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Chapter Text

My earliest memory is of Mother Miranda.

It is not a particularly happy memory, and Mother does not like for me to speak of it to her, but it is my first memory all the same. I am perhaps six months old, cradled in the goddess’s hands, and though I now adore her I shiver to think of the expression on her face. She had looked down at me as though I were the most precious object on earth, but there was something in her expression that made me squirm in my wrappings. Something open and ugly, raw with the wanting.

“An excellent vessel.” She said of me. “But it's a pity that she is still unripe.”

I know that this is a true memory, rather than something constructed from the stories I had been told, because Mother had never told me about my beginnings. The first memory came to me in a dream, as it so often did, and later Mother gave me the words to the images that I might see my past.

I could not see at the time, but she had been talking to Mother and my uncles and aunt. I remember the high vaulted ceiling of the room, and the echoes of Uncle Heisenberg’s lycans as they prowled the room, seeking sustenance. The gruff noises they made, snarling and snapping, made me shiver even now, though I knew that Mother Miranda held me safe. I was, after all, her only chance at seeing her daughter again. Yet her hands could not keep me warm: I shivered and sniffled, wrapped though I was in a blanket.

She stared at me for a long time with her glittering eyes, her face partly hidden by her odd, bird-like mask.

“Alcina.” Mother Miranda said finally, when I had begun to squirm and whimper. I heard the creak of Mother’s seat as she rose, and could smell the rose perfume and clove cigarettes on her as she came to stand by her goddess. Even then, tiny as I was, I felt more safe in her presence than I did in that of Mother Miranda. She peered down at me - at us, she was that tall - and I could see how soft her face became when she looked at me.

“Yes, Mother Miranda?”

I wonder if Mother thought she would be asked to do something dreadful to me, though her voice had been steady. After all, she had been the one to teach me my prayers, my adoration of the goddess.

“You will protect the Winters child until she has formed.” Mother Miranda told her, her voice low and mystical, and then she passed me over. Mother put her hands out, cradling me more lovingly than the goddess ever had, and when she pulled me close she pressed me tight to the warmth of her breast.

Even then, Mother told me later, she knew that she loved me as her own daughter.

There was an outcry from Uncle Heisenberg, who thought the goddess was favoring Mother above him. He set his lycans to snapping at Mother’s heels as she held me close, but they were little more than yapping curs to Mother’s power. She ignored them, though I believe one scored a bloody mark on her heel as she turned to leave.

“What’d you do with a baby anyway?” Angie sneered from her safe place on Aunt Donna’s lap. It was true enough: Uncle Heisenberg’s factory was a dank place, suitable only for the corpses he experimented upon. Even Mother, who was carefully tucking her cloak around my tiny form, chuckled lowly at the remark, though she had never particularly liked Aunt Donna’s favorite little doll.

“Safer with me than with vampires!”

“Enough!” Mother Miranda said. She did not raise her voice, but all of us flinched all the same. “I will not repeat myself. Alcina, leave us. Ensure that Ethan Winters dies tonight.”

Mother did. She stroked my face with one finger, smiling when I puckered my face, and then bent to step out of the church and into the freezing night. The cold was so biting that I wailed aloud, comforted only when Mother hugged me closer beneath her cloak. I nestled close to her, drawn by her warmth and the way she cradled my head in one massive hand.

“Rosemary.” She said, considering me from beneath her hood. “A darling daughter. Your sisters will be pleased, I think.”

I fell asleep to the steady, lulling pound of Mother’s heartbeat against my ear, and the motion of Mother’s steps as she hastened towards the estate, snow creaking underfoot. If the others continued to shout, or if Mother Miranda had more plans, I would not know.

Chapter Text

Countess Alcina Dimitrescu, lady of the castle and heir to a quarter of the land in the sprawling valley, was perturbed.

The entry to her home - her castle - was a shining room of marble and baroque gilt. At night, the torches and gas lamps gave the place an eerie, shimmering effect that was reminiscent of a dream. At any other time Alcina might have stopped to admire it, but her attention was on the tiny human child huddled at her breast.

“There, now.” She murmured soothingly, casting off her cloak and shaking snow from her boots. The baby was reassuringly warm to the touch, but Alcina drew a finger down the side of her face, looking for a response. When Rose mewled in her sleep, squirming in protest at the interruption, something unseen lifted from the woman’s shoulders that she could not quite understand or explain.

