Little Bird's Broken Wing

Azura was once more bundled up in the sweater she had been wearing when she first met Godric, her long blonde hair braided to curve along from the back of her head to the right side, slung over her shoulder. The thick scarf that protected the pale length of her neck was a soft hue of blue and reminded her of Godric's eyes on days when the green was less noticeable. It was for that reason she bought it. Camille had bought her a bike a month after she had moved in with them so that she could make her way further into the town instead of getting stuck at home all of the time.

It was now later into the autumn season and Azura was actually surprised that it had not started to snow yet. The air was filled with a tremendous chill that had most people cowering inside their houses to escape is, but Azura felt more at home in the cold. There were many fond memories attached to those, or things, of cold origin.

Peddling along the sidewalk of the small town, Azura found herself holding a strange sense of longing to be back in the city, even though she had once hated it quite strongly. It was loud, smelt strange in most places and it was surprisingly uncommon to find someone that was actually kind or well-mannered. The small town made her feel restricted, unlike how to city seemed a never-ending labyrinth of streets and alleys that would always bring her back home.

Slowing down as she approached her new home, she tossed her leg over the bike to stand with one foot on the peddle as she balanced carefully. Camille waved to her from the living room window, holding a mug of what Azura knew was tea in her hands. When she smiled the age lines on her face were more apparent, showing her laugh lines and the crow's feet on either side of her eyes.

Once her bike was tucked away in the garage Azura slipped in through the front door quickly.

"You're going to get sick out there," Camille warned as she came over and helped Azura to shrug off her coat and scarf, placing them on her designated hook at the front door. "Did you have a nice time?"

"It was refreshing," Azura answered with a faint smile. "Is there more hot water?" she asked as she glanced at the woman's mug of tea. Camille quickly rushed over to make her a cup, gushing about a new brand that she had purchased on her last shopping trip. Azura was soon bundled up on the couch with Camille sitting across from her, the woman once more trying to get the younger to open up more.

Tapping her knee, Camille tried to press more. "Come now, you can tell me anything, or ask me anything!" she encouraged. Staying at home, it meant that Camille was always there and that also meant for Azura not to have much of a life outside of the house. The elder didn't want to be alone so often and it meant that she expected Azura to spend her time with her.

Glancing down at the mug in her hands, she bit at her lip a moment. "What do you think of vampires?" she finally mumbled, glancing up at the other with clear blue eyes. Camille had gone very still and her face paled slightly.

"Vampires?"

"Yes," Azura urged. "I have met a two; they both saved my life. But I know that people do not like them because they believe they only wish to kill us."

Camille opened her mouth to reply, but she just seemed to stutter for a moment as she opened and closed her mouth, unsure of what to say. "I have never met a vampire," she tried to avoid, much as Karen had done when Azura asked her of her opinion. "In complete honesty, I don't really want to ever meet one."

"Of course," Azura said in understanding.

Later, sitting in her bed with her sketchbook cradled in her lap, Azura couldn't bring herself to draw anything as she sat looking down at the blank page. There was a strong lack of inspiration in the house; it left her feeling drained and bland. Tapping her fingers on the bottom of the page, she let out a soft sigh as her eyes slanted up to the window where she could faintly see snow falling down to the cold ground.

Flipping back through the handful of sketches that she had done since moving in, she stopped at the two side-by-side drawings of Eric and Godric, a sad smile touching her lips as she looked down at their faces. They looked so perfect no matter how someone looked at them: in real life, a drawing or a photograph. Closing the sketchbook, Azura placed it carefully back on the small shelf in her room and moved to lie back on the bed with her eyes closed.

Before she even had to seconds of peace she could hear Camille calling her name from the top of the stairs, soon followed by the proclamation that dinner was finished. Sighing loudly, Azura pushed herself up and rubbed at her face in irritation before she rolled off the bed and fled from her room reluctantly to go and eat dinner with her foster parents.

To her dismay, Richard "Uncle Rich" Gagnon had come over for dinner once more and he was sitting at the table already, Robert making his way from the kitchen with the heavier plates of food. Richard revealed a beaming smile at the sight of Azura, and she forced herself to smile back as she daintily took her seat across from him while Robert and Camille sat facing each other from the other sides of the table. It barely seated the four of them, but they managed to still cramp the table full of food that almost made Azura sick to look at. Whereas the rest of her families had been determined to starve her it appeared at the Gagnon's were trying to make her as fat as they possibly could before she turned eighteen.

