by Amy Mah
aza
TELEVISION
We have cable TV in the Nest and the channels we can watch are controlled by our parents. For years I thought it only ever had two or three channels - one on cartoons and the other on the hunting skills of animals. I can still do an excellent mating call of the mongoose.
TITLES
I do not know why but as a race we like titles and if you watch the old Vampire films you will see the humans have noticed this as the films always showed us as Baron this or Count that.
The best way I can point out how names are built up is to demonstrate with my own name.
My old human name which I still use is Amy Mah but my full Vampire name is: Lady Amelia, Mistress of the Night Mare, and Alpha Female from the Family of the Pink Bat.
Now to break this down:
Lady: not from my age but from my rank as an Alpha and the way humans always called us lords and ladies of the night (they also called us less nice names, but not more than once).
Amelia: the full version of my name Amy, like my boyfriend Max is really Maxamillian.
Mistress: because I am a Female and have others below me (such as my maid Bambi).
Night: I'm a Vampire, a creature of the night
Mare: The creature I am is a horse. My human look is Chinese, and the name Ma or Mah is Chinese for Horse. And a female horse is a mare.
Alpha Female: is my status in the Nest.
Pink Bat: is the name of my Vampire family.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
A little bit about tricks of the trade, and how we look like super heroes or at least super cool.
Forget about turning into things, what we can do with practice and weight control can be spectacular when done with nonchalance, flair and occasionally special lighting and mirrors.
Once (with the help of a correct blood diet) you have mastered your weight, everything else should come pretty naturally.
So how it is done?: I will explain
Jumping off buildings:
OK, we have all made the same mistake when stepping off for the first time, taking our weight to almost zero so the fall/drop/landing will not hurt us only to discover that you get blown several blocks away and usually get stuck in a tree.
In the films they wear large coats or cloaks which is correct as we need these to slow down so you can glide to the ground. The cloak traps air and acts like a brake when you have a little weight. Nature has a way of teaching us the best way to do this, and it is called death by meeting ground at speed! So be careful.
l
Climbing up walls and across ceilings:
Simple, it is just claws and zero weight. You pull yourself up the wall by sinking one set of claws into the wall at the time and pulling yourself up. Ceilings take more practice as you need to grip with at least two sets of claws while moving the other two sets (one hand and one opposite foot together, get it?) This can be painful as you are hanging by your finger nails.
Leaping long distances:
Take a run then lower your weight as you take the leap so that you will travel further. Hitting a wall like a cartoon character is normal when first practicing.
Throwing people and hitting them very hard:
Move the blood to create extra mass in your arms and legs which will increase your strength.
Hiding in shadows:
……..er……. Wear dark clothes and keep very still.
Mind Control:
It is all to do with voice and vibrations of sound, and fails if used in a night club, unless you can convince them to turn the music down.
Super intelligence:
Er…. Well more like very well read intellectuals as if you like books you have years and years to read them. And as to intelligence, nature has its ways of killing off the stupid ones.
TURNING INTO THINGS:
What a load of crap - what are we, a circus act!? OK, just for fun, here are some of the things humans say we can do:
Turning into Gas
No, but I can only produce it, if I drink too many fizzy drinks!
Turning into Smoke
Only if someone sets us on fire.
Turning into a Bat
Just a racial memory going back to the days when we had wings and a tail. And we were not the sweet little ones which get stuck in your hair, we were the large ones that would take your head off as we flew past.
Turning into a Wolf
And just why would I want to be a wolf? We normally hate werewolves, so why we would ever want to look like one is beyond me. Fellow children of the night? I don't think so. Wolves are just large smelly dogs that want to hump your leg.
Turning into a Rat
What! You must be joking. Even if I could, I don't fancy walking about looking like lunch for a stray cat.
And as to owning a castle, listening to the music of the night or playing an organ so loud the village 10 miles away can hear it, plus being raised from the dead by a drop of blood, well you often wonder what herbal remedies the authors of Vampire books are taking when they write those things in books...
