Disclaimer: All of the following is thoughtfully rearranged from the original works of Charlaine Harris. So I cannot scream MINE.

Thanks to Thyra10 for badgering me to write these out as stories, rather than dole them out like little snippets in private messages. It was actually due to asking my husband about privacy and sexuality in the Viking age for her fic (which if you're not reading it – run, don't walk because it's bloody brilliant) that got me thinking along these lines – namely his mention of bondservants in Viking society. :D

http:/www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/s/5687530/1/Dead_with_the_Vikings

This is born of my pet hatred for the fanfiction phenomenological term "my bonded" – which isn't used in the books as a term for describing their relationship in the books for good reason. I get that it has a false mythology built up around it in this fandom, but I understand Sookie's problem with it – and so it seems does Eric – as he doesn't rant at her that it's all good – he apologises and hopes she won't come to hate him for it and tells her she'll come to like it as he does. Andre did not play the part of Cupid, people.

While I waited for Amelia to get back to me on what she found out about the bond, I decided to gather all the information I had about the bond already, sparse though it was. I couldn't completely say that what I'd gathered would be true, but it couldn't hurt, right?

I'd never met anyone else who had a blood bond with a vampire. I could assume that they weren't something common. But since people who couldn't be glamoured were pretty rare, I suppose it wasn't strictly necessary to have the full-blown bond with a normal human. Enough blood to track them would be fine.

It couldn't be a common thing – something perhaps for a valuable human who couldn't be controlled, or someone that you wanted to turn, but not until the right moment. Maybe before vampires came out of the coffin, it was the day agents of vampires too. Now they could just be paid.

Eric had told me that he had the blood of many women, and utter control over them, so I don't think bonding is something routinely done with food sources, because glamour and taking blood worked just fine. If he had almost utter control over them, I don't think any vampire would need a blood bond.

Maybe blood bonding was used exclusively when a vampire wanted them to do things for them. When the human needed a little autonomy in the mind, which glamour by its nature erased, then the vamp would need to control them through changing the way they felt, making them enjoy the vampire's company and wanting to please them.

Every time I saw Eric I felt warm and safe, and I'd once felt a compulsion to offer him blood – and felt happy that he was killing someone to get the blood that he needed. I might love Eric, but nothing about a thousand year old vampire killing someone normally made me feel just fine. It made me feel warm and safe when he was around, but the times when I was least safe was when I was out on an escapade with Eric. In the past, when in the company of Eric, I'd been bitten, beaten, staked, shot at and generally knocked around. The bond was obviously contrary to logic because all of our adventures lead to badness. There was no reason to feel warm and safe in his presence, but for the bond.

While he couldn't be glamoured, Barry the Bellhop hadn't mentioned being bonded to any vampires. But then, he was working willingly for vampires full time – living well on the money that Stan provided him. Beyond making sure that he could be tracked, and having enough blood to read his emotions, I don't think they would bother to do anything with him. Barry was already doing what Stan wanted, so there was really no necessity to make a point. A vampire could tell if he was lying without needing the full blown bond too.

Of course, that would mean that at any time he wouldn't have to be persuaded to form the bond – he'd just have to be told. If Barry wouldn't do what he was told, then he'd be forced. That's what had happened to me. They found that they couldn't pay me enough money to do what they wanted, so they'd forced me to form a bond.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

I know that in the lead up to forming the bond, Andre had told me that he wanted a stronger tie to Sophie Ann and himself. He wasn't going to be doing anything for my benefit – he didn't intend to treat me like I was something special – he did it for control over me. He didn't do it so that I would be with him forever as his equal, or the love of his life. Andre didn't mention keeping me in some sort of style, or that it was some sort of love note. That was no love note - it was a set of metaphorical handcuffs - so that I would "heel nicely" like his personal telepathic dog.

Andre talked about needing a "closer tie" to Sophie Ann and himself. I can imagine what that meant – Andre would want for me to be around most of the time, giving them good ideas and some insights into my fellow humans. Since I'd expressed my wish to do something other than traipse after vampires, he didn't choose to do it because he thought it might help me. It was all to help the Queen.

In fact, he'd told me as much himself. When I told him that I was going back to my real life, he'd told me that he didn't care about my real life, and attempted to shove his wrist down my throat. Andre was doing what he did so that my real life didn't matter any more. He intended to bind me to him, to tie me to him. In a matter of days he saw my insight as valuable enough that I would be required to follow the Queen around the place.

