SUNRISE, SUNSET

[amadeo]

He couldn't feel their hands on him anymore. Their cold fingers weren't digging into each of his limbs, tearing him away from his Master - oh God, Marius, who was burning above - and tearing him from the life he so loved and had only been able to experience for less than a year. This wasn't fair! He had waited so long, so long for his Master to finally give him the magic blood. He had waited so long for the chance to be changed and the chance to be able to live with Marius, who he loved more than he had ever loved anything, for the rest of eternity. And it had all been taken away from him in a second's time. These satanic, crazed blood-drinkers, so maddened by their worship of Satan, had stripped this little Venetian princeling of everything he held dear. He could still smell the stench of his Master's burning flesh, as though his clothes had captured the odor and would hold it forever.

But he was yet to have opened his eyes. He wondered if maybe he had been killed, or was on the edge of death. Was he back on that glassy shore, the one he had seen in visions when the poison from Lord Harlech's sword had slowly destroyed his insides? He was so afraid to open his eyes. He almost didn't want to. He almost wanted to sink into the ground, curl up and never open his eyes again, so deep was his despair at watching is Master burn. Marius had been the most beautiful thing, so tall and proud with his white-blond hair and endless blue eyes. But now what was he? A mass of black surrounded by flames, screaming, darkened fingers grabbing at nothing. "Oh, God help me," Amadeo whispered, finally weakening and falling to his knees.

His eyes flew open as soon as his knees hit the ground. He quickly looked down, his angelic face twisted in an expression of desperate confusion. What was this underneath him? Sand. He grabbed a handful of it, let the stuff fall through between his fingers, watched as the moonlight made it shine. Sand. And behind him, the ocean? He didn't see it; he didn't have to. He could hear the waves. And the smell wasn't of the canals of the Veneto - it was salty, fresh, clean. "Marius," Amadeo whispered, his voice pathetically weak. That man - that almost god - had been his life for the past almost three years. The two had spent days apart before, but this? This seemed to be worlds apart. And, oh, Marius had been burning! Amadeo stumbled to his feet. The delicate velvet slippers that Marius had so loved to see on all of the boys sank into the sand, the same sand that covered Amadeo's stocking-clad legs and bare, ivory hands. A gust of wind traveled over him quickly, disturbing his reddish curls and making him turn his shoulder.

There were no people nearby. His vampiric eyes pierced the darkness with ease and picked up on no movement besides that of the waves at his back, and in the distance trees swaying lazily in the mild night air. "I must be dead," Amadeo said to himself. He walked parallel to the line of the ocean, not really going anywhere at all. "I must be dead, or mad. Maybe my mind's broken again." And this time Marius wasn't there to repair it. God, but how much he depended on his Master! But how could he not. The coins in his purse had been from his Master, the knowledge that his mind harbored from Him, the blood in his veins was His as well! Amadeo was nothing if not a product of Marius, and a piece of the elder that couldn't survive alone. As was becoming quickly apparent.

Amadeo sank back into the sand, this time laying down instead of kneeling. He rested his head in the soft sand and closed his eyes again as they filled with blood-red tears. "I'll sleep until he comes for me," he whispered to no one, the thick, salty air already making his full lips dry. This young vampire thought nothing of the fact that he was out in the open or the fact that the sun would surely rise and its rays would find him there, without shelter on the beach, and burn him just as Marius had burned. Perhaps in his desperation he had convinced himself that Marius would come, take him into those arms the boy so needed, and carry him to shelter from the day. Or perhaps, in some hidden part of his mind, he had succumbed to the idea of death after so short an immortal life. Because what was that life without his Master?

[liquid]

"You must be new here.” Liquid said snidely to the boy who was distraught and curled up in the sand. Obviously, the boy had only just arrived on Terra since that particular place in the sand had been completely vacant only moments before. Bloody Hell, Liquid took his arrival on Terra much better than this pathetic life form. At least he hadn’t looked like he was about to cry! He had broken a couple of windows to let out his frustrations, but he composed himself quickly enough. Liquid had a strong urge to just kick the boy in the side; he was in the perfect position for Liquid to just bury his boot in his ribs. Anything to get out Liquid’s frustrations at how utterly pathetic the boy was. As strong as these urges were, Liquid held himself back for the time being. If the boy didn’t prove to be useful, then Liquid would allow himself to kick the feeble thing.

