Stand and... deliver?! (Dracula)

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You always met the most interesting characters in dodgy alleyways. And what with Morgana's need of plots and and schemes to take over her father kingdom, she thought dodgy alleyways might well hold just the people she wanted to meet.

So far, her search was fruitless. Well... less search, more wandering up and down the alley waiting for someone else to come along. She had even taken time out to go and get a coffee, keeping watch for any shifty-looking characters heading towards the alleyway.

She was close to giving up. Pulling her purple coat tighter round her, pulling her hood over her head, she headed down the alleyway. That was it, enough was enough. She headed down the alleyway, intending to return back to the school.

[Vlad Dracula]

Hunger, to a vampire, wasn't the same as it was to a human being. After a century or so, the definition of a word shifted, became associated with something that seemed more akin to it, and Dracula had long since reached that point. Hunger was no longer a gnawing, empty sensation in the pit of his stomach, it was a dryness, a parched feeling in his throat, the threat of weakness that drove him to hunt. If it got bad enough, he could lose control, could be pushed to the point where subtlety and secrecy no longer took precedence over the need to feed.

Generally speaking, he preferred to feed before it got to that point, when the hunger was strong enough to give him an edge, but not so strong as to rob him of his carefully cultivated sense of control. He could spot a target, sense their reservations, sense their level of awareness, and act accordingly.

This young woman he was watching in this dodgy part of the city, seemed to be...different. She was out here in the darkness, but she didn't seem to be wary or terrified or even arrogant...any of which would have been understandable coming from someone lurking about in a place that would have scared off more delicate members of either gender.

He fell into step beside her, drawing his own coat around his shoulders.

"Chilly evening," he remarked, cordially. "You oughtn't walk out here alone, you know. It could be dangerous."

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She almost jumped as the man appeared beside her, but she kept herself under control, not even slowing her step as she walked. "I can handle myself against any danger this place can offer me." She said in a low, confident voice.

She glanced sideways at her companion as she walked. Immediately, she was taken with him. He was undeniably handsome, but more than that, there was something about the way he held himself, the atmosphere that seemed to hover around him, that intrigued her. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was just something about him that made her feel... almost drawn to him. She looked away, trying to shake herself out of it.

"Is there something I can do for you? Or were you just going doing your civic duty, and making sure no harm comes to me?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

[Vlad Dracula]

Dracula met her eyes, something he did frequently when he was initiating a hunt. Eye contact with a vampire could be an intoxicating thing...but this time, as he gave her that sideways glance, inhaling as he came closer to her, he found something he hadn't expected. He could taste the smell of her blood on his tongue, could sense the potency of it with that heightened sense of smell that had only grown stronger over the years, and there was something different there.

She was affected by the vampiric charm he exuded, he could tell as much, but...she smelled like...like a mixture of darkness and light, like...if sunset and sunrise were ever to collide in one place, if the sun and the stars could be visible at once...and if all of that could be turned into something tangible, able to be perceived by senses other than sight...that was what he tasted when he took that first deep breath.

And with that, he was intrigued. No longer was she simply an unwitting victim, she had become a curiosity to him...which might have granted her a bit longer to live.

"Me?" he laughed. "Oh, no. I'm simply walking back into the town. I thought I'd announce myself, so as not to...startle you." He smiled ever so slightly. "I do believe you could handle yourself..." He added that quietly, almost inaudibly, then paused, deciding to take the direct approach. Stepping towards her, closing the distance between his body and hers, as well as the distance between himself and the wall of the alleyway behind her, he layered his voice with a touch of vampiric suggestion. "Tell me, mandrete, what magic is this I sense in you?"

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Morgana stopped dead in her tracks and stared at her companion. "I... what?" she asked, her voice hushed. Magic... how did he know? How could he know? Who was this man? Regaining her composure, Morgana took a deep breath and carried on walking, smiling at the man, with an attempt to look bemused, and confused at the man's words - despite the knowledge that she was utterly see-through; the stopping dead at his words had guaranteed that. It was something she had to work on - she had to learn to control her fear, before she gave herself away to the wrong person.

"Magic? I don't know what you're talking about..." She muttered with a small smile, trying to slow the beating of her heart down. "I don't have magic." The smile disappeared from her face as she looked at the man. "Magic and sorcery are evil. Why would you think someone like me had magic?"

