Chapter Text
Lana enjoyed sleeping more than anything. Anywhere she could get a moment to rest, away from the ever-scrutinous, ever scornful eyes of her Mother and Father. She remembered a summer afternoon with her head resting against the bark of a tree in her backyard. A dark closet, holding winter coats and boots. She’d gotten an uncomfortable pain in her neck after that, but the silence had been so pleasant. Today, she had found her way into the garage, tucked away in a corner. It was such a simple reason why her fleeting times of rest mattered more than her miscellaneous, oftentimes random chores. In her sleep, she could dream stories so great, so real, enchanting tales of lives greater than her own. She could feel the mud beneath her feet, waves rock her to her core, brilliantly dressed men and women, a new home with a new family, gods and goddesses. From time to time, she’d dream of monsters. Tall, tar-black, lumbering, all-consuming relentless beasts. Lana hated those dreams. But her distaste for the waking world outweighed the beasts, so she chose them.
Her corner of the garage was a dusty, cobweb ridden stone haven, her only protection from the wind being the large tire belonging to her Father’s tractor. It had quit at the beginning of summer and had never returned to work. Her mother had lamented that fact for weeks, but Lana hadn’t heard them speak of it in some time. It wasn’t hard to put together why they had stopped speaking of it. It was her fault, after all. Or was it? The machine’s brakes had failed coming downhill. She would’ve been crushed.
So she forced it to stop.
Was she wrong to do such a thing? Must have been. She hadn’t been allowed food for days after.
A chilly wind snapped at Lana’s nose, forcing her back into reality. Turning her gaze outside, she watched the dull winter afternoon tick by. She could see the dusty path that led to the rest of the village, and with it, past a small clump of trees, was the village. For a moment, Lana almost wistfully imagined the last time she had walked its streets, visiting the humble market with Mother or Father, or attending church. How long ago had it been? It had been far warmer, that was for sure. There was another gust and yet another chance for the blasted cold to bear it’s fangs. Why she had settled for the garage, she wasn’t sure. Mother and Father were on edge, with Mother pacing about the modest homestead and Father walking the grounds. Nowhere to hide indoors, and nowhere to hide outdoors. She settled for somewhere in-between, though hindsight was beginning to make its presence known. Nowhere to sleep, then either. Darkness, curse this weather.
A branch snapped. Instinctively, Lana shifted into a squat and peeked out from behind the tractor. It was Father. A humble farmer by trade, years of toil had made his face appear gaunt. His skin wrinkled like old leather, his hair had begun falling off from the front, and existed like wild tufts of gray on his head. His eyes, Lana always found unsettling. A lid covering a boiling pot, fit to burst. Whenever they had met her own, they went from tired and dull, to confused and as mentioned, scornful. Lana did not know his age, only that the other village children had much younger parents.
It had been said that Lana inherited nothing from either of her caretakers, and that much was true. Her mother was much the same as her father, though far scrawnier, and her blonde hair had only grayed. Prone to what she called “proper discipline,” Lana feared when her eyes grew angry. It meant a swift hand wasn’t far behind. While they possessed splotches across their face and arms and coloration from toiling in the summer months, Lana was pale, with hair colored darker than a moonless night. As he finished his walk across the grounds, she heard it. It wasn’t always on command, what she heard, but Lana knew she was hearing the words unspoken, the sounds buried in the minds of whoever she was close to.
“Not right, it’s not right. Something ain’t smellin 'right. One of the monsters.”
At her father’s thought of monsters, Lana peeked around the corner, creeping ever closer away from the solitude she had found. Silence couldn’t last forever, she supposed. And this sounded interesting. Lana had never seen a Lycan up close, but she’d heard the tales. Foul beasts that Mother Miranda protected them from, though Hunters would sometimes find themselves at their mercy. Or in this case, a bold one would venture close to the village.
They say Lycans were once villagers, cursed to become such feral creatures. Wearing old rags, their teeth becoming sharper, a taste for blood overriding their senses until there wasn’t anything left. Nothing but the urge to kill, to feed. Mother Miranda was kind for keeping them at bay- kind and strong. But none had seen her in some time. Worship had gone quiet, somber, as the townsfolk continued to church without their leader. No wonder a Lycan would try its luck with a home so far on the outskirts like Lana’s. Was she scared? Surprisingly not. Curious, more than anything. If one was stalking about, she wanted to see it. So she took quiet, quick footsteps, pursuing her father as he entered the shed.
