Disclaimer: The world hasn't ended therefore I own nothing.
Author: Shay
Title: What's It Like?
Summary: Tracy's POV about being a vampire.
AN: This is a little similar to stream of consciousness. I have
never written a FK fanfic. Hope it goes well and please review for
me. Thanx. This hasn't been beta'd so all mistakes happen to
be my own :D
What's It Like?
I think that I'm in a brooding mode for tonight. It only comes
upon
me when I have nothing better to do. Lacroix may complain but the
world still has secrets for me to find. Things seem so strange now.
Maybe it's the air. Let's go with that for a moment. The
air feels
different. Alive in a way that I could never understand before now.
Maybe it's the scents that come my way. Smells that seem more
vibrant, willful as if they have a life of their own. Smelly life.
Haha...I slay myself. It's hard to remember the beginning without
bias, hard to discard it. But I'm here now. Sitting on top of a
billboard and just watching. It's not the watchfulness of a
hunter.
It's merely the philosophical gaze of someone who has seen only a
small part of the puzzle and can never dream of grasping the fullness
of it. It's a contemplative gaze. How did I get here? I trace
it
to when I was created. Not born, created. It's all so clear
now.
What was it like being brought across? How can I explain such a
sensation? I can't, but since I never back down from a challenge
I'll try. I remember dying, feeling the life bleed from me. My
Maker was Nick Knight. I saw it in the blood exchange. I saw
Natalie trying to dissuade him from bringing me across, I saw his
capitulation. And then I saw him return. I saw him give me this
gift and I saw him regret it. A part of him died when Natalie died.
If not for Lacroix, his death would have been physically manifested
instead of emotionally. But that's just the mechanics. You want
to
know how it was, how it felt. It's looking at another vampire
and
simply smiling a small contented smile and knowing that they
completely understood. It's a feeling that I really hadn't
felt
before, except of course on girl night. I have no complaints against
Nick. The last fifty years have been fun. We became lovers,
it's
what generally happens between the maker and the created. We had no
falsehoods between us. I could never take the place of Natalie and
he could never replace Vachon. The bonds we share are far removed
from love and lust. But maybe I should use an analogy to describe
being brought across. Have you never just gone outside and played in
the snow and return to the comfort of your warm house where a nice
warm cup of cocoa made by loving hands awaits? It's knowing
intimately the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It's
being
in a dark place and then bursting forth into a brilliant light that
scares and intimidates, and then being embraced in the warm cocoon of
loving arms. It's feeling a crushing loneliness and then a
presence
that never lets you go. Enough of that though, because I could
probably wax poetic on the subject all night long. I bore myself so
often that it can`t possibly be healthy. What is that I see?
Ah...some wayward mortal on their merry little way. I have often
thought it ironic that in our great race to defeat death that in the
end we welcome its embrace and find immortality. What is it like
being a vampire? I attribute this question to morbid curiosity on
the parts of some and a complete terror of death on many others.
I've found an answer of sorts. Have you ever gone back to your
old
elementary school? You look around and everything seems so small. I
look around that school and think. Were the toilets always that
small? Was I ever unable to reach the water fountain? Was there
ever a time when the teachers were like giants? Did I ever really
worship them and do all I could to please them? Did the halls ever
seem able to swallow me whole? And maybe you say out loud: "I
don't
remember everything being so tiny." And maybe a perceptive loved
one
or good friend answers you back, or maybe some small voice amusingly
replies: "Silly girl it isn't that the school is so small,
it's that
you're so big." That was my moment. The moment that I
realized that
change makes philosophers of us all. I look back on my mortal life
and ask myself many questions. Was I ever that eager? Could I have
possibly been that naive? Was I ever that small? I look back on my
mortal life and it seems so insignificant. Lacroix's words
finally
make sense to me, but I'll never say that to him. His endless
rants
on the inadequacy of mortals take on a new light. Another
realization comes to me. That school in all it's incredible
smallness is the foundation on which I was formed. Without that
basis what am I? I'm nothing. Without my mortal existence,
I'm
nothing. It was the crucible in which I was forged. Let Lacroix top
that. Of course these musings are followed by the first time the
bloodlust took control and I took a life. At my core I am a police
officer. Sworn to uphold the law. It's not what I do. It's
what I
am. Lacroix will always be a Roman general. Time won't change
that. Nick will forever be the Crusader with high hopes and a faith
that failed him. The Eternal Brooder, that has a nice ring. The
bloodlust was like no other sensation. When all was done, it finally
clicked for me. All my life I wanted to understand why a human being
would kill another. It's all about control. I knew this
intellectually, but it was only an academic understanding. I just
didn't get *it*. The control over another human. The power. I
could now understand Nick and his pain. Nick taught me how to
control myself. How not to let the blood lust take over, in this he
was the best of teachers and I his rapt pupil. I wasn't afraid
of
the beast in me. On the hunt it's you and your prey. At the end
of
the hunt it's you and a corpse, generally. But during the
feeding
itself, it is you and the blood and the memories. Parts of me was
repulsed, but the majority of me felt the raw exhilaration. That
part of me rolled in the waves of ecstasy of the blood lust. All
things paled in comparison. It was orgasmic. Nick wasn't simply
grieving times when the beast within seized power over him; he
grieved the aspect of him that enjoyed it. My illusion of control
over myself was shattered. And this life made sense. Control is
something we try to find everyday we exist. It can drive a person to
madness in it's power. It was a revelation. We all react in
radically different ways. Some people kill others so that their
illusion of control remains intact. Lacroix dominates. He dominates
my life, Nick's life, the lives of other vampires. Vachon always
ran
away. Screed buried himself in his sewers and refused to look
reality in the face. Natalie found causes to believe in. Nick
turned his back on forgiveness. So how did I react? I accepted that
my existence was small. In the end, I accepted myself.
(
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