A/N: Not much to add here. I'll let you get right into the story. Here we get some of the lore that is what made me want to write this story.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Eric knew his Maker was unwell. He knew he wasn't himself. He'd known for a while now. But to be confronted with how unwell Godric was felt like a shot directly at his unbeating heart.
Because out of everything he thought was wrong, Godric feeling the Sickness was on the top of nightmare lists.
He didn't even try to stop the hurt look on his face as his eyes flew directly to Godric, at this new information. But his Maker wasn't looking at him. He was holding on to Katherine's accusatory glance, first with surprise, then with amusement.
"Is that what you are feeling from me, right now?" Godric grinned and, as scared as Eric was with the information, he felt a sliver of hope as he started to see the same thing as Pam. But unlike his Child, he knew that Godric's interest would hold true, even in the face of Katherine's apathy.
"What I'm feeling from you now doesn't change the fact that you are deeply depressed."
"My being depressed doesn't change the fact that you need my help."
"I don't see how having a direct link to you and your emotions can be any help to me. I don't need anyone's help feeling miserable, my mind has been doing that just fine on its own on that front. Having you adding to it will only make us depressed together."
"I can assure you that I have a good enough control of-"
"I'm an empath. I don't care how much control you have over the bond between you and your children if I'll feel your emotions regardless." Eric and Pam shared a look. Pam was clearly concerned, but Eric was holding back his joyful smile. This was the first time during the entire night Katherine bared her fangs. And she was fighting for herself, against Godric, knowing of his age and power. Eric could almost feel the frisson of attraction rising in his Maker. He knew it wasn't romantic or even sexual, but the Gaul never liked to be challenged without proving the other party wrong. He thrived on adversity, always did.
"I am sure you will. But then again, there's nothing you can do about it. You need the help of an Ancient. And unless you want to call Russel Edgington for it, which while you'll feel only good things from him, they will all come from absolutely abhorrent acts, if he even considers helping you at all, and I won't even begin to imagine what he'll do to you if he finds out about your quaint little ability, ability that, that he covets since the 1200s, I'm your only choice." He moved in his speech, slow and steady, watching her reaction, until he stood directly in front of her.
"A thousand years is enough time to make an Ancient, I don't see how you are my only choice, even if only in this room." She stood up from the couch, meeting Godric head-on.
Eric started to wonder at this. How come a vampire who had yet to be able to look him and even Pam in the eye, was now staring down at one of the most powerful vampires he had ever met? It made no sense to him, but it seemed to be the exact reaction Godric was expecting from her.
"That is because you don't have all the facts." It was spoken so calmly that it almost sounded like a taunt to the Viking and Katherine seemed to agree because she bared her fangs again. "There's no need for that. I will freely share. You see, Eric is 1102 years old. I made sure to count it properly since I don't know exactly how old I am. What I can tell you about my age is that I was already considered an old vampire when the world started to count as it does today. I was at least 400 years old by then."
"Good for you." Godric smiled.
"And I met Felipe de Castro only a handful of centuries after that. It may seem irrelevant to you at the moment since you haven't gotten around to spreading your wings after the… ritual, shall we call it? But it'll become evident sooner rather than later that Eric is not a candidate for this task. I noticed you left some things out in your retelling of killing Castro, leading my Children to think that it was a quick and done thing and that whatever sun you had to contend with on your way out was the initial rays of sunup, but it wasn't quite what happened, was it?" Godric moved slowly, around Katherine. "Should we fill them in?" She looked back, glaring something fierce at him. "There's no need for hesitation. I trust my bloodline with my life. Well, the one present here, in any way."
"And what would be the point of that?"
"Education. Would you like to start?" When Godric was standing in front of her again, he reached for her hair and she froze for a moment, as he pushed it back from her face gently. "No? Let me then." Eric was intrigued by the scene in front of him. He had not expected Godric to behave as he was after learning of Katherine's story. His Maker had always been careful with vampires with a similar history of abuse as his. The Viking couldn't figure out what Godric's plan was, but a strong wave of warning coming from his elder stopped him from intervening.
"After you glamoured the men away, I would imagine, specifically telling them not to burn down the house, you turned to your Maker, incapacitated, and made your way towards it. I would imagine, stupid as he tended to be, he thought you were going to free him, so he didn't immediately order you to. It wouldn't have worked even if had. Even knowing that you felt the overwhelming urge to cease his ability to speak. I won't try to guess how you did that. I, myself, ripped out the voice box from my Maker's neck. I was rather surprised when a part of his spine and his tongue came out with it. Whatever magic that makes us that liquid, gelatinous amalgamation when we are staked is not at play here. Until we are completely destroyed, somehow, we are anatomically similar to humans. But you already know that, of course. Because guided by some invisible hand, after you impeded his speech, you cut open his chest and abdomen and ripped out his liver, his lungs, and his heart, and proceeded to eat them in that order."
Eric was torn between fascination and sickness. He could not fathom the idea of what Godric was narrating. He had seen his Maker at the height of his savagery and joined him in it a lot of the times even, but the revulsion that grew on his chest at what they did to their Makers was all-encompassing. But at the same time, he couldn't help but wonder at both of them in that situation, twisted and pushed into it but their Makers' sadism and cruelty. Actions controlled by an outside force, if what he understood what Godric was saying.
"I have the theory that that's where our magic is hosted, as well as within our brains. But that's where the memories and the personality are stored, so we don't want that. In fact, there's that overwhelming urge again to completely destroy it. I just cracked my Maker's head against the floor, until I could pry the back of his skull open with my fingers. At that point, the brain just fell out. Then, of course, there's the blood. He was terribly limp by that point, but still conscious when I bit into his damaged neck, and he stayed conscious until I drank the last drop of blood still in him." He stopped for a moment, tilting his head to the side, before continuing. "And it takes some time, doesn't it? It's a very messy process, too. And it doesn't feel good to have his remains against your skin. It feels nauseating. So, I imagine you cleaned yourself, started the fire in the house and then walked out into the sun. I imagine it was closer to midday than to sunrise when you made your way back to the hotel."
"Did you have a point?" Katherine asked after a couple of beats of silence and Godric smiled, stepping into her personal space.
"The point is why I'm your only choice here. Why Eric couldn't do the ritual, even if he wanted. Why, even when your head is screaming in confusion and you can't understand your actions, you are challenging me."
"And why is that?"
"Because when you were cannibalizing your Maker, you were taking in his strength and his power. You see, you could never defeat Eric in a fight, with his training in combat both in his mortal and immortal life and the edge my blood gives him, very much like Castro never managed to. But you are in all but age older than him and magic will never allow a Maker to be younger than their Child."