Bloody Loyalties

[Tali]

It had all passed in a blur, everything that Tali thought she had been managing to deal with had risen all at once. Spurring her onwards with a course of actions she hadn't consciously planned out, but did she regret it?
Frowning now Tali puzzled over this thought. Maybe a little, for slitting Velveteen's throat. It had been far easier than she had thought, perhaps because she hadn't been expecting it. Neither of them had, Tali wouldn't have shown any sign that she was considering it. It had been her acting purely on impulse.

Immediately she had run down into the sewers, another action with no real thought behind it but for feeling the need to be in total darkness or as close to it as possible. She ran, not thinking where she was going but taking turnings at random. After a while her head cleared enough to realise she was back where she had started from. Her face impassive, Tali took a turning to the right. Before long she was hit by a scent, one that made her stop in her tracks. Velveteen's scent, that was the only reason she had noticed it, but this wasn't her. Just someone with her scent lingering about them.

It had happened the same as previously, before she knew it her katana was slicing through the air and then through flesh and bone. Darting away once more she left the figure one leg lighter. Tali had the vaguest impression of it having been a male, she probably wouldn't recognise them again though unless some figure came furiously hopping towards her. This image struck her as funny, an out of place laugh that to her shame could be best described as a giggle.

Exiting the sewers Tali blinked beneath the glow of a street light, it was not even two months yet since she had been turned but already she found herself shrinking away from these lights. The shadows were more comforting. Ignoring the desire to return to the depths of the sewers Tali instead allowed her feet to take her in a different direction, the journey passed without incident, keeping to the shadows for most of it it didn't take long for her to be standing before an abandoned warehouse. Hazel eyes studied what was visible of the building as if it had somehow changed since last she had been here. Sighing, Tali slipped inside, still feeling on edge from the events that led her here. It seemed that others had taken refuge here also, if she were a cat her fur would be bristling. Instead one hand slipped down into the pocket of her coat, resting on the handle of a knife she had hidden there.

It wasn't the knife that should be there of course, she had been trying to find one that could replace it. It was a futile task, even an exact copy wouldn't hold the same significance to her.

Now sitting in a darkened corner of the warehouse Tali allowed her eyes to drop shut, this was the building that she had awoken in as a vampire. She had grown to adore Velveteen despite the way she treated her. 'Family', she had quickly grown to hate that word. She hadn't been turned only to forget the life she had had before, though she didn't miss it exactly.
Velveteen hadn’t been using the word, but Tali had been paying close attention to how others where placing emphasis upon it. Too much emphasis, it was weak. To her it seemed weak to immediately claim a new family and make new loyalties. It didn't sit well with being loyal, at least in her mind. Then Velveteen had gone and sired someone else, someone else to join this false 'family'. Perhaps she would regret cutting his leg off at a later time, she knew that he hadn't deserved it. No doubt Velveteen would punish her for her actions later. Which Tali would accept it. Removing her knife from her pocket she let the blade lie flat upon her
palm, tilting her hand as if trying to seek out her reflection only to find it missing, the knife was all that stared back at her. This was family.