good government, and bad, and all that really mattered was that everything came to an end, eventually. After that he went back to rebuilding the wall, then clearing out the basement. As he worked his mind plodded on thinking of the upcoming civil war. It seemed everyone was always fighting one another, no sooner had the last battle finished before people were rushing off to another. He remembered...

A red sky, not sunset, but at night, fire from the ground spiraling into the air. The world was thick with noise, and blood and life. The dog was ahead of him, then behind, slumping to the ground, a rabbit on his left, a quick swipe and nothing more. They were too busy fighting each other to notice the red streak of death that cut through their ranks. Another there, and there, slash! Stab! Feed whenever possible, the battlefield filled with those like himself, but alive, at least for now. Shots rang out, he felt pressure, but moved on, no need to stop, no need to think, this was home.