Tara Mae Thornton

 

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PPOV

 

Bill Compton had a fucking sister. A moronic one at that, took the inept vampire a good sixty years to finally get her revenge. I didn’t even bother to get the bitch’s name, she had no business being in my vault. She took a leaf out of Eric’s playbook; kill someone the target loves rather than the target itself. Makes me want to kill fucking Russell Edgington all over again for inspiring that act.

 

I had a reputation ever since offing the faux deity known as Bill and his sister and were too close in age. She knew that she didn’t stand a chance against me. So instead she prayed on the weak, not that Tara ever was. Unfortunately vampire strength develops with age, I knew she had fought valiantly but there was no doubt in my mind the bitch sister had come prepared.

 

I was equally prepared when I tortured her for hours on end, she was no fun. She wanted to die so she didn’t fight. I thought I had seen everything until that moment, but someone out there actually wanted to die for Bill Compton. That was a true first. According to my children my colour me surprised look is the same as all the others. Pity. For them.

 

It was thanks to my vault that I knew it was the exact date that Bill Compton had gotten his final death. I never gave him much thought after that night, only once in a while when I relived my glory moments. Bill never mentioned he had a sister when he checked himself into area five. It was my lack of due diligence that let that go unnoticed. Such intelligence was hard to come by, I didn’t even know Godric was my grandsire till he had died. My maker didn’t share such things with me in the past. Sookie seems to be able to pry more information from Eric than I ever could in that regard.

 

My other demon of a child is suitably distraught. I had let Tara into our turning grave at her continued insistence. It was easier either to give in or command her to shut her continual jabbering gob. I was getting quite bored with compliant fucks so I had indulged her, hoping it would be the end of it. Eric’s parenting was apparently rubbing off on me. I told Tara her presence would add nothing to the turning process but somehow it did. Perhaps it was the demon in Lafayette or the witchy aspect of their familial blood. Regardless they formed a telepathic connection that would drive me to the brink of insanity. They both lacked the signature frozen facial expressions that typify our kind so I knew exactly when they were scheming like two naughty children with a mere glance. Fuck I’ll even miss that.

 

We had risen after three nights as a family. Ever the hostess, the fairy cunt had placed a picnic basket of warmed True Bloods by our grave. When Lafayette’s thirst was quenched we followed the scents of burning flesh only to find the last survivors of Bon Temps mourning by a great fire pit. When I understood why, the urgency to depart was greater than before. Either these Hep-V infected mutants were becoming more intelligent or more reckless. Or worse both. Perhaps the discovery of our grave had inspired them. Nevertheless the situation was too dangerous to remain. The town lay in ruins, every home was destroyed till the magical barrier that protected its inhabitants from vampires entering was lifted.

 

Sookie and her idiot of a brother had ploughed an entire field of bodies in the span of a day. Adilynn had ritually cleansed each and every one. They gave their respect to the death when they hardly had the energy or manpower to do so.

 

Apart from the three part fairies not a soul had survived that night. Sookie wanted to stay despite my objections. Not even Eric could convince her otherwise over the phone. She needed to make sure these people remained truly death. Her telepathy worked as a radar for possible threats and young Adilynn blasted a lost Hep-V piece of shit before he could get near. I liked that sparkly vagina instantly.

 

Only when the flames had died down to ashes were we finally able to leave. We boxed everything of importance into the bunker, which Sookie insisted calling a cubby, and we prepared to leave. We passed by the only non-desecrated place in that former town, the cemetery next door. It held little allure to the roaming infected vampires so the three breathing things said their goodbyes to their permanently buried friends and family in relative peace. We quickly took to the sky after that aboard PamAm. Lafayette turned out to be a lucky bastard in his new found state. Not only had he been spared the attack, he could fly instantly where it had taken me a century to develop such a gift. Asshole.

 

Eric bought up all the land of the desolate town of Bon Temps upon our arrival in Sweden. There’s little he won’t do for access to her twinkle cave. All three of them have never gone back since.

 

Through a few choice contacts my maker had managed to persuade the American government to attack the remaining Hep-V infectees with high powered UV lights attached to drones. It was so simple it amazed me the humans hadn’t thought of it themselves. Not that I ever held them in much regard.

