My Fic: Carmilla & Dracula: Dark: Gen
Feb. 15th, 2020 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiTitle: Dark
Fandoms: Carmilla (book, le Fanu) & Dracula (book, Stoker)
Rating: Gen
Length: 1000
For: the 51+ Crossover Fandom Challenge prompt 04: dark.
Characters: Laura (Carmilla), Mina and Lucy (Dracula)
Summary: Mina and Lucy cross paths with an old lady on the afternoon before the storm.
MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL
7 August. An incredible storm is raging outside, and I cannot sleep. Lucy, too, is restless. Once she has got up and dressed. I managed to undress her and coax her back to bed without waking her.
I must record an earlier incident in the day before it escapes memory. Lucy and I were down by the harbor. The weather was as fine, and there were a great many holiday-makers about.
It was late afternoon, and Lucy and I were enjoying a drink at the harbor cafe, chatting amicably. An old fisherman came lumbering by, foretelling in a most emphatic manner of the coming of a sudden storm. And, indeed, a group of gossips coming back from the East Cliff churchyard answered in a kind of call and respond to his wheezy warnings that they, too, had noticed a sudden show of ominous mares’ tails on the sea to the north.
At the table nearest to ours, an elderly woman sat by herself with the tell-tale kit of the ‘lady artist’ resting in a vacant chair. She was the picture of quiet dignity as she sipped her tea, and she smiled at me when our eyes met.
Something compelled me to make myself known to her.
Lucy noticed my attention and turned her head when I rose to greet the woman. With a nod to her bundled paints and sketchpads and brushes, I asked if she’d had a profitable day with the views.
She said she had and asked me about the area. I invited her to join Lucy and myself at our table, and she agreed.
Her name was Laura.
I worried Lucy might think my behavour strange, but I needn’t have. She took to the lady at once. We both did, and soon we were conversing with her as if she were our long-lost aunt (or great aunt) who had not seen us since childhood and was eager to hear all our news. Lucy even told of her three marriage proposals in one day, her dear Arthur, her future as Lady Godalming, and even her sleepwalking! I was just as frank about Jonathan.
Laura listened with great interest to our prattling. She said that she’d been raised in Austria by her English father and a governess in a castle. It all sounded quite fantastic to our ears, but it explained her accent.
I noticed Laura was soon was dividing her attention between Lucy’s face and the afternoon sky.
Eventually, dusk threatened, and we parted, Lucy and I to return home, and Laura to capture the sunset.
I am only recording this for what happened as we said good-bye. When Lucy had left the café, Laura touched my sleeve.
“Watch over her,” she said, nodding to Lucy, her face and voice grave. “She reminds me so much of myself that it quite takes me back. I was that innocent, too.” She pressed her lips together. “Darkness feasts on innocence.”
“Darkness?”
Her smile was grim. “There is darkness in the world, yes. And when it touches innocence, even if innocence survives it, there is an indelible mark. A scar that never heals completely.” She was looking out to sea, but it was clear her thoughts were somewhere far away. Then she blinked and turned her gaze back on me. “Something is coming, something that might be drawn to someone like her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry. The ramblings of an old woman. The best to you both.”
And with that, she took her leave. I stared after her, wondering just how darkness had touched her and what mark it had left until Lucy’s call stirred me.
I hope Laura was able to paint the sunset. It was spectacular. Red, purple, pink, green, violet, and all tints of gold, but with here and there masses of seemingly absolute darkness; the last, of course, made me think of her parting warning.
The storm is still raging, and Lucy has got up again. I must go and coax her back to bed.
LAURA’S JOURNAL
Dear—
I read of the girl’s death in the newspaper. I wonder how she died. The language of the obituary was cryptic, and I wonder if it was what I feared that day in August when I met them at the harbor. I wonder if the other one is suffering, too and if she will go the same way. I tried to warn them, but I even as I did, I knew it was futile. I was a stranger to them. If I had told them everything that had happened to me, they would condemn me as a mad old spinster. But, dear me, looking at the fair one, Lucy, it was like looking in an enchanted mirror at myself so very long ago. What more could I have done? Even if I had been known to them, someone they trusted, they would not have believed me. There is no way to dispel such innocence except through trial. I wish it were not so. I was fearful for them, and I think I had reason to be. That storm! It sounded like a carriage crashing in the forest, bringing with it darkness.
As soon as I read of the girl’s death, I hunted for the work I’d done of that sunset, the most remarkable one I’ve ever seen! The colours! Incredible. Magnificent. I studied the sketches and then the canvas.
In the canvas, I’d tackled the darkness amidst the colour, and, of course, wholly unbeknownst to me at the time, the darkest of the clouds was you, my dearest. Your silhouette, your face looking over that beautiful shoulder, that hungry gaze. Unmistakable. Indelible. Your mark on me has not faded or withered. It manifests like a storm cloud.
Oh, that poor girl. Oh, poor me. But when I paint, I paint you, my dearest Carmilla, and when I record my musing, they are always missives addressed to you.
