AN: This is for Neofox and Nat Compagnon. Neo for prompting the idea and Nat for making me pick it up again.

I warn you now, it's supposed to descend into slash, but knowing me, probably won't becauseI always end up with these two having deep philosphical conversations over a glass of wine rather than anything more risque. Warning will be given in advance, I promise.

As to how many chapters? As many as it takes, which is to say...three? At most.

Falling Without Wings.

Sarafan Initiate Raziel sighed as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and fought off a treacherous yawn. Shrugging his shoulders to relax his tense muscles, the young Sarafan slapped his gloved hands together and listened as the muffled thumping echoed out into the darkness. More than anything he wanted to be back in his tent wrapped snugly in one of his thick wool blankets with a cup of hot spiced wine clutched in his hands. But such things were not for him this evening. Instead he prowled like a hunting mountain cat, albeit a somewhat cold one, around the edge of the Sarafan camp that spread out below the soaring cliffs of Janos Audron's Retreat.

The year was turning towards winter and although the snow was yet to fall, the nights were cold enough to make his breath cloud in the air. He paused at the edge of the lake and looked out across the water. Moonlight glinted on the tips of tiny ripples in the lake's surface, spreading a path of white light across the water like the train of a woman's gown. The young man let his gaze idle over the far bank, following the form of one of the other brothers pacing slowly along his patrol route. He raised his hand in salute, but the other man did not return the gesture. Embarrassed, Raziel fumbled at his belt for his wineskin. After a few moments of cold-fingered fumbling, he managed to unhook it. The liquid was chill from the seeping coldness of the night air, and far more watered than the young man was used to drinking on his home estates, but that was how it went in the ranks of the Sarafan Order. The imbibing of strong wine and spirits was unseemly in a Soldier of God, or so said High Command. Raziel wasn't so sure. The deep burgundy liquid that had been offered to him in Moebius' chambers had been a vintage brew that had put a pleasing glow in his stomach as soon as he drank it. But then Raziel supposed it was something of a perk of the job for a lord of the Time Streams to conjure himself an appropriately aged wine.

The thought of the old Pillar of Time made him pause thoughtfully, the wineskin still clutched in one hand. As a younger son of his father's estates, it had been assumed that Raziel would marry off to some fawning noble's daughter in order to bring her lands under his family's control. Perhaps he would stand as an officer to his father's men when he came of age, or at the very least join the King's army. It was a comfortable, predictable future already looking to involve a pretty and buxom young woman from one of the neighbouring territories. And so when the letter arrived bearing the seal of the Circle and the Holy Order of the Sarafan, there had been quite a fuss made.

His father, Lord Alberto, had summoned him to the drawing room and informed his second son in slow and measured tones of the great honour bestowed upon him by the Circle. Raziel was to become a Sarafan warrior priest.

At the time, Raziel had been shocked. His family had never had much to do with the Church, preferring to employ their own men for the defence of their lands, and this sudden interest by the warriors of the cloth was disconcerting. It reeked of intrigue and political manoeuvring. Nonetheless, the young man, barely seventeen years of age, had been packed up onto the warhorse he had inherited from his older brother, and sent out to fight in the name of God.

He remembered standing in the daunting presence of the Time Streamer Lord Moebius himself as the wizened old man sat scrunched behind a great oaken desk reading the letter of introduction from Raziel's father. The Pillar had seemed frail and old framed as he was by the overly large chair in which he perched birdlike. But the eyes that regarded Raziel over the top of the parchment had been tempered with steel. The young man had shifted uneasily under the gaze despite his best intentions. The old man made him nervous.

"We will be requiring much of you in the years to come, my boy. Your absolute dedication to the Cause is necessary. But for one as pure of heart as yourself, and filled with such promise, it should be a glorious undertaking. Go now, and prove yourself in the name of the Sarafan and in the eyes of God."

For all he spoke of proving his worth to God, Raziel felt that the old man may very well have been speaking of himself, for the calculating look in his eyes was not wholly concealed by his thin-lipped smile. The Pillar's words had been accompanied by a bony touch to the young man's arm; a caress that sent a poorly veiled shudder of repulsion through Raziel's frame at its unwanted intimacy.

"I'll be watching you, boy."

And so too Malek's words had held little comfort.

