Zinging in the Train
Chapter 4: True Love
Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a time.
-Westley, 'The Princess Bride'
xxXxx
Under ordinary circumstances, Baron Humbert von Gikkingen would have been insatiably curious as to why there were flashing police cars leaving the hotel's parking lot.
But for now, his curiosity was centered elsewhere.
Toto made a hard landing on the cobblestones, 'conveniently' forgetting that he was carrying someone in his claws. "My my! This is the softest landing cushion I ever-"
"Not now!" Baron snapped, jumping from his friend's back and landing squarely on his feet.
There were a few perks in being forced to renounce one's humanity.
"Where is she?" he demanded of Dracula, who for some reason or another was standing outside the hotel with his usual gang.
Griffon huffed indignantly. "Nice to see you, too!"
"Hey, be nice," Frank admonished him, using the Invisible Man's glasses to guess where to rest his giant hand on one shoulder. "No one thought he'd get a second shot at her."
"Miss Yoshioka is perfectly fine," Dracula informed the frazzled feline while coming forward enough to briefly shake hands. "Mavis hasn't left her side since the front desk."
Baron breathed a small sigh of relief, not paying that much attention to his own two best friends that were finishing up another pointless scuffle behind his back. "That is good to hear, but it doesn't precisely answer my question."
Dracula nodded while pulling out his cell phone.
Baron couldn't help but feel a little smug over that. "I hope you know it still amuses me to watch you struggle with that."
Dracula managed a glare as he attempted to tap at the glass surface around his long nails. "Go ahead and say 'I told you to stay up to date with human technology'."
Baron couldn't help chuckling over that. "It's maturing so rapidly that I can't keep up with it like I used to."
"Mavie? He's here!" Dracula told the device triumphantly after she answered. "Where are you and Miss Yoshioka?"
"Her name's Haru, Dad. Meeting Tinkles wore her out, so she's sleeping in my living room with the kids. Tell Uncle Baron to come in quietly."
Yet another reason he was no longer upset about his enforced change. He didn't have to wait for Dracula to relay the message since his large triangular ears could pick up the soft sound. "Thank you," the uncle in question said politely before turning back to the giant crow. "Do you recall which window belongs to Mavis?"
"Feeling that impatient, huh?" the shapeshifter taunted, though flying up enough to offer his friend one claw.
Baron had to jump to catch the claw, but it was a minor thing compared to what was waiting for him. "Do I really need to answer that?"
"Hey! What about me?" Muta could be heard howling, but Baron could see that Murray was already wrapping an arm around him in consolation.
"Of course not, Baron. Here you go!" Toto called while flinging the cat at one of the few windows the hotel had to offer. The claw let go of his wrist at just the right height for Baron to swing himself into Mavis' window.
Unfortunately for the feline lord, he remembered a certain mistake too late.
Birds are notoriously bad at telling the difference between glass and open air.
Thankfully, he had the sense to close his eyes before the impact.
Mavis gave a little gasp in surprise as glass shattered, spilling shards and werecat across the red and gold carpet. But that surprise soon turned to anger since explosions were all too common in this place. "I knew I forgot to do something before you got here!"
From outside the window, they could distantly hear Dracula yell about the glass.
"Trouble?!" Haru stuttered, startled awake enough to start extracting herself from the kids that had been nestled into the blanket with her against the puppy's large side.
Winnie gave a small whine as she and Dennis woke up from the sudden lack of body warmth.
"No no, no trouble, Haru," Johnny assured her, holding his hands out in a 'please do nothing' gesture while intentionally setting himself between the two. "A family friend dropped by, that's all."
'No! Not like this!' Baron panicked as he tried to sit up, but the wind had been knocked out of him.
"You know, most people mean that metaphorically," his soul mate countered- oh, she'd fit right in with his friends!
The young lady that had been the center of his life for more than a century poked her head just enough around Johnny to get a good look at him, still rubbing sleep out of one eye.
Baron didn't have time to feel self-conscious about his undignified position, half kneeling in the broken glass, before he heard the sharp intake of breath and saw her puppy brown eyes become a shade larger as a purple light flashed through them.
Haru didn't so much as blink when a strangely scrawny witch flew by the window with a young human girl on her broomstick and made all the glass shards return to a solid piece in the framework before heading off to her next mess. The young girl could be heard laughing with delight.
Baron didn't notice, but Jonathan was doing his best to keep Tinkles from approaching Baron for neck scratches. The giant dog whimpered, but reluctantly laid down again for the rest of his nap.
