#4402 off the clock | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

abiteofhoney · 1 month ago

Text

The Vampire and The Devilspawn

i found two different typos and realized that i needed to change a few lines after i posted it the first time. so let’s try this again. if there are still typos this time, no there isn’t :) also i had to format this on mobile so if anything is off or weird, whoopsies

4402 words | Chapter Navigation

Chapter 3

Maggie’s leg bounces anxiously as she glances at the room around her. It’s oddly familiar - uncomfortably familiar - with its plain white walls and grey plastic chairs. A single clock sits on the wall, ticking away in the silence. While Magdalena has never been in this room, she’s almost certain that she’s been in a room like it before, even though she has no specific memory of it.

And it sets her on edge. She keeps her eyes trained on the only door to the room with the sinking feeling that someone is going to come through that door and try to attack her.

Anzurin sits next to her, just as still and silent as she is. He glances at her periodically, never for more than a few seconds at a time.

Just when Magdalena is beginning to feel like she wants to shred her own skin off just to rid herself of the uncomfortable feeling coursing through her, the door swings open, and Inessa comes through with a yellow-ish folder in her arms. She gives the two of them a tight-lipped smile and takes the chair on the other side of Anzurin. “Labs came back alright,” she says with an uneasy edge, “but I have some concerns about the x-rays.

Anzurin sits up straighter. “What kind of concerns? What is it?”

Inessa glances at Maggie, her gaze trailing from head to toe. “Fractures,” she answers. “A lot of them.” She opens up to the folder to reveal a stack of black and white pictures of bones, and Magdalena leans in to get a closer look. It’s a strange thing to look at her own bones, but she kind of likes it. “Some new, some old,” Inessa continues, pointing out all the little spots she circled with red ink. There’s a lot of red circles.

“What the fuck,” Anzurin murmurs. “That many? How is that even possible?”

She flips to an x-ray of Magdalena’s ribs, pointing at one spot that she circled multiple times. “This one’s new. Like… it happened today, new.”

Magdalena presses her hand to her ribs, where there’s still a slight ache, and she knows exactly what it’s from.

It seems Anzurin does too, grumbling, “Velur kicked her. I’d bet that’s from him. And if the rest of them are also from him…” He trails off, not bothering to finish his sentence, but it’s understood through the anger radiating from him. He sighs and shakes his head. “What else?”

“I think that’s the only recent one. At first glance, anyway – I can look at them closer later and also have some fresh eyes look them over. But some of these look like they healed slowly, while she was still human, but some of them healed quickly and out of place, after she was changed, and she wasn’t looked after. And they’re everywhere, sir. Her arms, legs, ribs, hands, feet. Even her face.”

“With this many breaks and fractures, it seems more like she was tortured to me,” Anzurin scoffs. He takes the folder from Inessa, flipping through the pictures while only spending a few seconds on each, and with each one he looks at, the creases between his brows get deeper. After sifting through all of them, he finally looks over at Magdalena, brandishing them at her. “What happened to you, Magdalena? Who did this to you?”

She has no memories of receiving any of those injuries, except for one of them, so she pokes at her ribs and says, “Velur.”

“That one, I don’t doubt,” Anzurin says, “but the ones you got before you were made? Who did those?”

“Dunno,” she shrugs.

Turning back to Inessa, Anzurin tells her, “Not right now, but before too long, I want a scan of her brain, or something. I want to know if her memory loss is completely due to whatever this other devilspawn did to her, or if some of it’s injury related.”

“She responded well to my tests; I don’t think she has any brain damage, and if she does, it’s minimal. I don’t think it’s the cause of her lapse in memory.”

“More than a lapse,” Anzurin grumbles, standing out of his seat. He holds a rosy-palmed hand out to Magdalena. “Now that we know you’re mostly okay, we should get that blood cleaned off of you. It might do us good to get some rest and revisit this later.”

Magdalena takes his hand without thought, her entire hand engulfed by his. The devilspawn she’s met so far have all been much larger than her. The top of her head barely reaches Anzurin’s shoulder, maybe just his collarbones. But she and Inessa are nearly the same size, Inessa only slightly taller.

She likes Inessa. Nothing about the woman makes her angry.

Anzurin leads her out of the empty, colorless waiting room, much to Magdalena’s relief. She hates that room. She hates how it makes her feel cold and trapped. The hallway outside is much better, painted a warm, sunshine yellow, art along the walls of green landscapes and colorful bouquets. Some of the weight on her chest stays behind in that room, and she doesn’t miss it.

