By: Brianna Lee Hubler
Copyright © 2024 Brianna Lee Hubler. All rights reserved.
A Vampire’s Admiration
__________Early in the Even’morn, Noveirn knocked on Fruyr’s door. He took a moment to rouse himself from his dreams, and in that moment, the cleaned and altered outfit that the vampires expected him to wear was shoved through a mail slot in the door, which priorly, he had not known was there.
__________“Breakfast is ready for you in the dining hall,” Noveirn announced, and then she departed, convinced that Fruyr had not welcomed her in.
__________Fruyr groaned and rubbed his eyes. He had never been an early riser. The continuous darkness of the Gravespawn Realm only worsened his morning drowsiness. He called after Noveirn: “Thank you… And, I’m sorry I missed you!”
__________She didn’t hear him. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t fond of offering apologies anyway.
__________Fruyr donned the assigned clothing, unlatched the door, and opened the door just enough to fit his face in the gap between the door and its frame. He squinted into the darkness of the unlit hall beyond and frowned, The shade of the shadows never changes, even though sometimes they move.
__________He stepped back and shut the door. I need an edge, he decided.
__________“May my eyes burn with a fiery light to guide my steps,” Fruyr incanted. His internal flame obeyed, fed the fires behind his pupils, so they burned brightly enough to improve his sight.
__________Fruyr smiled softly and reopened the door. He stepped into the hall, turned, and shut the door behind him.
__________“Peek-a-boo,” a girl giggled.
__________She poked Fruyr in the back. He whirled back around suddenly. His brightened eyes met with the face of the perfumed girl, whom he had met in the gallery the night before.
__________His eyes widened. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
__________The girl giggled again. “I live here,” she teased. “What are you doing in my house?”
__________Fruyr rolled his eyes. “I’m here, because the lord of this realm wants you and your kin supervised.”
__________The girl grinned, stood on her toes, and leaned closer to Fruyr. “Then I’ll stick close to you,” she replied, “and out of trouble.”
__________“Not that close!” Fruyr growled. His nose itched from the girl’s vampiric allure. It smelled weaker today, but still, he sneezed and stumbled backward.
__________The girl swung around him and caught him from behind, immediately sending Fruyr into a coughing fit. Displeased by his reaction, she stomped on his toes, dropped him onto the floor, stood over him, and glared. “Are you ever not so rude?” she complained.
__________Fruyr recovered and sat up. He crossed his arms and rested them atop his bent knees. He laid his head atop his hands. “It’s not… my… fault,” he struggled to say, “but you wouldn’t deserve… any better.”
__________“You don’t know any better,” the girl countered. She crossed her arms, turned up her chin, and scampered up the hall.
__________Is there any hope that vampires’ stomachs growl like ours? Fruyr wondered. He had not counted the days he starved, since falling into the underworld. Countess Reisumae offered him a taste of the blackened blood of an undead corpse shortly after he arrived. Of course, he refused to partake then. This Even’morn, he would turn up his nose once more, should he come to a table set mockingly in a floral pattern, like his mother, Nica, often arranged at mealtimes, but with glasses around a pitcher of blood.
__________Regardless, the Lord of the Undead expected Fruyr to befriend these monsters, so they might heal his wounds. Fruyr was under Lord Draiden’s bondage, so long as he remained in this realm. If he wanted to exit this realm, he had to climb its social ladder. The nearer he came to the top, the closer within reach the surface would become. Thus, Fruyr followed the young vampiress cautiously, anticipating that she might lead him to the dining hall, but maintaining some distance between himself and her vampiric allure.
__________The girl continued on. Occasionally, she glanced over her shoulder. Likely, she knew she was being followed. Whenever she spied Fruyr behind her, she would duck under a hallway display, step into a deeper shadow, or veer off her original path entirely.
__________Each deviation darkened Fruyr’s expression. He hated asking for help. He also hated being duped. He would not ask the girl where she was going, or in which direction the dining hall could be found, but he would not let her lead him astray either. Instead, he climbed onto one of the displays, ran across it, and jumped off it.
