Welcome to Gaia! ::

(( this is a continuation of an RP from the shop that was murdered by Gaia being a freak ))


Naraka fixes LP with an implacable stare before he decides to begin, "Well He says slowly, " I don't remember much of my human life, if anything at all. Maybe sometimes I'll smell something that seems familiar but very far away, or I'll see the sky looking so blue, and I'll remember a time when I could look at it without my eyes stinging. But actual memories, I don't have. I don't remember any family, although, I figure I had one. I am only vaguely certain of where I lived, mostly based off of where I was kept as a vampire. Romania, southern, eastern Romania, I think. Maybe near the sea. I'm not certain, but I've always loved the sea."

"Anyway, when I was very young, for I've kept the body since my turning, I was captured by one of the vampires who lived there. I am not certain of how influencial she was, or really anything about her. I never even knew her name. To me, she was simply "Mistress". She had captured me because her last plaything had died, completely and utterly broken by her ill abuse. That's what she did, you see, she entertained herself through pain. I don't know what it was that made her so angry and hurtful. Perhaps someone used her for the same thing. Perhaps she had been tortured by men in the past, women have never been very well respected as human beings, but she loathed me for being male, and tried to do everything she could to hurt me for it. Well, she liked me because I was unusually tall. My whole family was. I don't know exactly how it happened ( I don't remember anything about my being turned) but I can't imagine it was good at all."

He pauses to take a breath and scratches at his neck. "Well, so she took me as hers. I doubt you'd like to hear exactly what she did to me, but it was very bad. I probably don't have anything of the original me left, but perhaps parts of my head and neck. Everything else has been removed in some form or another, and has grown back in the manner of a vampire's body. She wanted for me to hate her, so she could hate me back all that much more, and I'm afraid I fell for it. When you regularly have your skin cut off your body, and shrapnel poured down your throat, and...... other things... well, you get to hating in a hurry. I got wild and feral. I was no longer a human being but a beast. I would try to disappear into my own head, leave my body, but she could always call me back. I wonder if she wanted to break me, but I was not going to give in to her. I always had my teeth bared, and was punished for it, but I wouldn't give in. I would have killed her, had I ever been able to get a hold of her. She was too clever for that, though, and had ways of controlling me.

She would turn me loose sometimes to ravage the countryside. I was an unholy terror. The gypsy people called me 'Enedral', 'Blood', among many other names. I committed horrible atrocities, hardly aware. I was just angry and hurt and violent beyond what is natural in animal or man. I couldn't think anymore. It was a bad time. But I finally managed to escape, after how many years, I can't say. Probably hundreds. My sense of time got a little scewed."

Nar looks out the window, uncertain if he can meet the eyes of his three listeners. "I wanted just for it to stop. I admit, I was cowardly. After so long, any end would have been good. If only she had killed me accidentally. But she didn't. She was so careful. I was her favorite, I guess. And I was tough. Well, I couldn't kill myself, and she wouldn't, but I did manage to escape one day. The events are fuzzy. She dabbled a lot in some sort of arts. Sorcery and vampiracy aren't all that far apart. Both involve an unnatural kind of energy. Some say we're kept walking and talking with 'magic'. I'm not sure how a vampire is a vampire, but anyway, I'm getting offtrack.. um.. she liked to dabble, and I... I caught her at it one day and ruined it. I am not sure how. I managed to break free of my bonds, I suppose. Well, the next bit will be horribly confusing. Her... spell, or whatever it was, did something to me. I wasn't where I thought I was. I was taken to another place. And I don't remember any of that. I've been made to lately, and I get the feeling that I will have to remember more in the future. I went to a castle, and I stayed there for I'm not sure how long. Somehow I managed to come back."

He sighs a little, "Well, I spent so much time as a bitter, vengeful creature, that's what I had become. I took it out on anyone I could find, mostly women in ah.... in a variety of disturbing ways.... I must have thought them responsible, somehow. I had to take my revenge on them. I was the unholy terror of the area. I spent most of my time in the shape of an enormous, black wolf, and I was a terror. A ghost, a demon, the devil himself. I was called all sorts of things, but I didn't care. I wasn't human anymore. I wasn't anything. I didn't belong to anyone, and that's all that mattered."

"I began to travel east eventually. Something called me, I think. My destiny. I came across the desert, how, I really don't know. I had a cloak that protected me from the sun, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to survive the journey. I was still susceptable to the sun then. I came eventually into India, and that's where my life changed. That's where I learned love."

He gives out a little cough and goes on, closing his eyes, for the sun has begun to hurt them. "I forget exactly how we met. I have forgotten so many things. But everything after has been so important, so stark, I doubt I shall ever forget. Her name was Anala. I found her, or she found me, in the forests of India. Sometimes I feel like I'm there again, I dream of it so often. The smells, the call of peacocks in the dead of night.... the reflection of the moon on deep, sylvan pools. It was like a dream, even then. Her and everything. She tamed me, calmed me. And I grew to love her like never I had before. I thought that such things were for people, but not myself. She taught me otherwise. It took years, though, for me to become less savage and fearful. I ran away from her often when she first approached, and there were a few times that I thought I might kill her out of sudden fright or anger. She had a friend named Nandin. He had been her lover for many years, and together, they took me in."

" For a lot of people, I guess it was just a really wierd relationship. Her and her consort taking me in and teaching me love, Nandin as much as she. They were both very gentle, particularly Nandin, whom I learned to like very quickly. My relationships with male people have always been very.... odd. I don't like competition or a lot of male traits, so I don't generally get along with male people, but Nandin was very different. They both taught me to love together. But it was Anala that I grew adorantly IN love with. I loved them both, but she was the object of my romantic love."

