A/N: Hello, and apologies. Honors Bio is a pain in the butt. So is algebra 2.

AIDragi: Superb idea! I be putting that in laters. But right now, I have my own plot stuff.

Sorry if i seem giddy. tooooooo much sugar. heeheehee...

Screw the disclaimer. I'm too giddy.

Also, I changed the title. Yup yup! Unfortunately, the brilliant person who gave me the idea prefers to remain anonymous. But if you're reading this, super mysterious person, a great shout out to you!

The first thing Vicente did was point a finger in my face and yell, "Hah! I win. You owe me seventy septims!" The second was fly backwards through the thick wooden doors and crash into the wall behind them, narrowly missing Antoinetta Marie as she was about to enter.

I cracked my knuckles and growled, "Hurry up and infect her already!"

Antoinetta glanced around the room, her gaze hesitating a bit on Claire, before landing her gaze on me. "Gosh, Ven, you should seriously stop beating up Vicente. It's getting old."

I sent a glare her way before saying, "Out, now. Private business."

She shrugged and backed out of the room, acutely aware of how much damage I could deal out.

Vicente sat up and groaned. He felt inside his mouth and his eyes widened. "Damn it, Ven, you cracked one of my incisors. That's going to interfere with my feeding tomorrow." He stood up and walked back over to Claire, despite how hard and brutally I had punched him. Damn vampires.

He bent over and delicately punctured a hole in his own wrist with one incisor, then poked another in Claire's wrist and overlapped the two. He waited a moment, for the blood to flow into her body, then removed his hand, licked the hole in her wrist, and stood up again, the hole in his own wrist disappearing rapidly.

He turned to me and said gravely, "Now all we can do is wait."

…..

"Damn it," I groaned. Despite the worry I felt for Claire (damn emotions!) I was completely bored out of my mind. There wasn't much to do holed up in the sanctuary, and Ocheeva, usually my fellow conversationalist, was away on a contract. Some mer named Baenlin or something.

Vicente strolled in with his vampiric grace. "Hey Ven, wanna spar?"

I grinned, baring my teeth. "Oh, sure. You wanna get that pale ass kicked, then you're gonna get it."

As Vicente and I strolled into the training room, Antoinetta Marie looked up from her practice dummy, her eyes widening.

"You two, I hope you aren't doing what I think you're doing," she said. "Last time, It took weeks to repair the room."

I smiled innocently. "Sorry Ann, but I've been wound so tight lately, and Vicente here has so kindly offered me a way to let out all my stress. If you want to watch, then I would suggest using a powerful shield spell."

She shook her head quickly and escaped from the room, dropping her two daggers in her rush. I picked one up and lightly tossed the other to Vicente. He caught it and sank into a combat stance.

I grinned and sprang at him. Vicente leapt forward nearly as quickly, and our blades locked.

I locked gazes with him, then ducked and sent a roundhouse kick towards his head. He blocked with his off hand, giving me the opportunity to propel my body up with my other leg and swing it up to kick him in the head. He yelped as I fell to the floor. He tried to stab me, but I rolled away, whacking him in the ribs as I went for good measure. Jumping up, I ducked under his dagger and wrapped my arms around his waist. With a yell, I picked him up and flung him into one of the practice dummies.

In midair, he spun and bounced off the dummy feet first. This time, he was on the attack. He jumped up high, planted his feet into the ceiling, and propelled himself towards me, arms outstretched. I merely sidestepped and he hit the ground, immediately spinning to face me.

We stood there, not even breathing hard. I grinned. "Want to stop holding back?"

He grinned. "Go ahead."

I grinned and shifted. Vicente let go of his restraint on his vampiric powers, and we rushed each other in a blur of motion.

I had dropped my dagger when I shifted, but Vicente hadn't, and he attacked me with it. I blocked it with my claws, and we stood locked in a nearly motionless battle. Slowly, I began forcing him back, baring my teeth in a grin as his expression turned to surprise. Without warning, he dropped his dagger and ducked. I fell forward, surprised as he sent a powerful kick up into my solar plexus.

I grunted as the air whooshed out of me, and Vicente got a look of victory on his face, quickly replaced by terror as I grabbed his leg. I picked him up, him dangling upside down by the leg, and slammed him into the ground, crushing the stone floor and sending a cloud of dust up.

As the dust cleared, I saw Vicente, his body spread eagled in a crater a good foot and a half deep. I jumped down and lightly scraped his face with a claw. A bead of blood welled up and dripped down his face. He groaned and I grinned.

"Ha! First blood! I win!" I jumped out and danced a victory dance, still in wolf form. It was oddly refreshing. I whirled to point at Vicente. "And now you owe me two hundred septims!"

"What!" Vicente exclaimed. He sprang out of the crater, already mostly healed. "Since when?"

"Don't you remember that naïve bet you made with me the first time we sparred, seven years ago?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't mean for all matches!"

