Chapter 4 - Mist Gets in Your Eyes
D came up against a grate that completely blocked further access to the corridor. He knew it was futile, but he grasped a bar and shook it to test how solid it was. He exerted the utmost of his strength, and the bar budged not at all.
"Dammit." His curse was in a flat voice.
"There's no other way through," Fairy noted helplessly.
"I know."
"D, would you be okay, on your own, for a while?" Fairy asked. D looked at her. Surely she was kidding! Of course he'd be fine -- but what would she do?
"Fairy, I promised Alucard nothing would happen to you. I'm not going to break that promise. What are you thinking of?"
"Oh! I will be fine!" She blushed prettily that D was concerned for her. "I can go to your world, to see Val, and see if she can think of something to get you through that grate!"
That he hadn't expected! D narrowed his eyes.
"Val could probably come up with something," Left Hand offered. "This kind of problem is in her area of expertise! Of course, you're gonna have to tramp to some out of the way place to get some obscure ingredient for her when we get back as repayment..."
"Is there any danger at all to you, Fairy? My world is just as dangerous as here," D asked. "I don't want you running into any creatures trying to find Val."
Fairy smiled. "I can go directly to Val's side. She not usually in dangerous places, is she?"
D considered. Actually, Val could be somewhere dangerous, knowing how intent she became when she was searching for rare ingredients. But D did have to admit, somehow Val managed to return safely from her excursions.
"Be ready to return here, if Val is in a sticky situation," D finally advised. "You can return here, correct?"
"Yes, Master D. I have a dimensional anchor in you. And you have my familiar card too. I can return right to your side!"
"Okay then. Perhaps Val can help somehow."
Fairy floated up toward the ceiling and vanished. D looked up and down the quiet corridor before sitting down with his back against a wall.
"Wake me if something comes," he told Left Hand.
"Hey, how come you get to take a nap and I have to watch?!" Left Hand protested.
"Because I've been doing all the fighting," D retorted. "Wake me if something comes," he repeated.
"Yippee," Left Hand groused. "I'm a guard dog. Arf, arf."
"Shut up."
D pulled his hat down over his eyes to block the light, placed Left Hand on the ground so he could watch the entrance and quickly fell asleep.
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Fairy rapidly found her bearings once she stepped through the dimensional portal into D's world. It wasn't hard, since she was able to sense faintly where Val was. She smiled happily at that fact. Val's blood must have strengthened, for Fairy to sense her so strongly. That meant Val would be around for a very long time, hopefully to be a friend of D's for a very long time.
Fairy had wondered a bit at her motivations when she first mentioned Val's problem to Alucard. It wasn't for Val herself that Fairy had done such a thing. And it certainly wasn't her normal tendency toward kindness that prompted her either, not given the ultimate truth of the origin of Val's nature.
"It was for D," Fairy said aloud. "He's my master's brother and for whatever reason he likes Val's company. It was for him."
Pushing down her unsettling thoughts, for normally she didn't second-guess her actions so much, Fairy flew off in the direction where the Blood of Fae called to her.
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"Oh," Val stated flatly upon seeing Fairy. "What do you want?"
"I need your help," Fairy stated. "Can I come in? I've come a long way..."
Val's mouth thinned into a reproving line, but she did step aside, tacitly inviting Fairy in. Fairy fluttered gratefully to alight on the back of a chair and rest her weary wings.
"What help do you need from me?" Val's voice contained only the duty of courtesy, with no hint of warmth or welcome in it.
"D had to go to Castlevania..."
"D? D. This is for D?" Val interrupted. "Is he okay?"
Fairy nodded. "Master D is fine, but there's only so far he can go with his skills in the castle, and I thought you might be able to help him."
Val stared at Fairy for a long moment. Her features were marred by unhappy irritation before she finally sighed and sat down in the chair across from the one Fairy rested on.
"Tell me from the beginning," she suggested wearily.
