Who: Violet and Mina What: Dead girl, meet vampire. Vampire, meet dead girl. Where: Outside Dorian's → Mina's When: Recently Warnings/Rating: Nope
Violet hated the clothes Dorian's ladies maid forced her to wear. The old woman didn't even talk English, and she couldn't understand when Violet told her that no one wanted to look like they had a big ass, and that corsets were way barbaric. She tried to explain to the woman about emancipation and the vote, but that went totally over her head too, and Violet just huffed and let her do whatever she wanted. She'd totally said no the past two days, and Dorian hadn't let her go out. She was getting cabin fever, and she figured she could take the stupid butt pillow and torture device off once she was outside. Dorian was totally full of shit when he said she'd be arrested and thrown in some nuthouse. That was just stupid. She wasn't crazy. She was just advanced
So whatever, Violet left Dorian's huge estate and stepped out onto the sidewalk, ignoring the butler who was telling her that women couldn't go out at night without an escort, because what was this? The dark ages. Bogus. None of that mattered, because she was really outside. Nothing had sucked her back into the house, not like it did in the murder house, and she let out a loud, childish whoop! of freedom. Nothing felt better than the night air on her face, and if the people driving by in their way shiny carriages looked at her like she'd escaped from somewhere, so what? She was free. Really, totally, epically free. Even the butt pillow didn't seem like such a stupid big deal anymore.
Violet crossed the street, careful of the horse shit that was everywhere, and she pulled the pins out of her hair as she went, letting them fall behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs. She was so going to climb a tree or something, just to prove that she could. She twirled, arms outstretched and face turned to the night sky. Awesome.
"Miss?" Mina's voice was soft but cut through the night air easily with only the wind, distant footsteps and voices and the occasional horse to compete with. She stood still as a statue, her other arm clutching her journal to her chest, a splash of brown against the stark figure of black and burgundy she cut. Her skirt and scarf billowing slightly with the breeze before she took the wayward end of her scarf, tightened its wrap on her neck, and tucked it nearly back into her coat.
"You seem to have dropped these." She held her hand outstretched before her, the discarded hair pins sitting in her palm.
Violet stopped spinning when she heard the voice, and her very young gaze dropped to the woman's outstretched palm. "Are you kidding? I don't want those back. All those pins give me headaches, and they're way unnecessary," Violet explained, before realizing the woman had pins in her own hair. "Not that they don't look epic on you. They just aren't for me," she said, reaching back for the stays of the dress at the same time, because the corset had to go. "They aren't for anyone, really. Women will completely leave that painful shit for beauty behind," she explained, sounding very American. She further proved it by holding out a very bare, gloveless hand for the woman to shake. "I'm Violet. You can call me Vi. I live in there, with Dorian," she explained, motioning to the house over her shoulder.
It wasn’t quite a gasp, that Mina made, more of a soft but startled inhale as the younger woman moved to undo her stays, right there on the street. She briefly wondered what sort of woman would do such a thing when she introduced herself. The name wasn’t so much of a clue as her current housing. Of course she would be living with Dorian. Who else would have such brazen houseguests?
“Mina,” she introduced herself in turn, a touch of genuine warmth spilling into her smile. “Dorian mentioned he was entertaining guests.” Otherwordly ones at that, but one never said such things in polite company, even if she was rather otherworldly herself. “But perhaps we should return inside? Surely we can fix your gown there.” Her fingers closed around the discarded hairpins, nearly sighing. She would pick and choose her battles and those stays were a more important matter.
The startled inhale really didn't register. Violet was of a generation that wasn't super good with nuance. "Mina. Cool. Hey," she greeted, and she looked the other woman over with a blatant look that probably wasn't cool at all. But Violet had always been direct, no shrinking Violet here. "You look way better in that dress than I do in mine. Maybe it's because you're older," she suggested, though she couldn't actually tell how old the woman was. But she acted way older, so it stood to reason she was way older.
Mina's admission that she knew Dorian made Violet's attention sharpen. "So what book are you from or whatever? There isn't a Mina in the book about the painting," she added, in case Mina didn't understand what she was asking about. As for going back in the house? "No way. I just got outside, and in my door I can't leave my house."
