She served as more than a mere pet to me. She served as an educator. She instructed me on how to skillfully spin a web of lies, and for that, I will always be greatful.
It seems, as I look back on my life, I have somehow surrounded myself with unintentional teachers. I have the wolf-man who had taught me that sometimes it is better to not act proper and just revel in savagery. I have Hibernius to thank for my somewhat twisted sense of humor, and Evra was too, somewhat a contributor in that regard.
Despite this, there remains Darren, who I have been an assistant to as much as he has to me. He is to be coveted. He had always had a sort of accurate recklessness that allows him to somehow stay alive. He is also a young man, to my chagrin. A fact I not yet learned until I was of 1 week's partnership. It was a regretful alliance. I often wallowed in my thoughts, and wondered why I hated him so very deeply, and one night, when I had not yet fallen asleep, I stumbled upon the answer in complete darkness. I hated him, because he was just like I, myself, once was.
200 years allows for changes. Quite a lot of them. And I realized that night that though 200 years had passed, I still had, once, been a boy. A young man, just like Darren, and I was just as fool-hardy, if not a bit more contained. I was moody, and would often spend the night musing about my life. I had made decisions that, looking back, reminded me of an inebriated person's. I argued and often stormed off, not taking care to even listen to my accquaintence's responses to my own hot-headed questions. I had indeed been a young man. Now, I wonder where all of my internal fire went, and mentally joked that it had soaked it's way into my roots, being responsible for my hair color, and on the way up, had burned my face, leaving me a wretched imperfection. My scar.
Even so, I noticed after 3 years partnership that I had changed, and still now, I do not know if it was for better or worse. I assumed it was an equal amount of both. He had reminded me of how it felt to be young. He had reawakened values, and hobbies, and joys, that had been covered in more dust than my coffin. I must have taught him something as well. He was my aprentice, after all.
He would sometimes spend the night crying, as he had when Sam Grest had died -I understood why, as it made me want to weep when I watched him, facing his lifetime of trials. A lifetime that had been extended due to me, and I was certainly paying for it, as I grimaced while he lived, and I re-lived those trials- He came into my room in the middle of the night, too ashamed to face Evra, and not knowing of my conscienceness. I listened as he cried. I might have discovered something new, and indeed I did.
I re-learned the mind of a young man, how it works, its mechanisms. For that, I am glad that acquired my assistant, and mentor, Darren Shan.