Akiel and Aiyana appeared half a mile across the city a moment later. Back in the uptown area and at the door of a safe house. She would need feeding and Akiel was already impatient to the point of anger. He allowed her no opening to speak. Any sound she made he simply ignored. Once inside, the house matron led them down a flight of stairs to the basement as requested, where one of the nightly parties for familiars was well in hand. Those who were willing to be cattle for the vampire’s needs sat in comfortable chairs in a back room. The lighting was dim, the smell of human blood like perfume, and the most eager were already standing by the time Akiel and Aiyana were through the door.

Akiel moved like silk, mindful to raise a sense of purpose and calm in the familiar he’d selected. A touch on the cheek, a tender whisper, and the young woman was led to Aiyana.

“Feed, and be careful about it,” Akiel whispered directly into Aiyana’s ear with little mercy in his tone. He stood only a few feet from her, watching and waiting. Once she was fed and able to think clearly again, she’d be ready to hear what he had to say.

Aiyana had known from the moment that she had seen Akiel and Tepin that she had gone too far.  She had pushed herself past her own limits and the Mother and Father had had to rescue her.  The thought filled her with great shame.  It was as though they had caught her acting as a common back alley whore.  At the same time, she felt something within her snap.  Something that had been tightening for centuries inside of her just let go, and she didn't care what punishment was about to be rained down on her shoulders.  She almost thought that she might like to see the sun again.

She took the young woman that Akiel offered and carefully cast the glamour over her that would make it seem as though a lover pleased her.  Then, Aiyana desperately plunged her fangs into the woman's neck and drank.  She was careful, even without Akiel's admonition, to take care with this familiar who had done nothing to offend her, and yet, when the feeding was done, Aiyana was still hungry.  Without waiting for a word from Akiel, she led the bedazzled girl back to the couch, selected another, and repeated the process.  Then, she was sated. 

Aiyana turned to Akiel.  She didn't have to look at him for him to know the shame and defiance that flared in her.  She herself didn't know which was stronger.  Her voice was curiously blank when she spoke.  "Where to now, Father?"

“Back to the beginning if necessary,” Akiel replied. He gave no sign, outwardly or in the blood, of the Father’s relief he felt in watching her feed. His feelings were mixed, and his relief only lasted until she spoke. Her voice, like a starting pistol, brought him back on track. Partly because it was void of any understanding of who she was and what danger she’d put them in, and partly because it showed only lip service to respect.  He’d expected better of her.

With a hand to her back, not pushing but insistent, he led her to a private room. Such matters were not for familiars, and not for other vampires to hear. Akiel indicated a chair as he quietly closed the door. It was the quiet before the storm. He removed his sunglasses and tossed them onto a lamp table. His eyes and his voice spoke as one, and with the same barely-restrained anger.

“I would ask you what you were thinking when you endangered yourself, our family and our kind with your selfish and foolish behavior, Aiyana, but clearly - you weren’t thinking at all. You forgot who and what you are. You forgot what must be done in private and what must be done in public. You blurred the line between wisdom and common stupidity and acted as a spoiled little rich child. But that’s not what you are. You are 500 years old, a Pervigilan, the daughter and handmaiden of the Mother of Vampires and the Goddess of Tikal. You live by the grace of the Blood, and by the will of your Father. This is not spring break or recess, Aiyana. The humans are fragile and weak, and your prancing around on the edge of blood frenzy is disgraceful and dangerous.”

Akiel was standing erect, tall above her whether she stood or sat. A statue, barely moving as he delivered his indictment. But this was no trial.

“I can’t offer you sanctuary from the laws and expectations that Tepin and I have created - the sole foundation of that which separates us from the tyrannical chaos that ruled the vampire races for centuries, and rules them still outside our walls. You know this. You have stood on that foundation and you have benefited from it. You have laid some of those stones yourself, and have mortared them with your own blood. You have seen the worst our race can be, and you have played a part in the reconstruction, the beauty and the art, the sacrifice and the toil, and the illumination of knowing what we have created is what must be.”

Akiel moved, seeming to float, closer beside her. His gaze was no less burning, his cheeks no less carved. He tilted his head, willing himself not to touch her. Not yet.

“Explain yourself.”

Aiyana allowed herself to be led quietly to the room, and she sat where she was told.  She was silent while Akiel spoke.  There might have been flashes of anger, but they died quickly without ever blooming across her face.  By the time that Akiel had finished speaking, Aiyana had nothing left in her.  She felt like Father had pulled out all her shame, all her hurt, all her anger and left it strung about the room where it couldn't touch her anymore.  Her body felt heavy, and it felt hard to focus.  Why would she have endangered them all?  Who was she anymore?