“Book?” Mina’s brow furrowed slightly a moment before she realized what Violet was referring to. She opened her mouth before shutting it quickly, stealing a glance at her surroundings. While she was still coming to grips with her own existence, she still didn’t think it seemly to be discussing things such as vampiric foreigners out in the open. Thankfully Violet was barrelling on with conversation, even if she was saying such strange things.
“Cannot le...” Mina could only shake her head. Whatever the explanation, she had a distinct feeling it wasn’t for polite conversation either. “If not his home, perhaps mine? It is not terribly far from here.” She turned back down towards the street she came from, spying a hansom cab in the very far distance - nearly too far from entirely human eyes to see - and continually flagged him down as he came closer. “You should not be out here in the night by yourself. It is...” She caught herself on the verge of judgment and stifled, going silent a moment before pressing on, “Unsafe. There are dark things in the city, now more than ever.”
Violet did plow on, and Mina's question about the book was totally ignored in favor of Violet's own mental review of anyone she knew named Mina in literature. "Dude, like from Dracula?" she asked, clearly thinking about the classic I had to read you in high school novel. "Dorian is totally like Dracula. You so have a type," she informed Mina, as if she was the all-grown-up expert on types. "I talked to Dracula on the journals. He was way encouraging Tate. I told him that he shouldn't," Violet informed her.
The offer of seeing a new house was almost as thrilling as being outside, since Violet hadn't seen any house beside Dorian's or her own in ages. "Kay. Cool. We can go to your place," she agreed, though she scoffed at anything being unsafe. "I'm totally dead. Nothing can hurt me," she said with the bravado of youth amplified by a thousand. But, then her face clouded over a little. She hadn't tried disappearing out here. She considered it, but decided against it. She felt so alive just then, and she didn't want to fuck it up. "Anyway, you were out here alone," she added.
Mina’s eyes narrowed slightly, first in confusion and then in indignation. A type, the girl said. Dorian and Dracula? The idea that Dracula was in the same realm of familiarity she had with Dorian, that the Count could ever be anything other than a sworn enemy, would have made her hair stand on end. The expression didn’t fade at all when she mentioned that she was talking to the monster. “Neither of you should be talking to him at all.” The count didn’t need the attention of curious children, for Violet was but a slip of a girl it seemed and she doubted Tate was any older.
“I am neither young nor unmarried,” Mina said simply, as if those were the only reasons a young woman shouldn’t be out at night. As the cab came closer, the steady sound of horseshoes approaching, she kept her eyes on its approach as she gave a slight shrug. “And there is little in this city that could harm me.” It was a much more daring confession that she was used to giving aloud, especially to a stranger, but the girl mentioned she was dead, of all things, and even if Mina was unsure of that, she knew there was something not unnatural about her.
“Even if what you say is true,” that nothing could harm Violet either, “it is still most unbecoming of you to go about flinging your belongings out into the street.” She said it so matter-of-factly but there was hardly any heat in her tone. If anything there was a slightest upward turn of her mouth, a hint of amusement now that she was warming to the idea that this was no ordinary girl. The smile became full fledged, utterly grateful as the cab stopped before them and she gave the driver her address as he helped them into the carriage. “How did you come to meet Mister Gray?”
"Oh, I had to talk to him. He was totally encouraging Tate, and you don't want to encourage Tate. He gets into enough trouble with Dracula being all evil is good at him." Evil is good was said in a terrible approximation of a Transylvanian accent, one that was suited for a cereal box, but whatevs, she would understand. "At least Dorian just wants to encourage him to be hedonistic or something like that," Violet explained with more knowledge than she should probably have for her age. The comment made her think, and she narrowed eyes that had given up being childlike the moment she'd seen her own dead corpse. "Yeah, so, you should way stay away from Tate," she added, a warning that wasn't fueled by jealousy.
"Yeah, right, you're married to that Harker guy, the one that kinda sucks and is useless. You're badass. He kind of whimpers a lot," Violet informed her. "But you're not old, and you're alive, right? So you could totally be hurt." Violet tried to make her voice older, more mature. She was the ghost here, and she should totally impart wisdom in a ghostly sage manner. But that attempt at maturity was chased away by Violet's raspberry-like scoffing noise at the notion that it was unbecoming to fling stuff around in the street. "You're way old fashioned, just like Dorian is," she said, once she was settled in the carriage and back to yanking at the corset ties as she spoke. "He knows my Jules. He's my person in Vegas. Dorian and him talked and stuff, and I asked if Tate and I could come here, and Dorian said sure. He probably thinks Tate's hot. Most people do." A frown.
