(A/N): The aftermath of Greygorry revealing that Dahrya is a person who exists. Some information on the vampire community, and a new character being mentioned. (15/3/23: THEY FIXED THE TRAFFIC STATS! YAY!)
Leo
Oh, for the love of magic! Not a single person in this household could ever just... not ask a question, could they? They couldn't just let it pass them by, or let me catch even the slightest break?
I sighed for a solid ten seconds- and if I had thought I could get away with it without being called dramatic, I would've inhaled and repeated the action, as well. I glared at Greygorry with the intensity of a thousand suns, and he seemed to realise that he had screwed up- his mouth hanging open in a small 'o'.
"They didn't-" I cut him off.
"No, they didn't." I growled- emphasis on the past tense.
"Alright- you're caught. Out with it." Lisbet ordered, crossing her arms over her chest- clearly trying to be stern in an attempt to appear authoritative, and therefore convince me to talk. The joke was on her- authority held no sway over me.
"Absolutely not. You, talk. About your sire- this... Sidonie." I could see Lisbet's frown grow, from out of the corner of my eye- but I couldn't let that distract me right now.
"Sidonie-" I didn't miss the tone of his voice, and how it was almost reverent- clearly, Greygorry felt more for her than just what he would for someone who was only his sire. At least now I knew why he was so willing to spy for her. "My Maîtresse-" His Mistress... Hmm. Yet another puzzle piece. "Is part of a committee of powerful vampires that control certain parts of Europe." There was a committee of vampires that controlled parts of Europe?
I had been taught that the vampire community had 'laws', and obviously that meant that someone had to make those laws, and enforce them, but this was the first time I had heard any sort of governing entity be mentioned directly.
"Powerful, or... powerful?" Greygorry's shoulders twitched, like he was trying to shrug, but his still-healing broken neck wasn't allowing him to do so properly.
"Both. They're influential, and almost all of them are old and strong." Great- not. "When word of the half vampire, quarter veela hybrid spread throughout the supernatural community of Europe-" Oh, god. I knew I had been exposed in England- and probably the rest of the UK- but I hadn't thought that news of my existence had made it to mainland Europe!
I glanced at Lisbet, too quickly for her to mask her emotions, and for a brief second, I saw the fear and pain on her face- and it scared me more than anything Greygorry could say. As Lisbet's expression changed, upon seeing me watching, I turned further to look at Jerremyah, and I saw a surprisingly open display of anxious concern, and barely reined in fury. It took him a minute, to realise that I was even looking at him- studying his expression- and his face went slack in shock. His jaw dropped open, and his eyes widened, his gaze darting sideways to where Lisbet stood, as if he was looking to her for help. Clearly, they both thought this was just as worrying as I did- and Jerremyah seemed angry at Greygorry. Whether that was because he had revealed he had been spying on me, or for some other reason, I didn't know.
"Sidonie did her best to keep people from getting too unruly. Throughout the years-" Years? How long had I been known, for?! "Certain individuals have... caused issues- Sidonie has done her best to eliminate those issues." Had she eliminated the issues, or the people that were causing them? And why was she doing anything to try to help me- a half-breed hybrid? "Nicholai and I were friendly, and when she told me that you were his child, I volunteered for the position she was offering- which, as I told Lis and Jerremyah- I think was her plan the whole way along." Why not just ask you to take the position in the first place, then?
"Why the subterfuge? Why not just ask you to take the job, if she wanted you for the job?" Greygorry's eyes looked past me- to Lisbet.
"Sidonie is smart, and she knows just how to work people to her advantage- she knew that if I had been aware ahead of time that you and Lisbet were... close, I wouldn't have taken the job. So, she 'left that part out'." She sounded real swell. I didn't miss his hesitation when saying that Lisbet and I were close- and I remembered how Lisbet had scolded Jerremyah for spitting at my feet, saying that he had to have known that we were 'close'- and asking whether he would still be treating me poorly if she and I hadn't been, 'close.'
"Why was she offering such a position in the first place? If she wanted to have someone spy on me, I'm sure there's a better option than supplying me a competent trainer." Greygorry looked pleased that I had deemed him 'competent', despite everything.
"The advantage is, is that you having a competent trainer during the school year, means you're more likely to be able to defend yourself." That didn't really answer my question.
"But why? Why help me learn to defend myself? Why stop people from causing issues, when she could placate them much easier by letting them kill me, or even doing it herself? I'm not dumb, I know that most people want me dead- so why is Sidonie actively trying to stop that from happening?" Greygorry's expression was pained.
"Because she made a promise- and Sidonie always keeps her promises." Vague. Also kind of unsettling. I heard Lisbet sigh from behind me.
"Yeah, you said that already." And she seemed just as annoyed by his vagueness as I was.
"What kind of promise? And, who did she make that promise to?" I didn't know who- outside of present company- would want to protect me, and had the ability to garner a promise from a 'powerful' and 'influential' vampire.
"She wouldn't say who, but- my assumption was Nicholai." I felt my eyebrows furrow.
"Do you know when this promise was made?" Greygorry looked confused- and also maybe slightly suspicious.
"I- I'm not sure. The first time I heard about you- about the vampire hybrid- was probably around the time you were born, because I think it was 1961, or there about. There wasn't much news, and things got quiet... probably two, two and half years later? 1963, ish. Sidonie was on top of it right from the start, so I assume the promise had already been made." Which meant...
"Then it wasn't my father." There was a long, silent pause.
"What do you mean? How could you possibly know that?" Jerremyah questioned, and I shrugged, rather simply.
"Because- he didn't know I existed until after my mother threw me out, when I was seven. Ergo, he couldn't have made a promise for my safety, if he didn't know there was anything to keep safe." Greygorry blinked- looking surprised that he couldn't dispute my statement.
