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by Thyme In Her Eyes
Author's Note: So here's yet another fanfic based on the 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula. This one is focused on Mina's character and explores her thoughts and reactions towards the film's end as she travels towards Dracula's castle. Enjoy! Also, I'd just like to give my thanks to everyone kind enough to review my other BSD stories so far for all their support and encouragement. You guys are stars!
-- HOME --
Our souls will join again the wild
Our home in peace and war and death.
– Nightwish ('Creek Mary's Blood').
x-x-x
The snow was falling in soft, wet clusters and Mina's focus was sharpening. With each reluctant step the horses took, drawing their carriage closer to the vampire's lair, the young woman's awareness of and sensitivity to her surroundings strengthened and grew keen as a knife-edge. Her hands clutched tightly at the thick fur blanketing her, unconsciously wringing and shredding small pieces of it as her head dipped back, languidly welcoming the touch of the drifting snow on her face, throat and closed eyes. A small, hungry smile blossomed on her face as the night's wild and sweet fragrance filled her mouth.
Her eyes opened to vast and lonely snow-capped mountains that not even her most vivid dreams, memories and visions could have evoked in their full majesty. Here was all she had equated with the word beauty.
She knew this place. She had known it in dreams, had visited it often in long-forgotten childhood visions which now came rushing back to her. Rather than confusing or disorienting, the recognition anchored her. The strength of her revelations and the certainty of her feelings centered her sharply, as commanding as a compass-arrow. In the thick forests of her soul, this place had always existed and awaited her return. Her essential self had been born here, and all her missing pieces flowed from it. It was imprinted on her soul, had always been, somewhere so instinctive and fundamental that she hadn't even seen it.
Perhaps it was the result of her heightening senses, her blood-connection to her prince, her body changing and perceptions becoming like his own, or the ancient memories moving in her soul. Perhaps it was all of those things, and it made certainty rise in her like a blaze as she gazed at her surroundings, elated and overwhelmed by the experience.
The sky was thickly clouded, the chill winter light only angling through as the day retreated, sunset dripping with faded tones of amber and scarlet. The harsh, jagged mountains and doom-filled sky should have filled her with dread, with the sense of creeping unease she knew Van Helsing was battling, but Mina felt awed and welcomed and experienced an immediate kinship with her surroundings. The landscape was unlike anything she had ever known, and yet Mina had been there before. In her blood, she felt it to be true. Her soul's roots rested here, with him, and now she could touch them.
She and Van Helsing had passed through a gloomy and dense forest as their carriage climbed higher until they reached a point where the trees were thinning and starved, and the surrounding mountains quite bare. The land was desolate and the winter savage, and it was enough to keep the place in isolation. Where a cross had once been placed, a wolven antichrist was now crucified, its jaws curled open in a perpetual warning snarl, and Mina had felt an anxious tension begin to prickle through her companion. The route on which the unlikely pair journeyed had long ago narrowed into a thin strip of road which snaked dangerously across the mountain-edges; keeping their carriage perpetually close to treacherous precipices and steep, violent drop-offs. Yet the more perilous and isolated their trail became, the more Mina's fears dissolved. Nothing she saw seemed fearsome or terrible to her, but wildly beautiful.
Under the sharp scent of ice, she could smell pine. The climate was invigorating, and it sounded a twisting call in her blood. In answer, Mina took full breaths of the clean, crisp air; feeling safe, strong and confident. She felt as though she was breathing in ancient history, allowing the blood and tears of ages to fill her soul and complete her. The wind was restless, and so was she.
Even without her tainted blood, the area would have had a staggering effect on her, but with her altered senses, this was multiplied a hundred-fold. Her new instincts were as beautiful and compelling as the place itself, and she gave herself over to it, eager to abandon herself to the new life Vlad had given her. She felt connected with every aspect of the land, as though it was a part of her. More than that, her mind and perceptions were altering with her body, for her mind could easily cope with the new information bombarding it. She felt only childlike wonder at sensations powerful enough to drive a normal person mad, given time. The land around her protected and comforted her even as it awakened so much within her; the air itself carrying strange, potent secrets. She could feel the ebbing power of the dying light, the promising whispers of dusk, and the swift approach of the night, and a warmth filled her body, roving over and igniting her.
The sky was darkening further, and the night would be bleak and moonless. It was calling to her, as was all its creatures, and Mina sighed peacefully as she began to understand the words they spoke.