Mina quirked a brow at Violet’s turn, the jealousy reverberating through her tone loud and clear. While she had no idea who this Tate fellow was, she certainly had no designs on him or anyone for that matter. The calm expression flickered away, the older woman bristling as the girl insulted her late husband. “Jonathan is wonderful,” she objected immediately, a pained and pinched twist to her lips as she corrected, “Was.” She tugged at the scarf at her throat and pulled at her coat to help distract her as she reigned her quick lash of a temper. “Jonathan was the one who survived an attack from three vampires so he could return to me. He was the one who tore asunder the monster’s throat with a knife. He was the hero.” Whimper. Mina bit back a scoff.
The sounds of the city passing them by did much to temper Mina's indignation and she listened quietly as Violet talked about her counterpart, momentarily giving up on convincing the girl to stop fussing with her stays. The cab was small, not enough room to comfortably maneuver, so hopefully she would be deterred long enough to wait until the privacy of closed quarters. The talk of Tate made Violet frown and recalling the earlier jealous, her expression softened into reassurance. “Thankfully I am not most people.” Anyone who could be convinced that Dracula’s notions were correct ones, even briefly, held no attraction to her.
“One can know the other side? Interesting.” Though Mina had talked to someone clearly not from her world, she hadn’t imagined the possibility of an acquaintance flourishing further than something in passing. Leave it to Dorian to push the boundaries of what was acceptable. The cab finally slowed to a stop and Mina was a bundle of bustling fabric as she was helped out of the carriage, leading the way up to the steps of her home with a glance back spared to Violet. “How are you enjoying your stay in his home?” Her head tilted slightly, a thought striking her and pulling her lips in turn. “You mentioned you were unable to leave your previous home?” It struck her as strange, for there she was, standing before her. Surely leaving had been possible at some point.
Violet wasn't jealous, that wasn't why she warned Mina about Tate, but she didn't have the age or experience to get that it was what the other woman thought, so she didn't defend against it. "Wait, so you weren't totally in love with the vampire?" she asked, with very much a teenager's understanding of a book that was way romanticized in media. "Jonathan was balless, and you were supposed to be way into the Count," she explained, but there were questions there. Maybe this Mina's story was different or something - like multiple Minas, or maybe that Bram dude just got it wrong.
"Yeah. You don't talk to whoever is in your brain and stuff? I had someone before Jules, and I could control her, like some puppet or something. It was fucking rad. But I can't control Jules, and he doesn't listen a lot. But, yeah, he and Dorian flirted or something, and I just took total advantage." Violet sounded very proud of her accomplishment, and she was even prouder a second later when the corset came free. She threw it on the floor of the carriage, smoothing down the linen shift she wore beneath it. "Kay. This I can totally do, but it would be better with jeans," she told Mina with a very young smile. "Staying with him is fine, I guess. He's kind of boring, but whatevs. And, oh, yeah, in my door if you died in my house, then you can't ever leave it. You haunt it forever, which isn't as awesome as I thought it sounded before I died."
“In love with—” Mina couldn’t even get the sentence out, she was so scandalized by the thought. “He’s no romantic rake, no broody hero in disguise. He is evil taken form. He imprisoned my husband to force his hand and bring him here to turn the city into his hunting ground. Twisted the soul of my cousin, turning her into a monster as well so her fiancée could kill her. Attacked me in the dead of night not once but thrice with wicked intent and left a curse that hasn’t lifted even with his demise.” In love. Mina huffed slightly, feeling her temper scratch at that insatiable thirst, that terrible curse, and she let her fingers continue to straighten her coat in hopes of distraction.
The woman wasn’t as impressed by Violet’s possession and accomplishments as she was, the horror rippling quietly across Mina’s face. It was bad enough the pull that came when she occasionally fed indulged, the power over the other person, knowing that with their blood singing through her veins she could bend them to her will. That she could do the same to her counterpart – that anyone could, and that some did – made her run cold. She busied herself instead, picking up the corset Violet threw down and glancing at the driver to make sure he was politely averting his eyes. She passed payment quietly and led her brazen guest to her door, mulling over the prospect of this haunted. “At least you can die,” she murmured before unlocking her home and allowing Violet to follow her. Unlike Dorian’s household, Mina had no servants – too many people who could question her occasional night strolls or declining of dinner – and simply set the corset on the seat of a chair.
