Characters: Bridget
Summary: The toll of the hunt.
Pairings: None
Author's Note: Inspired by the two panels featuring Bridget on the author's note at the back of Volume Six. This takes place before the events of the manga.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Record of a Fallen Vampire.
It would be better if someone could just tell me what's going to happen. Knowing that Strauss will die on my sword or I one his is better than knowing nothing at all.
On second thought, Bridget thinks that she's probably better off not knowing, better off not being able to see her lifespan dwindling away over her head. Bridget's vampire blood is strong enough that, compared to the other dhampires she is for all intents and purposes immortal; she will, of course, die eventually, but for the sake of her—already deteriorated enough!—mental health, it's better not to know when she will die.
The bathroom door is shut and locked; Bridget can hear the soft breathing of Fuuhaku and Renka asleep outside. It's daylight, the blinds drawn shut, and Bridget has given Ethel money for groceries—being the one with the weakest vampiric blood he is least-affected by the noonday sun. For a moment her body stiffens with the phantom expectation of hearing the hotel door slam before her mind takes control and reminds her that Ethel only left a quarter of an hour ago.
With some difficulty, Bridget brings her eyes to the bathroom mirror—a pool with watery warp-ripples and a crack at the upper left-hand corner. It reflects the frosted, opaque shower door and the dark walls—why on earth were the walls painted so dark?—imperfectly like a television set with reception issues.
And her face, the reflection touched by pale long fingertips, is distorted just as well.
Bridget has seen many things in a mirror's reflection that she knows no one else can see. She's seen the collapse of civilizations—watched them fall then relived it again in smooth glass. She sees the hollowness of bright shining neon billboards and flashing bulbs, and many other things are revealed to her.
What she sees now is startling and yet unsurprising.
Pale blue eyes, looking more like rippling pools in the mirror, are both piercing and dull as unpolished rock.
Dull, dead eyes.
Bridget's present and future stare out before her, unto the end of time.