(Set within chapter 2, this short but powerful piece was a gift from TheSacredSpirits, another fanfiction author who I hold in high regard. As far as I'm concerned, this is now part of my continuity. Check out her own great Lenore/Hector works when you have a chance!)

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.
-Baruch Spinoza.

Sunlight struggled against the closed blinds that hung within the large windows of the cold, dark, corner room while its sole occupant dared it to enter. Lenore decided that this room must have been constructed as a form of cruel joke by her vampire sisters. Its walls were lined with large windows and the balcony was larger than the room itself, allowing for whatever little light that escaped through the narrowest of slits to form strange patterns on the stone floor, that constantly reminded her of the deliverance from agony that waited for her outside.

The room's spare furnishings notwithstanding, it constricted and grew smaller as the minutes dragged on; it always did, when she was left alone in the company of her thoughts. Hector had requested for a meeting with Isaac and had left her reluctantly to discuss the matter of her release from confinement. She would stay alive until he came back; it cannot be that much longer, 'she could survive on her own until then', she repeated like a mantra in her head. After that, well that was a battle for the next hour, as every hour had been thus far in the last six days.

She paced around the room before settling down on a chair with a book she hadn't read so far, even her eternal life insufficient to peruse the library of Styria. But it brought no joy or even peace to her restless mind that she so deeply desired and craved. Lenore groaned and closed the book with a snap; she could still taste the copper tang of the pig's blood that she forced herself to drink earlier. Every act of sustenance or even the memory of it washed her with a fresh wave of self-loathing, its current intensity making it painful to even breathe. She must survive this; there were others that were counting on her, she told herself. Again.

It did not help that her head was heavy with sleep deprivation, and as she teetered on the twilight zone between the daylight of the living and the midnight of her mind, she hoped for dreams that did not warp and twist into nightmares. She wished she could dream of the time with her parents, a time so long ago that the memories were like pages that remained off a burnt book. Bits and pieces that escaped the fire evoked an errant feeling and a deep longing but all of it was not quite enough to form a story. She must have been truly happy then, at least that is the story she told herself from the pages that survived her childhood mind.

In a cruel irony as everything else in her life had been, the most vivid memory of her parents was the day of their deaths. Their lifeless bodies had been still warm when she discovered them; she recalled kneeling down confused at the red liquid that was soaking her mother's expensive garb before being whisked away by a guard. She was visited by a primordial emotion that day, one that would continue to haunt her for the rest of her life. Fear.

But it would be a while before she completely understood it. Not until the day she was transformed into a creature of the night. By then the fear had been laced with the faintest but a permanent trace of self-loathing at what she had become. In her many years since then she had masked these ugly demons well, but now they have finally come to roost.

In her childhood, she had feared the death that claimed her parents and the insecurity that came at their demise. During her youth she dreaded the betrayal afoot in her opportunistic court and the loneliness of being in a position that was coveted. But throughout Lenore had always held hope for a future where she mattered, learning and reading people with a skill that belied her youth and forging herself as a peacemaker.

A future that was once again, taken forcibly from her when she became a vampire. She remembered the night vividly as if it was only yesterday, in what should have been a happy occasion as a young newlywed. But it was a marriage that she had been disinclined to agree to if only had she been offered the choice. As an orphan and a ward of the king, it was a luxury she was not afforded, and so she had been given off to a strange duke from a faraway land for a hefty dowry. She always knew that there was something wrong with him, but she had been sorely mistaken on the level of it. And she paid for it with her humanity.

She despaired initially at the destruction of her human essence and the death of her purpose in life. But as Lenore learned about her new world and formed bonds with her new kin, she adjusted once again. She could say that she found a place to belong in Styria, but that would be dishonest. It was this country that found her and made her one of its own. Lenore had found her calling one more time in this country and within its castle walls. This was her home. Her sanctuary. Her first love.

But now, she could no longer find her way out on her own. She wanted to help her brethren and protect those like her; it was after all the only thing that prevented her from removing the blinds and facing the brightest star. Yet, her bones ached with the weariness. How Morana had survived thousands of years of such an existence, she could not fathom.

As the darkness tried to embrace her she searched for an escape that was not as deadly as the final slumber. She allowed herself this small moment of weakness, a lapse in resolve as she sought out her childhood room within the annals of her mind, the one place that was unmarred by fear. She tried to remember its walls painted in a shade of dull green and its floor littered with wooden toys. She turned around and felt the room sway before she saw Hector, his face etched with worry and that damned emotion; fear.

"Lenore", his voice rang with concern.

What was he doing in her childhood home? How was he here?

"Wha- Hector?", strangely her tongue refused to co-operate to form a proper sentence. She allowed herself a moment, as her childhood home splintered and dissolved into the walls that kept her imprisoned.

"Isaac has allowed for your release, under my supervision", Hector blurted.

She refocused on his cerulean eyes that were intense and hopeful and she let that emotion wash over her, filling her crevices as she threw herself around him. As she held onto Hector she felt the joy of a man who was shown a passage out of a darkened labyrinth that he has been stumbling around for days. She could now see a future to fight for and one that she would protect regardless of whatever monsters her mind conjured for her anew. It reforged her heart and coiled around her will, strengthening it. She was still Lenore of Styria and she would not let down those who counted on her.

Lenore knew that come tomorrow the darkness would once again return for her. But now, she could fend it off and keep it at bay. Because now there was hope.