Chapter Text
“So many letters…”
Bela glared at the broken envelopes scattered all over the mahogany table and floor. Some of them had the Cadou-like seal intact for they’d been ripped open at the seams, which made her crimson lips curve into a dangerous snarl that could frighten both Lycans and Moroaicăs alike. Her temple throbbed in pain at the sight of that thing, a reminder of whence she came from, but she paid it no mind. Scorching anger bubbled deep within her chest as a primal growl threatened to dance off her tongue. The emblem made her blood freeze and burn as memories played behind her closed eyes.
The shattered windows, frost seeping into her bones at speeds unknown, dozens of bullets flying her way at her most vulnerable...
If her sisters hadn’t arrived just in time to disarm him, the little manthing would’ve definitely killed her right there and then.
A chill brought her back to the present moment, her functional eye scanning the letters once more. Their contents were as cold as the Romanian winter, Bela thought bitterly, if not even more. Just like their writer, a detached and heartless woman who’d toyed with them for the sake of a twisted dream, she supposed.
In a feeble attempt to calm herself down, Bela took a deep breath and exhaled slowly... Then pierced a letter with her claws, erasing Mother Miranda’s name from existence.
Truth be told, she couldn’t quite understand why her Mother kept the ex-matriarch’s letters in her studio. Weren’t they a painful reminder of what she —of what the entire family— had once been to the now-dead Priestess? Of how everyone’s lives had been completely ruined in one way or another? Of the many things they’d almost lost in the course of a single day because of that madwoman’s whims?
“Bela, darling.”
“Yes, Mother?”
Alcina was examining a pile of envelopes with a small smile, running her claws down the yellowing edges as though she were counting just how many envelopes there were.
“You don’t have to help me if you don’t want to. You know that, right?”
And yet, despite the sweet fondness dripping from her voice and the elegant smile gracing her lips, her Mother couldn’t mask the nostalgia and heartbreak shimmering within her golden eyes.
It pained Bela to see her strong, confident Mother like that.
“I know that, yes. I really do want to help you, Mother,” replied Bela quietly, struggling to keep the anger off her voice. “Besides... A wise woman once told me, back when I still hid away in my room in fear of disappointing those dear to me, that we shouldn’t face our demons alone. Ever. No matter how strong we think we are, some fights aren’t meant to be fought alone.”
Chuckling softly, Alcina patted her daughter’s head. A satisfied purr echoed throughout the studio as Bela’s pointy ears fluttered a bit.
“Oh my, I wonder where I’ve heard that one before...” Alcina teased, humming in mock thoughtfulness. There was laughter in her voice and amusement in her golden eyes.
Upon realising that she’d made her Mother happy, Bela’s chest immediately swelled with pride and warmth. She leaned further into her Mother’s touch and beamed at her.
“Let’s get back to cleaning now, shall we?” Alcina said softly, nodding at the ever-growing pile of letters. “I’m sure your sisters won’t be too happy if I keep you busy all day long.”
Bela nodded with great fervour and a wide smile, happy to be of use, rolling her shirt’s sleeves up. The sheer eagerness she felt must’ve been quite evident, to the point where it was most likely written all over her face, for Alcina chuckled softly again. Something ate away at her mind, though. Like an itch she couldn’t quite scratch away. It was as if... as if she was forgetting something of extreme importance. However, whatever it was didn’t want to be remembered, so she let it be for the time being. She could worry about it later in the safety and comfort of her room.
Between the two, they cleaned the studio in four hours. Since the maidens weren’t allowed in for obvious reasons —they gossiped under their breaths like there was no tomorrow, the nosy leeches— and her sisters were off doing whatever, the process took much longer than it should have.
“Too many letters indeed,” Alcina said, rubbing her temples tiredly. At least the madwoman’s letters proved useful now, Bela supposed. Thanks to them, the fireplace crackled softly as its flames engulfed the papers slowly but surely.
Bela stretched, her joints popping back in place with a satisfying pop, and smiled at Alcina.
“I didn’t know Uncle Moreau could write,” she said, pointing at the few letters in the “Salvatore” category they had made.
The discovery had brought a smile to her sweaty face. Some of those dated back to the week of the sisters’ rebirth. It appeared that Moreau had written to Alcina to congratulate her on the growth of House Dimitrescu. Though his vocabulary was greatly limited, Bela sensed the genuine excitement and affection in his words.
Alcina huffed a laugh, carefully putting the stack inside a drawer. “Before the Cadou eroded his brain, yes.”
“Maybe he’ll be able to write again,” Bela wondered aloud, scratching her neck in thought. “I mean… Uncle Heisenberg is trying to find a way to counteract the Cadou’s excessive mutations, isn’t he? So… Yes, maybe Uncle Moreau will be able to write again.”
