Disclaimer: Dracula belongs to Stephen Sommers, Bram Stoker, and himself, as well as a lot of other people. I may not own him, but I guess I'll see him….in my dreams. And Miletta belongs to herself, under her real name (SilverFlover, although that isn't her real name).
"Truthfully, I don't know if I'm in love with you or if I'm in love with you loving me," he whispered laughingly into her ear, then spun her around to face him.
Miletta stroked his neck adoringly with her gloved fingertip softly, smiling at him as they moved across the dance floor. She and Vladislaus hadn't known eachother for such a long time, but…what did time mean to anyone? Time was so dull. Years, days, they did not matter. Miletta loved Vlad. She did not need a calendar to tell her that. "Well, obviously, it's the latter, since you just love yourself," she said, trying very hard to be serious. She had considered retorting, 'I'm very sorry to tell you, then, that I don't love you!', but the incorrigible and yet exotic aristocrat would have only made a little moue and probably have tickled her, too. She decided, instead, to be kind and answer him. "But if you must know…you love me."
"Don't be so sure, Mili," he teased as he dipped her. "How could I be in love with you?"
Miletta's eyebrow shot up in mock indignation and she hit him playfully. How he had wormed his way into her affections, and so suddenly, after only a few months! Miletta did not believe in miracles, especially in romance, but somehow one exotic count had turned her expectations upside down. "Well, how could you not be?" she said, eyes flashing mischievously. "You do. You do! I insist!"
He relented good-humouredly, stroking her dark hair, wrapped up in coils around her head, held in place by jeweled gold pins. "If you insist, then I suppose I have no choice. How unkind my lady is! She is ruthless. How she slays my ego!" She was rolling her eyes, trying to bite back a smile and failing, as they moved in gracious circles across the dance floor. Vladislaus caught the smile and smirked, and exasperated, Miletta shook her head, her delicate earrings sliding across the starched ruffle at her neck as she did so.
"I warn you, Vladislaus," she said, lifting her chin defiantly, trying to seem as haughty as she could—a countess to combat his count. "You go too far." The smirk fell off his face like a mask dropping to the floor and the expression of dismay, even though she knew it was obviously put on just to get her to concede, made her own act wilt. She dropped her head to hide the laughter on her face.
"You…you!" She cried, her forehead leaning up against his shirt front. She heard him reply in perfectly nonchalant tones, "You now owe me one for causing me such emotional distress."
"Oh, you're quite delicate, you know." The sound of his perfectly adolescent humph in retort made her lift her head with a triumphant look, a smile at the corners of her lips. "I'll tell you one of my famous stories, and we'll be even."
"Oh, all right." He thought for a moment, encircling her waist with his arm and drawing her nearer to him as he thought, dancing with effortless grace even as his mind was elsewhere. She felt the movement of his body in fascination at the smooth human machinery. "How did we meet, again?" He said finally, more a statement than a question.
"You already know that story." As though he needed reminding! But there seemed to be nothing more enjoyable than remaining with him, doting upon him. Miletta looked back on her life, and it seemed completely unbelievable that she'd end up like this. She had always despised people with egos such as his within thirty seconds of meeting them.
"Tell it to me again, I'm bored," he said, pretending to yawn elegantly. She laughed and hit him again, however lightly. "Oh, you are such a shameless flirt! All right, I'll tell you the story…"
He spun her in a circle, then prompted, "Once upon a time…"
"There was a beautiful girl," she went on and he laughed. "Well, she was!" Miletta maintained, feeling slightly depressed for a second, worrying she was being too bold by saying she was beautiful. She had never felt that she was, even though Vlad always watched her absently, then told her he thought she was. "She was beautiful, and she was in her garden one night, humming a song, and she was supposed to go inside, but she didn't, and she heard a voice say, 'What is that lovely song you're singing?' and then she turned around and saw the most handsome man she'd ever looked upon, with long dark hair, and a faintly amused smile on his face! And-"
"This is my turn, I want to tell this part," he drawled.
"Oh, fine, then," Miletta said, rolling her eyes for the second time in so many minutes. How he could get away with this attitude, her tolerating it, delighting in it, even! Perhaps she just liked taking care of people she loved.
"And even though he was handsome, she was shocked to see him in her garden, and so she screamed at him and picked up a shovel, then tried to hit him with it-" His tone of voice had become decidedly pouty, and so Miletta interrupted.
