A Candle's Flickering Flame {Nikolae}

[Deirdre (DELETED 5847)]

When she settled beside him, she felt like a child...or at least, imagined that this was how it felt to be a child, curling up beside their father as he opened a book and read to them. The difference was that the book was on her lap, not in his hands, and he was turning the pages for her. Yes, he was telling her a story, but it didn't feel like a story. It felt like...facts. Like pure truths that she'd never had the nerve to learn in her youth.

Deirdre's heart was racing as her grey eyes skimmed over the pages he showed her, the art burning itself into her brain just like her favorite stories. Wings like supple leather, scales like precious stones, talons and teeth like daggers...the Dragons had always been her favorite mystical beings. When most of the girls in her foster homes were playing fairies and princesses, she would be off on her own, treating her pile of books like the treasure that fables often ascribed Dragons as hoarding greedily. When the girls at her high school were preening for the prom, though, she'd holed herself up in Mr. Williamson's study, reading his anatomy books, but all the while, the great scaled beasts of legend, the Dragons and Wyverns, were on her mind.

Idly, as she looked at the book, she wondered if she'd packed her sketchbook into her hot pink suitcase, but then --

Ow! was her first thought as he dove closer, his arm pinning her to him, his face burying into her throat and twin stabs pierced her flesh. Her heart raced faster, pumping her blood into his mouth faster with each passing second, so quickly that it was only a few moments that she started to feel light-headed, dizzy, and strange. So this is how it feels to die, she thought, her mental voice surprisingly calm in the face of something so new and potentially damning.

It was only then that her mind fully analyzed what was happening, fully comprehended what his last question for her meant. If dragons lived forever...was he going to make her a vampire? A Dragon?

Her heart skipped slightly, and she closed her eyes, her lips forming a quiet, soft phrase that she wouldn't remember saying soon enough.

"Thank you.

[Nikolae]

It had been a long time since a female Dragon had walked the halls of the Temple, embraced her heritage, and barreled into immortality proud of it. There were a few women of the blood left, yes, but of those he couldn't be sure any still bore the Dragomir name or even cared about the history of their lineage. Mortll, Wafa, those he saw frequently. But both seemed more intent on their various other endeavors. Neither seemed to care at all for where they'd come from. And he couldn't - and wouldn't - blame them. That blame fell squarely on his own shoulders. Firmly in his own absence and neglect. He'd make it up to them, someday maybe. Trust was earned, and not overnight, and even the Dragon was aware of that.

But it didn't stop his desire, shared with his first borne, to see the Dragons return to the city that was so obviously needing them again. What had become of Harper Rock in their absence from society? Nothing good, they'd each decided in their own way. The city seemed on a boiling point, even if no one dared to say it out loud. There was so much animosity and tension it could be cut with a butter knife. He didn't know when it would all come to a head - and he silently prayed he wouldn't be dragged into the middle of it or worse involved from the top down - but he would be prepared nonetheless. And so would his dragons.

Already he'd gulped down the majority of the blood filling his pixie's veins, and she'd gone limp in his arms. He kept drinking, though, savoring every last drop. It would be the first and the last time he ever tasted of his childe. He was no Necurat - though in truth he didn't care one way or another for the poor vampires who'd chosen that existence. He didn't hate them, like he recalled many of his brethren doing a few short years ago. He pitied them. And he wouldn't see any of his blood turning to that path if he could stop it. It seemed a lonely road to travel, and Dragons were never truly alone.

He laid Dierdre back on the bed as his fangs withdrew from her flesh, passing a hand over her cooling forehead with a small smile. This was her moment, he'd decided. Nothing too fancy. No parade nor fanfare. Just a room, under a somewhat famous Temple, surrounded by the promise of eternity and a home she'd never lose. He unbuttoned his shirt cuff and then rolled the material up enough to bare his wrist. It had been sometime since the Dragon had performed this ritual, but it seemed an ingrained knowledge in all vampires. He supposed it was true of all species - the innate ability to procreate and build the species at any cost. Tonight that cost would be her mortal life.

Fangs slashed open his own blue vein just under the surface skin of his wrist. He let the blood well up, watching it through his serpentine gaze, before turning his arm and placing the cold flesh against her own cold lips.

"Now it's all up to you, Deirdre. I've done all I can to set you on the right path, but the crossroads is yours to take. Travel one route and find eternal peace, slumber I suppose. Or whatever it is that comes after the final death. Travel the other and take my hand, living forever. I can't promise a perfectly happy existence, I can't promise there won't be strife and hardship. But I can promise it will be the adventure of a lifetime. And I will always be by your side. Dragons never truly die, you know."

[Deirdre (DELETED 5847)]

As Deirdre's conscious mind slipped away, her subconsciousness drifted, giving her full reign of a dreamworld that she could wander for a short time. But that short time felt like an eternity all its own.

