Originally planned to be named Five Things Wolfie Saw, but then... Wolf Tails just sounded all the more creative. Play on words, wheee!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, nor am I making a profit from this.
Magda's Deceit
The time that he went foraging through the house for something to eat, and ended up in his mother's gloomy study… Wolfie had never expected, half way through his investigation, to hear her voice and heels heading swiftly down the corridor, directly towards him.
"- have it all perfectly planned out, just wait!"
Wolfie had frozen behind the desk from where he had been searching through one of the drawers. His first initial feeling was fear - his mother would surely have his guts for garters if she found him in here. The second, perhaps more sensibly, was instinct. Quickly, but quietly as he could, he closed the drawer, abandoning his search for titbits and pressed himself up against the back of the desk. He tried to hold his breath to stop it from quivering in anticipation, not daring to think about what the consequences of being found may be. His mother had a terrible rage at times.
"Picture this," Magda was saying, her voice following her as she paced around her study. "I turn up on their doorstep, piteous as you like, clothed in the gutter's finery to convince them that such a lonesome old vampire as myself ought not to stay on her own - it's very dangerous, afterall. Voilà, just like that. Vlad only need s a little talking to, he's always been far too naïve to figure me out… Then there's my darling husband. The Count will fall inexplicitly in love with me again and - oh, now, Patrick, don't look at me like that."
Wolfie was vaguely aware that he was frowning. He had simply no idea who this "Count" was, nor why his mother might be talking about swanning off with him so openly in front of his father. If there was one thing that was for sure, his mother was very much "in love with" Patrick (as she put it), and so there seemed to be no logical reason in her wanting someone else to fall for her. And she was certainly not a "lonesome old vampire"!
His father's voice was grating the air now, further away than Magda's, as if he were standing much closer to the door than she.
"You know it's for our own good." was Magda's reply. "I will become Vlad's regent, thereby having complete control over him. And in turn, his father. They will be but… puppets on a string to me!"
By this time, her voice had grown ever closer, almost hovering right above the small boy as he crouched in his not-so-ideal hiding place. She was standing on the other side of the desk now, stationary, Wolfie was sure. He dared not look. Her sharp nails scraping against the wood at his father's next enquiry was confirmation enough for Wolfie.
"What about Ingrid?"
"Ah," Wolfie could imagine his mother waving her hand dismissively as she said this. "Well, she'll be no trouble. She was always so eager to get rid of them herself, I doubt her feelings will have changed that much..."
There was a brief pause. Wolfie occupied himself suitable with trying not to breathe too loudly.
"Anyway," Magda continued, "Why are you so worried!" Her voice then took on one of its more soppy, endearing tones. "Patrick, you know - you know that I would never leave you."
From the werewolf came a low, almost satisfied growl, and there was the sound of heavy boots crossing the carpeted floor. Within seconds, he had reached the other side of the room and there was a loud thud and a playful screech from Magda as she was pitched backwards onto the table. Wolfie had gasped in sheer surprise at this, as a long lock of her hair swung over the edge and hung there, but the noise was thankfully missed by his parents. They were far too busy. Papers fluttered up from the desk, a cylinder tube holding quills was knocked onto its side, sending them spilling across the table and to the floor. Wolfie had frozen again, still pressed tightly against the desk… As long as neither of them glanced over the edge, everything would be fine.
Magda was giggling madly. "Get off, get off!" her voice chastised, though it was full of laughter. There was another brief scuffling as Patrick refused to let her up for a moment, but after a few seconds, they both calmed themselves and the lock of her hair slithered back over the edge of the table as Magda was allowed to sit back up. "There's no resisting you, is there!"
The next thing that Wolfie heard he didn't quite grasp the meaning of - indeed, he wouldn't, until he was much older and had learnt entirely about 'the birds and the bees'. His father seemed to rasp the words, as if menacing, and Magda gave a soft purr of appreciation.
"Now, behave." she told him sternly, "Leave me, I need to pack."
And so, she began. Wolfie remained crouched behind the desk, biting his lip, his small freckled face still a portrait of his anxiety. He was alone with his mother. Trapped in a room that he wasn't allowed in with his mother. He could hear her shifting around the study, from her lips coming a soft humming melody, as if the coming together of her plan - whatever it was - put her in fine spirits. Of this, Wolfie wondered, despite his apprehension. Who were the people that she had spoke of, who were Vlad and Ingrid? Were they relatives?
It was an unfortunate time that Wolfie picked, when eventually he poked his head around the side of the desk. His mother had just left the room, closing the door for the time behind her. If it had been open, Wolfie would have known, would have realised that she hadn't gone far - in fact, just to the end of the corridor, to help herself to a glass of King Michael II (Transylvanian batch, 1601) - and was due to waltz back into the room again at any moment. Thinking his chance had come, and eager to escape the study in which he had been enclosed for the last half an hour, the boy took his chance. He crawled out from behind the desk, staggering to his feet and making a clumsy rush for the door. His hand had closed on the doorknob, he had started to turn it, but from the other side the doorknob was being turned, too, by another force. Wolfie realised this only too late. Before he knew it, the door handle had been wrenched from his grasp. He was staring up at the slender silhouette of his mother.
The lazy-eyed contented look that she had previously been wearing vanished within an instant. Her grip on the crystal glass in her hand tightened considerably as she fixed her gaze on her small son, her mouth twisting with anger. Wolfie seemed to cower as she stared down upon him. There would be hell to pay now, he knew that for sure.
The next day, the poor boy found himself dejectedly packing up his belongings. After being dragged by the earlobe down several flights of stairs and through to the kitchen, and following a heated argument between his parents over who was to blame for his "running wild", he had had his ears thoroughly boxed by his mother and then was sent away in shame. He had sat for an hour hunched at the end of his bed, feeling quite sorry for himself, and looking every bit as wretched as a shunned puppy.
Later that evening, he had heard them talking again: the topic of what to do with him.
As a punishment, it was decided on eventually that he should accompany his mother on her "little journey". Magda had been far less than pleased to find him skulking around in her study, and her rage had turned into a cold fury when she finally forced out of him just how long he had been there. With the intentions of her ingenious plan no longer a secret, she demanded it. Drag him along. Show him what the real world is like. Wolfie didn't mind that too much; he was pitying more the fact that his mother had now turned a very cold shoulder to him, as was her way whenever he had misbehaved.
All the same, he couldn't help but feel a small tingle of childish excitement - afterall, he was travelling to a different part of the country. And after they had arrived, his mother had never meant to leave him behind when she flitted off in another bout of rage…
Of course, Wolfie had no way of knowing that within a week, he would find his new life with the mysterious "Count" very agreeable indeed. For the time, however, he vowed to himself: he would never go poking around in the house again.
- x-akurei
Okay, that's the first to give you a taster! I'll try to be posting once a week until all five mini-stories are completed.
Currently, I only have an idea for Ingrid, so if you have a character that you desperately want me to write about... run it by me in a review. (:
