Bara shook coarse black hair out of her face and grinned down at the young man pinned spread-eagled on the frozen ground beneath her. She could smell the fear on him, and the desire, thick as gravy and heady as wine. She closed her eyes, eyes the color of black olives and possessed of the same lustre, and knelt down over him, inhaling his scent. They had cleaned him and perfumed him, using the scents she liked best. He was her sacrifice, and he knew it. She could see the knowledge in his dark eyes, taste it on his breath as she kissed his young lips. Young? He was only few years younger than her, but her power made her stronger and older; far far older. She leaned over and kissed his naked body, drawing out the raw sexuality of him that would feed the crops when they were planted, the power that would wake the earth from this chill that held it. The seed of this boy would go into the earth and feed it. She leaned over him on the cold ground, naked, nipples hard. Her long black hair brushed over his dusky bare body and her lips fastenend around his nipple, sucking and licking. He ejaculated for her, for her lips on his nipple, and when she drew her mouth away it was smeared with his blood. The night was young, and so was he.
Someone watched her from the shadows. The other priests did not notice this newcomer, this stranger, who stood just behind the shadow of flickering torchlight, watching Bara. This newcomer pulled the hood of her cloak close about her face, watching Bara work. This night would be her measure, the predictor of the girl's future.
Bara tortured the boy with sweetest ectasy, draining the life from his loins and drinking the blood of him as he trembled and screamed in pain and pleasure as the night went on. The stranger in the shadows watched the girl and what she did. She nodded over the finer points of Bara's technique, admiring what the 17 year old accomplished, drawing out the life of the boy when another would have spent him totally. At last, drained entirely, the boy died. Bara stood up, sticky with semen and blood and the mingled sweat of both him and her, and raised her hands to the sky. She suddenly felt the cold, biting through her skin, and shivered. Someone rushed to throw a cloak about her, and she walked to a stream to bathe. The others chanted over the body, tossing it into the large fire that had been burning for some time. Bara was no longer needed... her part of the night was over. Suddenly tired and empty, she made her way to the river that ran through the woods and dropped the cloak on the bank, sliding into the water that was as cold as ice and as still as death. The sky streatched over head, dark and brooding and waiting, flung thick with stars that glared down on her, bleaching out her dark skin. The water numbed her body and washed away her fatigue and the last of the lingering ritual drugs. She scooped up a handle of coarse sand and scrubbed her skin clean, her hair floating on the icey water like a dark shroud. She sighed and half floated in the freezing water, her skin tingling and alive. Her eyes followed the stars as they danced overhead, wheeling and turning.
A sudden footstep broke into her thoughts and she turned to the bank. A cloaked, hooded figure stood there, holding Bara's cloak in one dusky hand. Bara narrowed her eyes at the stranger.
"Who are you? What are you doing with my cloak?"
A calm voice flowed out at her.
"Nothing, child of the mountains. I am merely holding your cloak untill you come for it."
Bara frowned at the stranger and then scrambled out of the water, wringing her long black hair out. The air trailed fingers of ice across her skin and she tried not to shiver and show weakness before the stranger. The stranger looped Bara's cloak around her shoulders, stepping out from under the shadow of the tree and showing herself for the first time. She was not as tall as Bara, but few were. She was thin, with strong features and harsh cheekbones. Her eyes glittered, deepset and black, and her black hair was slashed raggedly at the bridge of her nose, cut that short all around her head. Bara held her cloak tightly and shivered, unable to controll herself. The woman had a power she had never before felt, one that scared and excited her all at the same time. She looked at Bara with eyes of the same impassioned cruelty as a hawk, and Bara felt a sudden warmth in her stomach.
"Walk with me, Bara. I would talk to you."
"About what?"
"Power, and more... My name is Lydia..."
Bara tried the name out on her tongue... it was not one she had heard used before, and she wondered where this woman was from. As she walked, she scratched a sore on her arm, from where a hair had turned inward. Lydia caught her arm.
"What do you pick at? Let me see... ah..."
Passing a hand over Bara's skin, Lydia frowned. Bara felt an odd sensation, one of change and slightly of pain, and when she looked in the wake of Lydia's hand, the sore was gone. Bara gasped in amazement.
"You are a healer, then! You must come and talk to Lazar... he will want to share secrets and herbs with you..." she took Lydia's hand and tugged her in the direction of the village. Lydia, however, stood fast.
"No, Bara. I am not a healer, although I can heal. And, I would give my power to you."
