Like that, for three more years, I was Maria's fledgling. She diligently taught me everything a sire should teach their fledgling, while drilling her philosophy deeper into my mind. She showed me the pleasures one can seek as a vampire, ones that humans are too weak or too fragile to pursue, and if something I saw horrified me, she convinced me that creatures of night and darkness had nothing to fear—it's others who feared them.
It pains me to say that it took less than I'd like for me to truly start enjoying that life with her. If a part of my soul was still in pain, I had way too many ways to distract myself from it. My old life was lost by that point, and I knew that all too well, but a new one was open to me, and Maria convinced me I had a right to enjoy it and ignore everything and everyone else.
You wouldn't have liked me back then.
