#the strix

Tristan didn’t really know why he’d come here. Perhaps it was out of curiosity? He didn’t know what happened to his sire, so maybe it was because of that. He felt a general sense of unease, however, as he walked further in. Which was stupid, really. Right?

There was nothingthat could go against him – he was as old as the Original family of vampires! He was just as powerful! And deep down, he knew that they wouldn’t be scared. Not of a little cave like this.

Inside, he would swear that something was calling him. It wasn’t with words, none that he could hear, at least, but he was drawn to it. To the darkness inside, no matter how his instincts were screaming at him to leave. Tristan took the first few steps in, and as he moved further inside, a grin started spreading across his face.

A month later, The Strix received a letter from their missing leader, beckoning them to come and join him. He’d found news, amongst other thing, he said. And, well, not even Aya, his second in command, was as old as Tristan. And he surely wouldn’t appreciate her overruling his instructions, no matter that it was what they’d done to their sire before his own disappearance.

They would go, Aya decided. If there were any in the Strix that weren’t curious about their Original sire’s disappearance, they didn’t dare say it near her, at least.

And if Tristan had news, finally, after the half-century they’d spent looking since they’d lost track of Elijah Mikaelson, then it would be worth their while. Sure, they weren’t quite sure what would happen to them if Elijah were to go, but Aya at least had a pretty good idea of it.

Death, for sure. It didn’t happen with any of the younger lines, but Aya wasn’t Tristan. She wasn’t so arrogant as to think that she was so similar to the Original family that Elijah’s death wouldn’t do anything to her. In a way, it was comforting to her, to know that her ex-lover was still alive, by the virtue of herself being alive.

He may have been her ex, and yes, Aya may have helped to overhrow his rule of the Strix, but it wasn’t as though she didn’t still care for Elijah. He’d still taken her from a lonely, intelligent woman, to a borderline ruler of the world, after all.

Her thought on him occupied her as she made her way to where Tristan had instructed, accompanied by most of the Strix. At least if Tristan had decided to betray them and destroy the Strix, they wouldn’t all die. Their purpose would be remembered, and carried on, by the remaining few who hadn’t come.

It was a dismal meeting point, if Aya was to be honest. The cave before her, no matter how drawn she felt towards it, was dark and dreary, and Aya felt disgust at it. It was horrible, and Tristan’s standards had really gone down since he’d left them, if this was his idea of a good spot.

Movement came from inside the cave, and she turned to looktowards it. Her vampiric sight made it easier to see in, but it got too dark less than a metre in, which was strange. Aya frowned, blinking a bit, trying to see further, but it didn’t work. It was as though something was blocking her.

Tristan stepped out of the darkness, towards her, and his face broke in a grin as he saw her, which made Aya take an instinctual step back. She’d never seen him like that, and as he staggered forward, as though a puppet on its strings, she found that she didn’t want to.

Especially not with how his eyes were, she discovered when he got closer. Tristan’s eyes didn’t match the expression on his face, all glassy and filled with fear. It was a stark contrast to the wide grin on his face that, when examined closer, was more forced than it had first appeared.

Something was wrong here, Aya realised. She turned, starting to walk away, and started running when she heard Tristan trying to get closer to her.

She couldn’t speed away like she wanted to. Panic began to set in when Aya realised it. She was running at the speed of a regular human, not the centuries-old vampire she was. Worse, Aya could feel her chest tightening with every breath, as though she really was a human, and needed breath to continue running. She hadn’t felt this in over a century, and it frightened her.

What kind of a creature was that, that thing? How could it remove her vampirism like this?

She refused to call it a he. It may once have been her leader, arguably her friend, and she’d definitely held respect for Tristan. But now, either that wasn’t him, or he’d been hiding something deep within himself that had come out now.

Whatever had happened now, Aya knew it had been a trap. She and the rest of the Strix had entered it willingly, lambs to the slaughter, believing it to have a fair face, and friendly thoughts, when it was really the wolf, coming to eat them. She ran, downthe mountains, away from her comrades in the Strix, to the few that hadn’t joined them. She urged them to pack up, to start leaving again, to flee this place, but they weren’t listening.

And then, one of them turned his head, and asked her, in a voice Aya could not recognise, “What was it that gave me away?”

The woman was terrified, unable to move her limbs no matter how she screamed at them to obey her. The situation she was in was dawning on her, and Aya realised that she had not even questioned how, even with her vampirism supposedly removed, she was able to flee to the remnants of the Strix so fast.

They hadn’t come up as fast as she’d fled, and they’d been vampires, with all the benefits it entailed. She should not have been able to go that fast.

Aya’s eyesburst open, seeing nothing but darkness surrounding her. Well, almost nothing. She could see the little cracks, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw a figure, floating in the dark. Held up by nothing, as far as Aya’s sight told her.

It was Tristan, and Aya’s eyes unwittingly teared up, in fear of what was happening. There was humming around them, and it only served to put her further on edge, even as she couldn’t look away from her once-leader’s body.

He was strung up, silvery threads keeping him afloat. Aya could see the unnaturally twisted bones, and the way the threads twirled around his wrists and ankles. They were numerous, twisting around his body, even attached to his jaw, and Aya could not tell how he was even alive.

If he even was alive. They were vampires, but it didn’t mean anything in this case. Aya didn’t even know how she had gotten into this position, when she’d gone from wakefulness to sleeping. It had seemed so lifelike, until she’d reached the remainders of the Strix.

Maybe not even the remainders, now. After all, she’d led this thing straight to them. Aya could be confident that they were dead by now. Or, if not confident, she could at least be hopeful. She wasn’t much for hope, but in this case… She hoped they were dead, for Tristan had proven that dead was the best thing they could be now.