Apathy.

The rain drops slide over the tinted window panes, disappearing and re-emerging from the cracks. Anna slides her fingers with them and hopes that she could fall through the cracks as well. Disappear from this body and from this life. She sees the servants from the corner of her eye as they pass the sill where she is sitting. She ignores their questioning looks as well as she ignores her father’s warning tones from the other end of the room.

Don’t be like your mother, girl. There is just death that way.

She won’t listen to him, won’t take to heart the sorrow and anger in his voice. Deep down Anna knows that she is like her mother; courting death and danger just for the sake of disappearing.

She unlocks the latch and lets the rain water bleed onto the sill and soak into her clothes. It chills her skin and makes her shiver. It wakes her up and pushes a small thrill through her.

Death this way.

That is what her father had said, and it is what she can read from her brother’s eyes when he thinks that she is not looking. She wonders if it was the same call her mother felt when she walked into the ocean; the same thrill and coldness enveloping her flesh and bones. Anna wonders if it began just like this, with rain drops in her clothes chilling her away from this apathy and sorrow.


Muse: Anna Valerious
Word count: 244
Fandom: Van Helsing

Mercy

The blood is bright on the snow covered lake, it bubbles out of the wound erratically. The ice creaks under her feet and Anna knows that the weight of the vampires would have weakened the thinning ice much more than the first rays of the spring ever would. But she pays no heed to the ominous sounds. She steps closer, reaching out her hand to touch the blood bubbles breaking out on the girl's neck. They break against the pads of her fingers with a gentle pop. The other girl looks at her, eyes frightened wide, wild and dying. She is not yet fifteen, merely a year younger than Anna herself.

She knows the girl. Not personally, but from the way she lies defeated in the snow, Anna can recognize her own kin. While she is protected and taught to fight so she may carry on the noble and frightful tradition of her family, this girl is instructed to hide. She dies as casualty of Anna's own curse, and for a second she feels glad that it is not her. But that thought only lasts for a moment before it is replaced by jealousy.

Harshly she lets her knees fall against the ice. It's hold is too weak and it breaks under their combined weight. Water rushes past Anna's waist and the sheets of ice fold and spike up. She holds on to the other girl's neck and forces her face below the water. She doesn't struggle, just falls under the dark water. Anna can see the red blood bubbles disappearing into the water and she dives after them.

Under the ice sheets the world is silent and cold. The other girl's eyes are still open, but she can see life begging to drain away. Again, as fiercely as before, the jealousy rises in Anna. She wants to be the one allowed to stay here in the silence of the water. She wants this silent mercy and darkness to embrace her and take her away. She opens her mouth to breath it in.

Her brother's hands pull her through the crack and she can hear her father's voice strong, but afraid in the distance. She breathes raggedly through her frozen lips, and hates the painful throb of blood in her veins.


Muse: Anna Valerious
Fandom: Van Helsing
Wordcount: 382

Her dreams are filled with blood and sweat and her mother’s hands guiding her flesh. They never make sense after she wakes and the bright morning rays pierce her eyes.

They make no sense, and they mean nothing.

Velkan sometimes speaks about his dreams. Silently and swiftly while they are out on the hunt, with his lips pressed again the earth and leaves. He dreams about Dracula and about the wolves. He thinks that they mean that their victory is close, for how can the blood and pain of his dreams mean anything else.

Anna breathes in the mud and says nothing. She does not have the heart to tell her brother of her dreams. She does not wish to burden his mind with the images of their mother, or how warm her hands are on her skin. He does not remember mother, so Anna guards her memories and her dreams. She cannot bring herself to tell him that dreams mean nothing when her he is so content in his ignorance.

Her dreams mean nothing and she forgets them with the morning light. If there are things hidden within them, some glimpse of the future it is not that of freedom. Because every night Anna feels the blood and the sweat and it is not that of triumph.

Muse: Anna Valerious
Word count: 218
Fandom: Van Helsing

This year we will win. This year I will not let anyone die. This year I shall not press the hilt of my blade against the inside of my arm and enjoy the pain.

I promise to slay him. I promise that I will obey my father and accept the husband who is coming. I will not let the crimson blood of my brother’s soil the white table linen.

Every year Anna Valerious make promises and vows. Silently she whispers them to herself and imagines and they disappear like smoke into the air, like her breath ghosted against the morning sky. Every year she promises with the knowledge that she will never keep her vows.

