ALISTAIR NYX:

Alistair Nyx had been peacefully puking his guts outside (fine, maybe he did kind of deserve it, maybe this is the spirit of Nemesis kicking him in the ass right now because getting drunk right off the bat just to delay the inevitable interrogation session from his twin brother was a remarkably bad idea) when he felt rather than heard someone seeming to approach him, their footsteps were near to non-existent… if it weren’t for the hair on the back of his neck seeming to stand up straight in attention at the presence.
And not to mention, this person has a strangely nostalgic scent that would have, should have lowered his guard; it reminded him of a home he could never return to, of a person that he once know of but could never see again.
…but at the same time, the cold waves emitting from this person felt like a cold bucket of ice-water drenching him in from head to toe, snapping him out of the sleepy daze almost instantly:
A feeling as intense as this was one Alistair can only describe as the haunting presence of death that used to accompany his every step like a shadow, a faithful friend when he was forcefully taken and trapped to a place that can only be described as hell on earth.
In short, it practically kicked his brain back to sobriety.
Alistair wasn’t naïve nor was he an optimistic person; he had already been expecting for those fucking bloodsuckers to come for him when he managed to miraculously run for it, but he hadn’t thought that it would be this soon… or the fact that they still had the slightest bit of decency to wait until he was alone just for them to ambush him. And while Alistair knows he should be so grateful that nobody would have to be dragged into this awful mess, but he still couldn’t help but be suspicious.
He was certain that the vampires would stoop so low, would never hesitate to get civilians involved with the bloodshed about to go down when the inevitable does happen, after all.
But how the hell did they even managed to track him down like this so quickly?! Alistair really thought that the he had been so careful, had checked and retraced his steps more than four times and… and shouldn’t his scent be at least muddled somewhere along the way, especially with the number of stops he and Harry had done on the way?
And he chose this place for a reason, damn it!
It feels like they were toying him, a feeling that Alistair had uncomfortably known quite well; like they were letting him lower his guard, pounce at him, crush whatever hopes he has when he least expects it.
And he knows that feeling all too well.
In the first place, Alistair only left the Northern pack, the only home he had ever known, willingly this time around as soon as he was physically able without breathing out a word to anyone (save for Harry because the idiot heard him talking in his sleep and was able to put two and two together) in an attempt to blindside these leeches because there is no way he is going to stay just to endanger his pack–but what if they attacked the North? What if they tried hunting him there? What if he still won’t let it go regardless of my silence or not?
However, when Alistair finally looked up with a snarl growing in the back of his throat, instead of finding a group of red-eyed, bloodthirsty demon sneering down at him like he was a piece of fresh meat for him to tear apart–
Alistair only found himself blinking in shock, staring face to face with an eerily pale face glaring at him as though he had done something so utterly offensive.
To be fair, he would have actually considered her attractive, because hey, let’s not kid ourselves here, the lady is so beautiful… in a scary kind of way that should only be reserved for horror movies the twins loved to binge watch when they were kids hadn’t Alistair been struck dumb with a sudden case of familiarity.
It was kind of strange.
Really, but Alistair was fairly certain he had seen this pale-faced woman from somewhere before he… was taken.
He just couldn’t remember where.
Oh… and she also has her arm wrapped around his twin to keep him upright.
Wait.
What the fuck?!
Alistair jolted immediately into his full height and he would have genuinely freaked out there and then when his brain finally registered the sight of Alastor yes, Alistair was sure it’s his twin, they have the same freaking face, remember, looking more and more like a limp corpse in this pale woman’s grasp… and hadn’t his twin suddenly made a sound, hadn’t grumbled incoherently in protest when she shifted just a touch, as if to dare to make an inch of a space between the two of them; Alastor even honest-to-gods nuzzled her shoulder, looking like he would rather be in her arms than anywhere else.
Seeing his twin look so completely at ease and so content in a way he had never seen before, not when they saw each other again after ten years of sudden separation, not even from before had Alistair seen Alastor look so… so content like that.
This actually kind of made Alistair feel awkward, embarrassed (and on his twin’s behalf, too–he wish he could have taken a picture, blackmail worthy material wasted!), he felt like he shouldn’t be even seeing this… at all.
It made him feel like he was intruding on something very private, something intimate even though the pale-faced woman had been the one to approach him in the first place.
To her credit, the woman was the picture of stoic calmness, her face unchanging and completely unreadable despite the sudden sickeningly sweet display of affection from his twin–and the idiot wasn’t even conscious!–as she simply adjusted her gloved grip on him but ultimately said nothing as she kept supporting Alastor into a half-slumped, half-standing position without straining or even breaking a sweat.
