(Note: The final few lines have changed as of July 3.)
One-shot. See below for any translations or notations regarding the French language or history.
1891 A.D.
The moon lies carelessly upon her skin, cleansing in vain, this outstretched siren of her misery, foulness and filth. Beyond madness, she sings herself lost beneath a stupor of mulled wine, the sharp cries hounding the streets of Paris where she drinks. Her clothes ragged…the corset strung out and fallen on hard times. Her eyes lost and unknowing. And yet, recognizing at once that starved and shrunken voice, he throws coin across the dull fingers, bearing her drunken walk to a place where fires burn out, and angels wake upon demons.
"I know you…" she whispers over the glass, her lips pursed hazily against the red blood spilling from a crystal rim, her drunken kiss spreading across satin to belie the innocence of golden hair, deep-blue eyes and children lost at sea. At once mesmerizing, this castaway seems but a pale woman of nineteen years, but like the moon, she lies. Swept in from the alleyway and not the sea, she is four hundred and twenty seven years old, while the wolf paying her bills is nearly twice that.
He smiles distantly from the window where he sits, the sharp handle of his gaze breaking through glass to scorn this new horror of the nineteenth century…this iron monstrosity of Eiffel sinking his taste for love, whores and absinthe. Iron steps wreaking havoc on a beloved view of memory, now tainted by the black tower. He turns from the dark.
"I am aware of your change in circumstance," he murmurs in quietude, the rolling tones of his French both pleasing to the ear and rising to the tongue. Restless to the night, the wolf moves closer to dying embers, a reflection of shadow burning in his eyes as he toys carelessly with an iron poker. All warmth lost on the chill of his smile. "…but has it been so long, Baroness?"
Ah, she thinks. Such cold and genteel ways…
Perhaps that is why he has found her on these streets…searching among the dirt-encrusted whores of dead Paris for God knows hold long. And from the tone…she smiles vacantly…almost in pride…she might have named him one of her own rank.
"Not so long," she answers drowsily from the bed, the voice lost and drunk as she drops her glass completely to the ruined sheets. "Perhaps a century, but no more…"
…and then, eyes caught by the fallen crystal, her lips now leaning to lick spilled blood. The shade of the enfant terrible showing through all her bitterness, she drops the French of her youth for a new tongue…
…this…English.
"And what has changed, eh?" she mutters harshly. "Nothing. Since la grande peur…my life becomes…" She swallows, the memories sharp on her youthful face. The glass clutched between grimy fingers as she peers curiously through its mouth. "…hard. I could not even hunt rats…but perhaps you know, eh? Antoine is dead…Marie is dead. Justine…Dominique…even the little…"
She breaks off suddenly, her words caught in open. Eyes dull and staring wide into the embers behind his back…staring at these people whose names she has forgotten. And, suddenly shaking her head, she waves delicate fingers, now hardened by the decades of street life, closing her mind as if to break away the past…a bitter smile almost warming her face.
"…but what does it matter? Two days before they storm my chateau, I think, where does he go? Where is my méchant loup?" And she smirks suddenly, the laughter touching her eyes for a brief moment. "And of course…you must remember the little Madame, yes? Haaa, the little bitch tries to take a chunk of my neck, and I turn her to dust." She slaps her hand against a pillow and falls back laughing against the linen, her greasy locks mingling with the drying blood. By morning, the linens should burn for the filth she brings with her.
"I remember Madame Guillotine, little one, " he says musingly, the cold smile never leaving his face as his words turn to match her tongue, his accent suggesting the last century spent hiding among the English, though the wolf himself is born of Hungary. He drops the poker and finally reaches for the water laid out above the fire. "...but I'm afraid, Geneviève, the rest of your memoirs are quite familiar to my ears. Raze already informed me of your fall several decades ago."
"Then why did you wait so long?" she hisses, incensed at this lover who left so abruptly before the Revolution. This bastard who left her to rot in the Parisian sun, her powdered boudoir exchanged for one of grime, rubbish and dirt. And suddenly, as if seeing him for the first time, she cocks her head to the side…bird-like in her manner. "What is it you want, Lucian?"
"I have an offer, Geneviève. Nothing more."
He has already poured the hot water, and now stands sniffing among the bath salts laid out along the tiles. Lavender, rosehips, chamomile…almond…a medley of choices left by the Madame Lefèvre. Most are now wet from the water spilled earlier, after dragging this double-ended copper bateau across the marble and closer to warmth, but it had to be done. Though an essential whore of the past decade, the Baroness still hails from an era without baths, and from the scent alone, she hasn't washed in half a century. He frowns. Perhaps it would be better to soak her in sodium hydroxide.
"An offer? You wish to offer me something when…" she sneers at his back, flinging the forgotten glass past his head to shatter against the wall. "You…you bastard!...you son of dogs…you…"
The wolf casually steps over the broken crystal.
"Wolves…" he corrects vaguely, his uninterested voice tinged with disdain. "…son of wolves, Geneviève."
And dropping his penchant for rosehips through steam and water, the méchant loup leans against the stone hearth, both eyes closed to the Baroness' rude gestures as a scent of blissful peace sways easily about his world-weary senses. Immediately soothed, the wolf starts murmuring softly over her broken English as if breathing the air of discernment for the first time …
"Do you realize that in four centuries, you haven't once valued the discrepancy between wolves, lycans or even my own domesticated brethren?"
