Another early evening meal without his parents.  No doubt they were busy with the affairs of state but it didn’t make the situation any better.  On some level he understood that both his mother and father were no doubt missing his little sister, but it hurt all the same.  Ever since she was born, they had doted so closely on her little form while he had been left to his own devices.  Their doting only proved to get worse when she had begun to become violent towards him.  More than once he had woken up one day with her little fingers wrapped around his throat.  She was just playing, they said.  She doesn’t understand, they said. Forgive her, they said.  No longer.  He would do none of that any longer.

Clenching the wooden handle of the fork tightly, he stabbed at the blood sausage on his plate.  Even at the age of ten he had managed to force the metal tines through the ceramic platter beneath the meat, a sign of his growing strength.  It wasn't uncommon for children like himself to begin to show their strength early.  If any of the stories his mother and father told about El were to be believed, then there were a great deal of gifts that he was to be given eventually.

It was at this moment, while he was deep in thought, that his mother seemed to glide soundlessly into the room. “Don’t like it?”  She took her seat across from him and motioned to the servant in waiting who was quick to grab a goblet off a side table and fill it.  There was no shaking or fear in the pour nor the setting before her lady.  He watched as his mother's thin and gentle hands brought the cup to her lips and partook of what was waiting within.

“Perhaps just bl-” Her words, slightly muffled by the hovering goblet, only served to irritate him.  

“It’s fine.” His words were almost shrill as they cut through hers like a knife.  She was offering nothing but fake kindness, he was sure of it.  No doubt she was here to mock him about his sister.  Anger drove him to stab at the sausage once more, splitting the platter again.  Though it was one of his favorite meals, he simply couldn’t bring himself to eat it.

He could feel her eyes watching him as he continued to jab at the plate.  Each stroke cut and split the plate until the meat was resting more on the table than on the jagged remains of the plate.  “When you’ve finished, you’ve lessons in the courtyard today.”  Her voice had seemed to have lost its more honeyed qualities.  “You will not be late.  Is that understood?”  Her tone told him all he needed to know.  There was no changing the facts that she had given him.  They would be followed and he was expected to follow along exactly.

This time the fork stuck clean into the table.  “Fine.”  Standing, he turned and left, leaving the fork upright, tines deep in the table, there before his mother.  The servant from before was quick to bow to him as he passed but otherwise made no move to leave her mistress.  Seeing the girl like that reminded him of his sister.  Always shadowing his mother at every opportunity.    For the briefest of moments, he could see her visage in the girl and grit his teeth as he left; chest burning in rage.  

It was all an act, he was certain of it.  Had his mother not been there, the girl would not have bowed.  To add insult to injury, the guards seemed to pay no attention to him as he wandered the halls towards the courtyard.  Whenever he walked these halls with his father, they had been keen to stand straighter.  Whenever he walked with his mother, they seemed more attentive.  But with him, they did not seem to care.  No one in this damned place saw him in the proper light.  No one treated him with the respect that he deserved.  But he would make them see.  More so, those that refused to give him the proper respect would be dealt with; imagined deaths for imagined foes.

Pushing open the heavy door that led to the courtyard, he was greeted with the view of his mother’s gardens.  A large alabaster wall enveloped a sprawling array of gorgeous flowers of various types.  At present, the night blooming blossoms had filled the evening air with a muted sweetness that pressed against him like some living force.  At the center of all this floral beauty was a flat stone slab.  The emblem of El had been inlaid into the stone and seemed to glow brightly as the moonlight caught the white marble of it.  It was a simplified sigil but powerful all the same.   A triangle had been inlaid and cut such that four smaller triangles had been created.  The top and central triangles had been made of a red stone while the remaining two were made of a white stone.    

