"Harkon?" I asked cautiously as I approached the ancient vampire. He looked up from his meal, Breton Cattle, with blood dripping down his chin.
"Excuse me," Harkon wiped the blood away and sat up, regal and proud, higher than I stood. My confidence sputtered a bit. "What do you need, child?"
Normally, being called a child would have irritated me, but he called all the vampires younger than him "child", so I did not feel so defensive about it.
"I..." I bit my lip and let my eyes dart around the room as I struggled with how to word my interrogation. He raised a mildly curious eyebrow at me. I swallowed and tried to control my thoughts.
"Yes?"
"I found a note in your library on vampires... I was wondering if you knew if what the author had said was correct."
"Hm..." I relaxed as Harkon did not appear angry at me for snooping in his books as I had feared.
"I see. Come with me." He rose from his seat and started off towards his library, with me in tow. He approached the shelved volumes as I shut the heavy oak door tentatively, cautious not to make too much noise. The thick slab of wood fell into its frame with a muffled thump.
"Where did you find this note?" He asked mildly, still facing the thousands of books. His hands were clasped thoughtfully behind his back.
I strode up next to him, my eyes at his robed shoulder, and scanned the rows and rows of bound paper, their dusty spines ranging from dull grays to reds to greens. None of them seemed thinner than the width of two of my fingers together. I was searching for a certain color, a dark indigo, with faded gold letters curling into the words Immortal Blood. We spent a minute in silence while I combed through shelf after shelf full of books, some unnamed, some new, some worn. Finally my eyes locked onto the one I needed; it blended in well with the others, and I had skipped over it several times. I reached my arm up to hook a slender finger into the gap between the binding and the cover on the spine, then slid the book out and grasped it in my other hand, pulling it off of it's place and creating a dark gap between its neighbors, The Wolf Queen, Book VI and Beggar. I tugged the piece of paper protruding from the top of the pages in the novel I was holding and handed Harkon the note wordlessly. I was still uncertain if he was angry or not, although he did not appear so.
He unfolded it and swept his eyes across the cursive text. I waited and watched his face, hoping to get a hint of his emotion, but it stayed blank.
"Which part are you wondering about my child?" He asked, his tone polite and thoughtful.
"The part about the venom making it so that the sire and newborn are connected in a way." I clarified. He nodded, and I could tell he was deciding how much he could tell me.
"The mortal," He said cautiously, "only covered part of it. The sire's venom inside the newborn, you see, gets slowly tainted with the newborn's venom in the beginning months of vampirism. At first, when the sire turns the newborn, the newborn's own venom has only begun to develop, so the sire's venom is very clearly separate and distinct in them. However, as time goes on and the newborn's venom matures, the sire's venom becomes less recognizable to the sire themselves. If the sire is around the newborn much in its first few months, it senses these changes and thus the pull towards the newborn continues. However, if the sire abandons the newborn, and does not either ever meet them again or within the next few months, the venom becomes completely unrecognizable to the sire, and thus the pull slowly fades away. That is why you do not have a seperate pull to your own sire; our clan has been very cautious to not let the bond form between our vampires, for if one died the other would be useless in battle for years as they would become extremely depressed as well as in pain, and the risk of death with our lifestyle is high. However, we decided to experiment with this. You will be allowed to harbor your bond with the boy as a test, to see if it is better to keep the connection instead of dispel it. Vingalmo thinks that it will intensify the ferocity of your battles to protect each other. If it works out, then I will arrange for that to be the way we have newborns and sires from now on. If not... well, its impossible to reverse the bond after the newborn's venom is fully developed... so I suppose you will not be here to clean up the mess."
I shuddered at the eerie threat hidden within the last sentence. My head was frantically trying to process all of this new information. I was going to be a test subject for this bond. I was going to die if Vingalmo wasn't right. My sire could be anyone. And if the experiment failed, I would die.
"Can I at least watch?" I asked Vingalmo. It was an hour before the boy's initiation, and I had been fruitlessly begging Vingalmo to let me introduce him to his prey ever since Harkon and I had returned to the main hall. Vingalmo sighed in response, the little patience he had waning.
"If I let you watch, will you leave me to eat in peace?" I thought for a moment, my head cocked to one side, then bobbed it in consent.
