Moonlight

  Kate stirred suddenly as they all looked out into the never ending darkness. 

  Had she seen a flash of blonde hair? 

  After all she'd been through in the past hour, and how desperately she wanted Varjak back safe, it was hardly surprising that she'd thought she'd seen him. 

  “I do not think we should wait here,” said Ben suddenly, eyes narrowed at the same spot Kate was looking at. 

  Had he seen it too?

  “But what if Varjak can't find us if we go any further out?” she replied, looking round at him.

  “I'm sure he will,” Ben said simply. “He is a master tracker, after all.”

  “Only because he can't be detected, not because he can find people well,” Kate retorted.

  “I don't think we should leave either,” said James, his strong American twang a sudden difference to Ben's French murmurs. 

  Kate and Ben swung to look at him. 

  He looked slightly abashed. 

  “Well, I don't want to risk Varjak not finding us, since he is our other hope of getting rid of the undead.” 

  “This, is true,” said Ben, looking defeated.

  “Can't we get to higher ground at least?” said James. “There is a small rock face just there with a cave just up from it.”

  Kate and Ben turned round to look at the rock face - it really was only about twenty metres away, and most of it - bar its spike at the top - was covered by thick canopy and tall trees. 

  “Well done James,” said Kate, looking pleased.

  Once they had climbed the rock face and settled in as much as they could into the rocky cave, there was a brief argument on who was to take the first shift - Kate was desperate to do it but typically the men were reluctant to let her do it. 

  Eventually, after a dispute involving sexism and seeing women as equals, Kate was allowed to go and sit on the 'balcony' of the cave to wait for Varjak. 

  The moon was out tonight. 

  Kate sat in the centre of its light, feeling a sort of empowerment. 

  As she sat alone she thought of Varjak. 

  A tingling flitted over her heart for just a second, which had nothing to do with the moon. 

  It was just after this weird feeling that a sonorous snoring erupted from the cave - it was James, as she remembered that stupid snore from Paris. 

  She laughed aloud at the sound, remembering how drunk they had both gotten that night, and how close they had been during that trip to getting together a few times. 

  She sighed. She really had led him on. 

  But what he didn't understand was that she had liked him then! 

  Well, not quite, but it wouldn't have been bad at all if they had got together. 

  Now, however, it would have been pretty bad. 

  And still she didn't know why.

  “I just LOVE the moon,” said a voice beside her, making her yelp. 

  Varjak suddenly solidified to her right, giving her the school-boy grin that she had once hated so much, yet now loved. 

  “You're safe,” she choked out softly, almost in tears with the happiness at the thought, and lurched forwards to hold him. 

  “None of us are, really,” Varjak said quietly. 

  She didn't appear to hear this, and removed herself from him to look at his face. 

  There was something that was making her see him in a different light, and she was sure it wasn't just the moon. 

  His caramel blond hair was really beautiful if you properly studied it - it was always soft and floppy, his fringe always curved heavily and dramatically at an angle away from his face so it bounced when he moved. 

  It never looked rugged, and neither did his clothes, which easily must have been about twenty years old by then. 

  She realized then that that was one thing she had never asked Varjak. 

  Why on Earth did he always look about twenty-four, despite the fact that he must have been around that age twenty years ago too? 

  “Varjak,” she said curiously, not realizing that she had been staring at him and he was frowning at her. “Do you never age?”

  He shot her a half-smile. 

  “Seriously Kate. I thought you might have figured that one out long ago. I give you far too much credit.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. 

  “So...what age did you die exactly? You look about twenty three or four.”

  “I prefer the word transform,” he said evenly. “And I was twenty-two, actually.”

  “Were you...weren't you in a relationship with someone or anything?” Kate pressed delicately. “Didn't you have family? Maybe even kids?”

  Varjak replied to Kate untruthfully.

  “No. I didn't have someone,” he said. “I definitely didn't have kids either. And as for family, yeah I had some.

  “You actually had a mum and dad one time?”

  “Yeah, I did, obviously,” he said, half-smiling again as though to lift the atmosphere. “But I hate dwelling into the past anyway. Question time is over.”

  “Sure,” Kate said, accepting his wishes. 

  They sat in silence for a while - it was hard to guess what Varjak was thinking about, but Kate wasn't thinking about anything in particular, except trying to guess what Varjak was thinking about so intently. 

  Their pensive moment on the 'balcony' was suddenly interrupted by yet another loud snore from the depths of the caves. 

  They both whipped round to the sound and, yet again realizing the source, looked at each other and started giggling. 

  Even Varjak, who she'd never really heard laugh before. It was a nice manly chuckle. 

  The laughter died down, and Varjak stared at the rock face floor, the smile on his face revealing his pointed canines. 

  This was probably where the vampire myth came from, thought Kate, smiling herself and looking back up absently at the moon.

  “It's a shame you're a human,” he murmured. 

  Kate was sure she had heard something and looked at him quizzically.

  “What was that?”

  Varjak looked up at her, brilliantly faking the 'what are you talking about' face. 

  “What was what, you nutter?”

  Kate instantly felt suspicious. “I thought I heard you say something under your breath.”

  “As I say - nutter,” said Varjak, returning instantly to his old self and reassuring Kate that that was never going to change. 

  “Well, I'll keep post while you scuttle back to James-face, shall I?”

  “I'll be scuttling off to my own bed and nowhere else,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. 

  “As I say, keep the hands over the table. Or in this case, just keep them to yourself.”

  She was far too tired for this. “I promise, Varjak,” she yawned.

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “Night then,” he said, plonking himself obediently on the edge and turning away from her.

  “Goodnight,” she yawned again, and without any further conversation retreated to her space on the cave floor. 

Reviews

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The moon was a nice touch on this one. The little webs of poetry weaves about it's presence and it's effect in relation to the situation really brought a great scene out. Varjak sure was quick to return to normal. I've got to love him, though. All shades of his character are enjoyable. Kate seems to be indulging in some cutesy flirtation which is quite nice, actually. I had assumed that the cave was one of the ones with the "Living Dead". The way Gwen died, killed by the men who valued her, was a great way for Varjak to escape. They would have to cover her death or something. Quite the excellent ploy by the writer, bravo.