Trash Panda

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Okay, sounds good to me! I'll just start the next morning normally then when I get to it ^^

That's good! Relaxing right after a trip is the best. I wish I could after mine, but we're visiting my parents in another city right after and then I've got class the very next day xD Busy, busy.

~Bonsoir~

Peter pretended not to hear Victoria’s sad murmur. He knew precious little about what the Wynters were doing with her family, but he did know the other clan well enough to expect that they wouldn’t be pleased with their food source’s absence. However, he couldn’t allow himself to sympathize with the girl. It wasn’t his business if the other vampires chose to devour Alexander’s widow in her absence. Until they started showing signs of hostility to the Hygraces, which he was already certain they would, he refused to get any more involved with the monsters who were responsible for his brother’s death.

Gathering the leftover bandages and the bowl that had contained the ice—it was full of melted water now—he considered returning both to their separate, rightful places and then glanced at Vail. Leaving the room meant he would be leaving his son alone with the wench in his bed again. He studied the younger Hygrace with a frown. As determined as Vail was to guard Victoria like a dog, he could tell the heir’s stamina was wearing down with the rise of the sun. His head lolled against the back of the chair, and he didn’t even make an effort to sit up straight. Peter couldn’t send him to put the supplies away for him in this state or his frenzied cousins would tear him apart. After all, it had been difficult enough for him to keep their relatives out, and he was the revered leader of the clan. His son, who didn’t have the same fear or respect from them, had no chance at getting past the bedroom door.

Victoria’s voice jarred him from his musings, and the Hygrace head turned back to her with an unamused expression. For a human who had narrowly escaped the jaws of death, she was certainly quick to test the patience of a demon who could end her life with just one bite. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he observed her. She seemed determined to convince him that she was worth keeping around, and he was sure there were benefits to striking a deal with her as he once had with her father, but it was impossible to overlook the effect she was having on his son. On every account, this woman had changed the cautious, intelligent, self-controlled heir to the estate into a lovesick fool. That wasn’t something he could simply brush aside. If her presence put Vail’s life at risk, he wouldn’t tolerate it.

He parted his lips to repeat that she would be going home regardless of what the Wynters were doing, but another voice spoke up faster.

“I wasn’t lying when I said she was useful to our family, father,” Vail sat up in his chair, already predicting the negative answer Peter was going to give. He knew the paranoid vampire would only focus on the downsides of working with Lady Crest rather than consider the good things she had to offer. It was just the way he was. “I know you’re upset with us but just think about it. Are you really going to send her back to the Wynters, who want to have her blood weaponized when they attack our family? There’s no telling how long they’ve been scheming against us. We need to start poking holes in their plan, or they may very well run us into the ground this time.”

Peter pursed his lips, thinking it over. For all his faults, of which there seemed to be increasingly many, Vail was good at making him second guess his decisions. “I’ll think about it,” he conceded after a pause. It wasn’t a prelude to a yes or a no. There were too many factors to take into account before he would make up his mind, so for now, he wouldn’t give them an answer either way. “Get some rest, My Lady,” he said to Victoria. “Whatever happens, I still want you ready to leave as soon as you’re physically able.” Turning next to his son, he scowled warningly. “I have other matters to tend to right now, but I will be back later. You would do well to keep your distance from her while I’m gone.”

The Hygrace heir shifted his weight.

“Vail,” Peter prompted.

“Yes, father,” he submitted reluctantly.

“Good,” the clan leader nodded. Satisfied that there would be nothing for him to worry about while he cleaned up the mess his son had made, he exited the room, leaving the couple alone once again.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Sure! I can carry us forward to the next morning in my next post. Was there a specific time we wanted that to happen? I was thinking either right at the start of the day (the rebels had been caught overnight) or while Cas and Iris are out doing their thing in the city, he gets a call from their security team to come back to the mansion

Things have been good! Just busy between classes and prepping for our trip ^^
How’s your holiday?

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Wow, time has gotten away from me. Sorry it's taking me a while to get back to you! I've got a little bought of writer's block for this RP for some reason. It happens sometimes, but I'll get through it ^^ I'll make it a priority to get a post finished for you between tonight and when I leave for my trip on Tuesday evening!

