CONTENT WARNINGS:
- As has already been mentioned in the story, Violeta was not turned into a vampire by choice. Having one's body changed by someone else has its own traumatic connotations even if it isn't supposed to be analogous to one specific thing here, so be careful.
- Mentions of death, dying, and the sensation of such a thing.
- Mention of suicide, in the context of Violeta speaking of the 'strigoi' myth.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When Violeta says 'both of you...' later, she's referring to Clementia and Juniper who she's relaying this whole story to. I didn't want to use quotation marks for the whole thing.
Violeta
Back in the day, I lived a simple rural life in the fields of Ravenwood, as many did back then before the cities were choked with fumes.
I worked as a tailor alongside my father Vasile and my mother Sorina, both of whom surpassed all expectations by surviving horrific illness and growing old gracefully. When I was younger, I hoped to inherit their luck.
Most of our customers were working and fighting men who needed their clothes altered or mended. However, we fixed far more than just clothes- the rich folk would often have their children's beloved dolls and bears mended as well, much to the children's delight. Some of these dolls would come in with cracked paint and faces, and we would return them as if they were sparkling and new.
Even in their old age, Sorina and Vasile worked hard, their hands calloused by their years of labour. They dreamed at they would one day be able to earn enough to rest, but that luxury only belonged to a select few. Another way in which they considered themselves blessed with extraordinary luck was the way their love persevered over the years. My father was always good to my mother. In all of my memory, he never once lay a hand on her, and never once cornered her. Vasile was a man that, much like Oskar, I would never meet again in my lifetime.
We were fairly popular with the surrounding countryfolk. People would always say the same things about me-
Just look at her smile.
She's always friendly, always smiling.
She's always so cheerful.
Such a lovely smile.
Smiles, smiles, smiles - it was all they would talk about. Eventually, the warmth of compliments turned into a stirring of feelings on the matter- one I would ask Mother about.
As I grew older, the smiling grew more difficult. I worried for my parents, and I found I'd changed greatly since my blood had stopped. No matter the weather, I felt hot all over, forgetful, and somewhat irritable. The one point of value I appeared to have to people was becoming harder and harder. And so I asked my old mother whilst she washed her clothes-
Don't you ever question it?
I remember the look she gave me, the shock upon her face when I asked. Didn't she? Didn't she question why we were always supposed to smile?
In a few years, I would be fifty- an age many others like me would never reach. Fifty years of smiling, of endless kindness and compassion. My mother still smiled away at her age like it was nothing, yet I no longer felt the draw to the masquerade.
I have never questioned anything, my dear- that's what she said to me. That is how I am still standing at this age. I've never questioned a thing. The moment you begin asking questions, you dissolve into madness. You must learn to keep smiling, else you will go mad, my dear- and you will never find a husband if you do not smile.
I loved my mother dearly, but she had always mourned that I never had children when I was able to. She insisted that though my time to bear children was over, my time to find a husband was not. I feel in this day and age, she would have considered a little forceful. She only wanted me to be happy- it was all she'd ever wanted ever since I was born.
I noticed the pain in her expression. She may have told me she never questioned it, but in that moment, she did. She questioned if there was ever a life for a woman that included as much devotion to herself as to everyone else around her.
I remember how much I pored over it in my mind ever since that revelation. When I milked our cow at the time, Cici, and eyed her mindless gaze across the horizon- I wondered if my mother was right. Cici never questioned her life of constant service. We loved her, but ultimately, she was destined for slaughter, as is any woman, now that I look back on it. Cici never lived a single day for herself, and yet she happily munched away at grass without a care in the world. Perhaps that is why men love to compare us to cows- that is how they want us to live, also.
* * *
The following day, a regular customer returned.
Eugen had been coming to us for some time for alterations and fixes to his clothes. He was a labourer and didn't have a wife, and so he relied on us to make necessary repairs. He was always so friendly. They always are, aren't they, until you can't give them what they want from you.