She stood at the front entrance of a mountain palace, snow blowing about behind her, causing her red hair to whip about her head. Her hands were cold, everything was cold...but it didn't feel bad, or even painful. In fact, it felt comfortable, natural even. Her eyes slipped closed in this dream, savoring the sensation of the snow on her skin.

"You must be freezing," a quiet voice whispered on the wind, drawing her attention. "Are you certain you would not rather knock on the door? Ask for shelter?" The voice was gentle, like the cascading waters of a warm, cozy shower, and somewhat mothering.

"I'm perfectly fine," Deirdre told the voice, "in fact, I've never been better." Her eyes slid open, turning out to watch the snow swirling around in the air.

"And you do not wonder why that is?" Suddenly, the snowstorm stopped, leaving Deirdre standing at the door of the palace, staring into the silver eyes of a white dragon. Roughly two and a half feet long from snout to tail with a five foot wingspan, hovering before her. Its leathery wings beat up and down slowly, keeping it at her eye level. "Have you never wondered why the winter, the snow, has always made you feel alive?"

Deirdre sighed softly, holding her hands out to the dragon, palms up and together, and giving a light giggle as the scaled beast landed smoothly in her hand, as she said faintly, "I suppose I simply believed it to be part of my upbringing."

"Think harder..." The dragon exhaled in a flurry of snowflakes and ice crystals, which clung to Deirdre's face. A moment later, the creature seemed to melt, disappearing into Deirdre's hands, absorbed into her skin.

The coppery taste of blood flooding her mouth brought her back halfway to consciousness, eyes opening halfway, with a slight silver sheen, only to slip closed again as she lifted her hands, gripping Nikolae's hand and arm as she drank deeper, breathing through her nose as she tried to lift her head, trying to get her mouth emptied into her stomach.

Her only thought now was, thirsty.

[Nikolae]

The Dragon watched the red haired pixie's face as his blood drip drip dripped onto her lips. She'd gone ashen by now, due to blood loss, and it seemed to take nearly a full minute before she'd made up her mind. He wondered during those passing silent seconds what she was thinking. Had she heard his words? Waged some inner battle with herself? Had simple self preservation won out, or had she made the conscious decision to accept his gift and take his blood into her being. Those were the sort of questions that always plagued him, the sort none of his childer had ever been able to really answer. Much like he'd never been able to answer himself.

Nikolae barely remembered his own turning. He'd assumed, in his early nights, that it was due to sheer trauma. That his mind had shut down, shut off, and refused to dwell or even accept what had happened to him. But he suspected it was maybe something more, as the years drew on. That maybe the brain died as the human body died to become immortal, and with that brief little death so too had the short term memories fled. Oh he remembered the before, and the after. The sensation of dread, that someone or something had been following him. Chad had never been a subtle creature, and soon enough the sound of footfalls had made Nikolae's assumptions into full blown reality. He remembered running, not even bothering to stand his ground. Fight or flight instinct had kicked in, and as a human with the prickling sense that something other was hunting him down, he'd chosen flight. But he hadn't been able to beat a Killer, who could literally jump the span of a damned river or the height of a building. He'd been taken to the ground, felt the terrifying fangs plunge into his throat, and then...

...Then he'd woken up. Disoriented, groggy, ice cold and mad as hell. More than just anger had filled him, but true madness. He'd chock that up later to a botched turning, where his maker had left him stranded in the middle of nowhere with no real idea what had happened and no idea what to do about it next.

A part of Nikolae Dragomir would always hate Chad Worthington. And a part of him would always take satisfaction in the knowledge that he'd wrestled control of the lineage Chad's ridiculous scheming had built away from the man who dared call himself a sire. Chad was everything that was still wrong with this city - a load of men and women who'd bury their fangs in anything and everything, and not bother to hold themselves responsible for the consequences of it afterwards. If nothing else, Nikolae had made himself a far better sire than any he'd ever been introduced to. Of that he was certain.

His thoughts were drawn back to the present as he felt the tug on his vein, the signal the girl had made her choice. She'd live with it now, for better or worse. He was positive that she'd revel in her new identity - the lost and lonely look in her eyes had told him a multitude of things, not the least of which had been that she had no path. She appeared to stumble alone in the darkness, and if he'd had to guess he'd have said she had little true will to live. But when push came to shove, she'd found that will. And that was evident by the changes his blood was making in her now. He smiled encouragingly and let her have her fill.

[Deirdre (DELETED 5847)]

Deirdre drank and drank, lifting her head slightly to give his blood easier passage down her throat. Slowly, she came back to full consciousness, her eyes snapping wide open, pupils fluctuating between rounded and oval for a couple seconds before settling into a lengthy slit.