 

They only chose to listen when Eric demonstrated our gift of flight. It would take just one of those fucktard zombies to be able to fly and their containment area was lost. On the side Sookie turned out to be an excellent blackmailer with her telepathic gifts. I finally found a use for her after all. Begrudgingly she has grown in my esteem since that night. The same went for the brother whose conspiracy theories held more truth to them than we ever thought possible. We got him a nice screen shot of Violet burning to her death for his birthday that year. Good times indeed.

 

Humans do it better than us. Dying that is. As a parent you can expect to go first in these times. In my human days a loss of a child was a more common occurrence. Babes and infants mostly. We mourned the loss of innocence, of those that barely spoke a day in their life. It’s different to lose one that has been by your side for many years. You no longer grieve the loss of life but rather the person.

 

I never wanted to turn Tara but once I had her, I never wanted to let her go. I loathed her as a human but I loved her as my child. Not because she was my child but because from that point on I knew what lay beyond the full metal armour of her exterior. We were not so different she and I.

 

Cold and heartless to the outside world but loving and passionate in the privacy of our own. She was too smart for her own good. Too smart for everyone around her and raised by the worst circumstances. She was a fighter and a magnificent one at that. She fought me at every turn, never scared to back down. Tara despised me for turning her but found the liberation that had made me seek it out soon enough. We understood each other in a way not even Eric could.

 

I don’t do relationships well, unless it is by the blood. My maker and I will be forever connected as my children will be to me. Or rather child now. I don’t think I will ever turn another. With Tara it had always been different, perhaps because we both loathed the situation initially. I didn’t want to take care of her but I did. She didn’t need to be nurtured into the finesses of our species, she was smart enough to do that all on her own. Instead she needed fostering from the world that had spit on her and chewed her out. Repeatedly.

 

I don’t know if it was her association with the trouble magnet telepath or that she had enough karma to attract it all by her lonesome but life fought her. Continually. In death she found nourishment because she could stop being fuelled by irrational expectations. She was born for this even if it was for a short while.

 

We never talked much but when we did it mattered. Life had dealt her shitty cards, she had met every aspect. Rape, domestic violence, addiction and discrimination. I had known some of those myself, an independent woman never has an easy start. Unlike Tara I was never unable to ignore the chances that lay in front of me. I may have played with high stakes when I first met Eric but I lived without regrets.

 

Tara was ever weighed down by responsibilities instead, she took care of those that refused to do the same for her. She was never allowed to be a child until she became mine, she had been parenting everyone around her from birth. Abuse is not something that disappears from your system with a transfusion of vampire blood. She continued to carry those demons into this new life. I hope she will be free of them now, that her true death will bring her some peace in that.

 

My favoured child was never scared to end her life, Lafayette still fears it at every turn. I had to command Tara to stop the many attempts in her early days. Death wasn’t so scary when you had walked through the dregs of life and found no hope. Perhaps that’s why she was so careless with her own when it came to protecting those she loved. She was the type to shoot first and ask questions later. It always left me with the clean-up, living with the winds was hardly something she seemed to grasp. Tara was a hurricane all on her own.

 

Despite our turbulent beginnings our life in this windy shithole was quiet. Things were still decorated pink at Eric’s insistence despite my gravitation to darker colours now. We had nothing but time here. We raised our children side by side with Sookie as the mother hen. Adilynn was a baby when we first met and despite her initial fear at seeing Eric once more she was like a true daughter to him now.

 

We traded our summers for South Africa to avoid the short nights. Eric and Sookie stayed behind with their surrogate child as they enjoyed the short period of warmth too much. On top of that the bastard was slowly becoming immune to the sun with his steady fairy feedings.

 

My children felt kinship to the land we owned down below the equator. I mostly enjoyed the clarity of the feed in the unsullied blood bags. I was so pleased with it that I opened a destination resort for vampires. Like all my ventures it was wildly successful, accommodating to drifting vampires who wanted year round eternal nights. We had a similar winter endeavour not far from the windy shithole.