__________He landed a few paces ahead of the girl, turned on his heels, and faced her. “I never did catch your name,” he said.
__________Look who suddenly cares, the girl silently complained.
__________She rested her hands on her hips and stared, straight into Fruyr’s fire-lit eyes. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t afraid, not of him, not of his fire, not even of Draiden’s curse. “Lady Morgaleath Dafyunesh,” she announced. “You best step aside and make way for me, Surface Peasant.”
__________Fruyr laughed. “Did you actually think that would work?” he replied. “No one will respect anyone who talks to them like that.”
__________Morgaleath narrowed her eyes and shoved past Fruyr. Again, Fruyr sneezed and stumbled backward, but this time, Morgaleath marched onward. She turned a corner and disappeared from Fruyr’s view, while he fell disgracefully onto his rump.
__________“Ouch,” Fruyr expressed, rubbing his tailbone.
__________Above him, someone clapped. Fruyr scrambled to his feet and straightened his tunic. His eyes darted this way and that, as he scanned the railed ledges above.
__________“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Vujeera stated, as he emerged from the shadows behind the railing and curled his fingers around the uppermost, horizontal bar, which rested just a few inches below the vertical spear tips.
__________Then he vaulted over the railing. Vujeera dropped as gracefully onto the floor below as a mallard descending into a river. Similarly, he shook and pressed his wrinkled sleeves and coattails as he landed, righting his coat as the bird would its feathers. “Did Mori rain on your parading torch flames?” Vujeera snickered. “About time someone cooled you off.”
__________Fruyr frowned apathetically. “A spurt of rain can’t put out a bonfire,” he replied. “The spurt melts into steam and floats away with the smoke and ashes.”
__________Vujeera smiled. “As did the angry girl?”
__________Fruyr nodded and smiled wryly. “Precisely.”
__________Vujeera raised the inner corners of his eyebrows and turned up his lower lip. “Not bad for a mole. Not bad at all.”
__________Fruyr mock bowed. “Your admiration is accepted.”
__________Vujeera smirked with sinister glee and readied his fangs. He leapt forward, clapped a hand down upon Fruyr’s shoulder, clutched and held Fruyr’s head still with the other.
__________Before Fruyr could react, Vujeera touched the tips of his fangs to the soft, thin layer of skin covering Fruyr’s jugular vein. A sudden, sharp pain jolted through Fruyr’s nervous system. Vujeera wanted this warning to feel like a bite, even though it was not.
__________Fruyr clenched his jaw and his fists. Every muscle in his body tensed. His eyes suddenly felt wet, but he could not tell whether his eyes watered from the shock, or from his proximity to Vujeera’s vampiric allure.
__________After a flurry of painstaking seconds, Vujeera released Fruyr’s head and grabbed the boy’s chin. He pinched Fruyr’s shoulder with the hand rested upon it, stabbed Fruyr with well-manicured fingernails, but the velvet tunic prevented Vujeera from breaking any skin. He met the other boy’s gaze with a dark and serious expression.
__________“That was a taste of what a vampire’s admiration feels like,” Vujeera warned. “You boast, you bleed, and I drink.”
__________“You’ll burn,” Fruyr threatened, whacking Vujeera’s hand away. Fruyr’s fingertips sparked. The sparks snapped together like magnets and formed a fiery serpent, no longer than an earthworm. The blazing wyrm whipped and stung Vujeera’s hand.
__________Vujeera hissed and raised his hand to strike Fruyr across the cheek, but halfway through, Vujeera hesitated. His eyes widened. The stinging embers, left behind by the short-lived serpent, erupted into flames, which threatened to consume the young vampire’s hand. Pieces of his skin already fell away as ashes.
