I'm sorry that I've not updated this in such a long time. To be perfectly honest, it was all because of Season 4. (Warning, rant ahead. If you're not one for rants, skip)

Basically, I don't know about you, but it really pissed me off. Season 3 (which, whilst it slipped up sometimes was on the whole great) had provided it with a great set up and I was fully prepared to see Vlad struggling with his new powers and new responsibilities. But no. Season 4 took everything that was great about Season 3 and threw it out of the window (or dusted it - we all know what I'm talking about here!). Suddenly the show was all about this stupid three-way romance that was never going to work and some son that's appeared out of nowhere and Vlad doing what our Vlad would never do: namely, killing Bertrand, turning Erin and on the whole basically being a giant jerk! I seriously think that the writers sat there and went "I don't know what to do with these Season 3 characters any more. It's too much fuss to think up a new way to take their story. Let's kill them off instead" or just never write them in the case of Wolfy; did anyone else wonder where he was or was it just me? I mean, we spend most of Season 3 not trusting Bertrand and Season 4 was supposed to be the time when he really steps up to accept Vlad. But no, despite being aware of the fact that there's a shapeshifting traitor on the loose, Vlad kills his own ally! This is supposed to be the same boy who refused to be a vampire and had a breather for a best friend, wasn't he supposed to have retained some of those qualities which is why he is different from all other vampires?! And that whole thing with Erin and the three way love triangle! That was stupid! It reminded me of the valentine episode where Vlad and Robin are trying to impress the same girl. We all knew that it wasn't going to work and that was the point. We knew as soon as Adze turned up it wasn't going to work and it was probably a convoluted plot devise. And sure enough, it was! Surprise, surprise. I actually stopped watching after about episode 4 I got so frustrated with it.

Which is why this story never happened. I lost all inspiration that had come in droves throughout Season 3 and it has been stagnant ever since. I haven't watched a single episode of Season 5 (because there's apparently another season, probably trying to make up for the atrocity which was 4), but apparently Vlad isn't pure vampire and might be half-human... *sigh* let's not go there.

Needless to say, none of that will be making it into my fic. I mean, half of Season 4 won't work anyway because of Esta's mere presence. As proven with Vlad and the Soluna Village, you can't really sneak past a Soluna. They exist to slay supernatural creatures therefore have methods of detecting said supernatural creatures. Elizabetta would have been caught before she'd manage to do anything!

This has meant that I've had a really hard time trying to figure out what to do. I wanted to stay as true as I could to the original but...

Ah well... we'll see...

Enough ranting, you want to read the story now don't you. Well here it is.

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Dracula... (breaks off into muttering about how Season 4 would be very different otherwise and finally dissolves into the rant above). I do own Esta and the Soluna.

They were late. Robin sat hunched in the window of the attic lounge, staring out anxiously at the school gates. They hadn't come back yet. Sure this wasn't a first but Robin was worried all the same. The nerves never seemed to go away no matter how many raids they made, how many times they returned successful, a few teenage vampires in tow. The numbers varied but even if it was just one Vlad would consider the night a success. They'd toast hot chocolates and laugh about the near misses, the fights, the retorts, everything that went right, that went wrong, and Robin sat on the outside of it all, trying to laugh off the loneliness he felt inside.

The moon was high in the sky, the light of its full face picking highlights out of the surroundings. Robin stared at it dreamily. It always reminded him of Esta, usually in her priestess Halloween outfit, glowing pearly white, her Selenist ring on her finger. Robin sighed wistfully. He wouldn't deny that it annoyed him a little bit that best friends, new and old, spent more time together than they did with him. It had been his idea to look for Vlad; Esta had just come along for the ride.

Okay, Robin admitted to himself, that wasn't entirely true. Esta had her own reasons for needing the help of the youngest Dracula. But the way they went about it together, leaving him on the sidelines...

There was a clanking far below. Robin glanced down and felt his heart leap. A small minibus was trundling into the school courtyard. They had returned.

Robin leapt to his feet and raced for the door. On his way down, he met Ingrid coming up.

"They're back!" he said to her excitedly.

Ingrid grunted. "Whatever." Robin ignored her disgruntled tone. Ingrid was never in a good mood recently. Then again, none of the vampires seemed to be.

The only vampire who was enjoying the Vampire-Slayer truce was Vlad. There was something about depriving them of the millennia old tradition of 'breather hunting' that got on their bad side. She was young for a vampire, but Ingrid was a true believer of those ways. She had been all for vampire-ruling-breather societies, power-hungry, determined, merciless: qualities considered good in a vampire. With Vlad's new rules, Ingrid no longer had any means of being mean, essentially being herself. And that got on her nerves. Vlad had promised her a good position in his new future. He had yet to deliver on that promise and Robin worried that if he didn't do it soon he'd lose Ingrid allegiance. It wouldn't be the first time that Ingrid had gone against her younger brother, but it would be a significant loss in this early stage.

