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There was a chill in the air, a soft reminder of the rapidly changing season, night was nearly over and the soft stirrings of the local woodland residents where loud in Godric’s ears. The sun would be up soon, already he could see the shift in the inky blackness of the sky.
When he had been human, more years ago then he could really count, this time, this time of change in the world had been his favorite. To see the world covered in blankets of white had made the constant darkness that was life just a little bit easier to take. It had washed away the sins of the world and covered it in an innocence and calm that had always made it that much easier for him to take a breath.
And even now, after a millennium of living in darkness, of being the whisper of nightmare that plagued men’s imagination each time they felt a shift in the darkness, this time was still Godric’s favorite, but that was not the reason for his early morning musings.
Godric shifted, his leg dragging over gravel that lined the inside of the cave that he and his childe called home for the day, and leaned forward, chin resting in the flat of his palm. There was a shuffling sound off to the side of him and Godric took note of it. His childe was shifting in his sleep once more, small twitches as his mind plunged him into dream after dream and watching him had become something of a hobby for Godric.
Oh, his childe, Godric hadn’t know, hadn’t realized the magnitude of change that his life would undergo with the inclusion of a progeny and, he had a feeling that he had yet to fully understand just how much more change it would undergo but, and this was a very important point for him, there was not a moment came that he regretted it, and Eric, well, Eric was unusual.
Godric knew that.
His childe was a mess of contradictions, Godric had met newborn vampires before, they didn’t act like his childe did. There was an ease to the way that Eric had taken to his new life, as if he had been slipping on an old and comfortable sweater, a calmness to the way that he had taken to feeding, no hesitance in grabbing and draining whatever human Godric brought him and that itself was strange.
Most babies where at least slightly uncomfortable at their first feed but not his childe, he had seemed almost… excited and the bloody grin that he had shot his maker when he was done was startling.
Not bad, just, strange.
Godric had waited, that first night, waited for his childe to rise and claw his way out of the dirt, scared, confused, overwhelmed. He has been prepared to calm him, guide him, be all the things that he himself had always wanted in a maker. Be better then the one that had given him the gift of true life.
But it was unneeded, his childe had come out of the dirt with no questions, no fear, he had come out with a brightness to his face and a look in his eye that spoke of something that Godric didn’t understand, and when his childe had looked at him, eyes wide and sparkling, Godric had felt his world shift.
His childe was a mystery, but Godric wouldn’t change him for the world.
“Why can’t I come with you!”
There was a wine to Eric’s voice that set Godric’s nerves on end, a lilt to the words that made him want to grab his childe and shake him and he steeled himself for the verbal battle that he would soon be engaged in. His childe was wonderful at those.
Someone pulled at the side of his tunic and Godric raised a hand and grabbed it, pulling Eric roughly to stand in front of him and giving his childe a stern glare. “You may not come because I told that you may not, and the only thing that will happen should you keep pawing at me is that I will break your fingers.”
“You won’t.”
Godric raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to place a wager?”
His childe paused, sharp eyes looking him over, lips and forehead pinched in thought, “No…” he drawled, and Godric rolled his eyes.
“I don’t want to stay here by myself, it’s boring and lonely and boring!”
Wonderful, the conversation was going to be continuing.
Godric inhaled, the breath a disguise as he contemplated what to do. On the one hand, he could take him, Eric was a newborn after all and the thought of leaving him to fend for himself, even if he would only be alone for a few short hours, rankled him a bit, but on the other, Eric was a newborn, no matter that he had taken to being a vampire with such ease his instincts where still so very strong, so overwhelming and Godric worried that the multiple distractions offered by the surroundings of his current destination would prove to much of a temptation.
Godric looked around, taking in the drab walls of the little run-down barn they had been staying in and then looked back at his childe. Eric ignored him and his childe had seemingly already forgotten his threat of bodily harm and was currently pulling at a loose thread dangling from the hem of his maker’s tunic, lips set in a stubborn press.