"How have you been, Azura?" Richard asked as he began to spoon food onto his plate, ignoring the look that his sister-in-law was giving him at his table manners.

"I've been alright. Looking forward to my birthday," she answered. Hoping that she didn't offend Camille by making it appear she couldn't wait to leave her house, she gave the other woman a more honest smile.

"What are you going to do once you're out of the foster system?" Robert asked in relation to her birthday, not letting Richard make any kind of comment toward her legal age.

Pushing her food on and around itself as though she was waiting for it to cool more before eating it, Azura had hoped they would never ask her such a question. "I have some friends up in Dallas that I met while living in another foster home and I am considering moving in with them while I attend college or university," she answered, avoiding the less important details.

"Dallas?" Camille asked in surprise as she nearly spilt the water she was pouring. "In Texas?"

"Oui," Azura answered calmly, eating some of the corn that had been spooned onto her plate somewhat reluctantly. It tasted very good, the smell usually drawing people in, but she just couldn't bring herself to have the same apatite as she usually would. Had Mrs. Cross made the dish, she probably would have enjoyed it far more.

Richard scoffed with a frown. "Those fools are all the same there," he snapped out, his usually bright features looking soured with the news. "Americans."

"You met these people back when you were living elsewhere?" Robert asked, trying to mask the way that his brother was acting. Azura continued to glance worriedly to the man before she nodded her head and turned her attention to her foster father. "How so?"

"They saved my life when I almost got hit by a truck," she answered truthfully, at least somewhat. Thinking back to when she had first met Godric, and Eric inadvertently, she couldn't help but with smile faintly. "I was lost in thought when I went out for a walk one evening and he pulled me back before I could get hit."

"He?" Camille sputtered, clearly not liking the conversation but knowing better than to be rude toward her husband and brother-in-law. She was a very submissive woman, Azura noticed, and she found herself pitying the woman and her ways.

"Yes," she answered calmly. "His name is Eric." Godric was a very uncommon name and was far too old for it to sound human, so even though Eric had not saved her from the truck she knew that it would be best not to use his maker's name. "He was in France on business with his father." There was a slight twitch her in stomach at the thought of calling Godric Eric's father, but it was also the truth in their terms, if only slightly. For someone that looked no older than eighteen to be the father of a man over thirty just felt off.

"Are you sure that it's a good idea to move in with a man when you are so young?" Camille asked with a pale face after a moment of silence around the table. Azura frowned in confusion as her mouth opened to speak, but no sound came out at first.

"What would be so bad? He is a friend and visited me many times when he came back to France. I am sure that he would not mind." Considering she was using Eric as her shield, she felt it best to act as though she had no clue what Camille was speaking of. In actuality, the thought of moving in with Godric made her stomach tense in anxious anticipation, even if her birthday alone was still a couple of weeks away.

"Right," Camille stuttered out and returned her attention to her own meal, leaving the table silent. Azura didn't eat much more after the conversation, her stomach feeling strange as she spent most of the time taking small sips from her glass or tiny bites to make it appear like she was eating if only a little. Excusing herself early, she nearly ran back to her bedroom.

The weeks passed slowly as the cold grew more intense every night, making Azura's bedroom in the basement nearly unbearable some nights. She barely slept and when she did it was not fulfilling. Her head ached most days, even without any kind of vision taking place and she still couldn't bring herself to draw anything. Every time she would try she only found herself growing frustrated at the outcome and ripped the page free before crumpling it up and tossing it out.

Every day she checked the mail for the application she had ordered to get a passport, knowing that she couldn't cross the borders to get to Dallas, Texas without it. It was two weeks before her birthday when she finally received it, and she immediately filled it out in her room before she told Camille she was going for a walk to clear her head. She ran into town with a red, running nose from the cold and mailed the forms with a stolen stamp that she swore she would replace as soon as she had money.

She couldn't hide her smile when she returned to the house, even when she realized that Richard was once more there. With the passing of Christmas dinner she had hoped he wouldn't come and visit for a while, but New Year's Eve was also in a couple of days and she knew that he was bound to show up for that. Sitting through dinner was more bearable simply because she couldn't seem to find a reason for her mood to be brought down. Hopefully, at the rate she was going, she could have her passport by her birthday and she could use her University funds to pay for a one way to Dallas.

