The Mating Habits and Other Practices of the Indigenous Velassi

An essay

What is a velassi?

A velassi is the ancestor of the modern vampire. It is unclear as to their origins nor do we know if they originated from humans or if they were their own species. Physically they appear human but it has been argued that this could simply be so that they can blend in with their prey; it is not, necessarily, an indication that they started out as humans and evolved into a new species.

Where do velassi come from?

Velassi, also known as “the living vampires”, are born from the mating of two other velassi. It is the only way a velassi can be created. Velassi cannot impregnate humans nor can they be impregnated by them. The miracle of life only seems to work when both parents are velassi, though they do not, necessarily, have to be of opposite “sexes”, by this we mean a father and a sire.

For a long time it was assumed that fathers and sires were physically the same with the only difference that put them in one category or another being their sexual preference. However after the council urged their people to mate with everyone regardless of preference it was discovered that there were subtle differences physically that made fathers more ready to carry children then sires.

Sires, it was discovered, could rarely carry a child to term and those that did get close to their birthing time often had complications and died in the final few months. While this has been known to happen to fathers as well it is fairly rare whereas in the sires only 1 out 7 were able to give birth and survive.

How do velassi feed?

Velassi, like vampires, can only take nourishment from blood. They can survive on animal blood but it is unhealthy, much like fast food is to humans. It satisfies the hunger but they cannot thrive on it and, after a long period of time, it begins to have an adverse effect on their bodies. They can feed from one another and it seems that velassi blood is more potent than human blood for a severely wounded velassi who feeds from another velassi will heal faster than one who simply feeds from a human. Slightly less potent, but still better than human blood, is vampire blood and it is not uncommon for velassi to transform humans into vampires and then keep them as an alternate food source.

However humans are the main source of food and are the velassi’s preferred prey.

How are velassi and vampires related?

It is believed that vampires came from velassi for if a velassi drains a human and then gives them their blood in return that human becomes a vampire. A velassi can create a vampire but a vampire cannot become pregnant, thus making the chain of creation work only in one direction.

How are velassi different than vampires?

Aside from being able to give birth velassi differ from vampires in a couple of ways. They can go out an hour before sunrise and after dawn. They can also form weapons from their blood and do not need to sleep on soil from their homeland. Like vampires they have extraordinary strength and each possess special skills that others of their kind may or may not possess, such as bending someone’s will to their own or levitation.

Despite these differences it is very difficult to tell a velassi apart from a vampire created by a velassi for these first generation vampires often possess skills normally attributed to only velassi (such as being able to go out slightly before sundown or after sunrise, forming a weapon with their blood, etc).

How is velassi society structured?

In the past the velassi normally gathered in a city hidden in the north with only a few intrepid individuals traveling into Europe or Asia. They were governed by a council of elders, the oldest and strongest sires of the time. The other velassi obeyed the council’s edicts. Because it is the duty of a sire to protect and provide for his mate sires gradually became the more powerful of the ‘sexes’ with their usually less argumentive mates allowing them to lead.

Families often grouped together into loose clan-like structures with the eldest sire of the group taking complaints to the council or bringing the council’s decisions back to his family group and seeing that they were followed. Not everyone was part of a family group but in the case of those that were a father who was mated to a sire of another group would usually leave his family group to join his mate’s. It was rare for a sire to leave his group to join the father’s since the position as head of the family group could be won by brute strength. Therefore the head of a family group usually frowned upon sires from other groups joining since he could be challenged for his position by the new sire and thus risk loosing control of the group to a former member of a potentially rival group.

However sires that did not come from a family group did have the option of joining their mate’s group.

This structure changed after a series of decisions made by the council to force fathers to submit to whatever sire wished to mate with them. A father’s instinct is to mate with only one sire, thus creating a strong family unit where he and his offspring are sure to be provided for and protected by a sire who was tied to him. Being ordered to mate with many different sires until pregnant went against their instincts for they could never quite be sure who had sired their child and no sire had a strong tie to them.

Also problematic was the council’s demand that all children be removed from their parents’ care and added to the breeding pool as soon as they were old enough to have developed into either a sire or a father. As a generation of fathers who had been forced to mate with sires not of their choosing and sires who had been forced to stay with fathers who may not even have been carrying their child (as soon as a father was determined to be pregnant the last sire he’d been with was determined the child’s sire which may or may not have been the actual case) realized that the children they’d raised and cared for would be removed from their care and forced into the same hated servitude they’d been forced into they revolted.

