The Vampire & Her Witch

Adala stood in the center of a maelstrom of chaos, shivering slightly in the cool air of her room as she wrestled with indecision.

Four different dresses lay on the bed in front of her; two others were draped across the room’s only chair while the rich burgundy dress she’d worn to breakfast and her audience with Lady Ashlynn lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. The small wooden box of jewelry she traveled with perched on the washstand nearby, looking like a treasure chest discarded by bandits in their haste to find a greater treasure.

None of it was right.

Adala’s heart started racing when Lady Ashlynn revealed that Charlotte had feelings for her, and it felt like it had been galloping ever since.

”She might have feelings for me,” Adala reminded herself. Lady Ashlynn had said that Charlotte never named the person her heart yearned for. It was only a series of clues that her Dominion said pointed straight at Adala that led her to the conclusion that there was interest there. Until Adala heard the words from Charlotte herself, she didn’t dare to believe them.

”But I hope that she does,” Adala said as she picked up a dress in rich, midnight blue and held it to her chest for the third time in as many minutes. ”I hope that she feels the way I do...”

The blue dress was wrong. It wasn’t wrong the way the burgundy one was wrong; the entire problem with the burgundy dress was that it was covered in embroidered apple blossoms that reminded her of home. She didn’t want to be reminded of home when she went to Charlotte; she wanted to free herself of the shackles of home... The burgundy dress was the best one she’d brought to Lothian, but it was wrong for this moment.

The blue dress was also wrong. It was too restrained for a confession. The neck of the dress buttoned up all the way to the top of her throat, and the bell sleeves would swallow up her hands. She loved the color; it always made her feel safe, like she was a part of the night sky drifting above everything... but it was too detached.

”I wish I hadn’t ruined this one,” she said, setting the blue dress down and picking up a dress unlike any other she’d brought with her. It wasn’t any less chaste than the blue dress, but it had been dyed to match the colors of the setting sun, starting in a rich purple that would wrap around her shoulders and slowly fading to brilliant, fiery red and orange skirts. Several rows of tiny brass bells circled the waist, wrist, and hem of the dress, giving every movement a musical quality in a way that nothing worn by the nobility of Gaal ever could.

The dress had accompanied her across the sea from the Iron Kingdom, one of many that she’d acquired during her aborted attempt to assimilate into the culture she was supposed to have married into. She’d brought it on this trip because she thought Charlotte would enjoy seeing her in something so different... so vibrant.

It should have been perfect, but her father had ruined it by insisting she wear it to her matchmaking session with Loman Lothian ’to remind him of her connections beyond the sea.’

”Why couldn’t you just be a pretty dress for me,” she said, blinking back the moisture that threatened to spill from her eyes as she set the dress down in a faint tinkle of dozens of tiny bells. ”It’s not fair,” she muttered, tracing her fingers along the dress before tossing it on the chair with the others she’d firmly rejected.

She didn’t want to wear something that reminded her of the latest man her father had attempted to sell her to, or his constant attempts to sell her to anyone who could meet his price. She wanted to wear something that felt free as her heart felt after meeting with Lady Ashlynn this morning, only... Nothing seemed to fit what she was looking for.

This moment was supposed to be special. She was going to remember it for the rest of her life, one way or the other, and if everything went the way she hoped, then Charlotte would remember it too... It had to be perfect. But nothing she’d brought with her was ’perfect’ for this moment.

There were half a dozen dresses in her closets at home that might have been right, but she’d come to Lothian City with her father to do battle against another onslaught of matchmaking attempts... Almost everything in her traveling wardrobe was intended to make her appear stiff, distant, and untouchable, like a rose with sharp thorns, beautiful but dangerous to hold.

She hadn’t planned to find actual love on this trip because she thought that real love was forever out of her reach.

-KNOCK KNOCK-

The sound startled Adala enough that she dropped the next dress she’d been about to pick up before she quickly snatched the dressing gown draped over the bed’s footboard and wrapped it around her body.

”Lady Adala?” Sir Elgon Prowell called from the far side of the door. ”Are you well? I heard that you ran from your audience with Lady Ashlynn,” he said in a tone that sounded deeply concerned. ”I wanted to make sure that you’re fine.”

”I’m fine,” Adala said, pulling the dressing gown tight and tying the laces as quickly as she could. ”Nothing is wrong,” she added in a rush. ”Lady Ashlynn just, she just gave me something important to think about, something to do and I, I was in a hurry to...” she stammered as she tried to think of a way to explain how she’d raced through the halls to come back to her room so she could prepare herself to meet with Charlotte as soon as Charlotte’s family finished their own meeting with Lady Ashlynn.

Everything she could come up with sounded completely and utterly foolish when she thought about saying it to the weathered knight on the opposite side of the door, but then an even more foolish thought fell out of the chaotic maelstrom of her heart, lodging itself so firmly in her mind that she couldn’t help but give it a try....

”Sir Elgon,” Adala said, pulling the door open enough to see the worried look on the other man’s face as he stood outside the room that he and the other Blackwell knights had given to her last night when she had no other place to go.

”You’re a married man, aren’t you, Sir Elgon?” Adala said as she gazed into his stormy eyes. ”Can you.. Can you tell me about the day you confessed to your wife? Or, or what you said to her so she accepted your hand?”

”Ah, so that’s what it is,” Elgon said as the worry fell away and a wide grin formed on his lips. ”Come have a seat by the fire,” he said, gesturing to the plush chairs around the sitting room’s small hearth. ”And let me pour you a cup of wine,” he added, walking across the room to retrieve a bottle and two small cups.

”I don’t know if it will be of any help to you, but I’ll tell you about my Daere and how we found each other,” Elgon said as he started to pour a cup for himself and one for Adala. ”And if that doesn’t help, we’ll figure out what will...”