A/N: Writes block- suffocating me! Help! God Damn it, I have no idea where
to go, so apologies for this chapter, as it is more thank likely going to
be a big pile of fresh, steaming doggy dodo! Please, if anyone out there
has anything that might help me, let me know.
Bran Castle is supposedly the Castle that belonged to Count Dracula. Ties with the family Dracul may be revealed later on through Rene and Pyeitek, though nothing is definite yet.
To all those who know anything about it, I have officially given up my search for Spike. I got tired of waiting, I guess. I haven't seen him in over two months, so I take it he is not coming back. Spike, if you are reading this, e-mail me, or Rene will just have to move on. :-(
Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall
Rene decided, after quite unmistakably getting off on the wrong foot with Fudge, to take a look around to clear her mind. She doubted very much that the Dementors had even been told of her arrival, let alone talked into just being accepting of it all. She wasn't really sure how to take them. No one had really told her anything about them, and how she was meant to communicate with them, she did not know. Could they talk? Would they talk, even if they could?
She decided to leave all that to the philosophers for a while, and made her way through a door at the back of her office, though she had no idea of where it may lead. As she pushed the heavy bar down and the oak opened outwards, she saw a spiral staircase leading up a tower, which bore more than a passing resemblance to one of the derelict towers at Bran Castle, the home of a family friend. She cautiously edged up the stairs, her eyes darting around in a torrent of suspicion. This place was not nice, and she did not feel at ease or safe. The stairs seemed to go on forever, and she began to wonder why on earth she was bothering, when she finally came to a landing.
It was huge, considering the tower of Azkaban that she had seen was not even a quarter of this width. Still, magic maketh miracles she pondered, and stepped up onto the ornate Oriental rug that covered the centre of the stone floor. There was an old mirror dead ahead, which disconcerted her even further. To be reminded that she was not all human was not what she felt like being reminded of, so she quickly turned to the three doors that led off on the three walls.
Behind the first door, she found what she assumed was her room. It was huge, with a large four poster bed next to the window, and numerous pieces of mahogany furniture lined the walls. A large dining table was in the middle of the room, with four chairs around it.
"Will I not be eating alone then?" She murmured out loud, as she stepped further in and ran her fingers lightly over the desk. Also in the room appeared to be an en-suite bathroom, not unlike the one she had at home in Maramures. She knelt down and started a few of the taps running slowly; a bath after such a long, exhausting day was just what she needed. As it ran, she stepped back out into the hall, but not before drawing the bed away from the window. Sunlight is not a vampire's best friend.
She stepped into the second door, which seemed to be a second bedroom. There was one double bed and two singles, and another en-suite. It was quite a bit smaller than her room, and contained only 2 wardrobes and a bedside table for each bed, unlike the multitude of furniture that was arranged in her room. Was she to be expecting guests? She could already see a letter going to the Ministry as soon as this trial month was up, telling them the job was not for her. What kind of visitors stayed at Azkaban?
In the third room seemed to be everything that wasn't in the others. there was a small study area with about four tall bookshelves and a bureau, a kitchen area to the far side of the room, a miniature potion lab for some unexplainable reason and a small sitting area by a large open fire, with two imposing armchairs at angles facing the fire. Between them was a chessboard, all set with glass and steel pieces. This struck Rene as odd, the place being so damn old fashioned like everywhere else in the wizard world, but with this ultra-modern chess set placed in front of a roaring open plan fire. Then again, nothing really seemed to belong inside the dreary walls of Azkaban except the dementors and the mould that served to wall-paper the convict's cell walls, so perhaps it was just her being silly.
She walked out again, and went past the dominant feature of the room, the mirror. She glared at it, hating it with all her heart. It seemed to be sneering at her, making fun of her, and just glaring back with the reflection of a ghost. For some reason, looking into her own transparent eyes made her feel cold and bitter. Why had she been born with this curse? Who decided that she was never to be human, and always to be feared by people who didn't know her? What sort of power dictated that she would live for hundreds of years, when the twenty odd she had already lived had been one long test? Hundreds of years of pain was what she had been given, and she would suffer the fact she would never have children, suffer the fact that she would never be trusted, suffer the fact that people saw her as a freak for each and every one. Her eyes grew white, and her teeth grew long, as tortured tears fell down her face.
Suddenly, she let out a scream that a Banshee would have been proud of, and sent her fist hurtling towards the mirror. It smashed into thousands of tiny pieces, and scattered all over the floor. Rene didn't care. She just slumped down against the wall, and held her head in her arms. She went to bed that night with a vague sense of sympathy for some of the prisoners in the fortress below her; perhaps what the mirror had done to her was what a dementor could do to them.
