**Disclaimer: I am using modern-day country and city names and boundaries, rather than using the names and boundaries that were in place in and around the 1100s. I figured it would be easier to understand this way.

Some of my information for Godric comes from the Sookie Stackhouse books, though the majority of my character traits are based on the television show. In the books, Godric is sexually attracted to children.

And again, reviews are always appreciated

Chapter Four:

"Is your name really Fredrik?" Eric asked me.

We were back at my safe location and waiting out the hour until the sun rose. I tossed a stick onto the fire and shook my head.

"So what is it, then?"

"My real name is of no consequence. You may call me Godric."

"Godric," he repeated in a hushed voice. "Why not Fredrik, if neither is your real name?"

"Because I would prefer for you to call me Godric. And you? Is your name really Eric, or just one you so eagerly chose?"

He pulled his legs closer to him and stared off into the distance. "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

"No, it does not. Do you wish me to call you Eric?"

He shrugged. "Sure, it works as well as any other." He returned to staring, and for a while neither of us spoke. Then Eric broke the silence:

"I have a question: if you could have just glamoured Katerina from the very start, why did you bother with all that acting?"

"Acting? What acting?"

He gave me a don't-even-pretend-you-don't-know-what-I'm-talking-about look. It was quite good, from one so young. "You know, the whole charming and wooing thing you did."

"Oh, that. I do that because I enjoy the chase. I enjoy trying to win them over and convincing them that I want to be their friends."

"Why?"

"Because when they realize I am not who I pretend to be, it gives me shivers. Pleasurable shivers," I said, dreadfully serious.

Eric's eyes caught the light of the fire and glinted orange as he glared at me. "Isn't that kind of sadistic?"

Suddenly, I was very tired. "When you've lived a thousand years, you try to amuse yourself anyway you can," I snapped. I instantly regretted it when Eric shrunk as if I had slapped him. I apologised. "I tend to get irritable when I am tired and hungry."

"You didn't feed tonight, did you?" This fact had only just dawned on him.

"No."

"Why not?"

I got up from the fire. "Because tonight was about you. Now I think it is time to get ready for bed." At that exact moment I felt the tug. Eric felt it too because he asked me what the feeling was.

"That is your warning to seek shelter. It means that the sun will be up soon."

Eric copied me and stood up, brushing leaves and dirt from his pants. "So where do we sleep?"

I nodded towards the hole we had been in last night. Some of the blood drained from Eric's face. "You cannot mean that," he said fearfully.

"Unfortunately I do. It is all we have right now."

"What about the cave?" he said, pointing to the rock shelter just beyond the hole.

I gave Eric a sympathetic pat on the back. "It isn't light-tight. If we slept there, we would be dead before sunset. For now, the ground is our only option." I led him to the hole and peeked over its edge. "It isn't so bad, really. You get used to it eventually." I gently shoved him into the hole, and he fell in a large pile. He glared up at me angrily.

"You could have just asked me to get it," he complained.

"Tsk, tsk, sullenness detracts from your beauty, my child." I leapt down and landed standing over Eric, with my legs on either side of him. "You'd better shut your eyes and mouth, you do not want dirt to get inside them." He obeyed, for a precious instant.

"Do all vampires spend their eternities in the ground?"

"No, not all. In fact, many of them have houses that they have sealed up to prevent the sunlight from coming in, and sleep in beds."

Eric sat up eagerly. "Can we do that?"

I sighed, and then grabbed an armful of dirt. "Yes, when we find somewhere else to move. Now, lean back, shut your mouth and close your eyes. It is time for us to go to sleep." I began piling dirt onto Eric, and when there was sufficient covering I burrowed my way down to him. He was stretched out on his back, nearly unconscious already. I lay next to him and pressed my back to his side, and closed my eyes. Sleep took much longer to suck me under than Eric.

The next day, like I had promised, we started moving, looking for a new place to settle. I had decided that we were going to head north and east, out of Sweden, and then circle around south and west and head towards France. I'd always wanted to see France. This was a much longer route to take to France, but to take a ship from Sweden to the Netherlands, or even to Germany, would have been too much for Eric to handle, him being so young; there was only a limited supply of blood onboard, after all. I also wanted to take this opportunity to explore more of the world, and to get to know Eric, my child, better.