As they walk side by side, Anzurin asks, “Do you have any memory of what happened to you?”

Magdalena shakes her head.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” he sighs. “Do you have … any memories? At all?”

She has to think about that for a moment. “Today.”

“You only remember today? Nothing else?”

“My name,” she amends. She remembers her name.

“Well, at least you have that,” he mutters, then clears his throat. “Usually, fledglings stay in the dorms on the second level, but I’m going to put you in one of the rooms down here. Near my rooms. I’m appointing myself as your mentor, so that might be easiest for us.”

The rooms he leads her to next aren’t too far away from the medical wing, going back the way they came, towards the office Velur brought her to, but just before they reach the office, he turns them down a hallway to the left. It’s a dead-end hall, with four doors: one on the right, one at the end of the hall, and two on the left. He points first to the one on the right. “This one will lead back into the office. The one at the end goes into my personal rooms, this one is the bathroom, and then this will be your room.” He opens the door closest to them on the left, revealing a fully furnished bedroom, decorated much like the rest of the manor with warm-toned wood and deep reds.

Maggie’s attention is drawn first towards the bed, wanting nothing more than to go lay down in it. She starts towards it, but Anzurin tugs on her arm. “It’s probably best if you wash up before getting into bed, Magdalena. Though, then again, you don’t strike me as the type to mind sleeping in a puddle of blood. Come on. You have access to the bathroom through here.”

He leads her into the bathroom and shows her around, showing her where the towels are and the soaps, and he starts the shower for her before leaving her to herself to clean up.

Once alone, Maggie isn’t quite sure what to do. She stands in the middle of the room, staring blankly at the steaming water running out of the showerhead, and then she looks down at her own bloody clothes. Slowly and robotically, her body moving on its own accord as she’s barely present in her own skin, Magdalena undresses and steps under the water.

She flinches when it hits her head, but quickly relaxes as the warmth washes over her. Dropping her chin to her chest, she watches the water run off of her and down the drain, a deep red at first, and slowly fading through shades of pink before it finally begins to run clear.

Without using any of the soaps, she steps out of the shower, leaving the water running, and she returns to the bedroom, to Anzurin. He glances up when she opens the door, his already red cheeks darkening, eyes wide. He splutters for a moment, gaze trailing her entire body before finally spitting out, “I showed you where the towels are. Are you done? Do you need something?”

“Done,” she croaks and shivers. “Cold.”

Anzurin laughs awkwardly, dropping his gaze to his hands. “Yeah, I can see that.” Then he grabs a bundle of cloth next to him, walking towards her to hand them to her. “These should fit you.” She shadows behind him, the clothes in her hands, as he ventures past her and into the bathroom. He shuts off the water and then comes back to her and sniffs her head. “Did you actually wash, or just rinse the blood off?”

She shrugs, giving no verbal response.

He tugs his fingers through her wet and knotted hair. “You still have blood caked in here.” He takes the clothes from her and turns to set them on the counter. “Get back in the shower. We’ll at least get your hair clean.”

Maggie does as told, stepping back into the shower after Anzurin turns the water back on. She stands there, waiting while Anzurin picks two bottles out of the cabinet. He also grabs a large towel and a smaller one, and then carries the pile over to the shower. He hands all but the bigger towel to her, and she just holds onto them, unsure what to do as he returns to the vanity across the room.

He sets the towel on the counter, pausing there for a moment, and braces his hands on the counter as he looks into the large mirror in front of him. He doesn’t look at himself, though, instead staring at Magdalena.

Except, in the mirror, the shower is empty, and Magdalena is nowhere to be seen. She searches for her own reflection, but only sees two bottles and a hand towel floating in the air. She looks down at herself, needing to make sure that she actually has a body that she can see. And there is flesh when she looks. Scarred, discolored flesh, but it’s a body she can see and touch. It’s not gone like it seems to be in the mirror.

Heaving a deep sigh, Anzurin pulls a comb out of the drawer at his hip, and then comes into the shower with her, leaving his clothes on. He slides the glass door closed and takes the bottles from her to set them on a glass shelf to her left, but lets her keep the rag clenched in her hands.