The Winters child was almost too tiny to comprehend. It had been a long time - a very long time - since the heir to House Dimitrescu had held an infant, and Alcina found herself marveling at the sweep of eyelashes against rounded cheeks, and the way they fluttered ever so slightly with every exhalation. However careful Alcina had been to hold her out of the wind, Rose’s cheeks shone a bright pink that seemed to glow. It gave her the look of an old-fashioned, newly-painted china doll.

Hardly daring to look away, Alcina crossed the room and gave the bellpull a swift tug that would send the servants scurrying. Many of them would be in bed at the hour, but they were too well-trained to keep their mistress waiting. Sure enough, one maid appeared after only a moment’s pause, smoothing her neatly-braided hair down. If she noticed the bundle, she said nothing, but curtsied low.

“My lady…?”

“Send a message to the village. I am in immediate need of a goat.”

The staff at Castle Dimitrescu was, by dint of odd circumstances and diligent training, hard to startle. This, however, startled the maid. She peered up at Lady Dimitrescu through her eyelashes in confusion.

“A goat, my lady?”

“Yes. A female goat for milk.” Alcina rarely explained herself, and was surprised to find that she was reluctant to even speak of the baby. It was a delicate situation, she decided, one which would need careful attention when next she had a moment to think properly. Alcina pursed her lips, deep in thought. “Perhaps two goats.” Heisenberg’s lycans had the tendency to stray, and though she would personally kill whatever creature came onto her lands, it would be best to have extras on hand.

Of course, a wetnurse would have been infinitely preferable, but the very thought of Rose drinking the milk of one of the unwashed villagers below made Alcina shudder delicately. No, until she could acquire a suitable nurse from Bucharest, she would simply have goat’s milk. It had been the most common substitute before the days of commercial formula, used for orphans and foundlings alike.

“Though you are neither, my darling.” Lady Dimitrescu murmured. She was delighted at the way Rose seemed to turn her entire body towards her voice, seeking her warmth and attention, and Alcina found herself eager to experience the sensation. “You are Mother Miranda’s chosen host, which makes you a very special little one indeed.”

Mouth slightly agape, the maid stared with new interest at the bundle in Lady Dimitrescu’s arms, which had begun to stir and squeak. The tiny noises echoed in the hall, and Alcina ran a finger comfortingly down the child’s forehead. Rose’s eyes fluttered open and regarded them both with all the indignation an infant could manage. She did not cry. It was something of a small mercy. The mere thought of a wailing infant sent warning sparks careening through her gut.

Baby soothed for the present, Lady Dimitrescu looked up.

“Well?”

The maid swallowed hard. Lady Dimitrescu tracked the motion down her pale, slender throat, and for the first time that evening hunger pricked at her belly. For the sake of the child in her arms, however, she waited.

“I-” The maid took a moment to compose herself. “Shall we bring the cradle down from storage, Mistress?”

It was Alcina’s turn to be taken aback. “Cradle?”

“Yes, Mistress.” The maid seemed to have gained her confidence. She jerked her chin upwards, presumably towards the attics where generations of furniture waited, swathed in white cloth. “We found a cradle once when we were looking for new meat hooks. It’s a beautiful thing, fit for…well, a princess, really.”

Rose gave a most un-princess-like squeak, and began to nuzzle and rootle impatiently into the curve of Alcina’s breast. She whimpered in frustration when no nourishment was forthcoming. The barest sensation of warm air and tiny lips made Lady Dimitrescu shiver and want to clutch the baby closer to her, but she swallowed the urge down hastily and pressed one fingertip into the child’s mouth, soothing her.

“Yes, darling. Time for your supper, I think. Oh, my apologies.” It had taken only a moment for Rosie to discover, to her irritation, that the finger was no substitute for a breast or bottle. She screwed her face up, the very picture of indignation that Alcina felt an answering smile rise on her own face. “What a clever girl you are. Very well, I shan’t tease you.”

She would do something much more drastic to the maid, however.

“Well?” Lady Dimitrescu demanded again, when the maid lingered to watch Rose. She could feel anger rising in her spine, compounded by the knowledge that the baby had unmet needs. “The child is hungry, and while she cannot drink blood I certainly have the ability.”

It was more than enough to send the maid away, leaving Alcina to her thoughts and the daughter that was not quite her own.

