Blessed by Night

Even now, he had to continually check with himself to ensure that he wasn't going mad.

At the moment, he and Camille were sitting cross legged on the ground while they were being circled by the N'Kai as they chanted a song in their strange dialect.

Bianca was leaning against a rock a few feet away, clearly worried about this all going well and not horribly wrong at the last moment.

If things progressed smoothly… the N'Kai would no longer be a threat to this world by the time the sun rose.

It was a crazy thing to think about.

"It is time for the blood's offering." Tsath suddenly said.

All five of the assembled N'Kai paused on a dime and suddenly cupped their hands out in front of them.

They took one of their claws and cut open their palms without showing a modicum of discomfort.

Inky black blood started to pool within their grasp and they all poured it into Tsath's cupped hands, allowing it to mix.

"Normally, you both would bathe in an ocean of the collected blood of our people so that this ceremony might have yielded greater effects but we are away from home at the moment. Forgive us."

""It's cool. / Bu!""

Tsath showed traces of a smile for the first time as he kneeled in front of young Camille.

"It is only right that the youngest go first. What is your name, new blood?"

"Da!"

"Camille is an earth name. You need a name for only those of N'Kai blood to address you by."

"…Abu!"

"Shear..? What a crude name."

Malachi turned his head to the side and whistled inconspicuously.

Tsath seemed to think about something for a moment before he nodded in understanding.

"I have it. Your name shall be A'Shea."

Cami didn't really seem to be bothered by a name she wouldn't be using all that much anyway, so she simply shrugged as if she had no problems.

Once her name was decided, he offered her the overflowing pool of black blood in his hands.

Camille was part vampire so this wouldn't be her first time drinking blood, and she was not at all squeamish.

She greedily dunked her baby hand inside of the blood and licked the sanguine nectar off her fingers.

It would have been cute were it not so unbearably morbid.

While Cami was snacking, Tsath turned to Malachi next.

"What is your name, new blood?" He asked again.

"…Malac-"

"No. You will be K'horror."

"…Thanks for the name I guess."

Again, Malachi saw Tsath smile faintly, as if he were very proud of himself.

He held out his cupped hands filled with blood in front of Malachi's face and gestured for him to drink as well.

Unlike his daughter and two wives, Malachi is not a vampire.

The only time he has ever had blood in his mouth was when he got hit too hard and coughed it up.

Already, he was starting to have serious doubts about his ability to get through this whole thing.

But once he remembered the few times he ripped men apart with his teeth, he figured he was probably past the threshold of being hesitant about these sort of things.

Though he almost gagged, he allowed Tsath to tilt the blood into his mouth and swallowed it all without complaining.

'Don't worry babe, I'll still kiss you after this.' Bianca said telepathically.

'B!'

'Is it too thick? Will it be easier to swallow if I call you a good girl too? That always helps me when-'

"Kugh!"

Thanks in no small part to Bianca, Malachi ended up choking and finally pulled away at the last minute.

But since he had already swallowed more than enough, his vision started to blur and his entire body started to heat up and feel heavy.

Evidently Cami was feeling it too, as she made a short wining noise before passing out on the ground and her father ended up joining her mere seconds later.

Through Mal's heavy eyelids, he saw a screaming Bianca running towards him in what seemed like slow motion.

'I'll definitely…spank her for that joke…'

-

When Malachi awoke it was still nighttime, but his body felt fully rested as if he'd just had eight hours of sleep.

Gradually his eyes fluttered open and he smiled softly when he saw that the first woman he'd ever loved was giving him a lap pillow.

"Hey, Sei… Bianca wake you up too?"

"Yes, she did." Sei said with a small laugh as she wiped a tear from her eyes.

A moment later, the rest of his fiancés came to his side; each of them still in their night clothes and looking very worried.

"Did I scare you all that bad? I wasn't gone for another year again, was I?"

Malachi was finally noticing how strange his voice sounded and the strange way his mouth felt.

It was a bit too… full.

"No, you weren't." Nadine said sweetly.

"But honey… we need you to stay calm for us, alright?" Luna said as she touched his face tenderly.

Confused, Malachi nodded slowly in acceptance. "Alright… you girls are starting to-"

"Ssss…"

Suddenly, Malachi heard a familiar sound play from below him and he looked down near his stomach to search for the source.

"A-Am I..?"

Malachi suddenly got to his feet while analyzing his body meticulously.

Anna came in front of him and held out an iPad with the camera facing him so that he could see his reflection.

In the past two years since his life had changed around, Malachi had to do a lot of growing to accept the changes that had taken place in his identity.

But whether he was Avatar or Nightmare, this was the first time that he had ever felt it so clearly.

The loss of his humanity.

Malachi had always been on the darker side of the melanated spectrum, but now his skin was completely black.

His flesh also had gained a tougher yet pleasant to the touch texture about it- similar to leather.

In addition to that, the whites of his eyes had been dyed in the same color black as his skin; making his brilliant violet irises stand out even more while giving them a slightly unsettling look.

His hair texture was also a bit different, becoming stronger and possessing a more rugged appearance that was reminiscent of a rope, but it now seemed to give off a pleasant scent and was softer to the touch like the rest of him.

His hands and feet now contained permanent black claws that were sharper than most blades, and a set of barely visible webbing between his fingers.

He also learned that the reason why his mouth felt so full earlier was because of the two huge pairs of fangs that sat side by side each other in the top row of his teeth.

But the most unsettling thing about his transformation were the four, permanent snake headed tails that were jutting from his lower back.

Even though he was not in his other form as a seven foot berserker.

Each of the tails were quite obviously alive and showed no signs of retreating back into his body at any point.

They were curious, quiet, and very observant.

And also, a reflection of him.

However, it didn't matter if they seemed like perfect pets, Mal still felt his heartbeat increase as he tried not to panic.

But the more his heart thumped, the more his hair began to take on lives of it's own as well.

Instead of being simple dreadlocks, his hair instead became a mass of living grayish white snakes with red eyes.

"Nah, nah… this isn't happening, this can't be happening… I-I'm…"

Before he could start to panic, Anna grabbed Malachi by the face and made him stare directly into her eyes.

"You are our fiancé, and that's all that matters..! Nothing else could even begin to matter!"

"How can you possibly say that…? Look at me..!"

"You are such an idiot… from the day that I first met you until now, you have never been less attractive to me. Only more."

"Besides…" Luna suddenly said. "If you think of yourself as a monster… then what about her?"

Malachi found Camille sitting up on the ground, now sitting up and staring at him with a pained look while she held a random stick in her hand.

Almost everything that he had thought about himself had to now go out the window.

Because Camille was the most precious thing he had ever seen, and she nearly looked just like him.

While she was missing all of his serpentine characteristics; her skin and sclera were black, her ears were pointed like his own, and her hair was a shining grey.

At the sight of her, Malachi had no choice but to drop to his knees and take her into his arms.

"She is not a monster… she's the furthest thing from it."

On a nearby rock, Malachi found all of the other N'Kai waiting for him to wake up, and looking somewhat bothered by his reaction to his new look.

"I'm… sorry about all of that you guys. Truly. Can we continue?"

Each of the N'Kai looked at each other before nodding.

"We can."