Weekly Drabble #207: Sired Dreams (Patreon)

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Anyways! This week's prompt comes from Knightress with 'daydreams'. For it, we return to Victor and his reluctant vampire ward, Leila. In this drabble, we get a better look at why he'd been concerned about having her in proximity to her sire. Enjoy!

~

Sired Dreams

At first, Leila didn’t realize that she was dreaming. She never did, not until the very end.

She was standing on the shore of the lake by her home, a place she knew well. She’d spent a lot of happy summer afternoons splashing through the water. The gentle waves sloshed up on the sandy beach, washing cool water over her bare feet. Birds sang from the nearby tree and frogs piped along the shoreline. The sun’s loving warmth caressed her face and arms and her dress billowed in the warm breeze. It was Tobias’s favourite, she remembered. He loved seeing her in it.

She looked across the shore and smiled. There was the willow tree where she and her friends used to picnic. As she’d grown and started to notice Tobias in a different way – and noticed that he was noticing her – it meant more. At thirteen, she’d played a game of truth or dare with him and told him to close his eyes before she leaned in for a kiss. As more years passed, she’d whiled away lazy days nestled in the crook of his arms. Under its limbs were where he’d proposed and beneath it, upon a full moon was where they’d first made love.

Tobias...

He was dead now. She’d killed him. She’d lost control and she’d killed him, but... but he’d... he’d smelled... he was so warm and... and....

Warmth lapped at her feet now and Leila looked down and froze. The clear, cool blue water was gone. Washing in and around her was a tide of blood. The entire lake had become an incarnadine sickness and the sky had turned from a beautiful blue with the sun shining down on her to a reddish, hellish night under the glow of an impossibly big, bright moon. The willow tree had withered, its greenery gone and only gnarled, dead branches remained.

She wanted to run, to turn and flee and for an instant that impulse nearly won out, but the scent kept her where she was. There was so much blood and it called to her, a richness that made her mouth water. Salty and metallic, its warmth leaked into her legs and up into her core as the crimson tide lapped around her ankles... and then her shins. And then her knees. It wasn’t until she felt the hem of her dress soaked and sticking to her legs that Leila realized she’d begun walking into the lake.

The young woman turned to head back to shore.. but the shore was gone. She was standing in the middle of an endless red ocean, its surface only broken by shapes and structures she couldn’t quite see, blighted willows, ruins of buildings and idols that somehow seemed familiar and yet not. Movement caught her eye and Leila turned; further out against the horizon she could see someone struggling in the water, in danger of going under.

Tobias!

Without a thought, Leila dove into the blood. She’d always been a strong swimmer and even though the cloying, thick fluid tugged at her, she forced herself through it. Her heart was pounding and with every breath, the sickly, salty sweetness of the lake trickled deeper through her body, filling her. She wanted to stop and push her head beneath the surface, drinking and drinking and drinking forever, but she couldn’t. Tobias was out there. He needed her.

Every stroke wore at her more and more, but she wouldn’t stop. Her lungs burned. Her arms and legs ached. It felt like she had been swimming for hours, but every time she looked up, the struggling figure seemed no closer. She was beginning to despair, to think she might as well just stop, sink down into the cloying blood and close her eyes, but then – somehow – she was there. She reached the floundering person as they started to go under the waves for the final time, pulling them above the surface with her new strength. It wasn’t Tobias.

A woman, naked and pale and with piercing blue eyes stared back at Leila. Those eyes... Leila knew those eyes. Beautiful, deep eyes. Come here.She remembered those words, offered in a breathy whisper as the strange and oddly alluring woman beckoned to her. That night she’d become lost in those eyes, following the woman out into the night. I have something wonderful to show you. A lovely gift for a bride to be...

Leila knew who this was. She knew it every time she came to this point in the dream. The vampire. The woman who’d lured her away from her family and torn her throat open, bleeding her out and then forced her to drink her own. Who’d made her into this awful, disgusting thing.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to shriek, to claw at the woman, to tear out those beautiful eyes, to spit and curse and pull both of them down into the darkness below, never to be seen again. She didn’t do either of those things. She was lost in that azure gaze, treading blood. The woman reached for her. As her arms broke the surface, Leila saw there were ropes bound to them, holding the other woman down, keeping her in this place. I could break them, she thought. I can do that. I could break them.

As if she could read Leila’s mind, the woman nodded. She seemed so small, vulnerable and frightened. She was trapped,imprisoned here by something awful. She needed to escape. Leila could help her. They could both get away, run and run and drink and...

The woman’s eyes widened as if in terror. There was a sloshing sound from behind Leila as something else rose out of the lake. She turned, catching a glimpse of it;towering and hideous, crimson liquid pouring down its bestial form. It raised one clawed hand and swung it down at the woman, the blow coming so quickly that Leila didn’t even have time to scream before-

~

Leila jerked awake, a moment’s confusion on her face until her surroundings registered. She was still in the back of the carriage. Victor was leaning over her, a concerned look on his face and his hand raised to strike her again. “I’m awake!” the young woman told him. “I’m awake.”

He nodded slowly, then sat back down but he watched her carefully.

Leila lifted her manacled hands to her face. Her left cheek ached from where he’d slapped her. The time before he’d only had to shake her to bring her around. “I was dreaming,” she said softly.

The older vampire nodded again. “You were calling out in your sleep.”

“Tobias.”

Victor shook his head. “No,” he told her, looking over his shoulder. In the back of the carriage was the casket holding the renegade vampire, still securely chained shut. She’d been quiet the last two days. “You were calling for her.”

“Oh.” Leila touched her forehead. She was sweating, beads of cold perspiration running down her temples. The dreams were getting deeper and more intense. “Did I do anything?”

“You tried to get up. Sorry about the slap. You wouldn’t wake for anything else.”

“No,” Leila said. “No, it’s all right. Thank you.” At one point in her life, she would have been disgusted with any man who raised a hand to her, but that was just it, wasn’t it? At one point in her life. Worse, she could feel her sire’s pull on her. The woman who had done this to her, made her into this... this thing for God only knew what reason...

All for all that, I want to help her. God help me, if Victor wasn’t here, I’d be doing just that.

She slumped against her seat and closed her eyes. It was going to be a long trip and she prayed that the next time she fell asleep, she wouldn’t dream of blood or the woman with the bright blue eyes. She just didn’t know if God listened to the prayers of vampires.