The feline lord tried to open his mouth to say something to her, but his jaw suddenly felt too dry and cramped.
"So that's a Zing," his angel breathed, sounding heavily impressed despite the unfortunate position he was in. But then she blushed in embarrassment, holding one hand to her mouth as if she had only meant to think it.
The feline managed a light laugh as he finished getting to his feet. "I'm deeply grateful that Mavis and Jonathan managed to tell you what that is, because it may have proved a challenge to convince you myself."
"Uh, unless Mavis mentioned it before dinner, no one said a thing," the young man offered, sharing a confused look with his wife, who only shook her head before giving the young lady a curious look.
That breathtaking blush deepened as she began staring at the ground. "I've known the term since I was a kid," she admitted, clenching and unclenching her fists to help with her nerves. "I thought it was made up, but…" she managed another shy glance at Baron.
There was probably no way of retracing who gave her that information, but the werecat was grateful that she still wasn't frightened by his attention.
He finished brushing wrinkles out of his light grey jacket with one gloved hand before taking the needed steps to close the distance between him and his Zing to give her a proper bow. He would have held his hat to his heart, but he had been in too big a hurry to get here to grab it. "I seem to be cursed to give you terrible first impressions. My name is Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, and I've been waiting a long time to meet you."
Her sweet face blushed even more, but she jumped slightly at his name. "Wait, aren't you the guy that founded the Refuge in the Black Forest?"
Baron blinked in surprise. "You've heard of me?"
She answered by blinding him with that brilliant smile of hers. "I once found an article on when you managed to get your college officially recognized as such so your students wouldn't need a forged diploma. I did a little background research, but there were a few too many trash sources to sift through. What you stated as the purpose of the Refuge really impressed me. I hope there are more places like that for new monsters to adjust."
Baron was grinning triangular ear to triangular ear from the praise. "If there were, I wouldn't have felt compelled to start one myself. Drac and the others did what they could to help me after I was changed, but none of them had the like-mindedness I desperately craved. There are many in the Refuge that have chosen to stay instead of taking a chance in the human world."
Haru beamed again. "I'll have to come…" But then she stopped and laughed a little sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck. "Well, it seems pretty inevitable that I'll get to come see it at some point. I'm Haru Yoshioka," she added with a hasty bow.
"Anytime you wish, Haru," he promised her eagerly, his tongue tasting her new name happily. "You know we have a good college there, so you wouldn't have to halt studies, at least." 'And I can personally ensure a full scholarship for you, regardless of your chosen profession.'
Haru held up her hands in a 'slow down' gesture, looking a little panicked. "Let me worry about graduating high school first. That's tough enough for now. So, what brings you to the hotel?"
"You, of course," Baron answered automatically, since he didn't see a reason to beat around the bush.
Haru blinked, giving Mavis and Jonathan a strange look. "I thought a Zing would be a bit too personal to be that predictable. How could either of you had known?"
Mavis offered a nervous laugh, swinging Dennis into one arm so that she could fling her arm at a wall behind the human.
Haru whirled around in confusion but gasped as a red curtain flew back to reveal an old-fashioned portrait.
Perhaps that wasn't the best way to describe it. It had clearly been painted some time ago, and the colors and style all reflected the fact. But usually in portraits like this one, the center of attention was dignified, or at least respectable. A painting of that quality usually implied that someone stood around for hours in perfect stillness.
Yet, this portrait had the definite feeling of a photograph, taken at just the right second to capture an unrehearsed smile at full bloom.
Baron watched Haru draw closer, though he followed her in a heartbeat. He stood by her side to admire the heart he had poured into the portrait for one of Mavis' birthday presents.
A lovely young woman, only a few years older than Haru, was sitting in one of the red benches of a train car, two seats ahead and to the right of where the werecat had been sitting when the moment happened. As per the time period, she had a long blue dress that left only her face and gloved hands visible. Though the dark color of the dress and matching hat seemed to highlight how pale the girl's skin was, save for her cheeks which were flaming pink from excitement. A green silk scarf was intricately knotted around her throat, and her pale blue eyes were sparkling with happiness. Her long hair was as black as onyx, and skillfully twisted into a variation of the bun that most proper women were sporting at the time. Even her hat was simple in design, which made the sparkle he had struggled to put into the simple ball-ended brass hat pin stand out all the more.
"So that's why Haru looked familiar!" Winnie gasped from her place on Jonathan's shoulder.
