The White Witch
Evil Overlady

Summary: D meets up with a young companion... A nixie queen threatens a town unless her human lover is returned to her...

Author's Notes: Vampire Hunter D belongs to Urban Vision, Streamline Pictures, Hideyuki Kikuchi (Asashi Sonorama), etc. No copyright infringement intended. This fic is merely for the enjoyment of fans. This fic is mostly based off the first Vampire Hunter D movie brought out by Streamline Pictures in 1985. I know very little of the rules established in the original universe and have absolutely no earthly idea what are in the books that have yet to be translated into English, so any inconsistencies are either A) non-deliberate, or B) deliberate if I found the original material just way too depressing... i.e. D's not immortal for the purposes of this story. Long-living, yes, but not immortal. He doesn't go through horses like there's no breeding program, and I named the hand. ;) And for those interested, yes, I do intend to continue this as a mini-series. Mwah-ha-ha-ha...! Anastasia Moonstone is my own character. "Llaw" means "hand" in Welsh and looks like "law" and his back story is my own creation. "Du" of course is the Welsh word for "black or bitter," which seems to fit D rather well. And the horse, Shadow Fright, is mostly mine, although I'm basing him off the one in the aforementioned movie. ...And I think that about covers everything.

Rating: Some material may touch on sensitive issues. Although I tried to keep it subtle. You may not even notice, but if you think you will, my advice is to either keep an open mind or don't read.

Either you'll love it or you'll scream. That seems to be the general division of my audience. But at least it's grammatically correct. :)

Additional note(s): The original version of this story was created Nov. 6 2002. On March 7, 2003, it has been modified. These are the modifications: I tried to get the voice of the hand right. Please, let me know if there are still errors in that regard. I changed the ending. I cut out some dialogue, and a bunch of little tidbits here and there. I hope it turns out to be a worthwhile read, even for those of you who read the original. This is my first VHD fanfic, so it takes some breaking into.

The White Witch
Evil Overlady

~ Prologue ~

No one knows for sure how the world came to be this way after the Final War. No one is even sure what the Final War was about or anything before it. Certainly if the vampire lords knew anything they didn't share.

Just another way of oppressing us mere mortals, I suppose...

Many of the libraries were burned down or seized by the upper classes. Books were a rare commodity. Essentially illegal. Only the supernatural were expected to read them. If you were human, well... you weren't. You were some servant of the Devil, demon spawn! Or, as many of the whispers around me utter, a witch. If you were literate you were one of them, a creature of the night to be hunted down and burned at the stake. If you drowned you were innocent... Ha!

I am a story teller, a healer, an herbalist with absolutely no magical ability whatsoever! Doesn't matter. I think too much, I'm a witch, plain and simple.

So I learned to keep my big mouth shut and be... subtle, drifting quietly from town to town, checking the local post office to browse the message boards filled with notes of what constituted the "official" language, full of spelling and grammatical errors, barely fragments of the languages of old. Barely languages at all. They were written in the vampire's tongue, scratched down by locals, beautifully scripted by the nobles to please their demon masters.

They'd even sacrifice their beautiful daughters to retain the undead's favors.

Absolutely sick!

I reach up and lift the corner of a note with my finger to read the one beneath.

A pale hand reaches past me; a dark sleeve brushes me.

I gasp, startled.

"Excuse me," the man said softly and plucks a message off the wall, tack still in it.

I glance at the message briefly. "$12, 000? For a guy with a water problem? What? They run out of local plumbers?"

He eyes me from under a brimmed hat.

I look at the message I still have my finger on and drop my arms, shrug. "General store assistant. Yeah, pretty lame, but I might get a good deal on some herbs."

He watched me silently.

"I'm Anastasia Moonstone, by the way. You can call me Stacy." I hold out a hand.

"D," he answers, making no move to touch it.

"Just D? Isn't that kinda odd for a name?"

He ignores me and walks out.

I follow and catch up to him as he untethers a large black metallic cyborg stallion. "D?"

The horse snorts.

D steps off the stirrup to look at me.

I grab his gloved hand and press a bright orange-red stone into it. "For luck," I tell him, finally out of earshot of any eavesdropper. "To protect against water demons. Fire..."

"...Defeats water. I know." He nods. "Thank you."

"Well... I should probably get going, see about that general store job..." I start to walk away.

"It's short for Du."

I turn. He's already mounted.

"What is?"

"My name." He rides off.

The Welsh word for "black, bitter"? It was appropriate.

D watched the woman go, making her way down the sandy street to the general store with a stride that spoke of a well-worn traveler.

"Well, she seems... educated," commented his left hand from beneath the glove.

"Leave her alone..." D warned. The stallion tilted his head towards the dhampir, ears pricked forward toward their conversation. D could almost swear the animal cyborg understood every word that was being said. For the time D had it, from the time he was a boy to present day, Shadow Fright always seemed to act like it had a mind of its own.

Of course, who could say what its creator programmed it with before he died.

"You know the nobles outlawed witchcraft among the commoners," the hand warned.

"She's a healer."

"Then, she ought to apprentice to a doctor not a book."

"She's just tying to earn a living, as I am." D tugged on the reins and clicked his tongue to order Shadow Fright on.

"Ah, yes... Your endless quest to find your father... And what's a little vampire slaying on the side? I'm sure your father would be very pleased... to find you murdering your own kind left and right..."

"I am not out to please my father." His eyes flashed green. "He took my mother from me when I was but a boy."

"He's not an evil man, D."

"That's not for you to judge. I freed you from a sorceress's spell to lead me to him. It's not for you to question why."

"Going after a nixie seems a bit off-track."

"I have my reasons."

"Hm. As usual..."