The next morning, a certain raven-headed vampire left the ghost town she herself created. In her arms was a little bundle of towels, with a certain little reincarnate inside.
He looked around curiously, the ruined architecture new and strange to him. His mother was silent, and so was he, having already been fed in the morning.
The pair made their way out of the city, soon getting on a road heading off to somewhere far away. There, his mom looked conflicted for a moment, staring at him, the road, back at him, and then the road again.
Finally, she sighed. She pointed at the ground in front of them, and murmured, "Summon - Night Carriage"
He wouldn't have heard it had he not been straining his ears. His eyes went wide, and he eagerly looked at where she was pointing. He wasn't disappointed, as a black carriage made rose up from the ground as though it was intangible. Two black horses that had teeth far too sharp for normal horses stood in front of the carriage, reins connecting them to the vehicle.
His eyes were wide as saucers now, and he silently confirmed to himself that, yes, this might just be a different world from his own.
His mother quickly brought him into the carriage, and he was even more astonished at its insides. Instead of being a cramped, small space, it was more akin to a small room. It was definitely bigger than what he saw from the outside.
It had a large bed, several tables filled neatly stacked sheets of paper, a kitchen sink, a stove, a large wardrobe that was filled with beautiful clothing for women. Overall, it was more akin to a house than a carriage room.
His mom gently put him in a crib that he could've sworn wasn't there before, and after planting a small kiss on his forehead, she went out. He guessed she must've gone to pilot the carriage, which for some reason, made his little baby heart tremble. However, he was proven wrong when, not even a minute later, she returned.
She smiled brightly at him, and despite the blood-red eyes that gave her face a terrifying look, he immediately felt a kinship with the woman who happened to be his new mother.
He hadn't been very close to his original mother. They loved each other, yes, but they fought a lot. When his end came, it was after a particularly brutal dispute, meaning that he'd left his mother with her last memory of him being them fighting.
He regretted it. This time, it'd be different, he promised himself as he put on a dumb baby smile and gurgled at her, as it was impossible to make any meaningful noises with this body.
His mother put on the 'mother smile', even if it was a bit awkward, and she immediately got to work torturing (playing) with him.
To be completely honest with himself, he didn't really mind the way she baby-talked or played around with him. He was a bit humiliated, but what use did humiliation have when he had literally been born a couple of days ago?
Hence, he did what babies did. Which consisted of screaming, shitting and peeing. And also playing with a far too tickle-happy mother.
His body still needed a ton of sleep, hence, he usually would only stay awake for one or two hours at most, which often consisted of getting breastfed, having his diapers changed (which his mother quickly learned to put on 24/7), or simply playing with his mom.
Weeks began to quickly pass. He never left his carriage, although he did see his mom do so a number of times. Once, he felt the room shake a little, along with some faint screaming noises.
And when his mother came back in half an hour later, with a couple of bloodstains on her clothes, he could guess what happened.
This event sobered him up by quite a bit. He was already a cynical person by nature, and also quite the pessimist. Hence, his mind did quite a wonderful job of showing him all the horrors this world may have.
... Or at least it did during the few hours it was conscious. Babies don't really do much...
When he was around 3 months old, if his internal clock was to be believed, something relevant finally happened. He was, at long last, given his own name.
It happened on a rather random day as he was crawling around in his little playpen that his mother had set up, with little blocks, stuffed toys, and dolls. It has to be said that most of those dolls were creatures stereotypically associated with evil, like bats, scary-looking wolves, and even some others he couldn't recognize but looked scary anyway.
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His mom burst into the room, a proud smile on her face. She directly walked over to him, picked him up by his armpits, and holstered him into the air. Then, with an even prouder smile, she exclaimed something. It was a bit of a shame he couldn't understand 99% of what she said, but he wasn't dumb. When he heard the word "Rose" be repeated again and again, he quickly understood that the word was probably his name.
... And it sounded suspiciously feminine.
He wasn't stupid, but even he was stunned. After his mom finished with the usual daily diaper-change and feeding, he awkwardly stuck his little hand into his diapers.
Sure enough, there was no penis.