In the three weeks that his childe had been with him, Godric had taken notice of his strange behavior, of the way that he did not, in most ways, act like a newborn. There was no adjustment period, no mourning for a life that was no longer his, Eric lived like this was where his original birth had always been heading and he had been aware of it from the moment he had taken his very first breath. There was, however, one behavioral trait that surprised Godric, worried him sometimes too, and that was the speed and intensity that his childe had become attached to him.
A bond between maker and childe was expected, was normal, strong attachment was healthy, especially in the first hundred or so years of a vampire’s life, but the level of strength in their bond was at a magnitude that Godric had never heard of before. Eric didn’t like to let him out of his sight, the childe would not go to ground unless he knew Godric was right there next to him. Many mornings Godric would have to curl around his childe and wait till the sun’s coming pulled him under before removing himself to carry out the last few errands of the night.
Newborns were pulled under with so much moonlight left and Godric often thought that it was very possibly an evolved trait created to keep maker’s from murdering their children from lack of any peace and quiet.
His childe was poking at his side again and Godric growled at him, softly and just for a second and Eric pulled his fingers back quickly, hiding them behind his back as if that would stop his maker from grabbing them. Godric wanted to roll his eyes.
“I’m coming with you.”
Godric took in another unneeded breath. Why had no one warned him that having a childe was going to be like this?
The run to the little town took only a few short minutes and Godric took it as a chance to teach Eric how to handle his speed, he realized, while watching his childe flit with nearly effortless ease, that he needn’t have bothered. His childe was as natural to this as he was to every other part of his true life, although, there were moments when Godric would catch a sour expression on his childe’s face and when asked about it, Eric only mumbled out a “I used to be faster.”
Godric added that to the list of strangeness that came with his childe, a list that grew in leaps and bounds every second that Eric was with him.
For now, however, Godric steeled his mind to the upcoming night ahead of him. His childe had an unending appetite and more energy than Godric knew what to do with, and so today they were going to be gathering food and stocking up on clothes.
Godric did not terribly care for excessive amounts of clothes nor did he care for the quality but his childe would complain at the threadbare material he provided him with and Godric found it difficult to properly discipline him so here they were, he and his spoiled progeny, on their way to a human market to spend the night shopping.
The flickering lights of the town up ahead seemed to spur Eric on and his childe ran ahead with a burst of speed, Godric moving a little faster to join him. Godric had a hope that one of these days he would successfully impart on his childe that when he said, “Stay by me”, he meant it, a hope that was thin and waning but a hope nonetheless.
There were shouts up ahead, humans haggling for wares, children running about and screaming and Godric wrinkled his nose in distaste. Humans. The sooner he and his childe procured what that had come for, the better.
There was a rushing sound to the left of him and Godric was just able to make out his childe’s towering head of blond hair speeding away from him before he cursed and made to follow.
Why, oh why, had no one warned him about having a childe.
The human in Godric’s arm was struggling, letting out soft cry’s and little whimpers as he drank from her neck, her weak arms coming up to bat at his shoulders in a futile attempt to fight him off, not that it really mattered, he could let her go right now and she would still die, there was far to little blood left flowing through the girls veins to sustain her and killing her at this point was more a mercy than a sin.
His childe was all wrapped up with a human of his own, the man laying limp in Eric’s arms far closer to his last breath than Godric’s own meal, and the blood dripping down Eric’s chest and face made Godric raise his eyebrows. He would have to teach his childe to drink with a bit more finesse. The waste currently pooling at his childe’s feet was a shame and would have been put to far better use down Eric’s throat.
No matter, the night had gone as smoothly as it could have with a newborn, smoother even, and where it not for the fact that the sun would shortly be rising Godric would not have really felt much need to hurry. But the sun would be up soon and as much as his childe seemed to revel in staying drenched in the proof of his hunt, Godric for his part did not enjoy the sticky sensation of drying blood when he went to ground.
