*Slinks to centre-stage* Hey guys, me again. I have nothing to say for myself except to offer my sincere apologies for my long absence. All, however, is not lost, for here is a new oneshot of mine by way of an apology, and I promise and update of Strangers in the Night within the month. If I don't update, feel free to punish me in any way you see fit.
This piece is dedicated to my Beta, the lovely Roux Barcelone, who kindly set me this oneshot challenge.
'Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.' - Oscar Wilde
Vlad had heard of women falling at one's feet before, but, truth be told, in three hundred years it had never happened to him until tonight. Well, under his wheels would be more technically accurate, for during the last miles he had grown mesmerised by the rhythm of the horses' hooves, and had not noticed the little black figure step quickly into the road until she was mere feet from his team. It was a close run thing, for a four-in-hand were no small weight even for one such as himself. Once held, he was forced to step down from the box and calm them, hissing the old tongue into their velvet ears till they were still.
The girl was sprawled untidily across the track with a heady scent clinging to her hands – it seemed that when she had seen the coach coming she had dug her little finger nails into her palms until they bled. Her footprints in the dust were firm, not scuffed as if she tried to dodge him. He realised with a sinking heart that she had been standing her ground against the oncoming coach.
She was a spindly thing, too angular for his tastes, so he had been moving her safely to the side of the road, imagining that the shock would probably persuade her to return home when he saw the stretch of white linen. It lay in the fork of a tree by the roadside, and beneath it he discovered the cross, dented, for it had been flung aside with some force. He stood considering the two articles for a long moment, flicking his eyes between them and the figure, noting the cropped hair, the uneven tan about the face and the voluminous dress. A good sister of St. Joseph and St. Mary, trying to end herself under a coach's wheels?
Soon after the figure lay stretched across the soft leather seats, and he was atop the box again, whipping the horses safely back to Castle Dracula after an interesting night's work.
.:I:.
The little sister woke in the grey hour just before light, just as Vlad had decided to give in and rest, leaving her stretched on the library sofa, safely locked in. She was confused of course, but somehow seemed unsurprised to be there, and most certainly not afraid of him. On the contrary, she caught the steadying hand he had placed upon her shoulder when she sat up with a jolt, and would not release it for any words of coercion or menace from him. Eventually he had to hypnotise her to gain the safety of his coffin at all. She spoke but one word in that time. Rodica. Her name.
Her appetite was healthy. In fact she ate like a boy on the verge of manhood, wolfing down everything he could put in front of her and turning to him expectantly a mere hour later for more. It made her dreadfully sick the first few days, and he was forced to play nursemaid then, wiping her face with a cold cloth when she vomited, and providing light meals of bread and milk to settle her stomach. He did not know why he indulged her so.
Perhaps it was because he found he enjoyed her closeness, for Rodica would watch everything he did with a child's curiosity, grinning and clapping her hands when he performed some vampiric cantrip. She liked to sit at the kitchen window, watching the spring rain and waiting patiently for him to come and make her dinner. He'd left the abandoned cross and wimple beside her bed, but after her first evening up he had come in to discover them gone from her table. It was the work of five minutes to find them, crumpled under the window-seat. Out of sight, out of mind, but not thrown away entirely.
Vlad had thought merely to learn her story. It was an intriguing one, he was sure, the sort that would leave him staring into the fire for an hour or so while he considered it, with the sister by then abandoned in the forest – close enough to the village for her to be found. Yet Rodica would not tell. She seemed as one whose mind had snapped, for she stared through him when he spoke to her, and nothing, not the threat of death, or pain, or violation, would induce her to say more than that single word. Yet her mind was not snapped. He had seen it when he set his black influence over her to silence her, saw the threads of thought were tangled, yes, but not broken, and what's more guarded against his more probing efforts to read them. It was so with a few mortals, a natural gift of resistance to his influence. Intrigued, he allowed her to remain.
.:I:.