Andre was at best, indifferent to me and what my needs were. It wasn't a declaration of love, or some sort of way to make me his girlfriend, or anything about me. It was about how he wanted me to serve him for the rest of my natural life, and maybe beyond.

It had status in his world alright – the status of slave, just where all good humans were. I wasn't going to crawl on my knees to Eric, and I'd rather eat ground glass than announce to the world at large that I was bonded to him. If I did that, I might as well buy some harem pants and just call myself his slave girl.

Andre didn't let Eric perform the bonding because he saw that we were two separate souls needing to unite in some bizarre ceremony in a hotel hallway. Eric wasn't making a serious commitment to me - he's no martyr - and I don't think Andre was there to play Cupid. He let Eric share blood because it would be stronger with him because Andre hadn't had enough of my blood. He didn't intend it as some tribute to our relationship, or a way to push us two crazy kids together. At that point in time, he was content to let Eric be my Master rather than him – that's how much he cared about my wellbeing.

Eric seemed at least to note this – he wasn't telling everyone else about the bond either. Felipe didn't know, and he didn't mention it casually in conversation. I was grateful for that. If he went around telling people about the bond, as if it were nothing, I'd be pretty angry with him. Eric was the lesser of two evils, but that didn't mean that I signed on for that of my own free will. Eric at least had the option of walking away and leaving me to my fate, while I didn't have a choice – it was Andre or Eric.

The very fact that it was called a "bond" made me wonder. At least part of the nature is in its name. A bond was something that attached things to each other, and the only time I'd heard it used with people was a term for servants and slaves - and sometimes guarantors who put their own money and freedom on the line on the behalf of others. That seemed to be Andre's ultimate goal, to make me a slave to the old regime.

Eric had once said to me that we had a bond – when I was in the hospital in New Orleans after the attack by Jake Purifoy. He seemed to think that the bond he had with me already made him obligated to come and care for me. He mentioned the blood we'd shared as a bond that gave him responsibility for my wellbeing. As if as my master, he should come and see if his servant was doing fine.

After all, if Eric had wanted to pay tribute to his caring about me, he could have just told me he found me nice or attractive, instead of playing on my naïveté in Dallas. It wasn't about his being interested in me – at least not all of it. Some of the reason for that blood sharing was to make me more pliable to him – and indeed I did see him as more human than other vampires.

While Eric had bonded to me in Andre's place, that didn't change the nature of the bond itself, or that it was designed to make me do what I was told, to make me a life long servant to whoever I was bonded with. While Eric followed my wishes that day, and gave me a better option, I couldn't forget that that I hadn't wanted to exchange blood at all. I also didn't forget that Eric and Bill knew this, but gave me blood anyway, without warning me of the consequences.

In my worst moments, I imagine each of them plotting away, possibly holding a long haired white cat, tenting their fingers and thinking 'Let's not let the lowly human decide if she wishes to be tied to me for the rest of her life, let me just do what I wish.' Grrr. Possessive vampires. And that's the thing – it's not about being with me, it's about owning me. Part of that whole "mine" thing that goes on with them, as if I'm the last chocolate to fight over, a piece of territory to win.

The only thing that made it a little bit better is that both of them asked my consent and agreement before I had their blood – neither of them had forced me into an exchange. Of course, a couple of times it was do or die, but at least it was my choice, even if it was in name only. But neither of them gave thought to the fact that I might end up being bonded to them. The shackles of the bond were always possible, but they didn't warn me of that. At the time in Rhodes, I was one serious injury away from being bonded to either one of them - and let's not mince the facts here, I was always in for serious injury around vampires.

Both of them exchanged with me twice, and nary a warning from their lips that we'd better take it easy and think before I needed to take their blood again on the spur of the moment. And who exactly were they kidding if they thought I'd never have their blood again? There was all that time they both continued to pursue a relationship with me, with supreme confidence that I would take up with them sooner or later. They didn't tell me because it was in their best interests not to tell me – may the best man win or in this case may the first vamp to feed me blood, bond.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

Bill and Eric thought about the benefit it would give them – and gave little thought to the benefits it would give me. So what tangible benefits did the bond give me? What did I get out of this that was so important for me? And how did that differ from the dubious benefits that a blood tie gave me?

So far, the bond had come in handy a few times. When I was in Rhodes, Eric sent me strength and courage. In that situation, I don't think a little pep talk would have done much good, and it certainly wouldn't have been welcome. I was lucky I didn't end up as a part-fae streak of blood across the dance floor, so Eric taking me off to the side would have been seen in a dim manner.