Baron's eyes trailed fondly to the young lady standing next to him, who had one hand against the part of her mint green turtleneck that was visible through her long blue coat. It wasn't the same style as the dress, of course, but the navy color was nearly identical. She was still pale, though not nearly so much as her other life, and the brown in her hair and eyes were just as enchanting to him as the black and blue had been, all those years ago. He had no trouble admitting to himself that he rather fancied how her hair looked when it was down to full shoulder-length.
Haru was barely breathing from the shock, her eyes trailing down to the brass plate Baron had inlaid directly into the frame, which was thicker than normal to allow enough room for a fitting eulogy.
Louise 'Lucy' Westenra
March 17, 1877- May 3, 1897
Quick to apologize, slow to pass judgment,
Swift to befriend, and even swifter to defend,
A true friend and protector,
No matter who you are.
The door behind them opened, making Baron turn a little to see who was intruding.
Dracula came in first, soon followed by the others. Murray. Frank with his wife. Wayne with his own wife. Griffon came in with Toto and Muta, almost pointedly keeping himself between the two at full arm-length. Toto had needed to switch to his half-crow, half-human form to fit through the door.
"How did she take it?" Dracula asked worriedly, standing beside his family as the others made a half-circle around the portrait.
"That remains to be seen," Baron answered, raising one hand to the small of her back when he noticed that the love of his life had begun swaying like a pendulum. "Perhaps you would like to sit down, Haru? I understand completely that you only came here for a vacation."
"Even my birthday," Haru muttered to herself in numb disbelief as she stared at the brass plate. After another moment she did her best to recollect herself, taking in a deep breath before giving him a stern look. "I've never smiled like that in my life," she stated flatly.
He grinned, pulling out his cell phone to open his gallery. "While I hate to start this conversation off with an argument, I have something in here that begs to differ." In mere seconds, he had the first photo his friends had sent him of her, standing in line for the front desk. He showed her the picture with a smug expression.
Her face had been upturned perhaps a story over her, and there was a wide smile of delight as her eyes sparkled with happiness.
It admittedly wasn't as intense as the one she had given him after he had promised to come for her over a century ago, but it still got the point across.
Haru was blushing when she closed her eyes. "Or people aren't normally that prepared when I get in a really good mood," she grudgingly admitted, giving another speculative look at the portrait. "The only other inaccuracy I can see is that Hiromi's hair isn't red," she added while pointing at the young lady leaning her head on Lucy's shoulder in sweet slumber. "It's more of a sandy blonde these days."
That girl's face was turned the wrong direction for the portrait, but Baron was privately amused that his beloved didn't need to see that face to know who it belonged to. Perhaps the comfortable stance on her shoulder was all she needed.
Griffon gave an agonized groan, making Haru look at the pair of glasses speculatively. "That one nearly made me throw myself off the train! She wouldn't stop chattering about useless things until you finally remembered to rein her in!"
"Yep, that's my Hiromi," Haru confirmed with a loving sigh filled with resignation. "I sometimes wonder how she gets oxygen since she never pauses for a breath unless a teacher brought duct tape."
Frank groaned, covering his face with one giant hand. "Believe me, we know. We were only on that train for maybe eight hours, and you spent half of that time pretending to be asleep so that Mina would stop talking."
Haru's adorable blush changed from cherry blossom to regular cherry. "Don't judge me! It's kept her from getting lynched on field trips more than once!" she snapped, not bothering to deny that she would do something like that.
"Or brainwashed into thinking she's mute for the rest of the trip," Dracula offered darkly, even the tips of his cape collar pointing down with his mood. "In any case, you two had obviously arranged for you to sleep during the daylight and her to sleep at night. Her opinion was that it was for safety, but I've long had my doubts."
Haru could only rub her head with both hands at the implications. "The more things change, the more they stay the same. What an understatement!"
"Would it be all right if I put my arms around you?" Baron couldn't resist begging anymore as the twitching in his arms became more pronounced. "I never got the chance last time."
Haru twitched in surprise, sparing that brass plate one more look before offering a shy nod.
Baron wasted no time wrapping her into an embrace! Everything about it was perfect, the way she felt in his arms, how she was just slightly cool enough to feel his own warmth slowly be absorbed. He smiled in bliss, his arms locked with a gentle possessiveness that he could only pray she would understand.
Thankfully, he could feel the stiffness in her stance relax at his touch, and she even leaned against him slightly. He tightened his hold on her happily, purring into one of her ears by accident. That purr only increased when he felt her perfect arms wiggle out of his hold to wrap comfortably around his chest.
