Blind to the World {Backstory; 1886; 2007}

[jessy]

(There isn't a space for where Jess grew up, so I put it in Romania since this is where she meets her coven. I hope that's okay.)

There was pain.

It was pain worst than she had ever felt before. It was far worse than the time she had fallen off her horse and broken her arm, or the time George had accidently sliced her shoulder with his father's hunting knife. It felt as if there was a fire burning inside of her. Only this fire burnt nor scarred a thing. It only hurt.

She could not close her eyes and force the pain away; it was still there. She could not succumb to darkness or death; he had told here there would be none for her. All she could do was lie there and writhe in absolute agony, praying and praying that it would be over soon. It had to be over. This was too much.

She tried to remember how she had gotten here, only to end up with the same scene playing over and over in her mind. He was there. He wanted her to open the window and allow him inside. It was a trap. He had taken her, kidnapped her... Why? What did she have to offer a man who could have it all?

His voice whispered gently into her ear, beautiful words of a coming time when this agony would be over. It would only take a few more days, he said. Just a few more. It had already been twenty-four hours (that was it?), and the worst part was nearly over. His icy grip wrapped around her limp hand, fingers stroking the clamy flesh. She shuddered, and tilted her head away.

Two days...

And then what?

[Alice]

"Just a couple more days, my sweet," he cooed into Jessamine's ear. How long had Rodrick spent trying to woo this girl? How much time he had taken to build a bond between them. At any moment, he could have simply taken her, and that would have been that. But he didn't want her that way. He wanted her to trust him. To come to him. But she seemed to take his suggestions of running away together as jokes. Things lovers whispered to one another in conversations of love. Her refusal to take is request seriously had been what set him off. Tonight he had snapped.

After months of waiting... Months of planning... months of courting and trust-building and wooing, Rodrick had thrown it all away in the heat of the moment, unable to wait any longer. An onlooker would have thought he was a man in love. So enamored by his loved one that he couldn't stay away any longer. But that wasn't exactly the truth. Yes, there was something about her he loved... But not what most would think. What Rodrick loved about her was the power she exuded. That was his gift. The ability to sense the strength of a human soul. And in his experience, those with the strongest souls made the strongest vampires.

And this girl was strong. That was what had initially drawn Rodrick to Jessamine's house. Why he had wasted all that time simply trying to get close to her. However, in a vampires lifetime, those months would seem like seconds in no time. As soon as she made it through the transformation. Then they could live forever. Together. As gently as he could, Rodrick slipped his icy hand around hers, hoping it might comfort her. The pain of transformation had been so long ago for him that he could barely remember it. "Just a couple more days," he repeated in the same soft whisper, "until we can be together. Forever."

[jessy]

She heard him again. His deceptively sweet voice cooed and whispered to her promises of forever and a day. The pain would be gone soon, and then they would be together. but she didn't want to be with him, not anymore. Not after all this. She tried to open her mouth to tell him so, only to find she could not. The pain had taken away her ability to move, even to sometimes think. Whatever this man - this monster - was putting her through was enough to steal the very breath from her lungs. She swore she had stopped breathing little over an hour ago.

Was she dying?

Dying.

That word echoed in Jessamine's very soul for the next fourty-some-odd hours straight. She was dying; she had to be dying. Nothing else could explain this pain. Nothing else could explain why she had stopped breathing. She was dying. That was all that could be happening. She had been shot by this man, and was now going through hell and back simply because her body did not seem to want to surrender. She cursed it. She begged it to, but it did not. She would have screamed and sobbed in frustration if she had been able to. What could was death if one could not escape the pain?

She had all about given up when the pain began to finally subside. At first, Jessamine could not believe it. She reached out towards the pain, thinking it was some sort of trick. But when the fire did not return, only continued to die, she felt elation bubble towards the surface. She was dead now; she had to be. The pain was gone, and darkness was all around her. This had to be death. It may not have been the Heaven that her parents had preached of, but it was better than the hell she had been in. Anything was better than that.

Something shifted, towards her right, and Jessamine felt her entire body tense. Her eyes flew open, and she tilted her head to gaze at whoever had disturbed her "rest" - only to feel her heart clench in icy horror.

