Shade: First Disney project (How nervous I am!), But hey, what can I say? The saga of webcomics of Twisted-Wind was like a bullet in the head for me that led to the obsession to make some twisted and exciting idea. And well, that idea was this.
Those who want to read the webcomics, I leave the link of the artist. Total credits to her: : twisted-wind/gallery/28917409/the-Count-Mickey-Dragul
Warnings: +18. Explicit scenes of gore and death. Delicate themes. Furry lemon in some parts.
Disclaimer: The universe and the characters of the webcomic "The Count Mickey Dragul" are owned by twisted-wind, of Deviantart. Other Disney characters are from the Disney macroverse and Epic Mickey franchise. The story is mine.
The Crimson Epistles.
Created by Shade Shaw Reilly
"I will not let you go into the unknown alone."
Bram Stoker
Chapter I:
White veil.
In the world in which we live, so beautiful and at the same time so chaotic, where there is as much light and darkness as good and evil inside each one of the beings that inhabit it, it's not surprising that, once in a while, the forces of both sides, as disparate as they are antagonistic to each other, not only align themselves in order to achieve a common good, but even, by some extraordinary and twisted miracle, make good friends with each other.
On one side was the feared highland master of Transylvania, Count Mickey Dragul. The rumors said that he, like the rest of his extinct family, was part of a vile race of night and darkness, beings that hide and act from the shadows and hate the sunlight, beings of which good people speak in whispers with a mixture of fascination and terror: Vampires.
It had been many years since Mickey had let these rumors grow around him by simply isolating himself from everyone and everything, in search of a calmer, more tranquil life where he wouldn't have to endure more hatred and rejection beyond sporadic encounters with monster and fortune hunters whom came to his castle and then were impaled or massacred, falling like flies before the spider's web... However, that had changed when, a dark and cold winter night, he had found, by chance in appearance (although now he attributed it with fervor to fate) to a beautiful little mouse called Mina "Minnie" Murray, who had come to his land trying to flee from an arranged marriage with a vile and despicable mouse that she could never come to love. One thing led to the other and, finally, the love came with the force of a gale to his heart perpetually stopped, chaining himself forever to Mina, to the horror of her relatives, who didn't hesitate to hire the best vampire hunter of the region to go and rescue the "unfortunate" maiden.
Mickey had risen sharply from his coffin when he felt knocks on the door, growling annoyed. Who would dare to bother him in his midday nap when he had explicitly ordered that he wanted to rest, even for a fucking half hour? He opened the lid with one blow, ready to sink his fangs into the poor tormented soul that would have dared to interrupt him... In his disconcert, the figure of the "poor tormented soul" who looked at him belonged of a male black rabbit who was looking at him sarcastically, with his arms crossed.
Several months ago, Oswald Abraham Van Helsing had been hired by the banker Scrooge McDuck to search for his niece Mina, abducted by the terrible Count Mickey. Although the rabbit had refused at first, a heavy bag of gold coins had changed his mind. And it was that way, for many years, many lords and powerful people came to Oswald to get rid of the monsters and other vermin when the other hunters with better reputation and status had failed miserably. That had earned him a reputation as a ruthless scavenger and mercenary, a reputation heightened by repudiation and general fear of his family's name; that is why Oswald had always preferred, just like Mickey, the inevitable loneliness of his work and destiny, only that he had always shared that with his beloved wife and some scarce but loyal friends.
Their first meeting, as is logical, wasn't on the best terms. Like a pair of wolves biting each other, Oswald and Mickey had engaged in a titanic near-death struggle that had lasted several days until finally, both wounded and exhausted, had ended in a strange draw, caused by a greater force : Mina had become a vampire in a desperate attempt of Mickey to save her from an atrocious death and she had shouted at the hunter that, if he killed Mickey, he should also kill her, because she could never live without him. Oswald, moved by that, had accepted that this mission was lost from the very beginning and broke the contract, from that moment he became friend of the being he had sworn to destroy.
"Give me a good reason to not impale you right now!" Mickey exclaimed exasperated when he saw Oswald's bored face as he didn't stop looking at him without saying anything.
"Because if you do, my spirit would return from the dead to fuck your damned immortal existence until the sky collapses or that finally bores me" the black rabbit replied sarcastically. "Mina tells you that she is almost finishing her dress and wants to see you so that you can give her your opinion."
A blush appeared on the vampire mouse's cheeks, to Oswald's disguised amusement.
For the past week and a half, the entire castle was preparing for the union of Mickey Dragul with Mina Murray in the chapel of the castle, because Uncle Scrooge, after accepting by force (and in part thanks to the very generous dowry that he received by the mouse) that his niece had become a vampire and had fallen in love with her captor, had insisted until the weariness in his letters that, at least, the Count have the decency to marry her as God intended, "And not have her there as if she was a concubine" he had written in one of his letters, to Mina's outrage and Mickey's rage, who needed all the strength and threats from Oswald to not go gut the old banker for such an insult. So much had insisted that, making a dent in them, they had begun the preparations.
"Sometimes I cannot believe that I'm doing this, lately I have believed in free and wild love, totally oblivious to those rigid and absurd formalities and protocols of the mortal's marriages" Mickey snorted, stretching out of his coffin "Is it always like that, Oswald? "
"I couldn't tell you, because usually among mortals, marriages are just a contract, an agreement so that the fortune of both families are insured. Many times, the feelings are not even considered, so those who marry for love are practically a rarity in our times."
"...Like you and your wife, right?" Mickey teased him maliciously, causing a slight blush on the rabbit, who looked at him with angry embarrassment.