That was the moment she pulled back from Nikolae's bleeding wrist and started coughing. The first round brought the last mouthful of Nikolae's black blood back up, causing that incredible splatter effect. Her eyes flew open wide, staring at the inky spray for a split second before she started coughing again, this time the last amount of her own blood. Her organs felt like rags, being twisted and wrung out of blood, which came up through her mouth.

"What the hell..?" she grumbled between coughs, covering her mouth with her hands. It felt like...bad manners, to cough all over him.

She knew what she'd just been through. She was fully aware that she was now physically dead, the lack of a heartbeat made that clear enough. Still, it was disconcerting to be coughing up blood. She couldn't really stop, though.

Her body seemed determined to expel the last of her human blood, in order to fully accept and adapt to the new version of life.

[Nikolae]

The Dragon regarded his newest progeny warily as the girl began coughing and expelling precious life blood. He rose fluidly from the bed to stand beside it, peering down at the pixie with a mix of curiosity and repulsion. He'd turned many vampires in his nearly four years among the immortal kind - some had passed from this world to the next not long after while others still roamed the city streets - but he had never seen a one end their turning in such a manner. He wondered idly if she had been ill and he hadn't sensed it somehow. He'd been able to pick up on such things before, the odd taste of blood cells puffed with viruses or overrun with rogue cancerous cells. He didn't much like the taste of mortals who weren't healthy. In fact he'd found he preferred vegetarians if he had his options laid out before him - less fat to cloud the system.

He didn't typically carry handkerchiefs, though he suspected his first borne probably did. What would Raeth do in this situation? Probably tend to the reborne girl like a mother hen, dabbing at her face with the bit of silk procured from the pocket of one of his many suits. Nikolae shook his head ruefully and instead lifted up the corner of the duvet the woman was laying on, passing it over her face cautiously.

"Are you quite alright?" He intoned after a long minute, lips twitching with amusement. He was a father figure, of sorts, in the role of sire. But he'd never taken any daddy classes as a human afterall.

[Deirdre (DELETED 5847)]

When the coughing fits finally subsided, Deirdre found herself looking straight into Nikolae's hazel-gold eyes. The unusual shape was still something of a start, but she had to admit that the look was incredibly attractive, in a venomous plant lure type of way. She had no clue that her own had shifted as well. The expulsion of the last bit of living blood left the slight woman looking much like the cadavers she manipulated into looking as though they were simply asleep. Gaunt, empty...dead.

Deirdre regarded the man - her sire, her brain corrected - with a slight tilt of her head to the right. Her eyes flashed in a dull, reflective gleam as she said lightly, "I'm fine now. I just...I guess I needed to get it out, you know?" She seemed extremely relaxed with her new life, her new fate.

Slowly, she pulled a small mirrored compact from her left pocket. "What will I see here?" she asked of herself, even as she popped open the lid and looked into the two-inch-wide glass surface. The absence of reflection she found there was nowhere near as disturbing as it might have been for anyone else. In fact, she sort of enjoyed it. No more worrying about the foggy miror in her showers.

No more worrying about bad luck from shattered glass.

The young woman let out a joyous giggle, looking down at her fingers and flexing them. She had so much to learn, and tonight would be just the beginning...

[Nikolae]

"I see. Well. You've taken to the blood well." Nikolae replied easily, dropping the duvet and standing upright again. He paced to the far side of the woman's room, smoothing a hand over the heavy wood dresser. No dust - that was a plus.

"You understand, then, what you are now?" He asked as he turned to face her again, arms crossing over his chest as he leant casually against the dresser. He wouldn't apologize for stealing her mortal life from her - not when he was still positive he'd given her the gift of trading out one boring existence for something far more. But he would answer any questions she had. He was, afterall, a far better sire than his own.

"It's not all like the fairy tales." He added as he watched her serpents gaze travel around the room. He remembered that, vaguely. That sense that the whole world had somehow changed around him. Lights would always be especially difficult for a Dragon's eyes - though he hadn't really heard any other vampire complain of them. It was why there were so many candles at the Temple. The artificial lights all but made his Dragomir tear up. Hell, for a time some had taken to sporting sunglasses. The crappy 80's tune was forever being hummed through the halls of the Temple. "Immortal, yes. But even immortals fear some things."

How to explain the Shadow Realm to a newborne vampire, he asked himself inwardly. And he would explain it - the place was like a nightmare to most. At least to those not of a Shadows Path. And how to explain those vampires who hunted their own kind down for sport - the veritable boogeymen of the vampire world. "We can die. Only it isn't permanent. We go to a place... not where mortals dwell. I've often thought of it as some sort of purgatory for monsters. Only the immortal go there, but even our eyes can't see. Even our senses struggle to find the way out. Get yourself noticed by humans and you'll find yourself in that Shadow Realm." He paused, eyes distant. "Azraeth, my first borne childe, created a room here in the Temple that mimics the Realm. You can go there if you're ever curious." The room, which had a nickname he couldn't remember in the moment, was utter blackness. No light could get in. Nikolae once went there for peace and solitude.