She couldn't see a thing.

[Alice]

Rodrick only left her side once in the next forty-eight hours to go find her a snack. Breakfast in bed he joked to himself. The middle aged man lay unconsious on the floor a couple feet away from them. 30 years old. Perfectly aged. Rodrick had made sure that he wasn't getting up any time soon. All that was left to do once he'd found her first victim was wait. With no need to sleep and enough blood in his stomach to last him a while, all he could do was sit by her side and hold onto her sweaty hand, trying to comfort her as best as he could.

His ears perked up when he heard her heart finally take its last beat, before stopping all together. As her heart stopped, so did the gentle shaking in her body. Her pain seemed to have subsided. It's over, he thought to himself. Shifting forward to get a better look at her, Rodrick hazarded a smile. Finally, it was done. She was immortally, eternally a vampire. His for as long as he wanted to keep her. This thought made his smile shift to a smirk of pride. Rodrick didn't feel protective of her... He felt possessive. After all, he had found her. He had sensed her power. He had given her eternity.

All he asked in return was that she spent her eternity with him.

His movement must have stirred her because her body tensed and her eyes shot open. "Finally," he muttered to himself, placing marblesque hand softly on her cheek. It wasn't until he got a bit closer that he noticed a difference. "Your eyes," he whispered. They weren't normal. A newborns eyes should be a dark crimson red. Hers were a pale yellow... almost as pale as her skin was now. And there was a milky film over them, remenesant of the Volturi. "What's wrong with your eyes?" he asked almost inaudibly, his had drawing back in a sort of recoil.

[jessy]

The hand that touched her flesh was not icy or cold, like it should have been. It was just the right temperature, and as gentle as any human's touch. She immediately leaned into it, using it for a sort of anchor in this confusing time. Even though the voice that accompanied the hand belonged to the very same man that had put her through Hell, it was also the voice that she used to drag herself to the surface of this trembling sea. He was the one who got her into this; surely he would be able to get her out.

She blinked her eyes several more times, as if hoping that would cause whatever was clouding them to disappear. She had woken up several times as a child to darkness; the doctors had said it was a side effect of living too close to a city. All she had needed to do then was blink a few times, maybe for a full minute, and her sight was always restored. However, that did not happen this time. She blinked again. Still nothing. A quiet whimper escaped her throat, similiar to the sound of a kicked puppy.

She heard his voice again, only this time it sounded different. Clearer, louder... As if the last time she had heard it had been during a windstorm. It was still beautiful, but... it just wasn't the same. Still, she clung to that voice with all she had. There was nothing left for her aside from that voice, and the man to whom it belonged to. He spoke of her eyes, and Jessamine felt a shiver shoot down her spine. Apparently it wasn't just her imagination.

Voice trembling, she could only manage out a quiet, "I can't see. I can't see a thing." Jessamine placed her hands under her body and managed to push herself up, so she was sitting. She felt...odd now. Different. She no longer felt weak, or even in pain. Instead, she felt as if she could run with the best of them... Perhaps even outrun a pack of wild horses, or tangle with a lone wolf.

If the rest of her felt so well, then what was wrong with her eyes?

[Alice]

She's blind, he realized when he heard her speak. It didn't make any sense. The transformation from human to vampire was suppose to strengthen you. Heal you. Not weaken you. How could this happen? His hand slid out of hers as he took a step back. This couldn't possibly be her fault. Was it his? He'd never turned anyone before. Was his venom... defective? No, that couldn't possibly be it. She had to be the defective one. This was on her. Although deep down he knew he shouldn't, it was just so much easier to blame Jessamine than to take responsibility. His jaw tightened in anger, not that she could see it.

He couldn't understand. His power was foolproof. He had spent years finding perfect victims for other vampires. Not once had they ever disappointed. Until it was his victim. His beloved. The one he had chosen to keep forever. Of course she would be the one to disappoint. He wasn't allowed to be happy. Not in his human life. Not in his eternity. "There's food at the foot of your bed," Rodrick told her coldly. "You should be able to smell him already. Don't worry. Feeding will come natural... even without your sight." And with that, he turned and stormed out of the guest room he was keeping her in, slamming the door behind him and leaving her in the dark... in so many ways.