Had this happened on any other night, Alistair would have been genuinely impressed by the sheer strength this most likely not-human female was displaying right now; while she was nearly standing just as tall as him, his twin was still no lightweight, Alistair knows those muscles that Alastor had are not just for show and yet… here she was, effortlessly holding his twin all on her own. Oh, and Alistair was also kind of wondering how she managed to bring his brother all this way without managing to jostle him awake, then again, her ghostly footsteps could be to blame… or maybe Alistair should just hold the alcohol responsible for it.
So yeah, Alastor was miraculously able to sleep like the dead all this time thanks to getting drunk stupid because as far as Alistair remembered, he and his twin were both light-sleepers.
“What is a doppelganger doing around here?” the pale-faced woman suddenly demands to the still silence, sounding so disapproving, it’s honestly going to start worrying him if he personally did something wrong.
Nonetheless, Alistair tried for a smile, “I’m sorry?”
“Yes, you should be,” she snapped, turning her head ever so slightly just to glare, almost accusingly to Alastor’s sleeping face, though strangely enough, there seemed to be no real anger in them.
“Wait. What did I d–?!”
“I have no idea where you get the idea of walking around, wearing this man’s face but since I am preoccupied… I will give you a head start before I hunt you down. I have more important matters to attend than your pranks.”
But while she was spitting out those, quite frankly, frightening words, her eyes of black (what the hell? What kind of human has eyes that black? Wait a sec… does she even have pupils?!) softened considerably the more seconds passed as she gazed at his twin, that pale face of her’s instantly looking so gentle, almost angelic… and for the life of him, Alistair knows he should be weirded out by what he is witnessing right now but he really couldn’t put a finger on where he had seen this pale-faced woman before.
He was so sure he had seen her somewhere (but where?) before.
Wait.
Wait a minute. What the hell did this weird woman just called him?! What was it a… a doppelganger? Dude, really?
The twins had been on the receiving end of those poor jokes for as long as Alistair remembered… and to be honest, he had grown quite sick of hearing the same damn thing; sure, the two of them may practically share the same face but their hair and skin color–probably even the eye color considering Alastor’s looked a little bit of darker than his–aren’t the same because Alistair, unlike his completely normal-looking twin, looked like a bleached, gigantic freaky version of the other.
“Now you listen here, lady,” Alistair pointed a finger at her (which she immediately slapped away. Wow, touchy), forcing to keep his voice level, “…I’m that guy’s older brother, actually.”
Those black-holes she have for eyes narrowed into what seemed to be a very suspicious glare. And Alistair thinks, unhappily, trying so hard not to pout at her, because now that’s just absolutely unfair; this weird woman was the suspicious one here, certainly not him, gods freaking damn it!
“Oh and by the way, what the hell do you think you are trying to pull with Alastor here?” he carried on, ignoring her hostile glare, feeling his irritation flare out, “…what, are you planning to kidnap my twin or something? Hand him over!”
Suddenly, her eyebrows shot upwards, looking genuinely confused as she looked at Alastor, then at him, before taking one good look at the other, “Wait, are you saying that… you two are actually twins?”

. . .

“Failing to recognize someone sometimes makes us think that they look like themselves.”
―Mokokoma Mokhonoana

. . .

“Wow, congratulations, Captain Obvious, what gave it away? Was it the face? Oh please, tell me it was the face,” Alistair drawled, sarcastically.
“No,” the woman deadpanned, looking so completely done with this conversation; “…it was when you so rudely accused me of kidnapping.”
Well, excuse him for being so judgmental but seriously, could you blame him?! Alistair had every right to think of the worst, especially after what he had been through! And meanwhile, some weird woman was walking around, dragging Alastor as though she was holding a dead body and out of the blue, starts calling him a doppelganger and straights-up threatens him with bodily harm! That was just–what was that word again? Oh yeah–SUS!
“You’re one to talk!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in exasperation, “You were the one who starts spewing nonsense about me being a doppelganger–!”
“You literally have the same face–”
“–because we’re twins!” Alistair hollered, resisting the sudden urge to stomp his foot, “IDENTICAL twins! Look it up and educate yourself! And you… you, you violent woman! What the hell is wrong with you?” he fumed, jabbing an accusing finger to her face again.