His intention wasn't to scare his fledgling. Well, not entirely. There was an air of threat there - that she should know that whether or not vampires were on the top of the food chain they still had things to fear. But it was also the blunt basics of her new life. He had a feeling she would pick up on the easier things - feeding, sleeping the day away, and even developing her skills - rather easily.

[Deirdre (DELETED 5847)]

Everything looks so much brighter, she thought. Everything feels more vibrant, more colorful! A moment later, she murmured, "I'm a vampire." Those simple words made her entire situation feel a thousand times more real. She was physically dead. Her body no longer needed sustenance, her heart would never beat again, she never needed to breathe again.

Somehow, that simple fact made her feel far more alive than ever. Still, she couldn't help but suck in a deep breath through her nose, inhaling the aromas within the room around her. Everything was stronger, more vibrant, more alive. Her brain seemed to be running a mile a second, with how fast she took in the information the room told her. It was kept religiously clean, but no one had stayed here in some time. Dust, dirt, nothing else existed here. Just the two of them and the blood she had expelled. Even then, nothing was really alive here. Just the scents of the bedding, the furniture, her discarded sweaters, and the pair of them.

"I wouldn't expect it to be like a fairy tale," she said quietly, not wanting to raise her voice too high, afraid her own voice would be like razors to her ears. Everything was enhanced, heightened, and frighteningly so. The little bit of light that filled the small room was like the soft brilliance of an overcast day to her, where before it had been a soothing dimness. It was unusual, but she was something different now. Something more powerful. Something beyond human. That was the most important thing to her now.

Her silver eyes met his hazel again, this time as she moved fluidly into a standing position, hands smoothing the waistband of her jeans as she listened to him. Her mortal life was over, but now she had to maintain her immortality. She knew something of the sort of rules that would be imposed upon her. Keeping vampire existance a secret from humanity, feed upon them at the beginning of each night, blend in with them when possible. She didn't know that there was a possibility of being killed and coming back to life. One part of her mind wondered idly, Maybe this has something to do with the zombies. She didn't voice the question her mind had formed, however.

The mention of a room that synthesised the feeling of being in this Shadow Realm, however, intrigued her to no end. Blackness could be construed an escape from the sensory lightning storm that was living as a vampire. She could already tell that her life was about to become a whirl of scent, sight, touch, light, and dark. Just the way she had already seen the world around her felt like a vivid dream, with that surrealism that one could only barely touch outside of that subconscious realm.

"I'll look into that later," she said lightly, acknowledging the subtle threatening to his voice with a slight nod of her head. "Might be an island of calm in what I can already tell is some combination of a fantastic drug-induced high - never done drugs in my life, but I've read about the experience - and an Escher painting. Still, I have to wonder. Why?" Her hands wound behind her back, eyes still on him. "Why, exactly, did you choose me? Beyond the obvious. Young, alone, from outside of the country, with only a suitcase. What I want to know is, why would you make me into a vampire when you know next to nothing about me?"

[Nikolae]

Nikolae watched the pixie slowly come back to herself, seeming to find her center and regain her composure like a light switch she could switch on and off again. It was a touch disconcerting, but then it was also so very much like all the Dragons that he couldn't begrudge her the action. As she spoke he nodded to each statement. She was a vampire. It wasn't all fairy tales. She might later venture into the black room that served to replicate the Shadow Realm.

And then she leveled that familiar serpentine gaze on him and fired a question that felt nearly like an accusation at him. It was followed up with more statements, more accusations, and the same question repeated. Her tone wasn't anything off, not rude or cruel or even crazed though he would admit she had every right to all of those things. Even hysterics. He'd heard of all the above happening to other sires, though he couldn't recall an instance of it happening to him. Even when he'd hunted Raeth down like a rabid animal for nearly an entire night to turn him.

"Why not?" He replied with a taunting smile, though he couldn't retain the cruel charade, and ultimately let out a laugh and shrugged. "As I said, you took to the blood well. And I thought you might. You didn't jump or run at any opportunity to do so. A fact which led me to believe you wouldn't go mad after a turning. And as you said, you didn't strike me as anyone that would be particularly missed by friends or family elsewhere. No one would look for you." He paused, letting his words sink in. They weren't meant to be cruel or hurtful, though one might take that from them despite his casual tone. "And therefore it struck me that perhaps you might find a home here. In this town. With my little family." Though, there wasn't much left of the Dragomir line, they were still a family in his slitted eyes.