Raziel frowned and recapped his wine flask, slipping it back onto his belt. His first year of life in the Order had been spent under the gruelling regime of training that all young initiates to the Order had to follow. He hadn't minded the training, it wasn't so different from that which he and his brothers had received at home, the only exception being that they had never been expected to rise at dawn each day for morning prayers. To be perfectly honest, Raziel wasn't all that sure what he felt about God's grand scheme and his place in it. But whatever the young man thought, he held his tongue and joined in dutifully when required.

It was time to get moving again, it would not do to be caught slacking on a patrol by Sergeant Turel. The sergeant was some three years his senior, making him the same age as Raziel's elder brother, and already he had risen to rank. Raziel liked the older man, he was stern and down-to-earth, but if caught in the right mood, made a good-natured companion. The young initiate thought he held the potential to become a good friend too one day.

Raziel's move to the camp at the base of Janos' Retreat had, as far as he could gather, been a complete surprise to everyone except Malek. The post was not an exalted one despite its subject the great and powerful Janos Audron, as the vampire himself was so rarely seen. The phrase "our camp 'up north'" had become synonymous with "low-risk" and "put out to pasture". Moebius' words to the young man had seemed like spears digging into his heart and slicing his ego to tatters.

"We desire you to prove yourself to us, my boy, before we can allow you to undertake other more wide-ranging endeavours. Though we feel that this may yet prove to be your greatest achievement in the years to come."

The last bit had been uttered with a wry twisting smile that made Raziel frown in concern and glance sidelong at the tall form of Malek standing still and composed at his shoulder. The older man had offered no explanation, not even a twitch of an eyelid to betray his position on the matter and eventually Raziel had been dismissed and left to ponder in confusion and dismay his apparent demotion.

He had been surprised upon reaching the snowy reaches of Ushtenheim to find himself keeping company with Sergeant Turel, whose apparently excellent performance so far had still not been enough to prevent his relegation to the north. Both young men knew of each other's reputation by word of mouth and if they both found it slightly odd to be meeting each other out here in the back of nowhere, each man chose to keep the thought private.

Raziel paced softly along the bank of the lake, keeping just outside of the pools of light thrown by the string of lamps set up to mark the patrol route. It would seem unwise perhaps to make obvious the route of one's sentries, but the mission of the Sarafan guarding the Retreat was not one of stealth and called for a prominent and hopefully foreboding Sarafan presence that would send a clear message of defiance up to the demon lurking above.

When he had first arrived at the camp, Raziel had set about getting to know the other men and women stationed at the Retreat. Mostly they were older veterans, but after a few careful enquiries he discovered that recently a lot of younger Sarafan had been drafted up to the camp to boost the numbers already there. There was no explanation given for the sudden increase in activity, and after a few weeks, life and the number of Sarafan arriving at the camp, settled back down to what he was told was normalcy.

And Raziel soon discovered that normalcy was just another word for unutterable boredom. To pass the time the older warriors were fond of telling tales of their past exploits and deeds, and many were the tales of the ancient vampire Janos Audron. One of the men, a middle-aged man called Sorfan was particularly enthusiastic to tell the story of his one encounter with the fiend, some three seasons ago. Visibly proud of his daring escape from the clutches of evil, he described the vampire in great and gory detail for the delight of the newly arrived initiates. The old demon, he said, was some seven and a half feet tall with great black wings that beat at the air like the drums of hell. His eyes were a fearsome red and they glowed like the embers of a fire when he was enraged. And when angry, the beast was a terrible sight to behold. His mouth drooled blood and his claws were slick with it too. In fact, flames sparked from the ground where his hooves touched down and around him the leaves withered as he passed. One of the aging corporals, a greying old veteran called Ambart, sat in the corner of the tent smoking his pipe and shaking his head as he listened to Sorfan's story, but the young initiates were too engrossed in the other warrior's tale to notice.

Tales such as Sorfan's were common enough fare around the camp, as were reports of the numerous atrocities that Janos Audron had committed over the years. Tales of murder and death, torture and fiendish rape, all the sins that a vampire could possibly commit. This paragon of evil had experimented with them all.

Raziel listened to the stories and did not immediately recognise the slowly growing feeling in the pit of his belly for what it was. As the incidents were recounted to him, crime heaped upon crime and degradation upon perversity, he did not notice the thoughtful look he received from Turel as the other man's eyes moved between the initiate's face and his whitening knuckles. Raziel had never put much stock in God, but now, listening to the reels of misdemeanour and sin, he began to comprehend the full implications of what it was to be Sarafan. A shield against the evil growing in the land and a light of hope against its darkness. The idea was foreign to him, and yet, it felt right. It felt just. He walked out on his rounds that night warmed by the fires of his newfound convictions.

