When last we saw Dani:

“You okay there, Dani?” Darcy asked, bring me back out of my thoughts.

“Wha... Yeah. I’m fine. Just thinking about things is all.” I told her. Which was the truth, even if I didn’t tell her what I was thinking and worrying about.

“Oh, okay.” She said. “I’m just trying to make sure that you’re okay. I’d be more than happy to listen if you need someone to talk to, you know.”

And whaddya know, I actually felt somewhat better about that. I didn’t know if I could trust her or not, but the fact that I didn’t really have any friends since my move here to Ravencrest and Jimmy’s death. It might actually be nice to have a friend and not feel so lonely anymore.

Late evening, May 9th 1996

“Yeah, it’s not what most would expect a vampire’s lair to look like, is it?” She asked me.

“No, it’s not.” I had to agree, but then again, I didn’t know what to expect either. It was while I was taking in the room that I had a thought.

“I’m not going to be forced to wear this robe form now on, am I?”

Oh no Dani, no you’re not. Don’t worry about that. We don’t have anything for you now, but you can borrow something of mine for tomorrow while we go shopping for you.” She told me. She then gave me an appraising once over. “Hmm... You’re going to be a difficult one to shop for with those proportions.”

“Um... Sorry?” I said, not feeling very sure of myself.

“So... Which one is mine?” I asked as I nodded towards the bunk bed in the corner.

“You can have the top bunk.” She told me. “I still toss and turn a bit in my sleep, so I learned after the first time that I fell off that I need to stay on the bottom.”

“Oh, okay.” I’ve got to say that this was getting very awkward very quickly.

“Look, Danielle. I know that this is a lot to take in at once, and I’ve heard that you’ve recently been through a very rough time, right?” She asked and I nodded in the affirmative. “Would you mind if I asked about what happened?”

This caught me off guard. I hadn’t told anyone anything about what had happened before I had moved up here, nor did I say anything to anyone about why I had left town for Jimmy’s funeral, aside from saying that someone close to me had died and I was going to be out of town for the funeral. I really didn’t know if I should have shared it, but I couldn’t for the life of me see what it could hurt.

“Normally, I wouldn’t be talking about this kind of thing. But I’m going to. I do have to warn you, though; it’s kind of a sob story.”

“That’s fine, sweet heart. Sometimes it helps to just get it out to someone.” She said as she placed her arm around me and led me over to the bed. Once we sat down, I just opened up to her. I told her about the day my parents died, about hearing what had happened earlier in the year in Liberia, then about getting the letter from Jimmy’s parents about his death.

I started telling her about some of the things that Jimmy and I had done over the years. I talked only about the good times, like that time that he and I had found a car that had crashed when the old lady that was driving went into a diabetic coma behind the wheel. I told her about how Jimmy had called for an ambulance while I pulled the lady out of the car and tried to find her insulin. I told her about how happy her daughter was that we had noticed the car off of the road and pulled over to help. We had saved her life that day.

I didn’t say anything about the handful of bad times in that friendship. Not only did I consider those things done and over with, but I’ve never felt comfortable bring up the names of the dead in a bad context. Call me superstitious if you want, but I always felt it was tempting fate.

I told Darcy about the funeral and about how it was a closed casket because it was an empty casket. I told her what Jimmy’s dad had told me when I asked what had happened, about how the mob had gotten his body and had dragged it through the streets and generally desecrated his corpse.

I was having trouble talking by the end of it because I was crying so hard. This was a new sensation for me, because I didn’t normally cry all that often. It wasn’t because I saw myself as some manly-man or anything, but because they just didn’t come all that often. I had just let them flow, figuring that I could deal with the tears when I was done. When I went to wipe my tears away, Darcy reached out and gently took my hand and wiped them for me with a tissue she pulled out of her purse.

“Something I forgot to tell you about us vampires; when we cry, the tears are blood. You’ve had enough nasty surprises already, so I thought I’d save you from another.” She told me with a sad smile.

All I could do was thank her and giver her one of my own in return. I felt oddly better after that cry, even if I didn’t understand why. All that talking about my past had brought the memories back and I was surprised by just how much I could remember. I can still remember the color of the interior of that old lady’s car and even the name of police officers that responded to Jimmy’s 911 call.

It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. Not only were Darcy and I up talking about the things that would need to be done on the morrow, and how I was dreading them, but I had also stayed up even later than she did. When I did finally drift off, I was glad that I wasn’t going to be dreaming anymore. I don’t think I could have dealt with thinking about the past anymore.

May 10th 1996
The next morning, I woke up with Darcy’s face hovering about an inch over mine. I probably would have had a heart attack if my heart hadn’t stopped beating when I converted.