She could feel the vital scents of the earth as they was an extension of herself, and her sensitive hearing picked up the sounds of distant animal movements and noises, the swaying of barren tree-branches, the fall of the snow, and the wearied heartbeat of the older man at her side. Her vision was also so much stronger, and she knew that the Professor could not appreciate the land around him as she could. He could not see how amazing it was, how beautiful. She could pick out every wisp in the clouds above her, the features of the trees on faraway mountains, and the details of each falling snowflake. Mina smiled softly as she allowed all these things to flow over and through her; smelling the coming night all about her, and feeling a force stronger than the dimming daylight caress her.
London had never won such an overpowering sense of connection and belonging from her. Here, the world she knew and the woman she had been only a few months ago were very far away. She had always been drawn to the idea of travel and journeying to foreign lands, and had been nipped by guilty envy when thinking on the opportunities that Jonathan's career and Lucy's wealth had offered them. Now, she fully understood why.
With these feelings came hunger, too. It was raw and heady, and took her outside of herself, making her long for awful, inhuman things. But for now it only made her feel strong and excited, full of joy. The wolves were calling to her, and at last she understood their songs. She felt so at one with the land's wildness, and was suddenly happy to cast off her humanity and embrace something more animal, more primal, more powerful. Her sharpening fangs ached and her fingers curled convulsively into her fur blanket, claw-like and ready for use. A pack of wolves had made a kill a short distance ahead of the pair, and Mina heard it all as if she were there, sharing in their triumph, and she longed to go to them. Every sense erupted as she tasted the blood on the wind.
New instincts were born in her too, ones she hadn't anticipated. Her eyes and deeper senses quickly and keenly noted the distant canopies of forests and the many caves and underground caverns and routes settled among the mountains; her body drawn to the cover and shelter they offered. Here, the light was often far away, an infrequent intruder, and there were many places which would give her protection. Mina could hardly repress everything growing inside her as she fought down the urge to leap from her carriage, touch the ground with her bare hands, and sift through the crushed snow until she found soil. She needed to feel her flesh on the earth, needed to run her hands through it and lower herself into it and away from the light.
Her body was clearly changing, the transformation gaining speed now, and her perceptions were altering in a manner both subtle and natural in one moment, and then radical and shocking in the next. Despite this, when Mina realized that her senses were becoming like her lover's and that she was beginning to see and feel this land as he did, she felt as though she could fly.
As with all thoughts of belonging, thoughts of her prince followed quickly and powerfully. He belonged to the storms of air and sea, was full of their energy, desperation and wrath, and now Mina could see a part of what fed such wildness. This was his homeland, his history, laid bare before her. His soul lay here among the roaming wolves and epic, lonely mountains and whispered frantic, tender tales to her, his history moving through her changing body and coursing along her blood.
Faintly, she heard the cries of the sated wolves as the wind tore at her, stinging her face and encouraging a dreamy smile. Vlad's homeland was as beautiful as his words, and an ancient pride and protectiveness surged through her. This was his home, the place he loved so well, and his love for the land hallowed it in her eyes. It was a part of him and of her too; the cradle of their shared history. Once, they had stood here together and loved one another, simply and astonishingly. They'd had a life together, and the land remembered through him. The mountains roared their isolation, the river moaned its despair, and the wolves howled for all they sought but could never find. But she was here now, she wanted to shout out. She had come back, and would never go away again.
Mina tried to reach for Vlad with her mind, and ached. There was so much she had discovered, so much she longed to tell him. She had felt such exquisite joy, such completeness, in Vlad's arms as she drank from him, and for a moment had touched what felt like heaven, only to be thrown violently back to earth within minutes as the door had burst open and Jonathan's despairing voice had cried out her name. But for the first time, Mina allowed herself to remember the pleasure and beauty of the encounter without forcing shame on herself. When she looked upon a landscape so familiar, vital and beloved, and heard her lover's voice within her mind stronger and closer than ever, she could not feel guilty for the path she had chosen. At last, she had found a place where everything inside her seemed to meet and reconcile; a place that was both a heaven and very much of the earthly.
Jonathan had described Transylvania to her as an untamed land of darkness, terror and evil, and Van Helsing had called it the end of the world, but for Mina it was a place of beginnings – and of regeneration. A new life would begin for her soon, and her changing body knew it. Now that her prince was close to home, his powers were growing tremendously. The closer he drew to his ancient castle, the stronger he became, and the same was true for her. His blood was moving through her, recreating her.
At first, she had sickened. Only a couple of weeks ago, she had traveled to Romania completely unaccompanied for Jonathan's sake, and now the same journey had exhausted her as her body lay in the grip of a wasting disease unlike any other. She had been gasping and choking under it. She barely ate, had begun to sleep through the daylight, and was leeched of energy while the sun shone down on her; unable to fight the unnatural weariness and lethargy for very long.
