Chapter Text
[Notes: No lyrics I ever use in this fic will be owned by me! But all credit to the artists will be applied at the bottom, always.
I never write fanfiction and wanna take a crack at dark comedy-- I have Taika Waititi to thank for that.
You’ll find this fanfic will often be written like a script. I’m trying to balance the sense of a fanfiction but also not lose the tone of What We Do in the Shadows. So I’m attempting a mix of them both and trying to let the structure be loose for the sake of breaking it up to feel like the pacing of the show/movies comedy. This will be my only beginning note and I promise the flow of the story starts to kick in best towards the end of the chapter.
Liberties are taken for the sake of silliness so I hope all is forgiven!]
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We cut to our first scene of a brown haired beauty elegantly letting her fingers dance against the keys of a piano. Her voice is like silk when she sings:
“ Don’t sing if you want to live long…
They have no use for your song.
You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead,
And outta this world.”
It doesn’t take long before she started banging on the keys, screaming as if in ecstasy as she belts out the next lyrics. Our camera follows the corner of the room, witnessing two darkly cloaked ethereal looking beings. This new frighteningly lovely woman is smiling ear to ear from the display, while the brooding taller man seems to be wincing in pain from the sudden performance of unnecessary drama and tactless tonal shift.
“I KNOW WHO I
WANT TO TAKE ME HOME!
I KNOW WHO I
WANT TO TAKE ME HOME!”
__
{The white haired ethereal woman appears to us in what feels like a diary room session for an oh-so serious documentary. She is adorned in big golden horns and jewels, wearing a dark purple dress with a little bit of a lacy collar and very long black gloves. Her name appears below her as we watch the story of this castle unfold.}
Edelgard
Master Vampire of the Castle
“Things have been remarkably improved by letting our dear guest Dorothea live in our humble abode--” she began. She flashes her teeth in a small smile, two sharp canines tugging at her bottom lip.
{We cut to another scene briefly of Dorothea accidentally catching a curtain on fire while trying to show off some magic to guests at miserable looking party. She nervously smiles and trying wave it off before trying to kick at the flames to bring it down. Her dress momentarily catches fire and one guest reacts by half-heartedly throwing a glass of water in her direction as she panics.
Edelgard continues to enthuse as we witness this clip.}
“Things used to be so boring without her here, truly!” and she then gives a faint sigh.
{We cut to Edelgard smiling in the same clip standing in the corner of the room with her champagne flute, passive to what was happening but with a glint in her lavender eyes.)
(We then are back at our diary room with her.}
“With her magic and youthful spirit, these thousands of years on earth seem so much less dull.”
{Abruptly we cut to her similarly vampiric looking servant, unamused and in the same diary room seat as she was in before.}
Hubert
Servant Vampire
“I absolutely despise Dorothea.”
{We see an extremely brief scene of him pretending to sip his champagne flute at the same party, eyeing back and forth at the spellcasters fire hazard and then to his distracted, bewitched and unmoving master as if in disgust.}
“I think Lady Edelgard let her move in because of her breasts.”
__
We are now back to our original shot of Dorothea, who ceases her banging on the piano
“What do you guys think?” She asks seemingly genuine, smile bright enough to almost be threatening to a creature of the night.
Hubert hissed.
“Absolutely divine, my lovely! Is this what mortals call a remix?” Edelgard responds in delight, reaching her arms and palms out as a gesture of praise, “a smash radio hit even?” she then gestures her fist in a punch to the side as some half-assed yippee “such a thing could be used as a lovely device for mind control!”
“--Yes” Hubert adds indignantly, “if you’d like children to cry and families to run in agony.”
“Precisely that!” Edelgard agrees, not realizing Hubert meant it as an insult.
Dorothea smirks to the camera zooming in a bit at her.
___
{Diary room}
Dorothea
Spellcaster
“I only sing like that to drive Hubert crazy. I feel like the angrier I make him, the more Edelgard is happy with me. It’s hilarious.”
___
“Well, I should get going now,” Dorothea starts to get up from the piano seat, gathering a coat that was next to her “I have some errands to run.”
Edelgard frowns, “ah, you will not be staying for dinner tonight then?”
“...The things I have to pick up are a bit out of the way.”
“I guess we go on a feeding frenzy alone at the stupid nightclub again…” Edelgard responds disappointed.
“I’ll be staying at home this time, my master. I have much to get done.”
“You too?? What, and you expect me again to bring drunken dinner home?”
___
{Diary room}
Dorothea
“I need a human eye by the way. Kinda hard to find in the city.”
