The House - Part Three

Part Three – Answers

I stood there staring at him with my mouth slightly open; he smiled, his lips only moving up in one corner.

"Are you going to just stand there staring?" he said, this time with his voice, his deep gravely voice that had sent shivers down my spine.

"No" was all I could manage. He moved towards me but stopped suddenly.

"Are you alright?" he said with a look of concern on his face,

"Yes" I breathed out he tilted his head to the side, his brown curls shifting with the movement nearly covering one of his amber coloured eyes.

"You look like you are about to faint" he raised his eyebrows in question.

"Yes" was all I could say again.

"You are?"

"No"

He looked even more confused. He looked down at the floor and I felt rather then saw his smile, a full smile this time,

"You are still the same" was his reply. And there I stood once again confused.

"What do you mean?" I said looking into his deep amber coloured eyes. The refection in the water had not done them justice, though my eyes looked darker in that water too.

"I mean," he said slowly "that even after 19 years you have not changed"

I laughed.

"I am 18 not 19. And of course I have changed everybody changes as they grow up"

He shook his head.

"That is not what I mean and I never said you were 19"

"Yes you did, you said, even after 19 years you have not changed" I mimicked his voice as best I could.

"Yes that is true but I never said you were 19 years old"

"Yes you did"

"No I didn't" he let out a loud sigh. "The last time we had a conversation like this, was 19 years ago."

"Don't be ridiculous I wasn't even alive 19 years ago"

"Well you weren't exactly you, I mean, well you were you but you wasn't you" he laughed "Now I sound like you"

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"How can I be me but not me? And be alive before I was born?" I shook my head "You make no sense"

"Ok" he said "Let me start again"

"You were killed 19 years ago, in an accident that was my fault. We were on our way to the King's coronation in Pandryl."

"Do not be silly I couldn't have gone to the King's coronation. That was in the year 400 I wasn't even born then"

"That is because you hadn't died yet. Tell me what year is it now"

"The year is 419 the reign of the great King Eisaer the 3rd"

"And you were born?"

"In the year 401" I frowned at him.

"And you were born then because in the year 400 you died" I frowned even more.

"Reincarnation you do know what that is?"

"Of course I do"

"Then why is this so hard for you to grasp?" My mouth formed an oval shape and I said

"O"

"Your name was Riss, your hair was long and straight, it reached down to your tiny waist in a silken black shine." He smiled as he remembered "your eyes were the colour of a clear blue ocean."

"I have never seen the ocean" I said. It sounded stupid what a thing to say at a time like this. He smiled.

"Anyway." He said "As I was saying, you were killed because I was careless" he took a deep breath "You wanted to watch this new King's coronation, so we went to Pandryl. We flew halfway and then you thought that it would be fun to travel the rest of the way as humans do. So we rented horses and rode the rest of the way into town. The horses knew we were different but that didn't really bother them, it was the humans that rented the horses to us that it bothered." He smirked again. "Humans can be so naïve, they think different automatically means evil. Or wrong. And that's what got you killed; I wasn't afraid to let them know what I was. The new King was promising equal rights to all races. But I was careless. I forgot that the people of Thasai were not all like there good King. They followed us and ambushed us the day before we were going to enter Pandryl" he walked towards me a bit. "I had become arrogant, thinking I am over 800 years old, these silly humans cannot hurt me. And they couldn't, there weapons were no match for me. But I had left you while I tried to be the hero. I don't know how it happened exactly, but one moment I had left you standing there. Telling you I could deal with these humans, and the next thing i know was your head rolling in the dirt at my feet, your body crumpled to the ground in a heap." He paused and hung his head "I don't remember what happened after that. It felt like hours later I was on the floor by your body. I was crying with blood all over my hands and face. The bodies of the humans that had attacked us were dotted about the forest floor in pieces." He looked up at me again. He was so close to me now that if I leaned in just an inch I could kiss him. Tears started to fall from his face, tears that were crimson laced.

"What are you" I whispered.

"I am a vampire" he said. "Just as you were"