Alone again, she looked to the snow covered ground, and froze. Now she understood why her Father and Mother were so on edge. At least, she hoped it was, because it had little to do with her. Splayed across the ground, corpses seemingly sitting there half-eaten the whole night, were their chickens. Each had been lively, fat, glistening with bright white feathers, though now sported a sickly deep red. Grime, frozen viscera traced the yard, leading up to their former residence, the chicken coop. Said coop was torn asunder, as though someone had ripped it in half. Which was probably what happened. Lycans were unnaturally strong.
Standing above the bloodied backyard were dozens of ravens, and in spite of the distasteful scene before her, Lana couldn’t help her excited smile. She loved birds, the ravens most of all. Dark feathers, like her hair, not to mention shunned but clever. They were friends. She enjoyed listening to their simple thoughts, feeling what they felt, which in this moment was hunger. Dozens of plump corpses to peck and claw at- a scavenger's delight!
“Hi,” she said, quietly, should her father overhear, and the ravens regarded her, though stuck close to their corpses, “Here. Dessert for you all.”
Reaching into her pockets, she produced yesterday's bread. Long stale, perhaps even growing molded, but all she had been given the day before. Now the ravens were far more interested, cawing back to her and raising their wings. For while the ravens were Lana’s favorite creature, so too was Lana to the ravens. With a quiet giggle, she crushed the dry bread into bits and tossed it in a cascade to her avian friends. Leaving their chickens behind, the crows searched the red ground for their prized bread, pecking and bickering with one another with great fervor.
“Is it good? Good…eat up now, pretty birds. Before daddy comes back,” she murmured, running a finger along the head of her nearest companion. Sometimes in her dreams, she dreamed she could fly like them. Maybe one day, if she fed them well enough, they might take her away from this place.
“Girl,” her Father’s voice called, shaking her from her thoughts. Shoot. She could tell he was angry.
“Yes, daddy?” She asked. Polite, quiet. She shouldn’t be outside right now, or playing with the ravens, or kneeling in the viscera-stained snow.
“What are you doing out?” he demanded. But he was shaking, the shoddy shotgun clicking in his grasp. And in his mind, she could hear his thoughts calling, “Now isn’t the time for your damn games, girl!”
“Sorry, Daddy. The ravens were hungry,” she lied. Her childish answer never got her much leeway anyhow, but it sounded much better than “I wanted to see the monster that ate our income.”
“Hungry?! We buy that bread for you and you throw it to the fucking birds? What’s the matter with you? Do you not understand even half of what we do for you?!”
“I’m sorry-“ she tried, lying again. What did she care, when they thought her a cursed, blasphemous child. What did she care, when they thought themselves holy for trying to beat her “curse” out of her?
“You be quiet,” he snarled, looming over her. Lana counted herself seven years old, though her peers in the village stood well over her, and of course, adults appeared all the more terrifying. Trying to meet the eyes of someone whom you could only match the ankles of would make for such a feeling.
Freeing a hand, her father snatched her arm, hard enough to bruise, and marched her towards the house. Lana kicked her legs to keep up, tugging back but making no headway. The ravens, as if responding to her distress, took to the air and cried out one after the other, a cacophony of sound that nearly drowned out her voice.
“You’re h-hurting me!” She said, pulling even harder, “Stop it!”
“I’m hurting YOU?!” He cried, incredulously, tossing her forward and into the snow. After what you’ve done to us, this curse you put on this family, this ain’t half of what you deserve!”
Waves of hatred and anger poured off of her father. Her Gift whispered such things to her. Holding her bruised left arm, glancing up at her father, she listened to the still cawing ravens, feeling their distress. She felt hotly proud of her friends, happy to know that they had her support. But she wondered, still. There was another feeling, one of insatiable hunger, somewhere nearby. So she took her eyes off of her father and glanced at the trees behind the bloodied field of chicken corpses.
“A gift from the endless dark, we thought. When we were given you. But you weren’t right. Never was. You never cried, you just watched. You hear things no one else can, you cast witchcraft. You spit in the face of everything Mother Miranda’s given us!”
