Once in a Blood Moon (Another Life Part One)

Chapter Five

Serana led the werewolf through the halls to a courtyard lit by a quarter moon hanging in the sky. It was filled by a garden, one that had been lovingly tended by her and her mother for centuries. Her father never came here, especially after her mother had disappeared, and as things between them steadily eroded, she found herself here more often than not, seeking refuge in the tranquil spot.

“My mother was a better hand at guiding the plants to grow a certain way,” she said in the quiet of the night, breathing air she didn't need for the sweet smell of the garden. “I try and keep it tended as best I can, but without her…”

She trailed off, noticing that the werewolf she escorted was looking anywhere but at her. Reminding herself that this was no guest to be entertained, she led on through an out-of-the-way door in the back of the courtyard, revealing steps that led up into one of the castles towers. The stairs wound their way up to the top of the tower where the door opened on a room full of tables littered with glassware and containers filled with magical ingredients. She held back a breath she would have used to tell Elayn about the place, and instead went to stand before a table holding her most current project.

Before her mother's disappearance, they had been tinkering with a shape-shifting potion. This one in particular would transform the user into the shape of a common rat for-- well she had yet to test the durations of the effects, but she was reasonably certain they wouldn't be permanent. It had taken months to find the ingredients she needed, fresh from the source, and now it was time to brew the components together, hopefully with the result of a functioning potion.

None of this had she meant to say out loud, but when she caught Elayn staring at her with an unreadable expression that she realized she had been speaking her thoughts. Unreadable, but not unfriendly. That was something, at least, maybe. Serana busied herself with the intricacies of potion-brewing and tried not to think about the werewolf crouching in a corner of her lab.

But eventually she could smell sunrise coming and she knew it was time for both of them to go to bed. She stepped away from the table with an air of finality and Elayn rose, cringing a little. Serana realized why, she was using muscles that had been locked in place for hours. The werewolf had never once stopped watching her from the corner, as if wary she might be planning something malicious, and Serana sighed as she realized that no, Elayn was not any closer to trusting her, and there was nothing she could do about that except show her over time that she truly meant her no ill will.

She led the way back to her bedroom and readied herself for sleep trying to ignore the werewolf who was yet again in the-- what was with her and corners anyway?

Right, back to the wall, where she could see everything in the room.
Serana sighed again, louder this time, and sat on her bed. “If you’d like,” she said stiffly. “You can sleep at the foot of my bed.”   

Those silver eyes were regarding her with murderous intent. “Like a dog,” she spat. “I’d rather sleep on the floor.”

Serana was struck silent. She hadn’t meant-- “Fine. You do that.”
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Elayn woke to a symphony of aching joints and muscles thanks to a long and cold night sleeping with her head on her bent knees, back against the corner. It wasn’t anything she wasn’t used to after many a long, cold night up a tree or in a hole somewhere, but it still hurt.

She woke before the vampire, already catching up to the strange schedule of her kind, and stretched what limbs she could noiselessly. Her mistress slept on even as she rose and stretched her torso on both sides. It was funny, Elayn could creep right up on her and she wouldn’t even notice.
Now if only she could find somewhere to keep a stake.

She couldn’t help a grim chuckle, which was noisy enough to wake her mistress. Quick as a cat she was back in her corner, standing, waiting.

Watching.

Because any minute now, her mistress would turn bloody and violent like the rest of them. Her run-in with the bastard in fine robes had taught her that well enough.

But the vampire woke and readied herself for the night with nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement as she went about her business. Elayn had to give her credit, she certainly had more patience with her games than the rest of the creatures she’d had the misfortune to come into contact with. So she followed along like a dutiful pet while Serana went to her lab to practice her…

Alchemy. Elayn wasn’t sure how she felt about that part. It wasn’t any kind of magic she had run into before, and the closest thing she could relate it to was her use of healing herbs, but clearly herbs had nothing to do with the strange things the vampire kept in her lab.
Things that she had her fetching, running about like an errand child for whatever she needed that happened to be out of reach. On the one hand, Elayn wanted to be annoyed, because it seemed menial, but on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly as though she had been looking forward to her corner. Fine, this she could tolerate with ease.

Thus the nights went on as the moon waxed fuller and fuller and there came a morning where Serana woke to find Elayn pacing to and fro, panting as though she’d finished a race, her silver eyes bright even in the darkness of the room, as yet unlit by the fireplace standing cold.

“Elayn?” the vampire asked, concern clear in her voice, even more so in her bearing as she chose to stay in her bed.

She forced herself to stop pacing, and to not stare at the vampire. It would not help. “The moon is full tonight,” she said, well aware the wolf was growling behind her voice. “I need to change. I cannot in this collar.”

She clawed yet again at the wretched thing, knowing she was leaving welts and incensed enough not to give a damn.

Then suddenly the vampire was in front of her. How had she moved so swiftly? Elayn was stunned enough that it lessened some of the burning in her spine and she stood still while her mistress loosened the collar.

As it came away she felt the magic crawl yet again over her skin, only this time not to retreat into an agony of pins and needles. Instead she felt the euphoria of the change rush through her body as her bare skin became fur and her limbs shifted into a more fitting shape. She closed her eyes and when they opened she looked up at her mistress from where she stood on four legs and paws. She shook her coat-- the same sandy color as her hair when she walked on two feet. The moon’s call, formidable even though it was nowhere near its peak, lessened now that she was in this form, and she sighed in relief and let her haunches sink to the ground.

“Well now,” her mistress said, eyeing her appraisingly. “Stunning in both forms, I see.”

Then she went bright red, turned her back, and walked directly out the door. Elayn followed after a moment of shock herself.