___
Hubert narrows his eyes as Dorothea begins to walk to the door. When she opens it up, she’s greeted with something that causes her to scream which launches both Hubert and Edelgard in her direction. What they see isn’t something that causes much surprise.
“Ah, are you serious?!” Edelgard throws her hand up in disgust “another one of /these/? Who is sending us such tacky gifts?” she groans, “Hubert, throw them in the garden shed with the others--”
“--The others?!” Dorothea asks in shock, seeing a very perfect human looking statue with a pure face of terror right in front of her. It was a messy haired girl. Couldn’t be much younger than her… Something was odd about all this.
Hubert sighs as he had to explain “we’ve received about a dozen of these already anonymously. These lackluster decorations are getting really out of hand.”
“So tacky!” Edelgard exclaims.
“Yes… Very very tacky.” he nods.
Dorothea looks utterly perplexed “uh...Are you positive these are just regular old statues being sent as gifts to you guys? It seems to me it goes beyond that.”
Hubert chuckles his reply, ridiculing her analysis “you truly believe there aren’t people sending Lady Edelgard gifts for her vast array of achievements? That this is the work of something supernatural? Utterly foolish.”
“You guys are fucking vampires!” Dorothea retorts.
“Yes, yes darling. We are vampires. We know this-- Hubert please get this statue out of my sight. It is staring at me… I don’t like it.” Edelgard passively dismisses this all, waving it off with her hand.
“Right away, my lady.”
Dorothea groaned.
__
{In the diary room, Dorothea looks both frustrated and defeated.}
Dorothea
“I’m literally the spellcaster in this godforsaken place and they seriously don’t believe this is the work of magic? I swear, living as long as they have just makes you more dense than anything.”
{She sighs deeply.}
“I swear, for how much they can also argue, it most of the time feels like their circlejerking to their stupid-dumb-stupid living-in-a-bubble vampire bullshit .”
{Hubert is seen in the distance from the diary room door peeking his head out from the side and the camera jolts around from surprise.}
“Did you say something about jerks Dorothea? Who is a jerk?”
{Her eyes widen and she responds with attitude, pursing her lips} “ nothing, Hubert. ”
“Very well. I’ll be off to my quarters.” {As if posing for the camera, he lifts his cloak dramatically over his face and almost spins once before retreating away. It was extremely dorky.}
{Dorothea leans into the camera and whispers.}
“ Who the fuck names their kid Hubert anyway?”
___
Dorothea begins leaving without a second to waste, giving a curt “bye!” before comically trying to slam their large door. It didn’t really work. It’s a super heavy door. So she tried opening it again and slamming it again to try and prove her point but it still didn’t slam.
“...It is so sad when she tries to do this.” Edelgard commented.
She shuts a slightly ajar door from being incorrectly closed by lifting her fingers and waving them in unnervingly cheesy vampiric motion.
Hubert was standing next to the statue now and when Edelgard looked over, he panicked suddenly realizing he hadn’t removed it from her sights yet and beginning to try and drag it. He wasn’t very strong, so this usually took a lot of effort.
Edelgard was surrounded by idiots.
___
Hubert was still taking a moment to drag this statue to their garden. He was sweating profusely by now. There was a couple times on the way to the shed that they have fallen and broken, but Edelgard doesn’t usually care. Once he gets to the shed however...He leaves this one where it is, taking a moment to view it.
This one was cuter than the other ones. And also much more terrified looking. Maybe he could convince Edelgard to put this one out in front. It wasn’t quite as tacky as the others.
__
{In the diary room, we see the vampire servant now leaning into the camera a bit, clearly and carefully carrying a secret from his castle-mates.}
Hubert
“I do hate to admit this...I really do, but this secret is a great big weight on my shoulders. Unbearable. Like when slumber in the coffin is...slumberless. And also when you sleep on your neck all wrong.”
{We see him snap his head back in fear like there may be someone there, but it’s clearly the work of paranoia. He turns back then, leaning into the camera once more.}
“I have been keeping the statues company for a weekly book club!”
{He is saying this hurriedly now, eyes occasionally drifting back towards the door.}
“If lady Edelgard we’re to know, she would make me laughing stock to the parties...Or even worse, tell Dorothea .”
{We now cut to a scene of Hubert sitting at the end of a table with a great big chalice. The table is surrounded by the agonized and equally horrified looking statues, unresponsive, cold, stiff and very much inanimate. To make matters more painfully awkward, each and every statue has a copy of the same book in front of them.