Of course, Eric knew that I was in danger, terrified with the soda bomb in my hands. In that situation, he was a nice distraction and moral support, but it didn't really do anything. I wasn't going to let him take the bomb – so it was an emotional thing for me, to feel a little calmer because he was there. Part of me hated that though, because really, you should feel agitated while holding a bomb. He tried to use his glamour to get me to give him the bomb, but thankfully the bond didn't make his influence any more effective than any other time.

As well as this sort of emotional feedback, I got other emotions as well. I knew how Eric was feeling, and I have to say that it intensified the sex that we'd had the night before the fairy war. At the moment, sex wasn't ringing my bell the way it used to, but I'd say that under normal circumstances, the last place Eric would need the bond to give him a boost is in the bedroom. But I certainly didn't object to the enhancement.

I got the regular Eric emotional pipeline all the time he was awake, of course. Eric could let me know that he wasn't able to see me right now, like he did while he was still settling the Vegas takeover. Of course, a phone call or a letter would have sufficed, but the constant reminder was there any time I thought to access it.

I suppose it could be argued that the bond gave Eric the ability to track me. But as it turned out, the last time I needed tracking – The Incident – it wasn't Eric who in fact, tracked me. It was Bill with his blood tie, and his sense of smell and my Great Grandfather. Surely, if Eric could have tracked me faster with the bond than with anything else, then he would have been the one to track me. So nix to the idea that the bond gave any advantage to tracking me – it offered no more advantage it seems than did the blood tie without all the confusing influences of the bond.

The blood bond didn't seem to offer Eric any more insight into my emotions than the blood tie did. In the car on the way to the orgy, Eric had been able to detect my happiness. The biggest difference was that now I could detect his feelings without a word. That was of limited use though. That only came in handy for the benefits of others and not me. The night that Sigebert had attacked, I felt as if something was wrong with me, when really something was wrong with Eric. Of course, his rage at Quinn showing up at my house really only benefited Quinn - if he'd have left. Let's face it - if the vampire with the bond is angry with you, you're going to find out through talking and being fought with - the bond gives no substantial advantage there.

Now, I didn't have to go back that night to save him from Sigebert – thank goodness he didn't just fail to treat me like a servant when it didn't matter. Eric also didn't treat me like his servant when it did matter for him. I could have ignored it and waited out the feelings on the side of the road, but I decided that since I liked him, I went back to save him. Eric had even asked me why I returned, so if he called me to him, that was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Since Eric isn't incredibly stupid, and he hadn't told Felipe of the bond, I can only assume that he didn't call me to him to save him from the clutches of Sigebert.

Having the bond was probably designed so that if the vampire could feel the distress of their targeted human, and then swoop in and turn them before they finally died. Of course, it worked the other way around as well, so that the vampire called the human to him if he needed help. Normally, I'd say that that would be of limited use, but I recall that I felt a pull towards Bill's direction under the concrete when I rescued him at Rhodes. I didn't feel that pull to anyone else that day – all the other work of finding victims was the work of telepathy, and all of them were humans. Sure, Bill needed me, and I was glad that he wasn't finally dead, but it gave me pause for thought that if the blood tie could do that, then the bond would probably be much worse. There was no doubt that the blood tie worked, or that the bond could work on me. Thankfully Eric had let me make my own choices, or he'd be right and I'd heel nicely.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

I don't really know how the bond feels from Eric's end. I don't think it transmits to him in the same way it transmits to me. For sure, it has an effect, but I doubt that he'd feel it in the same way I did. All of the advantages of the bond are on the vampire's side. Everything I knew about vampire blood was all about power. Eric had once told me that the mating and sharing of blood among vampires gave them power over each other, and the blood was what gave a maker power over the child. After all, younger vampires didn't follow all older vampires willy nilly – they were compelled to obey their maker.

It seemed as if vampire blood was designed for power all around. Soon after I'd bonded to Eric, Quinn told me that Eric could turn me easily. While I had reason to be a little reticent about information from Quinn, it made sense to my own reasoning. Why bother to have power over the pork chop in front of you if you were going to eat it and forget its name in a half an hour? The bond was made for something other than food. It was special, in a really bad way. If there's one thing you don't really want to be with vampires, it's valuable and possessed – and it seems the bond had tied me for the foreseeable future into both of those.

I don't think that Eric felt my pain, hurt and distress the same way that I felt his. For a start, it was counterproductive to vampires to be weakened by a human. I don't think Andre intended to weaken himself by bonding to me. I was a bug under his shoe – he wouldn't have done that if he thought I could have hurt him with the bond. Since he proposed it, I figure he knows the rules. If he thought that by bonding to me he could have been in danger, that would have been too negative for him – he was thinking of all the benefit I could give him by saving the Queen's skin with my clever ideas. All of the power would be in Andre's hands; otherwise he wouldn't have tried to bond with me.