"I did not try to hit you with it, for heaven's sake!" Miletta said, her temper rising a bit. Somehow they managed to argue this one point even after months had passed. "I only wanted to startle you into thinking that I was going to!"
"Well, it worked," he said sullenly, looking off to the side obstinately. Miletta looked at him frowning angrily, then shook her head, and decided to get to the better parts of the story.
"And then he shouted and knocked the shovel from her hands, then put his hands on her shoulders and she-"
"Overreacted," he interrupted, still looking off the side, now with a bitter expression.
"I did not overreact!" Miletta yelped, growing frustrated. "Some man I didn't know was suddenly in my garden- I don't know how he got in through the locked fence- and then grabbed my shoulders- what was I supposed to think!"
He sulked as they seemingly floated across the dance floor, past other couples so preoccupied with the dancing steps that they did not realise the beauty of the harmony that is dancing. Miletta wanted not only to realize it, but to become a part of it. Somehow Vladislaus lived in beauty, and he made even her feel as though she lived in it too…except when things pushed them even farther apart.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, as he silently spun her around, smooth machinery again, but more as a marionette than a living, loving doll. His stonily unchanged expression made her continue with a harsher tone than she'd aimed for. "You're taking it too personally." He still didn't look at her.
"And that comes as any surprise?"
"Vlad…." She pleaded, and wrapped her arms around him, and he smiled almost absently, like a praised child, then finally looked at her.
"Well, since you put it that way," he said, almost devilishly, and gave her a quick kiss. Then, in a mercurial leap from warmth to petulance, he insisted, "Finish the story!"
"You're worse than a child," she rebuked him warmly, feeling their dance regain life as opposed to the living dead feel it had taken before as they'd gone through empty motions, and went on to obey him, although she never would actually obey commands, should he issue them. She had her own dignity to be mindful of.
"Well, when he seized her shoulders, she screamed and kicked him-"
"Which was most assuredly not pleasant," he cut in, in a low growl. "You know, they have to last me a long time, Mili-"
"Vlad!" she shouted, gawking, trying to keep herself from laughing in a manner most unlike a lady. "You can't talk like that in front of a lady!"
"Miletta," he said, trying to explain, with a pained look, "It hurt."
"It was supposed to!" Miletta said, finally exploding with laughter, much to his chagrin.
"Miletta," he complained, as though trying to steady her.
"Oh, all right! You are the most complex person I have ever met! Most days you are sophisticated, and intelligent-"
"I'm always intelligent." He tossed his head back, and she absent-mindedly lifted a hand to smooth his hair as she went on, almost like she was listing faults.
"-and others, like today, you are childish and playful!"
"Playful is not a bad thing," he said stubbornly. "What happened after that?"
She sighed, smiling, and shook her head once again as they went through another turn.
"Well, he fell to his knees and she stepped back, unsure of what to do, and he looked up at her and said through clenched teeth, 'Well, that's no way to treat an admirer,' and she was so surprised, and he pulled out a rose from his vest and said, 'I'd been hoping to make this very romantic, but it would seem you have other thoughts.' And she just stared, then said, 'Oh, I'm sorry,' and helped him up, and he brushed himself up, muttering, and she said, 'Do you even know who I am?' And he said, 'Of course I do, Miletta.' And she, growing exasperated with his cryptic manner, said, 'Well, then, what is your name? Can I know that?' So he bowed ridiculously and said, 'Count Vladislaus Dracula' in a funny accent-"
"Romanian!" he said, glowering at her. "Don't make fun of my accent, I've never teased you about yours. Don't say that Hungarian accents sound any better!" She gave a short laugh, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand. He looked at her in dismay, and she lifted her hand from her mouth carefully, holding it up in a sign of peace, before draping it over his shoulder and going on.
"Oh, fine, he said it in a- erm- mysterious Romanian accent, sounding more like a Prince than a Count-"
"Do I really?" Vladislaus asked suddenly, sounding quite pleased. Miletta laughed at this, too, and said, "Yes, of course you do." Mocking his accent, she said, "You are my Prince of night!"
It was his turn to roll his eyes, and he said, "Oh, be that way, then. I'm finishing the story."
