Artimus Nightweaver

by Andalite

### Allies

The VampiresThe Vampire Council Carlotta DeVance (iffy)Carmon Nightweaver Glory Greengrass

### Appearance:

Tall and pale and unearthly handsome, with long white hair, eyes like liquid gold, and a lean, muscular physique. Often dressed like a nobleman. He has this relaxed attractiveness to him, like he has everything under control. A sharp glance from him could make your blood run cold with fear, or a lazy half-smile could put you at ease, thinking he wouldn't hurt a fly.

### Personality:

Imposing and regal, the sort of person you want to follow. He is sometimes playful or cocky, but never sloppy - he is one to fear. Known to be merciless and with no sympathy for his victims, he expects others to be the same. Vain and a bit full of himself, he has a slight southern drawl that his sister does not. He has an almost sadistic hobby of torturing and brainwashing those who would oppose him, warping their minds to think him their savior instead of their captor. It works unsettlingly well.

### Story:

All his life, The Boy had known only certainties: The attic was his and no one else's, he could not leave it if he wanted to, he mustn't draw attention to himself through the single boarded-up window he was granted, oatmeal was brought three times a day at the same time every day....

And The Boy was a monster.
The Boy had always been a vampire, ever since he was born - not that he was told what such a thing was.  He grew up with an unquenchable thirst that no amount of water or oatmeal could quench.  He had been hidden away sense birth, and never stepped foot outside.  His father was his only human contact, ever, until he was about fifteen.
The Boy had been carefully watching the people of the town outside his window, making sure he was never seen, when he heard someone approaching.   The young boy looked to the strong, iron door quickly, wondering why Father was bringing his tasteless meal off-schedule, when the small flap near the base of the door lifted.
It had always been used to deliver food and water, occasionally clothes when he outgrew what he had been wearing. But this time, two large, round, curious blue eyes blinked at him through the flap.
The Boy stumbled over to it peering back at the young face of the five-year-old girl on the other side.  Her light hair was the same silvery-white as his own, her eyes holding a silent question that he couldn't place.
The Boy had never known anyone besides Father.  This girl was unfamiliar to him, and he worried he would be punished for making contact, but he also didn't want her to leave.
"Hello," he said, voice hoarse and scratchy for as long as he could remember.
The girl said nothing in return, but reached a hand through the flap in the door towards him.
He jumped back on instinct, he had been ordered never to touch Father, and so he had never touched anyone.  But slowly, hesitantly, he lifted a finger and tapped the cubby indexer of the little hand reaching through.
It felt warm, unlike him, and he suddenly got a rush of awareness.  She was different then he was, something else.  But also....they somehow shared a scent.....
As he and Father did.
The girl giggled, but pulled away and The Boy wanted to ask her to stay longer - to talk to him and keep him company - but he heard Father coming and when he spoke, he said only two words.
"Don't tell."
His senses stayed strong for a time after, he could hear all the way downstairs, unlike before, and could hear Father and the girl.
Father, telling her The Boy didn't exist.
For a painfully long time afterwards, she didn't return.  The Boy had no idea how much time had passed, and by the time he saw her face again, she had changed.
She was older now, he could tell.  Taller, as she had to lean down to open the flap, whereas it had been at eye-level before.  Hesitantly, she reached a hand through.
He touched her finger gently with his own, as he'd done before.
The girl - his sister - gasped.
"I knew it." She breathed. "Father told me I had imagined you..."
"I know." He replied.
"Who are you?" She asked. "My name is Carmon."
"I don't have a name."  He had never been given one, he hadn't deserved one.  He had always simply been The Boy, to Father, but even he knew that wasn't a name.
Carmon looked at him sadly at that.  "You are my brother, aren't you?" She asked.
He nodded, and after that, she visited him often.  To Father, he was The Boy, but to Carmon, he was now Brother.  She came to him in secret, when Father was out among the people outside the window. She taught him to read as well as an eight-year old could, and taught him about things like Shapeshifts, Mimiks, Dwarves, Thysticals and Agells, using her own feathered, white wings to illustrate the last one.
In return, he showed her his own black, webbed wings, and she dubbed him a Shapeshift, though what sort she wasn't sure.  He suggested perhaps a monster Shapeshift, but she told him there were no such things.  People could be animal Shapeshift, but things like monsters, dragons, unicorns and the like were impossible.
That only left him with more questions. How could he be a monster, if he was a Shapeshift?
Carmon couldn't answer that, but told him she'd look into it, with as much seriousness as a child could muster.
They kept it up for two more years, becoming closer, though they could only ever touch fingers through the door.  Carmon brought him extra food and drink when she found out how thirsty he always was, but it never seemed to satisfy, and no matter how good she told him it was, each stolen tart or plate of vegetables was tasteless.  They spoke, he learned, and they tried to figure out exactly what he was.
Then one day, Father found out.
It all happened in a rush of adrenaline and emotion.  One moment he and Carmon were whispering through the door, and the next Father was dragging her away by the collar of her shirt as she screamed.
People outside heard, and The Boy had never been more afraid.  Unknown voices flooded the house, and Carmon was talking about him, about her brother locked upstairs.  The Boy shrunk back from the door as it burst open, light flooding into his dark room, blinding his delicate eyes, and he heard a single word.
"Vampire."
The Boy wasn't sure what happened next, but he remembers the house going up in flames.  Men and women carrying torches and wooden spikes storming the streets as dawn broke.  He remembered the dirt under his feet for the first time, as Carmon yelled at him to *go! Run! Before they find you!*