Normally, Alistair wouldn’t be so rude to anyone he just met, especially towards women (Dad tried so hard to raise his sons to be gentlemen, after all Alistair just had no idea why Alastor grew up so to be so damn rebellious) but give him some slack, okay?! His head hurts like hell and Alistair’s pretty sure that he’s still on his way to the worst of hangovers and this infuriating woman was not helping matters, pulling at his last nerve.
The woman suddenly sighs, looking like he was the one being difficult, turning as if to walk away… with his baby brother still helpless in her arms and oh hell no, fuck this shit. Not again!
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Alistair all but bellowed, his voice a thunderous roar, against the lonely street, feeling his cool throwing itself out of the window as he all but dashed on unsteady legs to catch up with her before she actually spirits his brother away right in front of his eyes, and he won’t let that happen. Not on his fucking watch! “GET BACK HERE!”
Good news, she did stop.
Bad news: she was already sitting on the nearest bench across the club, just a few meters away from the alley Alistair had been, taking care to prop the still-sleeping Alastor–and Alistair would have been so amused that his twin had actually managed to sleep peacefully for the duration of this chance meeting if only he wasn’t so annoyed–right beside her into a lying position, her slender ankles crossed and gloved hands clasped neatly on her lap, looking like a prim and proper princess.
She stayed still as a stature like that even until Alistair stopped directly right on her in case she tries to pull something like that, hands on his hips as he glared down at her, “Alright, enough is enough. What the hell do you want and what do you think you are doing with my twin?!”
“Oh? I take it you are not aware of who I am?” she asks instead, her soft voice utterly monotone as she stares up at him, almost dully.
Alistair faltered, “Uh, should I?”
Could she be someone important?
Does Alastor even know this woman?
Although Alistair doubted his twin could even tell the ground and the sky apart while drunk should he ask so… no use waking him up just to ask.
As if in answer, her lips twitched for a split of a second as if enjoying some sort of private joke, as if about to smile, “…I thought twins are supposed to be especially close?”
Alistair did not like what she is implying, “We are close.”
…or at least, he hoped they still are.
“Then why did he not even bother to tell you about his mate?”
Cue Alistair.exe just stopped working.
He distantly felt his jaw popping open at that.
Oh shit, right.
Harry had enthusiastically filled him on with the latest details on the way, especially about Alastor’s chance meeting with his mate during the annual sports fest and all the things the three managed to find out regarding the newest goddess, the goddess of shadows but... the keeper of death and the patron goddess of the monster-mercenaries was this grumpy-looking lady?
He kind of found it hard to believe.
Without thinking, he blurted out the first thing on his mind: “Wait. You serious?”
She frowned, “Does it look like I’m joking?”
No… seriously?
This is Proserpina?
It’s just that when they said an underworld goddess, Alistair had sort of come up with the idea on his head for the goddess Proserpina to be looking a bit more… monstrous, demonic looking perhaps. Maybe a female grim reaper of some sorts.
Not–not like this (not like he thinks there’s really anything wrong with his brother’s mate other than seemingly to like she was about to pick a fight with just about anyone who looks at her funny. Huh, on second thought, maybe she and Alastor does kind of deserve each other) because she literally looked too much of a pretty, normal human that was just probably having a bad day.
Maybe that’s why she kind of felt… off?
“Like, on a scale of one to ten–” one of her eyebrows suddenly arched upwards, as if silently daring him to continue and Alistair immediately snapped his mouth shut, realizing that he most probably sounded like he was being a jerk right now.
“…I suppose an introduction is in order?” she finally asks, her face unreadable.
He winced, “Oh right, sorry, I think we got on the wrong foot, so–” beaming, Alistair clapped his hands together, “…let’s start over!”
“You can’t just–”
“Hi, I’m Alistair Nyx, alpha of the Northern pack,” instinctively, Alistair stretches his hand out for a shake, smiling and… wait, was that alright? Is it even considered polite for a mere mortal to shake hands with a god?
Luckily, she seemed to have no qualms shaking hands with a werewolf and he hurriedly added, his smile widening: “Oh, just feel free to call me Al, by the way.”
Her eyes widened, “Al…?”
“Yeah… oh, right! Alastor and I share the same nickname, so don’t be surprised if we both look up at the same time,” …huh, even with her gloves on, her skin felt ridiculously cold like… not in a corpse-kind-of-way coldness that the vampire seemed to have but cold in a way that reminded him of… when a body gets cold because of fear.
For a moment, as she silently withdrew her hand, Alistair can’t help but notice, here up close, that she seemed sort of conflicted with… something.