Little quiet potato suddenly became a very, very loud potato. His/her mom rushed into the room a couple of moments later, eyes wide. She tried to console him or distract him, but she had no idea what to do. She'd done everything right, right!?
She quickly went over her daily tasks. Feeding, check. Diapers, check. Playtime? Check. She was at a complete loss.
A light bulb went off in her head. Perhaps her little potato needed blood feeding? But her mom had said it was only once a year...
She awkwardly tried to stick her baby to her neck, but she didn't bite. Nope, wasn't that. Awkwardly, she cradled the baby to her chest, trying to calm her down.
Calm Rose down, she reminded herself. She'd put off giving her a name for so long because she wanted to mull it over. Now that she'd finally decided on it, she needed to stick to it.
Finally, half an hour later, the loud wails turned into small sniffles, and then into silence as little potato Rose fell asleep. She breathed a sigh of relief and gently deposited the potato back into her crib before silently leaving the room.
Outside of the carriage, the two Nightmares that carried the carriage, upon seeing her leaving it, resumed their endless march. She quickly hopped on top of the carriage, scouting out the lands around them.
They'd traveled thousands of miles away from that now ghost town, traveling through 4 different kingdoms. Naturally, she was forced to travel away from the main roads in order to avoid attention.
If it was just her back before she got a little surprise, she would have never feared attention. She still didn't, but she didn't want to risk endangering her child with her recklessness.
Besides, the Nightmares were extremely adaptable. Currently, they were traveling across an incredibly large and flat grassland, filled to the brim with all kinds of creatures. 500 years ago, she remembered traveling through this place, and she distinctly remembered this being one of the main kingdoms for the beastmen.
It seemed as though their namesake hadn't spared them. She'd seen a couple of ruins here and there, but the claws of time had already erased most of their traces. It was a bit nostalgic, to be honest, and it made her wonder just how many things her dear mother had seen rise and fall.
In vampire terms, she was barely out of her teenage years. For her to already be out and about the world, with a child no less, was extremely shocking in cultural terms.
Still, she liked this life. Her mother had given to her a lot of things, a love of travel being one of them.
Of course, there were risks to exploring the world like this. Risks like the pack of elephant-crocodiles currently charging in the direction of her carriage.
They were beautiful beasts, she inwardly commented to herself. A shame they chose to commit suicide like this, she also thought as she sent a powerful 7th tier spell their way: Abyssal Flames.
The beasts screeched as the seemingly alive and dark flames rushed towards them like giant snakes, enveloping the giant monsters and, within moments, returning them to nothingness.
She quickly checked her mana, her lips going up slightly when she noted that the mana spent for this spell had decreased by quite a bit compared to the last time she cast it.
Coincidentally, another thing her dear mother had given her was a love for magic, which was quite convenient, since basically every single vampire in existence could easily be considered genius-grade for most 'dark' types of magic. Sort of like how almost every tree-hugging elf had ungodly amounts of talent for druidic and nature magic.
Comparatively, humans had no single talent, much more suited to being jack-of-all-trades. There was the exception here and there, but again, they were the exceptions and not the norm.
She idly filed her nails and fangs as she sat on the carriage, watching the sun slowly reach the middle of the sky, and then fall to the side. She'd seen this scene so many times, and yet, it was still beautiful each one.
A small electrical shock alerted her to her motherly duties. Jumping off the top of the carriage, she mentally ordered the Nightmares to stop moving. Then, she entered the carriage.
Her little potato Rose was crawling around in her crib, attempting to escape again as she tried to climb up, only to fall down, only to once more try to climb the bars of the crib.
She marched over to the potato, picked her up, and after talking some nonsense to her in order to get her used to what would become her first language, Vampiric, she took off her shirt and bra, preparing to feed the little potato.
As for said potato, he/she was a bit apologetic to his/her mother. He/s-... SHE'd been a bit clingy after the sad realization that his penis was gone. Looking back at it, though, she'd made a bit of an exaggerated scene.
There were worse things that could have happened. She'd gladly do much worse than switch genders if it meant being able to get a second chance, which she got.
... Breastfeeding was still awkward as hell, regardless of gender, she decided as she was shoved to her mother's breast. Mentally sighing, she allowed her body's instincts to take over.