“Um... Hi?” I said, wondering what in the world was going on. “Can I help you?

“That all depends, are you ready to do some shopping?” Darcy asked, entirely too happy at the prospect. I could only mumble incoherently in response. It was still too early for me to be functioning. That much, at least, hadn’t changed with the rest of me.

“Good enough. Now wake up and get ready! We’ve got places to go, stuff to buy and people to eat... I mean, see.”

It took me at least a good minute to register what she said there.

“Wait, huh?” I mumbled, my brain’s higher thought processes still not quite engaged just yet.

“Just go take a shower or something and I’ll be waiting here when you’re done.”

I think I mumbled something along the lines of eating dung and dying while screaming, but I couldn’t even tell what I said myself.

The shower did wonders for waking me up. Not only was it my first time bathing in days, but it was my first shower as a woman. I expected there to be more sensations, based on how my new body reacted to the robe I was given by Mother back when I first woke up in this place, but I was not prepared for how intense those sensations were actually going to be. Oh. My. GOD! I’m not sure how I managed to keep my sanity with just how good I was feeling, but I did and I managed to get clean in the process. That’s all you need to know.

I wrapped my towel around myself the way I always had and had actually got one foot out of the bathroom door before I caught my error and quickly closed the door again. After readjusting the towel around... well, you know, I made my way back to the room to find Darcy digging through her closet.

“I’m really sorry, Dani, but the only thing I’ve got that will fit you, in terms of tops, is this little number.” She said as she threw an oversized t-shirt at me. Apparently she heard me come in. “The only thing that I can find that would fits you in the way of bottoms is this peasant skirt, sorry. I’m not as wide in the hips as you are, girl. You know you’re going to be a challenge to shop for, right?”

“Uh... My bad?” I said. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for a skirt just yet though. Don’t you have any sweat pants in there anywhere?”

“None that are clean. I wore all the ones that I’ve got while I was training you.” I could whimper by this point. I was so not ready for this.

“I’ve got a bikini top you can use as a bra for the time being, but I’m not lending you my panties. That’s just grodey.”

Now, at this point I wasn’t sure if I should have been happy about postponing the act of having to wear girl undies or be horrified by having to go commando. I know that either way, I wasn’t looking forward to wearing a skirt. Imagine my surprise when I found the damned thing to actually be pretty comfortable.

At least it was ankle length, so it wasn’t like I had to worry about anyone peeping or anything. So I had that going for me at least. But it still didn’t make me feel any more comfortable about it. I think I was more obvious about my nervousness than I intended to be because when I looked back over to her, she was giving me a funny look.

“What’s wrong? Did I get the size wrong?” She asked.

“I don’t know about skirt sizes, so I won’t know until I get it on.” I answered. “But I can’t help but feel like I’m wearing...”

“Girls clothes?” She finished. “Hon, you need to understand that you’re not a guy anymore. No one but maybe yourself is going to care if you wore this out in public. Didn’t you want to be a girl in the first place?”

“Not really. I hadn’t really even thought about it, to be honest. I’m... Well, I was a guy and that was just that.” She shook her head in an almost sad way when I said this.

“Honestly, I really don’t know what mother was thinking when she converted you. This may be hard on your mind right now, but I think you’ll come to accept it with time. If I have you look at something, will you promise to keep an open mind about it?” She asked.

“Maybe? I can’t really promise until I know what it’s about.”

“I was wanting to wait a bit longer before I had you do this, but now is probably as good a time as any. Just take a look on the mirror on the back of the door over there.” She said with a nod of her head.

I’m almost certain that she was laughing at me and not with me when she saw my reaction to my own reflection.

The girl that was staring back at me looked like she stood about five feet and four inches tall, which would explain why so many things looked so much bigger to me now. Her hair fell down to her waist and it was so black, it looked like the light was simply falling into it and not returning. Her nose was small and delicate and her cheek bones were set high, giving her an almost regal, feminine face. Her eyes got me the most though.

They were this intense electric blue that almost looked like she was wearing colored contacts or something. Her skin looked like pure alabaster, like she had never seen the sun before. But now that I thought of it, the few girls that I had seen that belonged to this sorority all had the same skin tone, so I guess it was something that just came with being a vampire.

Her shoulders were slim and sloped down past her breasts, which looked ridiculously big for her frame, to a slim waist and flared out to wide hips that I would have called “child-baring,” if I were I still human. Her legs were lean muscle, even if they were a little thick for what I liked when I was human.

All told, she had the body of a vertically challenged porn-star athlete. Then it clicked that this was MY reflection I was almost drooling over in the mirror. I saw the look of hunger on her face turn slowly to one of horror at this realization.