He'd always make small talk. Oh, how I tired of small talk, and how little I cared about the weather- but I had to keep up the mask. So many years perfecting the feminine chuckle, just genuine enough to satisfy the needs of the self-obsessed and just false enough to move the conversation on.
Eugen told me that I had a lovely smile.
I was many things. I was a good daughter. I was a brilliant tailor and seamstress. My skills meant nothing to anyone except for my own flesh and blood.
My smile had become as second-nature as the ticking of a clock.
So had my thanks. I revised them over and over in my mind whenever we had customers. I'd become less of a human being and more of some kind of grinning porcelain doll.
Then, Eugen asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. The tone of his voice was smooth and false. He was trying to impress me, wasn't he? I thought to how my mother wanted me to find a husband, and how I'd never had interest in any of the men I'd met. I'd always been open to the idea of a husband, but I'd never found anyone that I wanted to spend my life with.
In that moment, all I cared for was making my mother happy. I said yes. I didn't want to say yes; I barely knew the man, but if nothing else, perhaps I'd have had a nice stroll- and might have gotten lucky enough to discuss something other than my subservience.
I could never be too careful, so I brought a dagger with me, just in case. Back then, the thought of killing someone made me sick. How times have changed, hm?
* * *
I always enjoyed nature walks. I liked to imagine the stories of other passersby and watch the squirrels play amongst the trees. Perhaps one of the things most upsetting about vampirism is that I have slowly watched the natural world I grew up in lose itself to factories and industry.
Eugen's company was rather welcome. He spoke of his work helping to build houses and furniture, and asked me more about my own. If anything, I genuinely appreciated him for asking something about it. I told him some interesting stories about customers and the items I'd fixed up for them. He seemed interested, and it became a fairly-frequent occasion.
I remember the day when Eugen admitted feelings for me. He called me beautiful, and many things I never thought I would hear- clever, skilled, intelligent. I hate to admit it, but it touched me- perhaps not with romance, but it meant something.
I hadn't expected his physical advances- his hand on my cheek left a chill through me. The only reason I'd responded to them is because I thought of my mother and her wishes, and the wishes of the world for me. What kind of woman got to her late forties and wasn't married, let alone single?
When he puts his hand on mine, I prayed he didn't feel the knife in my pocket.
Now this was an expression I didn't know how to put on. Admiration? Appreciation? Even though I didn't feel love for him at that point, he certainly seemed to take my friendly feelings as something more meaningful. I didn't bother to explain that it wasn't - I just kept saying 'thank you', over and over.
I pathetically told him: I'm too old for this. All he said to me that was my age only made me wiser and more beautiful.
Long after he left for evening, what he said had left something of an impression on me. Could I possibly still be lovable, even at this...easily-discarded age?
* * *
After two weeks of meetings and getting to know each other, I found myself growing closer to Eugen. I felt genuinely loved by him- something I never thought I'd experience.
Our first kiss was next to a beautiful lake. I don't remember much about what we spoke about- sweet nothings, I imagine. I would have wanted nothing else from him.
That said, I remember my first kiss with utter clarity. I remember how little I responded to his lips meeting mine. I didn't try to stop him - I just didn't know what I wanted, or why I wanted it. My feelings for Eugen were strange. I couldn't tell if they were my feelings, or my mother's expectations, or the world's expectations. My life from birth until then had been nothing but fulfilling expectations. Like many women back then, I'd hollowed my soul out into a performative shell, and I was willing to let men fill the void of my personality with whatever they so wished or expected of me.
It felt good, I remember that all too well. In hindsight, I don't know if it was the kiss, or the knowledge that what I was doing would make me marginally more respectable to the world.
My mother was overjoyed, as was my father- but of course, the topic of her desires for me had changed. No, it wasn't enough for me to be in love with Eugen.