And run he did, stumbling a bit on the legs that had never been used so much.  He ran into the woods, pine needles stabbing at his bare feet, but he didn't stop for the pain, not even when the sun rose and left burn marks on his pale skin.  He ran and he ran until he collapsed from exaustion, the world going dark around him.
When he came to, The Boy was inside a room, but far bigger than his attic had ever been.  He was laying down on a sofa, a cool cloth on his head and wraps on his injuries.  The place was shiny, glittering like the sunlight on his glass window back home, the glas window that was left in shards on the floor when he had run away.
He looked up as an older man walked into the room, clothes pressed and clean and expensive-looking, even to a boy who knew nothing of value.
The Boy sat up quickly - too quickly - and felt a rush of nausea as his head swam.
The man spoke.  "Now now, young man, relax.  You're safe now.  Your wounds are all tended I think, and you can rest now."
The Boy expected this man to be like the others, but he was different.  He was kind, and gentle and giving.
And almost totally blind.
With a bit of coaxing, the man convinced him to stay.  He was later discovered to be a Baron, and a widower, his son gone to fight in the war against Winter, and he was more then happy to take The Boy in as he was lonely without his son.
During his time there, The Boy grew comfortable, pamperer by the servants who asked no questions, and taught by the old man, who was kind, and accepted any answer given to him as the truth.  He grew to care for the man some, and yet, when he spoke of his soldier son, waiting for him to return home, The Boy became anxious.  Despite the old man's assurances, he wasn't certain he would be accepted by someone new, and when the day came that his son returned home, The Boy stayed up in his room, out of sight.
Despite his attempts, a maid brought him down under the old man's orders.  His host wanted his son to meet their guest, who had come to be thought of as family.
The young man could tell right away what he was, the years of near-starvation making in plain to see his fangs, wings, and his pale skin, though The Boy was still inhumanly handsome despite his sickly state.  Still, the Barron's son offered a friendly smile and went to shake his hand.
Unfortunately, he had been injured during the war.
Now, The Boy had seen and smelled blood before, his own on many occasions during his childhood, his father's once, when he tried to escape the attic, and Carmon's a few times when she had gotten hurt playing outside, but this was different.  This was new blood, unrelated to him, and after a lifetime of isolation and starvation, The Boy quite literally could not stop himself.
He killed the Barron's son and drained him right there, helpless against his own thirst, his crazed need for sustenance.
And gods, if it wasn't *bliss*.
It was like being reborn, in a sense.  He felt strength flow into him, his sight, hearing and smell all snapping to attention for the first time in *years*, even more so then when he met Carmon.  As the blood quenched his thirst for the first time in his life, The Boy felt truly happy, satisfied, and full.  He had energy, and a full awareness of his surroundings.
That's when he snapped out of it, and realized what he'd done.
For a moment, he felt regret.  He really hadn't been able to stop himself, but he had killed a man.
Then  something in him clicked, and he was calm.
Obviously, this was what he was meant to do.  Surely, his instincts wouldn't have lead him to do this, if it wasn't natural?  These fangs were quite clearly *made* to drink blood, so really, he had done nothing wrong.  He was doing what he was meant to, he was living.
As he glanced around at the pale, frightened faces of the servants and the old man, he was resigned to what he had to do.
He would not drink from them, the Barron's son had quite satisfied his thirst, but they could not be allowed to live, or he would be on the run again.
Perhaps Father had been right, maybe he was a monster.  But really, what gave man the right to live above monsters?  And why should a monster be expected to change, to fit what man deemed 'right', while man also made certain that everyone knew that they and monster were two very different things?
If he were to tell a human to drink blood, he would be told he was sick and that was not what humans were made to do.  That it was wrong.
Well he was, quite certainly, not human, and he decided it was time to quit acting like one.  This is what he was made to do, and he would embrace it, not go against his nature to make play at being something he wasn't.
The people of the mansion were no match for a vampire.  Even alone, and inexperienced, he killed them all effectively, save for a few servants who he kept alive to keep the estate up to state, under threat of blood-draining should they betray him. He took the mansion as his own, and even took the name and identity of the Barron's son, Artimus Nightweaver, in case anyone came asking about the family.
He kept up the ruse for several years, until he was thirty.  Then one day, there was a knock on the door.
He had just been wondering at his luck, as he had been feeling thirsty, when he opened the door to a girl with white hair and blue eyes, pledging her loyalty to him and not the humans who had burnt down their house and chased them both out.  Carmon told him she knew what he was now, and that he could make her one as well.
He asked her if she was certain, and she didn't hesitate to say yes.
Artimus noted that her blood did not carry the same, delicious flavor as the blood of others.  He guessed it was because they were related, and that would be simply wrong.  Even so, he figured out how to turn her without draining her, and when the process was over, her blue eyes were red, her feathered wings replaced with bat wings....
And she wanted blood.
Soon enough, the siblings found the Vampire kingdom and slowly, but surely worked their way silently up the ladder.  Artimus became an advisor to the Prince before being also named a Councilor, and Carmon was immediately placed in the role of Huntress, as her thirst was greater than any other.  Together, the two manipulated the politics in their favor, and plotted their takeover, even steering the choices of the Prince, from where to expand to, to whome deserved the next title of 'Prince'.

By the time Viktor was crowned, Artimus was unstoppable, and Carmon, ever-loyal to him, acted as a bodyguard even from a distance.  The Nightweavers became known among the vampires of Seasons Valley for their power, their skill, and their heartlessness...