“I’m really am sorry Dani, but it never fails to be funny when I see a new sister’s reaction to her reflection.” She said while politely trying to stifle a giggle. I wanted to be mad at her for laughing at me like that, but when I thought about

I was a bit too shocked to even try to cover my nakedness by what I had seen. Actually, I had completely forgotten about it until Darcy threw that bikini top over my head.

“Quit ogling yourself there girly, you’re going to get enough of that at the shops in the area as it is.” She chided me.

The thought of this made me blush.

I hurried to but the top on, but figured out very quickly that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I can’t even begin to tell you how embarrassed I was to still be in the same state of undress as I was just a moment ago.

“Oh wow, you weren’t kidding, were you? Here, let me give you a hand with that.” She said as she came to my rescue.

About ten minutes later and I was about as dressed as I was going to get. She had me in that brown pheasant skirt with a white band tee shirt. I think it was Metallica, but I couldn’t tell because it didn’t have a name on it. She gave me a pair of flip-flops and pronounced me as dressed.

“OK, now that we got that done, time for some light makeup and you’ll be ready for the world.”

I’m not even joking with you; I felt a shiver go down my cold, dead spine at those words.

“Um... If I look so good, can’t I skip the make up this time? I’m really not ready for something like that just yet.” I told her. And I honestly wasn’t either. I mean, yes I had worn makeup before when doing a stage performance, but that was different. Even guys need to in a stage production; otherwise the oils on your face will show up something horrible under the stage lights. I wasn’t a stranger to it, but that didn’t mean that I was comfortable with wearing it around on a daily basis.

“Fine, if you insist.” She huffed, and then giggled. “But count yourself lucky on that one, most of the other sisters would have been too excited by the thought of being able to teach a new sister the fine arts of makeup.”

“Lucky me?” I said, not really feeling very sure of myself here.

“Very.” She said, giving me ‘The Eye.’ “And you need to lighten up there missy. Just learn to go with it and you’ll be just fine, I promise.”

Easy for her to say, she ain’t me!

“Now, we’ve wasted enough time lollygagging around here.” She said as she took my hands and pulled me up off the bed and onto my feet. “You need to get your head in the game here, sister. Shopping is serious business.”

When I stood up, I almost fell back over with mirth from the look on her face. She looked so serious about it that I just couldn’t help it. Even though some small part of my mind told me that this could mean trouble for me in the immediate future.

“First things first, though. Do you want to walk or catch a cab?” She asked.

“I do have a scooter with a luggage rack, you know. And I’ve got a car, but that’s in storage at the moment.” I retorted. “Why spend extra money when we don’t have to.

“Ok... Where ‘s it at?” She asked, apparently more than just a little excited by my revelation.

“Umm... The Guardian?” I asked. Truthfully, I hadn’t even thought about any of that stuff since I woke up a vampire. I’ve had more pressing things on my mind.

“Well, we can check in with Mother to see what she did with it. We don’t normally need to keep the things from our new sister’s previous lives.” She explained. “Mostly we end up donating it for tax write-offs. Either way, let’s go find Mommy and see what she did with you stuff.”

With that, she pulled me up and led me out of her... our, room to go and find our creator.

“That was easy.” Darcy said. “At least we caught them before they got rid of it all.”

“I swear to whatever god, goddess, thing might be listening; if they’ve so much has removed a piece of lint from that storage shed, heads will roll. Most of that stuff is things that are family heirlooms and things that I have a strong sentimental attachment to.” I explained to her

They had already gotten rid of my clothes and the things I had in my apartment, but they hadn’t dug up the storage unit just yet. We got to Carmilla in time to cancel the donation of the scooter and to stop them from looking into the storage unit. That made me a happy camper.

We got the keys off of my new mother and made our way through the house to the back door. As I was about to pass through, however, Darcy stopped me.

“Hold up there girl.” She said. “We can’t go outside like this just yet. We have to get our sun block on first. You don’t want to know what the sun does to us.”

“Wait... what?” I hadn’t really been into fantasy or anything when I was human, so I didn’t know much about vampires and stuff. She went on to explain to me the strengths and weaknesses that we have as vampires. Stuff like our weakness to sun light and how we need to avoid being stabbed by pointy bits of wood. But on the upshot we are much faster and stronger than a human and about how we can ‘Mesmer’ men and manipulate them to do whatever we wanted them to do.

She told me more about the town as we walked back to the common room. She touched on the Weres and the Coven and how we aren’t allowed to feed from either of them. She also told me about how each one of us has a special ability. Apparently Wisteria, whom I have yet to meet, can absorb the powers of whomever she feeds from or something like that. Carmilla can do magic and Theresa, whom I don't get along with at all, can stay out in the sun longer than the rest of us.