Trust in the council was shattered and most of the predetermined couples broke apart. Velassi, mostly fathers, fled the ancient city and scattered across the world.

Since then changes have been made, such as the addition of widowed fathers to the formally all male council, and some velassi have returned to take up residence in the city again. However there is still a large percentage of the total velassi population who refuse to return and who ignore the council’s edicts.

These velassi often gather vampires and breed around them, posing as a stronger vampire and heading a court.

(Fun Fact: ^.^ Renzo is the child of two parents who were both sires. The sire who bore him was one of the very few who managed to carry a child to term and survived it's birth. A recent complication discovered from forcing sires to mate with sires has come to light in the fact that all the children of sires born from sires (like Adrian, who is the child of Renzo) have the bodies of sires even though some are of the father preference. Thus they are driven to bear children but, because of their bodies, have the same trouble sires having carrying a child to term (which is why Adrian has trouble having children).

The Mating Habits of Velassi

Once a velassi reaches true adulthood they lean towards either a father preference, ie they like to be on the bottom in a sexual situation, or a sire preference, they like to be on the top. Recent studies lead us to believe this is more than just a preference, that there is a physical aspect to this decision. In general fathers tend to be shorter than sires and are slower to anger (though once they become enraged they are just as forceful and dangerous as their sire counterparts).

Usually the velassi’s parents are watchful of their child at this stage and once it becomes evident which ‘sex’ their child has chosen one of two things happen. If the child is a sire, nothing changes, but if the child is father his parent’s become more watchful of him. This seems to be an instinctual thing for sires are always intensely protective of their father counterparts. A child father is protected just as fiercely as a sire’s mate and often the child will find himself frustrated with the curbs put on his freedom.

As the child reaches true adulthood a child of the sire preference will be struck with an insatiable wanderlust and need for independence. They will begin to fight fiercely with their sires and will eventually leave the family ‘nest’ suddenly and go to set up their own nest somewhere else. The first of such nests will not be very far from their parents but as they age and their confidence builds the sire will move farther and father away.

A child of the father preference is not struck with such wanderlust and is perfectly fine with stay in their parent’s nest, though the natural curiosity that comes with being alive will often make them yearn to see other places.

The young sire will travel extensively and will often seek out other velassi. He will stay with them for a time before moving on to another family. There are not many velassi and those who have unmated fathers will send out word to other velassi in case a young sire should come there way. Once the wanderlust begins to fade a bit the young sire will follow these bits of information to the unmated father’s family.

If the sire is not interested in the unmated father he will move on but if he is interested in him the sire will lurk on the outskirts of the father’s territory, thus beginning the courtship ritual.

Now technically this is only to be between the unmated father and the unmated sire but often the father’s own sire will intervene. If he finds the young sire lacking or decides he is an unworthy match for his child he will chase him off. If, however, he considers him a worth choice he will either bring the sire to meet his son or he will turn a blind eye on the proceedings.

Regardless as to whether or not they have been introduced the sire will continue to stalk the father from afar, watching him from the shadows. This is usually unsettling for the father but unless he chases the sire away the sire will continue to stalk him until he get’s up the nerve to begin leaving little gifts for the father to find. These gifts can be anything and often reflect what the sire has gleaned from watching the father. They can be food (dead animals or enthralled humans left for the father to find) to jewelry (necklaces, rings, and hair ornaments are a favorite, though hair ornaments are reserved for one of the final gifts for if worn it clearly marks the father’s favor of the sire).

The father can chose to accept these gifts, thus encouraging the sire to continue giving him more or ignore then, either making the sire try harder or discourage him into leaving. With each accepted gift the sire will lurk closer to the father, often joining the sire’s court (assuming he is part of one) or insinuating himself into whatever society the father’s parents belong to.

This continues until the father either approaches the sire (rare) or the father begins to wear the sire’s tokens. Hair ornaments are considered special gifts for if worn they tell every other velassi that the father has come to favor the sire who gave it to him. This is a sign that the father would welcome the sire’s attentions and thus the sire will stop lurking in the shadows and begin to court the father in earnest.

