Let the Symphony last for Eternity

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

A/N: Woah wait. 3 pages? Sorry gang, I started doing better later I hope you guys can forget the skimpyness of this chapter.

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Stella and Loretta

"Sister!" Stella woke up with a pounding headache fading away. But it fading away was fast enough apparently. The sound of her sister's urgent voice made her open her eyes though. After all she was supposed to look after Loretta, she couldn't do that if she was sleeping now could she? Instead she forced her eyes to open, a hand promptly falling over them to shade them from the light.

"I'm up Loretta, what is going on?" She asked as she began pushing herself up to a sitting position. The room was vast and a door was near the ceiling. Not even platforms to jump up in order to get out of the room. But then her eyes went down to the floor, just to find that the ground was covered in skulls. Her expression displayed her alarm as she over at her kneeling sister.

"I do not know Sister. I woke up in a room beyond here, I found you here, laying on the ground." Loretta explained as she got up as well, her expression settling out of her alarm. Then again Loretta was rather good at subduing her own emotions. But she gestured towards the way she had come, the door behind them being on the ground floor.

Neither girls had any desire to stand on the skulls of the dead, as such they took to floating a foot off the ground while trying to get their bearings. The skulls and other assortment of bones stretched on for what seemed like miles, the room was just huge! But at the same time it was empty, there was just the bones yellowed by time and walls.

"One would think this to be the Castle of Dracula, however... it's so quiet here. The silence has to be the most foreboding thing about it." Stella noted before she took to floating towards that distant door up against the upper wall. Loretta was on her heels keeping her thoughts to herself for awhile. But as they passed through the door she found the need to speak.

"Sister... The Castle... could someone else have taken over the Castle as before? This place feels so different now."

Stella, thus Loretta, paused at that, her heeled shoes clicking ever so faintly as she landed on the rocky ground to think. Her brows furrowed in thought before her face smoothed itself of any doubt. "Possibly, if so it must be dealt with, which means finding Jonathan and Charlotte."

"Of course, Sister." Loretta replied as they took to floating off again, their dresses barely off the ground. They dipped down the passage and across an empty path when Loretta opted to speak again. "We should help them Sister. The more Jonathan uses the Vampire Killer the more of his own life he will lose."

"Agreed, what his father experienced from over using the Whip should not befall him as well." Stella nodded as they checked a hole in the ceiling. It proved to be a dead end, so they returned to the main hall. The next room they came across was filled with more dead, though many of these dead had been nailed to the wall. Each corpse looked as though they had been frozen to their spot and died there. While time decayed the bodies, they never fell, forever preserved in their stances of respect for those who walked by. It was ghastly and disturbing, something that the girls didn't see during their first trip through the Castle.

In fact everything about this passage did not appear when they first came. So did the Castle change it's form every time it was resummoned? If that was the case what were they going to do about finding anyone or a way out?

"You have not lost your spells Loretta?" Stella asked calmly as she looked out from the passage towards a large cave like structure.

"I have them still Sister."

"Then let us travel." She stated as she called forth her own magical sword. But they were halted by a sudden scream in the distance.

Charlotte Aulin

The smell of paper filled her nose as she slowly pushed herself up from the ground. Had she fallen asleep while reading again? She blinked the sleep from her eyes only to find herself surrounded by a whole lot of 'not' home. For a moment she thought she was having a nightmare, actually she hoped she was. All around her was rough stone and a passage ahead, but where was she? In a huff she picked up her book, gave it a good dust off and set out towards another room that had a lantern hanging from a chain.

How did she get here though? How could someone have removed her from her home and bring her to this, possibly, remote location? There was a steady light an overhanging lantern it's light, along with it's mate a short spot away, illuminated a wall of shelves with parts of skeletons resting inside small rectangular holes. It was a hallway of stone, something that didn't really surprise Charlotte. The kidnappers probably thought she was just some stupid little girl who would get scared.

Boy, were they going to be surprised when they found her again! She wasn't just 'any' girl! She was Charlotte Aulin! A member of a long line of witches that were going to totally going to beat up these kidnappers! She began to pass under another hanging lamp when something caught her attention. She turned to find herself staring at a skull that was resting upon a shelf, but upon closer inspection she found nothing really spectacular about it. Save perhaps the tons of dust that caused a sneezing fit to erupt from her.

"Ugh, well it's to be expected, I mean it 'is' a cave." She noted turning her head as though she expected a certain male blond standing over her shoulder. But no one stood there, she stood alone in an empty hallway. Her face shifted into a sad expression before shifting into an annoying one. They had been friends for so long, had traveled together. It felt unnatural to be without him, while at the same time she tried to make herself not miss him.