Anzurin takes a bottle and pours a small dab of soap into his palm and then hesitantly reaches for Maggie’s head. She doesn’t move, allowing him to slide his fingers past her hairline, and a shiver runs down her spine when his nails scratch lightly across her scalp. Her eyes flutter closed and she sways on her feet, breathing in the flowery, soapy scent. It grows stronger as he lathers the soap in her dirty hair, working his fingers through the knots. She hums contentedly, and a ghost of a smile stretches across her lips.

When she opens her eyes, there’s a familiar man standing in front of her, grinning happily down at her. She studies his pale face, trying to figure out why he looks so familiar, searching his human eyes and their sky-blue color. Then he blinks, and his eyes flick to all black, covering even the whites of his eyes, and his grin grows threatening.

In a flash, Magdalena’s hand snaps out, pinning his wrist to the wall and sending suds flying in all directions. Her breathing comes heavier, chest heaving as she glares at him, fangs bared in a silent snarl.

But she steps back abruptly, releasing him once she realizes that it’s not the black-eyed, pale-faced man standing in front of her, but Anzurin, looking shocked and confused, red irises glowing in their black abyss.

Magdalena looks around, just as confused.

Where’d that man go?

She slides the glass door open, searching the bathroom for the man she just saw, ready to chase him into the next room if she has to, but Anzurin catches her hand just as she lurches for the door. He tugs her back, hands braced on her shoulders as she tries to twist around in search of the other guy.

“Magdalena, stop. What – what are you looking for?”

“Him,” she snarls.

“Who? Velur? It’s just you and me in here. Velur is long gone, Magdalena. Come on, come back. Let’s get your hair washed.”

She doesn’t know who it was, but it wasn’t Velur.

Still on edge, she allows him to guide her back under the water, but when his hands return to her hair, she doesn’t enjoy it like she did before. She stands there stiffly, unmoving and unblinking; she stares at Anzurin, making sure that the other man doesn’t take his place again.

She watches his every movement as he shampoos her hair twice and slathers conditioner into it. And more so as he drags the comb through it, over and over until it no longer snags, and she still hasn’t blinked but the time he’s rinsing her hair, stiff as a board while he takes the cloth and cleans behind her ears, and then, finally, he shuts the water off.

Anzurin steps out first and Magdalena numbly follows, both of them dripping water the entire way. He grabs the towel from the counter and wraps it around her, tucking it under her arms, and finally, after a long stretch of silence, he asks, “What was that? Who were you looking for?”

“The man.” Her gaze darts around the bathroom in search, just in case she missed him and he’s still lurking around the corner.

Anzurin also looks around. “What man? Velur? He’s not here.”

“Not him,” she grumbles.

“Then who? There’s no one else in here. Did you remember something?”

Oh. She hadn’t thought about that.

Pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, Magdalena tries to recall the man’s face. Was it only a memory? Was he not really there?

“Maybe,” she mutters. Still, she looks around to check one more time. Just to be sure.

Anzurin nods and steps back, pointing at the clothes he’d left on the counter by the sink. “Go ahead and get dressed. I’ll be right back.”

She does as told, unfolding the clothes to find a pair of loose fitting jeans and soft dark green shirt that has tiny little puffballs stuck all over it. She picks a few of them off before slipping the shirt on, and then the jeans - even though she doesn’t really like the feeling of denim on her skin - and then she just stands there to wait for Anzurin to return.

But after a few seconds, she steps in front of the large mirror and looks at herself.

At least, she tries to, but there’s no her in the reflection. Not even the clothes she’s wearing. Not a single part of herself is in the mirror, and it feels so odd to stare at a mirror but only see an empty room. She should see herself, shouldn’t she?

She can’t even remember what she looks like.

Magdalena grabs a chunk of her wet hair, pulling it in front of her face. “Red,” she murmurs, then touches the skin around her eyes. What color are they? She looks down at her body to study her fair skin, densely covered with freckles and paler than it should be, with little pink scars all over her visible skin. More than the fractures in her bones. She touches a few of them, running her fingertips over the rough bumps, and she tries to remember where they came from. They had to have come from somewhere.

Why can’t she remember anything?

Frustrated, Magdalena lashes out, letting loose a shriek at her not-reflection, begging that she remembers something, anything, and angry that she sees nothing when she looks in the mirror. She slams her hand into the traitorous glass with another wild shriek, sending shards flying in all directions and embedding into the palm of her hand. Her gaze becomes transfixed on her sliced skin, the red blood that drips to the white marble counter.

