Disclaimer: Do not own VK. Only borrowing Shizuka, and a few other characters!

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Brought Only to be Taken

...the Memoirs of a Vampire Queen.

Shizuka Hiou's Story.

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What I remember is watching the seasons from a small window. Spring is green, the rain sometimes a spray, sometimes a storm. Summer is blue, the clear sky so open and free. Fall is yellow, the wind blows, trapping leaves on the corners of the window. Winter is the balance of light and dark, extreme in both ways, the snow piling up day and night.

I kept memory of all these for I do not count by year, I count by season. I count the twenty Springs, the twenty Summers, the twenty Falls and the nineteen Winters. These seasons spent alone, in the dark. The same dark I loathed, but soon came to love.

A person would think that spending isolation in total darkness and silence for more than half the whole total of your life would drive that person to insanity, and that might as well be true. For mortals. For mortals that are feeble beings prone to allowing their need for company and light to take over their senses; for mortals who grow older every passing second; for mortals who shudder at every breeze of cold air; and for mortals who allow death to wane their ability to think.

But I am no mortal.

The cold climate do little damage to me. Time and age matter not to me. The darkness serves as a home instead of the malicious cover the mortals tend to take it as. Death is a reality only a handful of people can threaten my existence with.

I need no company.

It is rare for those of my kind to come as a family. Purebloods are rare as it is, and a family of it is almost unthinkable. But it is a possibility. And the son of that possibility stared at me with big curious eyes, full of innocence. Full of belief. And ludicrously enough--full of life. He was nothing like a vampire.

I watched him, the steel bars of my self-imposed confinement between us. At that time, as he asked about me, I could only think of one thing. This little boy, how pitiful...

"...to be born as the next leader of the Kuran Clan...how pitiful..."

Purebloods might as well be the most sympathetic beings in this world. Powerful, yes. Immortal, more than any other being. Fortunate, not in the very least.

This is the solution that the many years of self-imposed expulsion came to give me.

It is the reality that I convict myself to.

And it took only one man to crumble up that determination.

It was heavily storming that winter night. The powerful blizzard made ear-piercing noises that fill me in of the hazardous conditions on the other side of the wall. At first, his steps were fast and thunderous along the deserted hallways. They began to slow the closer he got to the cellar. And just as slowly, the beautiful scent of rusting metal mixed with salt water forms its way. Blood.

And as predicted, a man around the age of twenty-five came tumbling and dragging his way inside the room. One hand clutching his bleeding right arm, blood seeping through his fingers. His left thigh dragged his walk, blood soaking through his clothing. His attire, from head to toe, is being soaked by rapidly melting snow and sweat. Pain is sprawled across his pale face, his tousled dark hair a mess, just like the rest of him.

A cut from a blade in the thigh and a gun shot on an arm.

He dropped on the floor, wincing from the contact with the frozen stone. He leaned on the wall as he ripped at his clothing, futilely bandaging his wounds.

I sat across from him, meters away, the cold steel barrier of my confinement provided as a stable barricade between the two of us. I watched with light interest and indifferent face as this feeble being in his most fragile moment tended to his injuries, completely unaware of my existence.

His scent is a dangerous mix of rusting salt and sweet incense. It is acutely alluring. That face which twitches from anguish is being burned in my mind. His heart that beats loudly, pounding inside of him, is tuning out every other sound around me. Everything about this dying man is captivating me.

His existence, to me, is inside the fine line between toy for entertainment and meal.

After tightly wrapping his arm, he heaved a sigh as if the cloth had just saved his life, which really, is far from the truth. Finally, his eyes lifted and immediately, it met with my face. Surprise crawled on his features at our confrontation. This creature's next move, however, caught me off guard. He released a light laugh, it was weak and strained but it echoed against the walls of the abandoned building.

"So the stories about the madly blooming Princess who grew up in a cage were true..." He continued laughing, pausing once from the pain, before resuming his chuckle.

I kept silent and indifferent, unmoving.

"I hope you don't mind me crashing for the night, Princess." He continued, his once pain-stricken face lifting up in a pitiful smile. His eyes smiled with his lips.

I continued in my kneeling position as if I were alone, but never once did I take my eyes off this man.

His head leaned back the wall and, almost at the same time, his eyes closed. In the quiet, he looked to be at peace. However, every now and then his handsome face would writhe in agonizing pain and his breathing would catch as cold sweat trails down his face and body. Blood that almost fully soaks through the cloth he covered his wounds with is quickly filling up the room. It is intoxicating. And it is testing the patience and control which I am not willing to loose in any way at all.

Seconds, minutes, and possibly hours passed and the man stayed as still as his species could ever be. His breathing rises and falls in a dangerous course. He is unstable. His life is unstable.

"They killed her..." His voice, surprisingly unstrained and appealing despite his condition, spat the words out.

He let out a laugh. It was unlike earlier. His first one was full of humour. This one is filled with spite. "They fucking killed everyone..."

I kept to myself, unmoved, and seemingly uninterested as I turned my gaze up the small window. The blizzard has started to settle.

His eyes opened and he stared at the cold stone floor, his head tilted down. "Bastards..." He started again, spitting out the words, "...I will not let them get away with this." He coughed, it sounded painful. "I...I'd give my life up just as long as they pay for their crimes..." His words were fatal, as if venom dripped in every syllable.

I lifted my head up and stared at him. I was sure curiosity is already expressing in my eyes. What could possibly make this human being hate so much? Death? Of who?

He closed his lids once again. "Everyone is dead...Everyone..."

I pursed my lips, unsure if I would be able to hold my question in if I don't.

He allowed his head to fall back and touch the wall yet again. His eyes are staring up the high ceiling. It seemed like a defeated position.