After I had been made a vampire, I had done much travelling, though it was mostly in Western and Northern Europe. I had also discovered quite young, perhaps three hundred years old, that I had the unique ability to fly, and that had made travelling much quicker. Eric could not fly; I did not know if he ever would, since it seemed that not all vampires could, or whether he needed to grow older and more powerful, but our travelling was entirely on foot, which I was not unhappy with. Even walking, vampires are still faster than humans when they choose to be.

A few months of travelling saw us inside the western border of Russia, in Novgorod, a large and bustling city. Novgorod is an important centre for international trade, and it is populated enough to provide many distractions for us two. While it is a bit further east than I planned to go, Eric had insisted on seeing it since we were in Russia: apparently he had heard mention of its name in Sweden, and was interested in exploring it. If it's one thing a vampire has, it is time, and so it is impossible for us to waste time because it is meaningless to us; I agreed to take Eric to the city, even though it would make our journey to France longer. Eric was excited to see Novgorod, and I was just happy to see him excited; it reminded me why I had turned Eric into a vampire: because of his excitement and liveliness.

When we arrived in Novgorod, the first thing I did was go about finding us a place to stay. Eric was tired of sleeping in the ground, and quite frankly, so was I. He had not stopped complaining to me every night about how it felt to be buried in the cold and damp, and to wake up with dirt in every single orifice. I told him to stop whining, since I knew how it felt better than he did. He didn't.

Despite these little bouts of resistance from him, which I sometimes did enjoy, Eric had become much more pliable, almost a perfect child. He no longer fought me when I told him it was time to feed, and in fact he started to relish the hunt. He had become quite adept at wooing, as he called it, fellow travellers and residents of small communities and villages that we passed, and persuading them to follow him into the dark, where I would be waiting to strike. He would grin like a little boy when I told him he had done well, and every time he tried to outdo himself by choosing someone more attractive, or more difficult to persuade. But he always got them, in the end. I think it was a combination of his good looks and his charm that endeared people to him. I did not think he resented me at all, anymore, for making him a vampire. He seemed to realize that I had given him the gift of life, of a second chance, and once he had accepted what he was, a vampire, he was determined to suck every droplet out of his new life. He wasted nothing, and instead tried to see the joy and beauty in every little thing. He had started to nearly worship me for stealing him away from death, which amused me to no end. He even began asking me about my life, as a human and a vampire, but I fear I was sorely lacking in my answers. I hardly remembered my past anymore, only bits and pieces here and there.

One night, not long after we arrived in Novgorod, Eric was sitting on a carpet in the house that I had attained for us, asking me questions of my past. When I had found the house, only an old, sick man lived there, and I could tell instantly that he was tired of living; so I told him I was Death come to take him, if he so wished it.

"Yes," he said, his voice wet from excess moisture in his lungs. He coughed and spat out a glob of phlegm and wiped his hand across his mouth. He was shaking with the effort of remaining upright.

"Invite me in," I told him. He did, and I escorted him to the single chair in the small room. He sat down, and I kneeled before him, placing my hands on his thighs. "Do you have any family left, anyone who would mourn your passing?"

He shook his head, tears filling his eyes. "All gone. My wife...she died giving birth to our child. A daughter. She died too, with her mother. She weren't strong enough." The tears streaked his face and fell onto his shirt.

"I am sorry. But I am here to relieve you of your pain," I crooned to him. He nodded shakily.

"Do it, then," he said. "Now."

I smiled up at him, a beautiful, angelic smile, and then I crawled onto his lap and bit his throat. I did this cleanly, not wanting to leave a mess. I felt the old man deserved a clean death, at the very least. It was strange how affected by him I was.

When he was dead, I carried him out to the backyard of the house and buried him. I even shed a few scarlet tears for him. Then I grabbed a wooden board, went back inside, and attached it to the only window, with hinges, so that it would swing shut to block out daylight and swing open to let the moon shine in.

"Godric!"

I shook myself back to the present. Eric had been asking me something, but I had not paid him any attention.

He looked at me with concern, moving closer to the chair I was sitting in; the same one the old man had sat in only two nights ago. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing. What did you want to know?"

