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When Eric was still young and his existence was tender, Godric would take him to great and bountiful fields of slaughter. Godric had not always been so quiet, and he taught Eric to feed with one hand heavy on the back of his neck.
Before industry filled the land with people, the vampires had stayed at the edges of the forests, gone feral with hunger. They always fed to the bone, spitting pieces of flesh aside as they moved.
Godric did not approve of the practice of taking a human and farming it for the blood in infinitesimally tiny doses. Godric, when he fed, refused to sip. He would devour to the very bones, spent days teaching Eric how to find the tender marrow.
For all of his savagery and valiance in battle, Godric was never feral. He showed mercy to the humans, pitiful though they were, and always snapped their necks before devouring their flesh. He did not torture, and he was tender with the children, comforting them at the end.
He was more deity than creature. Flocks would prostrate themselves to see Godric lift his hand.
In the ages before the Inquisition, Eric would often kneel before Godric simply to feel the weight of his hands. Godric had not bored easily then, and would let him stay for hours, sometimes unmoving, sometimes in worship. Godric had not needed to teach him any of the means of supplication, and Eric lived for a century caring for nothing but blood and his creator's satisfaction.
As years passed, such devotion became a relic of the old times.
Eric grew older and watched young vampires mature into rebellion and disrespect for their creators, and was disgusted. Every time he saw a vampire disregard its maker, he removed their eyeteeth in Godric's honor.
The first time that Godric came to visit Eric in the New World, Eric presented him with the trophies. Godric placed them into a hole and lit a bonfire atop it. They watched until the bones bleached and crumbled, and Godric sat beside Eric as equals would. But they were not equals, as Godric had taught him Latin, and the sweetest spot of a woman's thigh, and how to tear meat from bone without spilling blood.
The next evening and every evening after that, Eric greeted his creator on his knees.
Even that, somehow, was less than what Godric was due.