Most of the vampires Vlad dragged back with him for 're-education' dislike Vlad. The dislike varied but all thought that Vlad's desire for peace was a bit weak. Bertrand, who Robin expected to object the most to Vlad's ideas, followed them obediently, despite Robin's initial impressions of him. With him in charge of teaching the new regime, he was unlikely going to get any support from his students, at least at first. It was hardly surprising that Ingrid had gathered something of a following. She was smart, charismatic and dangerous; she was willing to stand up to Vlad just a little bit more than everyone else and, above all, she gave off a natural aura of domination. It was hardly surprising that the new vampire students were drawn to someone who was, to them, the very definition of a vampire.

Secretly, Robin knew this because it would be what he himself would do. He loved Vlad, he really did, and he was thrilled at Vlad's attempts to unite their worlds so they could be friends, but Robin – Stokely's vampire expert – also understood how vampires thought. To them, killing and eating was their way of life. And suddenly, someone was trying to change that. Of course they'd run to the nearest person who basically screamed "I'm normal" in vampire body language.

Robin had reached the ground floor now and hurried outside into the moonlit courtyard. He couldn't help stopping and staring at the gargoyles, grotesques, buttresses and steeples that adorned the surrounding walls and rooftops. Silver lines picked details from the black night and grey stone and for a second the scene was a perfect picture of gothic. The only let down was the battered minibus seated in the middle, from which a small group of moody teenagers were disembarking.

A group of three stood to one side: two female, one male. Robin scurried over to them. As he moved out of the shadows, he felt the eyes of the watching, hungry vampires lock onto his moving figure. They could be there in a second, open mouthed, drool dripping from bared fangs ready to sink into the breather's neck. And then a hand clasped firmly around Robin's wrist, a pair of vibrant green eyes glared at the group and they quickly pushed the thought from their minds. Maybe later, they decided (or so it seemed in Robin's eyes), when the Soluna had gone somewhere else.

Robin turned to greet his friend and suddenly caught the look in Esta's eye: angry, wild and on edge. "I've told you," she hissed, "not to come down from the attic whilst that lot are around." Her eyes flickered back to the group of teenage vampires.

Robin shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you were running late so I decided to come down this time. I was worried..." He bit his tongue that last part. Esta hated it when he worried about them. She thought it was pointless. After all, she had told him on their third mission when he had secretly admitted his concern to her, who'd be stupid enough to attack the Chosen One?

Robin could have cut the tension with a knife. They were all on edge. Vlad and Esta were not looking at each other and Esta still hadn't let go of Robin's hand. Something told Robin that the question, which should have been rhetorical, had given them an answer.

Erin, the final member of the trio, filled him in as she 'escorted him' back upstairs on Esta's behalf. "One of them bit Jonno."

Robin stopped and stared at her. "Really? Is he okay? He isn't going to..."

"No, no," Erin replied hurriedly, "no, thankfully not. Esta might have murdered her first vampire if he was. I've never seen her so angry." That last part was delivered in a whisper.

"I can imagine," Robin agreed, deciding not to mention that the angriest he'd ever seen Esta had happened last month and if it was angrier than that then the statement applied to him too. He also couldn't stop himself feeling slightly jealous but he wasn't certain why.

"Yeah, and then, when Vlad ran ahead to open the gates for us, they started making trouble at the back of the bus. I think they were hoping that Esta might snap but Bertrand lost it first. I think he panicked slightly when one of them went after me. He was thinking of Vlad's response I suspect."

"Hmm," Robin agree, but not entirely. He suspected that Bertrand also feared Esta's reaction too.

They had reached the attic now and where standing in the narrow corridor that connected the bedrooms. Erin lent against her doorway and sighed, "This lot are going to be trouble, I just know it. Particularly that Malik guy; I don't like him."

"Was there a problem with him?"

"He was the problem!" Erin smiled wearily up at him. "This vampire chasing is tiring work. If it wasn't for Vlad, I wouldn't put in half the effort I do. Honestly, you are so lucky that you don't have to do this. Goodnight."

"Night," Robin muttered. He didn't agree. Not one bit.

And there you have it. Hopefully, I should be able to find the inspiration to write more. I have planned out this fic at least and know roughly where it is going. The difficulty will be working out how. I enjoyed writing Coming Dawn so much that the style of flicking between timelines felt natural. I want to do something similar, continue the trend so to speak, but it's a lot harder to work out how.

Until then, I'll love you and leave you. I'm sorry; it seems this chapter was more rant than story but please don't let my feeling distract you from what's going on.

Until next time :)