Time Will Still Pass

For years, the pattern continued. Claire would wake up, body burning from pain. And Elias would come and feed her. Sometimes his own blood, sometimes human. Her body continued to reject the mixing of their bloods, forcing Elias to transform her over and over again. He hated to do it, to see his child in such pain so often. The transformation was supposed to be a cleansing, a moment of unbelievable pain to prove the individual worthy of the power they would possess. A form of martyring. And Claire had long since proven herself worthy, feeling such unfathomable, excruciating pain hundreds of times.

In the beginning, Elias had to force her to feed off humans. She hated it, and hated Elias for making her need it. It took her eighteen months to stop killing those she fed off of. It took another three years to stop crying every time she fed. Every time he kept telling her that once she was stable, should would no longer need human blood – any raw meat would suffice. But that time had not come to pass, and it only depressed her more.

Elias spent that time comforting her, rarely leaving her side. She was his precious enfant, his most prized possession. He did not care if it took scores, she would heal. He would make sure of it. He did not stop her from tears when she missed her family, nor did he take away her anger at him.

Claire was unable to attend her own funeral, but she easily convinced Elias to anonymously pay for the costs of her burial and all the medical expenses her family had racked up over her years in and out of the oncology ward. He went a step further and created a fund for her two siblings to go to college. He had thought little of the money, but the action had brought the young woman to tears, and he was thankful for the trust it built between them.

A sire should not have to instill trust in their offspring; it was supposed to be ingrained into their DNA, carried by the sire’s blood, just as obedience was. But Claire was never meant to be normal. Elias would not have bothered with her had that been the case. She was to be extraordinary.

“I come bearing a gift!” Elias said one day after returning from a trip.

It was the longest he had been away since her turning, nearly three months. He had spent most of the time on the brink of panic, waiting for a call that la chérie had collapsed and needed him.

“You look awful,” Claire teased as she greeted him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He kissed her cheek and smiled. She, on the other hand, looked well. Her fine, brown, curly hair had taken a long time to begin to regrow, but once it had, it would not stop. Though her skin had bounced back from its deathly, cancerous pallor right away, she would still pale whenever her blood rejected Elias’. But Claire showed no signs of rejection.

“Is this how you treat old, weary travelers?” Elias responded, clutching his back and groaning as if in great pain.

But Claire simply rolled her eyes and took his jacket. She walked away, heading off into the kitchen. Sitting on the counter, her long, bare legs swung back and forth as she tapped the cabinet with her heels. It was a song that Elias had heard in a store, and he smiled. Claire had resisted the flow of time for over fifteen years, refusing to learn the new technology or follow the events of the world. But as she tapped out the melody of the Taylor Swift song, he nodded his head, satisfied. She caught his glance and rolled her eyes, switching to a song by Destiny’s Child with her tongue out.

“All was well during my absence?” he questioned, unpacking the food he had bought at the market.

“I slaughtered an entire town and was nearly burned at the stake. The world has found out about our existence and the government is currently tracking me,” she replied casually, going back to the book she had been reading.

“Oh?” he smirked. “Should I prepare the armory?”

“It’s no fun if you play along,” she snapped and then sighed. “I’m finally able to exist, and you just want me to stay here. Why?”

Elias’ smile fell, and guilt crept into him. It was rare that he felt it, but the young woman had been able to evoke it in him with relative ease. “That is why I have brought this,” he said smoothly, pulling a small, glass bottle onto the table.

Claire stared at the flask, smelling its contents from across the counter. It was blood, but it was not normal blood. It wasn’t vampire blood, nor human. Elias would not let her have animal blood yet, but she had smelt it before. This was not that. She could smell the bit of preservatives, added to keep the blood from clotting, but not as much as normal.

“What is it?” she asked cautiously.

It wasn’t that she did not trust Elias, she did wholeheartedly. It was something inside her that was uneasy with the blood. It felt familiar in a way she did not understand.

Elias chuckled, patting her shoulder. “Blood.” She looked at him, curious eyes filled with trust. He sighed, “It is why I went away for so long. This blood here had to come from a specific person, and it had to come completely willingly.”

“I thought you only take blood willingly,” she accused, self-hatred beginning to burn inside of her.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she melted into him. Nearly ten years later, his touch still brought an inexplicable comfort. Of course, she knew the explanation; she carried his blood in her. And as long as it was his blood running in her veins, she would feel this way. But even with the warmth his touch carried, she still could feel the anger building inside her. “Elias. You said that you only take blood willingly,” she repeated shrilly.

He nodded and kissed her head. With a soft smile, he soothed, “Of course. I do. But the source of this blood does not like to give blood. So, it took some convincing. I have not lied to you, Claire.”

Swallowing her angst, she made a small noise in agreement and picked up the glass, investigating it. It had not clots, none at all. But the part that caught her attention the most was the color. It was unbelievably red. Almost electric. It smelled like both the ocean and the forest at once. Looking back to Elias’ encouraging smile, she uncapped the vial and tipped it towards him. “L’chaim,” she said dryly.

As the cool blood slipped down her throat, Claire coughed slightly. As she expected, it did not taste like anything she had ever had before. What she did not expect was how it made her feel. It was like when she fed off Elias. She felt powerful.

“How do you feel, mon enfant?” he asked hesitantly, placing a hand on her back gently.

Claire did not answer. She heard him, but she was staring at her hands. Bit by bit, she watched the blood pump through her veins. She could feel as it hit the end of each limb. She could feel it swirl and mix with her own in a way she never had. She felt more alive than she ever did before. And then, she dropped to her knees, panting wildly.

“Claire?” Elias ran to her side, pulling her into his arms.

“Elias,” she whispered, nearly hyperventilating.

He pulled up her face and gasped, gripping her in a tight hug. “Ma chérie!’ He kissed her cheeks, nearly sobbing. “Ma chérie, vos yeux! Cherche, ma chérie!”

He took his phone out and opened up the camera. With weak arms, Claire held it and stared for a long time. Long enough that she regained her strength and then some. She was busy staring at her eyes. They were blue.

The last time her eyes had been blue, she had barely been strong enough to keep them open. She lived her life numb to the sound of a beeping monitor. She did not think that vampires were real. The last time her eyes had been blue, she had only known of humans.

For the past nearly ten years, Claire’s eyes had been a deep violet. A violent shade of purple. Elias explained that when vampires had been created, they were marked different by a rush of red to their eyes. It marked them as demons. But over time, those with the brightest eyes had been killed off, unable to sire their own lines. Only those with the weakest red survived. Eventually, it came to the point that a vampire’s eyes would only darken when they needed blood. And even then, it would only redden the natural color of the vampires’ eyes. On brown and green eyes, the change seemed mostly natural, and any human would choose to believe it a trick of the light. But blue eyes would become purple; there were few truly old blue-eyed vampires. “Even the mighty vampire must bend a knee to Darwinism,” he had chuckled.

But Claire’s eyes had never lightened. No matter what, they had stayed purple. Elias had told her that it meant nothing, but he never seemed to believe his own words. But now, her eyes were the familiar blue she had known all her first life. “What does it mean?” she choked out, running her fingers underneath her brow.

“It means that you are done.” He rubbed her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “You have finally finished the transformation. You are a full vampire now, ma chérie.”