"Aww, isn't that sweet?" Eunice sniffed while dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex that Wanda had offered to her, since a mother of that many children always knows to keep tissues on hand.
Muta grunted, passing Toto some money with a scowl. "Couldn't you have freaked out a little more about a werecat claiming to be your soulmate?" he pleaded at Haru, who managed a giggle in response.
"Oh no. I'm a girl that likes cats and is enthusiastically curious about monsters that's permanently getting a cat monster in my life. However will I cope?"
"I'm liking this girl more every minute," Toto commented with a smirk, pocketing his winnings.
Baron opened one green eye to glare at his fatter friend. "She sensed a connection and wanted to explore it when she didn't know what the 'purple lightning' meant. It's not her fault you waste your money."
Everyone laughed as the large werecat sulked.
"Why is it every day around here is 'pick on Muta' day?" he complained.
"Because there's enough of you to go around," Toto responded in a heartbeat, using his half-wings to perch the best he could manage on a buttress before Muta tried pouncing.
"If that's all you two are interested in, take it outside!" Dracula ordered, though it took a little longer to smother the almost perpetual feud.
Still locked in Baron's embrace, Haru was catching a few more glimpses of the portrait on the other side of the cat's shoulder, using the time to carefully think through something.
Once Muta had calmed down, and Toto had been coaxed from the ceiling, she was ready to say her piece. "Here is my prediction, since this is my first hug with Baron in either of my lives. Everything was fine on the train, something crazy dangerous happened, so I did something crazier that may or may not have worked, but it turned out to be more than I could handle, as Mom's been predicting for years would happen if I don't learn to control myself during emergencies."
Murray gave a sad laugh. "That gets right to the point, doesn't it?"
"It's almost like she knows she's crazy," Toto added, thrilled that she looked more flattered at the comment than anything.
But Haru wasn't finished yet. "Also, because I'm faster on my feet than Hiromi, she either came in during the last bit or when I was possibly already dead. She would have assumed that you killed me without question," she directed specifically at Dracula, who nodded encouragingly, "and spun rumors to gain anti-monster support to 'avenge' me until Stoker wrote that Humanist propaganda that got everything but a handful of the names and some of your abilities wrong."
That last bit made him start in surprise. "So that's how he got only the names right!" he fumed. "If I could really control the weather, I'd just make clouds appear whenever I wanted to go out in the daytime!"
"That's what Mom's been insisting," Haru agreed, letting herself soak in more of Baron's warmth.
"Don't even get me started on the crucifix thing!" he continued as his eyes actually started glowing red. "They might as well hold up a 'No Trespassing' sign for all the good it would do anyone that really annoys me!"
Despite the fact that look had made whole villages collapse in fear, Haru was now biting her lip to keep from laughing. "Mom told me to say that if you're not interested in writing an autobiography yourself, she'd be happy to type anything you dictate."
Dracula blinked, giving an odd look at his daughter who nodded happily.
"Haru and her mom are the fans from Japan sending Dennis the handmade toys and quilts for his birthday. We can trust her as much as Haru."
The little boy in question was hugging one of the toys in question, rubbing his cheek on a stegosaurus as he stared sadly at Haru.
Dracula's brow furrowed in thought as he drew a little closer. "I'll think about it, and I liked how you did the last few toys. But you still deserve to know certain details, Haru."
She nodded, adjusting her hold on Baron so that she could keep her large brown eyes on the vampire.
"The 'crazy dangerous' was more of an annoyance that had one moment of competence. I've been outwitting the Van Helsings for generations, so it was well-known by those that still believed in monsters that they were after me specifically. The current one came into the train car after I helped you pass a note to Baron telling him where to track you down later and revealed us. We ran out of the car and on top of the following ones to get away from him, and I shoved the others off the train to deal with him myself."
"Where did we all land again? Oh yeah, on trees!" Griffin yelled angrily. "Great way to keep us safe, wasn't it?!"
"I managed to swing on a branch," Baron confided into one of Haru's ears. "But it was still a jarring experience. Without any plan, we just gathered together after we were done groaning to wait for Dracula to join us. We spent the time putting Frank back together." There was still a bit of his bitterness present as he increased his hold on the girl. 'If I had only known…'
Dracula shared a sympathetic look with his friend before continuing the story. "Just after I made it to the caboose, I felt a stinging in my leg from a dart. Since it took me a good day to really use the leg again, it was probably a potent combination of mercury and garlic specifically designed to paralyze me."
