Chapter Text
Scotland - St. Kilda, 1776
Well, that felt like one serious injury.
The female vampire staggered along a crooked path and tried to stabilise herself by grabbing the occasional trunk of a tree. The bark felt strange beneath her fingers - the superhuman sensitivy of her senses was decreasing rapidly. Her other hand was on her head, toilsomely fixing it in its position upon her neck.
If she didn't drink from a human in about half an hour, at best, she would vanish.
She wasn't sure what exactly would happen when she died of thirst. Most likely, she would crumble into a heap of ash beneath a tree and serve as a fertiliser for whatever fell off it. Surely, there were worse ways of demise.
Still, it would be such a waste. She had successfully witnessed 372 years of humanity, and would love to see some more. Things had begun to become interesting with the invention of the flintlock weapon, and increased in fascination ever since.
However, the really serious injury she was currently suffering from may have a word in it.
Although her vision was blurred and she could hardly hear anything beyond her own breath, she felt a sudden presence.
It was human. Alive, female, round about 70 years, surrounded by corpses in different stages of decay.
Must be a cemetery and its visitor.
And there was something else - a scent, sharp, painfully stinging into her nose even through the weakening blur of exertion: venom of the longwing.
Just the poison, with no dragon nearby.
That woman's blood may save my life.
She fell to her knees, one hand still desperately clinging to her head, and crawled towards the human presence.
She heard the noise of dragon bone colliding with rock, when the vial, which had contained the venom, fell from the woman's fingers. She was almost there, when she noticed the woman's heartbeat to dramatically weaken.
No! Please no!
She forced herself next to the woman's body, heaving herself up to the grave, which the woman was lying upon, with the last amount of strength of the one arm she could spare. The other arm was still needed to hold her head in place, further weakened by the rays of the jolly Scottish spring sun.
She found the woman's artery, beautifully running along her neck, and took no time to aim but buried her fangs as deep as possible into the flesh.
Scotland - St. Kilda, 1776
What in God's name...?
There was a rather large amount of pain - that was not much of a problem, since Camilla was accustomed to pain quite well.
There was a very large, almost overwhelming amount of sensory impressions, which she could master less successfully.
And then, there was the other thing - unimaginable, indescribable.
The word that came closest was hunger. No, it was thirst.
No - Camilla had no clue what the hell it was that she felt. In fact, she had no clue why she felt something at all - hadn't she just drunk a vial of Gentius's venom to die a beautifully orchestrated death?
Before she could start investigating, the overall pain increased, and she instinctively raised her hand to shade her eyes. The bloody Scottish spring sun was burning down upon her as if it wanted her skin to go up in flames.
Effortlessly, Camilla rose to her knees and crawled into the shadow of a pine tree.
To her surprise, she found the body of another woman lying there.
The woman's dress was torn, her skin was glowing yellowish, and her head - well, her head was partly severed.
On her wrist, which fell against the trunk in a strangle angle, she had two bite marks, from which a streamlet of blood was trickling.
Oh, that scent. Oh, yes.
Camilla closed her eyes and sniffed. Had she ever smelled something as exquisite as that woman's blood? She didn't think so - and that meant quite something, coming from the sister of Black Jack Randall.
This is my bite mark.
"...drink."
The other woman's voice was very low and hoarse.
"You...have...to...drink", she repeated.
"Find...other...ones...for...help...in...Inverness...", she added, and then fell silent.
Camilla's senses overloaded when she felt the woman die. The word die also didn't suffice - the woman vanished from existence.
The last thing Camilla saw, before she fell into some kind of stupor, were some letters in the woman's own blood, which she had painted onto the bark with her finger.
It said: Vampyr.