The sudden flicker of an uneasy expression in her face was so quick, so abrupt as it forcefully smoothed out into her natural stoic look that he was left wondering if he had imagined that change in expression just now.
Was it something he said?
Or does he have something on his face?
“Huh, fate is really something,” she muttered quietly, almost to herself, instantly tugging Alistair out of his sudden concern if he should go take a look on a mirror.
He blinked, “What is?”
She waved a hand, “Never mind. I suppose I should just go ahead and say it, then: I am Proserpina, goddess of shadows and keeper of death.” the patron goddess of monster-hunters and heir to the underworld strangely went unspoken.
“Uh, yes, right,” Alistair ran a hand on the back of his neck awkwardly, instantly smacked with the realization of just how much had happened, how much he had missed out for the past ten years. It was jarring and kind of saddening, “…I already know that. One of our friends told me who you are.”
She raised an eyebrow, “What did he said?”
“Nothing bad, I swear,” well, Harry did call her a whole lot of names for dumping Alastor’s ass (“Not only once, but twice!”), but Alistair’s not going to tell her that and…
Harry, you owe me big time.
The goddess made a soft noise of contemplation, “You know I have not seen you around during the… festivities. I take it you were not around much?”
Alistair shifted uncomfortably at the keen observation, “Yeah, something like that but… but it’s not like I even wanted to be away from home, you know? In the first place, Alastor shouldn’t even have to be deal with the pressure of being an alpha. I mean, I shouldn’t have gotten myself–”
As soon as he realized the words he was about to say, Alistair forced himself to stop, eyes wide. What the fuck does he think he is doing, spilling out most of his secrets again… to a goddess, to his brother’s mate this time around–and he wasn’t even anywhere near drunk!–because seriously, he had been kind of lucky that he had word-vomited the outline of his life story to a normal, human girl who didn’t even get half of what he had been yapping about while he was out of his mind earlier… but to actually repeat all of that to a goddess?
Even he had shame!
However, said goddess, if anything, looked kind of sympathetic, strangely a little guilty, “Yes, I think I get it, Alistair. It is the duty of the older siblings to watch over the younger ones, after all.”
His brain felt like it just short-circuited and went up in flames.
“Huh?”
At the genuinely bewildered look on his face, her expression instantly hardened, as if in reflex, “…never mind, please forget what I just said.”
“No wait, just wait a minute!” he spluttered, waving his hands to make her stop just in case she had some mind-altering abilities, because Alistair honestly didn’t expect for her, of all people, to actually get it, let alone put into words what he had been struggling with for most of his life… and to put it so eloquently at that–it was scary and so awesome at the same time.
“You listen here: you don’t just get to drop a bomb on someone like that and pretend it never happened! You… you have younger siblings?!”
“Why is that so surprising?”
“No, like seriously, why are making a big secret out of it?”
Proserpina tilted her head a bit, regarding him, “No, not really… I honestly thought you were going to ask about something else.”
He snorted, “Nah, keep your secrets, I had mine too,” despite himself, a smile played against his lips, “…and as a nice lady once said: I think I get it.”
She seemed to mull over this for a moment, her clasped hands seemingly relaxing as she looked over his face, “So… you don’t care?”
“I actually care about a lot of things, so you have to be like, really specific,” this time, it was Alistair’s turn to raise an eyebrow at her; “…what do you mean?”
Proserpina opens her mouth as if to answer, only to snap it shut when Alastor suddenly reaches for her hand unconsciously and Alistair unconsciously held his breath as he watched the goddess bow down her head to look at his twin, her eyes softening as she observed how Alastor gripped her hand to tangle his fingers with her’s.
Even in sleep and in dreams, their kind still longs for their other half; it seems… not that Alistair would really know about any of that. He hasn’t met his own mate, after all.
Alistair bit his lip, “You were saying?”
She clears her throat and Alistair kept himself from staring when she held on to Alastor as well, “What I mean to ask is if you don’t have an opinion about me being your brother’s…” he also notices that she wasn’t meeting his eyes now, “…mate?”
Oh.
Ohh, Alistair gets it, biting back a growing grin. He definitely gets it now. So this is what the fuss was all about.
How cute.
Alistair almost wanted to laugh at how stupid everyone had been to not realize that the goddess was just most probably being shy. But since he doesn’t want to piss off another immortal… not right now at the very least, he points up at the skies instead of laughing right at the face of an underworld goddess or saying anything that would be potentially life-threatening, contenting himself with quietly admiring the way millions of clusters of stars glimmered so brightly like a never-ending sea of sparklers amidst the dark skies.
