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Salvation or Eternity

Summary:

What would've happened if instead of Dracula trying to convince Anna Valerious to become a vampire, someone else tried to woo her.

AU where Aleera turns Anna in more ways than one, and Van Helsing just mentally checks out.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

The last living child of Valerious rests before them. Freshly prepared to be draped in finery. Outside her unconscious perceptions, sculpted lips carve out the path of her life.

If I may be so bold, my love, I don't see this plan of yours working.”

Oh? You doubt my powers of persuasion? I ensnared you, after all.”

I was a headstrong wench when you found me. I think dear Anna deserves a more... nuanced approach.”

And what would you suggest.” He almost already knows what she's proffering.

Give her to me.”

His lips curl. A low chuckle escapes. “Hmhmhm... I see. You've been hounding me for a bride of your own for years & now that we're up against the wall you're pressing your momentary advantage.”

It's not purely calculated. Sure, I wouldn't be suggesting it without my own motives, but entertain the alternative. You wax a thin poetic. You sway her body, but not her soul. And Van Helsing comes in with his daring rescue, as you so expect & secretly yearn for..” Her husband winces away, imperceptibly to all but her. “And he whisks her away. With a narrow chance of victory given our recent acquisition of the power source. But a chance, nonetheless. Underestimate not the fools, for they supersede all variables.”

It's a fair assessment. It doesn't change the fact that I'm in need of new brides to replace your sisters.”

Perhaps you'd do better, with a groom?” His lip quirked. Entertainment was nearly alight on his face.

And I would be... the distraction?”

Not at all. You make the deal. I seal it.”

And vice-versa?”

That's the plan, my love.”

🦇🦇🦇

Anna Valerious awoke, feeling less heavy. Perceiving herself as her senses emerged, her gear and tactical corset had been removed. Her lungs weren't so stringently tightened as usual, but open and flowing. This wasn't the controlled breathing of the hunt. It was open & free; a touch restless after years strangulating herself on her mission.

As she pulled herself up from the lavish couch, she got the chance to take in her attire. If she was to be Count Dracula's guest, the cut certainly didn't speak to his tastes. There were no gloves, but perfectly manicured nails with a kind of jet-black polish. The cosmetic pleasures of wealth in this age, but it felt fitting. Her dress was... not all that separate from her usual attire, in fact. Somewhat more elegant, but not outside her comfort zone. It all made her insides turn a bit too pleasantly. “If this is Dracula's idea of a game, he's a skilled player.”

“You flatter me.” It wasn't Dracula's thick male baritone, but a supple, familiar soprano voice that rang out. Anna bolted to her feet and turned about to its source. “But this isn't my husband's party. It's mine.”

Anna's breath caught in her throat. This wasn't a new experience. She'd faced Aleera many times before. She was a child when her naive girlhood crush was whisked away by the vampire her family spent their whole lives hunting. It hurt her more than the years of discipline and misery she had endured. That someone as strong-willed as Aleera would be ensnared by such a man.

But she saw no slave now. No, Aleera's usual pink tones were especially sharpened today. The gothic black lacing of Anna's own attire was mirrored in hers. The flared-out cut of her shoulders gave off a prominent, almost masculine confidence. It was, in all but heartbeat, the same Aleera she'd looked up to all those years ago. Aleera approached her, and Anna felt no will to recoil. From fear or intrigue, she could not say.

“Come, my dear. We don't want to keep our guests waiting,” Aleera silkily whispered, taking Anna's hand gently. As they went through the doors into a grand ballroom, nearly a hundred guests were swirling around in tandem. It wasn't like clockwork, though. Dracula was known for his cold precision. This wasn't that. If viewed from above, it may almost look like a vivid painting.

Making their way into the center of the thrall, Aleera and Anna began to rhythmically encircle one another. The steps weren't programmed into Anna's head, like she'd half-expected. She was merely reacting to Aleera's advances. And every opening to run for her life only had pulling herself back to her non-magically entrancing dance partner. “What is this?”

“An engagement party.” Anna nearly scoffed at that. How obvious. Dracula would have her prospective future sister-wife lead her to his altar.

"Of course, how could I have imagined for a second that you'd exert some will outside your darling husband's wishes.”