The young man still held true to those convictions. The recent months had seen a change in his attitude towards matters of a more spiritual nature. Although never one to mock openly the dictates of the Church, despite his family's private thoughts on the subject, Raziel's disbelief began to alter subtly to something more accommodating. It became easier for him to see how the true calling of the Lord could act as a mighty aid in the overcoming of the vampires. The most marked example of this would have to be in his elder brother's replies to his letters home. At first they carried a note of amused bafflement as though his brother was not quite sure whether or not his younger sibling was pulling his leg. But as the weeks wore on, the tone changed to one of cynical annoyance as his brother realised that he may actually have lost his younger sibling to the clutches of the Church.

The thought made Raziel smile as he continued his patrol, leaving the lake edge now and moving up a path that cut into the cliff-side. He picked his way carefully along the trail, holding his lantern high to see the path. Raziel did not like carrying the lantern, he felt it made him stand out too much, made it easy for a vampire to spot him. But it was regulation, and if he was caught without it he would face a reprimand. He did not realise that to the two vampires waiting up ahead, the lantern made no difference at all. They could have spotted him had he been standing without the device on a moonless night.

They waited until he had passed behind the column of rock and out of sight of watchers from the lake's far bank before they pounced. The first blow took him full in the stomach as the vampire materialised out of the shadows directly in front of his eyes and landed a solid punch on him that knocked all the breath from his body even through the protective chain mail that he wore. As he doubled over in pain and surprise, the vampire brought a mailed fist down hard at the base of his neck, driving him to his knees. The lantern dropped from his hands and rolled away into the shadows, spilling its contents across the ground where they flared in a brief inferno of burning oil. He heard the sound of low laughter from one side, deep and full of menace and struggled to rise against the clenching agony of his stomach muscles. His efforts earned him a savage kick in the ribs that flung him onto his side in the dirt. He lay there, defeated and gasping, pain preventing his any further efforts to rise and watched sideways as booted feet approached him. They stopped a handbreadth away from his face, stirring up little clouds of dust with their movement.

"Poor, sweet, precious thing. Look, Astar, look what we have here."

The voice was silk in the darkness, cultured and rich and draped in cruelty. Raziel struggled to draw enough breath to shout for aid, but his lungs were still spasming with the blow he had taken to his midriff and his voice choked in his throat.

"Such a beautiful young man, Laurent. Whatever is he doing out here all on his own? Such a handsome thing should be kept locked up for his own safety."

The last was purred into Raziel's ear by the other vampire. He felt the creature lean over him, the coils of its long curled hair tickling his cheek as it put his head close to his.

"Who knows what's out there in the darkness tonight...?" it purred.

Raziel struggled against the creature's steely grip as it lifted him effortlessly to his feet and held him by the shoulders to face his vampiric companion.

"Who indeed...?" the other replied and Raziel could see the glint of moonlight in the creature's wide smile as it curled its lip to reveal the fang teeth. Its pupils were a softly glowing red in the darkness reflecting the light of the burning oil in their depths. It made a startling contrast with the striking blue of the creature's irises. He watched almost mesmerised as the vampire approached, staring into its blue eyes as they held his. Suddenly the creature's gaze shifted and its eyes widened with an emotion that Raziel could not read.

"What in...?" it whispered. The opening was all that Raziel needed. Bracing against the grasp of the vampire behind him, he kicked its distracted companion in the groin as hard as he could. There was a snarl of fury from the injured vampire's companion as he saw his friend crumple in pain, and Raziel found himself being whirled in the creature's grasp. He tried to break free as he saw the creature draw his fist back to strike, but the vampire was too strong and with a hiss of breath Raziel turned his head to the side as best he could and waited for the crushing blow to land.

Janos Audron was angry. Not in the sense of blinding rage, or even door-slammingly angry, which was after all quite rare for him anyway. More in the frustrated, why does nobody ever see it my way, sort of angry. The kind that made him shake his head at the follies of the world and withdraw himself completely from the company of others until the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach had passed.

It was all Vorador's fault. The fledgling simply refused to moderate his excessively violent and cruel lifestyle. Yes, there had been a time when Janos himself would have been the first of his people to strike out at Humanity in anger, but that was in the past. He'd been young then and Maria's death had been so painfully recent. He'd grown since those desperate, bloody days, come to realise after the long centuries of loneliness and boredom that maybe, just maybe, not everything was as clear-cut as people tried to make it.