He closes his eyes for a moment, a nice gentle breeze curling around his face, pleasantly. He hadn’t seen the stars, the moon, and the skies–anything at all–for the past ten years so he’s going to savor it. He’s going to savor what it was like to live, to be free again. And to do just that, he had to be rid of the root of all his problems…
Luckily, he had the goddess that was said to be infamous for hunting down vampires sitting just right in front of him, “You know the King of Vampires, right?”
The air suddenly felt like it just about stopped.
“…What about him?”
“I want him gone,” Alistair told her without preamble, opening his eyes… to find those eyes of black staring at him.
“You are not the only one,” she assures him, the words sounding almost like an ominous promise, the certainty of a solemn vow dripping like poison, “…was he the one who took you?”
She was sharp, he’ll give her that.
Alistair bit his lip, hesitating for a second only, “Yeah, a while back I… I helped some kids escape his men. When they found me, they took me instead as a punishment for ‘stealing’ or something I don’t really know and I don’t really care, but I think those bastards just wanted a toy that wouldn’t die so easily…”
Her jaw visibly clenched.
“Proserpina,” Alistair sighed, keeping his gaze locked on her’s, “…as the goddess that slays monsters: will you please help me hunt down this monster?”
“The children you rescued,” she answers instead, her eyes were very wide and unblinking as they stared right back at him unmoving, like two pits of the void waiting to suck him in, “…did you ever regretted helping them?”
What the fuck?
Alistair felt his brows furrowing, “What kind of question is that? For your information, one of them was just a little boy and the other was a girl around my age and she was dying. I didn’t really know what happened or if they even survived… but I do know that they–”
She all but snarled, “They what?”
It sounded like a challenge.
It felt like a threat.
He swallowed the lump forming in his throat, still glaring down at her, “…probably just as worse as what I’ve been through, goddess. I believe they have been hurt, most likely kept for their blood, for their body to be violated like fucking toys by those beasts. Because from what I’ve seen, women had it worse back there.”
She physically reeled at that, looking like she wanted to melt right back against the bench and never come out, her jaw slightly agape, but he didn’t care, not when the memories of that fateful stormy night that changed his life was still in the back of his mind.
Still vivid as the day it happened, the thunder barely heard against his pounding heart as he ran faster than he knew he was capable of, the cold weight not even pressing on his fur, barely reassuring him that they were still alive, that he may as well be carrying corpses still played right in front of his eyes.
If he closes his eyes, he can still see them, can still see two, battered-looking children, looking like they just dragged themselves right out of hell, staring right back at him with fearful eyes.
And no one has the right to do this, no one.
“–so to answer your question, Proserpina, no,” for a moment, instead of the goddess, he found himself staring right back at the eyes of the girl he carried, the too-small girl with haunted, dark eyes begging him to kill her, “…I don’t regret saving them.”
“Even after what happened?”
“Don’t make it sound like it was their fault, the vampires are to blame, not them. Never them,” Alastor snarled, “because even when I ended up chained and beaten down like an animal and… and losing ten years of my life as a fucking dog, I will never regret what I did because no child deserves to be brought to a point where they wished they were better off dead,”
In the back of his mind, he swore he can hear that girl’s voice, no louder than a weak rasp, practically a death rattle, pleading with her brother, to him, to just leave her behind, to leave her to die.
And yet, despite himself, he shrugs, a wry smile tugging on his face.
“…besides, the look on the King’s face every time I reminded him that I thwarted whatever plans he has for that girl was so fucking worth it.”

(“He… will not… help–”
“He will! …Right, Al?”)

Of all things, Proserpina laughed.
It was so sudden, so abrupt.
A single, note of sharp noise that made Alistair flinch, his shock quickly turning into anger because what the hell is so funny… until he noticed that one of her gloved hands had been clenching on the armrest so hard that it had actually shattered.
Alistair took a shaky, step back, feeling goose bumps littering his skin as he continued to gawk at her, alarmed and confused because…
“What are you…?” he swallowed, “Proserpina…?”
Then, he realized that although her lips were bared into a crooked, grin–
She slowly breathed out, her voice low, practically trembling and thick with an emotion he couldn’t dare name; her words were so softly-spoken that he almost didn’t understand what she said for a second.
Proserpina choked out, “Thank you,”
–the goddess of shadows… looked like she was about to burst into tears.