CLAUDINE: AN EPIC SHORT STORY PART ONE
The world deems her ungrateful but she doesn’t care, a vampire who have lived centuries of your lifetime. Her eyes were amethyst purple and her hair, as she likes. She beared no horror features, no bat transformations and more awkwardly no cravings for blood.
“Not possible”, the rumours circulated. “A vampire who despises blood. She must be on a secret diet.”
But Claudine as a ruler of a small village of the Dark Age laughed at them all. She would stand in her old dress, one that made her feel like she was no more than a peasant.
“I am a peasant”, she would wave at the children who adored her. Their generations hold stories of how she came to be. A story that revealed a spine thrilling detest for all that looks or smells red.
“Claudia”, her father would call her.
He was a king in the mid-ages, Uzziah, a gallant warrior who fancied the hips of women. His wife would most days watch in rage as he mesmerizes himself after a battle but she spake not. Her heart echoes a foreseeable confrontation but her lips dared not. So she sought diabolism and that was where she met a lone man, Dimitri. He was seated on a moss covered tree stump when she met him, lowly yet with eyes that devoured the soul.
“You are the herbalist”, she blew out her candles. “I’m so sorry to startle you, just that you came highly recommended.”
“Startle?”, his tattered attire revealed a scar on his left chest. “I’ve barely been startled in years my queen.”
Suddenly appearing taller than he sat, her white seemed to offend him. A reminder of his worst enemy,…sunlight.
“Your presence awoke thirsts I’ve long forgot”, he managed to sniff her from a distance. “Would you take off the cloak and walk with me?”
Queen Vesa shook her brunette hair in disobedience. Who would blame her? He looks like a petty drunkard but unlike most drunks, he appeared rather beautiful.
“Is it the moon or your eyes?”, she took off her white cloak revealing a night gown of grey. Unknown that he read minds, her curiosity remained boundless. It was noisy yet her dry lips were only seeking for warmth.
“Humans”, Dimitri gleamed. “You all judge what you see.”
At that point, Vesa was caught up in spells. He had gently listened to her, a feature she had craved in all her ten years of marriage. His eyes were round with a cracked side, one that glinted a shade of crimson.
“I will assist at a price”, he held her gaze after promising to help deliver the king. But the queen knew what he desired. She dropped her face on his, a misty night that soon produced the baby Claudia.
How foolish was Uzziah to think the baby was his? There was actually no spell done, infact Dimitri was never seen after that week and yes! Vesa snuck into the woods time after time to lure him out. She would dress in a long golden dress when the air is crisp, no shoes and no maidens. Sometimes she swore he called to her, however with the baby born, so was the shade of red in her eyes.
“Claudia”, they announced at her naming ceremony. Dignitaries and princes flooded to see her, a girl whose beauty was already paid for in gold.
“Give her to me when she is of age and I’ll triple your lands Uzziah”, they fought.
There he stood nonetheless, the only prince who didn’t pick up a glass of wine. His black tailcoat has embroideries that weren’t made cheap. He had formal black trousers with a thin red stripe running down the stride.
“Dimitri”, Vesa sighted him from afar. “How I’ve missed you.”
His gesture however was cold alongside an undershirt which revealed a crisp white, something his countenance rebuked that fateful night.
“So you just wanted to sleep with me”, she stared in rage. Her sudden look at the serpent cravat pin he wore spoke volumes of his character.
“I don’t hurt”, he faked an aristocratic demeanor. “I have come to advise you to kill the child.”
“What?”, the queen almost screamed. She squinted her eyes at his full pale lips which curled into an enigmatic smile. “What the hell are you proposing Dimitri? You want to blackmail me now, is that it?”
“Far be it from me”, his hands were raised, an aura of quiet confidence. “She is going to end up as I am. A bloodsucker.”
“Excuse me”, Vesa slapped his angular cheekbones. The atmosphere became rusty, as even the musicians halted. But Dimitri left in silence, his hands still raised.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you”, he left.
King Uzziah was disappointed at her drama that night but he realized later on that no prince entered with such a signature dressing.
“Are you trying to call me blind?”, he spat on the guard who knelt before him.
“No my lord”, his miniature voice responded. A cold feeling that usurped that day in everyone.
Uzziah thought his wife a liar even after embarrassing slaps in the dinning, notwithstanding the fact that he had never seen Claudia on her nipples.
“Is this demon even mine? She barely sucks from you?”
But Vesa has already replaced the child for peace to reign. What the poor king is referring to as Claudia is nothing but a sick child whose mother gave him up to the hospital. She had days left on her hands and worse, Uzziah was with held from bringing in his physicians.
“The child has to die”, she proclaimed to her maidens.
“The new kid?”, they looked at each other in disbelief.
“No!”, Vesa gnashed her teeth. “This thing is already dead. I was speaking about Claudia.”
They nodded and went, each to deliver the message to as many assassins as possible.
“She wasn’t as foolish as you thought…..Vesa Vespara”
After Dimitri’s suddenly re-appearance, she observed the girl who rapidly grew to seven years in days. During this period, Uzziah was off on a war with the Outlanders. He only sent his proof of life time to time, nothing else. How dare he slap her over the abomination that was brought by his prostitution? He alone is the cause of this mess.
But Claudia’s location has been compromised. The slow strides into the palace that fateful night had winded up emotions. The maidens recognized it and stayed timid.
“Give this to my mother”, she tossed it before them, the head of Dimitri El’ Zor.