~Bonsoir~

Vail kept a close eye on Peter as he continued to treat Victoria. It was hard to tell if his father was affected by her blood or not, since the older vampire kept up such an unexpressive demeanor, but he wanted to be prepared to intervene if the clan leader suddenly decided to finish off the rest of the liquid pumping through her veins. Not that there was any point. He was stronger than most others of his kind, but Peter Hygrace was on a completely different level. It was the reason why he could control the rest of their family so elegantly and why the Order saw him as such a dangerous enemy to make. If his father really did sink his fangs into the vulnerable girl’s neck, there wasn’t much either of them could do to stop him.

As Peter observed Victoria to make sure she wouldn’t drop the teacup on her lap, Vail relaxed slightly. The clan leader was still as unreadable as always, but he seemed to have enough control over himself not to kill his patient. The heir turned his head away as a weary yawn stretched his jaw. It was almost morning, when he would normally be settling down to sleep for the day. Idly, he wondered where he was going to lay his head while Victoria was recovering in his room. He would have been content sharing the bed with her, since he trusted that she wouldn’t take advantage of his unconscious state, but he was sure his father wouldn’t allow it. Not when he didn’t even want them within two meters of each other.

“Sit still,” Peter instructed Lady Crest while he reached for the ice on the nightstand. “This will sting, but the cold will encourage your blood to clot.” He may not have liked her nor what she had been doing with his son, but he was still a professional physician. Narrating the process was a habit he had developed over decades of doctoring other people and would continue to do for the human in front of him now. As he’d described, he pressed the ice to the trickling punctures in her neck and held it there, ignoring any response she might have had to the hostile bite of the frozen water.

While he did that, Vail slumped in a cushioned armchair to rest while he watched the others from a distance. As tired as he was, he refused to let himself nap until his father was no longer close enough to Victoria to feed on her. Even though he didn’t have the power to prevent it, he wanted to be awake to at least cause a disruption if the elder Hygrace lost control. So, he didn’t settle too comfortably into the seat in case he needed to jump up at the last second.

Fortunately, it seemed he wouldn’t have to. Once Peter managed to coax the Crest heiress’s body to start healing itself, he made quick work of cleaning the blood from her skin and binding her neck in a snug dressing. “That should do it,” he nodded, satisfied with his own work. “As long as you don’t toy with the bandage, it should heal nicely.” Not as nicely as a vampire, who would recover in less than two days, but still nicely enough. He righted his posture and stepped back from the bed. “When you’re well enough to walk on your own, I’ll have you sent right back to be with your family.”

~Bonsoir~

I'm a big fan of action, so that all sounds great to me!

~Bonsoir~

Great! We can go with that then. And I was thinking short-term adaptation rather than long term (kind of like how animals adapt to their environments if they need to), since they're not so biologically dissimilar that they would need that much time, haha. The fact that they can interbreed proves that. They would just have had an isolated group somewhere that bore mutated offspring for whatever reason. As a nod to vampire lore, we could say they came out of Transylvania!

I like both of those ideas! Especially the introduction of new characters. That's always fun cx I think I'm partial to Vail being the one to turn Victoria (forced or willing) because I was thinking about including something about the turned human being tethered to the vampire that turned them. I'm not sure what that would look like yet, but it could add another level of intrigue. Maybe we could combine the above two somehow? Say Peter forces Victoria to leave the Hygrace manor when she's well enough to make it back to her own home, she has her encounter with the French clan, and then something happens that would cause her to be fatally wounded before she has the chance to be turned by anyone else. It could be that the Wynters (or even specifically Spencer) attack her because 'if they can't have her, no one can.' Or something else entirely. What do you think?

~Bonsoir~

“Yes, but that’s my fault as well,” Vail asserted when Victoria protested that she was causing trouble for his family. The scent of her blood was driving his cousins mad, but he was the one who had decided to bring her into his home, regardless of the consequences. Perhaps it was selfish—he knew firsthand how intoxicating the aroma could be—but he didn’t care. If it meant she would be safe, his relatives would just have to put up with her presence in their manor until he could figure out what to do with her from here.

