The small Johan Mayerling looks maybe around nine years old and very, very sleepy. It is difficult for a vampire to stay awake during the day, and he hadn't mastered it yet. Sleep still pulls at him at noon, and Mayerling usually rests at least for two hours in the middle of the day. It's easier that way. The younger version of him opens a door, setting off an alarm, and rushes toward the garden. Yet all he can see is fire, the fire that bursts around him when he should step outside unprotected. His parents come upstairs, and while they both step forward, his father blocks his mother and steps outside himself to burn to collect their son.
Mayerling lays in a soft child-sized coffin afterward. His face and body burned and slow to recover. Despite all that, Mayerling cannot help but smile at seeing the memory play out before his eyes. It is bittersweet joy to see his parents alive.
"My parents and our servants kept a close eye on me for some time, such that many attempts were aborted before they even began," Mayerling answers fondly. "It was nearly two years before I slipped outside on an overcast day when everyone was more relaxed to try to see the flowers. A servant brought me indoors, though they quickly passed me off to my parents. A vampire, injured like that, is far more likely to try to feed on a human. The instinct grows more powerful, and human blood quickens healing far faster than synthetic blood."
Mayerling glances down, a little embarrassed. "Afterward, when I was permitted human visitors, the servant asked if I would drink his blood. I was appalled and found the idea abhorrent, same as I was taught, and he explained that seeing me in so much pain, knowing that even among Greater Nobility there is a chance for madness that never heals, he would rather I drink his blood should I step out again than to risk such harm to myself. He meant it for my own sake, not only what a mad vampire can do to humans. It stunned me so thoroughly that it was some time before I ever stepped into the sun again."
It is one matter to risk his own life and his own well being but quite another to harm those around him. He learned about more than vampires' relationship with the sun that day.
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Mayerling lays in a soft child-sized coffin afterward. His face and body burned and slow to recover. Despite all that, Mayerling cannot help but smile at seeing the memory play out before his eyes. It is bittersweet joy to see his parents alive.
"My parents and our servants kept a close eye on me for some time, such that many attempts were aborted before they even began," Mayerling answers fondly. "It was nearly two years before I slipped outside on an overcast day when everyone was more relaxed to try to see the flowers. A servant brought me indoors, though they quickly passed me off to my parents. A vampire, injured like that, is far more likely to try to feed on a human. The instinct grows more powerful, and human blood quickens healing far faster than synthetic blood."
Mayerling glances down, a little embarrassed. "Afterward, when I was permitted human visitors, the servant asked if I would drink his blood. I was appalled and found the idea abhorrent, same as I was taught, and he explained that seeing me in so much pain, knowing that even among Greater Nobility there is a chance for madness that never heals, he would rather I drink his blood should I step out again than to risk such harm to myself. He meant it for my own sake, not only what a mad vampire can do to humans. It stunned me so thoroughly that it was some time before I ever stepped into the sun again."
It is one matter to risk his own life and his own well being but quite another to harm those around him. He learned about more than vampires' relationship with the sun that day.