Liquid had been a POW in the Gulf war and was rescued just before coming to Terra. Being rescued from imprisonment only to be trapped somewhere else didn’t exactly please Liquid and the lack of combat wasn’t helping. Liquid was a soldier; he saw that as his only reason for living. As much as he hated his “father” he agreed with the man’s idea that the world needed conflict so that soldiers would always have a place in it. There had to be some reason for Liquid to be on Terra and he hoped it involved conflict. If not, Liquid was just going to have to create his own chaos to thrive in.

During his short time of Terra, Liquid had discovered that there wasn’t much to do other than stand on the beach and wonder if the ocean he was staring at really had an end. He severely doubted that it did; that would be too easy. No, he had to accept the fact that he was truly trapped in this awkward place. It was during one of his pondering sessions that Liquid noticed the boy appear in the sand, despite the darkness. Since he had been standing there for quite some time, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness more than the boy’s had so it was only natural the he couldn’t have noticed Liquid standing so many yards away on the beach and the boy’s panic would have stopped him from realizing that there was someone walking toward him.

Liquid carefully examined the boy; he looked very . . . historic. Either he had worked at some historical site before coming to Terra or he was from a completely different century than Liquid. Well, the latter was far more appealing than the former; the last thing Liquid wanted to deal with was some hack renaissance fair actor. The boy resembled a porcelain doll more that an actual human being with his fair skin, light hair, and baby face. And the costume the boy was wearing only added to his doll like appearance. Liquid had to admit that the boy was a pretty young thing, but pretty didn’t mean anything on the battle field. If this place was indeed going to be the setting for a future battle, then why on earth was this boy brought here? He just looked so weak. What purpose could he possibly serve other than that of pleasing the more lustful men in Terra? Liquid hated weakness and there was a part of him that just wanted to put the boy out of his misery right there, but he had to admit he was curious about who the boy was. After all, one of the few exciting things that happened on Terra was the arrival of knew people.

Liquid stood tall and dominating over the young boy, with his long coat flapping in the wind, his green eyes practically piercing straight though the young thing. His chest was bare, as it usual was; why hide the fact that he had a spectacular body? He stood waiting for some type of reply out of the boy.

“What?” he spat with a scowl, “Do you not speak English?” This would be the point where most compassionate humans would assure the boy that they weren’t going to hurt him and that everything was going to be alright; Liquid had the same level of compassion as a hungry rattle snake and the same temper.

[amadeo]

Amadeo had almost immediately surrendered to this white sand and gentle shore and mild night. His white face, bright in the moonlight and even paler than the sand it was pressed against, was stained with red. It was something he had seen on his master before; tears made of blood. He hadn't shed a single tear since his making, so to feel this warm liquid slide down the curve of his cheek almost startled him. And it startled him even more when he opened his eyes and saw the blood sinking into the sand. That was all he had energy to do, though, he found. Opening and closing his eyes, and once in a while taking a pained, shuddering breath. His will to move had fled with his will to live. But there was one thing that startled him out of this lethargy. He heard approaching footsteps before he heard the man's voice. He found himself tensing defensively, wondering if maybe it was one of Santino's vampire come to finish him off. But the male voice, though somewhat sneering, didn't hold the malice that Amadeo would expect from one of the cloaked cult members.

'You must be new here,' the voice said, and Amadeo moved slowly to look up at the figure who was standing nearby. At first, when Amadeo saw the long blond hair, his heart leaped. But no, that hair was too golden. Not the almost-white of Marius's waves. And that tone of voice - Marius had never used it while talking to Amadeo, not even when he had been angry. And more than those things, more than the similarities that Amadeo was trying so desperately to find - this man was human. Amadeo could smell it. This man was no savior to him. This wasn't his Master ready to take the small boy into his arms and fly away to safety. This was a stranger, and what's more, it was a stranger that was speaking to him as if he were nothing. A weaker creature than Amadeo - and could one be found? He hardly thought so at the moment - might have just collapsed back onto the sand, closing his eyes and grasping at restful sleep until the sun came up. But instead Amadeo rested his brown eyes on the man's face, those same eyes still filling with red tears.

But he didn't speak. What could he possibly say? The stranger noticed the silence, and spoke again. 'What, do you not speak English?' Amadeo was taken aback, and he answered quickly in the tongue Marius had introduced him to: Italian. "No, I don't speak English," he replied. And was that a little bit of his old fire in his tone, somewhere underneath all the hurt and confusion? Perhaps. "But neither do you," he added. "Otherwise I wouldn't have understood you." But was all of this at all important? The two were discussing language, of all things, right after Amadeo had been... what? Captured? Abandoned? Stranded? He didn't believe that he was dead anymore, because the afterlife wouldn't have held a man like the one standing in front of him, bare-chested with a strange coat on, and an unkind voice. Attractive though the man was, he wasn't an angel or a priest, or anything that Amadeo had encountered when he had neared death not a year before.