“Daddy-“ she tried to say, only for him to slam his foot into the ground and silence her. So lost in his tirade that he couldn’t see the figure staggering through the trees, couldn’t hear the bushes move over the ravens and his own yelling.
“But did we put up with it? Aye, that we did. We’ve endured. Thought we could teach you better, get you right in the head, purge your darkness-spurned soul, but-“
“LYCAN!”
Lana saw no sense in decorum or manners. The beastly malformed creature was mere feet from her father, who dropped his angered expression immediately, whipping around just in time to lock into a grapple with the snarling beast. He was everything Lana had imagined he would be. Pointed, crooked fangs stained with the blood of chickens, gray skin covered in a thick layer of overgrown hair. His hot visible breath wafted up and over his eyes as he locked his dilated, glowing ethereal eyes on her father. She noted, as well, matted to his body in sections, chicken feathers.
Any other child might have screamed, and ran. But despite herself, she giggled. The face her father was making was funny. And the chicken feathers made the lycan look silly. He, Lana’s Father, raised one of his lanky legs and desperately kicked the Lycan in its stomach. The creature snarled and fell away, though not without clawing her father’s arms. Her father yelled, but regardless, filled with adrenaline, readjusted his shotgun and took aim. Lana covered her ears, without a second to spare, as the shotgun went off. The lycan had rolled, however, avoiding the initial blast, but it howled as buckshot embedded itself in its right arm.
Woefully out of time and unable to reload, Lana noted that he’d neglected to grab the extra ammunition out of the shed in his tirade he’d screamed at her, her father instead took the butt of his gun and drove it with a scream into the lycan’s maw. It had as much effect as a paper airplane hitting a solid brick. Her father took a sudden swipe upside his head from the beast and collapsed down to the floor. Lana suddenly didn’t find it quite so funny anymore. Now it was curious.
The beast had ignored her the whole time, though she knew it wouldn’t be that way for long. Her Father was in trouble and hurt. Not to mention scared and weakening quickly. She felt like she should be springing to help and yet all she could do was watch. After all, he was mean. He hit her. Called her mean things, and said she was cursed and bad. He said her gift was a sin. So why should she help?
She watched the lycan clamber atop her wounded father, who barely held back the literal jaws of death with his frail but hardened old arms. She pouted. He was still her papa. And her mother would be so furious with her if she let him get killed. She had no choice.
Lana locked her eyes on the beast and called on her gift. The screaming ravens fell silent. The only noise at all was her grunting father and the snarling lycan. Even the winter gusts had quieted. The child reached out her hand and squeezed, and the beast howled. Its claws tore into its skull as she willed the beast to hurt, to have a headache. Her father, seeing an opportunity, clambered to his feet like a madman, grabbing the nearest weapon he could, that being a rusted farming sickle. She stopped using her gift and just watched. The air became an orchestra of hacks and slashes, aggressive grunts giving way to weakened gurgles. Lana watched with interest piqued as the lycan faded, melted away to naught but a crystal husk, and feathers. A pity.
Lana inspected the corpse closer. Why was it that Lycans turned into crystals when they died? Her first thought was to grab one and hold it. After all, they were so shiny, and her bird friends loved shiny things. Perhaps when her father wasn't looking, she could try her luck. Speaking of her dad, his adrenaline seemed to begin to wear off of him, and the pain was setting in. Lana briefly wondered if she should rush to get mother, almost shocked that she hadn’t emerged in all the ruckus. But then the door slammed open, revealing a furious woman brandishing a kitchen cleaver. It was foolish perhaps, to think that her mother hadn't witnessed the struggle.
“It was her!” The shrill, angered voice of her mother cried, “Joseph, it was her! It came to her when she called!”
Lana's stomach dropped. She had only been trying to warn her father, not hurt him! Her gift was whispering to her, warning her of danger. Her mother's thoughts were a tunnel of hatred and outrage, so jumbled that Lana couldn't decipher them in any legible way. Her father, however, was strangely silent.
“It-it wasn’t me! I didn’t…” Lana quickly stammered, mustering her own defense, “I helped Daddy, I used my…my gift…”
Lana turned away from the pinched, fearful yet furious expression of her mother and toward her father. It was the moment she learned that lycans weren’t the only monsters to fear in such a town. Her father looked so miserably calm as he stalked towards her that she felt fear for the first time in this whole exchange. Yes, he’d come at her with belts, his fists, sometimes her mother had used a shoe. But he held the sickle so tightly in his hands that she knew that this wasn’t normal.