“So then, if each of us has an ability, what’s yours?” I asked her.

“I’m a siren, almost like the ones from Greek mythology. My voice amplifies my Mesmer ability. I don’t even need to make eye contact with the man I’m using it on, I just need to focus on him and he’s mine.” She said with a smile that held more sunshine than all of the great outdoors put together. Honestly, it was a little disturbing.

“How do I figure out what mine is?” I asked. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but I was seriously wishing it was something cool.

“That’s something that each of us has to find out on her own, sweetie. You’ll figure it out soon enough.” She replied as we finished putting the sun block on. It was prescription strength S.P.F. 150, if you really need to know. I can’t say that I was all that happy with that answer.

I stood back up and wondered why it felt a little... Breezy, in certain areas of my anatomy, then realized that I was wearing a skirt (sigh). This was going to make it difficult to ride to the store.

“You have to kind of wrap the fabric up in your legs and keep them pressed together at an angle. That way, the wind doesn’t catch it and you can still control the scooter. I used to do it all the time back in the Sixties.” Is what Darcy told me when I mentioned my concern to her. Did this girl have a freaking answer for everything?

“I’m not too sure I’m following what you just said.” And it was the truth too.

“Then why don’t I show you?” She offered as she stood up herself. I nodded in the affirmative and followed her around back. I took a seat and almost broke one of the cardinal rules of skirt wearing, apparently. Always smooth it out when you sit and keep your legs closed. It sounded like two to me, but she insisted that it was all one big rule. Whatever.

After relearning how to take a freaking seat, I finally got the key in the ignition and I guess I was expecting the same kinds of feeling that I would have had before the conversion. But no, of course not. I was seriously wondering just what all they did to my mind when they changed my body. The thought that they did something was always in the back of my mind, nagging away quietly while I was focus on more pressing things. If I could work up the courage to confront her on it, I’d have to be sure to ask Mother.

I did a few practice laps around the back yard of the house after she showed me what she was talking about. Once that was done, I donned my helmet and made the adjustments to the straps while Darcy hopped on behind me and wrapped her hands around my waist. I decided that the easiest way to get to the road way was to go through the lawn as we apparently hadn’t had anyone who owned a motor vehicle in the last, by the look of things, well, ever.

Darcy had convinced herself that I was going to crash into something before I even made it half way around the house, and was ready to jump off at a moment’s notice, leaving me to my fate like the true friend she claimed she wanted to be. I almost had my vengeance, though.

I tricked her into jumping off right in front of a tree. I hadn’t counted on every vampire being about as fast as my dear Mother is and that allowed her to avoid it. The look on her face when she about hit the tree was priceless enough to make up for it, however, so all was well enough. After getting her back on the scooter and getting myself situated again, we finished the ride around the house and took off for my first shopping experience as a female.

After scooting across town and finding a safe enough place to park the scooter, she hit the stores like a tornado and dragged me along for the ride. At least, that’s what it felt like to me. The first thing I tried to do was take a look around at what kind of stores were on Main Street Ravencrest. There wasn’t a whole lot, but there were quite a few considering the size of the town. The clothes boutique was the first place that Darcy wanted to go to, but I convinced her that I really wanted to replace some of the gear that had been donated before I could get to it, like my guitar. I figured that I’d need a stress reliever here in the near future and playing music is one of the best, that is, if you know how to play already. We went into the little music shop on the corner opposite from where I parked the scooter and almost immediately fate pounced on me once more.

“Excuse me, Miss, but might I ask a question of you?” Said a voice that I sounded very familiar, but I could place where I knew it from with all that had gone on recently.

“Go for it.” I answered, not turning from the guitar I was looking at on the wall.

“How much does a polar bear weigh?” the decidedly male voice asked.

“Uh...” That was definitely NOT what I was expecting. “I have no idea, how much does a polar bear weigh?”

The answer he gave me would have frozen my heart in place, had it not already been stagnant. As it was, I had to fight myself to keep from laughing at the same time.

“Enough to break the ice. Hi, name’s Frankie, nice to meet you. Are you new around here?”

**This isn’t over yet, so please stay tuned**

As always, please let me know how I’ve done. I know I failed to leave this note on my previous chapter in Danielle’s (un)life, but I do appreciate the input on how well I am (or am not) doing. Thank you for taking the time to read my offering to you and I hope you've enjoyed the ride to this point as much as I have. Now that you're done with what I've managed to accomplish in this universe (thus far), go check out the other (and really awesome ^_^) stories set in this universe. And as always, if I may quote, "Have a nice read."