When he'd time Vlad would try to draw Rodica from herself. He was kind sometimes, sitting her across from him at the great table, holding her hands and asking her questions in the voice he saved to soothe spooked horses. She said nothing, but responded in her own fashion, a gentle smile that lit her eyes, an attentive look or a clumsy caress of his hands. He loved her for it, yet it did not stop his cruelties. Not violence, for he could tell she would not respond to that. But a whispered prayer, a hummed or whistled snatch of a popular hymn and she would stand under his gaze like a restless horse, chewing her lip or her hair and shifting from foot to foot. If he pressed her, taking dancer's steps closer in time to his tune, bending to her ear as he sang she would begin to cry, sobbing noisily as a toddler does with no attempt made at dignity, and scuttle off. She'd return to him later, taking slow steps and keeping her eyes downcast, like a beaten pup ready to be friends again. It was delicious to watch at first.
.:I:.
Time passed and Vlad still could not read her, yet in her own way Rodica enforced his interest in her, playing him like a master courtier. He could not tell if she knew her own role. She put a firm stop to his games one day; after a particularly cruel taunt with a measure of the Te Deum she ran away with her hands over her ears. He had laughed and smirked but when his work was done she had not yet come to find him, and with a spring storm raging outside he was forced to seek her himself. He was perturbed to find that he could not sense her, and when he eventually came upon her he saw that for the moment, the little sister had won. She was curled in a hollow of the lake's bank, the dress he had given her sodden, staring at the rain which peppered the lake's surface. There were still tears on her cheeks. She went to his arms when she saw him, burrowing inside his cloak, though he could not tell if it was a token of forgiveness or a search for some warmth. He carried her home and nursed her through her chill himself, hoping it would not turn to something worse and knowing that for the moment, she had won, for he did not wish to lose her.
He learned a little of her story during her illness, for, with no servants, and Rodica unresponsive, he had to be the one to strip her soaked dress away and lift her into the bath. There were still bruises on her skin, very faded, and old cuts turning to scars on her thighs. They looked as though they had been caused by sharp fingernails. It would have been cruel to ask her about them, so he stroked her hair, and she leaned into his shoulder gratefully.
Rodica seemed a little better in herself after she'd recovered, the blank look that had been present for hours at a time hardly ever in her eyes now, though she still did not speak. They grew closer then, for Vlad allowed her into the library, and she would sit attentively at his feet while he worked, and follow a few paces behind while he walked the castle. She began to read too, at first just the simple storybooks he gave her, but eventually she would lose herself in works of theology or wait impatiently for him to finish with the newspaper so she could devour it. Several times she pulled at his arm and seemed about to tell him something, but could never quite form the words. He waited, biding his time.
They were together for the summer, for Vlad took her riding or walking over his lands most nights, and Rodica seemed delighted at his efforts, and proved herself a good horsewoman, forming an attachment with his little chestnut mare. He taught her to drive, first with the trap, and finally in the coach with his own team. He always thought she looked best on the forest road, standing straight with the team in her hand, moonlight on her face and her fast-growing black hair streaming behind her.
.:I:.
One night Rodica came to him in the library. She was trying to tell him something, but though Vlad sat her down and stroked her hair and hands she could not form the words, and would not give up with a smile, as she usually did after a few moments, and go to fetch a book. Instead, as on that first night, she would not release his hand, and there were tears in her eyes as she struggled. Her tears disconcerted him, and eventually he took her to his chair and set her on his knee, and she tucked her face into his shoulder and sobbed there till his shirt was soaked through.
.:I:.
The next evening Rodica could not be found. She was not in her room, nor the library, and it was not till Vlad came to the stables and found the chestnut mare gone that he guessed what she had done. This was confirmed when he checked under the window-seat in her room, and found no wimple and cross crumpled there.
It was too quiet with her gone. Rodica might never have spoken, but he missed her steady heartbeat and soft breaths while he worked, and for a long time could not make himself comfortable in his library. Then his old mentor, still secure in his place in Budapest, asked him to come for the spring, and he accepted, for he did not relish the thought of one here without Rodica. But she was forgotten in a round of conferences and balls and banquets, and when he returned he hardly missed her, and half a lifetime passed before he thought of her again.
He was sheltering in a doorway near the village, waiting for the rain to pass and idly watching passers-by scrambling for their doorways, considering one or another for sustenance tonight, when the familiar little figure crossed his path. She was smaller now, and the hair that peeped under the wimple was grey, not black, and the cross about her neck was one of an abbess. She saw him at once, and smiled, and curtseyed, and said two words. "Thank you." Then she was on her way.
Reviews are, as always, much, much appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you all.
VVQ