"Good." He growled, and turned to the bloody wrist of the Vampiric Cattle lying on the table in front of him. "You should probably eat before, with the blood and such. Wouldn't want you to ruin his meal."
He made a good point; while I wasn't particularly hungry at the moment, the close call with the boy earlier still made me shudder. I would take no chances.
I turned around and strode to the steps, and while I climbed them tried to decide where I would hunt. Falkreath? No, I had a bit of a bounty there. I would need to leave more time for the guards to forget my looks. Riften? That seemed a bit far, and I didn't really feel like dealing with any Thieves Guild members I may run into. Winterhold? It was a small city, with few witnesses... plus, the Nords always tasted best when laced with frost. I approached the heavy doors of the castle entrance, then pushed them open. Winterhold it was then. I would have to be quick; I only have an hour. The watchman hastily opened the gate for me, and I bid him farewell with a murmured "thanks" and trod over the stone bridge spanning the castle and the Watchtower. My two-inch heeled ebony boots echoed hollowly on the structure. Now I had to face the problem of how to get there within a half hour. I could turn into a Vampire Lord, but I usually preferred to avoid that, as I had to stash all of my belongings (including my armor) away before I transformed, and risk them being stolen. Also, although I did not like to admit it, I thought being in Lord form made me look extremely unattractive; not like that was a great concern of mine, but self-consciousness was never far away at the best of times, let alone when you are a huge grey-skinned flame-haired winged creature. And to add to that, I was not very magic-savvy, so I only had my claws and teeth to rely on should a confrontation occur.
So how do I travel to Winterhold on time? I realized I had already spent 5 minutes contemplating this as I stared out at the Sea of Ghosts. I sighed and, begrudgingly, accepted that I must fly. I hesitantly entered the Watchtower and unbuckled the sheathes for my daggers, the heavy weapons still in them, from my waist and set them in the shadows. I then slid a shiv from my boot and threw it on top of them with a loud clatter. With cautious fingers, I unlatched my black leather quiver from my chest and let it swing from my grasp, its contents also dark, forged from ebony. I set the quiver on top of the pile and then reached for my bow on my back, and detached it from my armor, its hard, heavy form made from the same ore as its arrows. It was set down next to the pile, as I was afraid of it sliding off and becoming damaged. I then sat down on the dusty granite floor and reached down to yank the hard black boots from my feet, then tossed them over to the rest of my belongings before standing up again, now barefoot, and slipping off my armor. Long ago I had lost the awkwardness that first comes with being nude; I accepted it as a natural state, and nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. But I never did lose the feeling of exposure with my skin bare and vulnerable. I always prefered to wear my armor and weapons at all times; even while I slept. So with all of the things that made me feel safe and even dangerous lying on the floor at my feet, I felt a rush of fear and wariness. No one would catch me off my guard.
I took a deep breath and focused on imagining myself splitting into a million pieces and letting the beast inside of me free. I clenched my teeth in concentration and squeezed my eyes shut, putting as much pressure on my brain it hurt. Suddenly, I threw my arms out and my eyes fell into a grey haze as I felt my wings bursting from my back and my whole body shifting and changing around me. Slowly, my vision cleared, and I floated out the door, my feet hovering inches off the ground. I looked around at the pale night, let myself rest my feet on the ground, then lifted my wings and started to run towards the sea. The wind rose the thin grey skin and pushed me off of the ground a few feet. I flapped my wings and steadily gained altitude until I was far above the gleaming waves below me. The air pushed my bloody curls back and felt refreshing on my face. I felt free and weightless, and to emphasize on this, I flew higher and glided over Secunda, then Masser in turn. The pale scene below me changed every time I blinked; from a forest to a mountain to a lake. I looked to the horizon, trying to discern Winterhold, and saw a small city next to a cliff, surrounded by snow and near a large castle-like building. I rapidly approached the city and decided to start banking down. I curved my right wing so it bent the air in a way that turned me in a gentle downwards spiral. I slowly descended onto my grey feet, but when they contacted the snow, I immediately turned back into a human. As the wings folded and disappeared into my back, I crouched down behind a rock and peered cautiously over at the city. Two Stormcloak guards paced in front of the road that led through the ruined town. I honed in my hearing to decipher what they were saying over the howling wind carrying swirling flakes of ice, which had picked up not long after I had landed.
