Disclaimer: Not mine, no money gained.
Author's Notes: Each of these chapters is written in a different style. This is not something I planned, nor something I could keep from happening. Also, these pieces just seem to be there, waiting for me to write them down.
This chapter is an attempt to get into Daedalus's head - I hope he doesn't mind.
I still remember his eyes.
There were surprisingly normal-looking in a face that otherwise had not much in common with a human countenance. I have a vague impression of scales, and horns, and a strong brow; but those memories are faded, nebulous. The only thing that's still clear in my mind even after all these centuries is his eyes.
The details of my Embrace, arguably the most momentous moment of my existence, both living and undead, are lost to me now. I recall neither the Embrace itself nor the time after I was forced to drink the blood of my Sire. Whenever I try to find those memories within me, all I encounter is a blank and a vague sense of horror. I can but conclude that I've blocked everything that happened during that time, erased it from my mind the way I've slashed paintings or smashed statues that I considered too horrific to look at.
But I still remember his eyes, and that they never changed. There was always this expression of cold, mocking disdain in them, no matter what he was doing or saying, or what was happening around him. They never changed - not even when I bared my teeth to sink them into his neck while he was savaging me in our fight to Final Death.
I can remember details from the time when he was no more, whole episodes of things I did back on Crete when I was finally free, and I can recall most of my mortal life, but nothing except bits and pieces from the time between. A cave, water, chains, bones, some confused images of swords and torches. Not even his voice, although I know he must have talked to me, if only to call me names and to mock me. I remember his name, so he must have told me that at least, a single word he must have spoken to me at one time. But I don't remember his voice.
Even now as I'm sitting here in my haven, driven once more thinking about what I haven't thought about in ages by the recent conversations I had with Julian and with my clanmates, trying to recall that time leaves me restless, filled with a mixture of fury and despair, and a sense of futility. It's probably a good thing that I've forgotten.
Memories are wonderful things. Even at the best of times, they are never absolute. Two Nosferatu witnessing the same event will invariably tell two different versions of it, no matter how good their powers of observation or recall. Things they don't notice will be as if they never happened. Colors, words, sequences of events get changed, and without memory aids, no one will be able to tell who, if anyone, is correct. And, of course, memories are also altered by some unconscious design within ourselves, be it to protect us from their horror, or because some things are too momentous to comprehend.
My Embrace certainly qualifies as both.
I do know that it must have happened without my consent, because I don't recall having been asked. I also know that my Becoming must have been painful, horrible, nearly unbearable, but only because I recall hating my Sire because of it - not because I actually remember dying, losing my long dark hair, or experiencing the disfiguring changes I must have suffered. I've since seen Nosferatu fledglings go through the Change while their Sires were there to comfort them, to explain what's happening, and still they suffer, sometimes more than their minds can handle, so I know what I must have gone through (and I certainly had no one at my side for comfort or explanation). But it's gone as if it never happened.
That is not all I've forgotten. I certainly was not strong enough to destroy my Sire immediately after my Embrace. Decades must have passed, centuries maybe, before I finally gathered my fury, shame, and utter hatred for him and turned them into the destructive force that drove my talons and teeth into him. Decades that are simply gone from my mind. All that's left is a memory of recalling a memory.
And when I recall his eyes, those cold, mocking eyes, the only thing that is still there of him in my mind, I'm glad.