By New Years, Azura had finally brought herself to make another drawing. This one was of an airplane that she had found in a magazine, knowing that she would soon be sitting on one on her way to Texas. Making a calendar with a lined piece of paper, she began crossing the days off until her birthday. Once more checking the mail every day, she found it hard to sleep more from the excitement of leaving than of the discomfort of the cold combined with a headache.

Her passport arrived the day before her birthday, but this time it had been found by Camille before Azura could get to it. The woman gave it to her reluctantly, seeing as Azura had used her money to buy it and she would be a legal adult in less than twenty-four hours. Robert didn't seem to care that she had obtained a passport, since she had already told them her intent upon her eighteenth birthday. She received a couple of presents from her foster parents before she waited eagerly for the social worker to come and retrieve her as they had planned over the phone.

"Are you sure you want to go all the way to Dallas?" Camille asked as her suitcase was being packed away in the back of the car, her sweater bundled tightly around her while she shivered in the cold. Azura couldn't bring herself to notice the chill as she couldn't stop smiling.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Gagnon," Azura said as she embraced the older woman. "But yes, I do want to go and see my friends. Please, let me have this."

Letting out a sigh, Camille pulled Azura back into another hug before she stepped aside and allowed for Robert to loosely embrace the small woman before she ducked into the car and waved good-bye to them. The social worker smiled in happiness as Azura's bright mood, having been getting reports of her dark and depressing moods over the past couple of months. "Let's get out to the agency so you can be on your way, hm?" she asked as she slipped in behind the wheel.

"Yes!" Azura agreed with a full smile, nearly trembling in her seat. In a couple of days at the most, she would see Godric once more. Maybe Eric would still be with his maker as well and she could see the both of them.

Spending one last night at the Agency didn't bother her as much as it usually would have in the past, since the building was pleasantly warm in the chill of January, and there was one last night standing between her and a plane ride to Texas. It was in that night, as she was slumbering, that her door was unlocked silently. So tired from nights of excitement, she had crashed into deep unconsciousness in the warm bed and was dead to the world.

Azura didn't hear the footsteps that approached her bed, or the liquid sloshing inside of a bottle before a sweet smelling cloth descended over her mouth and nose. Her eyes snapped open at the rough touch, but the deep inhale that she took from the shock immediately caused her vision to fog as she breathed in the drug soaked into the material over her airways. She couldn't even bring her eyes to focus on the form above her before they closed once more and she resumed her sleep, this time with much more reluctance.

Her belongings were still in her room the morning that followed, but Azura herself was missing. Only her rumpled bed sheets and broken cameras told them of something amiss.

Azura Bellerose had been stolen from right under the nose of the Government.

Miles upon miles away, in America, Eric Northman wanted to kill someone; he wanted to rip them apart piece by piece while keeping them alive as long as possible to assure they felt the most pain he could inflict. Looking down at the new addition to Azura's file, he knew that he would need to inform his maker as soon as possible and yet he deeply dreaded having to do it. If he was as angered as he had been when initially seeing the report, he knew that someone was going to die when his maker heard of his little interest's disappearance.

Taking the next possible flight to Dallas, Eric was soon standing in his maker's office while Godric looked at him with concealed worry. Not only had he felt the deep anger from their bond, but he could see the supressed emotions on his childe's face.

"What has you acting this way, Eric?" Godric asked calmly as he looked over to tall blond with curious blue eyes.

"I have been keeping careful tabs on Azura since we had left France. The night of her eighteenth birthday she was abducted from the-"

Eric was unable to even finish the sentence before a growl that still sent disturbing chills down his spine echoed through the room, every vampire within hearing distance cowering away from their Sheriff's obvious rage. He could hear the splitting crack of the wooden desk as Godric's fist came down on the surface in his fit of rage and violence. His fangs had dropped and he looked like the monster that he had been all those years ago. In that moment he truly did look like he was the epitome of death. In a bout of instinct, Eric bowed his head to his maker submissively to show he meant no ill intent, giving Godric access to his throat.

Death has returned to claim a life.

Sorry that I kind of dropped off the grid for a while there. I admit that I haven't really been following True Blood for the past two seasons so I didn't really feel inspired to write, but I'm catching up now! I also finished my exams, so I don't need to focus on studying anymore; cheers for summer vacation!

Anywhooooo, I hope that you all are very intrigued and write some reviews because I love hearing from you all. I'll try to get another chapter out very soon.