“You wound me, Anna.” It wasn't total mock-offense in Aleera's voice. A tinge of longing & sadness permeated. It once again disarmed Anna. “You've wounded me for some time now. Time and again I'd try to speak to you. But as your people sculpted you into a warrior woman, you remained immovable. I don't know who most delayed our mutual understanding: Your determined brother or my gawking sisters. Perhaps, all of them gone now, we can finally meet minds, as we once did, when you were but a precocious young girl. ”

Anna sneered at the mention of her recently deceased brother, but whatever pain she felt, she sensed something similar in Aleera's tone. She wanted to understand that sadness, even while acknowledging the doomed soul beneath it. “I can't deny, I've always wondered why. Why you didn't choose death before Dracula stole your soul?”

“He didn't steal my soul. I gave it.”

Anna's eyes widened. “Why? How could you? You know what they are. What they've done to my family!”

“I thought I did, and I was nearly ready to plummet into a ravine at that knowledge. But then I experienced something I didn't expect from Dracula. A choice.”

“Choice? There is no choice with him. He takes what he wants. Enslaves all to his will.”

“That was the choice. Death or Freedom.”

“Freedom? Enslavement is freedom.”

“It can be. But then, it's not really enslavement. No, it's a mutually beneficial contract. Not unlike the one all us tavern whores would take. And unlike those, I saw nothing I'd be sacrificing in return. My soul remains. It's merely tethered to my husband.”

“Even if it was a choice, why would you choose to love such a monster?”

“He doesn't beat me. He doesn't put me in uncomfortable positions. What's his is mine without complaint. He welcomes my criticisms. He hears my grief. And my feelings never waver. They're never in crisis. I don't have to worry about our love growing old, because it is eternal.”

“It's a lie,” Anna hissed.

Aleera only looked forlornly pensive. “Yes, it is.” Anna looked astonished at the admission. “But it's a lie I got to choose. I don't care if it's artificial. It's as real to me as any love I've ever felt. As real as the love I feel now.” Anna didn't know where this was going anymore. “And it's the choice I offer you now.”

Oh, right. That's always where this was going, wasn't it. “What, to become his bride?”

“No. To become mine.”

Anna's venom dissipated. What? Hers? She'd be... Aleera's bride?

As though no time all had passed, her childlike passions were vibrating to the surface once more.

“He... he'd really allow you that?” Anna's mind was racing. That Dracula would bestow such a gift on one of his servants.

“It took some convincing, but he knows it's what I've wanted for some time. A bride of my own. Someone to return the sincere love I have to give. And her you came. My little Anna, bloomed into such a vivid, relentless young woman.”

Aleera's words were like honey to Anna's tired, near-emptied soul. A soul she still felt her family's contract tighten around. “But... but I can't. My family needs my help.”

“But do they deserve it?” Aleera's eyes had an anger that betrayed no selfishness at all.

“It doesn't matter. It's up to me to save them from purgatory.”

“That's not what I asked, Anna. Is it fair, what they've done to you? To any of you? Is it fair that because of one ancestor's arrogant declaration, that all of you have to give your lives for his desperate vendetta? How is that fair to you?”

Anna's heart wrenched. It wasn't. Wasn't the first time she'd considered the destiny her family had forced upon her. She'd been so twisted up in anger for so long, she'd never stopped to consider who it was directed to. And after all these years, she couldn't deny, it tired her out. She'd only ever gotten to live her life in her youth, before she was trained for her family's mission. Was any part of her truly her own?

One part, maybe. And she stood before her, an alabaster vision. As their dance turned into a dip, Aleera rested above her with purpose. As they stilled, the music quickened. The dancers moved at enhancing speed. It was as though they were the eye of the storm.

“And so now I ask you, my dear Anna. What is your choice? Salvation or Eternity?”

Anna's mind raced. She only had this moment to decide. In any other moment, she might've run. In this one, she simply nodded and uttered one word.

“You."

Aleera smiled wide, her eyes alight. Anna noticed a kind of garbled yelling beyond her sensory sphere, but in that moment, it mattered not to her. As Aleera's mouth approached her neck, Anna's eyes shuttered closed.

...

A sharp, frenzying bite, and they shot opened.

