It was exceptionally dark that night.. I remember the exact date of my birth; not my childbirth, but my birth into my new "life"..my birth into vampirism. It was July 17th, the year of our Lord 1231; I was 19... Back in those days, I was of the age to marry--past it, even. My father was disappointed in me because I had not yet found an amor--a love, or more specifically, a wife. We were a wealthy family, so my father just couldn't understand how I could not find a woman. In truth, it wasn't that I couldn't--it was that I didn't want to. I grew to hate the money we had because my father always used it as an excuse or reason for everything. It was his way of being lazy, and it was his love; he was a greedy man with two loves: his wife, my mamá, and his money. I never wanted to be like him, and I never wanted to bring a woman into the selfish existance of a wealthy lifestyle; thus I avoided finding a love, a wife.

My father grew insistent, tenacious. Annoying. It was this vexation he had driven into me that finally made me decide to find a woman I could settle down with, and pray to our Lord Father that my money would not corrupt her as it had my father. It was exceptionally dark that night.. I was going out to meet a girl I had been courting by then for some time, but I instead ran into another... I remember how she melted away from the shadows as if she was born of them.. She was French--I could tell by the way she held herself; a haughty air, a smug smirk, an egotistical expression in her beautiful eyes.. Ah, her eyes.. They were like the ocean during the sunset: a bright blue mixed with darker blues, and the edges were speckled with golds that entranced and never let go.. They were amazing eyes.. But I digress. She said to me, in her husky voice, and in perfect Spanish, surprisingly, "Elijah of Castile.. I know you.. I am Calanthe Tiesseur, and I have been waiting for you for a very, very, very long time."

It was amazing, really, how well she spoke my native language. I said it was perfect, but I meant her usage. Her accent was slightly off; after all, she was French. I didn't understand at first how she could have been waiting for me, how she knew me--I had never seen her before in my life, but she was blunt about it. She told me she had been watching me, studying me; she knew my problems, my pains.. She could help me. She began speaking of fairytales, or what I thought were at the time; of vampires in depth, about all that they could do, how wonderful it was to be one, to have no fears, to have powers humans did not, to have little problems, to be free.. I was sold. But I made my decision all too quick; when the act came upon me, I realized too late that I had made a mistake..

I was a rather pious boy before that day. Like most Spaniards I was Catholic, and didn't convert to Christianity until 200 years later. But I had lost most of my ardor, most of my love for God and religion. Once I had learned that I was damned I abandoned God, as I had felt he abandoned me. But as I said...200 years later marked a turn of events in my life even greater than that of my embrace. It was the year 1431, and I was coming to grips with the fact that I had fallen in love with my Sire, whom I affectionally called Calan and corazón, or "heart", and she, though older than me by 5 years, had the same feelings. 200 years it took for that to happen; not like the movies now, which illustrate love happening in 2 seconds.. We were in France, enjoying the the night sky, our company, our kisses, when two men interrupted our peace..

I suppose they were witch-hunters of a sort, only they were after our kind. Slayers you would call them today. Everything happened so quick; I don't know how they managed to get their hands on a 6th generation Toreador, but they did. I remember Calan was trying to protect me, her childe, her love, and they got her. I tried to save her.. I ran in and gained myself nothing but this scar here on my neck from one of their daggers.. She cried out to me, "Eli! Seek Golconda! God will forgive you for what you are!" They took her head off with a sword.. I knew then that if they could get her, then I, whom was not as good as my beloved, was no match for them, so I fled. I never did cry... I was so full of anger and the lust for revenge that I never gave myself the time to cry.

Yes.. I sought them out. Eventually I murdered them. Brutally. I shudder to remember.. I found God again that night, remembering her last words to me. Ever since then I have devoted myself to Him, pious as I had once been. I think, perhaps, I do not so much seek Golconda as I do absolution.. With myself. Closure. I believe I just need to feel I am doing right, for after I murdered those two men, I am almost afraid to try and be in God's good graces again.. I had several hundred years after that to perfect my use of my disciplines, to learn to use new weapons as they came with the age: swords, rifles, shot guns, semi-automatic weapons.. To learn first-hand the government of vampires, beyond what Calan had told me. At one point in France I was the Toreador Primogen, and then that Prince faded away and I left.

I never fell in love again. Not with any one person. I suppose I was having trouble moving on at that time, because I finally decided I needed to get out of the Old World and into the New.. And that, my friend, is when I came to Lycosia. You once asked me why it is that I always wear black; well, that is because I am a black creature, in a black world, with a black past, and black sins. I guess, you could say, it is my own special way of atoning for what I have done. Speaking of "atone".. I have lived outside the city of Attone now for 3 years, keeping tabs on the kindred society. I have learned much, and I feel it is now time that I move in and make myself known...