I saw the guards shivering in the freezing temperature which I couldn't feel. The one on my left, a Nord woman, complained to her comrade in a heavy accent,
"This city is hardly worth guarding. Why can't the College just magic up a wall, eh? Not like they would even need it, I have no idea why anyone would be in this cold, let alone to attack. Their joints would freeze up before they raised their axe!"
Her fellow guard, a male Nord with a more gentle voice, responded,
"Be patient, Sister. Our shift is almost over. How about I take you to get some mead at The Frozen Hearth afterwards, and we can thaw out?"
"Alright." She grumbled, then smirked. "But don't expect me to be more than a block of ice by then." There was silence, in which I saw the brother rolling his eyes. Then they faced the road I was next to again, their eyes wary and their hands on their weapons. The woman had an Iron Warhammer while the man had a Steel Mace. It made me smile how weak they looked. I could take them out in a second. But I wouldn't. I would have to choose a victim that was alone; since I only had my teeth as a weapon, I was afraid that I would start feeding as soon as I attacked, and that would leave me open to anyone who was also trying to kill me. So although the scent of the guards was tantalizing, I decided to sneak past them instead.
Normally, I would just stroll past, but since I had no armor, I believe it would be a more awkward situation than I could desire. Also, I could not afford the time it would take to explain myself, for I believed I had little time left. I pressed myself into the snow, letting my skin blend into the pale, glowing surface. I then rolled onto my back and pressed frost into my hair, caking it with snowflakes and turning it a sparkly white with streaks of red. Since it was dark, this would be enough. I wriggled my way into a wide circle around the guards, giving them a large berth. Their sweet scent still flirted with my nose.
I was about halfway to the first building, the Jarl's Longhouse, when I heard a sound behind me. It was a low growling, and by the scent, I could tell it was a wolf. I pressed myself lower to the ground as I heard the guards unsheathe their weapons and start to stalk over.
"Who's there?" The woman called out warily, her accented voice trilling out through the snow. Suddenly, the wolf leapt from its hiding place, a meter or so from me, and landed on her face. Startled, the woman fell onto the powdery ground as the canine tore at her head with its fangs. Her brother brought his mace down onto the wolf's skull, and with a hollow crack, the mace crushed its target and the wolf fell limply onto the woman. I could smell her blood flowing onto the ground, and I could feel the hunger begin to fester in my belly. Her brother shoved the wolf, which was also bleeding, off of his sister and inspected her wounds. She was still alive, barely, and panting through a torn throat. Her face had been mutilated and one of her eyelids was sealed shut with blood. He bent over her, murmuring denial as she reached up to him, her good eye rolling. I saw him scramble to his feet and bolt for the city, shouting for help and leaving his bloody mace lying next to his dying sibling. I spotted my chance, and as soon as he was a safe distance away, I fell upon my prey. She was gushing a thin stream of blood from her open wound, and I could see she was trembling, fighting for breath, and for life. I put my mouth to her neck and let my teeth fix themselves into the edges of the wound, and as I started to feed, her strangled, gurgling scream could be heard for miles.
"Are you ready?" Vingalmo asked irritably. I nodded, having just returned from my hunting trip and put my belongings on. I was restless to see the boy again, especially for his first kill. Would he use the weapon, or his teeth like I had? I secretly hoped for the teeth; that would mean that he was already accepting of his state, and the less problems we had with him, the better. Also, I hoped that I had channeled some of my talent into him.
"Alright then. Hold still." He drew his hand back, then flicked it at me. A black orb spun from his hand into me, and after the glow faded, I looked down to see nothing where my feet had previously been. When I looked up at another black flash, I saw the same of Vingalmo.
"Come with me." His cold, apparently disembodied voice sounded from where he had been previously standing.
"How will I see you?" I asked uncertainly, shuddering inwardly at the thought that I was speaking to empty space.
"Follow my scent." He said impatiently. "You are a vampire, after all."
