A/N: TW: Mild descriptions of blood and gore.

"You made me your beast!?" Fear had rattled Felix until he'd burst - all the fright and panic and disbelief welling up inside of him until it spilled over. "You made me a monster!? One of the evil creatures that Fódlan tried to eradicate!?"

Seteth's eyes were dark, shadowed by the room's gloom and full of disdain. "Calm down. You're worsening your wound."

"Talk to me! Why? Why would you do this?"

"You were going to die-"

"So, you should have let me die!" Felix roared at him, feeling each of his muscles shake. "That was how I should have died - that was my time!"

A sort of irritated tch left the man's lips, and he turned away. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Evidently I don't."

"Felix…" Flayn's gentle voice spoke up now, removing Felix momentarily from his rage. She stepped towards him with a gentleness behind her eyes. "Let me change your bandages."

But he was more focussed on the man. "You owe me an explanation."

"And I will give it to you," Seteth agreed. "After you have time to calm down." He shut his eyes, turned, and began to walk from the room.

Felix's breath was heavy, his chest heaving painfully as the man turned his back on him. He was angry, frightened, confused. How could this have been happening? He didn't even realise vampires had still existed until mere minutes ago, and now he was supposed to believe that he was one too?

He already did believe, however. The sun had scorched his eyes in the past, but never his skin. That reaction was something unnatural - something abnormal. Flayn had remained in the shadows to close the shutters, but Felix and Seteth had been reduced to agonised screams as the rays had bathed their skin. That pain was something that could not have been imagined.

With a sudden realisation, he opened his mouth a little. Slipping one thumb between his lips, he pressed it against his teeth, feeling the dull, square shapes of his incisors and… Sure enough, his canines were sharp. They'd always been a little pointed, but now their edge was painfully angular, feeling as piercing as a kitten's claws against the pad of his thumb.

It made his stomach turn - made the cold begin to embrace him once more.

"So, let's help you calm down, then," Flayn said as she approached him. She gestured to his bandages. "May I?"

He didn't respond, instead staring dead ahead. When he spoke, his voice was quiet - his brain too preoccupied to muster anything more. "So, you really are vampires?"

Flayn's face looked strained in response. "Yes."

"And Seteth… turned me?"

"He was just trying to do what was best," she said, beginning to unwrap his bandage with gentle fingers.

"How?" asked Felix. "According to the stories, you live forever. You're immortal, and forced to live lives of solitude in the dark- agh!" The material had stuck to his wound's dried blood, pulling painfully on the skin as she pried it away.

"I'm sorry… But, really, it is not as bad as they make it out to be. You get used to it, after so long. It is not the most easy, being a child of the night amidst your day-loving friends, but…"

"But what?" Felix was struggling to find the upside. "He's merely cursed me. Now, I won't age. I'll watch everybody I still love die, and I'll be stuck here. Forever."

"Oh, Felix. You're so dramatic."

He flared at that. "I am not! I didn't ask for this! You say he was trying to do what was best, but how? How could this possibly be good for me!?"

Flayn pressed a hand against his shoulder, prompting him to lie down. Reluctantly, he did, watching as the girl leaned over him, inspecting his injury. She didn't look quite as fresh as usual, either - much like Seteth. Usually her hair was styled in long, bouncing curls the same colour as her brother's, but now her hair hung around her shoulders in loose waves, looking slightly dishevelled. She appeared to be wearing a light blue nightgown.

"Were you both asleep?" he asked.

A small smile cradled Flayn's lips. "I was. We usually sleep through the brightest hours, but my… brother couldn't sleep. He knew you'd awaken, and he knew you'd be angry." She held out her palms towards his ribs, and white light glowed from around her fingertips. Felix felt an uncomfortable tingling sensation fill him, shooting throughout each vein and focussing around where he'd been wounded. "It was an axe, by the way."

"An axe?"

She nodded. "That… hurt you."

Felix felt another memory come back to him. An enemy soldier charging at him while he locked swords with another, a blood-curdling cry leaving her mouth as she lifted a heavy-looking axe over her head. Kicking the swordsman away from him, Felix had turned to face her, until a shriek had filled his ears.

"F-Felix!"

