Through my Blood

Chapter XII: First Lead

[Serana's POV]

I'm back. Remus and I stood at the Volkihar Island with the castle looming in the distance. How lang was I gone? Two weeks? Three? I can't remember. I've got a mixed feeling building up inside me when Remus nudged me on the arm.

"Come on. You've gotta let me see where you played around as a kid." he grinned. I smiled and shook my head as I lead him to the east side of the castle.

"Stay low." I warned him. "We don't know if the Skeleton sentries are still-" I wasn't able to finish when I was suddenly yanked into cover by Remus as an arrow flew past by my face. Apparently, a skeleton sentry just shot us as soon as it saw us making way for the undercroft. He laughed. "You were saying?"

I rolled my eyes. I charged up a lightning spell then peeked at the sentry's location from our cover then blasted it with my spell.

"There, no more." I said smugly. Remus's eyes glinted below his hood, hinting that he's smiling under that mask and I'm pretty sure it's more of a wry one. "Not really." We heard the clicking of skeleton bones as more skeleton sentries started showing up. Must've been disturbed by the noise of my spell. I palmed my face in annoyance, when all of a sudden Remus suddenly disappeared from my side with a gust of wind.

He charged towards the skeletons and started to shatter them to pieces... unarmed. I ran over and provided him some back up using my spells, which is mostly comprised of lightning ones because ice spikes won't be very useful against the undead. After we were done with the skeleton guards, I walked towards Remus who was kicking the undead bones trying to make sure they won't be coming back to unlife anytime soon.

"Wow. Such stealth." I sarcastically commented.

"You only need stealth when you're having doubts with what you're dealing with, not when fighting piles of bones." Remus snorted. I just rolled my eyes again in response. We ascended the staircase towards the undercroft's wooden door. Coming close, I felt a sting of nostalgia.

"So here we are... my childhood playground." I introduced wryly, once we entered the undercroft. The place was dark and damp. Still, I liked playing in here when I was a kid. It's where I felt home could feel like... well, home.

"Looks nice." Remus laughed. I carefully opened the door towards the water cistern, expecting a familiar scent.

"The old water cistern. Huh. Back in the day, it used to smell like... just, be thankful that you weren't here back then." I shrugged. Remus looked at me intently.

"You really used to play here?" he asked. I thought he was teasing at first, but it sounded genuine.

"Well, yeah. I liked to explore. My parents almost never let me off the island so I poked around here a lot." I looked down before continuing. "It was... a little quieter... back then. Guess a vampire girl was enough to scare off the rats."

A small sigh could be heard beneath Remus's mask, so I guess his expressions softened up. But it was until we heard soft growling, his eyes quickly darted across the room and the expression in his eyes became tense.

"Looks like we have company." he muttered. "I've never seen one of those."

"Death Hounds." I said while looking at the furless dark-skinned dogs Remus was pertaining to. "They serve as our guardians." I could see Remus raising a brow, or maybe a stink eye. "Okay, pets."

I could see Remus take a deep heaving breath, trying to stop himself from laughing. "I'm sorry... pets?" he asked teasingly. I nodded yet made sure I had a disappointed look on my face. With his muffled laughter, I heard the dogs growling louder. I gave Remus a fierce stare before he started to draw his arrows and fire consecutively at the death hounds before they could fully notice our presence.