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Vlad fic: Lady of Ten Thousand Names
Title: Lady of Ten Thousand Names
Written for: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
gisho
Rating: PG-13
Set in/Spoils: early Vlad, Orca
Author's Notes: "Lady of Ten Thousand Names" is a reference to Isis of Egyptian myth, because Isis's grief is a major part of her story. Casting Vlad, future assassin, as Osiris, Lord of the Dead, works out well that way. Isis was called the Lady of Ten Thousand Names because she became the single goddess of which all other (Egyptian) goddesses were mere aspects. I liked that because this story hinges on a double identity.
Usually, in a Vlad story, I aim to write either seventeen or thirty-four sections. This time, I wrote eleven. The mystical significance of the number eleven is: it's the age at which Vlad met Kiera.
There are several key identifying traits of a vampire--pallor, lack of breath or pulse, chill skin. If you don't want to be identified as a vampire, there are ways to hide them.
Pallor is the most obvious of these, and eliminating it is sufficient to fool most casual observers. There are spells to restore your living complexion; or, if you think you're going to be observed by someone who can recognize spells (though this is usually not a very casual observation), you can always use make-up.
Or, if you happen to be a world-renowned enchantress and infamous shapeshifter, you can use that.
When Sethra created Kiera, most of the physical attributes she chose were designed to disguise the fact that she was undead. She gave Kiera olive-toned skin, which was dark enough to cover bloodlessness fairly well, but still within the range of color one might commonly expect to see in a human. It wasn't within the range one might expect to see within Sethra's own House, but Kiera was to be a Jhereg. Her genes might be those of any House, or even a mixture.
The other really clever idea Sethra had was to make Kiera shorter than herself. Reducing her height meant she had a little extra mass to work with--a bit of padding on her bones. While Sethra distributed this padding all over her body, she did have two specific goals in mind: she gave Kiera a fuller face, instead of Sethra's hollowed out cheeks, and she gave Kiera a much nicer rack.
Sethra had found that where breasts are involved, men become significantly less likely to notice anything else.
If you expect to be observed more than casually--that is, if you expect to be intimate with someone--there are more involved methods for hiding your vampirism.
It is advisable to schedule such intimacy for a summer's day, when the ambient temperature will be close to normal human body temperature. Spending the day walking about outdoors will allow you to absorb the heat of the Furnace. The physical activity will also contribute to increased body temperature, as some kinetic energy will translate to thermal energy.
Vlad's birthday fell a few weeks after Midsummer, which made it ideal. Sethra picked his sixteenth birthday out, years in advance--seventeen would be too ritual, she thought, and sixteen was considered a coming of age in some Eastern cultures. Not in all of them, mind, but it was the same with humans. In some Houses, you were grown at ninety, and in some, you weren't grown until you were a hundred and ten.
Kiera dragged him out of the restaurant in the middle of the breakfast rush (humans love a pastry with their klava in the morning, but making a whole batch for just yourself is wasteful--they'll go stale before you get the chance to eat them). She promised him his staff could run the place without him. She promised she'd have him back in time to oversee supper, which was a lie--but she mentioned it to the head chef and he muttered about promoting one of the busboys to waiter, and said they could handle it.
"Where are we going?" Vlad asked, after they'd pushed through the crush of caffeine-starved customers. Kiera had been holding hands with Vlad to keep from getting separated; he loosened his grip now, but she didn't let him go.
"To market," said Kiera, swinging their hands between them, "to pick out your birthday present."
Vlad gave her a startled look, because Dragaerans, she could practically hear him think, don't give birthday presents. What a ridiculous collection of knickknacks we would accumulate over the centuries, Kiera mused, if we did! But Kiera knew Easterners, knew Vlad at least, well enough to know birthday presents were traditional, even if she had no idea what one ought to be--thus the somewhat non-traditional trip to the market, for Vlad to pick out his own.
It wasn't mere fortune that Vlad's sixteenth birthday fell on Marketday. Sethra had worked that out years in advance, too.
To activate the heart and cause visible pulse, you must feed. There is really no getting around this.
Vampirism is a peculiar form of cannibalism, in that you can only digest the blood and flesh of members of your own species. These materials contain, of course, exactly the proteins your own body needs to sustain itself, as your body is made out of those proteins as well. This would be true of anyone, vampire or not, but most people's bodies can digest proteins from other forms of creatures and convert them into the proteins they need. A vampire's body lacks the mechanism for conversion, and the process of digestion will only become active when the more easily digestible material is ingested. This is a side effect of having been dead: certain processes of the body never return to full functionality.
Likewise, a vampire's body only troubles itself to circulate blood when there are nutrients present to circulate. If you want a pulse, you have to feed.
Vlad wanted to take Kiera back to his own restaurant for supper, feed her something of his creation, but she cajoled him out of it. "Don't you want an evening off?" she asked. "It's your birthday. You shouldn't be working."
"I like cooking," Vlad said stubbornly.
"Yes, but do you like cooking for forty?" asked Kiera. "You know you'll end up in the back peeling potatoes all evening, and barely come out to share a glass of wine with me."
"Hm," said Vlad, which meant he knew she was right, but didn't want to admit it.
"My treat," said Kiera. "Let me take you out."
"Where to?" Vlad asked, finally.
"How about Valabar's?" Kiera suggested. "I hear roasted dzur leg is on their specials menu tonight."
Many people feel that daytime is inappropriate for romantic intimacy, and would prefer to wait until evening. This can pose a problem for a vampire. If the weather has cooled by evening, as it sometimes does, even in the summer, a hot beverage or soup can help you regain lost heat. Your body will be unable to digest these, unable even to take the customary effects of wakefulness from klava or tea, but the warming effect will be noticeable, especially in the mouth.