But all of that meant nothing to him as, even from this distance, he could see the lithe figure in a black hooded cloak waiting for him in the center of El's mark.  He had never had a tutor like this before.  Others had come and seemed eager and ready with books or other supplies.  This one appeared to wait with an aura of darkness around him that even the pleasant flowers couldn’t mask.  Mustering all the courage of his youth, he approached the figure. And, When he was close enough, the figure turned and bowed deeply.  “Young Lord.”  The man’s voice, for it was now clearly a man, was raspy and soft as though he could only speak with his tongue.  “I have been called upon to teach you the way of the hunt.”

The man's words cut through his apprehension like the tines of the fork he had earlier and a flare of anger ran through him.  “I know how to hunt.  Did my father send for you?  I bet he did.  He’s always trying to teach me things I already know.”  He wasn’t about to hide his displeasure one bit where his father was concerned.  Remembering well enough how his father had made a point of favoring his sister on everything.  Apparently it had gone so far that even now, his elder didn't even know that he understood how to hunt for himself.  The lithe man shifted and dropped to one knee, head bent and hood still on.

“Truly, your father did send for me, Young Lord.  No doubt he knows well your ability to hunt humans…  But that is not the sort of hunt I teach.”  The lithe man’s words hung in the air a long moment as Tekor processed the information he was being told.  Perhaps his father wasn’t making fun of him after all.  That, just maybe, this man was truly here to teach him something he actually didn't know...

“What is it that you hunt then?”  His words were blunt and childish as he straightened his back a bit trying to appear proper and powerful like his father.  “Animals?”  It was but a moment from when the words left his lips that there was a feeling of an edge against his throat.  Fear caught his breath and held it tight.  His mind tried to process what had happened but there was nothing to connect the events.  The lithe man had simply appeared to teleport and was now behind him with what felt to be a knife against his throat.  

This moment, new and terrifying, seemed to drag on in his mind.  The breeze provided a low hiss as leaves brushed against one another in a floral chorus.  The scent of his mother's garden pulled him into the moment deeper, the knife somehow making their true sweetness emerge.  In this moment of sheer terror, he had no words to convey what this new experience was.  But he knew that this man, this lithe man, was teaching him something and he was now more than willing to listen.

“Vampires.”  The man’s voice was like a serpent in his ears.  “You are quickly approaching your changing and your father is aware of this.  The sooner you learn to use that body El gave you, the sooner you will be able to defend yourself against your enemies.”  The man's words resonated darkly.  No one had ever done this to him.  Neither his father nor his mother.  This man could take his life here and now and there would be no one to stop him.  But this man wasn't talking at him, or to him.  He was talking with him.  That fact, and that alone, helped to further pull his young mind into a state of focus he had never felt before.

And then, the blade was removed and set into his own hand.  The handle wrapped in dark leather straps, still warm with the man's touch, seemed heavy in his grip.  There was nothing particularly special about the dagger.  It was not unlike any of the other short daggers that the guards wore for personal tasks.  "You will get a better one later.  For now, this is the one you will get to know."  There was a rustling of fabric as the man moved back around and knelt. The simple act was enough to draw his attention from the dagger.  Dark eyes looked into his own and he found himself frozen once more.  "Your life of stabbing plates is over.  Make peace with that.  If you don't, it will be your undoing."

The lithe man’s words put his mind ablaze with chaotic thoughts.  There had been no one save for his mother and the servant.  "What... is your name?"  There was a childish nervousness to his words, as though he had to ask permission for such a title.  This man was unlike anything he had ever seen and though he wanted to be free of fear, he simply couldn't.

The smirk that greeted him was one that he had not fully prepared for, and it sent shivers down his spine.  "For now, you will call me Hunter."  Gently moving aside his cloak, he revealed a little golden pin.  It was a circle clasp like he had seen others wear before but the symbol in the middle that held the clasp together was different than he had ever seen.  It was a simple arrow, perhaps a spear head, banded in braided silver and gold.  "When you have earned one of these, we will talk of names again."

He could only bring himself to nod.  But then the realization dawned on him that this man was going to teach him all he needed to kill his sister.  Something in him snapped,  and he couldn't stop the grin that overtook his face.