Having had the unique experience of existing for centuries without respite, Janos Audron was most certainly in a position to be able to observe the influences of time, events, emotions and people on the way in which history repeated itself time and again. Despite the tales of their forefathers', despite the history books, the manuscripts, the murals and the wisdom of the elders of every people, history nonetheless managed without fail to become a skewed representation of actual reality.

Tales became embellished, books were censored or worse yet burnt completely, manuscripts were altered, murals painted over and the wisdom of the elders became nothing more than the arguments of old men frantically trying to maintain power over their underlings.

It made him so angry. And what was worse was that Vorador, he who had been at Janos' side for centuries, should have known better.

It was almost permissible for the humans to act in the way that they did. They simply didn't know any better. Their minds, their histories, their very teachings were polluted by centuries of Moebius' and Mortanius' twisted viewpoints. It was tragic.

But Vorador, as father of the new race of turned vampires, should have known better. He just kept on coming back to that one inescapable fact – the one fact that Vorador refused to accept. Filled with rage and hate, all justified Janos would at least grant him that, Vorador was blind to the damage he was wreaking on the chances of survival for the few remaining turned vampires still scraping out a pitiful existence on Nosgoth's Sarafan-regulated landscape.

For every human girl that Vorador stole away and murdered, the Sarafan slaughtered ten vampires in her memory. Why, why, could his foolish fledgling not see the tragedy of this needless, pathetic cycle?

But arguing with Vorador, especially with the younger vampire drunk on brandy-spiced blood, was always a fruitless venture. Voices became raised, chalices were slammed down in anger and yet again Janos found himself facing his only fledgling who stood trembling with rage, claw pointed imperiously at the door, demanding that his father "get the hell out of his mansion."

Suffice it to say, Janos Audron was not in the best of moods that night. So when it was that he saw the one-sided struggle taking place at the darkest edge of the lake, he did not hesitate. Folding his wings behind him, eyes narrowed and fists clenched in fury, he veered from his path and dived straight down towards the fray.

The bunched fist that hit him across the face almost broke his neck. As it was it sent Raziel's head snapping backwards with a solid thunk and a spray of blood. Carried forward by the momentum of the punch, the vampire barrelled into him sending them both sprawling to the ground. Its weight was crushing to the young human, already dazed and disoriented, and the best Raziel could manage was to grab weakly at the furious vampire's wrists as it tried to throttle the life out of him whilst slamming his head and shoulders repeatedly into the ground.

The fight was not going exactly as Raziel had hoped and there was a horrible blackness growing at the edges of his vision that was punctuated by a burst of stars every time the back of his head impacted the dirt. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness completely was the huge blue-skinned set of talons that gripped the shoulder of his attacker and hauled him up and away. That and the set of demonically glowing red eyes.

Hmm, Raziel thought blearily just before he fainted, Sorfan was right. He does have flaming eyes.

Janos Audron watched as the two fledglings panicked and fled, falling over themselves and each other in their haste to escape the insane demon that had descended from the skies to savage them. He sighed and shook his head in frustration. Really, if they had just stopped to listen he would have had a word with them about the consequences of their foolishness so close to the Sarafan encampment, and more importantly, his home. There was no need to run off like that, he'd only punched the one of them once. Twice, maybe. And all he'd done to the other one was push him over. Ridiculous.

Sighing, he turned to check on the young human they'd been attacking and found him sprawled in a heap on the ground, clearly unconscious. A concerned frown pulling at his features, Janos bent over the young man and ran a critical eye over him. From his days in the field as a soldier he could tell that the injuries were borderline serious. It looked as though the young vampire attacking him had managed to break the boy's jaw and partially crush his windpipe.

The image of Vorador's latest girl-child victim flickered in his mind and he heard his fledgling's deep voice informing him that he would be dumping the pieces of her body on the doorstep of her father's mansion the following evening. Janos looked down at the young Sarafan, bleeding from the nose and mouth, his breath rasping through crushed flesh and realised just how poorly this would go down over at the Sarafan camp across the lake. An idea began to form in the back of his mind.

If history was providing a reflection that was distorted and obscure, then it was time to change the looking glass. But not here. This kind of damage needed healing spells that he could not provide without the aid of certain artefacts that he did not have about his person.

Carefully, and with a gentleness that belied his true strength, the ancient vampire gathered up the young man's body into his arms. With a powerful thrust of his wings, he leapt skywards and vanished into the night.