Your obedient servant, L
Fandoms: Carmilla (book, le Fanu) & Dracula (book, Stoker)
Rating: Gen
Length: 1000
For: the 51+ Crossover Fandom Challenge prompt 04: dark.
Characters: Laura (Carmilla), Mina and Lucy (Dracula)
Summary: Mina and Lucy cross paths with an old lady on the afternoon before the storm.
MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL
7 August. An incredible storm is raging outside, and I cannot sleep. Lucy, too, is restless. Once she has got up and dressed. I managed to undress her and coax her back to bed without waking her.
I must record an earlier incident in the day before it escapes memory. Lucy and I were down by the harbor. The weather was as fine, and there were a great many holiday-makers about.
It was late afternoon, and Lucy and I were enjoying a drink at the harbor cafe, chatting amicably. An old fisherman came lumbering by, foretelling in a most emphatic manner of the coming of a sudden storm. And, indeed, a group of gossips coming back from the East Cliff churchyard answered in a kind of call and respond to his wheezy warnings that they, too, had noticed a sudden show of ominous mares’ tails on the sea to the north.
At the table nearest to ours, an elderly woman sat by herself with the tell-tale kit of the ‘lady artist’ resting in a vacant chair. She was the picture of quiet dignity as she sipped her tea, and she smiled at me when our eyes met.
Something compelled me to make myself known to her.
Lucy noticed my attention and turned her head when I rose to greet the woman. With a nod to her bundled paints and sketchpads and brushes, I asked if she’d had a profitable day with the views.
She said she had and asked me about the area. I invited her to join Lucy and myself at our table, and she agreed.
Her name was Laura.
I worried Lucy might think my behavour strange, but I needn’t have. She took to the lady at once. We both did, and soon we were conversing with her as if she were our long-lost aunt (or great aunt) who had not seen us since childhood and was eager to hear all our news. Lucy even told of her three marriage proposals in one day, her dear Arthur, her future as Lady Godalming, and even her sleepwalking! I was just as frank about Jonathan.
Laura listened with great interest to our prattling. She said that she’d been raised in Austria by her English father and a governess in a castle. It all sounded quite fantastic to our ears, but it explained her accent.
I noticed Laura was soon was dividing her attention between Lucy’s face and the afternoon sky.
Eventually, dusk threatened, and we parted, Lucy and I to return home, and Laura to capture the sunset.
I am only recording this for what happened as we said good-bye. When Lucy had left the café, Laura touched my sleeve.
“Watch over her,” she said, nodding to Lucy, her face and voice grave. “She reminds me so much of myself that it quite takes me back. I was that innocent, too.” She pressed her lips together. “Darkness feasts on innocence.”
“Darkness?”
Her smile was grim. “There is darkness in the world, yes. And when it touches innocence, even if innocence survives it, there is an indelible mark. A scar that never heals completely.” She was looking out to sea, but it was clear her thoughts were somewhere far away. Then she blinked and turned her gaze back on me. “Something is coming, something that might be drawn to someone like her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry. The ramblings of an old woman. The best to you both.”
And with that, she took her leave. I stared after her, wondering just how darkness had touched her and what mark it had left until Lucy’s call stirred me.
I hope Laura was able to paint the sunset. It was spectacular. Red, purple, pink, green, violet, and all tints of gold, but with here and there masses of seemingly absolute darkness; the last, of course, made me think of her parting warning.
The storm is still raging, and Lucy has got up again. I must go and coax her back to bed.
LAURA’S JOURNAL
Dear—
I read of the girl’s death in the newspaper. I wonder how she died. The language of the obituary was cryptic, and I wonder if it was what I feared that day in August when I met them at the harbor. I wonder if the other one is suffering, too and if she will go the same way. I tried to warn them, but I even as I did, I knew it was futile. I was a stranger to them. If I had told them everything that had happened to me, they would condemn me as a mad old spinster. But, dear me, looking at the fair one, Lucy, it was like looking in an enchanted mirror at myself so very long ago. What more could I have done? Even if I had been known to them, someone they trusted, they would not have believed me. There is no way to dispel such innocence except through trial. I wish it were not so. I was fearful for them, and I think I had reason to be. That storm! It sounded like a carriage crashing in the forest, bringing with it darkness.
As soon as I read of the girl’s death, I hunted for the work I’d done of that sunset, the most remarkable one I’ve ever seen! The colours! Incredible. Magnificent. I studied the sketches and then the canvas.
In the canvas, I’d tackled the darkness amidst the colour, and, of course, wholly unbeknownst to me at the time, the darkest of the clouds was you, my dearest. Your silhouette, your face looking over that beautiful shoulder, that hungry gaze. Unmistakable. Indelible. Your mark on me has not faded or withered. It manifests like a storm cloud.
Oh, that poor girl. Oh, poor me. But when I paint, I paint you, my dearest Carmilla, and when I record my musing, they are always missives addressed to you.
Your obedient servant, L