“So you are...?” Mina fumbled for words for a moment. Violet clearly wasn’t undead, at least not like she was. But she was tangible, wearing and discarding the corset so a ghost was out of the question. So she let the question hang in the air between them, hoping the girl would enlighten her more.
Violet had always been drawn to darkness, from as far back as she could remember. She had thought Tate was like her at first, that he saw the beauty in all the stuff that everyone else thought was bad or wrong or dark. But Tate had turned out to be one of those things, and maybe that's why she still couldn't get over him, no matter all the bad things he'd done, she could totally still see the good in him. So all that stuff Dracula did, it didn't seem as bad to Violet as it maybe would have once. "Tate killed a bunch of people, and I still love him," she said, challenging Mina's interpretation of her feelings for Dracula.
Violet heard the murmur, the one about being able to die, but she didn't comment on it until Mina had paid, until she'd followed the woman inside. It was way quiet, and nothing like Dorian's house. It reminded her a little of the murder house while it slept, before it woke up and went totally terrible for new residents. "I already died. I can't die twice. And there's no heaven or anything like that. There's just this forever. But I wouldn't go to heaven anyway, because I killed myself," Violet explained as she ran her fingers along Mina's wall. She said it like it was no big deal, having killed herself; she was getting way good at pretending. "In my door, being dead in that house means you're stuck inside with all the murderers and stuff, while they kill new people. It's way horrible," she explained.
Still, Violet was worried Mina wouldn't believe her, and there wasn't a safer place to test things out, right? She gave Mina a tiny wave, and she disappeared on the spot, reappearing behind the other woman soundlessly a second later. "Boo."
“Well.” Mina wasn’t about to tell someone they were wrong right to their face, particularly when it came to matters of the heart, but it was clear from her expression that she disagreed. The thought of caring for the creature that cursed her was beyond her realm of possibility. “I’m quite sure you and Tate are very different than he and I.”
But soon Mina was pulled away from those thoughts, Violet holding her attention for a moment before vanishing. When she reappeared, Mina nearly started, the reflexive urge to strike immediately pushed down, even if it was clear now the girl wasn’t someone she could harm. She blinked quietly back a moment, sensing a distinct change from the girl who had been riding in the carriage, before an impressed grin broke across her face. “No heart now.” And no blood.
The relief that Mina felt was immediate in the slight roll of her shoulders, a tension that she always carried melting away now there was no danger. It didn’t last too long, the conversation of the horrible house ringing through her mind, reprimanding her for smiling in the face of such terrible words. “Forgive me. It is a terrible thing, this house, as is your… condition. I must confess no small amount of relief, though. And you have escaped your awful house. I assume it was in America?” The accent, and the disposition, was hard to miss. “Though you are not fond of corsets.” Mina had no trouble with the fashion when she had visited, so surely the girl’s own door was very unlike this one.
Violet gave Mina a look that said she wasn't sure how different things were with Mina and the Count. She'd totally seen that movie about them, and she thought there was way tons of UST. But maybe Mina wasn't ready to see it yet. Whatever. "It took me a long time to realize I loved Tate, even with the terrible shit he did. I hate him as much as I love him, but I still love him," she explained, countering Mina's argument without directly countering it.
The grin surprised Violet, because she didn't think Mina was supposed to be badass or anything. "You aren't scared?" she asked, surprised. Mina wasn't even from today, when movies and Slenderman were way terrifying. Mina was supposed to be scared. "Yeah, I'm from America. Why are you relieved?" Violet asked. "Why aren't you totally peeing yourself?" Maybe being around vampires did that.
Mina wasn’t going to argue further about this love or hate relationship she had with the Count. No one would know better than she. Violet was mistaken and the only way to properly remedy that fact would be to show her, but purposefully moving in the path of the monster was absolutely out of the question, so the woman merely nodded, a suffering sigh clearly kept in check.
“Scared?” Well, she supposed she should be, but being not quite human herself, and keeping the acquaintance of other not quite humans such as Dorian, Mina learned to stop fearing such things. If anything it made her more curious, provided the person wasn’t a vampire or some other fearsome creature. Ghosts she could handle. “Because you’re not alive, my dear.” She quietly studied the girl’s face before she realized she had no idea what Mina was. While she pondered the wisdom of showing her the truth, the girl had been open with her about her own state. And living with Dorian and talking with Dracula, her secret wouldn’t remain such for very long.