There’s a slight stinging pain in her hand, but not as much as she expects after slicing her hand over with many tiny shards of glass. She makes quick work of picking out the glass, then places her mouth around her sliced skin, lapping up her own blood. It has a strange bitter tang that she doesn’t much care for, but it’s not bad enough to deter her hunger.

The door flies open and Maggie whirls to find Anzurin standing there with a wild gaze that bounces between her and the broken mirror. He’s in dry clothes now – a black pair of trousers and a green and gold tunic - with his dark hair dripping water into his blazing red eyes.

Magdalena points her bloody hand at the broken mirror and barks one question: “Why?”

“Why what?” he snaps. “Why’d you just break my mirror? I don’t know! If I can’t even leave you alone for a minute, then we’re –”

“No!” she shouts at him. She points at what’s left of the mirror, at the fact that there’s no her. She pokes herself in the chest, then points at her fangs, and finally, jams her finger to her temple where she seems to have the most issues. Unable to find the words, she once again screams, “Why!”

A moment passes. And then two.

Anzurin’s face falls and his shoulders slump. “Oh,” he mutters, blinking as his shock and anger fizzles. He drops his head and pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing before he lets out a bitter laugh that’s more of a scoff. “Shit. Right. Of course you’re angry. You should be. All of a sudden, you’re a starved and tortured fledgling with no memories.” He steps into the bathroom, closer to her but not yet approaching her. “Do you even know what you are? Do you know anything about vampires?”

She has a fundamental knowledge that comes flooding back when he says the word. She’s heard of vampires before – bloodthirsty night-crawlers, people that were once human and now have the urges of a monster, and the abilities of one, too. She knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, of a world in which humans and vampires exist together, and she knows that she was once part of it. She just can’t remember how exactly she fit into that world.

Magdalena points at her chest once again. “I’m not human.”

She doesn’t ask it, but Anzurin answers anyway. “No, not anymore, but you were once.” He ventures into the room and comes to join her at the vanity, shoes crunching on broken glass. He picks up the small rag that he’d used in the shower to clean the new blood off of her hand and arm and where she’d smeared it around her mouth. As he cleans her up, he tells her, “Brem is hopefully finding out whatever he can about your human life, something that I hope will help refresh your memory, but I suppose what you really need to know now is what you are.”

She gives a jerky nod. She knows of vampires, but not much about them.

“You’re a vampire, Magdalena. Well, a fledgling, right now. Not quite a vampire yet, but you’ll be there in a few months. You lost a good chunk of your time as a fledgling to … well, wherever you were.”

“Three months,” she says, remembering what they’d said when she’d been prodded earlier.

“That’s what we estimate, yes. Usually, the fledgling period can last anywhere from six to nine months.” He holds her chin gently, tilting her head up as he wipes the blood off of her lips. “You’re hungriest during this period, but it calms down gradually as you fully develop into a vampire. But, unfortunately, it seems to be that you’ve been starved, so you’re hungrier than most.”

Magdalena runs her tongue along the tips of her fangs, the taste of her own bitter blood still clinging to them. Her hunger isn’t so bad now, but it’s still a dull ache in the pit of her stomach, and she fears that it may never go away, no matter how much she drinks.

Anzurin drags the cloth along her chin and continues. “But being a vampire comes with a few quirks. Bloodthirst. Advanced senses along with healing, movement, and strength. You can’t …” He glances towards the shattered mirror. “You don’t have a reflection anymore. You can’t go in the sun. You don’t need regular food or water anymore - only blood. You’ll still sleep, but not as much. You won’t age, but your hair and nails and things still grow. There’s more than that, but you’ll learn it all as you go through your classes.”

“Hmm,” she grumbles, unhappy about what he’s saying, but unable to vocalize why.

Anzurin pauses, pulling back. “Hmm, what?”

She thinks about it for a moment before she just says, “Weird. Don’t like it.” She bumps his hand out of the way to poke at her fangs, hard enough that the point pierces her finger, which she quickly places on her tongue for the blood drop that escapes.

Anzurin turns to wring the cloth out in the glass-filled sink, a soft sigh passing through his lips. He turns back to her, lifting her chin to clean the underside of it. “Honestly, Magdalena, I’d change it for you if I could. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You should have been brought here the day you were changed and taken care of properly. But we’re going to help you now, however we can. We’ll help you acclimate to vampirism and learn how to navigate this new life.”

