T'was the night before Parvati's wedding, went all through the Carpathians. Only a few creatures were stirring...and they were mainly recruiting the last of the Beings of Doom.
Dammed in the Carpathians, Lake Negura is a sight for sore eyes. Beneath that surface, a merfolk colony dwells.
Across the lake, there are many castles. The Chateau Negura is on one shore. Here, the Negura, Noir, and Nero wizarding families live, and have for centuries. They're pureblood; down to the last infant.
On another shore, there's the Chateau Gaunt; another hub of pureblood wizardry. The Gaunts have another castle in Britain...but its grounds are mostly overgrown with devil's snare and whomping willows. Out here, the Gaunts live much better...and mate with many pureblood wizards and witches. Lucky for them, Ukrainian wizardry has invented a business that allows pureblood wizards to buy pureblood witch brides via portkey...
On another shore, the Chateau Flint stands. Pureblood wizards live here, too. The castle seems to come with its own Quidditch pitch. From the lake, one can see the tops of all six Quaffle hoops...
On another shore, the Chateau Yaxley stands; pureblood wizards live here, too. A very high wall surrounds it. The gate is of a silver-steel alloy, and triple-enchanted; a letter Y hangs in a hoop just above the gate. The wall is of grey and white stonework.
On another shore, at a much higher elevation than most of the other castles, the Chateau Scrimgeour stands. This, as you might remember, is the abode of the Countess Viala. Now, alas, she's not home. She's running a VERY important errand.
Near the shores near the castle, the lake waves crash. From them, Makoto Akatsuki, the vampire huntress, surfaces, clad in her short shorts and revealing vest.
She wades ashore, and shoots a grappling hook, treading a cable, over the wall surrounding the Chateau Scrimgeour. She climbs over, and leaps to the ground.
Once on the ground, her hand detects a small depression in the soil on the castle grounds. It looks like a pawprint. Makoto thinks a wolf might've made it. Alas, she didn't know wolves had feet that big...
She follows the prints to a large wooden door, in an oblique slab of stone in the side of a tower. It's still openable...from when Fenrir Greyback broke in here several nights back.
Via a string, Makoto pulls the door open. She then dives into the doorway, and follows the many steps and paths through the tunnel that lies before her.
In here, there are torches. Makoto raises her guard, when the torches light themselves. They're not even electric. Now Makoto KNOWS this one's haunted...
She takes a detour, that ends in what looks like an ajar door. She pushes it open. It's a painting that's hanging over the foot of a bed, in chambers.
Speaking of feet, Makoto can't help but notice two pairs of muddy pawprints in the center of the bedding before her. They're the same size as the ones on the castle grounds.
Now Makoto's guard is REALLY raised. Even so, she leaps, bounces off the bed, does several flips in the air, and comes down on her feet at the bed's foot.
Near a window, there's a table. More of the same pawprints are on it. To Makoto, this seems strange...
She also sees that the first pawprints aren't the only ones on the bedding. There's another pair of pairs of them...facing the other direction, towards the painting above the bed's headboard.
There are moving pictures on the bookcase. Makoto collects them, and studies them. Makoto's no stranger to enchanted pictures. Her enemies sported many of them...right before she slashed them, and left their blood all over these pictures...sometimes causing their subjects to either scream, or faint, or both in their frames.
In the hallways, a certain painting REALLY piques her interest. It's of the Countess Viala...centuries after her passing; the date is painted, in gold, in a bottom corner.
Viala flaps her hair, and smiles back at Makoto. "It's not nice to stare," she tells Makoto, "you know."
On either side of the Countess's painting, there are two others. One is of Salazar Slytherin. The other is of...Duane Allen, of the Oak Ridge Boys...whatever THAT'S about...
There's another painting elsewhere in the halls, of Count Dracula. But of course, it's not a vampire's castle without at least ONE painting of Dracula. Makoto's pretty sure this is the Marvel universe's Dracula, though; Vlad Dracula, that is to say. Marvel's Dracula is Wallachian-Transylvanian.
She soon finds another painting in the castle that confirms that that one's Vlad Dracula of the Marvel universe; because THIS one she's just found is Vlad Drakul, of the Harry Potter universe. Drakul is Hungarian. Makoto hates to think that the two vamp lords ever clash... Even so, if they did, Makoto might just pay money to see THAT fight...