He takes a deep breath. "Well, of course, that couldn't go on. Human people die. I had the choice of turning her, both of them, into a vampire, but I couldn't. I knew how hurtful it was to a person, especially after they taught me faith, and the workings of the world. To stop a person's progress through the wheel of life and death is one of the most cruel things you can do to someone. So, when the plague came apon their village, I let them go. Nandin went first, Anala shortly after. Watching her die was one of the most hurtful things I've ever had to experience. I had the power to stop it and keep her forever, but I could do her no such cruelty. So I watched as she slipped away. She was burned. I never stayed to watch the burning. I went into the forests, my hair cut for her. I have never worn long hair since."

"I traveled the forests in misery for.. for years, I think. I felt so lost and so sick. She had given me life by sharing hers and now all that was gone. On her deathbed, she promised that when she was reborn, she would find me, and we would live in happiness once more. That was the only thing that kept me from burning myself up in the sun's light in apathy. She was a steadfast devotee of Shiva, and always talked about the mountains with love and awe. I was drawn there, to those white mountains whose snows are supposed to purify all evil. I had it in my head to find and talk to this Shiva. Beg him to find her, for I'd grown so horribly lonely waiting for her. I didn't meet him, for all my searching, but I did run into the buddhists. They took me in and explained the wheel to me and how I had come to the bottom because of my own actions, and that, if I should hope to rise up, I would have to do so of my own making. That's where I got this."

He unbuttons his shirt and tosses it to the side, turning around so they can see the huge, black and white tattoo sprawled across his back-- a large wheel with six parts, and dozens of tiny figures and places and sections. "It was a spell, although, that makes it sound rather cheap. It locked away many of my powers in exchange for a piece of my humanity. Since then, I have been able to walk in the sun, though not for long, and my bloodlust is far less than an ordinary vampire's. I don't thirst constantly, or need to feed every night." He turns himself back around. "I came down from the mountains forever changed, though it was Anala, really, and Nandin who had changed me the most. I roamed the woods for a while... I did a lot of.. just drifting around, waiting for her. Looking. She never came. Eventually I took to the sea. I sailed for many years. Anala had taught me music, and I have adored it ever since. I made my way, sometimes, with the promise of music. It has kept me a part of human society, I think. Well, I had many adventures on the high seas, and saw many places. So much useless drifting. I met so many people, but none of them were Anala. I took many lovers, but didn't love any of them in the same way."

He sighs, "I came to America and traveled west, along with so many others. I played the piano there. I met someone I took up with... That was back in the eighteen hundreds. I picked up this thing because I've been feeling nastalgic. At this point, I have pictures, but left them elsewhere. Well, I did a lot of moving around after my friend died, then picked up with some young people in the 1960's. Those were good times. The world was always changing, but it seemed that I found some people who really cared, at that point. I grew very attached, but the one I loved most died in childbirth and after that, I just shut down.. it's always like that. I'm alright for a while, because I meet some people that I learn to love, and then they die, and I get kind of lost. I traveled the country, but I didn't care much about anything. Ever since India, I have just been waiting. I found this place, and Iris's uncle let me stay. When he died, I decided it was time just to sleep and sleep and try to forget. Iris woke me up... and.. here I am. That's the story of my life. Some things have happened recently. I thought I'd found Anala at long last, but I was wrong. I have realized, at long last, that she's never coming back. It hit me very hard, but I think I'm getting better.... I am rediscovering what had happened at that castle.. I've fallen in love again. And that's it. That's my life story."

"Well..." he says, scratching his head. "I know she came back. She comes back every lifetime like anyone else, but she hasn't come back to me, and she won't. I need to come to grips with that fact."

"No, you're not going to make me angry. I'm too tired to be angry. No, it's just a hard thing to take, that. She's somewhere out there. I can only hope that she's doing well. Perhaps Nandin is still with her. That would bring me some comfort, if they were together."

"No... I know I used to be very sore a lot... I was just in a bad place. I'm getting better, though. Go ahead and touch it, if you like." He turns himself around so she can see it better. "All us living creatures are trapped in the wheel of live, which is turned by pain and greed and ignorance and hatred. At the bottom are the Naraka, the demons, but even they have hope. At the top are the gods, who are near to bliss, but are still mortal, and so must die and repeat lives. We are all struggling to escape from the wheel, and when we do, we will find eternal bliss and peace."

"Naraka is a nickname of sorts. I don't have a birthname, really. It was lost from me, along with all the other things that made me human. A Naraka is what I am, being a vampire. And I'm not sure how far I've climbed. Not far enough. Not by a longshot. But I am sure I've gotten somewhere."

All this poking and prodding is a little curious, but Nar makes no comment. "Well, I don't murder or rape people anymore," he says sullenly. "And I never really hurt people, although I am in the habit of snapping too much."

Nar leans back into her scritching, enjoying the attention like some sort of creature. "Mmm. It's no excuse. Just because I was abused doesn't give me a right to abuse other people. I just get... irritated sometimes. I wish I didn't. I can't seem to help it so much. But, as I said, I'm getting better with some help from a very special person."

"Well, yes, that's true. It is a reason. The funny thing is, I really am very well off. I'm free, and I live in a pleasant place with pleasant people. I shouldn't still be irritable, but I am. Ther'es just omething left over, I suppose. But yes, having someone is really what I need. I can't live on my own. I begin to get lost. I need someone to keep me on the right track."