Sire’s are fascinated with their father counterparts and are driven to always be in physical contact with them. Thus inviting the sire to their side is a big step for father and it often takes awhile for them to decide to agree to it. Also, once a sire has been given permission to touch them and walk with them rather than hiding in the shadows it is nearly impossible to convince them to go away if the father decides he made a mistake and no longer welcome’s the sire’s advances.

If the father decides, after being with the sire for some time, that it is a good match for him one of two things will happen. He and the sire will either leave quietly one night or they will take the more formal route and inform the father’s parents they wish to mate. In this case the young father’s father (and any siblings he has that may also be fathers) will dress him in the gifts the sire left him during the courtship. The father’s father will also give him one of his own gifts that his sire left him (and since this sounds confusing let’s pretend Cayle was a father and going to mate someone and that Shido had a normal courtship. Shido would give Cayle some piece of jewelry that Cain had given to him during their courtship).

The young father would then go to the sire and feed from him (showing the sire’s agreement to provide for him and their offspring). There may be words spoken or other activities (such rituals usually involve inviting all the other velassi to come witness it) but afterwards the father would be taken to the sire’s room by his father (and any father siblings). There they would strip him and put him in his new mate’s bed and leave him there.

When they were done the young sire would go to his new mate and they’d . . . well . . . mate ^.^

They might stay a few days with the father’s parents but afterwards the new couple would leave and go back to the young sire’s nest where they would start their own family.

What is a velassi’s childhood like?

It is very hard for velassi to get pregnant so when one does become pregnant it is a big deal and the sire will do all he can to protect the father and their unborn child. This usually involves them returning to the city in the north (which is a safe place and where every velassi is guaranteed rooms) or they will go to a place hidden away where not even other velassi know where they are going (in the present this is most usual. In the past it was frowned upon and pregnant velassi were expected to bare and raise their children in the northern city).

The father is pregnant for a little less than a year and half. He will become intensely paranoid and will be unable to stand anyone else’s presence except for his mate. As the pregnancy continues his strength will wane and most fathers become bedridden. They also lose the ability to be nourished by human blood and must subsist entirely upon their mate’s blood (else they risk losing the child).

This means a sire is very busy during this time for he must hunt first for himself, then go feed his mate, who will take most of his blood, then go out again to feed. He must also be careful not to cause an uproar in the local human population and he must be careful not to lead other vampires or breed back to his nest for no one is to know that velassi actually exist.

We are still unsure as to how the baby is created but it must have something to do with the combination of the sire’s blood-seed and the father’s blood or tissue. The baby feeds in the father by causing him to bleed internally. This is how most velassi realize they are pregnant for their mate smells the internal bleeding. After about a year and a half the baby becomes too large for the father to support internally and it begins to try to claw its way free. However the child is too weak to free itself and it is up to the sire to cut it loose from the father’s body. Most fathers are kept in the dark as to how the child must be brought in to the world to reduce their stress as the time approaches but all sires are taught what to do by their own sires.

For the first fifty years of his life the child can only feed from his father. Eventually they are able to drink from their sires as well and after about a century they are able to live entirely on human blood. It usually takes about a hundred and fifty years for a child to reach the time when they begin to develop into a father or a sire and it is another twenty years before All Souls Night begins to affect them.

How Many Children Do Velassi have?

This is a difficult question to answer. It is hard for velassi to get pregnant and it is at least fifty years before a father’s body is ready to bear another child. Every father is different but it does seem easier for them to get pregnant soon after their first child is born, however it is dangerous to have another baby when the older child is not able to care for itself. Fortunately most father’s do not regain their libidos until the child is at least a hundred and fifty and it is a century before All Souls Night calls to them again. It still drives the sires every year but the fathers’ less than enthusiastic involvement seems to discourage pregnancy.

There is also no age at which a velassi becomes barren. Even at 2,000 years old a velassi can still bear or sire children with the same chances as a young adult. However their slowness to reproduce is barely enough to keep up with how many of them are slain, either through accidents, vampires, human hunters, or even by another velassi’s hand (though this is considered a grave crime unmated sires have been known to kill each other in fights over an unmated father or for dominance over a group).