[jessy]

His sweet voice went hard in an instant, and Jessamine cringed back. She knew she had done something wrong, even if she hadn't directly done it on purpose. Her head tilted away from the source of his voice, even if she couldn't truly look away from him. It was the best she could do. She had to make herself seem smaller, or somehow less of a problem to him. Perhaps... Yes, she should apologize. But, for what? What had she done? He had been the one to do this to her; hadn't he? He had been the one to spirit her away from all she had known, only to throw her into some sort of unknown Hell. Now she was blind...because of him.

Still, she felt as if she needed to apologize. Jessamine opened her mouth to do just that, but then went silent again when the sound of a slamming door cracked through the silence. She cringed back again, covering both ears with her hands, and tensed. She waited a moment, two...but then realized that he was gone. He had left her. He had blinded her, and now he was gone. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn't go home... She didn't even know where she was.

All she knew was there was a nasty burning in her throat, and a very tempting scent just below her feet...

~*Insert Lovely Time Skip Here*~
Two Weeks

He had come back. It had taken him a while, but he had come back. He was currently gone at the moment, but she knew he would return. Or rather, she hoped he would. He had not yet completely abandoned her, even though she knew he was displeased with her current disability. But she would make the best of it. She had to make the best of it. She was a...vampire now, and so her enhanced senses more than made up for the lack of sight.

She moved around the room - "her room" - easily now. She may have been blind, but she knew this little corner of the globe. She had traveled and stumbled about this area for nearly two days, until she knew where every piece of furniture was. And now that she could move about it easily, she was exploring and "looking" over the items in her room. Jessamine ran her fingers over every surface, shivering with delight as images crossed her mind. She believed them to be figments of her own imagination; images that her mind had conjured in an attempt to entertain her while Rodrick was gone. But, as she was about to discover, that wasn't completely true.

She came to a new item, placed her fingers on the cool metal, and shivered. Words drifted in and out of her ears; whispered voices that plotted murder and deception. The South will rise again, my comrades! One voice yelled, and several more cheered. She reached out towards that voice, tightened her grip around it, and let out an audible gasp. The face that formed with that voice was not a make believe character, or a person from her past. Instead, it was the infamous John Booth... And this gun...

The gun grew hot in her grip, and she lifted it into her hands. Her fingers tightened around it, and she pressed it to her breast. The images were blurry at first, though they soon cleared. She could see it all. She was peeking through the curtains, at the crowd... Then stumbling up the stairs, heart pounding in her chest. Her fingers pulled back on the hammer of the gun... A crack split the air. Gasps and screams surrounded her, and Jessamine's head lolled back. She had done it... She had killed...

No. No, she had not killed the President. Booth had. He had gone in there - with this gun - and shot the President once in the head. She had been a child at the time, barely into her toddler years... and yet she had just witnessed the greatest tragedy of her lifetime. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Well, if she could have cried, it would have.

The door opened behind her, and Jessamine blurted out the first thing she could think of.

"How did you get John Wilkes Booth's gun?"

[Alice]

It had taken Rodrick a while to come to terms with the situation. Although, in reality, he hadn't so much come to terms with it as simply decided to deal with it... for the time being at least. Every day or so, he'd bring her a meal. Usually some lowlife wandering around the town in a stupor. It wasn't like he could exactly take her out to hunt. After all, she wouldn't be able to see the prey. To chase it. To play with it and torture it and do all the things that made being a vampire the most fun. If he took her out to hunt, she'd have to resort to seducing her prey, and although he realized the hypocrisy of it, Rodrick was not about to let newborn stoop to such a level.

Maybe if he'd spoken to her even once in the time he'd had her locked in that room, he might have realized what was going on. Might have seen her power developing. But he was too bitter and resigned. He had even retreated into thoughts... evil thoughts of simply putting the poor girl out of her misery. Who would want to live forever in the dark after all? Of course all Vampires were forced to reside in shadows, but for poor Jessamine it was more than that. How could he force her to live like that?