He opens his eyes pensively…and then, ignoring her brutal glare, feigns a look of intense bafflement as he squints broodingly at this ill-tempered mistress of stains…
"Why, it's almost a crime…" he murmurs darkly to himself, counting on his fingers as he strides from the wall and begins pacing contemplatively before the bath. "…the anatomy, breeding, instincts, style of walking…choice of prey…choice of whore. So many things you could have learned during your bout among the underprivileged. And yet, why continue? Why should I spoil such potential for discovery and independence when you're already half-way there? Observe the state of your sordid clothing, Geneviève…your grease-ridden hair…the reek of squalor tottering in your veins. Indeed, little one…"
And nonchalant as a vampire tutor instructing novices in proper decorum, he smiles viciously, a strong bite of sarcasm cutting through his icy words…
"…you are a whore. Perhaps in future, you can spend time observing rather than just screwing half the mongrels in France…" a highly neglectful pause, and then… "…Baroness."
Frowning, the lycan turns back to water, a hand plunging below the surface, ignoring vengeance as she dives fuming into her native French, burning his insensitive ears with a barrage of insults remarking on his face, his ass, his wolves, his excrement and the best method by which to screw himself with all four. A short moment later, after dissolving the bath salts and checking the fiery temperature in one fell swoop, the insensitive wolf flinches ever so slightly as his burned hand re-emerges sorely red and dripping from the water.
He smirks…
Far too hot for the master of lycans, but certainly just right for little Geneviève and her golden curls which must be scrubbed.
Shaking the hand dry, the wolf locks his gaze on chance one more time, sizing up this tattered siren of streets, blood and filth, the scorn of her insults still sweeping past his ears as he begins slowly to roll his sleeves up to the elbow, one by one. He turns on his heels to cross both arms and frown upon the vampire, the cold eyes of strategy trained upon her face and accent as he slices her words into silence…
"Do you understand the word mutiny, Baroness?" A sudden fire in Lucian's tone as he hisses the question, grating upon her soul as if to whip the very life from her body. His gaze vicious as he weaves a vision of two watchful eyes trained upon the back of his closest enemy…
"No…" she first whispers hazily, the drunken mind baffled at this sudden change in subject…and then… "Perhaps…" Her body lost as the razing shadows of his face wander closer to her bed, the fate of this temptress rocking upon winds as a sea-wolf steers her course, burning the bridges and boats of her past…
Gathering her in his arms, she is stripped of rags and filth, her shivering body draped in the warmth of hot water and rose gardens streaming down her back...
"Then tell me, Geneviève…" he murmurs again, the name burning upon his tongue as it fades from existence. The kindness of a wolf turning his fallen lover towards the stone-covered base of a coven ruled by treachery and cowardice…
"…do you like the name…
…Erika?"
Soothing her cries, the wolf lies carelessly upon her skin, cleansing in vain the outstretched siren of her misery, foulness and filth. She is taken by fire, her clothes burned...the corset scourged and fallen. Her starved and shrunken voice swept across seas beyond the madness of dead Paris. Ever watchful, her eyes glint upon a coward's back as her lips yearn for the méchant loup. But the wolf is gone...
...he throws coin across her dull fingers and leaves with the coming war.
The fires burn out...
...and the siren is left behind, falling into slumber with her demons.
The End
French Translation and History notes:
"enfant terrible" - basically a brat
"la grande peur" - refers to the "Great Fear" of the French Revolution, around 1789 (Basic jist. A bunch of peasants burn down chateaux and feudal documentation because they think the nobles are going to destroy their crops. That's all you really need to know. Actually you don't even need to know that.)
"Madame Guillotine" - nickname for the device used to execute prisoners during the French Revolution. Decapitation. Not pretty.
"méchant loup" - bad wolf, nasty wolf, malicious wolf...you get the picture.
Question & Answer Period after the Story
Rushwriter: Ewwwww...Lucian! You slept with Erika in the 1700s? That's totally disgusting...
Reader #1: Wait a second...that's Erika? How can that be Erika? Erika has a British accent! She was changed by Kraven! She's not even that old!
Rushwriter: Weeellll, in this story, Erika used to be a French Baroness named Geneviève. She had an affair with Lucian and then decades later, after the French Revolution, he's like "oi...Geneviève...I want you to go to England for ten years...I'm thiiiking short skirt, I'm thiinking British accent, I'm thiiinking become Kraven's lover, he'll make you Queen, and that's FINE by me because then I have a better chance of overthrowing Kraven in the long run if I've got a spy on the inside." Get it? Erika's working for Luuciiiaann.
Reader #2: WHOT? That's stupid! Erika ADORES Kraven...she has nothing to do with Lucian! She did everything so Kraven would love her!
Rushwriter: Exactly my point...it's obvious I have nothing better to do with my time than write crap literature. You must admit, however, that Erika's all about moving HERSELF forward...perhaps it has nothing to do with getting Kraven. Perhaps Kraven is just her way of getting further up in the vampire world for the sake of...I donno...Lucian.
Reader #3:Wait a second...if she was some big baroness or whatever, the coven would probably recognize her and be all like "oi...your name's not Erika! It's Geneviève...and what happened to your accent?"
Rushwriter: Then we'll just fall back on the old "I'm Geneviève's daughter and hence I look just like Geneviève, but am actually ERIKA, mwahhahahhaa" crappy plot hole filler.
Reader #2: WHOT? You're barmy...and that's such a crappy plot!
Rushwriter: I know...I'm sorry...but I had to finish the story SOMEHOW and it kept egging at my head until I was like FINE...BE Erika then! Stupid Geneviève! Just see if I put you in another story! (Though I must admit, I was planning on putting her in Lucian's Respite later on...but she wasn't meant to be ERIKA at the time...she was just meant to be an ex-lover. Anyway, we'll see how that one turns out later. Hopefully not like this...)
Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld or its characters. Don't sue.