Muse: Anna Valerious
Word count: 115
Fandom: Van Helsing

His fingers slid down her spine and then up again, disappearing into the hair in the back of her neck; then making their way back down again, and again. Anna knew she would die today, one way or the other. They would find Dracula and she would die killing him. Gabriel would change into what he loathed and he would hunt her down. And she would let him. Her life would end in the same violent way she had lived it.

She had never had very much to be thankful for.

His hands were replaced by his lips and Anna buried her hands into the pillow and called out his name. Gabriel. Was it so wrong of her to be thankful for this; his hands and lips making her shake and shiver in pleasure instead of pain. His body making her forget who she was and what she was placed on this earth to do.

Yes, she had this to be thankful for.

Tomorrow she could face her death with this pleasure still singing in her veins, with the imprints of his hand still lingering on her body. That would be a good death and she could be grateful for it.


Muse: Anna Valerious
Word count: 207
Fandom: Van Helsing

Anna knows that no event in the world is singular. She sees the past in the images of her ancestors, their portraits lining the walls of her house, reminding her how her life will eventually end. But Anna knows that she and Velkan will break the cycle of death; after they are gone there will be no one left. Part of her rejoices in that, celebrates her victory over history, but most of the time she is sad. For she knows that the only thing that will be left of her is a portrait. It will be hung next to her mother in the hall leading to the dining room. It will remind those that will come to fight Dracula after she is gone, that history always comes a full circle.

Muse: Anna Valerious
Word count: 136
Fandom: Van Helsing

When she was seventeen she tried not to think about it. Her father had begun a search for a husband for her. He would be older than her, an experienced warrior, someone who would produce strong heirs. Anna felt ill at the though and would not eat for days. She taunted Dracula, almost courted him, but for some reason he never took the bait. She often wondered if it was because he could feel her revulsion towards her future husband.

Her groom came to visit her on her eighteenth birthday and during dinner she struck a fork through his hand. Her father screamed at her door for hours after he had left. Velkan was the one who finally made her father understand that she would willingly never marry, she was too much like her brother, too independent and wild. Her father would not speak to her for many days, but then he lost his eye, and could no longer fight properly.

For the longest time she refused to think about marriage. Anna dreamed of dead babies shriveling up inside her body and felt ill in the mornings. When her father dissapeared and Velkan closed inside his own grief, she finally allowed her mind to wander down those paths. In their isolation she began to understand her father’s desperation and his need to see her marry.

Like her, he had seen so many of their kin die in this endless battle, that he needed the illusion of continuity, the hope of future generations accomplishing what he could not. In her dreams the dead babies were replaced by live ones. She would dream herself swollen and pregnant and revel in the life growing within her. She would wake up and feel empty. And she would know that it was too late now.


Muse: Anna Valerious
Word count: 302
Fandom: Van Helsing

Satisfaction

Sometimes Anna wonders about the end, wonders if it possible for her to win; for them to win. She wonders what it would be like to feel that triumph. Would she have peace then, satisfaction of a quest fulfilled and ancestors restored to their rightful place by Saint Peter’s side? Or would there still be nothing. Would she still be as empty as she is today? She fears that her heart is not strong enough to find salvation in the death of Dracula. She fears that she is not deserving of such grace.

She watches Van Helsing as he prepares his weapons with a grim face and wonders if he feels satisfaction each time an evil creature is brought down, or does he find sorrow in their death as she does. She knows it is wrong to grieve for evil, grieve for a creature that had nothing good to give to the world. But if she cannot grieve for them, then she cannot shed tears for her brother or those who came before her; those ancestors of hers who were not strong enough to resist the pull and seduction of evil. They were all sinners in the eyes of God. As is she.

Muse: Anna Valerious
Fandom: Van Helsing
Word Count: 204

Underneath the armour their bones were tiny and brittle. They broke with a snap between her hands and the furious snap of their teeth quelled. Her hands bled profusely, blood making patterns on the dusty ground. She surveyed the bodies around her, still waiting for that glimmer of satisfaction that always came with a kill, but today she remained empty. Today, there was no reprieve found in the slaughter. One of the dwergi convulsed on the ground. Furiously she wrenched the creature’s neck, nearly dislocating its head from the little body. Then everything was still again.