Moreover, how could he be expected to live like that? After all, she was his responsability now... Of course, he could just ditch her. Leave her alone to fend for herself. No no. That would be inhumane. Better to put the girl out of her misery and continue his search for the perfect mate.

He had been thinking this over for days. But for some reason today it was on his mind more than usual. As he carried yet another unconsious human into the house and headed toward her room, it was all he could think about. It would be so easy. She'd never see it coming, no pun intended. However, as he opened the door and tossed her meal onto the floor, his mind was almost immediately changed. "What are you..." he started to ask at her inpromptu question. Then he saw that she had the gun in her hand, pressed to her chest. She was right. It was John Wilkes Booth's gun, given to him as a gift by the last vampire he had worked for. "How did you know that?" he demanded, darting closer to her.

[jessy]

The scent of human blood momentarily distracted Jessamine. She forgot her question; she forgot what she was doing when the delicious smell of lifeblood filled her nostrils. She turned her head towards the source, though her eyes did not go exactly to the body, and a light smile curved her lips. Quietly the young woman calculated how long it had been since she had eaten and saw, with a bit of amusement, that it had been about two days. Just enough to make her hungry, but not enough to cause her to leap onto the body with a careless frenzy. She would eat later, when she wasn't as curious as a kitten.

Rodrick's voice brought her back to the present, and she tilted her head a little higher. She hoped she was looking in the direction he was in. It would be rude to stare anywhere else, after all. She quietly listened to his question, and frowned. What right did he have to ask her a question? She had asked him one first. She wanted to know why he had the gun that had indirectly caused her parents, and the entire south, to suffer as it had after the Civil War. Jessamine was a southern flower, after all, and so she cherished her region. To think that this vampire held something so damaging to that image...

However, it was his second question that caught her off guard. She hesitated for a moment, not exactly sure how to answer that. Voices and images still blurred in her head, distracting her as she struggled to think. How did she know whose gun this was? What had shown her those images? She bit her lip, ignoring how easily the fang ripped her lip. It healed immediately after, though. Jessamine shifted slightly, her skirt swishing around her legs, and ran her thumb over the cool metal of the barrel.

"It..." Again, she hesitated, but then cleared her throat and continued, "The gun, it told me. It showed me what it had done. It had an impact on this world... and it's...almost proud of it."

Yes, the words sounded crazy to Jessamine, but it were the only ones she could use to describe what she had seen. Just like... Just like now. If she tried, she could see the room forming around her. She could hear the workers as they built these walls. Hammers pounded, voices chattered and laughed. Almost instinctively, she kicked off both her shoes, and stood still. A useless breath escaped her lips as more images filled her mind.

"What's happening to me?" Murmured the confused vampire. She turned her head towards Rodrick, and managed to get her eyes right below his.

She saw him in her mind as well.

[Alice]

"The gun told you?" he echoed, his voice full of confusion. "Either you're lying..." he stated, his jaw set sternly despite the fact he knew she couldn't see him. "Or..." he continued. His eyes drifted away from her as his mind started to race. "There's no way you could know that..." he murmured to himself. "Lagos gave me that gun as a gift years ago. Even if you could see there's no way you could know..." It was then that he looked up at her, watching her kick out of her shoes and stand barefoot on the dusty floor. "I'm not sure," he answered. Her eyes were almost exactly in line with his. "Wait here," he demanded, rushing out of the room.

In a case by his bed he kept a dagger, given to him by a vampire named Tristan. It was the first time he'd helped another find a powerful mate. Tristan had told him that it was one of the very daggers that had stabbed Julius Cesar to death. Of course, Rodrick had always doubted this, but the dagger was priceless to him none the less. And it would serve as a perfect test for Jessamine. Quickly he returned, gently taking the gun out of her hand and placing the dagger in it. "What does this tell you?" he asked. If he was right about what was happening then maybe... maybe she wasn't as useless and helpless as he had thought.

[jessy]

"The gun told you?"

