Bambi and the Duke

”Thank you for coming, Sister Isabelle,” Leonard bowed with gratitude.

A white witch usually avoided stepping into another’s household at the fear of being killed be it a human or a vampire or a pureblooded vampires house, nothing was ever safe. A few years ago, like many other creatures, the white witches were used as laboratory rats to dissect and understand their composition which now was recorded in the books. With what he knew, Sister Isabelle never met anyone outside the church and she stuck inside unless she had to go alone somewhere. For her to come more than once on such short notice brought immense respect to the woman.

Sister Isabelle returned the bow and looked at Nicholas who stood quietly next to him with a smile.

”Good evening, Sister,” the Lord of Bonelake greeted for the woman to give a nod.

Seeing the room by which they stood, the woman asked, ”Is she in there?” it had come to be obvious that the Duke had called her as something must have happened to the girl. Moving the door, she saw Vivian who was sitting at the edge of the bed.

Unable to take the nap she had told she would, Vivian had decided to go back to Leo to ask him to take her back home when she the priestess enter the room, ”Sorry for the inconvenience,” Vivian whispered for the woman to smile.

”You look pale,” commented the woman, walking to where she was and sitting down on the bed, she placed her hand, ”A fever. Hmm,” her hands felt colder than usual as if it were dipped in the snow and then placed on her warm head, ”Did you work too hard on your first day of the council?” Sister Isabelle took Vivian’s hands in hers, running her fingers across her palm and then looking up, ”Have you been taking care of your health? It doesn’t seem like she’s pregnant, Duke,” she informed Leonard who had followed her with Nicholas behind him.

Pregnant? Vivian blushed looking at the woman who chuckled.

”You have turned more beautiful than the last time I saw you at the wedding. It looks like your husband is following his vows diligently,” but then Leo had been doing it before he had spoken his vows in front of the church for her, ”I don’t think there’s anything wrong. You must have stressed yourself too much, a good rest will do you good.”

”I don’t think my sleep will fix it.”

Sister Isabelle raised her brows, her enchanting eyes staring at the girl to ask, ”Why do you feel that?”

Vivian shrugged her shoulders similarly to when Leonard had asked her, ”My ability, how do I know what I can do with it? To how much extent it can stretch the horizons of the world and know what it exactly does?” her ability made her worry, the memory of what she had seen in the evening fading away like a bad dream which had never occurred, ”How do I believe what I see is the truth and not my hallucination which has never occurred?” she asked, ”What I saw today didn’t happen...One minute it was there and the next minute gone...”

Sister Isabelle let out a troubled sigh. She wished she could help the girl but this one was a special case. There had been seers before, some still exited but were in a hiding but there were the ones who were called as the fortune-tellers. The ability to sense the future and kind the lost kind but this girl thought Sister Isabelle, she could see the past but not the future.

The white witch spoke, ”Unfortunately I have no one I can send you to get the information from. There have been seers before, but seers are-”

”Different,” Vivian completed her words. She nodded her head. Like Leonard who often carried a book along with him to read, she had picked up his habits when it came to reading. She had read books after books which were available to the guests which was why her ability to read was quick.

Lord Nicholas now curious about what Vivian saw, questioned her, ”What was Narcissus doing?”

”He killed a woman, tore her head apart,” no wonder she had puked thought Leonard, ”Has he killed someone like that before?” she questioned the Lord back. Now, this was a hard question, he thought, he went to reply back to her query,

”Narcissus has killed a lot of people. In and around, so it would be hard to say if killed the person whom you saw in your vision,” Nicholas wasn’t ashamed with it as all his kill had been for a justified reason and only a few which were done on whim. He felt the white witches gaze on him but he didn’t go to look at her, keeping his eyes on the human girl.

”She was a vampire, red eyes, brown hair until her shoulder,” Nicholas gave it some thought as if he were trying to remember it until he stopped moving, ”Yes, there was a vampiress with short brown hair but...” he gave her a smile, ”You saw something that happened in the past.”

She was glad to hear that she hadn’t been imagining things to be called as an insane person, ”I didn’t touch anything though.”

Sister Isabelle then chipped in her thoughts, ”Maybe it was one of the rarest moments. Can you believe if I say sometimes the events leave memories in the air which cannot be seen or touched like a ghost that haunts around some places where it occured? It is rare and spoken which one would have seen it to only call it as a hallucination. Leo and Nicholas must have had it too. It comes and then leaves. Some with significance and some without any reason.”

And even with the reasons being provided, they were nothing but theories like the rest of it. Leonard didn’t understand why she would fall sick in a span of a few minutes. Was her pureblooded self fighting to get back?

”Is there a way to get her back to her previous self?” asked Leonard, ”What if it’s her body trying to reset back to how it was?”

”We don’t know yet, Duke Leonard. Giving out answers right now would mean bringing back the hope which was lost and that wouldn’t be right,” Sister Isabelle answered to his burning question and then continued to speak, ”Her abilities didn’t push through until a few months so it might or might not be the case.”

”But there’s a possibility,” Leo pressed his words for the white witch to not answer. In some pain and this dull day, the information made Vivian happy. Happy to hear that she might turn back to her previous self.

Lord Nicholas clapped his hands together, ”That’s wonderful news!” but Leo shook his head.

”Not yet. There seems to be a barrier which is not letting her go back. And until we don’t find the cause of it from her parents, we won’t know how to break that barrier,” and it was the truth what Leo spoke.