"Uh uh. Word for word, 'I bet you two hundred septims that I can beat you everytime we spar. Idiot. You can't win that bet. How many times did we spar since then?"

"Um, 284?"

"Apparently, you didn't pick up math in your long life. It's 313 matches. And I've won every time, with you giving me two hundred septims. Failure."

"Whatever," Vicente said, opening his coin pouch and picking out two one hundred septim coins and hurled them my way.

Forgetting that I was still in wolf form, I tried to catch them, but only managed to knock them away. They rolled away, and I chased after them, chanting and returning to my regular form.

I was almost to them when I knocked someone over. I turned around, ready to apologize, when two small arms hooked around my waist.

"Uncle Venny!" a high pitched voice squealed. I looked down to see the smiling face of Bailey, a girl who actually had managed to find us on her own. She had been playing in the abandoned house because no one else wanted her.

"Hi Bailey!" I exclaimed, forgetting about the money for the moment. I crouched down and asked, "And did you learn anything today?"

Her face lit up. "Oh yes, yes yes!" She ran off until she was about 12 feet away.

"Get ready Uncle Venny!" At that, I tensed. She twirled around, and on the third twirl, yanked out four throwing knives and threw them at me.

Reacting quickly, I caught all four daggers and relaxed…at which point a fifth dagger hit me hilt side first in the chest.

Thinking fast, I groaned and clutched at my chest in mock agony and fell to the ground. Bailey cried out in surprise and ran to me. I waited until she was only a couple feet away before rising and growling. She giggled and started running. I ran after her, running so that she was always barely in front of me. Soon we were both laughing and we collapsed into some chairs in the corner.

Finally getting my laughter under control, I looked at Bailey, or rather, her mismatched eyes. The poor little bosmer had one brown eye and one red eye. People shied away whenever they saw her red eye peeping out from under her hair. They even attacked her after dark, when the guards weren't as vigilant. The girl had a long scar, from a little above and to the right of her right eye (the red one), and all the way to her chin. Whoever had done it had intended to slash her red eye.

The Cheydinhal Brotherhood had decided to take action when Bailey had finally shared her story, and on the one year anniversary of her scar, we had gone to everyone's house at night and poisoned all of their food with a minor poison called laxatives. We went out after disguised as citizens and had a good laugh as we heard farts, groans, and splashes from each house.

I looked up from my reflection of the past to see Vicente walking past. As he did so, I saw the glint of two one hundred septim coins in his hand.

Outraged, I yelled, "Hey, that's my money! Sic 'em Bailey!"

She giggled. "Yes sir!" and ran towards Vicente, throwing daggers at him. Once she had run out of daggers, she ran straight into his legs, tripped him, and started tickling him. He roared with laughter.

An evil grin spread over my face. Vicente, the big bad bloodsucker, was tickish? That meant…

I walked over to him, put my hands to his sides, and jabbed my thumbs in under his ribs.

He yelled with pain and I started laughing. He was about to lunge at me when Ocheeva yelled, "Something is wrong with this girl!"

Vicente stopped himself and yelled back, "What do you mean something's wrong?"

"Is she supposed to have a heartbeat?"

We stood over Claire as she breathed slowly and evenly, which she shouldn't have been doing in the first place.

"Did something go wrong?" I asked Vicente worriedly.

"Nothing should've gone wrong. I've sired six people since I became a vampire, and I used the same technique every time. It's never failed me or any other vamp I know."

I was about to reply when Claire's eyes opened. Instead of the dark brown they had been before, they were a disturbingly bright purple.

Vicente half screamed and jumped. I half laughed, mostly at Vicente's reaction, but also of surprise.

"People aren't supposed to wake up until their third day!" Vicente exclaimed. Claire looked around blearily and sat up. Maybe people weren't supposed to wake up, but Claire was certainly proving that wrong.

"Wha...?" Claire whispered, her voice dry and rasping.

"Her eyes are purple," Vicente whispered in horror. I had to laugh, he seemed so...horrified, it was just too funny.

"Huh?" Claire asked, confused. "Wait, my eyes are purple? No way! My eyes are brown!"

"Not anymore, little one," Ocheeva said.

"They should be red!" Vicente exclaimed. "What the hell did I do wrong?"

"I don't...OOWWW!" Claire yowled as fangs sprouted and stabbed her lip.

"Well, that proves that's she's mostly vampire," I said. "Could anything have disrupted the disease's progression?"

"Actually, that would work," Vicente mused. He had turned the horrified look on his face into a look of intense curiosity. "The eyes are the last part in the turning process. It's a gradual change. But even so, it hasn't been three days yet. And she shouldn't even be awake, or alive. The turning saps a lot of energy from the victim, so for a girl her size, she shouldn't have the energy to do anything, much less wake up."

I was about to speak when Scheemer squeaked. I looked at him, and immediately froze. My throat, the blood...

I grabbed Vicente by the shirt. "What if she was infected by both diseases?"