She had tried to resist, tried to pull herself back from the brink as doubts and shame challenged her, even all her old ideas of good and evil were rapidly altering. Awful visions had destroyed her sleep, and all of them about flowing blood – hers, Vlad's, Lucy's, the blood of strangers and innocents, and the blood of her husband and brave companions. All she wanted was to somehow end the death, madness and bloodshed into which they had all plunged, to save her prince and spare her friends, but as frenzied urges and immense powers ripped at her insides, she had been very frightened. And then, after struggling out of another waking-dream, she had found herself staring up at Jonathan and his anguish through half-closed eyes, knowing that she was one of the unclean, and the world had never been colder.
The only refuge was in the night and in the strange dreams which flowed into her ken after the sun turned its face from her. It was very much like the beautiful harmony that consumed and glowed inside her when under hypnosis. As the dark settled over her and bore her away from pain, Mina had been softly surrounded by the sounds of lapping water, creaking wood and distant voices. Instead of the smells of polish, upholstery and cigar smoke, the scents of damp wood and salty sea-air had flowed around her, as had the closer and more powerful smell of dry earth. She could still remember the half-imagined, half-real feeling of the soil coldly encasing her body.
When unconscious and untethered, her mind drifted constantly towards her prince. The wrenching suffering of the daytime was terrible, but she could easily bear it when she clutched at those moments when his mind touched hers, his thoughts and feelings entwining with her own as she felt the distant ghosts of his caresses. The loneliness of being without him was crushing, as was her fear for him, but there was consolation waiting for her in those dreams. For a time, they rendered her calm, serene, and sure of herself – absolutely certain of her identity and desires. They were her one point of safety and sanity, something to hold on to throughout her journey.
Mina knew that she had forever lost her innocence. A part of her still mourned that loss. There was no hope of regaining it now, for she had changed so profoundly and, no matter what her future held, she could never again be the woman she once was. Traveling alongside Lucy's gallant but bewildered and concerned suitors, a disappointed yet oddly understanding Van Helsing, and a devastated Jonathan, their presence and fears for her perpetually reminded Mina of this truth, and of her guilt and shame. But for the first time, real hope began to rise in her of gaining something better in its place. Instead of corrupted, she felt free.
She had been lost like the sea, but the instant her foot touched Romanian soil, everything changed. Her strength and energy began to flow back into her and increase, and though she still slept heavily through the day, the pain and nightmares faded away. As she drew closer and closer to Vlad's castle, her responses became even more powerful and intense. She had not belonged to the world of Jonathan and Van Helsing, her body told her. She belonged elsewhere. And now, at last, she had found it. Slowly, she had been stirring, recognizing features of the landscape and feeling an incredible affinity with it, from soil to soul; drawn to all that lay concealed within the mountains and past the forests.
The further into its depths she wandered, the wilder her thoughts became as all her contradictory and conflicted emotions were gradually distilled into a few terrible passions. She wanted the deep, unshakable feelings that had governed her soul the night she joined with her prince to rule her forever. All that was best and bravest about her stemmed from those eternal emotions, and all she wanted now was to always be with Vlad and end their loneliness. It was all that mattered. Anything that was born of guilt, confusion or convention dimmed within her and drifted away on the sharp winter winds, unneeded and abandoned.
When before she had been listless, the pain and pressure of the past few weeks were now sliding off her with natural ease, as though they had no decent reason to be weighing on her soul in the first place. The warmth of the train had left her freezing and shivering, but out in the stinging winter, the cold couldn't touch her. She had been gaunt, pale and drained, but now she brimmed with power and energy; alive to the fingertips. The fatigue dropped away, and excited anticipation took its place. Before, she had been wandering and searching hopelessly, stifled in pain, turmoil and sickness, but such feelings had slipped away like dreams at dawn. She had been so afraid of herself, uncertain of everything, and at a loss of who to turn to and trust, but now there was pure iron in her will. Familiar torments such as shame and fear were shed like a snakeskin, leaving Mina with a wealth of freshly-discovered and undreamed-of feelings and sensations in their place on which she could feed.
At that moment, the carriage turned a corner and the landscape revealed its darkest treasure. Her prince's castle; a timeless stone sentinel. As it came into her view, recognition charged through her, awakening every part of her. A forgotten language in which she had spoken words of love began to coil around her mind and flutter on her lips, as layers of cherished memories poured over her soul.