"Please, sir," Amadeo said, climbing to his feet. He was going slowly, at a human pace so as not to frighten the mortal man. Although he didn't look the type to scare easily. "I don't know... Where I am. I don't know how I got here." The tiny sign of strength that had been in his voice previously was gone again and replaced only by desperation and fear. "My Master, perhaps you know him," Amadeo continued, taking a step closer to the man. "Marius de Romanus. He'll be looking for me, and I-"

He fell short, his voice dying in his throat. But would Marius really be looking for him? His Master had been on fire, his scarlet cloak burning to nothing on his back, his white hair being engulfed, and all those devil-worshiping vampires grabbing with their bony, wretched hands. The whole of Amadeo's life after Kiev Rus', after the terrible things he had gone through in the slave market, was gone. Even if he did somehow find his way home, home wouldn't be there. The palazzo would be nothing but the foundations, and all the boys he had known would be victims to either the flames or the vampires. Amadeo was utterly helpless no matter where he went or what he did. Which made him, again, want to collapse onto the sand and wait for the sun to burn him just as his entire life had been burned.

"Won't you help me?" Amadeo whispered, reaching out to maybe hold onto the man. His gesture was feeble, though, and his fingers only brushed the lapel of the man's coat, which flapped in the gentle breeze. Amadeo looked into the hard, sarcastic face of this man and hoped to God here would be a touch of sympathy there.

[liquid]

Oh dear God, was the boy actually crying? And here Liquid had thought that this really couldn’t have gotten any more pathetic! This boy was young, but he still looked too old to actually be crying. Suddenly, Liquid noticed that there was something wrong with the boy’s face; it appeared to be covered in blood. Could the boy have sustained some injury just by laying in the sand? A seashell cut his forehead, perhaps? The child seemed weak enough to have a small cut fueling his tears. Injury had seemed the obvious source of the blood until Liquid saw a bead of it drip from the boy’s eye. Was he crying blood? Well now, this certainly made things a lot more interesting. No normal human being would be crying blood. Either this child had some severe medical problem, or he was not human. Considering the type of people who ended up in Terra, Liquid suspected that it was the latter. Now, this intrigued him. . . What type of being would cry blood? Liquid was more used to scientifically modified humans rather than non-humans still, this boy still could be either. Considering what he was wearing, it didn’t seem likely that advanced science was present in whatever time this boy had come from. So what was he? Naturally, Liquid had to find out.

The boy may have been whimpering in the sand and crying blood, but he still had the motivation to give Liquid some sass. "No, I don't speak English. But neither are you, otherwise I wouldn't have understood you." Liquid would have been a little annoyed and entertained by the sass had it not gotten him thinking; Liquid was speaking English, the boy claimed he couldn’t, and yet he still understood and spoke the language? Either the boy was lying or there was something odd about this island that, sort of, auto translated everything that was said by the occupants. It did make sense; having so many people from some many different times and places made it impossible to assume that everyone would be able to understand each other. Hmm, who ever had designed Terra had certainly thought of everything. . . The only thing that bothered Liquid was that he couldn’t think of a scientific explanation for it all.

Liquid was surprised to discover that the boy was able to pick himself up, but now the boy was blubbering about being lost and some sort of ‘master’ he was looking for. The word ‘master’ had some appeal to if, but only when it was referring to liquid of course. “Marius de Romanus?” said Liquid with a smirk, “never heard of him and I highly doubt he’s anywhere around here-“ Before Liquid could finish his snarky remark, the boy had gotten closer to him and extended his arms.

Jesus Christ, did this boy expect Liquid to hold him? Perhaps give him a shoulder to cry blood on? Liquid scowled down at the boy; he didn’t like hugs, even as a child. . . but he also really didn’t have anyone who would want to give him hugs. . . ANYWAY, this kid was seconds away from a backhand before Liquid had a sudden epiphany; this boy had lost his master, so maybe he needed a new one. Liquid was still intrigued by discovery that the boy could cry blood and he had to admit that he was eager to learn more. He could have been a being with powers that Liquid could utilize, or he could be something fun for Liquid to perform scientific experiments on. The boy was weak and vulnerable, Liquid could easily manipulate him into doing what ever he wanted. . . but was Liquid devious enough to take advantage of someone in such a weak state? Well, of course he was!

Liquid took a step back from the boy and smirked. “Follow me then,” he said before turning and beginning to walk away.