A pale pink tongue ghosted over Mina’s lips before they parted, revealing the quick descent of a pair of pearly white, and terribly sharp, fangs.
Violet was used to long suffering sighs. Her dad had been a long-suffering sigher. But she didn't have long to think on that, because Mina was being way confusing. No one was glad to be around a ghost. It was just the way things were. Sure, she had been totally into that kind of stuff when she was alive, but being into it was different than actually being cool with it in person. "Why are you kosher with me not being alive?" she asked, because it didn't make any sense like whatsoever.
Until, that was, Mina's fangs descended.
Violet just stared. She didn't move back, and there was no fear on her face. She was breathing again, that perceived heartbeat back, because Violet still didn't think of herself as dead, and so all that living stuff just happened. She even bled when she cut herself; it just didn't scar anymore. "Wicked," she cooed, reaching out a finger to touch the tip of one fang. "You let him bite you?" she asked, because that was way sexy.
The sudden lurch of Violet’s heartbeat, followed by a quick thunder of blood in Mina’s ears made her gasp, a ragged inhale as the thirst hit her like a train since she so carelessly dropped her guard. Her hand moved with inhuman swiftness, fingers wrapping around Violet’s wrist even as her finger scraped against her fang, Mina’s handhold tightening as the faint tang of blood fell on her tongue.
“That,” she said, quickly pulling Violet’s finger from her mouth, and pulling back up the walls of restraint, “was uncalled for.” Once clear of immediate temptation she seemed to relax a bit more, lips firmly pressed together even as her tongue flicked up against her fangs, searching for that hint of blood that she wanted so much. “I never let him do anything. He attacked me.” How many times would she have to repeat herself?
“If you would be so kind as to…” she took another deep breath, catching the scent of blood in the air again and letting her lips curl into a frown, “return to your previous state?” Perhaps it was simply a fluke then and Mina felt her earlier happiness fade away. It was no matter, though. She hadn’t left the city even with all its temptation. The nearby presence of the girl, though it would ever pull her attention, would be a danger no more. Mina would be sure of that.
It said something about Violet's personality that the unnaturally quick grab to her wrist was considered epic. It made her heart race, and her pupils widen, and all the feelings of fear coursed through her and made her toes tingle. "Awesome," she cooed, frowning when Mina went all cold on her. "It's cool. You can't actually kill me or anything. I cut myself all the time, and it doesn't do anything permanent or whatever," she explained, as if the possibility of her and Tate as some permanent vampire buffet didn't concern her at all.
"Previous state?" Violet asked, confused, not actually aware that there was any change when she blinked out like she had earlier. Unlike Tate, she hadn't been dead decades, and she hadn't learned all the secrets of being dead. "I don't know what that means, but if you're hungry or something and you don't want to eat me, I can go explore or something," she said looking up at the stairs with the excitement of a precocious child in a new playground.
Mina frowned, such a common expression in Violet’s presence so far, but she didn’t pass too much judgment on the girl. She, herself, hadn’t realized the extent of her own condition until long after the ordeal in Transylvania. “A moment ago you were not... well, alive. When you were behind me,” she pressed on before the girl could interrupt. “Once you re-appeared you weren’t alive. No blood, no heart. No distraction.”
The reminder that the girl was still technically dead, able to produce blood but remain unharmed was... tantalizing, moreso than Mina would have cared to admit. But still she shook her head, taking a step back to help clear her mind of the scent of temptation. “Thank you but that won’t be necessary. Feel free to look around if you like. It’s not quite as grand as Dorian’s, but it is home.”
Violet frowned. She didn't like the sound of that at all. It was way creepy. Tate had always had a heartbeat and stuff, or she totally would have noticed he was dead. She would have noticed she was dead herself, if she'd been like not-breathing ice or something. She shivered, which she never did. By the time Mina told her she wasn't hungry, Violet was already climbing the stairs, like wandering around was her right, but she was a little weirded out in a way she normally wasn't. "Who do you eat then?" she asked, because vampires all ate people. At least the ones that weren't all stupid and Twilight. But she left the question hanging in the air, and she disappeared around a corner upstairs, lost to the shadows and completely unaware of it.