__________Vujeera drove his fangs into his wrist. Then, as quickly as he had thrown up his hand in rage, he threw it down, and let the streams of blood leaking from his self-inflicted wounds stripe his burning hand, but the flames of Fruyr’s tiny, serpentine strike were not easily extinguished, even as Vujeera’s blood worked to repair his crumbling flesh. Vujeera only grimaced. Although his hand was scorched and restored continuously, which many would liken the worst variety of torture, shedding tears would have been too lowly a revelation for a youth of Vujeera’s station. Like a fierce wildcat, Vujeera grinned and bore it, unwilling to admit injury.
__________Steady as the raven soars, Vujeera projected from his Mind’s Eye to Fruyr’s, for the fumes draw vultures.
__________Fruyr heard and replied: Kindness in competition? I didn’t think it was your style.
__________The fairer the game, the fairer the victory, Vujeera taunted, coaxing Fruyr to catch the double meaning of ‘fairer,’ so his underlying threat prevailed.
__________We’re not friends, Fruyr agreed, and then he fortified his thoughts. He withdrew from the sight of Vujeera’s Mind’s Eye and readied his hands for a spell.
__________“Recoil and rescind,” Fruyr ordered, and the lingering flames of his fleeted wyrm returned to him.
__________As the flesh of Vujeera’s steadily singed hand regenerated, Vujeera dropped his gaze. He looked grimly upon the droplets of his vampiric blood, scattered onto the floor with the first toss of his injured wrist. His downcast eyes darted from one source of blood to the next, until finally, his gaze fixated upon the self-inflicted piercings in his still-bleeding wrist.
__________“It’s already too late,” Vujeera whispered, and then he licked some of the residual blood from his extinguished hand before it dried. Not much of his blood had been needed to repair and smooth his scorched flesh, once Fruyr reabsorbed the flames, but more would be needed to plug the holes left behind by his self-inflicted, frenzied bite. His thoughts repeated morbidly: The scent of a Pureblood draws all kinds of prey.
__________With whooshing akin to the passing of winds through a cavern, the surrounding darkness was flooded with light footsteps, manic whispers, and many sets of ravenous, crimson eyes, as many as a handful of spiders could boast.
__________For once, House Dafyunesh’s thralls did not wait for their masters’ bidding. They surrounded the two boys, swarmed them, like ants upon breadcrumbs.
__________“Stand down!” Vujeera yelled.
__________The frenzied thralls could not obey. They were unable to hear his voice. Their hearts thrummed against their eardrums, for the tantalizing scent of their sovereigns’ powerful blood captivated their noses and overwhelmed their senses. The serpentine speech of the young, Pureblood vampire was but half as tuned as his parents’, his uncle’s, and his aunt’s vampiric vocals.
__________The thralls’ stomachs growled, loud enough that Fruyr heard them, as they descended upon him. That answers that, Fruyr acknowledged, with damning accuracy. Mortals call it: ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’
__________The swarm swiftly and forcefully knocked Fruyr and Vujeera off their feet. Fruyr rolled onto his stomach, pulled his knees underneath, tucked his hands beneath his torso, and pressed his face against the floor. There was no other choice, no other tactic to exploit, since exposed skin would be targeted by venom-laced fangs, but covering his hands and face crippled his casting. His voice was muffled, and he could not unfurl his fingers. Fangs and fingernails snagged and shredded his clothes, desperate to reach the living flesh underneath and taste the warm blood of the elf-child.
__________Thought-casting kills, Fruyr bemoaned, and it’s been a long time since my last magic-infused tantrum. I don’t know how to do uncontrolled magic anymore.
__________Vujeera’s Mind’s Eye broke through Fruyr’s crumbling, mental barricade. His thoughts projected to Fruyr and the swarm, Defy me, and I’ll devour you, ashen-cloak you like the scorching suns I’ve never seen!
__________Finally, a set of fangs pierced Fruyr’s tender neck. For a brief moment, his heart stopped, as if struck by lightning. A vampire leeched blood from his veins.
__________Fruyr’s pulse was slow to strengthen. His blood chilled. His internal flame flickered. His muscles tensed. He could scarcely breathe. The ambush had broken his concentration and ended the spell that set his eyes aflame. He had not seen Vujeera kick, shove, and throw off their attackers, but he recognized the touch of Vujeera’s fangs.
