Gabriel was confused by the sudden shift in her mood and words. But his paternal instincts kicked in too quickly to dwell on it.
He wiped his eyes and moved to hold his adopted daughter tightly, unable to warm her as he had not heat in him to begin with. None the less he stroked her hair, which was a rather new experience for him as he had to do so between her newly formed fluffy ears.
“I could never hate you, Mila” he whispered, doing his best to contain his tears, “I thought you wanted to leave. I don’t want to kick you out, I just want you to be happy and live your life how you want to, whether than means moving out or staying with me. I’ll always be here when you need me. I could never forgive myself if I abandoned you. I swear that as long as you want me to, I’ll be here for you.”
“And of course you’re not a mutt, Mon Petit Ange,” he held her tighter as he spoke these words with the kind of unconditional and overwhelming love of a parent. It didn’t hurt that they had a lot more in common now, making it easier to feel a connection between them, “Claudius and I have a… complicated history. Basically I try not to hurt anyone when I feed and he enjoys roaming the streets and goring whoever happens to be in the vicinity. So to summarize, we hate eachother’s guts.”
She pushed away as from him as she finally seemed to grasp what the other part of his explanation meant. He was caught off guard when she pried open his mouth, but if it would help her understand and accept what he was, as far as he was concerned, that was probably the least uncomfortable of a long list of options.
“To be fair, there was coffee in it. And yes, you’ve pretty much got the idea. The act of one vampire embracing another is called Siring,” he said, rubbing his jaw after her dental examination, “At least that’s what I call it. I’m a bit old fashion like that. When I was Sired, there was an entire civilization that coexisted with humanity. We fed, but didn’t kill as it would draw too much attention to ourselves. We simply had enough to keep us well fed and made sure the victim wound up somewhere safe afterwards. But that civilized society of Kindred, which was what we called ourselves, is ancient history. The Hunters and the Forsaken, which was what we called the werewolves of the time, saw to that. I’m one of the only relics still around from then.”
He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder when she brought up her condition.
“If you’re worried about that,” he consoled in a quiet voice, a little bit of smile creeping onto his lips, “I didn’t give you your own blood. Most of the time I… Obtain blood packs from various clinics and hospitals. They’re almost all donations and I only have one pack of your’s left. I’ve only ever drunk your’s when they didn’t have enough extra for me to take without them noticing or when I wanted to better understand your illness. And every time I drank it I felt so ashamed and guilty I could barely stand it.”
His explanation finished he watch her eye the mug on her night stand with disgust, then empty the entire thing. And then she started crying.
“Hey now, kiddo,” he spoke again as her father in more ways than one now as he held her tightly once more and wiped the corners of her mouth with his thumb, “it’s alright. Everything’s going to be alright. You’re still the same old Mila, you’ve just gotten a little more complicated. But that’s a good thing. I’ve never once her of someone becoming both Kindred and Forsaken, so it’ll be a new experience for both of us.”
He gently pushed himself away from her to look her in the eyes as he spoke and wipe away her tears, no longer caring that doing so meant she’d definitely notice his own that he’d tried to hide.
“So you’re not alone,” we told her, smiling through the tears, “we’ll figure out what you need to stay happy and healthy and I’ll be there every step of the way to make sure you can adapt. I’ve been around long enough to know that nothing, not even people, stay the same together. We all learn to keep living, well in a manner of speaking in my case, no matter what the world throws our way. It’s why I’m still around and it’s why you’re going to be okay. We just need to figure things out one step at a time."