“Alright, everyone!” Hubert begins in this clip our cameraman has gotten a hold of, “I would like you to turn to pages fifty and fifty one…” He then snaps his head to one of them, scolding abruptly “—Beatrix Von Margarita! Pipe down! I have told you time and time again that book club is no time for nonsense and complaints of your latest husband!”
The camera zooms in to a statue of an older woman, face completely frozen in a contorted look of absolute fear. You know, a statue.
Hubert takes a hearty sip of wine, “— as I was saying, before being rudely interrupted…” he gives the statue a glare for emphasis, “it is in within these two pages, you see that the protagonist and the poised and determined strawberry-haired one he fancies finally share their first kiss...Now, I would like to talk about the symbolization in this chapter. True high art—“ }
“—...I have grown quite lonely ever since Dorothea has moved in and has been throwing more parties. I hate the parties. I hate the people. I love the feed. But I feel quite...Misunderstood. Even by lady Edelgard it seems.”
{He pulls back a little in our diary room now, defenses down but seemingly now with offense mode switched on. His eyes narrow angrily and directly at the camera. The room got a bit melodramatically tense. Hubert’s voice darkly drops with his next words.}
“I will become even more isolated if this gets out. So if you do use this footage… I will have to respectfully bathe in your blood and use your intestines as dining room decorations.”
{One of the camera operators turns their camera to a cameraman with an unphased expression, adorned in dark blues and glasses. It pans in on him, simply just blinking.}
____
{In a separate and speedy diary room session to clear the air.}
Byleth
Camera operator and director
“They don’t watch T.V. We’re fine.”
____
We cut now to a scene of Dorothea walking home in the dark, carrying a brown paper bag. Things seem relatively peaceful.
That is of course until she hears a howl of what which couldn’t be more than twenty feet away from her. She groans loud enough, hoping the pack could hear her. When she turns around, she frowns at them as she clutches to her bag.
“Claude, I don’t have time for the bullshit right now.”
He laughs, and based on formation, it seems like he was leader of the pack, “What, you don’t want to catch up after two years?? Dorothea, you’re hurting me!”
—“Hurt us!” The pink haired companion chimes in, “what you think I’m just some unfeeling pooch who doesn’t remember our fling?”
Claude snaps his head over to her “you guys had a fling??”
“It was a party, don’t worry about it—“
An amped up blue werewolf boy throws in a little too eagerly “yeah Hilda slept with everyone!”
—“ Jesus Caspar! ” She tries and kicks at his leg.
Claude kinda stares blankly ahead, that thought sorta… Lingering in his mind with delight.
Dorothea continues to try and dismiss them “look, I’m not the same girl you guys knew two years ago. I’ve changed.”
“Oh cut the crap!” Hilda points to Dorothea accusedly, another hand holding Claude's shoulder, “I still see that bloodlust for vampire...Uh...Blood!”
“No seriously! I’ve left that life behind!” She begins to try and back away from the pack of five, who are only subtly gaining in on her for more questioning.
Claude pauses a moment, suddenly giving a great few big sniffs “wait a second…” he keeps sniffing and sniffing around her as if he can’t get the point across enough, “she smells like…”
Hilda throws in, “booze?”
Caspar throws in, punching into an open palm “betrayal?”
Petra throws in “booby-trap?”
Everyone looks at Petra in confusion before she explains, “...I thought it was ‘B’ words. Booby-trap was one vocabulary word for me today.”
Raphael shoots Petra a high-five for it with Hilda adding in an annoyed whisper “that’s not what a booby-trap is!”
Claude shakes his head from all the needless distraction and corrects, “no dudes! What? ... She smells like a musty ass old castle!”
They gasp almost a little too dramatically as Dorothea rolls her eyes. Oh great.
“You know New Mach apartments smell like this.” She tries to defend, “and the rent hasn’t been cheap either but it’s the best I could get.”
Claude narrows his eyes at her in disbelief, “liiikely story. So what, you doing some sorta hunt as an inside job? When do we get to get in on the action?”
Dorothea looks at the camera in tiredly as it zooms in on her.
____
{Diary room}
Dorothea
“Okay. Fine. I used to be a vampire hunter.”
{Her title changes.}
Dorothea
Spellcaster / Ex-Vampire Hunter
{We see now an old photograph of her staking a vampire in the heart with a great big smile on her face like it was a good ol’ shindig. She’s lifting up a bottle of grey-goose and drinking it. It seems this was all in celebration all while sporting a crop top and lightly bedazzled jeans reminiscent of a nineties era T.V show. She continues to speak over these reel of old photographs.}
“It was fun, I’ll admit it. For that time being I was friends with the werewolves due to similar interests. We both thought vampires we’re stupid. And we both liked alcohol...And a good pair of shoes, but for different reasons.”
