“Did you just say that my eyes looked like the sun?” Casey hopped up and down on the bed. “Really?” She started laughing and grabbed Sylvie, pulling the elder vampiress into a hug. “I feel so much..what’s the word I am looking for, free. It feels like the rain has stopped in my head or something silly like that.” Casey rambled.
Mildly concerned for her one and only progeny, Sylvie waited for the round of excitement to slow before pulling from Casey’s arms. “That’s what I said, depending on how you view it they are setting or rising.” Slipping off the bed, Sylvie glanced over at the clock to confirm what she’d already been sensing. “Good thing that it took most of the day for you to transform. It means you can go out hunting before I tell you more.” Finding herself staring at Casey’s hair more than anything, Sylvie felt a little twinge of guilt about having to explain the darkness that was sure to try and take Casey’s mind at the first opportunity. “I see a little ring of red around your irises, which I think is normal?” Sylvie posed it as a question to herself, given she’d never successfully made another vampire. “Wait another ten to fifteen minutes and you can go feed off the jerk next door.”
“Wow, oh wow.” Casey exclaimed and jumped off the bed to hug Sylvie from behind. “I felt that. I don’t know how, but I felt that annoyance or anger.” Cackling lightly Casey twirled once on her new feet. “My little Luna actually gets angry.” Pursing her lips briefly, Casey perked one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows, “Humm, I don’t have many of my memories left. I see my mom pretty well, but I can’t even remember what my dad looks like.” She paused and closed her eyes. “It’s like seeing a sun glare..no wait..” Casey snapped her fingers impatiently, “..What is it when there is snow everywhere and you see the sun in like two or three places at once?”
Thankful that Casey couldn’t see relief cross over her face when the new vampire hugged her tightly, It took Sylvie a moment to register everything that Casey was talking about. “I…um..they are called Sundogs…that’s it, sundogs.” Sylvie nibbled on her lower lip for a second. “Wait, did you call me your little Luna?”
“Yep.” Casey kissed Sylvie on the shoulder, “I admit that claiming you mine was odd, but it worked for what I wanted to say, so I said it.”
Ever since the events that transpired in Phantasmagoria, Sylvie tried to avoid hearing people call her Luna due to the bad memories that lingered from the brutal holy water attack. However, hearing the playful name come from Casey sent a little pulse of joy into her mind. “Most people don’t call me Luna anymore.” Reaching behind her, Sylvie found a lock of copper-strawberry hair and twirled it. “From you, it isn’t so bad.” She hesitated, “You can also call me..Taini.” Sylvie turned and saw Casey’s calming bright and brilliant eyes. “It..was my birth name.” Sylvie swallowed hard, “It’s yours to use if you’d like.”
Accidentally curling her toes into the floor, Casey backed away and looked down. “Oops.” Watching as Sylvie waved her hand and chuckled, Casey immediately perked up. “Thanks for telling me your real name..but I would like to almost earn the right to use it.” Casey grabbed Sylvie’s hand, “I mean, you know. A respect thing, I suppose. Don’t be upset?”
“I’m not.” Internally wishing that Casey would hug her again, Sylvie smiled warmly. “I just thought you should know.” Going back to what Casey mentioned before, She added, “I was under the impression that you were there when Vivienne saved Faye.” Clasping her hands behind her back as she witnessed the confused look in Casey’s bright eyes, Sylvie took a shallow breath, “Sorry she didn’t tell you, but you could have memory issues for quite a while.” Sylvie nervously rocked on her heels, “There are times where I see the same fog when it comes to my brothers and sisters.”
Smoothing out her nightgown imprinted with oranges and suns, Casey hummed lightly and then pointed to the suns, “Fitting for the current situation. I couldn’t tell you if I hated this nightie or not.” She chuckled, “I know it's ugly to me now.” She took Sylvie’s hand into her own, “When it came to Vivienne, I might have said it before, but when she met Faye..” Casey felt the intensity of rejection swimming to the surface of her mind. “..It..it was like no one else really existed.” Refusing to give into the disparity, Casey locked onto the fact that she and Sylvie were bonded in a way that no one else could understand. “So, no. She didn’t explain anything to me really.” Soothed by a few bars of a song she couldn’t quite remember echoing in her mind, Casey continued. “I mean why would she tell me all the fascinating vampire secrets?” Casey reached for Sylvie’s hand, “Isn’t that what my lovely creator supposed to do?”
Hesitant to tell Casey the inevitable, Sylvie took a few steps back and paced the floor nervously. “I don’t know exactly how to explain this.” Nibbling lightly on her lip with the tip of one of her fangs, Sylvie faced the inevitable and formulated in her mind how to explain the dark that taunted every vampire. “There are quite a few drawbacks to being a, well, vampire.” Clearing her throat, Sylvie articulated further. “You know about the blood and the burning in your throat. You should also know that the sunlight is a killer.” Sylvie watched as Casey laughed and shook her head, making her copper-strawberry hair move like a small wave. “Good. You also can and probably will go into a frenzy on your first hunt. Just expect it.” Sylvie stopped pacing and looked intently at Casey. “Accept that you are a predator. You can’t avoid it.” Holding up a single finger, Sylvie smiled. “However, with time you can temper it.”
“I saw what Faye did at times, so I think I get it?” Casey half questioned, and sat down on the bed. “Frenzy as in what?” Casey peered at Sylvie puzzled. “I can see it in your lovely half-moon eyes. You’re hiding something.”
Taking the opportunity to follow up, Sylvie clapped her hands lightly. “Not so much hiding, rather going in order.” She paused and sighed, “Alright. This is the big one.” Sitting down beside Casey, Sylvie turned her progeny to face her. “We all have it. There is a dark..darkness, that haunts all of us. I have pictured mine without a mouth and bright white eyes.” Sylvie gulped. “Shadelike. Whatever it is, you can’t get rid of it, and it will try to pull you into madness.”
“Am I supposed to feel something?” Casey inquired while hearing another familiar song beat in her head. “Because I don’t feel anything.” She shrugged and widened her gold eyes. “What does that mean?”
“For me? It was immediate. It’s a deep-rooted hate and emotion-driven wisp..Almost out of reach, if that makes sense.” Sylvie stood up once more, “Mine doesn’t speak, it tries to make me believe in different visions.” Noticing the confused look on Casey’s face, Sylvie raised one of her shapely eyebrows. “You know I see visions. So my dark-thing-within or whatever changes them, tries to hide or in some way change the outcome.” Sylvie paused, “For reasons I can’t explain, if I see an eclipse then I know it's a real vision, I actively seek one out as the vision comes to me.”
Pursing her lips, Casey concentrated and didn’t feel or sense anything beyond the music that tended to play on occasion. “Honestly? I hear a piano right now playing a version of..” Casey laughed as the name came out of her foggy memory. “I was made for lovin’ you, by Kiss. It’s like a concert hall in my head.” Squishing her eyes shut, Casey looked for something dark and vile in her, without success. Sitting in silence until the music stopped, Casey opened her eyes. “I simply don’t feel anything bad, in fact, even if I can’t recall the name of the song, it uplifts me.” Waving her hand up much like a conductor, Casey rocked on the bed. “Should I be worried?”
