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[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -We need to talk to the hunters. ||#FireAndIce||

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -We need to find the connections between the families. We find out why it happened, what led to it... and we'll find him.-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -file after file in front of you] The Booths, The Nightingales, The Sutlidges... [So on and so forth, till all 8 files are placed]-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -he's old, and influential. Yours wasn't the only family to be killed. [I flinch when I say it] There were others. [Dropping-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -storage] I think I know who we need to look for. I don't know his name, his face, nothing specific... but the files all suggest-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -But now? Now it's all mine. [Even though I hadn't looked at these files in a year or two, they'd been gathering dust in-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -I tried. I fought. Almost started a war with my family. I wouldn't stop, so they locked me out. Some kinda spell.-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -thing in my life. But to the counsel, my clan, you were just a human caught in the crossfire of a fight that wasn't ours.-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -until recently. They wouldn't give me access to all of the chronicles and files, not for a long time. You were the most important-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -of it and shake my head again, kicking a lid off another box and grabbing another stack of pale brown files] I didn't know much-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -loneliness. Sad really. My own fault though] Mel... [I want to say something, anything, I don't know what... but I think better-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -a porch. Instead I have an empty heart and a bed full of one night stands, surrounded by the stale stench of beer and-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -are "A family of our own". Things could've been different. We'd have kids. Actual grown kids. A house with a fence and-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -you. Not yet. Not while my rule isn't yet stable. | I'm trying to listen, I am... but the only words that seem to stick with me-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -for his pelt as a victory cloak, his teeth worn around the neck of his killer. No... I couldn't risk the council knowing about-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -wolves despise them more than any other creature... and hunters come close too. My grandfathers brother was captured, skinned-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -you dead, still I couldn't let it all go, maybe some part of me is still trying to protect you. You're a vampire now, the-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper -ears. How foolish I sound. How utterly stupid. Perhaps I wasn't ready, even now, facing you after so many years believing-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper ||#FireAndIce|| [It's as much of an explanation as I can give, though even I don't believe myself when the words reach my-

[. @BeastOfIniquity]

@SanguisReaper I miss that smile. I only ever see it in my dreams.