The mountainous landscape radiated solitude, stillness and changelessness, yet the river Arges could be faintly heard as it raged below. Although the sight of the river rushing hundreds of feet underneath her filled Mina with a dizzy, heavy ache, she relished everything, including the river's distant roar. As she drew closer to her destination, almost giddy with joy and need, and the water's music became more familiar, the swirl of pain began to ease as new thoughts surfaced in her mind. This river had been loved by her once, and with it at the castle's back, it had served and protected her home and people well. She had chosen to lay herself to rest within its depths and drown all her tears in its own, she recalled, and it had moaned with her pain and her loss. Even as it received and drowned her, she hadn't despised it, for it offered her freedom from a life no longer worth living and a grief beyond all enduring. The river was hers, and always would be.
When Mina looked beyond the river and mountains towards the castle, she saw him and felt his presence swirling all around her. At the edges of her mind, she could hear his voice speaking to her, whispering so many different things – words spoken centuries ago, words spoken in recent memories, words spoken in tantalizing dreams and visions, and words that were entirely new. And one simple request reigned over all words, steady as her beating heart: Come to me.
There was something eerily human about the castle, Mina imagined. Although a relic of a forgotten age, it was strong and had endured much. There was something looming and proud about it, as it defied time itself, but very lonely. It was a place of exile from life and humanity, she thought with a shudder. And it had been waiting for her.
It was nothing like the beautiful, pristine and much-loved castle she had glimpsed and remembered in slumber and in surreal waking-dreams. Those dreams had been of another world, of a place of sharp and brilliant sunlight, cool blue nights, flowery plains, intermittent snow, forests full of secrets, passionate winds and storms, and deep green darkness. It had been rambling, lush and wild, a place of passion. Intoxicated by her prince's company, she had seen a building that was new and young, brooding and brilliant, and gleaming in the day's sunshine; the light painting its proud walls a rich, tawny gold. She recalled how the ground had burst with life, how the base of the castle walls showed the first hints of growing vines. She remembered other greens too; greens that were rich and sharp, lying in thick forests and endless fields. Their secrets hideaways and fond retreats were everywhere, and she could remember them all now. Places to ride, places to laugh, places to talk, places to rest, and places to love. Mina could still recall the scent of the lovely flowers that grew in untamable abundance there, and still remembered the whispering feel of their cool petals against her skin.
All of this had been protected by blue rivers and blue mountains; proud, majestic and fierce, but never ugly or threatening. The waters had been cool and clear, full of energy and passion, and the mountains wise and ageless, their faraway colours soft and steady in the gentle light. She could still see the sheen of cool mist which, like a veil, shrouded the landscape and tamed it vivid colours by small degrees. She could still remember looking skywards at a clear, touching and heavenly field of blue, and feeling utterly safe and full to the brim with love. So much of herself was scattered here, and so much of her prince too. There was no beautiful memory of feeling that didn't involve him. This place had been more than a home, it had been a paradise.
And in her memories, it was alive. It had been a home to many, and it had been so fiercely loved. Its walls echoed and bubbled with lively chatter and activity, and all the haphazard, comfortable noises of ordinary people bustling about their lives. There was also the strong memory of liturgical chants, candlelight, and the scent of incense – all fragments of a centerpiece of the castle's life. She remembered darker sounds, such as the clash of metal, conspiring whispers, and the sounding of battle-drums, but she tried to push those miseries away from her mind. Instead, she focused on a memory of a group of young women – her ladies, she recalled with a rush of feeling – giggling and teasing one of the youngest and sweetest about one of the gypsy lads. There had been so many warm noises: the sounds of sounds and horses, and the laughter of the children teasing the poor creatures. She remembered, and countless forgotten songs sounded within her, and rejoiced at being home again at last. All it needed now was Vlad – its soul, its beating heart, and everything would be complete and as it should be.
However, time and other forces had corrupted the place she knew so well, the way the seas altered the rocks over ages. This place was a nightmarish distortion of the joyous castle which still lived and breathed in Mina's dreams, and it leeched life from the land surrounding and shielding it. The river raged, the impassable mountains threatened and menaced, and all the flowers were dead. The brilliant greens and gentle blues were gone too, and the once-radiant sunlight had paled and been scratched almost completely out of existence by a troubled, angry sky. All life had fled, leaving a broken husk of a home. It was so desolate, more a fortress than a dwelling, and she could not imagine how her prince had existed there, almost entirely alone, for so long. At the same time, she understood exactly why he had clung to the place so fiercely and desperately.
The castle itself was little better than a ruin now, having clearly fallen into disrepair many years ago, and centuries of neglect had worked their influence upon it. Its structure was strange and striking, and the sight of it filled Mina with sorrow and longing. The walls had been blackened by age and massive sections from it structure had crumbled away, carving a bleak silhouette out of it, and the remainder was propped up and reinforced by crude modern architecture, and even the jutting steel girders were now reddened by rust. It was a twisted and disfigured thing that seemed to have been broken and inadequately fixed over and over, and it moaned to Mina with its age, gloom, and many festering wounds. To survive the centuries, it had mutilated itself almost beyond recognition.