Bara released her hand and looked at Lydia.
"Not a healer? But then, what are you?"
Lydia smiled, thin lipped, and spoke.
"I am Mulo. Dhampr."
Bara stumbled back a step or two, the whites of her eyes showing around the dark.
"No... no... what do you want with me? I will kill you before you.... before... get away!"
She turned, then, and ran, bare feet catching hold on the frozen turf and out-reaching tree-roots and rocks. Pebbles and pinecones scurried loose in her wake. She turned to look over her shoulder, and the woman was nowhere to be found. Her heart racing, Bara stumbled through the trees, worn out by panic. The Dhampr terrified her as she had never before been terrified, the half seen shapes of night time panic racing behind her. Lost in the forest, she leaned against a tree and huddled over, trying to catch her breath. A sudden noise caused her to urinate in fear, and then she cursed herself when she saw it was only an owl. She passed out when the owl turned into the Dhampr.
When Bara woke, she was wrapped in many layers of soft-woven wool, very warm and comfortable. She yawned and stretched her arms out of their warm caccoon. She was naked beneath her wrappings and the outside air was very cool. She sniffed a warm soup cooking and her stomach gurgled. Someone shuffled and moved out of her line of vision and Bara could not, at first, tell where she was. She tried to cast her mind back, got to the ceremony the night before and smiled. She had brought forth seed seven times, and then blood, before he had died. She wiggled deeper into the wool. Something had happened after, though. Something in the woods. Her mind refused to go back to it, skittered the topic like a horse skittering wolf spore. The warm soup smell got stronger and when she looked up, she saw Lydia and smiled.
Lydia was an old woman, far older than she looked. She said she was a member of a clan called Tzimisce and that she had powers she would like to share with Bara. Bara smiled and said yes. Lydia fed her soup. It was very good soup, bits of meat and vegetables, thickened with barly and the blood of some animal. Very good soup. After awhile, Bara got tired, so she slept more. Lydia smiled and went to sleep also, deep in the cave. A mile outside, the sun slowly came up. This life continued for awhile, with Lydia teaching Bara what she would need to know to become a full member of Clan Tzimisce. She found the girl an apt pupil and soon decided to embrace her.
It is said that the Tzimisce augment the bond between Sire and Childe. Be that true or not, Bara, named Ella after her embrace, was devoted entirely to her Sire. Lydia shared that devotion and the two worked together. In the five hundred years that passed, Lydia tought Ella all that she knew, and the Childe soon grew beyond her Sire. Ella was as hard and inhuman as Lydia had predicted that starry night, proud of her status as Dhampr and not Human. In the dark countries they lived in, Ella quickly mastered Changling, altering her appearance and wearing it constantly, to better underline her difference from the humans. She stretched her broad 5'7" body to a thinner 5'10", slim but voluptuous. She lightened her skin, changed her features to more aryan ones, changed her black eyes blue and as a final touch took the red hair Dhamprs were said to have. Ella and Lydia worked hand in hand with the Sabbat and Ella moved through the ranks, gaining the status Initiated and Respected. Lydia worked her way to being Bishop of the Tzimisce when word came of a problem the LaSombra were having.
A prospective LaSombra Childe had a split personality, and the LaSombra could not, in good conscience, accept a member so deranged. The Malkavians did not want him. They did, however, have an odd suggestion that had only a small chance of survival. They offered to split his mind into two halves and shunt one of them into a body under the condition that the body be an exact duplicate of the original. The LaSombra bishop asked Lydia for help, and she agreed, taking Ella with her. Ella went, drawing stares from the dark Eastern European Vampires that she met with her almond-shaped blue eyes. Lying on a table in a well lit room, lay the body of Black, and a ghoul next to him of roughly the same shape and size. Once in the room, Lydia forced all other out.
Ella studied the human she was to duplicate. He was tall and broad, very dark, with long black hair. He was handsome in a hard-carved way. His eyes were closed, but as she ran her fingers down his face he woke up and smiled. His eyes were very dark, like bits of stone from a volcano, smooth as glass. She smiled back. Her hands were like snow against stone, very white and delicate against his skin.
"So, you're the Fiend that's gonna make my new body?"
He spoke the nick name gently and she grinned.
"Yes. See that body over there? By this time tomorrow night, it will look exactly like you. Which is good, you know, as LaSombra cannot see themselves reflected."
He chewed on his lower lip and then looked at her with different eyes.