And everything shifted. She felt the cramps and aches in her body evaporate away. She felt what weight held her down began to feel like nothing at all. The world that had felt so cold and isolating now felt so warm and welcome to her. Most of all, though, she felt Aleera's skin turn from ice to soft, caressing pillows. She felt Aleera's mouth shift from a vice grip to an impenetrable connection.

And she felt everything she felt about Aleera changing. She knew it would happen. It was both the price and the gift of the contract. Her worries about being alone stopped there, because she never would be again. Suddenly her mind felt most like that child, all those years ago. Without the awkwardness of feeling unworthy. Aleera had chosen her, so she was. Without the shyness of feeling too young. Aleera had waited until she was ready for her.

And Aleera ceased to be an abomination in her mind. How could she ever be? Every memory she had of her youth was alive again. Playing hide & seek in the woods. Causing mischief in the courtyard. Conning one of Aleera's gentleman callers. Those memories that had been buried beamed to the front. She was so kind then. She was so kind now. Anna understood that Aleera saw most humans as food now, but not her.

And she breathed a cool, delicious breath of air, without the burden of her family's destiny. It was over, and she didn't care. She was free. Free to express the rage she'd always felt at her ancestors. She felt a pang of regret for her brother, sure. He was as much a victim of fate as she was. It was a shame he wouldn't be free like her. None of them would be. But it wasn't her responsibility anymore. It shouldn't have been in the first place.

And sweet relief settled into her bones. It was no delicious feast she was offered. Just rest. Not eternal or prosaic. A kind of warm blanket around her life, such as it now was. And as the sensation settled, she looked into the eyes of Aleera. Her beloved. Oh gosh, she was stunning. Her fiery red mane of hair. Her buxom cheeks. The eyes full of inquisition. It was all so certain now. A story rewritten over her mind, she knew, but it was a story she loved. A story she felt herself represented in. A story she chose. And a wide smile hit her face. Fuck, had she not smiled ever since she was a girl? Her face muscles would be tired from disuse, if any part of her was tired at all anymore.

And Aleera lifted her from her daze, the storm of dancers are her slowing in reverence.

“Feel better now, dearie?” Aleera seductively smiled. Tears of joy were in Anna's now blood-red eyes.

“Better than I've ever been, my love,” Anna giddily laughed. Aleera smile ceased being a proposition and became a promise. A promise to never feel alone anymore. She'd been alone for so long, without anyone to understand her. But now Anna did, and they were forever bound to each other.

Anna's hunger overtook her, and she plunged her mouth upwards into Aleera's, graciously prepared for her already. Oh, it was heaven. Ironic, given she'd never see the place, but this was it for her. The sweet, soft embrace of one's perfect match. And they were perfect now.

Pulling apart in graceful unison, their senses returned, and they knew they weren't alone among entranced ghouls anymore. They turned to the balcony to see Aleera's husband, his hand firmly rubbing the shoulder of one Gabriel Van Helsing. He looked shocked. Almost saddened, but mostly confused.

And Anna saw no enemy - as she half-expected she would - but another lost soul, like she had been till just a minute ago. And well, this was the biggest day of her life. Her engagement party. Her wedding night, too, it had occurred to her. As her cheek rubbed loving against Aleera's, her soon-to-be wife's, she smiled almost goofy at the dumbstruck Van Helsing. She reached a hand out towards him. “Come, my friend! Join me for my wedding night!”

Notes:

I did want to explain, part of writing this was a reaction to my kinks. I had a dream earlier this year where humanity was all-but-assuredly enslaved by aliens, but the leader offered me & essentially all humans freedom as long as I married him and allowed him to alter my mind to love him. The rest of me remained the same. I was just programmed to love him. Not agree with him. Just love him. And the dictatorship the aliens set up was really just preventing bigotry & cruelty. Didn't really curtail free thought. It just came down really harshly on those being bigoted shits.

So yeah, that kinda curtailed with my ideas of Dracula's brides, and how that situation of being programmed to love someone can actually nourish someone as long as it's their choice. In the fics I've read - usually painfully explicit - where there is no choice and no relative freedom & fulfillment in the aftermath, I just end up cringing like crazy. There's no lasting value there.

So yeah, this is my version of tentatively exploring my kinks, and it's not even Mature or Explicit rated. That's just the tame, shy little duckling I am.