"Which, again, begs the question- who made Sidonie promise to keep Leo safe?" Lisbet put forth, and I frowned.
"That's not something that we're going to get an answer to any time soon. What I want to know, is what- exactly- Sidonie promised to do... and what was promised to her in return." Greygorry seemed unsure.
"Being as I am, not privy to the finer details of Sidonie's promise-" Or any details, really. "I believe it has something to do with protecting you from vampires." Which would make sense, if true. Sidonie, being a vampire, was in prime position to keep other vampires from attacking me- and it would also make sense as to why I had received no help against non-vampire entities- like my mother.
The question was- if Sidonie was charged with protecting me from vampires, why Jonothan didn't seem to be suffering any consequences for his actions against me.
"If Sidonie is supposed to be protecting me, why hasn't she done anything about Jonothan?" I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Lisbet and Jerremyah share a concerned look, before Greygorry half shrugged.
"Jonothan has never really followed the rules of the committee. Normally, it would be up to his sire to bring him into line, but- CJ is... an unusual case." What was that supposed to mean? Suddenly, I remembered that when Lisbet had been yelling at Jerremyah, she had mentioned that Jerremyah was friendly with Jonothan's sire- which must mean he knew this CJ person. I turned my head to look at him, which seemed to surprise him.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jerremyah's head sunk down into his shoulders at my question, like he was trying to hunker down and hide.
"CJ is... complicated." Weren't we all. "He's... well, I don't suppose you're going to tell anyone," Uh oh, this couldn't be good. "He's a Hunter." Um, what?
"But I thought he was Jonothan's sire?" Jerremyah nodded, crossing his arms over his chest.
"He is. He's also a Hunter." ...What? How did that work?
"But..." I didn't know how to finish that thought. "He's a vampire. Surely they know-" Jerremyah shrugged.
"Oh, they catch on every now and then- either because he doesn't move on quickly enough, and they notice that he isn't aging, or he slips up- a few of them have accepted him over the centuries, since he's usually pretty helpful, but... most of them try to kill him. He always waits for the current batch to die off- for the stories of him to fade- and then he rejoins." He sounded... persistent.
"But... Why? Why choose to be a Hunter, especially if they keep trying to kill him?" Jerremyah shrugged again.
"CJ agrees that vampires shouldn't be able to go around unchecked- if a vampire decides to slaughter a bunch of people, there needs to be consequences. Hunters are- one of- those consequences." That... made sense, I guess. But why take the risk?
"Don't they figure him out immediately? I've always been told that Hunters have an almost uncanny ability to tell that someone's a vampire from a mile away- and Audrey certainly had no trouble picking me and Lisbet out as vampires." Jerremyah grimaced.
"Trust me- CJ is the last person you would pick out of a crowd as a vampire- he's like an excitable puppy, with fangs." And yet, he was at least older than Jonothan, who was older than my father- who had been older than Shari.
"How old is he?" Jerremyah tilted his head to the side, considering it.
"I don't know. Older than me, younger than Nuria. My best guess is somewhere between six hundred and fifty and eleven hundred years old- I could be way off, though." Wow, that's... and even if he was eleven hundred, he was still younger than Nuria, Jerremyah's sire? Well, he had deemed her 'positively ancient'- clearly, he hadn't been exaggerating.
"And how old is Dahrya?" Lisbet asked, trying to seem nonchalant, but I glared at her- and she looked shocked that I was legitimately angry with her.
"None of your-"
"I think she's a second year." I turned my glare on Greygorry, and dialed it up to eleven- no, thirteen. "What? Jerremyah just told you that there's a vampire posing as a Hunter, and you're still worried about keeping your little friend a secret?" Yeah, because I didn't care about CJ- I didn't even know him, but I did know Dahrya.
"The more people that know that she exists, the more danger she's likely to be in. I would think that you, of all people, would understand me wanting to keep her safe." His eyebrows furrowed, clearly confused.
"Why? What do you mean?" Well, if they already knew about her... I took a deep breath.
"What I meant, is the fact that you're her father."
(A/N): Leo: 'So Sidonie promised some unknown entity to protect me, for some unknown reason?'
Greygorry: 'Pretty much, yes.'
Leo: 'THEN WHY THE F*CK ISN'T SHE DOING HER JOB?!'
So, Minsi was the new, unplanned character I mentioned in 'Carrot On A Stick'. Both Nuria and CJ are characters from original books I had plans for, that I decided to integrate into this story, with a few small changes. Both of those stories were meant to take place in modern day, so, technically, their places in this story could be 'canonically accurate' to those stories, if I ever end up writing them.
Basically, I mentioned that Jerremyah knew Jonothan's sire, and then had a moment of, '...oh god, now I have to figure out who Jonothan's sire is. And who is Jerremyah's sire, as a matter of fact?' so, I turned to two of the vampire based stories I had in the backlogs.
There are two other vampire characters that come into it later- the plan is for summer between fifth and sixth year for one of them (where there will also probably be some more unplanned vampire characters popping up), and the second one after that one, either still in that same summer, or a little later that year. Summer between fifth and sixth year is set to be... a doozy, y'all.
I never actually did any work on CJ's story, just developed some characters- really only CJ- but Nuria's story, I did actually get some written down. Only a few pages, because it was a spur of the moment idea that started as a writing exercise, but I did have three named characters for that one, so it had a little more work put into it. It's one of those stories I started with a mystery, but never wrote down what the answer to the mystery was, so now, years later, I have no idea what the answer is anymore.
CJ's name was originally BJ, with the B standing for Benjamin. We'll find out at some point what CJ actually stands for now, along with whether that's his first and last names, or first and middle names.