"I'm a big girl, I can handle this myself!" Sure Jonathan would probably worry, he always insisted that Charlotte was a child. Which she wasn't, but that was just how he was. It was like being brother and sister, she expected the teasing even while she hoped he wouldn't worry much over her.

She always got teased as being a learning nut, someone who always knew exactly what a situation was about. But that was only in terms of magic and the aspects about Dracula. There was probably a logical reason she got kidnapped and not realize it. Only it wasn't something she was taught to know about, as it didn't pertain to Dark Lord.

"WOAH!" Arms pinwheeling rapidly she pulled back in time before walking off the edge of the hallway. Her spellbook pulled close to her chest once she stopped flailing, she struggled to catch her breath from her shock while looking down at the long fall she nearly took. Already her mind telling her where she would have possibly split her head open from said fall.

From where she stood she could see a series of large stone cliffs that jutted out of the walls for her to land on. Well, maybe it would lead out if she went down there? But first, she looked about, squinting her eyes to make sure no one was around that could look up her dress. Finally confident that no one was going to see up her skirt, she jumped out into the void, first landing on the first cliff, then jumping to the ground.

There was a passage ahead of her as well as one behind her, the lanterns were even here, lighting the way both in front of her and behind her. Looking between the two she finally opted to go to the passage behind her. Hopefully it was like a typical cave and it would lead to the way out, after all there had been those lanterns aiming this way.

She walked along keeping an eye out for bats and other little nasties that might have swooped down on her. Upon getting closer to the passage she found to her surprise what looked like glittering stones of black twinkling in the light from the lanterns. What was it? A black stone... Cat's eye or obsidian? Curious she walked up towards it...

Present Time

There was a benefit to floating through the air, there was no sound of shoes on the ground to distract from the sounds around a person. Allowing her to focus more on listening to what was going on around her. Save for how ornate the dress that Stella wore made up for the sound of shoes. One that Loretta didn't share as her sister went floating off more decisively in a direction. Then again Loretta wore a less ruffled dress, which probably explained why she went off towards the center of the room.

Stella floated up towards the upper part of the room, where a hanging lantern illuminated enough that she could see only a wall off to the right of her in the distance, and a rough looking hallway towards her left.

"Sister!" But it was her sister's call that got her quickly floating herself back to the ground floor and towards the other side of the room.

"Loretta? Where are you?" She could barely make out the glint of light off the buttons on Loretta's boots.

"Sister, someone is here... Help me."

Stella did as told, her shoes brushing against something while her hands reached into the darkness questing for some sign of her sister. Loretta's bow was the first thing she felt, the girl was bent over trying to lift something, something crying, up. Her hand found her sister's shoulder and quickly she followed it down to what her sister was touching. A body, rigid in fear, rested below her while Loretta floated above trying to keep the body from going lower.

"Spikes sister. There are spikes on the ground."

"Oh no..." Stella wasted no time in grabbing the first limb she could find and pulling up, the pair of girls floating themselves up with the stranger in their arms before floating out of the room. But who it was, startled them though it was Stella who gave their surprise a voice. "Charlotte!"

They rushed her to the ground, looking over her for injuries though a part of their minds could only mock them for such silly thoughts. Of course she was hurt, she apparently tripped into the spikes in the room. Perhaps she didn't realize there were spikes? No matter though, she was heavily injured with the spikes having pierced her hands and tore their way into her body. Leaving bone exposed in some places, the pulsing of organs in others and Charlotte was so scared.

The girl was shivering and with a look to her dilated eyes shock was imminent or occurring. The twins were lacking in any healing potions or spells though, and nothing had been visibly resting where they had gone so far within the Castle. "Charlotte heal yourself!"

"Book."

"Book?" Stella lifted up her head to look around as Loretta began floating back into the room with the spikes.

"She must mean her spell book, I have yet to see her cast without it."

A fact that marked the difference between a direct and off shoot blood line, all the Aulins required an item. For Charlotte she needed a spellbook to focus her magic with, for her mother it was the stones she wore on a necklace she owned. But regardless of the item, that family branch required something to focus their energies through. Without the spellbook, Charlotte's needed healing spell was out of reach.

"Here," Loretta floated out of the room, a blood stained book, with a few holes in the cover now, was presented to the wounded witch.

Stella took the book, opening it as she did so before she handed it to Charlotte. The twins took hold of the witch's arms in order to help stabilize her grip on the book. Flesh dangled down where the spikes had ripped open the arms. Fresh blood continued to spill from the wounds while the once pristine schoolgirl uniform bloomed with blood red stains. While trembling lips struggled with the words needed to activate the healing spell.