Still somewhere in Oxfordshire
Waking up the first thing Wren remembered was the pain, and her hand immediately shot to her neck.
'No blood..well there's a plus but...'
Slowly, Wren became aware of a few things. Firstly she was no longer in the Great Hall, she was in the entrance hall of the house. Second, she was lying on the floor.
Standing up slowly, Wren took in the scene around her.
The house was shattered. Furniture, pictures, door and walls all completely destroyed, or overturned or hanging off their hinges. Turning around numbly, Wren tried to process what she was seeing.
Next, she glanced down at her own clothes. She was stil wearing the ceremonial dress, well, wearing might be the wrong word, as it was barely hanging on to her by a few threads, the reast was torn, tattered, covered in blood and dust...but not her own blood.
Wren wasn't sure how she knew it wasn't her blood, nor how she know without question that if she seached the rest of the house she would fone no other occpants. It was like she could sense everything all around her. Every displaced air molecule, every falling dust mote, everything...
But no vampires.
Then, images began to come back to her.
A room, candles, spinning, a man - no - two men, then one...then pain...so much pain...but then...blood
The memory of the blood in her mouth made her gag, but was quickly replaced by a strange...hunger...
Wren heard her stomach growl...but then realised that it wasn't her stomach. Moving shaky hands up to meet her face, she tentitivly felt the ridges across her forehead, the fangs in her mouth.
"The ritual!" Wren cried out, even though there was no one to hear. "But what..." putting her hand to her chest Wren felt what she had know was there wall along, her heartbeat.
'But...how?'
Too many questions floated around in Wren's head. She had to find the Master, or Edward, or...
'But no,' came a voice in her head, 'They're all dead now...and you know who killed them?'
"Me," Wren answered herself, voice dead with shock and disbelief, "I did, but how could I-"
'Wait,' she thought, 'Not me...Seth...Seth, he was the one that...'
Wren's eye's opened wide in shock. Seth. He had killed the Master. He had finished the ritual. He had...
'Wait, where did he go? Surely he muct have...'
Wren looked outside...daylight. He couldn't have left then...but if he wasn't here then...
'No,' Wren thought. "NO!" She repeated out load, shouting at some unseen spectator.
"I haven't killed him! I wouldn't! I couldn't! I-"
Collapsing to the floor, Wren held threw back her head and screamed. So many emotions working through her at once, she had no way to deal with them all. So much had happened, now the sudden emptiness she felt at the thought of losing Seth,
'My Sire,' her thoughts interrupted.
It was all too much for her. So instead she screamed, and screamed, until her throat was sore and nothing more came out than a shrill gasp. And then she cried, until her eyes burned and she couldn't stand the pain any more and passed out.
Darkness fell, and Wren's still body lay on the floor of the mansion. Almost lifeless. Mind unable to cope with anything remotely like living. So she drifted between worlds for days, just lying amid the carnage she had wrought.
On the morining of the fifth day, Wren's dead and lifeless eyes finally seemed to emerge from whatever place it was she had created for herself in an attempt to escape from the overwhelming pain of reality. She dragged herself up by sore and protesting muscles, and mindlessly shuffled down the hall to her room, discarding the remains of the dress as she walked.
Starting the shower running she stripped off the rest of her clothes and stepped in, mind apparently running in automatic after the catatonic state she had put herself in.
Standing under the hot spray, Wren finally began to come back to herself, limbs shaking despire the heat. Starting to feel nauseous Wren stepped out of the shower and moved towards the sink, splashing cold water on her face. She looked up.
There in the mirror, was a girl looking back at her, but Wren didn't recognise her. The face was still the same. Hair, same look...but the eyes, the eyes of the stranger in the mirror were not the one's of a brave but inexperienced, but of a warrior...a demon...A Slayer.
Wren stared at her reflection, a voice deep inside wondering exactly how it was possible for her to have one. A thought suddenly struck her and Wren closed her eyes and tried to concentrate.
She searched for something deep inside her mind, something new, something foreign, something...there!
She felt her face shift, the unusual movement of the bone and muscle once more making her feel queezy, but she managed to hold her composure. Taking a few deep breaths to steady herself, Wren cautiously opened her eyes and looked into the mirror.
'Well, there you are,' she thought to herself, as she looked at the vampire staring back at her.
-+-
Wren had spent a few educational hours in front of the mirror, closely watching and learning as she switched back and forth between human and vampire. Eventually, exhausted, she threw herself down on her bed for a dreamless, yet restful sleep.
-+-
She didn't wake until the next evening, already feeling much more rested. Not yet ready to face clearing the house, nor entering the Great Hall again, she set about dscovering exactly what her new body could do. If the destruction of the house was any clue, it was probably quite a lot.
Standing at the top of the large staircase at the front of the house, Wren closed her eyes and pulled up her reserves of courage, and lept the 20 feet from the top banister to the bottom.
Wren wasn't sure how she managed it with her eyes closed, but she seemed to sense the ground approaching nonetheless, and rolled gracefully when she hit the floor, coming to stand steadily on both feet.
'Huh, first test passed then,' she thought, 'Now for something a little more challenging.'
Wren made her way through the house towards her training room, carefully ignoring the blood splatters and scratch marks all over the walls and floors...and ceilings.
Standing in the centre of the room, Wren took another deep breath, before beding her knees and effortlessly leaping the 15 of so feet straight into the air to catch the high bar. Spinning herself around to build up speed, Wren flung herself across the room, landing on the top of the bar on the opposite wall, arms outreached and maintaining her balance perfectly. Spinning around on one foot, she pivoted through the air and caught the end of the bar with one hand, flinging herself towards the climbing bars. Catching the wall with one hand and a foot for balance, Wren moved sideways across the wall, hand over hand, her grip never faultering, until she reached the corner. Deciding she was bored of high flying antics, at least for the moment, Wren span gracefully to the floor, before performing a series of flips and cartwheels to where the weapons were displayed. Picking up an assortment pf throwing knives se idilly tossed two at the target on the far wall, the second splitting the first down the hilt. taking a third she threw it into the air, before deliveing a spinning kick to the knife as it fell and sending it flying into the centre of the target, bringing the whole arrangement of the wall with the force of the impact.
Casually walking over to the centre of the room, Wren looked around and studied the route she had just taken, finally glancing at the fallen entirely ruined target in front of her.
'That,' she thought calmly, 'was far too easy.'
A slow smile spread across her face, a flash of evil delight first finding its way into her eyes.
"And far too fun."
Smile still in place and a spring in her step, Wren exited the room, casually throwing a final knife behind her, which cut through the ropes holding up the training aparatus, possibly by accident, and brough the whole set of beams crashing to the floor, the noise blocking out the sound of Wren's gleeful laughter as she walked out to meet her new life head on.