The sad and broken castle easily lived up to Jonathan's horror-filled descriptions of it as a prison and tomb, but Mina could not feel the same terror and dread. It was a ruin of the home she recalled, but it was still hers. Mad as it seemed, she still loved it. It didn't matter how it looked, or what time had done to it – it was still her home, and she could never belong anywhere else. It was all she remembered in her soul made twisted and ugly, but she was still intimately bound to it and her heart still lifted to see it, longing to draw closer to it. She knew that disinterest had been largely responsible for the castle's corruption and it suddenly tore at Mina's heart to think that Vlad could have ceased to care about his surroundings, or about the place that had once been such a source of warmth and happiness.
Instead of feeling fear or disgust, exuberant joy and relief flared up inside her as their carriage drew closer to the black and broken ruin, and she was desperate to reach its walls as soon as possible and touch her hand to the chill stone. She longed to walk within it, to wander through its great empty halls and up spiraling stone stairways. She needed to be within it; to visit its deserted chambers, to see its spiked turrets and ancient ramparts, to gaze out upon the land from the highest room. She needed to revisit and relive every memory, to feel her beloved prince with her again. She needed to see the tapestries, banners and hangings, and ached to light the ancient torches once more. It didn't matter that everything might have been desecrated by time – all she yearned for was to be absorbed by the place, no matter what twisted form it wore now. More than anything, Mina had to touch everything that once theirs and had once been loved by them. She needed to see their bed, to feel its softness one more time.
In the grip of these powerful and irrational compulsions, Mina could fully understand why Van Helsing had warned so gravely her of this place, and why he forbade her to set a foot inside the castle walls. He had meant it for her own sake, to keep her salvation safe. Once she stepped inside, she would be lost, and she knew it. The walls themselves would call to her and take her far away from this world. But she feared nothing now, least of all the effect this place could have on her.
In spite of this, Mina made a promise to herself to obey him and abide by his wishes and warnings for as long as she could. She would have her chance to walk within her ancient castle, and that right soon, because her prince was returning. He was coming to her, very swiftly now as he sensed her nearness and frantic yearning, and she had to be waiting there for him. He needed her, and she had to go to him. The emotion made her desperate and fierce as she struggled and ripped the reins from Van Helsing's hands and then urged the frightened horses onwards. The professor's alarmed words and protesting struggles did very little to dispel the profound influence the land was working upon her as she drove them forward. All her weakness and tiredness was forgotten, and she wanted to leap from the carriage and run wildly through the skeletal crops of trees, past the cliffs and over the snow, racing until she reached the castle, breathless and panting. So much strength and vivid energy filled and charged her now, and she was almost convinced that she could manage it. She was willing to do and risk anything, if only to reach her prince again and never be parted from him. The snow and night fell reverently, welcoming her home.
This land was hers, theirs, and could be so again. The castle's ancient walls had once contained their every earthly joy and absorbed all traces of the love between them. Grave promises, teasing and light laughter, joy and tears, tender whispered words, and frantic sighs and cries had all dissolved into those sacred walls, and still lived there to this day. And they would live again, Mina vowed to herself. So much was returning to her, but so much was still unknown and elusive, and he would teach her everything she still lacked – of the earth, of the night, of the past, and of love. This place was their history and a home for all possibilities, and no-one could take it away from her. There was a blood-tie between herself and this land now, and it would be their sanctuary. It may have been cold, disfigured and dark, but Mina knew the fire it nursed under its crust.
She had endured all this to reach Vlad – her prince, her love. She had fallen in love with someone who didn't belong in her world, but now she realized that she could never belong there again either; not when the Transylvania winds, mountains and rivers called her name. Not when the bond between them carried his thoughts and the intensity of his longing to her.
She was willing to be with him, to always remain at his side and dwell forever in this dark ruin that had so long ago been home to her. Although it was less the castle of her memories than a vast, forbidding tomb, she would freely and happily choose to stay. To be with him, nothing was asking too much and there was nothing she could not undergo or sacrifice. She was ready to abandon her husband, her life, and even her immortal soul if need be. She had come to walk with him forever, and now Mina knew that this would be the road on which they travelled.
She had found her home, and it was with him, and would always be so. Her spirit had resided here for longer than even she could fully comprehend, and it would remain here with him until the world passed away. Reunited at last, they would nest together in this decaying mountain aerie and make a paradise of it once more.
-- FIN --