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The baby’s first meal was not suckled from a great, lunar mammary. She drank, instead, from the deep laceration in her mortal mother’s neck. She was what the common mortal being might mistakenly call a vampire. The first, in fact.

We don ’t like to be called vampires. Vampires are the invention of overactive human minds. Things that turn into bats and wolves and speak with silly accents. Things with weaknesses to holy objects and silver, and can be killed as simply as having a stick implanted in their hearts.
I actually love garlic. I don’t see how they think it’s a repellant.

In truth, we have more in common with cats than with bats or canines. Our fangs resemble our feline sister’s. We share similar tongues and eyes. We are nocturnal.
That is one of the only similarities I can find between our race and the mythical nosferatu. Our weakness to sunlight. It disorients us, and we are highly photosensitive. We burn easily. We do NOT burst into flames or fall to ashes in prolonged solar exposure. It’s more extreme dehydration, skin damage, and accidental death. I’ve heard of Children falling down wells or over cliffs, walking into traffic due to daylight poisoning. Darwinism, really.

While we need to ingest blood to survive, it’s not our only vice. I’ll not muss the beginning of my story with crude explicit detail, but suffice to say we’re somewhat… flesh-oriented. And while I may refer to humans as mortals, Moon Children do not live indefinitely. We just live… extendedly. We are not “undead.” We are living, respiring beings.
To my knowledge, it is impossible to “create” a Moon Child simply by biting a mortal and allowing it to live, or by killing it in a certain way. We are born. That is all.
And, most important, we are not essentially evil. We merely have a different set of morals. One may mourn the death of a mouse under the paw of a cat, but the cat sees only food. The cat may learn to prey upon only specific mice, or perhaps grow a taste for birds… but the fact remains: prey is prey.

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Prey is fairly easy to come by. It oft comes willingly. We Children are not without our wiles. Prey is drawn to us. Once bitten, a mortal may become a slave, thereby providing a renewable supply of sustenance. I’ve known Children who keep pets… I don’t subscribe to their methods. I like a little meat with my wine, you see. I could tell you all sorts of lovely recipes… but I’ll spare you the boredom.

Nothing can compare to that sensation… feeling one’s fangs press into, then punch through resisting skin… its nigh bliss. Feeling that red wellspring rush forth to flood one’s mouth with silky flavor… metallic, savory, sweet, sometimes with a nuance of tartness. All knowledge a mortal possesses flows through their life-fluid. Drinking deep can open one’s mind to their prey’s. This is another tool of survival we Children keep.

Our patron goddess is still Reanddemal, and she has many names. Bast, Sehkmet, Catha, Palu, Shasti… but I chose to call her by her original name. The two d’s are pronounced as the soft “th” in “brethren.” Her proper name can also be shortened to Ddemal, or Themal. She manifests every full moon in her children, and it is during the nights of lunar climax that we usually feast.

It was during one of these feasts that our lives changed dramatically forever.