I don't own Cirque Du Freak. Never did, never will.


Reit watched the half vampire in front of him, his concern for her well being replaced by an impassive indifference. He had heard rumors of a vampire who'd recently blooded a child, but he had disregarded without a second thought. Blooding children was against both vampire and vampaneze laws, since children would make rash choices without regard for consequences.

As freedom comes with the chains of responsibility, power comes with the straps of restriction. In exchange for increased senses, speed, strength, agility, and very minimal psychic powers, things such as human contact, life in the sun, loved ones, and the convenient human lifestyle exchange places. Children, no matter how headstrong, are usually devastated once they realize the extent to what they have given up.

The vampaneze's obsessive fetish for killing vampires was slowly dying down. The girl had only been blooded weeks ago; he could tell by how weak the vampire cells in her body were. She wasn't secretly older than she looked, as it was for many of their kind. All in all, the girl was still a child. Helpless, without a proper mentor to teach her the way of the night dwellers.

No proper vampire would shy away from a challenge, and even if they did, Reit would chase after them and hunt them down so they would die in shame.

But this girl here was utterly, hopelessly defenseless. Killing her would bring him no satisfaction, no pride. It would just be pathetic slaughter.

This did not, however, lessen his disgust of her kind.

"What is your name?" the vampaneze questioned in a quiet, but authoritative voice. The girl hesitated, wondering if she should stay silent and ignore him. But the tone in the red eyed man's voice was unnerving, and she decided that she didn't want to cross him after all.

"…Cecelius."

"I see. Cecelius, do you prefer living or would you rather die?"

That question certainly threw her off quite a bit. A grown man normally wouldn't ask a seven year old girl that sort of question, but then again this wasn't exactly a normal situation.

Cecelius looked down at her small, childish hands flaking off with dried blood. Now those hands were no longer that of an innocent child. She felt tainted and ugly.

To be honest, the girl felt as if she should die. She was a murderer, no matter how much she distorted the facts and scattered her memories. What right did she have to prolong her short life to see the next day when she stole that privilege away from her own mother?

Even so, the desire to live coursed through her body. Self preservation, something installed in all living animals, humans, creatures of the night. A natural instinct she could not fight.

"Cecelius wanna live…" she mumbled, self-disgust crawling down her throat.

Reit paused, and a flash of disappointment crossed his face. "…I see." He then stood and stalked away, the floorboards groaning under his weight a second time, the girl staring after him.

Glancing over his shoulder, the vampaneze added, "Well, are you just going to sit by a rotting corpse until the sun rises or are you coming with me?"

"But…"

Cecelius' gaze went to the body. A second round of emotions wracked her brain. Guilt. Shame. They clung onto her limbs and plastered themselves against her body.

All this time she had been crying not for her mother's sake, but for her own. Her own loss of her humanity, her innocence, and the only one who loved her. Not a moment was spent on mourning the realization that the woman's life had been cut short because of the girl's impulsive actions. Not a single tear was shed because it was her compassion that led to her fall. And now… And now this brave, sacrificial mother would be stripped of the dignity of a proper burial, a sendoff to her descent to the other world...

"I won't repeat myself. It's now a corpse, no longer who she had been while she was alive. The body will be safe here. It's unlikely human authorities will find it, so let us be off," Reit snapped, getting impatient with the young half vampire who had an irritating, clingy fondness for this decaying lump of human meat.

Tearing herself from the body, Cecelius decided that she would repay her mother's kindness someday. She would never, ever be able to make up for her grave mistake, but perhaps she just might be able to give unto others a fraction of what she had received.

With this promise, she blindly stumbled after the red eyed man, giving him the reins of her future and where it would lead her.

Standing by the doorway, Reit studied the child, seemingly emotionless. Although it didn't seem like it, the gears in his head were quickly beginning to turn.

No, he could not kill her now without losing his honor as a respectable vampaneze. Instead, he would train her to the best of his abilities. Like an artist chiseling a block of clay, he would erase any imperfections by molding her into his image of (if there ever was one) a respectable vampire opponent. This, of course, would take years of carving out any unnecessary human traits, poking and prodding of fresh wounds both physical and emotional, testing then barreling through her limits by throwing her into the kilns for improvisation.