She waited patiently for him to begin. "Well, she laughed at him-" and he cast her a glare before going on- "and he asked her if she would meet him at the Opera house on a certain day, and she agreed, then came early by an hour or so and when he showed up, she told him he had been late."
"You told us to meet there at a time, but I thought you'd gotten the time wrong," Miletta said, confused. "You showed up after the opera was over and everyone had left!"
"I did it on purpose," he said, frowning.
"Why!" she asked, bewildered.
"So we could enjoy a moonlit dance on the empty stage, of course," he said, smiling slightly as he swept her gracefully across the dance floor.
She smiled, feeling a little shy. "And then we- I mean, they- danced all night, up until early morning, and then the sun peeked over the horizon-"
"Actually, the sunlight did, but the sun hadn't come up yet."
"Yes, I suppose. I don't know why you could watch the sun rise with me," Miletta said, a little disappointed. It would have been romantic…oh, she wasn't a romantic! Well…perhaps a little. But he was worse. Dancing on a moonlit stage! Going to an art gallery was more like what she'd suggest.
"I had to leave," he said, avoiding the subject and dropping his gaze..
She shook her head at his incorrigible attitude. "Well, after that, we met almost every night, didn't we?" She prompted him into looking at her again. His eyes had a magnetic quality to them, always.
He looked at her fondly. "Yes. Yes, we did."
They danced in comfortable silence for a while, and then the orchestra began to play another, faster song. Vladislaus' eyes flickered over towards them with faint annoyance at the tune, as though it seemed to him a silly thing to play for what he had in mind. Miletta thought it would be fun to dance to it, but before she had even gotten into position he spoke up.
"Miletta, come on- come with me," he begged, taking her by the hands and trying to lead her out.
"Where are you taking me now?" she asked, disappointed and resisting slightly. "This is such a lovely tune, and perfect for dancing!"
"Please, come on- it's just the balcony, it's quiet there, no one will interrupt us," he said. "Please?"
"Oh, fine," she said, yielding and following him as he rushed her out. "But you'd better not do anything I'll regret…or make you regret," she warned in a weary sigh.
He laughed a bit and dragged her gently out, then pulled the heavy curtains shut behind them. She looked at the dark brocade, then spun around and walked over to the railing, looking over the edge. The atmosphere was still and quiet, and the night was warm and beautiful. It seemed to her that it was only lovely in the dark, with the stars twinkling and the streets hauntingly sweet, as though singing to her. She breathed in the air, and then turned back to her paramour. "Isn't it fantastic?" she asked him, smiling up at him warmly, feeling a surge of fondness for him.
He nodded, not looking down to see her, as he walked over to stand beside her. She caught notice of this and touched his face softly. "What's wrong?" she asked carefully, tilting her head slightly.
"Nothing," he said, then pulled her close suddenly, wrapping his arms around her waist. She knew he was lying about 'nothing', and in a moment he proved her right. "Oh, Miletta…I'm leaving soon for Transylvania and you won't be coming back with me."
"Oh…" The happiness died from her face, which she buried in the front of his shirt. "Oh, you can't do that to me."
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, nuzzling her head with his nose in a gesture most uncharacteristically tender for him. "But...there is a way." He thought about it, slowly. He didn't want to lose her…but he knew he had to take her with him, no matter what the price was.
"What?" she asked him quietly, licking her dry lips. For some reason, the night had grown darker, bigger, more likely to swallow her up. She felt like this man she loved was more sinister, more threatening, whispering ominous things to her. But of course he wasn't…'There is a way', though? It sounded as though it would include murder…she shivered, and felt him gently step away from her embrace, and she was forced to look at him.
He knelt before her and took something small from his jacket, something that seemed to glitter as though he held a star.
"Oh!" she exclaimed as he took her hand. It was a surprise, but it had caught her off her guard. She felt very numb suddenly; but not with dulled happiness, as she might expect.
"Marry me, Miletta," he said in a voice barely above a whisper, as though he didn't dare to speak loudly.
"Vladislaus," she said, her voice catching in her throat, sounding lower and husky in her shock. "Is it…?"
"Real? Yes," he replied. "This is for real. My love for you is for real. Please, Miletta." The world around them was still immobile, but Miletta's heart beat quickly, a beat more thrilling than the instruments they had just heard earlier.