__________You’ll burn for this! Fruyr projected.
__________Vujeera scowled, withdrew his fangs, and sped away, as if he were one with the shadows. Shortly after he disappeared, Fruyr noticed a shift in the brightness of the hall. He groggily turned his head, since he was unable to move much else. The wounds in his neck stung sharply, but he spied a swinging light, which seemed to be growing larger, as it traveled down the hall towards him: Noveirn had returned.
__________She carried a lantern in one hand and raised Fruyr up with the other. She supported him under the arm and across the back, as she pulled him to his feet. With his head rested against her bosom, she walked him back to his borrowed bedchamber. She set the lantern on the nightstand and propped the pillows on the bed, against its headboard. She guided Fruyr back to bed. Then she pulled the bedcovers over his lap and tucked them in around him. “You’ve been through an ordeal,” she said. “Leave the door open for me, and I’ll return soon.”
__________After Noveirn left, Fruyr cried for the first time in several decades. His nose dripped. His sclerae reddened. His eyelids puffed. He wept so loudly that his thoughts rolled off his tongue, as plainly as his tears streamed down his cheeks. “Does this bite mean I’ll be stuck here forever?” he sobbed. “It can’t… I can’t! If I can’t save myself, how can I save Kimio?”
__________Plunk! A small, wooden bowl landed on the lantern-lit nightstand beside the weeping boy. His elfin ears twitched towards the soft-yet-disruptive thud of wood tapping against wood. His teary eyes followed his startled ears. He glanced at the wooden bowl and saw Noveirn stab the sticky mound of oatmeal inside the bowl, with a monogrammed, silver spoon. The spoon sat there in the center of the mound, sticking out like a sword protruding from a magical stone.
__________Fruyr looked away, rubbed his eyes, and sniffled. “Why did you bring me that?” he asked bitterly. “I won’t need it anymore.”
__________Noveirn placed her hands on her hips and scowled. “Relax, Elf-child,” she scolded. “A little nip on the neck is nothing to bray about. Master Vujeera left the spark of daylight in you. You won’t be joining us yet.”
__________Fruyr’s tears stalled, and his eyes widened. “But I thought…”
__________Noveirn threw up a hand in dismissal. “Nonsense!” she replied. “Now, eat your fill; surface foods chill quickly in the frigid air below.”
__________Fruyr wiped his nose on his sleeve, and then grabbed the bowl off the nightstand. He pulled the spoon out and hungrily scraped a spoonful of oatmeal from the top of the mound, but before he brought the spoon to his lips, he set it back down in the bowl and furrowed his brow.
__________“Nothing grows here, and none of you are allowed to leave,” Fruyr challenged, “so where did you get this?”
__________Noveirn sighed. “The mists swallowed a traders’ caravan,” she explained. “The oats came down with them. I assume I need not tell you what happened to the traders?”
__________Fruyr nodded solemnly. The phantoms ripped them apart…
__________“Lord Draiden sent the wares here—to feed you,” Noveirn explained. “Give thanks and eat.”
__________Fruyr retrieved his spoon and ate. Once he emptied the bowl, he set the spoon back inside it, and Noveirn departed with both. She shut the door as she left. The closed door prevented unwelcome guests from entering Fruyr’s room and making a meal of him before his heart recovered from the blood he lost; vampires could not enter unless invited in.
__________Fruyr gently capped the wounds in his neck with his fingertips. Step on a snake, and he’ll strike to kill, or collect, Fruyr considered. I shouldn’t be alive and unchanged.
__________A chill climbed his spine. His shoulders tensed. Pain wracked his frame, pulsed throughout his body from the vampire’s bite, like a dire omen from the unending twilight. Since he fell through the mists, Fruyr had escaped death thrice. If luck was anything like magic, then his stores of it were certainly running low. For an outlander trapped in the underworld, luck seemed as staple as drinking water. What would happen to him, if the well ran dry?
Endlesslore 