Perhaps she chose to live because she thought it would have been more gratifying than tossing herself to the arms of death. But then again, as a child she probably never once thought of the gruesome fact that for a select few who bear the shackles of living, death is nothing less than bliss.

So he said with a bit of relish, these next words that left a bittersweet aftertaste.

"From now on you will be living as my vampaneze's assistant."


A knife whistled past, burying itself in the body of a great oak tree, almost severing the girl's fingers. Immediately afterwards, two more needle-like knifes follow, both leaving shallow cuts by her calves.

Behind her, the tree now resembled a dart board with about a dozen or so sharp items varying from screwdrivers to cleavers sticking out in odd angles.

Cecelius winced as the next item, a sharpened fork, flew by and scathed her shoulder.

It had been several weeks since she became a vampaneze's assistant, and her body had already taken a great toll in the short amount of time. She hadn't been the most wonderful image of a healthy child before Reit picked her up, but compared to now, her previous malnourished state almost seemed perfect.

Her pale skin easily reflected dozens of cuts and bruises that had been accumulated by the "games" Reit put her through. Dark circles grew under her large, hallowed eyes from lack of proper rest. And though she was already a scrawny child, she was now steadily losing essential body fat. With each day that passed, starvation became a larger and more imminent threat.

The vampaneze, however, saw this all as fit training.

He nonchalantly flipped the page of an interesting book he'd found. Most humans were rather stupid and shallow in his opinion, but a select few did manage to come up with brilliant works, he had to admit. Shakespeare was one that he decided to give due respect ever since getting ahold of the book he was currently reading, Macbeth. It was a shame the man was dead. Reit thought he would have liked to meet him.

Still holding the book at hand, he absentmindedly grabbed a thick metal nail and hurled it at his assistant, fully expecting her to dodge it. It was quite evident with the following shriek that she didn't.

Reit eyed Cecelius over his book, somewhat annoyed at her incompetence. She was writhing in pain, chocking back sobs as blood heavily pumped from her punctured wrist.

Perhaps we should continue training on another day, he thought with mild contempt.

The vampaneze stood up and lazily stretched before bothering to heal the half vampire's various wounds that had been inflicted during the session. For a moment he wondered if he was being too harsh, but quickly waved that thought away. His master had also taught him the same way using similar methods, so he assumed that it should be completely fine.

Of course, he had totally forgotten the fact that he had been fully blooded almost immediately after his birth, and that his master only used these techniques to train only after years of honing his agility. And while Reit was a fantastic pupil, he was an equally terrible teacher, lacking both sympathy and the natural instinct of knowing when he had pushed his assistant too far.

So he was again surprised a week later when Cecelius collapsed, unable to support her own body weight.

"Get up," he commanded, prodding the half vampire with his foot.

She could only blink and stare apologetically, her throat constricted due to days of dehydration.

Although she was undeniably strengthened by the vampire cells in her body, there was only so much abuse a child's body could take before it completely broke down. Reit didn't realize this blatantly obvious fact until it was almost too late. (Luckily, he was somehow able to restore her health until it was somewhat satisfactory, and after then grudgingly kept her training in more moderate levels.)

Still, the young half vampire struggled to please her mentor, regardless of the consequences.


Out of the corner of his eye the vampaneze watched the girl as she curled up by a bush, exhausted from the day's activities, though it was only about one AM or so. Dawn was nowhere near approaching, and the stars shone brightly, silhouetting the outline of the trees in the forest.

Sighing, Reit leaned against a tree and slowly slid down until he was in a comfortable sitting position.

The grass was lightly powdered with frosty dew that reflected beautifully in the moon's dim light. A cool, silent breeze weaved between the dense foliage and brushed against his dark skin teasingly. It was his ideal of a perfect break from reality. Absolute peace and tranquility blanketing the night, he could release his grip on haunting memories that tore at the barriers surrounding his scarred, weathered heart.

He never did notice the pair of red eyes that bore into him and his assistant that night.