How does he know? Morgana's thoughts were racing around her head. She had wanted to keep her magic secret in Tintagel for as long as she possibly could... not even Kay knew she had magic. She needed to scout her surroundings, work out who was trustworthy and who was not, before she even considered revealing her powers. She had only been here a matter of days and already someone had worked it out... someone she had never even met. Who was he that he could tell from a mere glance?

[Vlad Dracula]

Her reaction was more than he could have hoped for. After so many years, the slightest hesitation, the smallest quiver in a person's speech could alert a vampire like him of someone's discomfort...but she had all-out faltered, and he took the opportunity to get a little closer. He stepped nearer to her, reaching out a hand and touching her hair ever-so-slightly.

"Evil?" he repeated, bemused. "Dear girl, I have seen evil. I have tasted it, smelled it, I have lived it...and while there may be evil in you, it is not in the magic you are so hasty to deny. Evil is in the very heart of a person, not in the abilities they have been gifted with."

He circled her, considering his next words carefully. He could continue to talk as if he knew a thing or two about whatever magic ran through her veins, but if he did, she might become even more skittish and try to run, at which point he'd have to chase her. That could get rather messy rather quickly.

"You needn't fear," he went on. "I have...a sense, you might say. I do not know what sort of magic you practice, but I can sense something in you, something powerful, something that is as dark as the dusk and as radiant as the sunrise."

A thought occurred to him, and he turned to look her in the eyes.

"Do you know what it is?"

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Morgana didn't know what to say in response to him. She stayed still as he touched her hair, part of her wanting to pull away, but a larger part of her still drawn to him, wanting his touch to go further. She couldn't suppress a slight shudder, goosebumps making the back of her neck tingle. She knew deep down that what he was saying was true. Yet she had been raised to believe that magic, sorcery, that it was evil. That there was the long and short of it. And then she had discovered she had magic, she was magic itself... how could she believe she was anything but evil? Morgause had magic, and she was cruel, ruthless, determined to destroy Camelot. Everyone she had ever come across who had magic was the same. So how could she be anything else? She had magic, so at her core, she must be evil. And yet... this didn't upset her. This was a fact she was beginning to embrace.

She looked at him quickly as he asked his question. She frowned for a second as she thought, before answering. She looked into his eyes, her brow furrowed, as she answered his question.

"No." She said quietly. "Not yet. I'm learning more every day."

[Vlad Dracula]

There it was...that flicker of desire, that falter that signaled the slightest capitulation from her original resistance. He'd been expecting it. There were only a handful of people he'd ever encountered who could fully resist the hypnotic lure of vampiric suggestion. He suspected that she might have some of that strength within her, had she been aware of the nature of the threat at hand. Knowledge was one of the greatest weapons anyone had against a vampire...knowledge of the few weaknesses the immortal undead had, knowledge of the laws that governed them, and it was much easier to fight against the influence of something if you knew it was influencing you.

That was one of the reasons vampires like Dracula had kept hidden for so long. Secrecy was a powerful ally.

"Who told you the magic was evil?" he wondered, keeping his tone curious and light...or at least, relatively light for him. "If you don't even know what sort of magic it is, how can you know that it is evil?"

[Deleted]

"My father." Morgana answered shortly. "He has spent his entire reign fighting magic, keeping it out of the kingdom. He says it is evil, dangerous." She looked at her companion, a slight smile playing on her lips. "And so I must be the same. I must be everything he hates." Her eyes had an odd glow about them as she spoke these words, the smile playing upon her lips empty and cold. "Just as he is everything I hate."

She moved slightly closer to the man, always drawn to him, intrigued and inexplicably giddy from his presence. "What do you know of magic, stranger?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "What can you teach me?"

[Vlad Dracula]

His entire reign...would that make her a princess, then? Or at least the daughter of an Emperor or some such thing. Whoever her father was, Dracula didn't think he liked him much. Not because he sounded cold and judgmental - Dracula himself could be both of those things, more often than not, but because he believed that people were evil and dangerous - not things in themselves.

He definitely didn't want to tell her the truth, which was 'Well, I'm no magician, but my wife is a witch and she could likely tell you a few things.' He didn't imagine that would go over very well with the seductive mood he'd tried to set here.

"You see a lot of things when you're looking," he told her. "I've been looking for a very long time. I don't know the things you might hope, I'm afraid...I don't know how to use magic, or how to control it...but I can taste it..."