"I say…I say yes," she said, in awe as he slipped it onto her finger. It fit perfectly, and she lifted her hand up to her face wonderingly to look at it, before he took it again and brought it to her mouth.
"Oh, thank you," he said, kissing her hand. "I worried- I thought-"
"How could I refuse you?" she said, pulling him upright, then kissing him, the ghost of a smile on her lips as she did so. But when she broke away from the kiss, his face was grim, and she hesitated to speak.
"You would not feel this way if-" And then his voice broke as though he could no longer talk.
"What could be so terrible that my love for you would die?" she asked, her mouth twitching into a smile. This must have been some joke of his, she felt certain.
"There are things about me you don't know," he said solemnly. She frowned in confusion, almost in terror as her heart once again began beating quickly against her will.
"Vladislaus, what-?" she began, before he brought his lips to hers in a hungry kiss. She did not hesitate to kiss him back, burying her thoughts in passion, her hands tangling in his hair. She thought of that charming ponytail of his and how she was mussing it and the thought made her feel somewhat sad, before thinking it could all just go to Hell, for all she cared.
She felt his fingertips against her back, the stays of the corset he didn't dare remove, not then. He moaned slightly as he stroked her hair, removing the pins that held it up as it fell in a curtain around her face, and then kissed her on her lips again, then her shoulders, her throat, and her neck. Miletta was about to give up on thinking and merely enjoy the sensation, trying desperately to ignore the moral conscience in her head pressing urgently on the inside of her temples, when she thought she felt a bit of pain, like something sharp pressing against but not puncturing her skin on her neck
She gasped and with a cry like a wounded animal, Vladislaus tore himself away from her.
"What's wrong?" she asked, alarmed. He was feet away from her, staggered, his fingertips pressing against his mouth, his eyes wild with horror, for whatever reason. He removed the hand and passed it over his forehead, then turned away from her.
"I have to leave you," he called back in a choked voice by way of answering.
"Wait!" she cried, running after him as he went over to the edge of the balcony. "You're not going to jump? You can't!"
He looked back and saw the fear in her eyes. He had stopped moving, and so she paused, clutching her hands to her bodice where her heart beat rapidly in fear. Finally, he responded, still holding her gaze. "No," he sad, "I'm not."
"Please, come back, let's talk, about our future," she coaxed, clasping her hands together as though she were praying, even though, unlike most girls she knew, she rarely prayed. "Anything, just don't leave!" He gazed back at her sadly, and she knew before he spoke what was going on.
"I have to, but I'll come back to you soon, I promise," he said, aggrieved, and leapt over the side.
"Vlad!" she screamed, and rushed, panicked, to the rim of the veranda, her eyes searching the ground frantically for him.
She heard a sound and her eyes shot up to a street a ways away, where she could see her love- her fiancée!- entering a dark carriage, pulled by black horses. The street must have been closer than she thought--how else could Vlad get there so quickly? How else would the horses look so inhumanly large? And that carriage...She shuddered, although she consoled herself with the thought that it wasn't really a black carriage, it just appeared black in the night.
The carriage began leaving, but she followed it with her eyes, hugging herself, until she could see it no longer. It reminded her somehow of something a Holy Man had said to her and Vladislaus a while ago. 'Think not of your bodies, but of your souls,' he had shouted at them, as they had crossed a street laughing at night. Vladislaus had been escorting her home, though the Holy Man had probably assumed that they were doing unwholesome things. Most everyone assumed that sort of relationship, and Miletta thought back to their kiss earlier, then tried to ignore it. What else had the Holy Man said? 'Delightful may be the ride to Hell, but once you have reached your destination, you will find there is less rapture than you sought! Memento mori!'
'Don't listen to him,' Vladislaus had said. 'Remember you will die? How quaint! But death itself cannot stop the best of things--neither death nor Hell.' He had paused and hailed a passing carriage. 'Our carriage to Hell, milady?' he had joked as he helped her into it, and the pair had laughed at the man's folly and scorned his assumptions about their intentions. But now, feelings as though she had seen one such carriage, taking her love away from her, she did not laugh. Inside the hall, behind the ornate embroidered curtain, another song began to be played. Like a cold draft of wind along her spine, the eerie notes against the shell of her ear made her shiver, and she smoothed her hair with a trembling hand.
"Good-bye," she whispered belatedly to the night, then turned and walked back inside.