Jessamine could tell by the tone of Rodrick's voice that he did not completely believe her. That, or he was just as confused by her words as she was. Either way, she didn't blame him; not really. She didn't even completely believe herself. Whatever she had done - whatever the gun had done - could not have really happened. She was blind. She wasn't supposed to be able to see. Then again, she wasn't supposed to be a vampire, either. So, maybe, just maybe, this was the way her new vampire body was allowing her to see.

She heard Rodrick run out of roon, telling her to stay right where she was, and bit her lip. Had she done something wrong? She coudldn't have. She was regaining her sight, or at least a new form of it. She could "see" the world in her mind now, even if it was filled with the whispers of yesterday. If she could harness this, train this new ability, then maybe she wouldn't be such a burden to him. Maybe she could actually hunt for herself. He couldn't count that as a transgression against her, could he?

She sensed him returning a moment before his hands touched hers. His face formed in her mind, along with the whispers of what the item he pressed into her hands was supposed to be. She took it, gripped it carefully, and closed her useless eyes. Carefully, Jessamine ran her fingers over the smooth blade, then down to the handle. Whispers began to tease the base of her neck, growing steadily louder with every second. But it was when she heard the name Caeser that she realized what this dagger was supposed to be.

"You collect traitorous items, I see..." She murmured, and let her head momentarily loll back.

She could see the images forming now. There were men, around a dozen or so, all gathered about in a circle. They whispered plans of tretchery and betrayal, of death and the end of an era. Julius is getting out of control, my friends. One hissed. She could hear the lie in his voice, though the others seemed to believe him quite readily. Another nodded, agreeing, and it was then Jessamine realized the man who had spoken was the very same man who had used this dagger: Marcus Brutus.

"You too, my child?" She whispered, quoting the famous words Caeser was said to have uttered upon seeing Brutus rush at him. Her fingers tightened around the blade, though not enough to dent the metal nor cut her flesh. Even unconsciously she knew what this dagger had been through, and respected it. Her eyes fluttered open, and she 'looked' at Rodrick. His face was almost complete in her mind, enhanced by her vampire abilities.

"It's lived for years." She murmured, finally getting around to answering his question, "It has been passed from hand to hand for many centuries, though it does not claim any of these hands as its owner. Its true owner was the first one to use it, the only one who allowed it to taste sweet blood. Brutus unsheathed this dagger and stabbed Julius, though he was but one of many. It was this weapon's shining moment, and the only moment that it shows me. I don't... I can't really describe it. But it's like the gun... It is proud of what it has done."

She hesitated, as if she did not want to give the dagger up just yet, but then extended her hands outwards, offering the beautiful weapon out handle-first. There was a light smile on her face.

[Alice]

"You collect traitorous items, I see..." he heard her murmur as soon as her hands touched it. It is a forte of mine, he thought to himself. I guess my clients just know what I like. Then he listened to her recount the daggers history perfectly. A smaller voice in the back of his head noted that Tristan hadn't lied after all. But that was the less important of the two facts she had placed in front of him. Flabbergast, he took the knife from her and sat it on the nearby desk before gently taking her hand and placing it on his cheek. He smiled, letting her feel the movement of his face but not letting her know what was behind it.

"My dear," he cooed, letting his other arm wrap lightly around her. "Your sight was taken, yet still you see more than most others. I am so sorry I doubted you." His voice sounded so sincere that his own mother might have believed it, God rest her soul. In reality he was not sorry. Simply thankful. Thankful that she wasn't quite as much of a disappointment as she had seemed. So she could see the history of objects she touched, could she? That must have been the power that he had sensed, even in her human life. There were endless possibilities, infinite uses for her gift. Even if it did take a bit to rebuild the trust between them, it would be worth it.

"Can you ever forgive my behavior?" he asked softly.

[jessy]

Jessamine released the dagger when she felt him tale it from her grasp. She stood as still as a doll, hands clasped in front of her, as he moved to place it someplace else. Pride swelled in her chest. She had done it. After nearly two weeks of stumbling and tripping over her own two feet, after a fortnight of living alone in the darkness, she had finally broken through and found herself a sorce of light. Even if it wasn't the conventual method of seeing, her new abilities kept her from the demonic night. Vampires stalked the moonlight, and she could now join them... The very thought caused delight to swell in her breast. 