We remained in silence and just when my interest faded and my head turns back to the window, his words rang throughout the room...

"They killed her..."

My head did not turn, but my eyes gazed towards the owner of the mournful cry.

A single tear rolled down his left cheek as his gaze never left the ceiling. The dark, distinctly never ending ceiling...

Since long ago, I maintained myself in complete silence. Even I did not hear my own voice during this long moment of desertion. Then just this one incident and my lips gladly betrays my mind. The question flew out.

"Who?"

Sullen and tired surprise flickered on his eyes, but he did not turn. By the sound of his breathing that gets raspier by the passing seconds, he is most likely drained of all his remaining energy.

"My...fiancée." He closed his eyes. To me, it looks like an act of surrendering oneself.

"Pitiful." I turned my eyes away from him and returned my gaze up the winter's night sky. It was completely clear after the good storm...

I knew that instance that it was our last conversation.

All I could hear are his rugged breathing, his hammering heart, and his endlessly dripping blood.

What was intoxicating earlier is now suffocating to me.

And I knew it would all end soon. It would all come to an edge, and together with all these, his life would end.

There is no escape to this.

The man is dying.

I clamped my mouth fully closed and tightened my lips into a thin line. My eyes shut themselves closed, and if I could have, I would have shut out all the sounds too.

But I cant.

The man is dying.

I could feel my claws expose their sharp knife-like edges. I gripped my throat.

I was thirsty.

The man is dying.

I've never had this strong of a desire to drink blood.

And the man is dying.

I knew the only way to quench this compelling thirst is to have this dying man's blood.

In less than a second, I was standing upright. Back on my window and facing the subject prior to my objective. One graceful movement and a quick flick of the wrist and the rusting old chain and lock of my prison falls to the ground with an echoing thud. The steel gates creaked and almost too soon there was nothing separating me from my intention.

His eyes languidly opened and turned towards my free form. Standing there, with the moonlight behind me, sure that my face hid nothing.

Shock crawled up his face and immediately followed by fear. I knew my eyes shadowed a murderous intent.

"Come to me."

Almost without hesitation, he used the last of his energy to kneel in a crawling position in front of me. He winced in pain. I smelled the scent of fresh blood seep out...

At an impossible speed, I was seated in front of him, hands holding each side of his face...his beautiful face. And before he could breathe another coarse breath, I sunk my fangs into his neck. He gasped and gripped my arms in a strength that could only come from someone who's life is threatened.

The taste of him was unexplainable.

And that day, thirteen people lost their lives.

A truly unlucky number. Five of them are innocent. And the other eight had it coming.

He returned to me that night, face, arms and body covered with blood. Blood of those who he vowed revenge to.

"Shizuka..." He breathed as he kneeled in front of my seated form. Tears were running down from his opened and still despairing eyes, it mixed with the blood on his face. And almost the same time as his eyes closed, he fell limp into my arms, into a deep sleep.

No nightmare would exceed the events this person had experienced in a course of a few hours.

"Sleep satisfied..." I laid his head on my lap and kissed the side of his forehead before returning to brushing his soft dark hair. "...Shou."

That night opened up my eyes to a world different from what I had secluded myself into.

"Princess!" He would call me every now and then as he raced his way from the entrance of the building to my cellar in less than a minute. He would burst out of the doors over and over again in clean clothing, eager movements and beaming face. He never again allowed me to see him in his messed up form, covered in blood and wounds.

After that night, I never stepped out of my bars again, even as I kept it open for Shou's access. And after that night, there was never a day where I was left to spend my time alone in darkness or light.

Whatever I asked of him, he would do, whenever I asked for him, he was there, he filled in the silence with stories, his past, his present, and what he would like for his future--ridiculously enough, it involved me. He was being stubborn about it even as I told him it was impossible. And somewhere within those moments, I found myself drawn into his light character, rapidly, I fell for this mystery of a man.

Snow that have piled over the few months have long melted and that day when cherry blossoms are in full bloom, unimaginably strong hatred and desire for retribution grew within me.

I was alone in my cell when there was tugging inside my chest. I was left shaken as I held my yearning to spring out and bring him back.

But Shou did not come back that day.

They mercilessly took away my only remaining treasure.

Shou did not come back that day.

Without another thought, I crossed my steel bars, knowing I would never come back.

Surrounded by cherry blossoms that seem to be dancing around in sympathy with me, my first tears streamed out.

One of the two children of their house approached me with the words, "Why are you crying in a place like this? Did something sad happen to you?" He looked up at me, with flowing silver hair and big inquiring eyes, looking all too fragile.

An innocent naive child. But in my state, I could clearly see pain and silent regret radiating off his existence. This child is lost. That moment, he reminded me of my past self.

"And you..?" I replied to him from my position in the tree, "Does something torment you?"

He seemed to consider my question, it brought something new this this child.

They shared the same hair, eyes, body and face. Twins. Even though the other child is undeniably special, he is still a kid. Albeit sharper than the other, he too is far too naive. This one, I'll give an even more damned destiny that what was already laid out for him. Hatred and a silent oath for vengeance is brought within him that moment. He is too much like myself.

As my real enemies revealed themselves, they watched in horror as I ruined the life of the son they believed to have a bright future.

"You extinguished that man,"

One by one I ruined their family.

"So, I'll return the favour."

Twin sons of the damned hunters...one is like my past self, the other like my current state.

Spring is green, the rain sometimes a spray, sometimes a storm. Summer is blue, the clear sky so open and free. Fall is yellow, the wind blows, trapping leaves on the corners of the window. Winter is the balance of light and dark, extreme in both ways, the snow piling up day and night...

...there never is a winter that passed without the memories of him.

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