Velkan would not look at her upon her return. His face a pale mask, eyes fixed onto some distant point in the horizon. He did not mark upon her bleeding arms as Anna silently disappeared to the bowels of the house. He would not believe it. His endless optimism would create multitude of reasons why their father was held up on his trip.

She washed her hands and the water turned red in the bowl. The wounds stung and her skin itched but she pressed her fingers into the welts and tried to make her mind forget. He was gone and they were alone now. Her one eyed, gruff father would never be afraid for her, would never be disappointed in her, and would never see her fail. Not anymore.

Her fingers were numb and her writing nearly illegible as she tried to grip the quill and ignore the pain. She used her father’s stationary and her brother’s name. The Vatican would never accept a plea from her. They would let her family die out if she was the only one left. But they would help Velkan, the prince of the crown, even if it by birth belonged to her.

The messenger was an old weathered man, the crow’s feet around his eyes sunken and sharp. He tucked the letter into his coat and Anna feared for his safety. In the parlour Velkan’s words were void of all emotion.

“I know what you did.”

She would not reply, for she knew her brother. He needed this to battle his own sorrow.

“How could you have lost all hope, Anna?”

But there was no accusation in his voice and her thoughts were as helpless as his words. It is not hope that I have lost, but my father.

Muse: Anna Valerious
Fandom: Van Helsing
Word count: 393

.... no love, no glory
no hero in her sky......

i.

The leaves were wet and prickly against her feet. The moist air and earth filled her lungs and made it hard to breathe. The bones of the corset and the weight of the dress were long gone but she could still feel them around her body, as if forever etched in her flesh. Tears had been such strangers to her, that it was odd to feel them now, heavy against her eyelids. His light was still on, sharp in the darkness.

ii.

She had always loved her father’s house; its long shadowy corridors and cold stone. She hated it now. Hated the ghosts that lingered in its walls. The light from underneath his door cast playful shadows and light on the Persian rug and she pushed the door open. He was crouched on the bed, like the animal he was to become, with the linen in a dirty, messy heap around his body. He croaked and growled her to leave, but she would not.

iii.

His hands were coarse and hard as they travelled in all the places she had forever kept hidden. She kept her touches soft and her nails sharp against the shivering skin of his back. She tasted salt and let him move her like the waves would. He was her ocean; endless and harsh. In the sharp light, as the dawn crept across the floor, he whispered her name and she promised to be his protection against the night.

Muse: Anna Valerious
Fandom: Van Helsing
Word count: 250

So you wish to know about Dracula? You want to see him through my eyes and perhaps catch a glimpse of that mythical beast that seems to fascinate everyone. But that is not what I see. There is nothing mythical or fascinating about him.

Have you ever despised anybody? Not just the common hatred we all posses towards bad weather and people in the train cart who smell bad; but held true despisal towards a thing? It is very different from hatred. Hatred chokes you and makes you immobile and unable to defend yourself. Anger makes you weak and open, because in the end it derives from fear.

I had to stop being afraid a long time ago. If you were afraid Dracula, he would tear you up from your innards out. Despisal on the other hand gives you the moral high ground and it is very easy to have that against a creature of pure darkness and evil. I’ve killed and done things which I would pay for dearly after my death if my family did not have an accord with the Almighty. But I am still not evil, reprehensible maybe, but not evil. So it is easy for me to despise him. It would be easy for me to kill him.

But that is not really what makes an arch nemesis, is it? I fight against him because he is evil. I fight because that is what my family needs. I fight because I must.

People think there is seduction in Dracula that humans cannot fight against or hope to imitate. I have never seen that in him. How could I possibly be seduced by something that has taken away everything I have ever loved? How could there be attraction? I do sometimes wish that he would take my life and end it all. I so wish to see my family again, even if it would be in the fiery pit of Lucifer’s purgatory. It could not be worse than this. To me he is god and judgement on the earth; who takes away the best of us in the beginning leaving the unworthy to suffer alone. That is why he is my enemy.

muse: Anna Valerious
fandom: Van Helsing
word count: 366

After a storm comes a calm they say. She wonders if they have ever withstood a storm, if they have even been torn by its strength? Anna knows that what they say is wrong. After a storm comes a flurry of motion and panic, the desperate need to rebuild and to repair what was destroyed before another storm hits and tears everything apart again. People do trade and get married and do all the things which they would have feared to during ill weather. There is nothing calm about these actions. People do not stop to breathe the clear air or watch the leaves sodden on the ground. They have no time for such foolish actions. Their need for the calm that comes after every storm springs up from fear, so Anna does not look for clear weather anymore.