She wanted me to marry him. He worked hard, made decent money, and I would have been -in her words- 'complete'. At that time, many didn't marry for love, and parents always knew best. I rarely doubted my mother's intuition. Looking back, it may seem to you like my mother didn't care for what was best for me- but she did, in her own way. She never once regretted her marriage. She loved Vasile with all her heart, and Vasile was always good to her. She only hoped that her daughter would find the happiness that she did in a man.
* * *
I never did marry Eugen, but I did eventually move in and live with him. The benefit of rural life was there were far less people to judge such untypical arrangements. My mother and father were aging, but they urged me to focus on my own life. I still worked with them for a few days a week, and still visited to help when necessary.
Not long after I'd moved in with Eugen...that was when my entire life would be changed forever.
I was walking home from visiting my mother and father. The night felt no different than usual.
Where I am from, we called the vampires strigoi. The vampires from my birthplace were very different from the likes of the others I knew- many had various animalistic forms or aspects about them. They were thought to be spirits raised from the dead to drink the life force of the living. At first, I believed them to be stories told to small children so that they would not venture out at night.
When I'd heard a stirring sound, I thought little of it at first. I considered it to just be some nocturnal animal skulking about for its supper...
As it turned out, I was at least partially correct.
I heard the beating of feathered wings - far too loud and breezy to be of any creature to my knowledge.
My recollection of what happened is like a tattered book. Some parts I remember vaguely- others, in absolute clarity.
She looked like some sort of harpy with her birdlike feet and wings. Her claws were enormous- the ones I have in my vampiric form very much look like hers. It is the only thing my form has in common with hers.
I see both of you look shocked. Yes, 'she'. I've spent all of my life defending women, and yet one of the two people who took everything from me was a woman, but we shall talk about that later.
That night taught me that monsters were real, after all- that these 'scary' stories exist for a reason, and not just to frighten children into obeying their parents.
That said, much like scary stories, monsters also exist for a reason. The strigoi were often thought to have rose from the dead after a violent or self-inflicted death, who returned to feed on the blood of the living. Someone had wronged this woman in life, that is what I still believe.
The sheer terror that I felt...I can't recall that emotion now, but I can just imagine how frightening it must have been for someone like me. In my mind, I'd just started a new chapter of my life only to have it end. Who would look after my parents if I died? - that was my main line of thinking.
I ran, knowing full well it was futile to do so. To at least try to escape death felt mildly more fulfilling than standing there and doing nothing.
I tripped in the grass, and in that moment, I knew that it was over for me. My eyes remained fixated on the lightening sky, the approaching dawn, hoping that it would scare her off, or that the light would turn her to ashes.
When she sank her fangs into me, I was so distracted by the fear of death that I never stopped to wonder if the strigoi could turn others into creatures like them, the same way the vampires of other places could. All that ran through my mind was quick flashes of pleasant memories, a thousand potential futures cut short, my mother and father weeping over my grave.
No, don't worry, Clementia. I am fine. Allow me to continue.
The feeling that I was dying...that was something most peculiar. The way I lost control of my limbs, the way my body felt so cold and looked so pale- it was a kind of unimaginable terror. The strangest part about death is the peaceful nature of it, even in such disastrous situations.
Once she'd had her fill, she sank her fangs back into me a second time. All I remember before I must have died was her gazing at the emerging morning, tossing me into the rain-soaked grass and flying off into the distance.
As horrible as it all seems to you both, from the point of view of a vampire - it is the most heinous thing you could do to anyone else. It is the kind of experience you would not wish on your worst enemy. The reason that we are not everywhere is because turning another person is a huge responsibility. You have to ask yourself: Is this the kind of person I want to exist with for eternity? Second: Do I have what it takes to show them the ways of their new life?
I do not know why she did this to me. It took some years, but I eventually stopped considering why- some people are just cruel for the sake of being cruel. To leave a vampire alone to fend for themselves is something even the least empathetic of us consider evil in itself.
It wouldn't be the first time that I had my livelihood taken from me.