On the other side of the lobby of the castle, in a room with large windows covered in dark linen, a female mouse was just tying the tight corset that closed her wedding dress, helped by a female black cat wearing a small flowered hat. Mina let out a long sigh.
"It's strange, Ortensia: Almost a year ago I had tried a wedding dress (heavier and more ornate than this) in my hometown, just thinking about my misfortune of having to marry that buffoon of Duke Mortimer Mouse, just wanting to break it in pieces and escape from that place, wherever I went, as long as I did not have to use it again... unless it was with someone that I really loved, and look at me now! Trying another wedding dress, but this time wishing the day is here."
"I couldn't tell you, because from the moment I tried on my wedding dress, I knew that was what I wanted to do" Ortensia mused with a hint of nostalgia in her voice, artistically tying the vampire countess's corset cords. "You hadn't had the luck to join a man that you really love until now, and unfortunately in the time we live, very few women achieve that."
"Well you're one of those few lucky girls then" Mina told her gently, making the female black kitten blush shyly. At that moment they knocked on the door and both women were taken off. "It's open!"
"My dear Mina, but how wonderful you look!" Count Mickey exclaimed with delight as he opened the bedroom door, followed by Oswald. "You don't know how exquisitely beautiful you look in that dress, that you would make even the dead shine their eyes" he mused embracing his beloved and looking at her with tender adoration, receiving a radiant smile from the little mouse. Behind them, Oswald made a mocking face.
"You know, to be the terrible Count Dragul of Transylvania, you are too soft and cheesy" said the rabbit sarcastically, but the happy pair of vampires olympically ignored him. At that moment, he felt feminine arms that surrounded him in a soft embrace from behind, something that Oswald received with complete delight and pleasure.
"Leave them in their moment of happiness that, to be condemned creatures, they don't have many and they should treasure them as they can," Ortensia scolded him softly. "Doesn't this bring you memories, Hunny Bunny?" she whispered into his ear, causing a slight shuddering and a sly grin from the vampire hunter, looking at her tenderly.
"As if it had been yesterday, Honeybunch," the male rabbit murmured, looking that the brightness of the glass windows resembling a lot like the brightness of the stained glass in the form of saints and the Blessed Virgin of that little chapel in the forest of Nottingham, almost ten years ago…
"...With this hand, I will sustain your longings. Your cup will never be empty, because I will be your wine. With this ring, I ask you to join me…"
After exchanging the simple rings of pure silver (for protection against werewolves), the friar joined their hands. Their fingers (hers, the daughter of a banker, soft and refined; his, son of a vampire hunter, rough and hardened) were intertwined in a tender gesture that was as sure and solemn as a kiss, like if the hands of two beings united in a single prayer... And it was like this: They were two beings that at that moment united before the Creator in an eternal prayer.
"Here I take thee, Ortensia, as my wedded wife, to have and keep you in my bed and house..." (1)
The female black kitten, excited and trembling (both for what is happening and for the latent danger of being discovered), closed her eyelids as if she could barely stand the intensity of her husband's gaze. Everything that was happening to her was too beautiful, even after she had defied her parent's will and despised her inheritance to go with (in the words of her aunts) "a wolf with rabbit's skin". It didn't matter in the end, just as it didn't matter that no one from her family had come, making the chapel emptier than it was, barely counting among Oswald's friends, Sir Robin Hood and his wife Lady Marian, the old aya Widow Tweed and Clarabelle, among others, accompanying them in the scarce, but very warm celebration. All that mattered at that moment were the two of them, uniting as they had wished.
"By the power that God grants me, we unite the lives of these two creatures through love and faith" the friar Tuck recited extending his wide bear arms before the couple "I declare you, husband and wife. Oswald, you can now kiss your wife...!"
"And you say I'm soft and cheesy!" Mickey exclaimed mockingly as he saw his old archenemy cuddling and kissing with Ortensia with tender abandonment as if they had completely forgotten to be in the same room as them, lost in their good memories. After the third noisy cough, the rabbit and the cat parted, blushing violently and looking at the ground with embarrassment. Mina and Mickey laughed.
"In that case, we are ready for the ceremony, today at midnight" said the female mouse taking the white veil with a simple worn headband, borrowed from Ortensia to fulfill the tradition so demanded by uncle Scrooge to be a "traditional wedding" as possible, even with vampires. She couldn't help but put it on her head and feel it in her hands, because after being a vampire she could no longer see herself in the mirror. Instantly she was enveloped in the count's loving claws, squeezing her in a hug as if he didn't want to let her go.
"Oh, my sweet Mina, I have to restrain myself too much in not advancing the wedding night in this very moment after to see you so beautiful and radiant, that I can barely control myself…"
"I have no problem doing so, my sweet lord, I cannot wait any longer for you to hold me in your arms and in your wide bed..."
"Could you even wait for us to leave the room before you start with that again?" Oswald grumbled, taking his wife's arm and reaching the doorway.
"You guys can retreat now to rest or do whatever you want in intimacy, the 421th son will not be made alone," Mickey replied mischievously to the rabbit, who needed all his willpower to not shoot to the vampire with his Carabine or, at least, throw him one of his heavy leather boots on his head.
The shadows on the Dragul's Castle slithered along its imposing walls as the sun came to rest on its cloudy bed. The moon would soon appear and with it, the beginning of the celebration.
To be continued.
Glossary:
(1) Formula of ritual marriage at weddings, in this case, of the state of York (England). Phrase that appears at the beginning of volume VI of "The Accursed Kings: The Flower of Lys and the Lion".
Shade: Well, there was the first chapter! If you have already noticed, this will be a crossover with several characters from Disney animated feature films, with Mickey and Oswald as the central axes of the plot. Whoever guesses the references, I give him a homemade blood cookie :3