Varric rubbed his forehead as Dean Valentina and Diorjo droned on and on, he had taken the dagger to them, but instead of addressing that they were focusing on the fact, he took Yvette off-campus.
“Do you have any idea what would’ve happened if she had gone feral or if one of the Red had found you two?! Even worse if those damn hunters had been around!”, Rosa’s forehead had a plainly visible vein popping out.
With a deep breath Varric spoke, “I have lived far longer than either of you and raising a child of my bloodline is far different than any other. How I choose to educate her is up to me, but that’s not what is important right now!”
Diorjo shook his head and picked up the knife, “This is? What makes this knife so important? Looks like an old ritual knife I saw online a few weeks ago.”
“Old? Most definitely. Ritual knife? In a sense; this knife is a challenge! You two are surprisingly unaware, every bloodline has one of these knives and it is sent to another to challenge them to a fight... though the practice died out quite some time ago so, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised you’re both unaware.”, Crowley leaned back as he finished speaking and ran a hand through his hair.
Rosa took the knife from Diorjo and inspected it closely, “So who is the challenger?”
Sighing in relief Varric answered, “That’s what makes it so important, it belongs to the Marion bloodline, that bloodline died out some four hundred years ago... at the hands of my sire and I.”
“Well obviously you missed one.”, Diorjo dropped into the chair next to Crowley as he scratched under his red eye.
Before Varric could say anything Rosa did herself, “That’s where you’re wrong Diorjo, you’ve never met his sire, I know for a fact that when he wipes out a bloodline he gets them all.”
Looking between the two Diorjo asked warily, “When was the last time he wiped one out?”
With a smirk, Varric replied, “Anshar bloodline, seventy years ago... when you were still a Red.”
Diorjo’s jaw hit the floor as he thought back, his time as a Red was foggy but he clearly remembered when news that one of their main bloodlines died off... it was a horrific day especially for the low ranking.
The door to Rosa’s office squeaked open and Yvette’s head poked in, “I know you told me to wait outside, but I was listening in and I thought of something. If to join a bloodline you have to drink a member of that bloodline's blood, then couldn’t someone have drunk a vial of it or something after the fact?”
Regaining some composure Aleister shook his head, “In theory that could be true, but in practice that’s nearly impossible especially for the time period. Upon death, our bodies turn to dust in about half an hour, with our blood evaporating in the first two minutes or so.”
“Then what if one of them knew they were going to be purged? Couldn’t they have set aside some of their blood to have the bloodline restored at a later date?”, the three elder vampires slowly nodded as that was one of the more likely answers.
“To my knowledge, it has never been tested before, it could be that blood removed from the owner can survive the owner’s death, but it’s something we’ll have to look into.”, Rosa stood up and walked over to her desk as she continued, “Varric contact your sire he very well may know something and if you have spare time look into this further. However, don’t let it affect your duties to the school.”
Varric nodded in response, took the dagger from where it lay on the coffee table, and walked out of the dean’s office with Yvette in tow.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
They walked in silence through the school’s halls, Yvette trailing behind her sire as he mumbled to himself.
After about half an hour of wandering Yvette finally decided to speak up, “Varric aren’t you going to contact your sire as Dean Rosa asked?”
Casting a glance back at her he shook his head, “It’s not that simple, I have no way to contact my sire, but he always shows up when I need to talk to him... it’s just a waiting game really.”
“When will he show up then?”, she was unsure if she herself wanted to meet his sire if what she heard through the door was an indicator of their personality.
Shrugging her sire responded, “It could be as soon as a few hours to as long as sometime in the next thirty years.”
Yvette furrowed her brow, “That doesn’t sound like showing up when you need to talk to him.”
“Well, maybe by your standards, for me, that feels like maybe a week away.”, he scratched his head before continuing, “When you’ve lived a long time your perception of time is odd, to say the least.”
_______
Sitting towards the back of the classroom Yvette was struggling to stay awake, she didn’t think that a vampire school would be quite so boring.
Her class was really just vampire history and regular history from the vampire’s perspective, some were interesting, like the fact that Hitler discovered vampires and other such entities existed which spurred his obsession with the occult.
Just as she began to finally slip off into sleep she felt something hit her, looking at her desk she saw a folded up piece of paper folded into a star with the writing, stay awake cutie ;), written on it.
Glancing around Yvette couldn’t see who may have thrown it, but she felt a shiver go down her spine as a familiar hand grabbed her shoulder.
Nothing was said but the rest of the class had looked back towards her and froze, “Yvette, am I boring you?”
She awkwardly smiled at Varric, “N-No, I’m just tired, sorry sir.”
With a smirk, Varric flicked her on the nose and grabbed the star, “As for you Dane you should know better than to throw things in class.”
Dane, a guy who looked around Yvette’s age scoffed with dark brown hair scoffed, “Mr. Crowley I didn’t throw that!”
Varric side-eyed him, “We both know you did, besides, it’s your handwriting on here.”
Setting, the star on Dane’s desk Varric continued with his lesson until a bell announcing the start of lunch came.
The moment the bell rang Varric melted in a black mist that shot out of the room at an unreasonable speed, leaving Yvette alone in class.
“Yvette, we didn’t get to talk much since last time.”, as if sensing her incoming worry Elizabeth appeared, “Why don’t we go get lunch together?”
Nodding Yvette got up and followed Lisa through the school to the large dining room, together they walked over to a table on the empty side and began picking through the food.
Most of the food was perfectly normal, but there were a few of the strange fruits the Dean had offered her when she first arrived.
Taking one Yvette held it up, “What’s this thing? Looks and feels like glass.”
“Blood fruit, it has a fancy name, but no one uses it... if I recall correctly they were made with help from mages to give vampires a source of blood that didn’t rely on humans or animals.”, as she spoke Lisa began eating the small mountain of food she had collected.
Following suit Yvette set the fruit down, “So is it always so... noisy here? Those hunters, the knife, and those Red guys or whatever that everyone thinks turned me and the other newbies.”
Cocking her head Lisa raised an eyebrow, “Knife?”
“Yeah, some bloodline that’s supposed to be dead sent a knife to declare war on Varric or something, but back to what I asked is it always this noisy?”, Having not gotten much food she pushed her empty plate away from herself as others had been doing once she finished speaking.
Leaning back in her chair Elizabeth looked up at the roof, “No, from the time I’ve been here and what I’ve heard from students that’ve been around longer, this is probably the most action this place has seen in a long time.”
Yvette leaned back as well scratching her head, “So then what’s different now? Why is all this happening?”
“Hell if I know, I’ve only been here a few years... though, maybe we should go find out.”, a smirk was on Lisa’s face accompanied by a glint in her eyes.
Staying quiet Yvette thought about it, it was a stupid idea, right? It was obviously dangerous... but she’d never been very good at leaving questions unanswered, “I like that idea, the only question now is how do we start?”
The two started to stand up when the guy from class, Dane, walked over, “I may or may not have been listening in... and I have an idea where we could start looking.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow, “We?”
With a shrug Dane started walking away, “I’m the one with the lead.”