TURNED or TURNLINGS
Turned Human Vampires - being turned - Famula - Turnling
Turnlings are not common, no matter what the movies say. In real life meat does not turn into a Vampire just because we feed off them. Turning is not that easy to do, and besides, it's not normally allowed or we would be up to our fangs in undead.
Turnlings are normally what Hollywood thinks a Vampire is - not so much as undead but frozen in time, never aging, and just live off blood. They have the benefits (being long lived and strong) and problems (avoiding daylight and the need for fresh blood) of real Vampires, but they're not.
They are easy to spot by a real Vampire due to the fangs. Turnling teeth are like the joke teeth you can buy for Halloween, over long and extra sharp canine teeth and very good at the job of biting into a human and drinking the blood. To get an idea of the difference between Vampires' and Turnlings' fangs, see the FANGS section.
Turnlings have always had to obey real Vampires, so most turned females became Famula - a kind of long term maid. They would live forever, never ageing which I guess is why they might want to be turned, but most of the time that could only be as a servant to a Vampire family. Male turnlings do all the dirty work for us out in the world, very few male turnlings are allowed to live in the Nest.
U
UNDEAD
Undead are zombies, but it's also what humans stupidly think we are. Turned humans like our Famula could be called undead.
UNDERWEAR
Yes, just like humans we wear undies, it is only the maids that Walk around without Undergarments.
No where in the rule book does it say that female vampires have to go walking around without their unmentionables on, it is just a Male fantasy and what the Undead maids like doing …….. so stop asking!
Besides our underground home is so cold in winter only an Undead maid or a masochist would risk getting their butt frost bitten!
My Aunt has been a vampire for hundreds of years and she wears big baggy bloomers which were last in fashion over 100 years ago. As to my Uncle he wears long johns under his business suit and he still believes that a long black cloak with a red lining is highly fashionable!
As to other males, they should just stick with the double knitted woolen combinations to keep their boy bits warm.
UNIFORM, Male
As said before strict rules have been created to stop us killing each other, so a uniform was decided upon. It must have been created by Vampires who loved watching mid 20th century Vampire movies, as the Male uniform makes them look like waiters in posh restaurants... but wearing black capes with high collars. The standard shirt has puffy sleeves, so when a Male is wearing just a shirt and trousers, he can easily be mistaken for a love sick 19th century poet.
UNIFORM, Female
The Females are forced to wear supposedly sexy 19th century night dress (huh!). It might look good on a Famula who's fixed
in age with the best figures the males can find, and they're forever bouncing around the corridors without a care in the world as if they are extras in a Vampire porn movie. Personally I always go for the ones which can cover the whole body and keep you warm, flannelette is very good.
Lots of different style nightdresses are about. The Famula maids always wear the low cut ones, which means their boobs slap you in the face if they turn around too quickly.
There are no rules saying you must or mustn't wear underwear under the nightdress, so if you like the freedom then weigh down the hem of the nightdress with small lead weights. I am sure we have all discovered the "male wind" from the ventilation shafts which blows down the corridors in gusts - true to its name, the only purpose it has is to get under your nightdress.
Personally I not only wear underwear but on cold days T-shirts, jeans, a jumper, socks, and gloves. As I said before, the rules just talk about wearing the nightdress, not what is underneath!
h
Vampire girls have to look sexy by going around wearing transparent night dresses. Me in a see through nightie!
showing off my girl bits to every ogling guy that passes?
Huh no way!...
V
VAMPIRE
Vampire or Vampyre... however you spell it, we're the top of the food chain! Our species has given meaning to the word COOL. This whole book is about Vampires (duh!) so I'll just give you a few extra facts here.
Like humans, we are a diverse species, so we have different looking Vampires in different parts of the world.
We are a very (like veeeeeeerrrryyy) old species and we've changed our looks over time to match our favorite prey, which is why we look human. Simple, isn't it?
VAMPIRES (Male )
Male Vampires are the ones that can pee standing up without getting their shoes wet!