"This thing... putting my mind in that body... will it hurt?"
She shrugged.
"Probably. But then it will be over. It will not last forever."
He sat up, black hair flowing down his back. Lydia frowned at him, then looked out the door before closing it firmly and locking it from the inside. Black looked at Ella, but it was not with Black's eyes.
"Will you be there when they do it? I would like for you to be there..."
Ella patted him on the shoulder.
"I will be there. I want to see them put you in the body I make. Now lie down... let me do my job..."
He sighed and lay down, closing his eyes, and Ella began work while Lydia watched and directed. It took many hours, and Ella was very tired when it was over. Lydia watched her with hungry eyes as she worked, as though desireing something she would not allow herself. Finally, it was done, and Lydia made Ella feed from her, despite the girls protests, and then sleep. The next night, they awoke, and the LaSombra brought them fresh blood, and then were locked out again as first Lydia and then Ella re-inspected every bit of Black, and then the new body, and then re-inspected both. No bit of the bodies was left unexplored, and Ella commited every inch to unblushing memory, her fingers tracing the countours of each body. When Lydia left to summon the Elders, Ella took a liberty with both bodies, customizing them in a way that left Black dizzy and happy afterward. The ghoul was too far unconsciounse to notice anything.
The others came in and examined the bodies, granted Lydia and Ella leave to go and clean themselves and change into fresh clothes. The did this thing, Ella washing and perfuming her hair, dressing in dark blue silk and a long black cloak that made her hair gleam like rubies or rust or blood. Lydia and Ella gathered with the others around the two bodies as the Malkavians did their ritual, seperating Black's two minds and holding them in the the ether before shunting one into the one body and the other into the other body. There came a stillness, then, as everyone leaned forward, seeking to find if the operation had been succesful. As the two bodies breathed, first a Malkavian and then another Tzimisce Telepathicly assertained the success. It was decided that the two would be given the night to recover, and the Embrace would take place the next night. Servents moved forward to care for the two, and Ella approached their prospective sire.
"What is the other's name? Not Black.... the other one..."
His Sire shrugged elegant shoulders.
"He doesn't have one... I had been planning on calling him Josef, after the Ghoul who's body he has taken over..."
Ella shook her head, unsure why this matter bothered her so.
"But that is not his name..."
"My dear, I do not know what his name is... Black has never named him. I do not know if he even has a name other than Black's... What would you have me do?"
She frowned.
"He cannot be nameless, and Josef is the wrong name for him."
The LaSombra shook his head.
"And what, then, would you name him, my Lady?"
Ella blinked.
"Uhm. Damon?"
Drawn by some empathy for the creature she had helped create, Ella attended his Embrace. Black attacked his Sire so ferociously that she wondered if the Damon would be Embraced that night or the next, but the Ritual went ahead. He did not move with the stubborn lust with which his "Brother" moved, but there was a grace and a strong streak of survival that ran through him. She watched worridly untill his hand broke free of the Earth and he scrabbled his way up, filthy and tired, staggereing. His eyes rolled in his head and he lurched at his Sire, closing his eye and drinking the offered blood. Thus, Black and Damon were created.
During the intervening years, Ella found herself drawn again and again to the "Brothers," especially to Damon. The real reason for their split had not been the fact of their split personality, but the nature of it. Damon was far more human than Black, and represented a danger to him, although he could function on his own more than adequetly. The three formed their own group, Damon and Ella becoming best friends and on-and-off lovers over the years. Ella and Black also occaisonly became lovers, but the emotional closeness between the first two was lacking. Damon's very humanity was what drew her to him, the humanity that she lacked and had lacked even in her life as a mortal. In her turn, she led Damon to a hardness he had lacked. She helped him put up the shields he would need to function as a member of the Sabbat. She satisfied his need for a companion and confidant over the thousands of years, and a bridge between his brother when they fought... and as a go between when he fell in love with someone else. At times, the two functioned more as brother and sister than lovers, but mostly they were best friends and more than that.
Black, with his honor code, felt that he owed her for many things: starting with Damon's body and the improvements she made on his own body, as well as being both Damon's and his friend. In addition, as a side effect of the seperation of their minds, both Black and Damon aquired derangements: Black acquired a fetish for pain, while Damon gained a cycle of depression that Ella regularly talked him through. Black felt that he owed Ella both for the ‘favours' she did him, as well as for keeping Damon alive. In addition, as Black moved into power, Ella was a powerful ally and advisor to him.