As she went on to speak about his family and the fact that she would only live for a fraction of his lifespan, he said nothing. It was true that his father would never accept her, nor would he approve if Vail wanted to marry her. The Hygraces didn’t view humans in the same oppressive light as the Wynters did, but they didn’t see them as equals either. It would have been disgraceful if word got out that the heir to the estate had developed feelings for his prey.

Additionally, if he managed to survive whatever dangers arose by staying with her, it was also true that they would only be together for a few decades at the most while his relationship with his family would be marred for far longer if not permanently severed. It was quite a risk to take, and just the thought of being estranged from all the people he was closest to made his heartbeat quicken with apprehension. Losing the support of his relatives would be both emotionally straining and potentially damning, since he would no longer have the protection that came with being part of the Hygrace clan. However, losing Victoria would be worse. He cared about his family, but she made him feel more alive than anything or anyone else in his two centuries on this earth. That was something worth fighting for.

“Just rest,” he murmured, pointedly avoiding the subject since he couldn’t refute any of the claims that made her feel so stressed. Now wasn’t the time to argue about it anyway. At the moment, his main concern was ensuring that she would be able to recover from the damage done by Spencer and the cold.

Almost as soon as the words left his lips, Vail looked up at the sound of his doorknob rattling. Peter had returned, looking slightly more disheveled after fending off his frenzied cousins. The clan leader paused by the door and narrowed his eyes at the sight of his son so close to the human in his bed. Now that he knew the nature of their relationship, he didn’t want the two anywhere near each other.

“I told you to leave her treatment to me, Vail,” he reiterated curtly, striding across the room to continue tending to his mortal patient.

The younger Hygrace wavered for a moment before he reluctantly disentangled his fingers from Victoria’s and removed himself from the bed. He disliked how easily his father could get between them, but as long as she was in need of medical attention, he had to comply.

Peter resumed his work right away. Carefully, he slipped one arm behind the Crest heiress’s shoulders to raise her upright on the mattress. With the other, he piled a few pillows behind her back to give her support, so she could sit high enough to drink the tea he’d asked Vail to bring for her without spilling it on herself. Picking the cup up from the table, he held it in front of her with a clinical frown, “This will regulate your internal temperature. Can you hold it by yourself, or do you need me to help you?”

~Bonsoir~

So in regard to humans being changed into vampires, I made a lot of headway on how I think it should go in this RP world.

The Process:
To transform a human, a vampire would have to drain them of enough blood to kill them. However, during the feed they would use a knife or other blade to open a wound on their own body (usually forearm) from which the human would drink as well. It could be thought of like a transfusion. When the human is completely drained, their body has to accept the vampire's blood as a replacement. However, it's not always guaranteed to work because the human's heart might reject the foreign blood, and they would die. In the meantime, the human would be comatose for a day or two while they either slowly recover as a vampire or pass away if the procedure fails. If it's successful, it would take about a week longer for fangs to come in and bloodlust to start accruing. Also, any physical ailments the human had would be healed.

The History:
It was discovered centuries ago that vampires could turn their human victims into one of their own kind through the aforementioned process. It used to be more common, especially when the vampires' population was still exceedingly small and new. Some clans were made up almost entirely of transformed humans. However, over time it became seen as unnecessary (especially when more clans started looking down on humans as inferior), and the process became taboo. Elder vampires stopped teaching it to the next generations, and the younger ones only heard vague tales of it in their history lessons. Now, the only way one could learn how to do it is by finding a written record of the actual process, since it's a lost art to most of the current living vampires.

For Vail, the thought of transforming Victoria into a vampire wouldn't have even crossed his mind because it's treated as an ancient practice, even though all natural-born vampires are still perfectly capable of doing it today. If she brought it up to him, that would spark his curiosity enough to search his family's library for a record of the procedure (they would have one). Then the two of them would have to decide if they thought it was worth risking her life, since there's a known margin of failure.

Let me know what you think and if you have any other questions/suggestions ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Crow's not sure what to do with that either xD
He also doesn't know what to say about the dowry, haha