This chapter wasnt too difficult too write, i just wanted a way to sum up something that could take a real long time to describe if desired (but it would become very boring that way). I also wanted to lead into the past of Elise, and this is the best way i could think of. Sorry it took me so long to post this, fanfiction wasnt letting me upload on friday.
read and review please.
Chapter 7: Master and Fledgling: Teacher and Student
In the following months the two of us would teach each other lessons that neither one of us could ever imagine.
My fledgling Elise had taught to me the great history of the world, from ancient Egyptians, to the ways of the modern times. She had told me of the various kings and queens throughout the lands, the horrors of the Holocaust, the various wars and strategies (which I found to be simply fascinating), a few of the religions, the dynasties of China and its great wall, and many other lessons which I could not have learned without her aid.
And in return I showed her the true nature of our vampiric kind. I taught her how to walk in the sun (which she adapted to rather quickly), how to read minds and send messages into minds, how to focus her third eye even sharper so she could see exactly what she wanted (though she was rather slow at learning), and how to be the puppeteer of her ghouls.
She seemed incapable of regeneration though. I had severed her finger countless times, only to force it back to its original position and use my own powers to make it work properly again, the entire finger returning to it's natural state.
I had also tested her physical strength on many occasions, each time her heart hesitating and causing her to become weak in battle. She knew how to make many fancy maneuvers, as she had proclaimed herself a very learned student for the martial arts, but such movements that consisted of intense gestures and exact actions couldn't be very much to a creature truly strong without the full strength hidden in her blood.
"You must learn to truly use your strength, Elise," I would say as I engaged her in hand-to-hand combat. "Only when you use your true potential can those movements of yours mean anything."
"But master, why must we vampires fight each other," she would ask while I constantly attacked her.
"Because that is how we survive."
When it came time to harness her power through weapons like the blades and other melee hardware, her true potential became apparent. She had used her weapons in combination with her martial arts skills, creating a dangerous being that could not be stopped unless beaten by one superior to her in abilities. When taken on by a sword she called a 'katana' she almost cut my limbs off, but it was with the power of my dagger that I sliced her blade in half, making it a simple piece of metal.
It became a disappointment, however, when I saw that though she had a vast knowledge of guns and other weaponry, she would constantly revert to the human way of shooting a gun. Constantly she would shoot only what she could see with her open eyes, and not what she saw in her mind's eye. Instead of shooting the leaf that had a worm on it, she would simply shoot the tree itself, not even seeing which leaf I spoke of.
"No Elise!" I would yell. "How many times must I say it, shoot with your third eye!"
"I cant help it, I've been shooting guns like this for years."
Many times I would give up on teaching her to harness her third eye to an exact point, and instead demanded that she used melee weapons in their place, the best of which would be the katana she had used in our fights. Instead she only desired to increase her training in the use of her third eye, saying that if she was given enough time she could become as good as I was with my eye.
It came to pass that she carried both a katana and a rifle on hand, my training of the third eye having ceased. She was always disappointed in herself that she could not use the third eye as well as I could. In comfort I would tell her that she was young, and I was an ancient being that lived long before guns were created.
My memories of my long life, however, did not change. I could only reconstruct small events: a fight with the man dressed in red, the destroying of several cities by my own dagger (though at present I know not how to harness such energy), many nosferatu falling by my hand, and nothing more.
I could only remember bloodshed and destruction.
When I came to such conclusions it was Elise that would comfort me, saying that my past would resurrect itself in my mind, and that being newly conscious had hindered my ability to remember.
And so we would comfort each other, and so our lessons would move on.
During our lessons to each other from the late summer to spring we spent every moment with each other. We were inseparable, as she found it hard to function without my aide, and I had grown accustomed to her presence. We were master and fledgling, the two of us bound together by blood.
"But why must we drink blood?" she asked me at times when the weakness of her human soul would stir.
"It is who we are, and it is our life force. Without it we are weak, but with it we are strong, and you need to be strong in order to protect yourself."
"But wont you always be here to protect me master?" she would say with a look of hopelessness on her face. All I could do at that point was take her into my arms and comfort her physically.
Truly she was a fragile creature, though every day I could see the strength inside her eyes increasing, showing me she was more than human. But in those early days she was so weak that she absolutely would not part from my side for any reason.
When she finally did leave my side though, I found it difficult to function without her.
There were a few nights that she would hunt on her own, attempting to teach herself how to find a victim on her own. I would follow her, telling myself that I wanted to see if she could hunt on her own, though I knew deep down that I couldn't help not being near her.
She could not drink on her own; I saw that almost instantly. She would use her mind reading abilities to find history in the minds of her victims, and her human conscience could not be eradicated in such instances.