Not yet, anyway.

She shied away from the notion of having the child sacrificed in the years to come. Those thoughts could wait until the babe had been put back to sleep and her arms were empty. It was impossible to think of her instructions clearly when her focus was entirely on the tiny spark of warmth there on her chest, squirming and demanding the most basic of instincts from her. Feed. Nurture. Protect.

It had been so very long since she had held an infant. Alcina adjusted the squirming bundle so that she could press her face into the baby’s hair. Even her own beloved daughters had been fully-grown women when they were reborn, and though she had cradled them like newborns at the time, it had been different to the tiny being who smelled vaguely of shampoo and snuffled hopefully into her ear.

Restless and impatient, Alcina paced into the grand hall and up the stairs, softly bouncing the baby against her shoulder when she fussed. Rose’s snuffles and gripes were becoming more frequent, threatening to become full cries, and Alcina set her mouth unhappily. Surely goats were readily available in the village below, even if they had to be stolen outright.

Perhaps she ought to ask the Duke to-

“MOTHER!” On the landing to the second floor corridor, Alcina was abruptly accosted by a figure that was, at first glance, simply the torso and head of a hooded young lady. As Alcina watched, her daughter’s swarm of flies solidified, giving her long legs that trembled with excitement.

“Mother!” Daniela repeated, shoving her hood back. It exposed a mane of red hair that had been shaved down one side, exposing a jagged scar along the scalp. “The maids just brought down a cradle from the attic! Are you going to have a baby?!”

Alcina felt Rose shift against her shoulder, her tiny mouth working in a way that suggested a wail was coming, and laid a soothing hand against her back. The baby was so small, and Alcina so large, that her hand covered the entirety of the child’s back and head.

She opened her mouth to reply, to request quiet, but another voice joined the conversation.

“Of course not, stupid.” It was Cassandra, her own swarm of flies swirling gracefully through the air before solidifying into a similarly-hooded woman. This woman was dark-haired and graceful where her sister was bright and red-headed, and she wore an expression of deepest annoyance. “Mother wouldn’t come near a man-thing, and anyway, she has us.”

“Girls.” Lady Dimitrescu said, voice pitched low, and both sisters turned expectantly towards their mother. “Mother Miranda has entrusted us with a guest. This is Rosemary; she shall be staying with us.”

Even as she turned her hand away to reveal the baby, propped against her shoulder and squirming, Alcina felt her lip curl in distaste. Rosemary was too formal for such a tiny child, and yet by contrast the herb was distressingly common. Neither trait fit the infant currently attempting to chew a hank of Daniela’s hair, clutched tight in her pudgy fist.

Rose, however.

Once, when Alicina had visited the botanical gardens in Bucharest, she had seen roses that grew no larger than her thumbnail. They had been startlingly beautiful, perfect on a scale so often exclusive to careful breeding by a knowledgeable gardener. However beautiful they had been, the roses had retained their thorns, miniature but deadly in the light of the greenhouse lamps.

As so often happened, Daniela seemed to read her mother’s mind.

“Rose.” She declared, hopping in place in an attempt to see the baby more clearly. “Not Rosemary. Oh, Mother, can she sleep in my room? Does she drink blood?”

“We shall see what Mother Miranda thinks of it; after all, the child belongs to her.” Alcina said, and gave her youngest daughter a smile that softened the threat of invoking the goddess. “And no, Daniela, Rose is a human child. Milk shall have to suffice.” Once a goat had been fetched, she added mentally with more than a hint of impatience. As if in perfect understanding of their conversation, Rose made a demanding noise and patted clumsily at Alcina’s face, squirming mightily.

They settled into the formal parlor, where Cassandra took up a half-finished loop of embroidery. Alcina sank into her chair by the massive fireplace with a muted groan, grateful for the chance to sit. Rose was by no means heavy, but she required delicate, precise handling to keep her fragile neck and head supported properly. The motions were instinctive, dating from before their breed had even existed, but Alcina so rarely exercised such caution that her muscles twinged in warning.

“Mother?” The door opened and closed, admitting the last and oldest daughter, Bela. She was pale-haired where the others were darker, but at the moment her eyes were confused. Bela crossed the room and knelt on a cassock at her mother’s feet, sighing to herself. “Why is there a goat in the kitchen?”