3. Metabolize

Books 1- 4

Author's note:

Bat broth. It sounds downright nasty to me.

This is rather long for a one-shot, but bear with me.

Hopefully the length won't betray the quality.

Darren quickly discovered after his arrival at Vampire Mountain that the rather spartan local cuisine was not exactly… appetizing. His years with Mr. Crepsley - the man could chop up carrots and onions, sure, but ask for spices and you'd get a lecture on how impractical it was to keep them and how useless they proved to be - had taught him how exquisite good cooking could actually be. Sure, nothing really tasted like something the cat puked up when you were good and hungry, but being caged in the mountain meant much, much less exercise; much less exercise led to a greatly decreased need for calories. The less hungry he was, Darren realized, the less tolerable the terrible cooking in the mountain was.

Everyone had his or her own opinion on the boy's apparent aversion to vampire cooking. Sitting down in the mess hall with Arra, Mr. Crespley and Seba was an experience he had made a mental note to not repeat anytime thereafter. Seeing the bat broth for the first time with an actual knowledge of what made it up made his stomach turn. The smell (which was oddly bitter, and now that he knew, hinted at what it was made of quite clearly) made him nauseous. Seba – who had brought some out from the kitchens along with a decanter of wine for the older three – seemed quite disappointed at the young boy's refusal to eat his cooking. Arra had noticed this and told him to suck it up, providing him with an extra serving 'to help him adapt to the taste'. Beside him a sour-faced Larten turned a blind eye to his attempts at pouring the extra soup into the older man's bowl, granting his assistant a considerable mercy when he finished it without protest a few moments later.

He was also reassured that he would acclimate to the food over a period of time. He ran across Kurda and Gavner in the soon-to-be-prince's quarters, the older general lounging in the blonde's coffin while he watched him scribble an artistic little key onto one of his more recent maps. When the bulkier man dozed off and began to snore he was promptly swatted over the head with a thick roll of parchment. In retaliation he reached out and swept the legs out from under Kurda, who landed with a loud thump on the clammy floor of the chamber. Shaking his head and rising back up with as much dignity as he could muster, the rising prince gave Darren his advice.

"It's a matter of getting used to the taste." Kurda announced, fanning the air over his desk to dry the thick black ink he had been using. "You're used to human food – soda, candy, sugar – in addition to our more moderate flavors. It would be impractical and unhealthy to ship in barrels of sugar and most of the vampires would be too pompous to even consider it, so you'll have to cut it out of your diet cold turkey. Still, you might be lucky enough to get hold of some honey during the festival if you ask Seba." Darren was not in the quartermaster's best graces after Arra winnowed the truth about his remaining soup out of Larten and she tattled on him, so he supposed it was better not to step on the old man's toes. From what Mr. Crepsley had related in the few stories about his own apprenticeship to Seba (the tellings of which were often accompanied by red-facedness and fidgeting) it was clear that he was a risky man to cross. Regardless of his original opinion on the subject of upsetting Seba, after he woke up one night with a perturbed Seba Nile standing over him, holding a pot of thick soup over his head and threatening 'to do it!' with a rather malevolent glint in his eye did he begin to sleep with the set of daggers Mr. Crepsley had found for him.

His mentor, it seemed, had no particular opinion on his animadversion for the mountain food. He was busy digging up old friends and old enemies, although his assistant did not entirely escape his attention. Mr. Crepsley was sure to see his apprentice for a good two hours a day and encouraged the boy to mingle, often running him over to Kurda or Gavner when Harkat was busy for what might have served the same purpose as day care. After he was sure Darren had the majority of the tunnels well memorized and had something or other to do for the day the strange escort ritual began to let up a bit and Darren's freedom increased. Still, it was during one of the trips over to Kurda (he wouldn't leave the boy with Seba, who, he had noted, seemed to have it in for him at the moment) that he voiced his apparent disinterest.

" It does not matter to me, Darren, as long as you are consuming something in addition to your daily blood. However, it would be in your interest – and by extension, my own –" he murmured, recalling vividly the morning he had woken up and, as he left his cell, been hit by the contents of a projectile pot of soup aimed for his fast retreating apprentice, " to cease distressing Seba. It is neither wise nor sensible to upset him; you have heard my stories, and rest assured that from now on I have no intention of putting myself between the two of you." The news was not comforting but Darren did not regard his mentor's unwillingness to act as a shield for him as an insult – he knew very well that after years of being exposed to the tricky old man anyone would distance themselves when they suspected he was irate.