Haru's eyes went wider in horror, although it was obvious that he had survived the experience.
"I don't know what would have exactly happened if he had been able to shoot me with that glowing gun, but I'm more than certain that I wouldn't have lived long enough to meet Martha, let alone raise Mavis by myself." Smiling sadly, he shook his head in bewilderment as he continued to stare at Haru.
"But just as he was pulling the trigger, you had caught up to him from behind and slammed your hat pin into his back. Neither of us heard you coming."
Haru blinked, tilting her head to look at the portrait again to study the unassuming pin holding her hat in place. "How long was it without my hair in the way?" she asked curiously.
Dracula measured a good distance between his thumb and pinkie to illustrate eight inches. "It broke off in his back. Your last words were 'Leave them alone'. I don't so much as know if you knew which one of us Van Helsing was threatening."
Haru was staring at her feet now. "I can tell you it wouldn't have mattered to me," she admitted while blushing again.
Baron rubbed his face against her hair, taking in its sweet scent in an attempt to deafen himself to what happened next.
"His thrashing was too much," Dracula forced himself to go on. "He lost his footing, and accidentally took both of you off the caboose while the train was at full speed. Since humans are more fragile than monsters…"
He didn't really need to continue.
"Baron… breathing," she gasped after the werecat tightened his grip one more time from the painful memory.
He closed his large green eyes and forced himself to loosen his hold enough for her to take in several thankful breaths, like a snake had decided halfway through crushing its prey that it wasn't that hungry after all. A little shame-faced, he reached into the inside pocket of his grey jacket and pulled out a small, old book bound in red leather.
He offered it to her while fighting back the dark memories. "I found this when Drac led us back to the spot to give you a proper burial. I hope you will forgive me, but I memorized it. It's how I knew your birthday for the plaque."
Haru experimentally opened the journal. "Even my handwriting's the same," she muttered under her breath as she scanned a random paragraph. "I wonder if Arthur's supposed to be Machida. Oh well, it's not like that was getting anywhere," she sighed while snuggling deeper into the werecat's arms.
Baron moaned in disappointment. "So I don't get to challenge anyone for your hand, then?"
She managed a glaring smirk at him. "No. Thanks to my antics, I scared everyone off myself."
Dracula gave a pointed cough before offering her a very formal bow. "I know this is over a hundred years too late but thank you for saving my life. Thank you for allowing me to meet Martha and have Mavis and Dennis in my life. And I am more sorry than you can imagine that you had to wait this long to be with Baron. I will never be able to repay what I owe to you."
Haru looked over at the daughter and grandson in question, a warm smile of love on her lips that was more than returned. "I'd be shocked if you could. Is Mavis anything like her mom?"
Dracula beamed at his pride and joy. "She doesn't have her mother's talent for poetry, but the sweet spirit is still there."
Suddenly Haru gasped, turning around almost painfully in order to stare at Dracula. Her huge eyes seemed wider than ever as they looked at nothing else but the famous vampire.
"Haru? What is wrong? You know all you have to do is say the word," he encouraged, leaning over so that their eyes would have an easier time meeting. "I don't think I can deny anything you want from me."
She gulped loudly before taking in a breath that somehow seemed to gather her courage as well as oxygen. "T-Two... lonely bats... crashed in the night," the human stammered.
Drac could feel his pupils tighten into pinpricks as his jaw simultaneously fell open. He could also hear Mavis gasp, but his sight remained on his sweet rescuer.
Haru had no choice but to notice that her words had already affected him, but she kept going. "They felt a Zing, love at first sight. They knew right then-"
"They would be husband and wife, for a Zing only happens just once in your life," Dracula continued the poem, making Baron cast a suspicious look between the two.
"Where on earth-" he tried to demand, but Mavis cut him off.
"Your Zing will come, my love. Treasure it. Love, Mommy," the shocked vampire nearly wept, making Jonathan hold her tightly against him, though he looked just as shocked as the other monsters.
"Wait, I didn't know about the 'Love, Mommy' part," Haru protested, but Dracula gently tilted her chin to lock eyes with her once more.
"Where did you learn that poem, Haru?" he begged, almost too afraid to hope.
Her hesitation was gone now. Wriggling one arm free of Baron's embrace, she pulled a black cell phone from her coat pocket. She attempted to turn it on, but it didn't so much as flicker.
Haru scowled at the uncooperative device. "I'm going to need my charger. You might be able to repay me, after all."