"I was asking if all vampires forget their pasts, like you." He leaned his back against the leg of the chair.

"No, not all. A large number of them do remember their pasts very clearly, but I am not one of them. I think it depends on how much you value your past. To me it means little; who I was before I became a vampire means little, and so I have forgotten most of it. At times I can remember some things."

"Like where you came from?"

"Yes." Eric's blonde hair glimmered in the moonlight that spilled in though the window, and I had a sudden urge to touch it. I put my hand on his head, and though I felt Eric's back stiffen at the contact, he did not try to stop me, and quickly relaxed under my touch. I ran my fingers through his long, soft hair, and Eric leaned into the caress. This was nice; it felt comfortable. "I can remember where I came from because of my tattoos. They are a permanent reminder of the society I belonged to. They also help me to remember pieces of my father."

"Your father?"

"Yes. My father, he was the one who gave me the tattoos. I remember I was a warrior, because it was the warriors who received the tattoos, and I can remember my father telling me not to yell or draw back from the pain, that I must be strong and endure. He marked me, and he was never prouder of me than in that moment, when I achieved the markings of a warrior."

"But you were only a child. How could you be a warrior?"

I smiled benevolently down at the back of Eric's head. My child. "How old were you when you became a soldier?"

He turned to me, flushed with embarrassment, and I patted his cheek.

"You see," I said, "you were only a child too. I may look younger than you, but I was about the same age you were when you were made a soldier. And times were different then, a thousand years ago. You had to grow up very quickly in order to survive." I returned to stroking his hair while I tried to remember my human life. "I had a mother, too, but I have no memories her. I do not know if she was pretty, sweet, stubborn. I don't know if I had siblings. The only one I can remember is my father, and him very little."

"What was he like? Do you remember that?"

"Not very well." I was searching deep inside myself, trying to grab at any memories I could. I felt a little pathetic, not being able to remember people who had once been very important to me. "He taught me to hunt, and to fight. There was one time he had me walk out onto a lake covered in thin ice, because he was trying to teach me a lesson."

"What lesson was that?"

"I don't..." It was there, at the edge of my mind. The lesson. The one I had said I would never forget, only I had. I clutched at it, but it kept slipping through my fingers, just like all my other memories. "I can't recall."

Eric watched my internal struggle with curiosity. He had never seen me in such a state before. "Never mind," he consoled. "It does not matter." His gaze rested on the crook of my neck, and I looked down to see that a part of the tattoo that ran along my collarbones was showing. He reached out and touched the material of my shirt. "Can I look?" he asked me.

"You've already seen them."

His grip tightened and he started to slowly pull the fabric down my shoulder, hesitating when I shifted in the chair. "Please?" he beseeched.

I leaned forward and pulled the shirt over my head, then let it fall to the ground. Eric's eyes took in all the different shapes and runes on my skin, looking like he was trying to memorize them. I had had no idea my tattoos had fascinated him so.

Eric altered his position so that he was kneeling in front of me, very much like how I had done with the old man. "Can I touch them?"

I nodded, and he placed his cool fingers on my skin. They danced across my flesh, sending shivers down my spine. No one had touched me for a very long time.

"They feel just like the rest of your skin," he said, astonished.

"They aren't brands, so there is no scar tissue. They are just ink pressed into the skin." He continued skimming his hands over my tattoos, until I grabbed his wrists. "That is enough, my child. You've seen them enough for now." Eric crouched on his hocks and looked up into my eyes. "Please," I said, pointing downwards, "pass me my shirt." He handed it up to me, and I hid my tattoos from him.

"What do they mean?" he asked me.

"I've forgotten, like everything else. It has been so long since I was told their meanings."

"Do you think...?" Eric started, but then stopped.

"What is it?"

Eric sat back down and leaned against the chair again. "Do you think I'll forget everything?"

"That is difficult to tell. You may, or you may remember every insignificant detail of every day. Only time will tell." I got up out of the chair and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Eric called to my back.

"I am going to go for a walk."