He found Arra practicing on the bars in the high-ceilinged cavern in which the vampires wrestled and sparred. It was completely deserted - save the two of them - during the dinner hour. For whatever reason she had decided to practice rather than eat, and Darren had been told there would be no bread or meat tonight, so he hadn't bothered going. He sat down cross-legged on the rough ground of the grotto to watch her for a while, and an erratic conversation (broken into sections of her lapses in concentration, so a reply could come in two minutes or twenty) developed between the two of them. When she asked why he hadn't gone to dinner she flashed him a predatorily patronizing grin. His reaction was a mumble even a vampire couldn't make out and a bit of nervous squirming. Amused by his unwillingness to offend her she somersaulted off the bars and landed a few feet away and waltzed belittlingly, giving his dirty hair a rather hesitant ruffling. She pulled back and wiped what she referred to as his 'disgusting hair grease' (after all, even a hardcore tomboy has her limits) off on her tunic. Instead of returning to the bars she readjusted her traditional ponytail and jogged out of the hall, calling back to the boy, "You'll never make a good vampire if you can't eat our food!"

Darren grunted in response and continued sitting for a few minutes, gazing off into space for no particular reason. When he finally got up he exited the hall and decided to return to the room he shared with Harkat. The trip back along the dismal tunnels was entirely uneventful, albeit a bit lonely. However, upon entering the modest room and pulling the burlap sack shut over the door he felt there was something amiss in the tiny room. The floor was gritty and slightly damp as always, the high, shadow-vaulted ceiling and rough-hewn walls both the same. He was shaking off his paranoia when he noticed a folded piece of parchment tied to his hammock with a frayed bit of netting. His laughing grin slipped a bit but he made his way over to the corner in which his hammock was anchored although he was sure he knew better. He took a puzzled glance around the room before reaching out for the note and grabbing the hammock to hold it still as he untied the slip of parchment.

Saying he was unsurprised when he heard the telltale whir of fast-moving string would have been a lie, but it certainly did provide a release for his nervous attention. The echoes bouncing off the ceiling made pinpointing the origin of the noise impossible so he took a frantic leap back – ah, too late. A shower of frigid bat broth cascaded out of the darkness and a huge iron pot flew down and crashed to the floor with an earsplitting clang. A couple of vampires passing the compartment jumped at the noise and, a moment later, both impressed and amused with the variety of swears that issued from the room in Darren's voice, which was still rather shrill due to his prepubescent physical age. After picking the largest chunks out of his hair and giving the pot an infuriated kick (which only succeeded in making his foot begin to throb) he stormed out into the hall to read the note:

Thought we'd save some lunch for you.

Cheers,

Arra and Seba

He was still for a moment (save the soup dripping from the end of his nose and running down his back onto the floor) just taking it all in. The half-vampire closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. A hand reached up of it's own accord and picked a stray chunk of the fowl tasting stew out of his hair. His brown eyes shot open, with a slightly hysterical glint flashing on their surfaces. He knew what he had to do.

The next evening Larten, Kurda, and Gavner joined him at one of the tables in the mess hall. He'd been up all day but his success had kept him up; and here he was, eating the bat broth he'd gotten from Seba that morning. He received strange looks from all three, but Mr. Crepsley was the first one who spoke.

"Darren, you are conscious of what you are eating? I thought you did not like bat broth," he stated dryly, reaching for a half loaf of bread from around Gavner's shoulder. Darren – whose mouth was full of the stew – simply nodded.

"See, I told you you'd get used to it," Kurda asserted, throwing an arm around Darren's shoulders and giving him a friendly squeeze. The soon-to-be-prince was under the impression that Darren needed to experience more affection to develop properly, regardless of his current mental age. Gavner was just about to put in his piece when Darren shook his head and swallowed. He turned toward his mentor and his self-satisfied grin grew wider.

" Do you remember the stories you told me about when you were apprenticed to Seba, Mr. Crepsley?" he asked, pleased with his own cleverness, " I got the idea from one of them, actually."

He grinned wider at them and stuck out his tongue. It was a rather dark shade of red and a multitude of patchy blisters. In some places it looked as though a bit of the skin had peeled away, but the most obvious thing was that there no longer appeared to exist any taste buds – they had all been burned off. Kurda looked shocked (and maybe a bit ill) and Gavner looked over at Larten with glee; he'd really rubbed off on Darren since he last saw him at the cirque. Larten Crepsley, however, had pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tightly, exasperated.

He made a mental note to find Seba and convince him to go a bit easier on his apprentice.