… Er …… Well……… ok so its more like SOME male vampires can pee standing up without getting their shoes wet.
VAMPIRES (Female)
It is easy being a Male Vampire, he can go out at night with his fancy cloak blowing in the wind and take the pick of the local human girls.
But being a girl Vampire is hard work! How many times has a teenage vampire girl been told not to take a human boy upstairs as she has been bannned from taking food to her bedroom, ………ever since the incident with the curry.
Then it is the: AMY! Sit correctly, you are wearing a dress ………….. Feet on the floor and your knees together girl………. You are trying to attract a husband, ….. Not Flies!
I am a grown up full blood vampire, I can rip the head off a human and use the neck as a straw……….. Yet I still worry about some guy seeing my panties if I forget to keep my knees together when sitting down!
VERVAIN
Yes, it is real and is a pretty flowering herb. As to being able to harm us, I have no idea, I haven't had any and I probably wouldn't risk it.
W
WATER
There's an odd human saying about Vampires not being able to pass running water. I think this is also said about witches, but if anyone has normal internal plumbing, then this has to be wrong,…..er……… for various really obvious reasons.
WATER (Holy)
All water is a problem when wearing silk. Silk waistcoats were in fashion, and when humans tried splashing holy water around it stained the material and upset males so much that they stopped wearing them.
For us girls we have the same problem with silk blouses and scarves - these are very expensive and can use up a lot of your allowance, so you don't want some over-zealous priest throwing holy water at you as it will ruin them and you could end up catching a cold.
Still, this doesn't quite explain why humans think it can kill us! When all it does is just makes a puddle for some human to slip over on.
WEAPONS
As a race we pride ourselves in fighting with fang and claw, but we now live in modern times so we also carry weapons for fighting each other. And as we can heal from most things, we have our swords and other fighting blades covered in silver.
Weapons (dirty and illegal)
These are disgusting and dangerous things like silver particle grenades and UV explosives. The human companies that make these type of things are normally taken over, bankrupted, or suffer from an accidental gas explosion which takes out about three city blocks.
(
WEREWOLF
I've never seen one, and no matter what the books and films say I do not want to have one as a boyfriend. OK, so long walkies in the woods may sound romantic, but just think of the fleas and shedding hair everywhere. And as for the need to give a boyfriend worming tablets before kissing him…. yuk
Werewolves also have a good sense of smell, and so it is odd that they don't wash more often! The smell of wet dog is not a turn on, no matter how desperate you are. No, not even on heat, thank you very much.
WINGS
Another common belief with humans is that we all have wings. Well, we used to in the past, but that was a really long time ago. Rumors still exist in the Vampire world, saying that some races of our species still have them, but what you will find is that anyone seeing us leap long distances may think we're flying whereas we are just jumping.
It may sound cool to have wings but think of all the problems:
1 Sitting down with something the size of an ironing board strapped to your back.
2 Even if you can fold them, it will still look like you are walking about with a hump or backpack.
3 True, the books talk about using long coats to hide them, but these can get hot in summer and look odd when eating in a restaurant
4 And as to getting clothes to fit! It sounds impossible.
Forget it, and just stick to overnight flights.
X
XOXO
OK so x is a hard one to fill... how about xoxo for hugs and kisses.
X-abilities
Like, uh, flying. Having wings and a tail is just a racial memory in the blood - we used to have them, but now we look like our prey, for easier hunting.
Wings and a tail sound cool until you realize that it will stop you wearing clothes, and cool turns out to mean cold, as who would want to fly about on a cold winter's night in the nude?
Y
YAWN
The fastest way of extending your fangs, just throw your head back and yawn as hard as you can. Your mouth will then be full of fangs. If this fails, it just means you are very tired and in need of a nap, so go to bed!
Z
ZOMBIES
Somehow humans always think of zombies, werewolves and Vampires at the same time. I guess they think that we all hang out together. And just why would I want to hang out with some Zombie Guy, when you never know what bit of his anatomy is going to drop off next!