So that panic attack I felt when Eric was attacked wouldn't be how Eric felt it when I was attacked. I'm sure he'd know, but it would be useless to be the strong vampire with all the power if the human being injured would seriously incapacitate you. All those humans with bonds to vampires would be offed quickly as a way to do away with rivals, and I'd be walking around with a huge target painted on my back saying "Eric Northman's greatest weakness – stab here", while someone waited nearby Eric with a stake at the ready.

Since those who were bonded to vampires could easily be turned, then that would be a suicidal way for a vampire to make a new vampire. As they were draining the human they were bonded to, they'd bleed out, effectively making a replacement child with no guidance and no one to bury the corpse. Both would lay out in the sun and burn up. I doubt that anything I felt would incapacitate Eric. He'd be aware of it, sure, but he wouldn't become inoperable. After all, he's the immortal (or close enough to immortal) being – not me.

Part of the fundamental reason I was around vampires was because they were different. However they worked – Bill told me once it was magic – it wasn't in the way humans worked. They weren't animated by the same stuff we were animated by. I mean, their existence, sure in a roundabout way it was 'magic' but the actual function wasn't anything close. When my heart stops beating, my 'magic' stops animating me. Not so with vampires.

In the glimpse I'd had into various vampires' heads, including the memorable 'first' with Eric, there was a different feel to them, just like there was with shifters and weres. With the two natured, they often felt tangled and with colours. With vampires when it happened at all, it was cold and felt like snakes. Whatever animated them was different from the two natured, and very different from humans. It just wouldn't make any sense for him to feel it in the same way.

Vampires probably wouldn't feel it the same way amongst each other either. I'm sure the bond he had with Pam was different from the one with me. I don't think that they could feel each other's emotions – otherwise only a consummate sadist or masochist would turn another vampire, since they'd be feeling those bad feelings too. Surely if they weren't either of those, they'd stake their children just to be freed of the awful oppression of their sorrow. I know that Eric had felt sorrow after leaving his family – he'd told me he had pined for his children. Vampires don't tend to be stand up guys and gals, but I doubt they'd let themselves in for all that bad emotion when they made a new one.

Pam had told me that she thought Eric had turned her because he was lonely, so if she could feel his emotions, she wouldn't have to posit anything – she'd be able to tell me straight out. I'd seen Eric that same night growl at Pam, packing all of his implications into one word, so if she could feel his emotions, Eric was treating Pam as if she was thick, and I'd never seen Eric do that.

Not to mention that if you could compel your child to obey, then why bother to have an insight into their emotions? Vampires could read each other fairly well – I'd seen Eric and Bill having a silent conversation the night of the takeover. Since they showed no propensity to telepathy and Sophie Ann told me that she could speak to her children, it wasn't a common gift to be able to talk to each other in their heads. Stan had that too – he seemed to 'beam' to his nest mates. But I doubt that it was common. Otherwise why speak at all? Certainly not to lowly humans, and I know vampires used phones. They didn't need emotion with each other to tell what the other was thinking, although it was pretty impossible for me to read.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

Of course, there's also the matter of Renfields, that Eric had told me about with disdain. Their existence just reinforced the idea that vampire blood gave some vampire power over the humans. Eric had told me that Renfields had their own identities obliterated, and became whatever the vampire wanted. Since they were called 'Renfields' I had a good idea of what sort of grovelling human they would be – one without art or sophistication. Andre didn't seem to feel that was completely necessary, although who knew what he'd do after I was bonded to him. The key to his thinking wasn't to take my own mind away from me – just my free will.

Thankfully, Eric was the one who got to be the master of the bond – and to be my master. He wasn't cruel and he didn't seem to use it against me, but it would always make me hesitant. Even though he did me a favour, wearing prettier chains wasn't better than no chains. It would always be there as a reminder that I'd become his subordinate in a hallway in Rhodes. Andre didn't intend the bond to be some loving gesture, unless he usually included breaking teeth in his romantic gestures.

When I'd asked Eric if it was permanent in the ballroom at Rhodes, he didn't say, but he just told me that I'd come to like it. If it could be easily removed, I'm sure that Eric would have done that. Eric didn't really choose that moment to bond to me, and he hadn't offered me his blood prior to that, despite the various beatings I'd endured in his presence. Or at least what he witnessed in the aftermath – a gunshot wound, a beating by the weres on behalf of the charming Pelt family – he didn't offer his blood to me then. Eric, before he got his memory back didn't offer his blood often at all, and though he did now, it was in dire emergency or in bed. Of course now that we had the blood bond, Eric could indulge himself a little.