“Daddy…” she squeaked, stepping backward, almost tripping over herself.
“Do it. Do it, Joseph. Before she calls more! She’ll ruin all that Mother Miranda gave to us!” Her mother encouraged. Then her father broke into a run and Lana could do nothing else but turn and sprint for her life. She didn't even have time to think of a plan.
It wasn’t a fair fight. It wasn’t an even race. Even wounded, her father was so much bigger, so much stronger, that she stood no chance. She staggered through trees, feeling a hand swipe at her leg, and managed to take her shoe off. Uneven, she staggered, heavy breaths raking through her chest. Her heart pounded as she rounded a tree and took a running start down the beaten but long-abandoned path.
“Daddy, it wasn’t- I didn’t-“ she tried, before she staggered. His pounding footsteps grew closer, a hand wrapped around her neck, slamming her against a tree. All wind left her lungs at that moment, her head pounded and the world went strangely silent as she tried to rack breaths back into her body.
“Should’ve done this…long ago…” he growled, ferally, reminding her so much of a lycan, chilling her so deeply. With no regard for aim, or his intent to kill, her father swung his scythe. She felt her world go dark, a horrible snagging and dragging sensation, followed by agony so great Lana was sure she was dead. She didn’t even know she was screaming until a moment after.
Her eyes. Her father had cut out her eyes.
He might’ve done more, worse if Lana hadn’t panicked. Her gut twisted, as she called on her gift, begging for everything at that moment to go away. To leave her alone. She felt trees shake, and heard her father roar as he was thrown aside like a doll. Her back slid down the bark of the tree she found herself against. Unsure what kept her going at that moment, she moved as fast as her legs would take her. Sightless in the woods included scratching herself on brambles, crashing into trees, falling face-first into the mud, all the while screaming, crying as the blood trailed across her nose and lips, tasting of grime and lichen.
Lana moved until her legs couldn’t carry her anymore until the snow banks reached her knees, and the cold was too great. She collapsed, and she sobbed. She covered her eyes, feeling nothing but cold, running blood, and a brutal stinging from her wound and the exposed elements. Would a lycan find her like this, alone? Would her father track her, finish what he had started? Why? Why was this her fate?
Oh please,
Please, it can’t be like this.
How can she dream if she can’t see?
Her hands were slicked from what she knew was blood. Lana could feel that much of it had long since frozen on her face and yet she could still feel it seeping from her wounds. She remembered when people in the village passed away, or were hurt, villagers would gather and pray to Mother Miranda for help, to heal the sick and wounded. Would Mother Miranda listen now, if she asked? Lana hugged herself, feeling her jaw click back and forth, teeth chattering. Would God save her, or was she a blasphemous curse that her parents insisted her to be? It was time to find out. Clasping her hands in the snow, Lana remembered the adage of worship.
“I-I call on, thee…e-endless dark. Deliver u-us-'' her voice cracked, and on gasping sobs, she murmured, “to fate's hands! As the midnight moon rises…o-on black wings, we m-make our sacrifice…wait for the light at the end. Life, d-death…give glory, Mother Miranda…!”
Nothing. So she recited it once again, adding,
"Please, Mother Miranda...It hurts, it hurts so much..."
And she begged until the cold took the feeling from her limbs and the wind seemed to drown out her voice. She begged until her voice was raw, so raw it felt like her throat was bleeding. Until she felt snow fall gently on her arms and legs. Until she realized, despite it all, she still had her gift, whispering to her. Warning her of what was to come. Warning her that she was being followed. Whatever had come from her, it had come to hunt. Her prayers had been ignored, it seemed, as another horrifying figure loomed over the horizon.
And when the sound of something, something massive and hungry, rustling the bushes tore its way into her exhausted ears, the gift whispered once more.
“Run.”
Alcina Dimitrescu liked to hunt. On rare occasions, at least. It wasn’t a proper activity, a Lord to sulk about in the woods, searching for a poor unfortunate soul to feed upon. But it took her back, far back…to the days her powers began to burgeon and the hunger, her bloodlust, couldn’t be sated for days. When the moon was full, when she had no more duties, she would take a coat and leave her ancestral home seeking the thrill of the hunt.
