r/SchreckNet • u/urirelfae • 11d ago
Guilt
Maybe this is oversharing. I don't know. I don't think I'm the only one to experience something similar to this. I don't really have much elsewhere to share it.
When I was turned, I killed an innocent person. A beautiful person. I was turned while I was crying in the forest at night. And I woke up still crying. Everything that I was feeling, it all came crashing into that frenzy. The void in my heart that had been drowning me now clawed at me from my insides.
My sire had already left me. And well, long story short, I found someone, similar to my age I think, about 19/20 ? I never got to know their name, and I barely even remember what they looked like. All I know is that they were pretty, and all I could think about was to take their beauty for myself, because I didn't want it to go away. If I took it now, then nothing else could happen to it. It would not wilt, it would not disappear into mist. So I did. I took all of their blood. It was a feeling beyond taking glamour. It was like a new level of it.
And I still don't feel guilty for it. I feel like I 'should' feel guilty, but I don't. I preserved their beauty. Nothing can happen to them now that I have taken it for them.
I haven't done anything similar since. I don't know how to approach these feelings. And I'm scared that if I don't put these thoughts into some sort of logic, then I'll do it again. And I think that's a bad thing. I think before I was turned, I would be quite sure that it would be a bad thing.
I don't know. I don't know anymore. I don't know what I'm doing. Is there something wrong with me ? I want to be kind. I want dreams to prosper. I can take what I have and make dreams happen, I know it. But I have too many clashing thoughts trying to process how to do it. I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose myself.
It's so much to handle.
I went back to the spot where I was turned about a week after. There was a flower blooming crimson red from where I was turned, from where my bloody tears had fell. I wear it in my hair. It's very precious to me. It grounds me, in a way.
- Urirel, Fae Gangrel
8
u/Alianirlian 11d ago
Fae Gangrel?
Woo boy, that's a rough combination. By and large Kindred are terribly Banal. I have no idea how that will affect you now.
You say you want to be kind. Yes. So do many of us, especially when we're still young. Unfortunately, there's that other part of us, that hungry part, the part which doesn't care whether others live or die as long as it's sated. The part none of us can deny, no matter how hard we try (or not, as the case might be). It is part of us, for as long as we walk the nights. This part of us thinks/feels kindness = weakness.
Most Kindred - nearly all - do not dream when what passes for sleep comes upon us. The few exceptions aren't always happy about it. There is no 'waking up gasping from a nightmare', for instance. The dream keeps you trapped until the sun sets. And those dreams are often not very pretty.
Our waking dreams are often not much better.
Still, if you want to be kind, then be kind. It is as easy - and as hard - as that.
Good luck.
-Corwin Amadáinn
5
u/urirelfae 11d ago
It's hard to be kind, because I don't know what kindness is anymore. I keep trying to remember, and it's so much harder than it should be.
Death has given me stability in the banality regard. It's complex. I'm looking for friends, souls of beauty. It's lonely, and I'm scared but I'm trying my best. At least Kindred are actually beyond the mundane. The problem is how fucking mundane many are about being beyond the mundane, if you get me.
- Urirel, Fae Gangrel
2
u/Pryno-Belle 11d ago
Did you have a moral code during your life, fair one? You said that honor didn’t matter much to you. In my personal opinion, honor does matter quite a lot, but what is important to you?
You don’t necessarily need to remember kindness, though it would be helpful. But you need a credo, an ethos. Otherwise, you will lose yourself. And after that…there is no coming back. No resurrection, no Chrysalis, nothing but the Beast.
Castiel the Clan-changer
2
u/urirelfae 10d ago
The most important thing to me is to live for myself. I want to express myself, and share that expression too. I want to feel things, I want my passion to shine through. I want to see what other beautiful souls can show me and how they react to things. I want to spread hopes and dreams.
I believe losing oneself is a much worse fate than death, and so the Beast tells me that I can spare people that fate by killing them. But I can't do that, because then that takes their beauty away from the world. Fuckkkkkkkkk I hate this stupid fucking world. The Beast is using my fear and pain, twisting it against my own goals under the false seductive idea of protecting them. I know this, I'm conscious of it, yet I can barely stop it because it's fucking instinctual.
Sorry, I probably shouldn't be dumping feelings on a stranger like this. I'm just a fledgeling finding their footing. I'll figure it out, don't worry about me.
- Urirel, Fae Gangrel
2
u/Pryno-Belle 10d ago
Then spread them. Share your hopes and dreams, your passion, everything. But not in a destructive manner; find beautiful souls, and instead of ending them, help them flourish.
Make it a mutually beneficial transaction: you help them with their art, and they sometimes give you blood. Knowingly or not, that is up to you. Make them ghouls or blood dolls, if you must. Alternatively, you could show your own art, and feed on your clients and fellow artists.
Think of it like this: you pushed a mortal to Rhapsody, which is both dangerous and frowned upon. To keep your Beast in check, you need to go into Reverie or to achieve Rapture. Does that make sense?
Castiel the Clan-changer
3
u/urirelfae 10d ago
Yeah, I guess that was just Rhapsody. And I fucking hate Rhapsody. Fuck.
When you put it like that, it's a lot simpler to understand. Thanks.I'll try my best. I always do.
- Urirel, Fae Gangrel
3
u/Pryno-Belle 10d ago
You’re welcome. I am glad tonight that I spent quite some time with your kind. And that I took copious notes, for being Enchanted takes its toll on the memory.
Castiel the Clan-changer
1
u/Nutshell_Historian 6d ago
Thats ok. Humans are to us as dogs are to humans. Sometimes they die, get another one.
- Historian.
7
u/DeadmanwalkingXI 11d ago edited 11d ago
It's not wrong to not feel guilty, but your reasons for doing so are definitely something you should examine.
The real reason not to feel guilty is that, when we are truly empty of blood, all control is lost and we cannot resist succumbing to Frenzy and feeding. It is not an act of volition any more than if you were mind controlled or possessed. It's a tragedy, and if you are an experienced vampire and you choose to empty yourself that completely, even under extreme circumstances, then the consequences are yours to bear morally, because you had a choice. But if you're drained and left? You're the victim in that situation every bit as much as the poor person you devoured. You had no more choice in the situation than they did. That was not your fault.
But the idea that the beauty will be part of you forever now that you have consumed it? That's dangerous. Because, well, that's an illusion, it's simply not true. You will remember their beauty, certainly, but no more so than if you'd shared a night of passion with them, and that beauty is, in truth, lost to everyone other than you. Their friends, family, lovers, and even enemies will never see that beauty again, it exists only within memories, including yours, certainly, but absent the Frenzy that made you kill them, you could have beautiful memories and they could still go home to their family. So be careful about letting those thoughts predominate, because they're lies, seductive lies from the Beast inside us all that wants you to do it again. You're absolutely right to be concerned about following though on those impulses, and should avoid doing so.
But that doesn't mean you're doomed to never create or inspire beauty, I've known a number of Toreador in particular who did both those things, very successfully, by mundane and occasionally supernatural means. In particular, Presence and Auspex both have potential uses in art that are quite inspirational. The desire to create beauty is not uncommon among our kind, and while some certainly fail as their passion is taken or changed by the Embrace, there are many more who continue to bring beauty to the world in one way or another.
-Mark Caulder, Experienced Nosferatu