That ultimately made it more forgivable. In that moment, he'd intended to save me from being bonded to Andre, but perhaps he wouldn't have chosen to do it at all. After all, since he didn't seem to control me through the bond, then he'd given me an advantage and insight into how he felt about things. I could probably find him reliably through the bond and put an end to him if I wished, if I could get over the feelings of happiness I felt when I saw him. Of course, since I'd once felt while he was draining a were that it was good he was getting the blood he needed, all while he killed someone, then that probably wouldn't work out so well. I'd spend all day staking him and refilling him until I drained myself completely and he woke up.

His choice wasn't as bad as mine, but to a possessive vampire it was probably up there with 'pressing concern'. That bond took away my choices, and gave me no option but to go ahead with it. It was another slice of autonomy given away to vampires. At least Eric seemed mindful that I was a real person and that I didn't like being controlled, didn't like being forced to give up my autonomy to him, and didn't do that. I'd trusted Eric that day and he didn't let me down.

Eric seemed to treat his blood as something he hesitated to give out, and he'd told me that the last woman to have his blood was Pam, or at least no woman that he'd remembered. Since he didn't have a long line of women he'd tied to himself, he probably felt the gravity of what he took away from me, and may not have done that without warning me first. But the fact still remained that it was done and it affected our relationship, not always for the good.

The bond had its own effects anyway – I didn't put it down to Eric, but the nature of the bond itself. It seemed as if the mystical connection had its own rules that Eric didn't control, so I didn't blame him. I did blame the bond for the feelings of wanting him to kill people though, and I did worry that I'd get lost in it. I often worried about my immortal soul, and what would happen to me after I died, and I hoped that the bond wouldn't make me blind to the violence Eric would be capable of dishing out. Not that I'd seen him violent very often, and only at crucial periods, but I didn't want to become the sort of person who just didn't care.

When Eric was over before the fairy war, he'd mentioned that the blood 'exchange' made it so that he couldn't lie to me. The fact that he mentioned 'exchange' for the first time made me wonder if maybe he'd tried to make the power differential a little less in his favour. He hadn't used the word 'exchange' before. Maybe the idea that I would have a little bit of power and some insight into Eric would serve to take away some of the sting of having a bond I never asked for. Of course, conversations with Eric had many layers, so it's possible that he meant it literally. I had had a fair amount of his blood, and he'd had a fair amount of mine. Maybe we were even.

.*° o O 0 * 0 O o °*.

But ultimately, I didn't need to just sit back and accept the bond without finding out. Eric might like it, but if it stayed for the rest of my life, he would one day be free. He knew what he was signing up for, and he knew what it would mean. I didn't have any clue. I wouldn't be free unless he died, and that's not something I hope for. It was my body and my life, no matter what Andre thought that day when he forced us both into it. Eric had a little more free will, but not much. He had bad choices – and he just wasn't ready to let me go into Andre's hands. I had none – I was leaving that summit with a bond to someone, and just because it happened to be Eric didn't mean I had to abide Andre's decision.

I deserved more information about what was done to me – to either let me know exactly what I needed to do to get rid of it, or to let me know what the limitations were. If The Incident taught me anything, it's that I can't let fear hold me back from finding out exactly how trapped I am, and I need to know a little more if the bond is the next metaphorical rake in the face or knife in the darkness. Being bonded to a vampire didn't become magically something completely different just because Eric was holding the reigns instead of Andre. Eric seemed to try to make it easier for me - and I appreciated that - it's the reason I still interacted with him and didn't attempt to run for the hills. If my choice was slavery to Andre with all of his 'care' for me, or slavery with Eric caring for me, I'd choose him any day. But it was still ultimately designed to enslave me, not love me.

The bond gave me insight and some measure of connection to Eric, but I didn't really need any more connections to Eric. If the bond was all we were, then it was all destined for failure. No one should base their feelings, their life, their decisions on something that was smoke and mirrors. Not many women had to do that unless their significant other had them drugged or shackled every part of every day - and I wouldn't call that a significant other. I'd call that owner, and being owned like a piece of property isn't exactly the stuff of romance. I'd liked him without the bond, felt something close to love without the bond. I didn't need the bond to feel connected to him. If our only connection was the bond, if all it does is put me in his thrall, then I really am his slave.