She wasn’t particularly picky, not at first. In the old days, her first catch was a stag. Not facing a creature quite her stature before, the stag had stood its ground and charged her. Drunk on her new might, she took the creature by its horns, savaged its flesh with her claws, and drank well that night.
Her second catch was a bear, for the forest seemed to understand her status as the rarest but the apex of the predators. She felt maybe a little too proud of that one. She happened upon the lumbering beast in the late summer, just days before the leaves were set to darken and drift from their perches. It took her not long to realize that she was to be challenged yet again by the beast. It was only after her strength proved herculean and her claws much sharper did she realize that she had slain a mother of two cubs. With what she decided was proper respect, recently a mother herself at this time, she drank all it had to offer and had the bear fashioned into a coat.
The years would pass, and the chases would become longer, but Alcina would always get her mark. Thuggish Lycan troupe, gallant stags, and great bears, soon enough became a tedious measure and a rather boring one. Then she considered the village and grand old tales from her childhood. The grandest, most dangerous game of all. Man.
Her fifth outing was against a Hunter and his son. She endured traps, scoffed at their bullets, and simply continued her brisk chase. Then she had been surprised, realized she had underestimated just how crafty, just how cruel mankind could be. For the son saw Alcina’s Miranda-given blessings, he struck his father down and gifted him to Alcina. No doubt, to save his own hide. But that sort of wit, that willingness to do anything to survive, spiced her annual hunt so greatly. Never again would an animal do. She took the son’s head and left his long-stale father for the Lycans.
It had been some time since, and many hunts had come to pass. Now here she was, in the light of a bright full moon, on a frigid evening. She draped her bear-fur coat over her shoulders and set for the woods once more. For she could already smell unique blood, faint, but growing ever-closer.
Alcina had tread through foliage for some time before coming across the first sign of her prey to be. However, there was something about its scent that gave her pause. Decades spent lavishly indulging in the joys of life’s nectar, you learned to differentiate between types. Not simply A or O, but rather, mortal blood or…blessed blood. Blood like hers, or perhaps the other Lords. Maybe even Miranda herself. Those who had been given the Cadou enhanced to creatures of great might and influence.
Before her, was such blood. Rich, dark, and teeming with divine influence. But it belonged to a handprint roughly times smaller than Alcina’s own, and well below the average of a human. Yes, this was a child’s handprint. She had not the slightest clue what a child was doing with the Blood of a Lord, but her interest skyrocketed. There seemed a steady trail continuing deeper into the woods, though not in any clear direction.
She wondered, sometimes in circles, merely following smeared trees, and heavy drops in snow, theorizing to herself what she was dealing with. Most logically, one of the other four almighty beings who presided over this land had done an experiment on a young child. Perhaps decrepit Salvatore, or the blithering fool Heisenberg, seeing as a child had escaped them. Oh, how she would gleefully hold this over their heads when Mother Miranda returned.
Then she heard a sound unnatural with her environment. Shrill, agonized wheezing. A sound much akin to maidens who found their way into Alcina’s dungeons. As she listened, she drew closer to the source and caught sight of it. And despite herself, her heart clenched in pity. For lying, exhausted, appearing positively mauled, was a little girl. No more than four, she estimated. A mop of frazzled, untamed black hair over a face so covered in blood that Alcina could not discern any features on her. It would turn even perhaps her daughter Cassandra’s stomach.
She was dressed like that of a common villager, which momentarily made her doubt her earlier theory. Regardless, she reeked of the Blood of the Lords, and it was clear she possessed it. Alcina continued forth, confident in her acquisition. Then, with surprising awareness and speed, given her empty eye sockets, the little girl turned and faced Alcina, before standing and running as fast as she could in her opposite direction. Intrigued, Alcina let the chase begin, though her hunger was quickly being forgotten in lieu of this curiosity.
There was a mystery here, a complete enigma, and Alcina intended to find its very bottom. A bleeding child, alone in the woods, was practically condemned to frenzied devouring by the resident Lycans. Though this child, clearly hurt as she was, had traveled quite the distance for one in such agony. Truly, should she not have already been set upon? Why was it that she, the elusive mistress of Castle Dimitrescu, was the one to find such an oddity? Such a curiosity, mere feet away from her clothes.