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Fairy watched as Val selected ingredients for the potion she claimed would help D. She thought that Val was normally rather graceful, but her awareness of Fairy's very presence was making her clumsy. There was something about Val's clipped gestures and nervousness that seemed familiar somehow...
Oh, that was it. Val was acting as people did when something like a stinging insect or spider was in the room. It was that same kind of hyper-aware irritation at the very existence of the insect.
"Why do you hate me so much?" The question slipped out in a soft voice.
"Oh, I don't hate you. You seem a nice enough sort for one of your kind."
"But, living with the suspicions I had about what I was," Val shrugged her shoulders. "That was bad enough. I aged so slowly and could see things, like the souls and destinies of others, so clearly. Meeting you was okay, I suppose, but then having my suspicions proven...well, I could wish I had never met you." The neutral intensity in Val's eyes as she locked gazes with Fairy held the force of a glare.
"It's almost intolerable that Alucard and D know now what I am. This is a harsh world where such frivolous things as fairies died out long ago."
"To think that I...well, that in me there is some blood of..." Val couldn't bring herself to mention it.
'Frivolous? Frivolous?! I'm not frivolous!' Fairy thought. Didn't this ungrateful creature realize that she would be able to live out her immortal span because of what Fairy had done for her?
Fairy saw red. She'd tried her best to extend a helping hand to this creature. She should have known, Dark Elves could smile out one side of their mouths and plot your death with the other. Evidently, Dark Elven blood, even diluted through the years, was dominant.
"If you hate it so much, if you hate the truth of what you are -- if you hate yourself that much -- just stop taking the herb. You would die soon enough." Fairy shrugged her wings delicately.
'How DARE she?! How dare she suggest something like that?!' The thought raged through Val's mind. The little gossamer-winged bitch! Val found herself blinking back unaccustomed tears of frustration and a sudden, stabbing hurt. Angrily she reached for an ingredient jar, managing to brush her sleeve against her eye as she did so, to dash out the tears without the stupid fairy noticing.
She added a pinch of whatever ingredient it was to her potion, reasoning that a single pinch of any one thing wouldn't harm anything. Her potion would still work as it was supposed to. And D had that lovely strong constitution his heritage gave him. Val wondered bitterly if even poison could hurt him. Unlike herself, who was descended from flighty, weak, absurd little fairies...
"Here. This will help D get past whatever barriers are in his way. Unless he needs something else you are not welcome here again. Do you understand?"
Fairy listened to Val's tight, strained words. As if she'd want to come back here for any other reason! Only for D, or Alucard, would she have anything to do with this odious creature!
"Perhaps once Master Alucard and Master D have no further use for you, you might consider discontinuing using the herb?" Fairy replied in a light, bitter voice.
"Go."
Val turned the knob, and stood with stiff, prickly pride by the open door. Fairy wondered if she'd angered the Dark Elven creature enough to try to slam the door on her and considered dashing through as quickly as she could. But she couldn't bring herself to show such weakness to one descended from some of the most bitter foes of her kind.
Val was very much tempted to catch the arrogant fairy with the door and see if she could crush every bone in her delicate little body. She'd never gone through the cruel stage of childhood of tearing the wings off of flies or butterflies, but the dark hatred rising in her made her wish she could visit that horror on the cruel little fairy. However, she refused to weaken and give Fairy the satisfaction of making her do anything she wouldn't normally do. It was bad enough she was brought to tears in front of her.
Once Fairy had gotten outside and flown out of sight, Val slammed the door, trying to vent some of the powerful emotions tearing at her heart. Her anger dissipated with the last booming echo of sound from the wooden door, but some deeper, most destructive emotion remained in its wake.
Val turned her back to the door and slid down along it until she was on the ground. Something bleak and awful griped her heart tight. Once more, by herself, alone, she threw her dignity to the wind, dropped her head into her hands, and sobbed.
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Author's notes -
Finally! A bit of a breakthrough in this story. I am truly sorry for the long delay.
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get!
Could someone please email me and tell me how to get to stop killing my paragraph indents? I've been trying all night to preserve them to no avail!