{We see an image now of her laughing as she shoves a garlic into another vampires face, who mostly looks as if their lunch money had just gotten stolen. There’s Claude and Hilda in the background, laughing. Caspar is a complete blur.}
“I was good at the whole flipping around and staking douchey vampires in the heart thing… And then I met Edelgard and Hubert.”
{We see a photo reminiscent of a happy family portrait except for the fact Hubert looked utterly miserable.}
“I guess in a way, I almost felt sorry for them… I know Edelgard has some weird thing for me but I’m not really one to trust fangs obviously… As for Hubert, the guy is just some kinda pathetic servant.”
{We see another photo of them as a nightclub this time. Dorothea is holding greygoose again and Edelgard is eyeing her while Hubert is attempting to dance with three men in the background.}
"I guess I started to realize that vampires don’t really have a choice and they’re not inherently evil I guess…”
{We cut back to the diary room with her.}
“I started up this lie that I was a spellcaster so they couldn’t catch a whiff of me being a vampire hunter. And then I actually had to try and learn magic to make it convincing. Do you know how hard it is to learn magic? I’ve burnt at least two buildings down, not counting the one Hubert burnt down with his flaming cape. That dumb asshole decided to walk outside at six am on eight shots of tequila... Or I should say, drinking a guy on eight shots of tequila. And then there was the little girl who’s on a murder spree now in the city because of a curse gone very wrong—“
{She stops, realizing she should now try to conclude all of this.}
“...Anyway, as time has gone on day by day, I have just...Slowly built up this lie instead of killing them like I originally intended. Not because I have a soft spot or anything. No, that’s totally gross— what would the other vampire hunters say??”
______
Back to our regular scene.
“There isn’t a hunt. I’m not a vampire hunter anymore and I don’t even deal with any supernatural garbage. Just a normal human being so...Bye!” And once again, she tries to curtly give a wave and walk away.
“Not so fast!” Hilda says, grabbing her bag and searching it, “what’s all this then, huh? Milk?? Diet Pepsi??”
Claude peeps in the bag and adds— “a human eye.”
“.. .A HUMAN EYE! ” She exclaims as if she was getting to it.
Dorothea tries to lie casually, “oh uh...How did that get in there?”
Claude was getting a little tired but still wasn’t done with the antics. Maybe they had better start this up again another time. It seems as if these werewolves weren’t going to let things go and he wanted Dorothea to know that.
“I don’t know what you’re up to or what you’re doing with this— which actually, Raphael, can you please hold this, this shit is gross—“
He hands Raphael the eye who gives it little squishes of delight with an “ooohooo!”
“—But just know we’re not done talking and you owe us one for all the times we helped bail you out of situations!”
Dorothea gives up, “fine, sure. Whatever. Can I just go home now?”
Claude and the others on cue started backing away “we’ll see you later, Dorkea .”
Hilda snorts “haha, nice one Claude!” And at this point, the pack got on all fours in human form and started trying to awkwardly bounce away into a nearby park. It didn’t look right. Did all werewolves do that?
Dorothea turns abruptly, speed walking away and commenting in exasperation “that was super weird.”
_____
We see now in this shot that Edelgard laying into her coffin for the first time. Her coffin is lavish as all hell. It is filled with garnets on it’s exterior and was a bright rose-gold color. She makes herself comfortable in its red satin interior, pulling a sleeping mask over her face, which seems counter-intuitive considering she was about to close up a coffin.
The camera pans out with now a shot of Hubert in a big wooden shipping box, filled with hay and a black sheet messily thrown into it. He is wearing an old white sleeping gown that looked like it belonged to a poor dead Victorian orphan. Clearly he had owned it for too many years, once being a poor practically dead Victorian orphan.
Edelgard clears her dry throat a moment, beginning some last words before closing up their coffin for about half past four a.m.
“Hubert, I have a question of you.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“How would you feel if I married Dorothea? And then had little babies with her named Dorogard and—“
Hubert wasn’t one to interrupt but he was going to interrupt, “—my master, please. Uh…” he couldn’t be honest but he couldn’t risk the results of a lie either, “she seems like just another mortal unworthy of someone of your great power and command.”
“And I’ve killed the first Holy General.” She adds, adjusting her sleeping mask, tired and very, very lazily listening now clearly.
“Yes, and also a badass.” He responds with the slightest bit of exasperation, “But, I’m afraid, I don’t find Dorothea worthy of your hand. Doesn’t the opinion of your humble, dedicated and loyal servant mean anything to you?”