During such hunts she would spend the entire night seeking a victim, only to come home weak and hungry, not strong enough to survive the sun's kiss. It would be on those nights that she would fall apart and beg for me to sleep near her, her body cradled in my arms.
It seemed odd: though she knew how to fight with the ferocity of a beast and the swiftness of an eagle, she had the softness of a child and an unstable heart. When she battled against me she would appear to be determined and strong, but when the subject of death would come to pass, she would simply shrivel up and become weak.
These thoughts constantly flooded my mind, but it hadn't occurred to me for many months that I had not known anything of her. I knew she was the child of rich parents and that she had quite the knowledge of weapons, but beyond that I was clueless. I decided to ask her about herself on one of her attempts to become independent by drinking on her own. I would learn of my fledgling's past and why it was so terrible that she could not bring herself to drink blood without my aide.
On the night that she out to hunt on her own I followed her, watching each movement she made, knowing that she couldn't sense my presence. As always, she seemed reluctant to feed, each potential victim she saw had some history in their minds that would stop her from making her move. She was unwilling to steal life unless it was commanded of her, and I could not control her for all of her eternity. I would have to make the need to feed lessen in her.
It was then that I decided to do what I had not done since the night I made her.
"Elise," I called out from above her, slowly ascending from the top of the roof and onto the ground.
"Master, what are you doing here?" she asked, a look of confusion on her face.
"Elise, you need blood. No matter how much you don't want to take it from them, you must take it. It is the blood that fuels us, and what makes us different from them. But you need to become stronger, you need to become more willing to violate other's lives in order to survive," I said as I pulled my dagger out and cut my wrist, blood instantly swelling from the surface of my skin. "Drink my blood as the night I made you. Drink my blood and become stronger."
"But master," she said hesitantly.
"Elise, do as your master commands. Drink and become infused with my own strength. When you become strong the way I am strong, then the blood won't call to you the way it does now, and you wont have to feed as much. You will only need blood when the hunger becomes terribly aggravating, and when you are in need to use your vampiric abilities. But now you are weak from starvation, and you need strength. Elise, drink my blood!"
She nodded and hesitated for a moment, her body not moving a single centimeter. After a long interval of time she slowly walked to me and took my arm into her grasp, the blood spilling onto her fingers. I could see it in her eyes, the hunger that pained her and the desire to drink.
Placing her lips to my wrist she began to lick at the wound, the blood filling her mouth with my own life force. At first she was timid about it, only licking gently at my skin, but the instinct snapped in her and she pressed her lips hard against my gash. She began to suck at the cut, drawing blood out faster than it would come on its own. My own strength began to give out as my legs became weak and made me fall beneath her as she rose above me, her eyes fully open and exposing the full redness of her pupils. In the last moments of her draining me it seemed her eyes became pure blood, red tears crawling down the sides of her cheeks.
When she could not drink another droplet of my blood she released my arm from her grasp, my body falling limp to the ground. She stared at me for a moment, a look of confusion on her eyes. She did not understand how I could have become so weak, how her powerful master was reduced to a limp wraith.
Then it hit her. Draining me of my blood took my own strength out of me, turning me into a skeleton with skin and large eyes popping out of the skull. She became terrified that I might die from such a large amount of lost blood, and she tried to force me to drink her blood, her wrist cut open by her tooth.
"Master, drink," she said as she fell to her knees and rested her arm underneath my head, her wounded hand placed to my lips.
"Elise, do you understand now?" I asked, pushing away her wrist and standing up. "In order to take blood, the source must lose its energy, and almost always, its life. I am eternal, and so I cannot die from you draining my blood; I can only become weakened. And though I am weak, I am still here, and you can see that. Blood is life: to take is to kill, and to take is to live."
"Yes," she sobbed as she aided me to my feet.
"Good, and so you have learned a lesson you should have learned many months ago. Blood is life for everything."
"Master, its life for you too, and your weak now. You need blood, now drink," she said, offering me her arm once more.
"Elise," I responded, waving her offer away. "I am fine for now. Right now I am more concerned with you. We have spent the past seven months in each other's company, and yet I know nothing of you. It never occurred for me to ask, but now that I have given you everything I can give you, I want you to give something to me. Elise, what is your past?"
The request seemed to surprise her, though she did not seem to be against the idea. I could tell her past wasn't an incredibly terrible thing, but I needed to know what it was that made her scared of death. The revulsion of death would prevent her from growing stronger in spirit.
It was buried in her mind, and the only way I could learn it would be for her to tell me.
"I'll tell you," she said as she took my skeleton into her grasp and jumped onto the roof of the building. "Its nothing special, really, but if you want to hear it then I will gladly tell it to you, master."