In fact, he disliked the feel nearly as much as his childe disliked bathing in the freezing river and the very first time Godric had insisted he take a dip had ended with his childe throwing such a large tantrum that Godric had ended up tossing him in the river on principle alone. The betrayed look he received for his trouble had most certainly not stung at his heart, that would have been ridicules.
But no matter, there would be a bath before the night end and that was simply the way of things, Eric could argue all he wanted.
The huffs of anger coming from the other side of the barn would have set Godric on edge if it weren’t for the fact that he felt far too exhausted to expand that much emotion. He turned his head, just catching a glimpse of his childe’s drawn angry face turning back down and away from him. So, the brat was looking for sympathy, was he? Well, two could play this game.
From his sitting position on the ground, legs crossed, and eyes now serenely closed, Godric spoke, his voice low and calm, nothing in his demeanor giving away just how close to losing his patience he was. “Is there a problem childe?”
There was no answer, but he did hear his childe draw closer. “Did you not eat your fill today?”
His childe let out another angry little huff.
“If you choose to not answer me then I shall choose to pretend that you are not currently sulking in the corner, and then the both of us can carry on with our night with no issue.”
Godric hid a smile as he heard his childe scramble up and come to sit before him, he may have not known his childe long, but the baby was nothing if not predictable. The center of attention always had to be Eric.
There was a poke to his side and Godric held his body still, there would be no advantage to losing the tenuous grip on his patience this late in the game. He was winning after all, whether his childe was aware of it or not.
The poking persisted, getting bolder the longer it went on and when Godric did choose him moment of retaliation, he did it swiftly with no time for Eric to protest, and so his childe found himself held tightly in his maker’s arms, tipped sideways with his back pressed to him maker’s front and his arm’s pressed tight to his own sides.
There was a quick burn on the side of Eric’s neck and then Godric’s lips where closing over the wound his teeth had just made, sucking the nights hunt right back out of his childe. The taste was sweet, even if the drag was slow, the liquid working to sluggishly make its way without a heartbeat to send it, and Godric could taste his own essence in his childe.
Eric struggled against his hold, something that Godric expected, it would have been so very far out of character for his warrior childe to simply lay and take it, but the tight hold held and Eric gave up after a moment, his body softening until he was limp and pliant in his maker’s arms.
When he could feel the fight slowly leave his childe, Godric removed his fangs and ran his tongue over his lips, he, unlike his childe, did not like to waste. Godric ran a hand over Eric’s hair, fingers tangling on the still wet locks and he took in his childe’s far off gaze.
Godric’s own maker may have been a sorry excuse for a maker but he had been thorough in his teaching of all things vampire, and what little he had not passed on, Godric had made his business to learn, and this little trick was a very good trick.
Godric lowered his hand and softly ran his fingers over his childe’s cheek, Eric tilting his head ever so slightly into Godric’s hand, causing his maker’s lips to twitch into the ghost of a smile.
“You may not always choose to understand or listen to the words I say, you may choose to ignore my instructions and carry on with your hard headed foolishness, and I may choose to indulge it on occasion, despite my better senses, but you must keep one thing in mind, always,” and here Godric looked down to make sure that he had Eric’s full attention. “No matter the circumstance, no matter the occasion, no matter if you are angry or whether you disagree with my choices or not, I will be here.”
There was shift as Eric nodded his head, another as his childe wiggled to get closer and one more as the brat made to bite him.
Godric tightened his arms around his childe once again, pulling him close to his front and forcing him to stillness, the sun would be up soon, it was far past time for Eric to go to ground, he could reprimand him later, for now it was time to feed him so Godric bit into his own wrist and held it to his childe's mouth, keeping in a sigh as Eric once more proceeded to let the blood drip down and around his mouth.
There would be another fight come moonrise, another bath and another night of soothing ruffled feathers and chasing after a stubborn baby vampire that refused to acknowledge his limits or his place, but for right now, there was only the softness of the childe in his arms and the singing of the bond in his blood.
And Godric knew they were going to be alright.