The panicked yelp of Sylvain had made his heart leap, and he'd whirled around frantically to look for him. "Sylvain!" he'd screamed back, but a blow to the chest had sent air shooting from his lungs, and pain had exploded through his body. He'd felt himself hit the floor, and his world had turned black.

"Did it kill me?" he asked Flayn, gritting his teeth as the magic coursing through his body began to tighten upon his every nerve.

"Not quite," she replied softly, twisting her glowing fingers in slow, deliberate motions. "It would have… if Seteth hadn't saved you."

"Pfft. Saved." Everything was so bittersweet. Of course, he was happy to still be alive, but could this even be called a life? Wasn't he technically undead? The equivalent of a ghost, or zombie, only with a more disgusting habit of borderline cannibalism?

Flayn spoke quietly. "I do hope you'll come round eventually. There are so many misconceptions." The light faded from around her fingers, and when the buzzing inside Felix's body died off, he felt somewhat better. "There are even some benefits."

His eyes narrowed. "Benefits?"

"Why, of course." The girl crossed the room to the dresser, upon which sat a basin of water and a cloth. She submerged it, wrung it out, and came back to her patient with a roll of bandages in another hand. "The folktales only tell of the bad things. The nasty ones who lost themselves in their bloodthirst, and those so overcome with power they deemed themselves better than humans. We weren't all like that."

"What kind of power?" Felix demanded.

"Hmm, lots of them, really. You'll find out with time." Flayn began to gently dab at Felix's ribs, the cold water searing at the raw, injured skin. He hissed in pain, and looked down to see his affliction for the first time.

The girl's white magic had evidently worked its charms. By the looks of the deep purple bruise mottling the ivory skin around the scar, Felix had been hit hard. The bones beneath would easily have been broken under the axe's might, and it had made a wide, deep cut. While partially sealed, the gash still looked gruesome. Blood seeped slightly from between where the skin was trying to heal, but instead of being almost repulsed, as he usually was by gore, Felix felt almost…

Hungry.

A harsh curse word left Felix's mouth. He'd forgotten about that.

The legends told that the demonic creatures could only feast upon humans. It was why they'd been destroyed; the vampires would sneak into the houses of the unsuspecting at night and brutally murder them, feasting on their blood. It was their life source - the one thing they could consume so as not to wither away. As long as they could drink the scarlet that flowed through the veins of mortals, they could not die; that was what Mercedes' stories had told, at least.

He tried to push the image from his mind, looking away from the wound to refocus. But, Felix's stomach was growling. He salivated, imagining the taste: the thick ooze of metallic warmth filling his mouth…

Stop!

He grimaced, physically shaking his head to rid himself of the thoughts. "Don't tell me that's the only thing you can eat."

Flayn gave him an anxious smile as she sat him up again, preparing to rewrap him. "We… can talk about that when you're ready."

"I'm ready now - I'm hungry now!" Felix felt his cheeks heat. He'd never been so worked up over food before. Meals were merely a nuisance: nothing more than a distraction from the important things. Eating was a necessity, if not only to sate himself to train better, but an annoyance nonetheless. Never before had hunger pangs brought Felix irritation; now, however, his stomach felt so hollow it pushed him to snarling.

Tying off his dressing after wrapping it tightly around him, Flayn stepped back and gave Felix a quick smile. She looked over her shoulders in a way that made him raise an eyebrow, but eventually, she spoke. "I promise we'll tell you everything."

"Why not now?" Anger made him speak through grit teeth. He'd been dragged into this mess involuntarily - his life turned upside down. Not only was he having to come to terms with being a creature so despised they'd been culled, but he was gravely wounded, in a strange building with two people he positively disliked, and nobody would tell him what had happened. Where was Sylvain? The professor? What had happened of the battle they'd been losing? If Seteth had revived Felix, he could have revived everybody else. That was, given he'd gotten to them in time-

No. They couldn't have been dead. That wasn't possible.

"For now…" Flayn lowered him down once more into the bedsheets. "… just sleep, Felix."

"I don't want to sleep," he protested. "I want answers!"

"Trust me." And her hand began to glow as she held it over his eyes, a pulsating white that transformed to indigo, that faded into blue. Her voice was so soft - so genuine - echoing slightly. "You'll feel better afterwards."

A drowse overcame the heir of Fraldarius - the newest child of the night - and he was plunged into a world of darkness.