The pureblooded vampire creatures were the strongest as the heart that guarded their essence was designed differently unlike the weaklings of a human heart or the imitation which the lowly vampires had like the pureblooded vampires but without the core. A pureblooded vampire’s heart and blood could not be sullied not unless something vile was used like the black witch’s potion that was used to corrupt hearts.

And as the thought crossed his mind, something came to sink into his mind very very slowly that it took time to wrap around his head.

He looked at Vivian, her black eyes staring back into hers. What if someone had tried to corrupt her heart? It seemed like a plausible presumption. The specs of red didn’t come to be seen every time but when he did see he didn’t miss the dark red in color in those black eyes of hers.

He heard Sister Isabelle ask Vivian, ”You must have been missing sleep. It is not because you are a human but you are more than that right now which you will have to take care of. Precious abilities of high value come with high-risk factor on your body. Your healing ability will allow you to heal but it will cut down your life span. We don’t know what this ability can or cannot but taking care of yourself cautiously would be a good idea.”

”Yes, sister Isabelle,” Vivian gave a smile.

”Good. Do you want me to send medication?” asked the white witch.

”No, I will be fine.”

”Okay. Come visit me tomorrow if possible. I miss having your company at the Church,” Sister Isabelle squeezed her hand and stood up. Vivian felt fortunate to be cared for by so many of them in this room. She wanted to talk to sister Isabelle about her dreams as everything felt all over the place. Maybe once she would have a discussion she would feel more at ease. The dreams, the visions it was making her head go round.

Leonard went to see the white witch to the carriage while Nicholas stayed in the room to give Vivian company.

”Sorry for intruding your work time,” she apologized to Nicholas who had been leaning against the wall not far from the fireplace.

”You shouldn’t worry about such trivial things, Vivian. You are welcome here anytime,” he answered her, her eyes shifted to look at her palm.

Pushing himself against the wall, Nicholas walked towards the balcony doors and pushed it open to invite the night wind inside the room, ”Worrying has never solved anything. If you want to solve it then get to working on it. Else there’s no point,” she heard him give away the advice, ”You will only make him worry that much.”

Vivian nodded her head, ”May I ask you something?” she asked.

”Why I killed the woman?” asked Lord Nicholas as if knowing she had been itching to ask him the question, ”It was years ago. A few years after I started to live with the third Lord in this mansion. Though my mother was found dead with only remnants of her bones on the floor, the man didn’t mourn for her loss. Not one day and instead I found woman after woman who came to visit him. To please him and one of them turned out to be this councilwoman who had been the one to poison his mind against not only my mother but also me.”

Vivian listened to him patiently, ”Most of the people will do anything to get into power, to be in the high position of the society to earn and live the life of pride but only some understand the blood and pain that is associated with it. When I found out about her, I didn’t have to send Narcissus at her. My ghouls are part of me or rather derived from me making it easier for them to feel the emotions of what I feel. I was a child back then and my emotions knew no bound. They were volatile,” the man smiled, his eyes holding the calmness which she didn’t understand.

”Nick! You cannot go killing people randomly!” Malcolm scolded the little boy who stood in front of him where the elder man sat behind the desk in his room.

”I didn’t do anything,” came the reply which seemed deader than the woman who had been found in the forest. The boy had been taken in by the Lord but he spent his time getting taught in the Rufus’ mansion.

”Explain the dead body of the woman which was placed at the entrance of the council?”

”Narcissus killed her not me.”

The man in front of him ran his hand through his hair in slight frustration, taking a deep breath and letting it out. The man hadn’t met the ghouls because the ghouls didn’t appear in the thin air at the boy’s command. He was still learning to control them. No one knew about who Narcissus was nor who Everest was. It seemed more of imaginary friends the little boy had built in his head after his mother’s death, ”I get that you are angry and your anger is justified but there’s a way to take revenge,” this got the boy’s attention and young Nicholas’ eyes moved to stare at the man, ”Let me tell you something,” the man went to educate the naive boy.

”Like many other things, killing is a form of art. You don’t kill a body and let it out in the open unless you want to warn someone or intimidate a group. When you kill someone you make sure not to leave any trace, the murder needs to be perfect,” explained Malcolm, ”If you kill someone kill as if they are killed by another person or one day you will be caught and be dead just like the ones you have killed. Your displeasure against the woman has been quite evident and if it weren’t for you being little, the council would be on you since they found the body,” the boy hearing this gave it some good thought.

”No one should know,” murmured the boy, his eyes holding the gloominess of what he had passed through.

The older man gave him a nod, ”That’s right. You need to be stealthy when it comes to these kinds of things,” the man wished the boy would do something about his mood. It was as depressing as the rain the Bonelake. He had been like this since he had gone to retrieve the boy along with Lord Wilhelhum after receiving the news of his heir to the family.

When the next morning arrived, Malcolm was wearing his coat with the help of his servant when he could hear the bustling noise coming out of the room. Ready to leave, he stepped out and walked to through the corridors when he saw Nicholas who had his back faced towards him, making an effort to talk to the maid who appeared to look nervous. As if thankful that he had come, she greeted him with a bow and escaping from there.

Confused with her reaction, he saw the little boy turn who his black hair combed neatly and a smile up on his lips. Voice filled with light, he was greeted, ”Good morning, Mr. Rufus,” his little lecture ad turned the boy’s in a different direction.

He could see why the maid had been nervous. There was a creepiness that lingered behind that smile which felt nerve-wracking.