The young woman was pulled from her thoughts when her sire took her hand and placed it against the side of his face. She could feel his lips curve upwards, signalling a smile, and her own did the same. No longer did Jessamine feel like a failure. She now knew that she had done something right, and her sire now saw that. It brought relief to her heart, and Jessamine was able to calmly and assuredly run her fingers over his jaw- and cheekbone. His face solidified in her mind, even as he began to speak and coo in her ear.

His words sounded sincere and sweet, and Jessamyn believed every word. Or rather, her ears did. Every word he spoke, every breath he used to speak them, was one that pounded inside her head. But it was the images that floated in her mind that caused her to doubt, even if it was just a little. She could hear new whispers, whispers that came from Rodrick's own voice. She wagered it was the close proximity of their bodies, and the fact his clothes were touching her bare arms, that allowed the whispers to breach. However, she pushed back the doubting thoughts and tilted her head up, "looking" at him.

"Of course I forgive you," she murmured, her voice as innocent as a child's, "I was useless without this ability. This immortality I have been given is little more than a burden if I cannot see, or hunt, or even walk. I do not wish to be a burden, on you or anyone." Jessamine hoped that the response she received would not confirm her fears.

[Alice]

"Don't worry, my love," he told her, pulling her into his arms. They were close enough now that she could have heard his heart beat if he possessed one. "You could never be a burden to me," he lied. His voice was like suede. So smooth and soft. Like a lullaby pulling her into his web of deception. Two weeks. Two weeks he had waited for this moment. When something would happen to prove that he hadn't been wasting his time. And to think he had almost made the grievous mistake of destroying such a gem. How convenient that this particular gem had come packaged in a young attractive form. That would make an eternity with her even easier to withstand. Of course, she might still have some trouble hunting, but at least now, now it would be worth it.

"Come now," he said, drawing back slowly so as not to startle her. "There is a nice warm meal on the ground. We can't let it go to waste. Go. Feed. I'm going to go pack us a couple bags. There are some friends I would like you to meet." Before relinquishing the last bit of physical contact, he kissed her gently on the hand. "If there is anything I have to look forward to in this eternity," he said, baiting his trap, "it is getting to spend it with you." Moments later, he flew out of the room and up to his. There was a collection of dresses in closet from lovers long since gone. He shoved a couple into a case for her, and then some shirts and pants into one for him and headed back downstairs to her door. As soon as she was ready, they would be off to visit Lagos and Marcella. Ah, my old friends. I have much to tell you.

[jessy]

If he words were like a lullaby, than Jessamine was the child who listened and believe every word. All that she had hoped had been confirmed, or at least she believed so, with that one little sentence. She had been taught, by her mother especially, that the man knew the ways and he would take care of you if you so desired. She had believed, after Rodrick had kidnapped and turned her, that he was only there to hurt and use her. And though the doubts still gnawed at the back of her mind, her mother's gentle tone helped to bury it down deep. He obviously cared somewhat, or he wouldn't have stayed around this long...right?

He pulled away from her, and Jessamine stepped back accordingly. She curtisied when he drew his lips from her hand, and lifted her chin so her eyes could stare blindly at his face. She waited until he was gone to spin on her heel, as graceful as a human dancer. Her skirt fluttered upwards, but then relaxed down by her calves as she stilled. She had made him proud. She had managed to make herself seem useful. He wouldn't leave her now. He was going to keep her around forever, or so he claimed. That was enough to draw a peaceful sigh from her lips.

However, all thoughts of forever and a day left her mind as a quiet noise pierced her darkness. The human, her latest meal, twitched nearby, and Jessamine smiled lightly. She had almost forgotten about her meal... How stupid of her. Well, it was best she ate now, and did so quickly. She needed to look and feel her best if she was to meet Rodrick's friends.

Without anothe thought, she knelt down by the body, gathered the trembling man into her arms, and bit deep into his throat.