"Oh." I said, feeling embarrassed. I hadn't noticed that I could still smell him. My head could only describe it in one way: Vampire, Old, Mage. It gave me a description of him, and a picture in my head, but there was nothing I could relate it to, since like their venom, every vampire's scent is unique. The scent was linked to all my memories of him and crossing where he had trodden.
"Follow me. And for 'Bal's sake, try not to trip on anything." I bared my teeth in indignation, then remembered he couldn't see me and let my lips relax. I took a deep breath and sensed that his scent was starting to become stale, which meant that he had already left with me barely noticing. I quickly focused on where the scent was strongest and followed it until I could tell I was a foot away from the invisible Altmer. I halted at that point.
"Hold on." He said. I noticed we were right at the place where we would turn left to enter the Cathedral. It still smelled strongly of the boy's blood. As Vingalmo fiddled with something -or so I thought he was doing; to be honest I couldn't really tell-, I wondered what the boy's name was. I started as the wall next to me slid into the ceiling with a familiar grinding sound.
"This way." Vingalmo said in his Altmer-ishly high voice. I gritted my teeth at his tone; if only I could wipe that arrogant smirk off his face that was almost certainly there, hiding itself from me. If only I could show both him and Orthjolf that neither of them were best; I was truly worthy to be Harkon's right hand, not those two overconfident old fools. But I knew my place. I still had far to go until I was even close to being his second, and although I was loath to admit it, I respected both of them, for their age and skill. I did, however, respect Vingalmo the slightest bit more.
I walked into the space that the wall had left vacant, treading carefully after Vingalmo's scent. I heard the wall sliding back into place and I shuddered, not a hint of cold touching me. The room was one from old yet fresh memories. In the pale scene produced by my nocturnal vision, I saw a place I had awoken in 7 years ago. A seemingly isolated room with stone on all 6 surfaces around me. And there were people in here too; a vampire I did not recognize, who by the smell did not belong to a clan, and the newborn boy, lying at her feet. The pull to the boy I had begun to ignore and dismiss as normal increased almost painfully, and I clenched my teeth together as my mind unconsciously made me worry for the boy's well being. He looked not much more different than when I had last seen him. His eyes were shut, and he was still outfitted in his Cat-Leather Armor. His skin was much more pale now, but other than that he looked almost identical to his human state, his nearly pearly features relaxed in a peaceful way. He was obviously unaware of the future to come, lost in his euphoric fantasies of fictional serenity and aggrandized realities conjured by unconsciousness. Oh how surprised he will be when he wakes...
I heard the boy let out a low moan, and I flinched, silently scolding myself for my concern. I couldn't help but worry for the boy, and it was becoming increasingly annoying. It made me feel...weak. The newborn's eyes opened to slits, then were suddenly wide-eyed with fear, in all their bloody glory. In a moment he was on his feet, looking warily to his visible company. I silently marveled at his speed and defensive stance. He was obviously a fighter from a young age, just as I had been. His eyes, however, lacked the bloodlust and mistrust mine have been fabled to hold. He seemed the honest man, who would try to see the good in everyone, and only kill if he absolutely had to. The kind of man the Volkihar would leave swinging dead from a tree just to teach him a lesson about the cruel way of life. I had a sinking feeling that Vingalmo didn't make a good choice this time. But I didn't feel any tensity from the elderly Altmer. He was still perfectly calm, despite that I was certain he could not have missed the aura the boy put off. He knew exactly what he was doing, which only unsettled me more.
"Where am I?"
When the boy spoke, his voice was almost toneless, an obvious self-attempt to calm himself down and appear so. But even with his effort, there was an edge to his tone, one of panic and confusion. I was forcefully reminded of his young age; he was really 16, unlike me, who, including years as a vampire, was 23.
"You are here. With me." The mature vampire's red lips smiled cold and taunting at the boy. She wore the same robes as I remembered from my own initiation, the hood up so her features were shrouded. Her scent was also very familiar... I hadn't noticed before, but it reminded me again of when I had laid on the floor at her mercy. I decided that she must be the same person.
"And who are you?" He asked, refusing to relax.
"I believe the most important information here is who you are." I watched the exchange carefully, searching for the first signs of hunger from the boy, and had come up with nothing so far. So far. Just as he opened his mouth to reply, his eyes widened and his knees buckled. He squeezed his eyelids shut and gritted his teeth, his arms wrapped tightly around his midsection. The woman gave an icy laugh.
