Finding a Little Sister in the House (1/?)

[estirose]

This is based off the novel I wrote back in 2008 and am working on finishing up now. It answers my question, “What if Taiga had checked out his mother’s home after Bishop killed her?”

Taiga had Bishop take him back to where his mother had been living. He supposed it was some morbid thing, to see what his mother had turned into after the human had seduced her away from her duties. But maybe it would give him some answers, too, as to what had happened to her. What had turned her away from her duties and her people.

He entered the house easily; she hadn’t bothered to lock up. On the top floor was a workroom; a violin was sitting in clamps, resting on one of the tables. A display cabinet showed a violin and a picture of the person he supposed was the human Kurenai Otoya. He resisted tearing it and the violin out of the cabinet, tossing them into oblivion.

Walking downstairs, he noted two beds, oddly enough; he wondered who else could be living there. Picking up a book from the bookshelf sitting near the smaller bed, he narrowly caught a teen’s magazine that had been sitting by it.

There were several pictures sitting on a small shelf near the recessed bed. They were of his mother – he’d seen pictures of her and himself – and a little girl who became older and older. A sister? Had his mother’s infidelity resulted in a baby sister for him?

It would make sense, with the second bed. And there was far too much food for one person.

He wondered where she was, this sister of his. Where she could have gone. It was obvious that she wasn’t there; maybe their mother had sent her away.

Sitting down, he gazed at the painting above the exposed bed. Few could have read the ancient Fangire at the bottom of the painting; he did it easily. “Unstrung, the Violin Lacks Shimmer,” he read slowly, and looked at the bookcase. He wondered if that was his sister’s name; it could easily have been. He resolved to have Bishop add it. She was part Fangire, the daughter of a Queen. She deserved that courtesy.

He must have sat there for quite a few minutes before the upstairs door slammed closed. A girl was upstairs, crying. “She’s dead, Kivat. I’m not even sure what I saw.”

“It’s okay, Wataru,” another, male voice said soothingly. “It’s best that you forget, anyway. It wasn’t meant for you to see. That’s why she told you to stay here….”

“My mother turned into a pile of glass shards! And before that… Kivat, she was murdered! And I don’t understand why!”

“And it’s safer for you if you don’t,” the male voice argued. “Go back to the life she wanted for you, Wataru. You don’t want the pain of knowing what happened there.” He sounded tired. Taiga had heard of the Kivats; they were long allied with the royal family.

This one was intent on leaving his baby sister in ignorance. Taiga doubted she knew how to hunt; she’d be starving to death within a matter of weeks.

“I can’t! My mom was murdered!” Taiga felt himself tearing up; his baby sister was now alone in the world with only a Kivat for company. For the rest of her life, however short that ended up being.

“Wataru. Let go.” the Kivat’s voice was soothing; but the Kivat wasn’t blood kin. He was. He cleared his throat, audibly, not wanting to scare the poor girl.

Peeking over the railing were a girl – he noted with worry that her hands were cut up – and a golden-hued Kivat. Which was regrettably quicker to recover than Taiga himself was. “Wataru. We’re leaving. Now.”

“But Mom….”

“Unless you want to join her, we are leaving *now*.”

Still crying, the girl nodded, darting out of Taiga’s sight. Taiga quickly teleported up, but only gained a view of his baby sister running away from him, leaving blood where she had touched the door.

He dashed to the window, watching helplessly as the girl and the bat darted out of his sight.

Not sure what to do next, he paced around the upstairs workshop. His baby sister had touched the rails *there* – he could see her blood smeared. There was a scarf full of shards – their mother’s – sitting on the table. He wanted to throw them against the walls, turn them into tiny little shards, but his little sister had gathered them for a reason. So he left them alone.

Now to find her. How, he had no clue, but he’d find her, and keep her safe.

He sat down, and after a while, he heard the upstairs door open and close. “Maya-sama? Wataru-chan?”

Teleporting up, he grabbed the man that had called. “How do you know them?”

The man gulped, he could see it and feel it. He was Fangire, too. “I’m a friend of the family.”

“Good.” Someone with a clue! “The girl ran off. Where did she run off to?” When the man didn’t answer, Taiga pulled off his glove. “By order of the King, you *will* tell me.”

“Urk,” the man said. Taiga eased up a bit. “Was she with her mother?”

“No,” Taiga said with impatience. “Her mother’s dead.”

“Then she’d have… urk… been placed with some… urgh… human friends of her mother’s,” the man told him.

Taiga finally let him go. “She’ll starve to death!” he exclaimed, glaring at the the man.

The man rubbed at his throat. “No, she won’t. She’s more Human than Fangire, she can live for months on a simple feeding….”

“My baby sister is not a human!” She couldn’t be. But it would explain her words. If her mother, if this man, if they’d both hidden her Fangire ancestry from her….

Taiga felt sick to his stomach over that. Somehow, he had to find his baby sister and teach her to be Fangire.

“Maya-sama felt her daughter should be as human as possible. She even did rituals when Wataru-chan was little, to make her seem human. So she wouldn’t end up a Queen.”

“Do you know which of her mother’s human friends?” Taiga asked, gritting her teeth.

The man shook his head. “She never told me. I presume Kivat knew….”

“You. WIll tell me if she shows up again. I will be coming back. You understand?”

“Y-yes. King.” The man was still rubbing at his throat.

Taiga stalked off and back to the car. He was annoyed that he was too young to drive, yet. But it gave him time to think about how to find his little sister.

One of the Elders, he remembered, practiced magic. He called up her information and directed his driver to drive there.

“Ah, hello King,” the Elder, Dawn, said. She gracefully let him in. “How can I help you today?”

“You know magic,” Taiga blurted out. “Can you find a girl?”

“You have a Queen coming when you’re older,” the Elder reminded him, raising her eyebrows.

Taiga took a deep breath. “I’m not looking for a girl to sleep with, there’s a half-Fangire running around who thinks she’s human!”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Dawn told him. “Parent has a right to raise their kids human.”

“Her mother – the Fangire – just died. She’s going to starve to death.” Taiga hoped that she’d do something. “I should do something, as King.”

“There’s something that you’re not telling me,” Dawn said. “Tell me the details, and maybe I can help you.”

“The girl is my little sister,” Taiga said. “Through my mother – the result of her liasion with that human. She’s apparently been taken care of by my mother and another Fangire. There was a spell placed over her to make her seem human.”

“A potential Queen, you mean,” the Elder said, looking disturbed. “Probably your Queen from the moment she was concieved.” She tapped her fingers on the doorframe. “Bishop is not going to be pleased. How old was she?”

“Teenager,” Taiga said. “I didn’t exactly had a chance to ask her.”

“I think I know the ritual you mentioned,” the Elder said. “It’s a cruel thing to do, even to a crossbreed. If she becomes Queen… the obscurement will go away. But… it might be kinder to her to let her starve to death.”

“I am not letting her starve to death,” Taiga told her, teeth gritted. “I need to find her.” He looked at some blood that had rubbed onto his fingers. “This is an order. I need to find her. This might be my Queen we’re talking about.”

“Very well,” the Elder said, sighing. “I need something physical of hers, or something to home in on.”

“This is some of her blood,” Taiga said. “She also had a Kivat….”

“Easier to find the Kivat,” the Elder said instantly. “Come in. We’ll see if I can find the Kivat for you.”

Crossposted from Ramblings Yet Once More here.