On another wall, there's a painting of Theodosius II of East Rome. He looks a lot like Tim Curry... But then, that's probably why Viala has his painting.
This painting is a part of a whole installment in the Chateau Scrimgeour called the Hall of Theodosius...which also includes paintings of Sir Gawain, CEO of Redstar Roger Corwin, Nigel Thornberry, Minos of Crete, Long John Silver, Judas Iscariot, Hexxus of FernGully, Ebenezer Scrooge, Yevgeniy Petrov of the Red October, Gunnar Maelstrom of VILE, Dale "the Whale" Biederbeck of San Francisco, Caliph Kapok the Headless Magus, Bill Sikes, and Amok Mon-Ra of Agrabah. All of the subjects in the Hall of Theodosius look like Tim Curry.
On another wall, two paintings hang near one another, as a duo. One is of Robert Ritchie/Kid Rock. The other is of Sheryl Crow. They both seem wary of Makoto.
"SHE looks like she may appreciate our signature duo," Kid Rock admits, picking up his guitar within his frame. "Been a while since we did this..."
"TELL me about it," Sheryl says.
Within their frames, the lovely couple starts playing, and performing "Picture." Makoto grins while browsing the castle; this song is probably closer to the Gen Xers' hearts; but a lot of millennials like it, too...Makoto included...
Crow's more of a younger baby-boomer... Even so, her career is legendary among many generations...of Muggles and wizards alike...and vamps, apparently...
At the end of the Hall of Theodosius, a pipe organ, Forte, accompanies Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, best he can. He was once a wizard composer...and his painting is hanging in the Hall of Theodosius. He had a blood malediction, alas, that transfigured him into a pipe organ. Initially, he could switch back and forth between wizard and pipe organ...but the pipe organ soon became a permanent fix.
There's another painting, of Phineas Nigellus Negura. Paintings of him seem to be a scourge in most of wizardry...and vampirism too, by the looks of things... Makoto wouldn't know that Viala sometimes uses this painting as a medium between her own castle and the Chateau Negura; naturally, THEY'VE got a painting of him too. Sometimes they wish they didn't...as otherwise proud they all are, of having had him as an ancestor.
And naturally, there's a painting of Deacon Frost. Makoto wants to vomit, when she gazes upon it. Frost is her mentor's archrival. He's killed many, and drained the dry the blood from almost just as many.
On a somewhat happier note, there are paintings of mutants in the Marvel universe Makoto's fonder of; Ororo Munroe and Jubilation Lee. Alas, neither one of them is portrayed as Makoto would want to know them. But to say that the versions in these paintings are not as Makoto knows them would be a lie. As a matter of fact, as a vampire huntress, Makoto once almost slew both of them.
In these paintings, Munroe and Lee are both vampires. Every now and then, while moving around in their frames, they flash their vampire fangs. Munroe wears a flapping cape, stands tall, reaches her bare ebony arms into the sky, and controls the clouds, wind, and lighting around her. Lee, by contrast, flashes vampire-themed fireworks.
Makoto sighs. It's sad to think that such a thing happened to both X-Men. Alas, Makoto isn't here for that. Even so, she's more convinced than before that Countess Viala is alive, and still a vampire, and living in this castle...
In the bigger room below, three bears, stuffed and mounted, stand reared, in a circle around one another. One's a cub, the other's middle-sized, and the third is comparable to Iofur Raknison in His Dark Materials...or Beorn in the Hobbit...or Demon Bear...or Ursa Major... Makoto sure hopes they don't all magically come to life, and accuse her of trespassing...
Something slides across Makoto's boots. She screams, and leaps back...
It's a green cobra. He's named Thaddeos E. Klang...after a like villain on the TV show TaleSpin. Levitating, a black cloak, his size, follows him around. Makoto scoffs; the Countess should've named him the Dark Cowl.
In a tank of water in a glass-walled and arched hall, a Evil Manta, a manta ray, swims around. He and Makoto are both lucky he's not a grindylow...
The merfolk in Atlantica aren't. Evil Manta once harassed them quite a bit, before Scandinavian wizardry fished him out and put him in an aquarium.