"I'll come with‒"

"No." He was taken aback by my hasty interjection. "No, it is all right. I find I want to be alone right now. You wait here for me." I walked out, but then stuck my head back in. "And Eric? Do not follow me." I strode humanly slow away from the house, and all the way I could feel Eric's gaze burning my back.

I came back to the house about three hours later. It was almost one in the morning, and I could sense that Eric was waiting anxiously for me to return. As soon as I stepped inside he jumped up.

"Where were you?" he demanded.

I walked past him into the next room, which was the bedroom. He followed. I straightened the bedspread and lit a candle.

"What are you doing?"

"Hush," I said. "Wait just a moment." I went back outside, where a woman was waiting. I told her it was okay to come in, and opened the door for her. She took a quick look around the room before entering, and gasped quietly when Eric came out of the bedroom. I could somewhat understand her reaction: Eric was an impressive figure.

Eric took the whole scene in, with me in the doorway and the girl standing in the main room. "Godric, what is going on?"

I leaned against the jamb, my arms crossed over my chest, and explained to him, "In everything I have been teaching you, I seem to have neglected certain...other needs. I have brought you a gift."

Eric glanced between me and the girl. "This?" he asked, pointing a thumb at the girl.

"Yes. Her name is Lilia, and she comes highly recommended." I gave him a knowing grin.

His mouth formed a little 'o' when he caught my meaning.

"It is no good," I continued, moving into the room and closing the door behind me, "to teach you to control one urge while another one slips out of control. It is easier to manage your...eating habits...if all your other desires are sated as well." I had to be careful what I said around the girl, lest I reveal our true natures to her human self.

Lilia was a fine figure of a woman. She had waves of silky black hair, smooth, clear, pale skin, and very bright blue eyes. She was deliciously voluptuous, and when I saw her I knew Eric would approve.

Eric inspected the girl quite thoroughly, and seemed pleased by my choice of females. "And you think I need this?"

"I am just assuming," I replied, shrugging. "While I was walking, I was thinking on things, and I realized that I hadn't allowed you an opportunity to...release yourself. For one so young and voracious as yourself, I realize it has been difficult for you to dampen your sexual urges for such a long period of time in order to listen to me talking on and on. So I have decided to reward you for being a good child, and will allow you to choose a woman for yourself every night, if you so wish it."

Lilia chose to ignore the peculiarities of this speech, though I guarantee she was curious about why I, the apparently younger man, was referring to the apparently older man as a child and a student. But, good girl, she did not say anything about it.

I said to Eric, "Do not worry about anything, it has all been taken care of. She has been paid, and she will do whatever you wish." I beckoned him closer, and he bent down. "But hear this: she is not your dinner. I know it will be difficult for you to do, but I do not want you killing her. If you did, I would be suspected, since there are some who saw her leave with me. We do not want them coming to our door during the daytime. Do you think you can do that?"

Eric nodded in agreement, and straightened to his full height. I shooed him away with my hands, and he went over to the girl. She beamed up at him. She really was very pretty.

"Lilia, dear," I said, "take good care of him."

"Will do, sir." She winked at me then focused back on Eric.

He whispered to her, "Go wait for me in the bedroom. I'll be there in a moment." Lilia went obediently. Eric stood in the centre of the main room, making it look very tiny. It was a small house, with only the main room, which had a fire pit for cooking and heat, and the bedroom, but Eric made it look smaller. He made me feel smaller. "You're not joining?" he asked me uncertainly. Though he had been touching me only a few hours before, and though he admired me, Eric had no desire to have sex with me: Eric loved women, through and through, though I knew he would if I asked him to. It did not bother me, since I had no desire to have sex with him, either. He was too old for my tastes.

"No," I reassured him.

"Will you wait here?"

"No."

He clasped his hands in front of him, his right pinkie finger twitching. It is what he did when he was anticipating something. "Where will you go, then?"

"Not far. I met a rather interesting group of people on my walk. Rogue soldiers, I believe. I think I will go join them for a few hours." I touched his hands briefly, then left. For a while after, I could still hear them; Eric seemed to be enjoying himself. I smiled to myself, and eventually I reached the point where I could not hear them anymore; the distance was too great. I hadn't lied to Eric when I said that I had met some rogues, and I thought that their stories would be very entertaining. I was not wrong.