The First Fatal Sip
In most cases, one receives one's first drink of blood on the night one becomes a vampire - one of the "Kindred", as we like to call ourselves. The process is called "The Embrace", and has two distinct and rather difficult phases. The first is simple: The vampire who wishes to create progeny drinks every last drop of blood he can from his intended "childe". This is no different from normal feeding, save that one doesn't need to worry about erasing the memory or disposing of the corpse afterward, and that one gets a very full meal indeed. The difference comes afterward.
Once the last bit of blood has pulsed its way out, the parent vampire - the technical term is "sire", not that you care yet - then returns some of his ill-gotten gains. He bites his lip, or wrist, or whatever, and allow some of his blood to pass his victim's lips. Assuming that the mortal does not actively and successfully resist the process - few do, believe me - and assuming that the sire has not delayed too long in granting this gift, then the blood trickles down the victim's throat and revives her, albeit as a vampire.
It sounds simple, does it not? The truth is, as truth is always wont to be, more complicated. My own Embrace would seem to be the epitome of the lushly romantic gloss your age has put on my king, and even so I shudder in retrospect at the memory. All of the ingredients of romance were there - the candlelit boudoir, the half-drink goblets of wine, milady's pale heaving bosom - one would think we'd retreated from the party into the pages of a novel. And so we tumbled onto the bed, and, at the height of passion, she plunged her fangs into my neck. Between the pleasure of the moment and the pleasure of her feeding - yes, it is quite pleasurable for mortals, to the point of addiction for some - I was quite content to drift away. I remember distinctly thinking that my mother had been right about me after all, and that loose women would be the death of me, and I even recall laughing as my sire drank my life.
And then, as I lay there watching that shimmering door open before me, as my soul took its first faltering steps toward I leaven, she calmly slit her wrist and poured the vitriol of eternal life down my throat. You can mock me for not rejecting what she offered, but even in the face of Grace, life is sweet. Her blood seared as it trickled past my lips and down my throat, and I found myself wanting to live. The pain the blood brought was proof that I was alive. And, when it became clear that I would not be ascending, the shining door vanished with a feeling of ineffable sadness, leaving me with my sire and a murderous hunger. Fortunately, my sire was kind enough to see me through the change; she'd seduced my best friend prior to stalking me, and cached him in an adjoining room like a shrike stocking its larder. While I felt my body dying cell by cell, he lay senseless, waiting far my hunger.
Ah, yes, the hanger of creation. That little bit of blood that one's sire uses to bestow the Embrace isn't much - a few drops with more mystical than nutritional significance. They certainly don't provide enough sustenance to satisfy the hunger of a newborn vampire. So the newborn childe had better pray her sire has laid in a few bottles or, better yet, a few bodies for the moment, so that there's something to feed on right after change. I've witnessed the horror of newly Embraced Kindred giving in to that uncontrollable hunger and ripping to shreds whoever was nearest in their madness. When that first thirst is upon you, you will do whatever you must to feed. You will kill your lover, your child, your parent or your priest to sate that thirst, and you will be glad to do so - for as long as the frenzy lasts.
There, my dear, is the rub. Because no matter how long you're in that state of frenzy, no matter what triggered it - fear or hunger or pain or rage - no matter how long you give in to the animal inside you, you can't control what you do and you always come down. And that's when you must deal with the consequences of what you did when that animal wearing your skin was in control. And the first frenzy is never last. One would think it gets easier to deal with that loss of control as one grows more experienced. One who thought that would be quite wrong.
