there's no kiss of life so baby don't pretend {o}

[Vlad Dracula]

Things were quiet. He hadn't seen Glinda in days, and he had no idea where she'd gone (that was the story, anyway...please don't ask questions you shouldn't). Sometimes, he didn't care. This was one of those times. The house was silent, and he didn't even want very much to be in it. The colours reminded him of her...when he missed her, that was a bad thing, and when he was glad she was gone, that was also a bad thing. So he went out. Not that he'd ever stayed in much, but this was the kind of "out" where he might actually not come home for days.

The world was quiet. It was the dead of the night, the time when all well-behaved people were asleep, and the not-well-behaved ones certainly weren't wandering the woods, they were out partying and doing all the stupid things that humans did at night to trick themselves into feeling like they would live forever (when in fact they were probably only shortening their own lives with their actions).

He could have gone and hunted amongst them, could have taken one home, bedded him or her, and taken advantage of their inebriation and naivety. But he didn't. Tonight, he was alone, in the woods, and he liked it. This was his element, it was the environment he was created to own, the place he felt the most like there was nothing he had to pretend to be. He wasn't big on all that "be yourself" nonsense, but the truth was, a vampire spent nearly all of his time pretending to be something he wasn't, so times when he had nothing to hide were few, far between, and highly valued.

Stepping through the woods in silence, he found that in spite of everything, he had the feeling that something was missing. Someone.

[red]

Things were quiet. To Red there were two types of quiet, the serene and calm kind where nothing was happening and the kind of quiet that was waiting for noise. It was night and she was in the woods, this meant she was on high alert and everything was her enemy. She had yet to hear of anything that prowled the forest areas but that didn't mean it didn't exist so for the past few nights she had been on the hunt.

Her hunts had so far been fruitless but that did nothing to ease her suspicions. She wouldn't sleep soundly until she knew what she would have to deal with. Red made every effort so that she could never be attacked by surprise again. She almost silently walked through the forest to an opening, almost silent because no matter how light-footed you are, army boots are relentless in their foliage crushing. She felt a slight wind and pulled the hood of her red hoody up to stop her hair obscuring her vision. Coming to a small clearing, Red carefully made her way to the middle, wary of any sound around her. She was paying extra care as the night before there had been an unfortunate incident where Red had over reacted and had thrown a hunting knife with no results other than an immensely disgruntled owl which seemed to glare at her until she left.

Even so, tonight felt strange. If Red had a sixth sense it would probably have been screaming at her, but she didn't so she was in blissful five-sense ignorance. She gripped her knife handle tighter and her left hand toyed with the edge of the pistol in her holster hidden at her hip. Surveying the area and seeing nothing didn't stop the uneasy feeling that had developed in her gut.

"Hello?" The word escaped her lips before her mind told her mouth that it would be a really bad idea. Red cursed to herself Hello?! Who says hello when they might get attacked?! IDIOTS that's who! She instinctively took a fighting stance, just in case there was a reply.

[Vlad Dracula]

There wasn't really anything else that prowled these woods at night, Dracula knew that because he prowled these woods at night. He was the thing that people were taught to be afraid of in the darkness. Anything else that tried to give off that impression was encroaching on his territory, and he had a very low tolerance for such things.

There was a person walking through the woods. He smelled her long before she opened up her loud mouth and decided to call out a greeting to the dangers of the night. He had to assume she was either stupid, suicidal, or overly confident. Perhaps a little of two of those at once. He watched her for a moment, before electing to slip out from behind the tree he'd stopped on the other side of.

"I'm assuming you must be lost, dear girl," he said, sauntering towards her with a friendly, deceptively non-threatening stride. He let his shoulders roll forward slightly, diminishing his authoritative air, lowering his chin to take off another layer of austerity. "Dangerous creatures roam these woods, or hadn't you heard? I was certain there had been a school announcement about it or some such thing."

He wasn't certain of any such thing, and if there had been such an announcement, he would have done his best to squelch the messenger. Dracula was just fine with young women wandering into the woods unaware of the dangers there...