Bran Castle is supposedly the Castle that belonged to Count Dracula. Ties with the family Dracul may be revealed later on through Rene and Pyeitek, though nothing is definite yet.
To all those who know anything about it, I have officially given up my search for Spike. I got tired of waiting, I guess. I haven't seen him in over two months, so I take it he is not coming back. Spike, if you are reading this, e-mail me, or Rene will just have to move on. :-(
Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall
Rene decided, after quite unmistakably getting off on the wrong foot with Fudge, to take a look around to clear her mind. She doubted very much that the Dementors had even been told of her arrival, let alone talked into just being accepting of it all. She wasn't really sure how to take them. No one had really told her anything about them, and how she was meant to communicate with them, she did not know. Could they talk? Would they talk, even if they could?
She decided to leave all that to the philosophers for a while, and made her way through a door at the back of her office, though she had no idea of where it may lead. As she pushed the heavy bar down and the oak opened outwards, she saw a spiral staircase leading up a tower, which bore more than a passing resemblance to one of the derelict towers at Bran Castle, the home of a family friend. She cautiously edged up the stairs, her eyes darting around in a torrent of suspicion. This place was not nice, and she did not feel at ease or safe. The stairs seemed to go on forever, and she began to wonder why on earth she was bothering, when she finally came to a landing.
It was huge, considering the tower of Azkaban that she had seen was not even a quarter of this width. Still, magic maketh miracles she pondered, and stepped up onto the ornate Oriental rug that covered the centre of the stone floor. There was an old mirror dead ahead, which disconcerted her even further. To be reminded that she was not all human was not what she felt like being reminded of, so she quickly turned to the three doors that led off on the three walls.
Behind the first door, she found what she assumed was her room. It was huge, with a large four poster bed next to the window, and numerous pieces of mahogany furniture lined the walls. A large dining table was in the middle of the room, with four chairs around it.
"Will I not be eating alone then?" She murmured out loud, as she stepped further in and ran her fingers lightly over the desk. Also in the room appeared to be an en-suite bathroom, not unlike the one she had at home in Maramures. She knelt down and started a few of the taps running slowly; a bath after such a long, exhausting day was just what she needed. As it ran, she stepped back out into the hall, but not before drawing the bed away from the window. Sunlight is not a vampire's best friend.
She stepped into the second door, which seemed to be a second bedroom. There was one double bed and two singles, and another en-suite. It was quite a bit smaller than her room, and contained only 2 wardrobes and a bedside table for each bed, unlike the multitude of furniture that was arranged in her room. Was she to be expecting guests? She could already see a letter going to the Ministry as soon as this trial month was up, telling them the job was not for her. What kind of visitors stayed at Azkaban?
In the third room seemed to be everything that wasn't in the others. there was a small study area with about four tall bookshelves and a bureau, a kitchen area to the far side of the room, a miniature potion lab for some unexplainable reason and a small sitting area by a large open fire, with two imposing armchairs at angles facing the fire. Between them was a chessboard, all set with glass and steel pieces. This struck Rene as odd, the place being so damn old fashioned like everywhere else in the wizard world, but with this ultra-modern chess set placed in front of a roaring open plan fire. Then again, nothing really seemed to belong inside the dreary walls of Azkaban except the dementors and the mould that served to wall-paper the convict's cell walls, so perhaps it was just her being silly.
She walked out again, and went past the dominant feature of the room, the mirror. She glared at it, hating it with all her heart. It seemed to be sneering at her, making fun of her, and just glaring back with the reflection of a ghost. For some reason, looking into her own transparent eyes made her feel cold and bitter. Why had she been born with this curse? Who decided that she was never to be human, and always to be feared by people who didn't know her? What sort of power dictated that she would live for hundreds of years, when the twenty odd she had already lived had been one long test? Hundreds of years of pain was what she had been given, and she would suffer the fact she would never have children, suffer the fact that she would never be trusted, suffer the fact that people saw her as a freak for each and every one. Her eyes grew white, and her teeth grew long, as tortured tears fell down her face.
Suddenly, she let out a scream that a Banshee would have been proud of, and sent her fist hurtling towards the mirror. It smashed into thousands of tiny pieces, and scattered all over the floor. Rene didn't care. She just slumped down against the wall, and held her head in her arms. She went to bed that night with a vague sense of sympathy for some of the prisoners in the fortress below her; perhaps what the mirror had done to her was what a dementor could do to them.