“Mhm...” she yawns deeply.
“Ah...well, please do consider that there is still much to consider about her. Like—“
Right at that moment he hears the door shut from downstairs.
“—What is she doing home now at this time??”
Edelgard, like a lot of things in her vast years of being undead, waves it off unphased, “oh please, she is a mere fire caster.” She yawns tiredly becoming a bit more incoherent, “maybe it is a good time for uh...Catching leeches and things. I don’t know. Yech!”
“But Lady Edelgard, this doesn’t seem right. She doesn’t even do alchemy. And what store is open at this time?”
“Maybe she is making a love potion for me.” Edelgard comments sleepily and dreamily, “now please shut my coffin.”
Hubert obeys even though he wasn’t happy about it, lying down after and trying to keep his ears perked for any other noises. To no avail, considering it worked best when he was a bat.
He was tired of it all. Tonight was the night he was going to spy on her.
_____
Dorothea walks quietly to the kitchen to drop off the groceries before bed. It was a pain in the ass being the only one who ate real food around here.
Once she heads into the dining room after, almost blindly to get to her bedroom in her tired state, she gasped and jumped in fright at the sight of a statue standing on the other end of the dining table before attempting to shout in a hushed tone of “ what the fuck! ”
This statue looked so freaky at the dead of night with only a small lit flame on her finger illuminating it. What the hell was it doing here anyway? Hubert brought these all to the shed so it didn’t make sense as to how this one was left here despite Edelgard hating to look at them.
She looked inquisitive as she slowly approaches it, theories jumping around in her mind as to how and why Hubert would bring it into the dining room.
These statues we so life-like. Her initial fear subsided for curiosity as she took a gentle grasp of its arm. His arm...Wait, this couldn’t be…? Her hand suddenly gives a light purple glow she wasn’t expecting.
The fingers of the statue begin wiggling and Dorothea jumps back in a shriek. She hit something behind her, shrieking again and turning around to find Hubert right there, glaring daggers into her.
“— And what do you think you are doing with Demented David?!” He scolds.
“I was—! Ah, wait...Demented who ?” She asks now, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
“You know what? There is no time! Help me bring this back to the shed!”
Oh no. Dorothea wasn’t gonna let this one slide. Especially considering Hubert’s suspicions of her. She needed to divert more attention to him, “Why should I?? What is it doing out in the dining room in the first place?? Thing made me nearly piss myself!”
“I was tired and stowed it away for a short moment and forgot!” He fibs in a hurry, grabbing onto one of the arms, “now quick! Before Lady Edelgard goes for her five a-clock sleep walk session!”
Hubert commands this in such a panic, she caves in, going ahead and grabbing the other arm. As they begin dragging it at a decent successful rate, almost making it to the door for the garden, they then of course begin to hear footsteps nearby.
Hubert demands quietly and more panicked than before, “ hurry! ”
“Alright, alright! Jeez, I gotta hold the thing up— you’re barely putting in the legwork.”
Before Dorothea could continue on as one hand touched the arm of the statue and the other the garden doorknob, the fingers starts to… Wiggle again. Not only this, but now the whole hand begins to move before turning to flesh and grabbing Dorothea’s face.
They both screamed.
And right there behind them to witness them, was Edelgard herself. Who now awoke and almost immediately and takes her fist and punches the statues head right off before it comes cracking apart in a loud thunk to the floor.
Both Hubert and Dorothea look to Edelgard in absolute, distressed shock.
The statue falls to the ground at that moment and being complete stone again, shatters.
Edelgard clears her throat awkwardly, “now that was kinda fun, wasn’t it?”
{Credits roll}
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[Credit song? Credit song: https://youtu.be/J8CIDDMPAnU
Well here’s this nonsense! I hope you’ve enjoyed the “first episode.”
I’ll admit I’m not super happy with how I wrote Edelgard in this chapter as it was tedious to give her a sorta “Nandor” role from the FX series (feral and quite a bit out of touch with their humanity). I’m looking to really nail it next chapter.
The songs at the beginning are “You’re Dead” by Norma Tanega, which is the original theme for both the FX series and movie. The second song Dorothea belts out is the chorus to “Closing Time” by Semisonic.
Let me know what you think n stuff! Again this is like my first real fanfic in a long time so I hope that’s not super obvious lol. If you want to support me and my art too I got a twitter account I post all that stuff @scramblesart
Maybe if I get some comments n stuff I’ll try to add some drawings to some scenes for further episodes to add some visuals!
Thanks so much for reading ya’ll!
a certain noble will be introduced next chapter. >:) ]