Long before the dust of civilization had marred the pristine regions of this globe, a small cult of priests and priestesses worshiped their Divine Goddess in virtual peace and harmony. Only the harsh storms of the lands worked against the favor of these spiritually touched individuals. They brought forth knowledge and caring and they fostered the growth of the forest and its inhabitants.

These times lasted only until the swift and uncaring tide of Christianity swept through the lands. Suffering and bloodshed was the legacy of those self-righteous bastards. They brought war upon the pure earth. I was there. I mourned the loss of the mighty spirit groves, the meeting places that were burnt. They called us heathens and sought to destroy all we had accomplished.

There was a time when Druids from all across the continent came together and met at special times, when the planets and the stars were aligned and our powers were greatest. For the first time in our history the meeting did not occur. It was then that I knew something was terribly wrong.

I was appointed to travel the lands and make contact with all of the known sects. It was thought that because I was a woman no one would think that I was a threat. Unfortunately the council didn't know think that our enemies had other uses for women, some of which could be considered worse than death.

To speak of this troubles me not. I was human. I am no longer and such frivolity of humanity I have punished thousands of times. I escaped the fate that awaited my brother druids not because of my sex, but because of someone that found me in my travels. As I reached the Northern border of Franconia, I chose to take a room at a small woodland inn.

Later that night, as I sat in the common bar area, a striking man with an entourage of several feral men and women entered the room from the brisk outdoors. Around him was an aura of power. Many times had I participated in powerful ceremonies where I would feel the murmuring of the ground beneath my feet, but I had never sensed such intellectual brilliance and raw mental power as this before I had seen him, the sweet vision of Immortality that I would come to know as My Sire.

The events that follow are clear to me now, but as they occurred I felt like I was in a dream. As he walked across the tavern towards a table in the rear I couldn't help but watch his every step; every tiny tilt of his head or facial expression seemed huge and magnificent even in the dull visual capacity that I had as a human. The wisdom that I dreamed lay within his mind dismissed my limited knowledge so quickly that I half-thought that it must be a god or a saint before me.

He strode with the subtle security of one who fears nothing, but does so honestly knowing that nothing bore threat to him. It was not a pride-based capriciousness or a sense of bravado. I watched from across the room as he slowly turned and sat at a table.

Our eyes met then, his dark orbs piercing through the fragile mental barrier that I had before thought impenetrable. He thrust his psyche deep within my mind, probing for something there. Finding it, he slowly relinquished his control until his consciousness seemed to linger near mine.

I saw his eyes again, those deep sockets with brilliant gems of intellect smoldering within them. I collected my thoughts, then rose and walked carefully towards him. The people with him were of a different sort, they seemed hostile and animalistic. They frightened me, but my need to understand what this man had plucked from my mind like ripened fruit pressed me forward.

I sat down across from him, the other figures making room at first then closing in on me after I sat...I could hear the whispers of their inner desires from their tightly wound minds. My first thought was that they were high on drugs of some kind...I had used drugs to stimulate my mind for certain ceremonies in the past, but none of the signs were there...I smelled nothing abnormal and none seemed overly dazed. Later I would know their secrets...

Words began to cascade from his mind then, piling up against my understanding and confusing me. At first I could only concentrate, attempting to hear everything, but as my astonishment with him became controllable I began to speak. I told him of my life and of the fate of my kind. He banished most of the things I shared as though he already knew about them...this I didn't doubt. But on one subject my knowledge seemed to please him. He began to question me extensively about my views of death and afterlife.

Being a seeress and a druid, I had dealt with death in many ways, from comforting others when they'd lost someone, to speaking with long dead spirits during high blood ceremonies. With these experiences he seemed most intrigued. As he listened quietly I felt his presence change in form. When he had first used his power to delve into my secrets I had felt powerless and weak. Now I felt accepted and perhaps even loved, though I didn't understand why.

All I really knew that was he never turned away from me while I still had something to say about the hereafter. As the night drew on, the others at the table grew bored in turn and left... soon it was just him and I. I wondered about his opinions of me but he did not share them. The only real show of understanding or agreement that he offered was an occasional smile or grin, and sometimes a comforting nod of appreciation. But I talked on, until the night was almost over...

By now I feared that I would not see this fine sir much longer. I knew that when two people meet at an inn, chances are that they are bound to part, and in this I found sadness. Never before had I felt acceptance in such a pure form...it was as though I was no longer a women or even a human--just a being, an energy, an essence that needed no consciousness or remorse. But my fear of his departure went on. I noticed discomfort in his visage as the night grew old. I asked him in plaintive sentences if he meant to leave this morrow. He said yes, but in a strange way, suggesting that I wouldn't understand the nature of the departure.

His eyes grew cold, then brightened as though an idea took hold there. He leaned forward and took my head in his hands. In a sudden flash the bulk of this magnificent being's psyche pushed down into my own, but now it was different...he was sharing something instead of taking. His mind told me about his existence, the feeding, the beast...but he also shared the passion, the freedoms, the joys of immortality.

My mind was filled with all of these emotions and I wept at his apparent loneliness. Suddenly I was aware of motion and of a strange sensation not unlike floating...I realized that he had me in his arms, carrying me like the lightest of babes. He was wisking us upstairs towards the private rooms of the inn...quickly we entered a room, the door opening and closing so fast that it blurred in my vision.

Early that morning, held firmly in my sire's grasp, I joined the ranks of our clan in a pitch black room with the smells of a richly lined casket and expensive perfume filling my nostrils.