Tired of having her face prodded, Magdalena pulls away from his touch. She drags the back of her hand across her mouth, and when it comes away clean, she deems it good enough.

Anzurin gets the message and tosses the cloth on the counter, but then he wraps his arm around her waist and lifts her. He does it so swiftly that she hardly has time to get mad about it before he’s setting her down again, away from the mess of glass on the ground. Without missing a beat, he turns and strides away, gesturing for her to follow him. “Usually, I’d assign another spawn to you, one of my appointed mentors, and they’d guide you and feed you and teach you, but I’m going to be your mentor instead. With what you’ve been through and the instincts you have, I think it’s best.”

Magdalena patters after him, bare feet tapping against the tile of the bathroom, and then the bedroom’s hardwood. She looks down at the delightful noise, a giggle bubbling in her chest. “Thwap, thwap, thwap,” she mimicks in a whisper.

Anzurin stops in the middle of the bedroom and turns back to her, his head tilted to the side. “Say something?”

She points her chin towards her feet, tapping her feet and repeating, “Thwap, thwap.”

Anzurin chuckles lightly and shakes his head. He brandishes a red hand towards the bed. “Alright. Well, this is where you’ll stay. I figured it might be time for some rest after today, and we can start fresh later. Maybe you’ll feel a little better after some rest.”

Will rest restore her memories? Will she know who she is by the time she wakes?

She feels like she could sleep, at least, so she starts towards the bed, trying to remember the last time she slept in one. The last time she slept at all. Flashes of blurry, fleeting memories brand the back of her eyelids when she blinks, memories of waking up on cold floors or in uncomfortable chairs, waking in agony.

Magdalena hesitates, stumbling back a step away from the bed. In an attempt to scrub away the memories, she grinds the heels of her hands in her eyes. Her head shakes back and forth, wet hair smacking off of her shoulders. “N-no, I – I don’t sleep there.”

Anzurin walks around in front of her, keeping his distance. “Where do you sleep, then?”

She looks around the room for an adequate spot then points towards an empty corner that looks spacious and cold. “There.”

A second passes. Two. Three. Four.

“I … I guess you can sleep on the floor if you want to, but you can sleep in the bed, too, Magdalena. It’s yours now. Everything in this room is yours.” He glances to the corner she had pointed out, staring at it for a few moments too long. “Is that where you’re used to sleeping?”

“Dunno,” she murmurs. “Feels right.”

“You can sleep in the bed,” he repeats, his voice dropping a level. Clearing his throat, he adds, “Go on, get some rest. I’ll just be in the other room if you need anything – just through the bathroom and the door on the other side. I want to trust that you’re fine to stay in here on your own, so please, when you wake up, just come get me. Don’t go anywhere else.”

Maggie looks towards the door that leads into the hallway, and she does in fact wonder what’s on the other side of it. Clearly there was more to the manor that she hasn’t seen yet, more than Anzurin’s office and the doctor’s wing.

But Anzurin grips her chin and points her gaze towards the bathroom. “No, go through there. Not out there. I don’t want you wandering around without me.”

Teeth bared, she jerks her chin out of his hold and snaps at his fingers, which he abruptly pulls away. He scowls at her for a moment, and she thinks that he might hit her for snapping at him, but ultimately, he just shakes his head and says once more. “Get some rest, Magdalena. Come get me when you wake up.” With that, he turns on his heel and walks through the bathroom to his own room, leaving her alone once more.

———

yay! chapter 3!! fun news, i’ve started putting together a fledgling handbook so we’ll see what happens with that! it’s been super fun and helpful i’m hammering out the details of fledgling stages :D

taglist :)

@pizzamanstan @leahnardo-da-veggie @dyrewrites @trippingpossum @possiblyeldritch

@godsmostfuckedupgoblin @jgc-comeundermybridge @shortcircuitthegreat @seastarblue @bloodmoodtrash

@theaistired @korol--reznii @simonnebethel @danimia @written-among-stars

@lofiyaketyblr @quill-main @bellascarousel @alexanderflowerbird @lead-to-code

@annothersummerofsleep @saecarnell @albatris @solaristawrites @the-letterbox-archives

@imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese @threedaysgross @corinneglass @fifis-corner

if you’d like to join the taglist to be notified when i post a chapter, let me know or interact with this linked post here. if you are on the list and would like off, just let me know!

#xena talks writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writing #writerscommunity #the vampire and the devilspawn

34 notes · View notes