Vampire Hunter D is owned by Ashi Productions, CBS Sony, MOVIC and possibly others. I make no profit from this fiction, but thank Hideyuki Kikuchi for the magnificent world he has created.
As the castle disintegrated around her, Lamika composed herself as best she could as she waited for death to take her. D had succeeded in ending the reign of the once great Magnus Lee, and without the count's power to sustain both form and illusion, everything was now going to hell. She took a few moments to make her peace with the now dead count.
"Goodbye, father. In spite of everything, I loved you with all my heart, once. You instilled within me both power and pride. I was indeed your princess, and I tried my best to live up to that title. I did everything in my power to make you proud of me. Your disgrace of yourself and our name, however, has now put an end to our lineage. All for the lust of that woman."
That woman, Doris.
She was likely safe now, far from the crumbling castle. Safe in the arms of that dhampire, D. Lamika felt a twinge of envy as she contemplated the two of them together. She recalled the night Greco had tried to kill her. The girl's brother had put an end to that threat, showing up on the narrow pass along with D.
It was odd, afterward, as they later traveled the familiar road back to the castle, that the dhampire hadn't bound her wrists, or secured her in any way. Was she not now his prisoner? As they came upon the passage that led directly to the castle, she prepared herself for her death by his hand.
But he hadn't killed her. Her father's sworn enemy had shown her mercy.
She had then sensed the nobility of the tall, stoic dhampire, even as she also observed the girl casting furtive glances his way every now and then.
So, she was in love with him, the poor fool.
Many things changed for Lamika that night, and as she made her way back to the castle, alone, she tried to sort out her confusion on the nature of those changes. She had started out the night with every intention of killing the girl, who, if allowed to marry her father would become the bane of her existence.
She had intercepted them on their way to the castle, the girl and the beast that had once been Dr. Fering. Striking the killing blow swiftly, she watched as he fell to his death. Amazingly, however, that girl who had been his prisoner, who would have possibly even been the victim of his lust when the count had finished with her, called out to him in sorrow and forgiveness.
Something changed within the young countess right then.
Doris had changed Lamika's heart. How? Why? Her desire to kill simply vanished at that moment, turning into merely an attempt to get her as far away from her father's influence as possible.
The young countess had been confused as well as startled by the effect Doris had on her. She was but a mere human! The girl had been marked by her father, had been tainted by his touch, yet she still had a purity of spirit about her, the source of which Lamika could only speculate.
Certainly life was about power, status, acquisition and revenge, was it not? Shortly thereafter, when Lamika, in the throes of agony, dared Greco to kill her, it was that same girl who protected her from him with her own body.
Lamika smiled grimly at the irony as she made her way deeper into the castle. Yes, that common girl now had at least a chance, albeit small, of leaving her mark upon the heart of that enigma, D. Lamika recalled her own countless days and nights of loneliness, longing for a man of D's lineage to appear and give her the courtship and, dare she think it?... even... romance that she felt she had been denied by circumstance.
She sighed and bit back that wave of envy. None of it mattered, now. Soon she would meet the next world.
Ghouls and creatures of the night were fleeing everywhere, trampling and even killing one another in an attempt to escape the destruction. A towering section of a load-bearing stone wall crumbled, creating a huge crater forty feet in diameter. The smoke and dust caused a coughing fit, but Lamika drew a kerchief from a small pocket within her cape, and, covering her nose and mouth, composed herself as she approached the crater's edge. The kerchief, scented with rosewater, calmed her down somewhat. As she peered down into the darkness, the howls and screams filling her ears, she dabbed her face with her kerchief, and, with her other hand, smoothed down errant strands of her beautiful hair.
She had killed before, by order of the count, or because some fool deserved it, but now, as she anticipated her own death, new feelings arose that she had never before experienced.
Regret. Sadness. Fear.
Fear?
She... was... afraid to die?
Yes.
She would not lie to herself. Not now. She had only known power and domination all her life. She had been the cause of fear in others, but never effect. She waited as she allowed this new feeling to wash over her. Her heart beat even faster. It was even thrilling to some degree.
"Bah! Enough of this."
The fear would not stop her. She willed herself to stop trembling. In spite of what her father had revealed, she was nobility, and this, her last act as a noblewoman, would be completed with the grace and dignity that had been hers all her life.
"I am Lamika Lee."
Looking around one last time at the cacophony around her, she closed her eyes and took the last step of her life into the pit.
The darkness welcomed her as she gave up her consciousness.
&&&&&&&
A/N: This is my first foray into the world of "D". He'll likely make an appearance in a later chapter, but this is about the relationship between Lamika and Doris. I'm still not sure whether it will be just a friendship or not. I could introduce an OC as a romantic interest for Lamika or evolve this into a yuri between the two protagonists.
Thanks for reading!