She does understand why they believe in a calm after the storm. It is not because they have seen it, but because they need the lie of it to live through the bad weather. They want the idea of the clear still air, even if they will never experience it. She often wonders about these mirages of nature that people build. She admires them from afar and hopes that she could believe in them again. But her faith in the calm has been stripped and her bones clawed bare. She can no longer see the glimmering horizon that travels behind the dark clouds. Her sight is obstructed by thick forests and looming mountain tops. Her mother said that she was a storm child, and now Anna understands what she meant.

Anna knows that the calm exists only inside the storm, in its centre. If you can withstand its awesome strength, you can find the calm, but it is not that of still air or wet leaves on the ground. It is cold and biting and it strips you. And every time she allows it to break her harder. She stands and lets the leaves be torn about her and has no fear. In the end that is how all of her family dies. They stop fearing the storm and it eats them whole. She as well will die and part of her welcomes it. She can no longer live on a mirage, on a hope of something that can never exists for her.

Sometimes she wonders if there are storms in Heaven too.

muse: Anna Valerious
fandom: Van Helsing
words: 402

Introduction:

Anna Valerious does not like telling other people who she is. It is not in her nature to be social and to share things with others. But she should learn.

She is a princess and has social standing among her people, the gypsies. But being a gypsy princess is very different from being a princess, the heir, of a country. Her people are vagrants and vagabond, they move around, rarely settling down. Her social standing has structured her life. It does not give her great wealth or prospects, but it gives her freedom. Because of her title she can govern herself, be independent in ways that would never be possible for a daughter of a commoner. Not that there is much difference between the commoners and nobility among her people. The King’s and Queens are merely the leaders of clans. They rule a Kingdom as vast as the earth. Their subjects are always on the move, but her family stopped moving long time ago. They stood still when one of her ancestors spawned an evil creature which the world had never seen before.

That is why she is not social. She cannot afford friends or lovers. She cannot afford to give any part of herself away in fear that it would hinder her in the fight against Dracula. And she fears that any attachment on her part would lead into the destruction of those beloved to her. But she wants to learn. She wants to feel people close by without fear. She wants to know if there is strength to be found in friendship. Or is there only death and fear for her in life.

She should be strong; it is what her station demands of her. But inside she is weak, she wishes for the comfort of husband even though she knows it will take away her freedom. She wishes that someone would take her away from this icy land and show her the beauty she knows the world has to offer. The vagrant in her blood wishes to walk away, to leave all old behind and discover something new. But these are thoughts only let out in the privacy of her room. Given life in the dark moments when she is alone.

On the outside she is strong. She stands and weathers in the face of death and suffering and glory. She knows that in the end she will stand alone and she knows that she will die, and for a moment that thought is not so frightening anymore.

muse: Anna Valerious
word count: 421

Topic 30: Tell us a secret.

I have never ever told this to anyone before. Not even to my priest, or my brother.

I never pray. Ever.

I lost the sight of it when mom died. Not matter what I did or asked for. No matter how much penance I paid, death always came back. It ate away the people around me, took away their smiles and their strength.

We were supposed to be the warriors of God. We kept the devil at bay at any cost. But He never answered the prayers of a child, so why should I pray now? Why should He listen to the prayers of a woman? How could He, after all that I have done.

I go with the motions. I go to church and I kneel at the altar. I bow at the image of the Christ, but they are just motions; in me there is nothing, no hope or wish of a better tomorrow. I know this quest will claim my life, like it has those who came before. My fingers play over the rosary and I feel the words in my mouth. The familiar shape of them on my tongue, but I remain silent. There is nothing He can give me anymore.

Death is my companion now. It is the familiar presence in the back of my mind. I want to get acquainted with it; feel the sharp edges of it until it makes my fingers bleed. Over time it will become a friend; something comforting and inevitable. I do not need to pray for it, for I know it. Knowledge does not require faith, for I have none of it left. I live now on certainties and on tangible things.

Prayer was never tangible, so I could not find any comfort in it. And now I do not.

muse: Anna Valerious
word count: 293