Vlad had berries and chilled cream for dessert; in deference to the summer weather, most of the offered desserts were in this vein. Kiera passed and had a cup of klava. She drank it black, with just a little honey, and if her mouth felt too hot after, it would probably cool down on the walk back to Vlad's.
By the time they reached the kitchen entrance to Vlad's restaurant, and the stairs up to Vlad's flat just beyond it, her mouth actually felt too cool. She'd inhaled too much of the night air, laughing and teasing. So when Vlad said, "Do you want to come in for klava?" she said, "Yes."
"What am I saying," Vlad said. "You just had klava. You'll be up all night."
"What's wrong with that?" Kiera asked, stepping close to him.
"I--oh," Vlad said, gulping. "Let me get you a cup."
He poured them both cups out of the restaurant kitchen, and Kiera accepted hers with one hand and hefted the tube she held in the other. "Maybe we can go upstairs," she suggested, "and hang this."
This was one of Vlad's birthday presents. All of the other presents Vlad had picked out were responsibly useful things, a pair of boots, a new cutting board, some rare herbs for spells, a couple of candles. Kiera eventually said, "All right, now pick something that isn't for anything, that you just like." Vlad, after protesting that she'd spent too much on him already, conceded and wandered over to a table of art psiprints and reproductions, gravitating towards some copies of Kathana e'Marish'Chala work. In a fit of indiscretion, Kiera pointed out a rendering of Dzur Mountain, looking somewhere between breathing and stone, and asked, "How about that one?"
Vlad gave her a look and said, "All right. Thank you."
There was no place to hang it on his walls without moving a bookcase. They attempted it, but half the books fell out and Vlad laughed and said, "Stop, stop, I'll clean it up tomorrow."
"I'll help you, tomorrow," Kiera said easily.
"Oh?" Vlad asked wryly, raising his eyebrow at her.
"Have you ever made love with a woman?" Kiera asked.
Vlad looked startled to be asked, even though he had seemed to know what they were doing, that they were flirting. He shook his head, which Kiera had expected--Vlad dated Eastern girls occasionally, but Eastern girls relied on witchcraft for contraceptives, a charm passed down from mother to daughter, and girls his age were not very sure of their witchcraft yet, so they guarded their virtue well.
"Would you like to?" Kiera asked him gently.
Vlad's gaze was glued to her, like a frightened norska. It made her want to comfort him, but he'd probably jump at her hand on his shoulder at this point. He swallowed and said, "Yes."
Then Kiera did put her hand on his shoulder--one on his shoulder, one on his neck--and she kissed him.
It was very warm.
Voluntary breathing is, of course, one of a vampire's most elementary and essential tools in avoiding detection. Most do it habitually, simply in order to be able to speak.
It can be difficult to maintain a regular breathing rhythm when you're distracted, but, fortunately, the distractions of passion often interrupt the regular breathing rhythms of living humans, as well. Even if you forget to breathe for a few seconds here or there, it is unlikely your partner will think anything of it.
When Kiera woke up the next morning, Vlad was already in the kitchen, cooking something up. Eggs, it smelled like. An omelette, maybe, because his new chopping block had several little piles of ingredients to add in--crab meat, mushrooms, smoked cheese, sweet peppers.
He was wearing soft, deerskin trousers dyed Jhereg grey, and nothing from the waist up--a little risqué for cooking, but he certainly looked comfortable. "Morning," he said, smiling at her over his shoulder.
Actually, comfortable was not what Kiera thought he looked.
Kiera thought to herself, "I am not a vampire, I am not a vampire, I am not a vampire, I do not need to bite him."
She said, "Is there any klava?"
He pointed with his spatula, and said, "Cups are in the cabinet are up there."
Kiera poured herself a cup, and had a sip, and another, and deemed it enough. She leaned over and kissed him.
She might have nibbled a little, but she didn't break skin.
Vlad dropped his spatula in the skillet and put his hand on her waist, leaning up on the balls of his feet. He kissed her so desperately, so hungrily, that when they broke apart, Kiera said, worried, "You know that--last night--it was a birthday present. You know that, right?"
Vlad didn't look surprised, thank all the gods in the Halls. Kiera didn't think she could have borne it if that had surprised him. He looked a little sad, though, and when he said, "Yes, I knew," he said it so quietly that Kiera felt the explanations tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop herself.
"You should have an Eastern lover, you know?" she said, and now he looked hurt. "It's better that way. It's not--it's bad enough, me being friends with you. I'll still see you grow old and--" Die, was the unspoken word there, and she could see from the way his eyes widened that he got it. "--and if we were lovers, it would be worse, it, that's the kind of thing that breaks people. It would be better if you had an Eastern wife, someone you could have children with and grow old with," she said, as if it would be better for him, as if it were the person who dies that breaks, and not the one left behind.
"Kiera," he said, taking both of her hands, holding them between his. His weren't big enough to cover hers, but it didn't matter. He said, looking up at her solemnly, "I love you."
"I know," said Kiera. "But I can't. Do you see?" And Sethra, she thought bitterly, would never have let it come to this, would never have lost control.
Vlad nodded, and didn't say anything for a moment. At last, he said, "You're shaking." He looked down. "Your hands--"
The extremities, the hands and feet, are the first to lose heat, and the last to regain it if you're using methods such klava-drinking to warm up.
But if an Easterner comments that your hands are cool to the touch, it's easy enough to reply that his feel warm to you, and imply that it is only a difference between your species.
It is unlikely that he has held hands with enough humans to know the difference.