Quartre

Elle's pov

"Good morning Leatisia" I greeted as I got into the fairly sized space I called my clinic. I owned it and worked there. I said I worked there but as the village doctor,I found myself serving people more often outside or in their homes than in the clinic. The villagers were still getting used to the idea of having a particular place where you always have to go to get treated rather than just calling the doctor to their homes.

"Good morning Elle." She said while smiling and set her bag down on her wooden chair. Seemed like she had just gotten in before me.

"Did you just get in?"

"Yes I did Elle. If I had expanded a little more time on the way we could have met" she laughed and said.

I laughed as well.

"Oh you know Tisia, we both know with the speed I move and the speed you move, I would have been here before you if you wasted just a little more time"I teased.

"Not everyone is half vampire, half warlock like you Elle. Some of us poor miserable simple turned vampires don't get the powers you do" she said in fake sadness and then we burst out laughing.

"It's more of a curse than a blessing Tisia"

"So you think. Think positively Elle, if I possessed what you possessed, I would rule the world" she chuckled evilly.

"Now now.." I chided

"......is that what old Mrs Vanderbilt will want you to be thinking? Plus we don't want the council on our heads or doing something horrifying to us now do we?"

"You never let me have any fun" he pouted.

I laughed.

"Sure I do. We've managed to stay hidden for this long. I don't want to get in their vision now."

"You're right Elle" she slumped and smiled a small smile.

"You know I'm always right" I said more smugly.

"Geez fine milady of the arrogant people." She said and even swept up her long skirt and did a curtsey.

We both burst into laughter.

"Don't call me milady Tisia. We both know I'm as far from nobility as possible."

"Oh shush. You never know....after all,your long lost mother could be one. If..."

"Stop Leatisia. You know I hate talking about her." I said automatically starting to feel sad and angry at the mother I never knew. I didn't care if she was nobility or not.

With the somber mood surrounding us, we settled into silence and I went and started checking on the old Baker who was the only patient at the clinic. He had broken his femur in an accident as his tried to fix the thatch over his house.

I cleaned his injury, changed his bandages and gave him something for the pain.

As soon as he nodded asleep,I went back to the office where Leatisia was. I was still a little mad at her but I knew we would be fine in no time.

Let me tell you a story about Leatisia Vanderbilt.

When I was but a young vampire of only seventy five years old, back when the villagers still shunned us from their village and only let me in to buy food and supplies, I met this young thirteen years old human girl Leatisia.

She was one of the only few humans who ever smiled at me or were nice to me. We weren't exactly friends but she always smiled at me and tried to help me when I was in the village.

Her family was an influential human family in the village and when they discovered their second daughter was being nice to the village outcasts, they got angry, made life even more difficult for me banned their daughter from ever smiling at me again.

Harsh, but those were the times.

Her older sister Claire wasn't exactly mean to me and neither was she nice.She just preferred to ignore me like most humans did. At least she didn't pick on me like some others.

Claire was sent off for marriage in another village as she was fourteen. With their oldest daughter gone, they tightened their grip on their youngest daughter Leatisia and the least thing she did was monitored and controlled.

I saw her less often when I was in the village and I was saddened to have lost the only person that had been willing to befriend me, though from afar in the sad solitude that was my life.

Life went on.

On Leatisia's fourteenth birthday, her parents got her engaged without her consent to the village blacksmith's son. He was the most wanted boy in the village at that time and the Vanderbilts were very proud of securing such a fine young man for their last daughter.

The boy she was to marry had grown very arrogant because of how highly the villagers thought of him but that didn't stop them from adoring him and being jealous of Leatisia for being engaged to him. The Vanderbilts without a doubt were very happy and proud of their decision and could be seen with gloating smiles when they passed others in the village square.

Leatisia on the other hand,was another story. She hated the boy she was intended to marry. I couldn't blame her. He was horrible. I didn't know why people kept worshipping him when he was so mean.

She had countless arguments with her parents and refused to marry the boy but her parents were overbearing and quite controlling. There was nothing more to do.

Seeing as their daughter was quite resilient in her will to not marry the boy they had chosen for her, her parents panicked and hastened the date of the marriage. This only made Leatisia more miserable with her life, and the once joyful, always smiling girl I had always known lost the smile that once always adorned her face and she could always be seen sad. She had lost her fire along with her will to fight.

With the hastened marriage, her marriage to the blacksmith's boy came sooner than later. The whole village was there to see. Even I witnessed from the cover of a few trees.

While the boy seemed happy, overjoyed and very arrogant, the supposed to be beautiful bride looked very sad and miserable. I really wanted to help but there was nothing I could do. Such things were beyond me.

On their wedding night, the boy forced himself on Leatisia and filled with more sorrow and disgust than her body could contain, when he was done with her, she crept out of the house as the village slept and ran towards the waterfall at the edge of the village barefooted with harsh tears streaking down her cheeks.

It seemed,she was willing to take her own life there and then.

The place where my house was situation,was near that waterfall as it was further away from the village.

Desolate and in despair, Leatisia threw herself in the waterfall in an attempt to drown herself.

I had been trying to sleep, trying to forget the look on her face as she got married when with my super hearing, I heard a splash in the waterfall.

Alarmed, I rose from the bed and used by super speed to reach the waterfall.

Aided by the bright moonlight which shone up above, I saw her floating body in a beautiful white dress on top of the water.

I panicked and rushed removing whoever it was from the water. Turning the face, I was shocked to see it was Leatisia and her state drove me to tears.

Pushing on her stomach,she coughed out the water she had drunk.I reached for her pulse and discovered it was very weak.

I took her to my house and nurtured her back to health for about four weeks. I was just glad I had reached her on time.

In all those four weeks, the villagers had given up searching for her and the arrogant bastard she had married was already engaged to another. Her parents gave up on searching for her and I heard her sister was still in mourning. They thought she was dead.

When Leatisia was finally healthy, she refused to go back and preferred everyone thought she was dead. So with acceptance from my father, she lived with us. No one ever found out cause no one ever cared.

When she turned 25, I turned her into a vampire and she was my first turned.

We've been best friends ever since.