Try as the little girl might, and god below, she was certainly making an effort, Alcina’s strides equated to nearly four of her paces. It didn’t help that the child kept, unfortunately, crashing nearly headfirst into various obstacles, such as branches, frost-covered tree trunks, and tripping on the uneven ground. She just kept running in spite of it all, a true fighter. Alcina mused that she had Daniela’s spirit. The vampire cleared her throat and decided to call out to this foundling.
“Won’t you stop and chat, small thing? Your blood is so unique…won’t you tell me where you received it?” She called. Her words gave the child pause, but the response was that of panic and nothing else. The Lady of the Castle barely had time to perceive a shrill cry of fear, a shriek of “GO AWAY!” before her entire world turned upside down.
Never, was it proper to ask a woman her weight. Alcina knew, however, that her substantial size was eclipsing many humans. She was not a being easily toppled, thrown, or knocked off balance. Every movement, gathering, and word, was performed with every ounce of grace she could muster. So understandably, feeling her feet leave the ground, her body gripped by an unseen yet awe-inspiringly powerful force. Against perhaps her better judgment, she brought a hand to her head to ensure her covering did not disappear in this dingy fortress.
Completely losing track of where she was, Alcina felt her body fly backward at a velocity that would shatter any other mortal’s bones into dust. She crashed through the trunk of an admittedly weak tree and came to a skidding halt on a bank of snow. Uncomfortable as it was, she wasn’t hurt. Perhaps her clothes had torn in places but…
Just what WAS that?
Her cry of fear, the agonized request for Alcina to leave the child be, still rang in her ears. Certainly, the child possessed the gift. Certainly, it had been her who had tossed Alcina aside like a rag doll. In a bid of random departure from her ancestral home, Alcina had come across an infant Lord. A child who, without knowing, was now among her, Donna, Karl, and Salvatore. Everything seemed to click into place. This child was a Lord, her family. And something, someone had hurt her. Terrified her so dreadfully that she was running from anything that approached.
Her righteous fury grew, and she pulled herself to her feet and continued her pursuit with renewed effort. The child hadn’t made it very far, though she still seemed to know she was being pursued. Alcina had to bite back her tongue as she watched her careen straight for a tree. Alcina briefly considered warning her to stop, but knew that it presented an opportunity to approach without being tossed. So Alcina bit her lip as she crashed into the tree, falling off of it and landing, shivering, bleeding, in a snowbank.
“I don’t want to hurt you, small one. Won’t you calm down, for me?” She asked yet again, close enough to make out the details of her face. So small, but so scared. That collision, Alcina noted that she may be concussed.
Despite her requests, the child still resorted to trying to crawl away. With a wheeze, the girl raised her arms and though Alcina felt the grip of invisible power, it did not bother her anymore than a mighty gust of wind. Alcina appreciated the effort, admired it, though finally arrived at her prey.
“G-Go away…go away…you wanted to-to eat me, I know you…did…” she wheezed in-between sobs. Inconsolable, dazed, and cold. Alcina crouched down beside her, and got a good look.
As assessed, the blood seemed to be coming from her gored eyes. The eyes themselves did not inhabit her skull any longer. Replaced with hollow sockets, and jagged pierced flesh. It was the work of blind hatred, and it was wrong. Her words were even more confusing, though she supposed she understood why she might assume so. Alcina reached out, and the girl tensed before she let her fingers run across the girl's brow, gently, diligently, as she shushed her.
“No no, small thing…I want to help you. I want to make you feel better. Can you tell me your name?”
If the girl had any adrenaline left in her body, it seemed to be ebbing away, replaced with her exhaustion and pain. She croaked out, almost a whisper, after a moment.
“Lana…”
“Good girl,” Alcina praised, smiling at her lovely name, “Lana, I can take you away from here and make you feel all better. Do you want that? You’ll be safe with me, little one, I promise,”
“I-It hurts…it hurts! Please! I-It-'' Lana devolved, shouting, reaching out a hand to take hold of Alcina’s massive finger. The desperation, the fear in her grip, tore Alcina’s heart down even further. She gently shushed the girl again, before reaching out with both arms and taking her from the filth of the ground. She pulled her cloak aside and rested the girl against her chest, nestled close. The poor thing trembled and continued to make small, pained noises.
“Let’s get you home, then, dear thing. Your sisters will just adore you.”