She shook her head slowly, trying to absorb and process everything.  Her words, when they came, were slow and halting.  She spoke in the tongue of Tikal as though the language of her second home offered her some sort of comfort.  "I don't want sanctuary from the laws." 

Her hands gripped the sides of the chair tightly.  She didn't notice the blood tears that began to roll down her cheeks.  She rocked slightly back and forth as she looked for the words that would make Father understand the events of the evening.  Still haltingly, she spoke.  "He made the lonely go away.  He....  I couldn't feed on him after that, and I didn't want him to disappear."  She repeated what was most important to her in that hauntingly hollow voice.  "He made the lonely go away."

He made the lonely go away.

Akiel had watched her closely as she spoke. Her body, her face, the grip she took on the chair as though seeking a footing, the blood tears weeping from her eyes. Her explanation, while no good reason to toy with catastrophe, was understood by Akiel. She’d made no apology, and Akiel didn’t want one. He wanted her to see. She’d revealed herself to him - and the desperation that ate at her heart. Her heart, he thought, is at the heart of the matter.

Akiel eased himself down to a crouch beside her, no longer looming over her as though judge, jury and executioner. He thought better of mentioning Jeremiah’s name, but still it hung in the air like the Sword of Damocles.

“A simple ‘excuse me while I go to the bathroom’ might have sufficed, my childe,” he said in the Tikal tongue. He spoke only in the tongue as he continued. With the tip of a finger, he swept away the blood from under one of her eyes, barely touching her as he did.  “The heart has a way of blinding the mind, and you must be careful where it leads you.”

He took her hand in his and coaxed her into standing. He touched her cheek softly with his open palm, and though his voice was warm, it was not yet relenting.

“We love you and we know you have been hurting. And though I cannot allow you to repeat this wild episode again, I trust that you understand. Say that you do and I will believe it. Then, if this boy pleases you, you may go back to him - with conditions.”

Aiyana's eyes loosed more tears, even as Akiel cleaned her cheek.  She shook to the shattering point with the magnitude of what was going on around her.  All she could see were long, duty-bound years stretching out in front of her.  No sire.  No mate.  No childe.  Nothing more than familiars who longed for her touch and offered gratitude for her illusions.  She wondered if Father had felt this way before Mother, but then she remembered the stories of Jal.  Even in duty, Father had always had a partner.  Yet, she would speak thoughts like that to no one.  They benefitted no one, least of all herself. 

"I understand," she whispered, hoping the blood did not reflect that long hall of hopeless years.  "There is only the blood, Father."

“And from the blood flows life, love and family. Never forget that, Aiyana.” Again, Akiel wiped blood from her cheeks, but with a handkerchief from an inside pocket. He held her to his chest for a moment, then leaned away. The sharp edge had completely left his voice. Only her Father stood before her.

“I’ll take you back now. But you should seek Tepin’s council on how to proceed, what you are permitted and what you are not. She knows your pain, my childe. She knows it as if it were her own - and it is.”

He’d touched her mind, but lightly and only through the blood. He could feel the hollow hall that was her worry and her disappointment. There was nothing to say of it. To deny it would be to deny her self. To believe it was to doom the future. He trusted that in time, Aiyana would find her mate or her childe, and the hall would change in demeanor. The future, as it was for Akiel, would become a living and dynamic thing for her. She would see it through another’s eyes, just as Akiel saw it through Tepin’s eyes - where worlds hold promises and the path has meaning.

“Are you ready?”

For a moment, Aiyana buried her face in Akiel's chest like the childe she was.  This was the only family that she had, and she would not disappoint again.

"I will speak with Mother tomorrow night.  I'll come to the house.  Alone."  If Akiel said that Tepin knew her pain, Aiyana could not doubt it.  Mother was like a goddess to her, and Aiyana could not think of a thing that Tepin would not know. 

"I am ready."  She nodded and smiled guardedly.  "I would like to stop being lonely again for a while."

He would have granted her any wish that she wanted. The wish she needed granting was not within his power to grant. She would have to grant that one to herself. Akiel put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her a little closer. Then, as they had arrived, they entered the ancient rift - a rip that tied a place and a time to the will of Akiel - and returned to the alley near where Tepin and David were waiting.