 

Willa had managed to become a deputy to the local sheriff under Eric’s tutelage and she had become a considerable force in the process. More in the political manipulation rather than the strength department. That suited the Swedish vampires better anyway, they are all painfully democratic and considerate. It sickens my sensibilities and I’d be out of here in an instant if it wasn’t for the long winter nights and my maker’s presence.

 

Tara taught Willa everything she knew in Eric’s absence. We did some considerate grovelling to make up for the absentee parenting of those six months. We’d have indulged them a lot more if Sookie hadn’t interfered, insisting our reparations were to be fixed with something other than expensive baubles. So in defiance I bought Tara her own home. She barely ever used it, preferring to stay with me but I knew she appreciated having a space to call her own. The girl never even had a bedroom that wasn’t shared. She didn’t know how to be alone even though she would try her hardest to scare everyone away.

 

I saw through her smoke screen easily enough. The harder you pushed the closer you stayed. Give up on her and she would give up on herself. No one had ever bothered to believe in her. She grew to strength in our time here. I forced her to get a college education. Not because she needed one, I knew she wanted one but would never request it for herself. She would demand respect or acknowledgment but it took her some time to claim anything of true material worth.

 

She was a formidable lawyer, able to argue anything she desired. I suspected people mostly just wanted her to shut up and gave in, much like my parenting style. Tara never became an entitled brat, as soon as she earned her own money she refused a cent from me. That gave her more self-worth than I ever could. She became someone others looked up to especially when we summered down south.

 

Tara wanted to be a mother but not in the vampiric way, instead she nurtured the children that surrounded our African lands. I hated the smells of teacup humans so I made her keep them outside. No one went without, they were fed, clothed and given a chance at life. Something no one had bothered to do for her aside from Sookie’s grandmother. She named the foundation that she ran after her and of course the little telepath had to sniffle at that. That woman sheds more tears than any creature I have ever come across. Apparently there is such a thing as happy tears. Perhaps it’s like my happy and mad face, it’s all the same to me.

 

I’ll stay mad for a while. Mostly at myself. Eric is right, I’m extremely lazy. Bill’s death had consequences and I didn’t rule them out. It should have been me. His blood was not on her hands, solely on mine.

 

She protected what was hers. Me. It wasn’t the first time and had she survived, it wouldn’t have been the last time. Tara didn’t shy away from conflict, it’s where she excelled, whether it be a verbal brawl or a physical one. Strength had remained resilient inside of her, despite the assaults that had tormented her. Perhaps because of it. She survived herself and that was something commendable, most vampires could not hope to achieve that in centuries of continued existence.

 

Tara wasn’t perfect and we were far from perfect for each other. We were no Oprah and Gayle but we enjoyed draining a bitch together. Neither one of us subscribed to the idea of an epic love story. I liked her, she liked me. Though neither of us would ever admit that out loud, but we knew. Like we knew everything else.

 

Our lists were short but we were both on it. Right at the top. I never thought anyone would replace my maker from his preferred spot but she did. For once someone was on her list and didn’t die, perhaps it was because I was already dead or because she preferred to do the dying for the both of us. She knew I could live without her but she wouldn’t be able to live without me.

 

I loved her and she loved me.

 

It is nothing like what exists between my maker and his little fae. They may hold the envy of everyone as the quintessential golden couple but they exist on attraction while Tara and I were fuelled by confrontation. We clashed constantly and there we found each other. Love and hate live closely alongside each other after all. Between Tara and I, it was as if we had to prove that to one another each and every night. Now there will only be love. I cannot hate her anymore. I can only hate that she is gone.

 

Bitch.

 

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This episode was brought to you by my non-alcoholic graphics muse… (apparently she gets active when I’m running around like a busy body while getting ready to leave for vacation… she really is a bitch.)

 

 

A/N: If you didn’t head on over to the It’s Already Gone page for the summaries check it out here to see next week’s banner.

 

As you may have noticed there have been some changes to the site. Some users didn’t see the drop down menu under the previous theme which made navigation of the site difficult. I hope you all like the new look (you better I had to fork over some cold hard cash to get it looking the way it does…) and apologies if you have, or had, issues with accessing the site. The only issue I have with the new theme is that the breaklines in the text are difficult to see so I’m still looking into a solution for that.

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