"I see you have finally become hungry. About time, I was tiring of our little chat." I silently swore, still harboring curiosity about his name. I heard the boy grit his teeth as he convulsed in pain. I knew he was hurting much more than he let himself show. I still remembered just how excruciating my own experience had been, how the pain had tortured my nerves in unimaginable ways. For the first time in my life, I felt pity for someone without forcing it. I'm not sure if it was just because I was connected to the boy or what, but I suddenly found myself cringing for him. It felt strange, and yet I didn't wish for it to go away. It almost showed me that deep inside I did have the heart to pity someone, and all this time I had just been lying to myself. Being heartless isn't all just looking tough. Some people internally almost pity you for being a monster. Not like this bothered me, in fact the idea of caring for another almost repulsed me, and yet I clung to the warmth my own caring provided. But even if I did have caring emotions, I would have to make sure no one else knew. Better to not look weak in front of people who may become your enemy.
The woman crouched down in front of him, her bright scarlet eyes forcing his to meet them. I heard the boy snarl, the sound resonating from his throat in a threatening way I could never have expected from his former posture. I began to understand why Vingalmo had chosen him.
"I can make all of your pain go away." She whispered, then handed him a single arrow. He responded with just a growl. She stood up and snapped her fingers, and a slab of rock behind her slid up to reveal a female Breton. She was obviously drugged, swaying on her feet.
The boy reacted quickly and suddenly. He leapt forward and stabbed the arrowhead deep into the vampire's neck. She staggered back, obviously caught off guard. When she reached up to feel the wound, her hand came back down soaked in blood. She started shaking violently, and lashed out at the boy, screaming. Her hand hit his cheek, and it left a smeared, sanguine handprint. She then slumped over, and hit the ground with a thump.
The boy walked over and kicked her body, then tore the arrow out. I suddenly remembered what Vingalmo had said earlier, about newborns killing and eating their Introducers. Chills rushed down my spine as I imagined the boy dead, and I almost screamed at him to get away from the body. But the boy merely walked past the dead vampire, with no obvious attempt to feed from it. No, he continued to advance on the Breton.
He looked her in the eye for a minute, whispered something I couldn't hear, then stuck the arrow through her abdomen. Immediately, she fell to the stone floor, blood already pooling around her, soaking her peasant clothes a deep crimson. The boy pushed her onto her back and latched his mouth onto the impalement, still gushing gore. The arrow lay abandoned next to the still-warm corpse, its head covered in pieces of intestines it pulled out. On the floor under it was another, smaller pool of blood, with heaps of pink flesh soaking in it.
The boy, his Saber Pelt now dripping in blood on the front, stood up, wiping his mouth on his wrist. He then grabbed the bloody arrow and held it up to his mouth, running his tongue over its iron point, leaving small streaks of red where there had formerly been liquid gore. He then turned to the carcass of his former prey, and using the head of the arrow, began to cut off small chunks of meat and put them in various pockets of his armor. After about an hour of him hacking away at the corpse, he had all of the victim's body in his pockets, without the bones, intestines, and head. The bare, bloody skeleton sent shivers down my spine. Never before had I seen a dead body displayed before in this manner. Even with all of my familiarity with death, I was horrified at how he just casually set the pieces into his armor, right next to himself.
After he finally completed his gruesome task (his reasons for doing it unknown to me), he stood up. I smelled Vingalmo walking towards the boy, and before I knew it, the boy lay faint on the stone ground. I got shakily to my feet as Vingalmo disabled both of our Invisibility spells and approached the downed newborn. Vingalmo walked right next to the boy and looked down at him, shaking his head.
"W-why did he do that? Cut her up?" I asked cautiously, with a strange suspicion that Vingalmo had known it was a habit of his. One hell of a sick habit.
"I'm not sure. Maybe if you ask him he will tell you." Vingalmo looked up at me, his eyes gleaming with pride. "But isn't he something?" Oh, he was something alright…
He didn't wait for an answer. He just turned back to the boy and murmured, "Soon, Andrillan Benoch, you will be a great clanmate."