“Perhaps,” Alcina said quietly, patting her eldest once more. Endearment shone in her eyes as she gently ran her claws up and down Bela’s scalp, eliciting another happy purr from her. “Go take a shower before lunch, dear. And don’t take too long; you know how impatient your sisters can get when food is involved.”
Bela nodded. “Yes, Mother.”
On the way to her bedroom, Bela noticed something… weird. Silence reigned upon the castle like an unwanted guest. That rarely happened; her sisters loved to make a ruckus wherever they went. Even if they were relaxing in a parlour, one could hear their giggles and chatters from a mile or two away.
She frowned.
Maybe they’re out? No, that cannot be. It’s almost lunchtime.
Her steps faltered near a familiar-looking door upon hearing a thud coming from inside. The door led to a hall they’d claimed as their own a few weeks after their rebirth. It was spacious, had a lovely view of the mountains and village below, was comfortably warm even in the heart of winter, and was close to their respective bedrooms. All in all, it was the perfect place to laze around with her sisters during the slower, duller days.
Bela approached the door, still frowning a little, and tried to hear the thud-like noise again. Instead, she heard two voices. Her sisters’ voices, in fact. Despite their faintness, Bela could easily pick up on their tone.
Cassandra sounded upset, but that didn’t surprise her in the slightest. Her sister had a nasty temper, they all knew that quite well. What shocked her the most, though, was Daniela’s voice.
Her little sister sounded... close to tears.
Carefully, but without missing a beat, she opened the hall’s door. The moment she stepped inside the room, her sisters stopped talking.
“And speak of the devil!”
Bela blinked. “I— You— Hi, is everything alright?”
A shudder ran down Bela’s spine at the sight of Cassandra’s smirk. It was as sharp as their claws. If not even more. “Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Cass...” Daniela whispered, elbowing their sister’s side. “This isn’t what we agreed on.”
“Don’t you ‘Cass’ me, Daniela.” The room’s temperature seemed to rise with each word Cassandra spoke. So did her annoyance. “I’ve had a change of heart, is all. Like it or not, we’re doing things my way now.”
A confrontation was nearing, a huge one at best. Bela could feel it deep in her bones, in the tenseness that clung to the warm air, in the way Cassandra’s claws twitched as she rose from the crimson couch.
Taking a deep breath, Bela tilted her chin up. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
At that, Cassandra barked a laugh so fake and bitter that it made Bela recoil a few steps. “But of course you don’t know. You’re never around anymore, so how would you know?”
“What are you—”
Cassandra hissed, baring her fangs at her. “Don’t tell me momma’s perfect little girl forgot the promise she made us last week.”
Bela’s eye widened as realisation hit her. The temperature dropped all of a sudden and her mouth went dry. Heat, however, took over her pallid cheeks and set them ablaze. Shame roared in her chest, fueling the flames of her self-hatred and misery, as she looked back and forth between her sisters.
“You said you’d go hunting with us today. In the morning,” Daniela said quietly, her voice raspy and thick with unshed tears. “We waited for you for hours, but you never came. Why? What did we do? You— Don’t you love us anymore?”
Despite the tightening knot in her throat, one that threatened to leave her gasping for air at any given moment, she managed to form a coherent sentence. “Of course I do! I’m sorry I forgot about our promise, I was—”
“You were too busy helping Mother, hm?” Cassandra interjected, opening her arms wide in a mocking gesture. Her amused smirk was quickly replaced by a snarl. “Even though she clearly said you didn’t have to help her clean the studio.”
Daniela got up as well. “If you didn’t want to go hunting with us, you could’ve just said so. It’s just that— You just— You cannot—”
Cassandra placed a hand on Daniela’s shoulder, kneading the tense muscles below and making her purr sadly. “What Dani’s trying to say here,” she said in a dangerously slow voice. “Is that you cannot get our fucking hopes up and then crush them under your heel as though our feelings didn’t fucking matter. As though we meant nothing to you.”
Oh no, no, no... Bela’s head was reeling. Swearing meant no good with Cassandra. Swearing meant that Cassandra’s nasty temper was rapidly approaching its boiling point. And whenever that happened... Well, Bela hoped she wouldn’t end up on the receiving end of her sister’s wrath.
Bela’s knees trembled at the thought, threatening to give up on her at such a crucial moment. Still, she soldiered on and held her ground firmly. “That’s not true and you know it!”
The middle sister chuckled darkly and started prowling around Bela like an apex predator ready to pounce on its defenseless prey, making her feel like one of those unfortunate maidens who were taken to the cellar for no particular reason. In the meantime, Daniela scratched the shaved side of her head and looked away. An anxious tic she’d developed after the Winters manthing had nearly... defeated her in the library almost a year ago. Her eyes were puffy and red.
Bela was between a rock and a hard place. Literally trapped between her stupid mistakes, brought forth by her endless and blind devotion to their Mother, and her distraught sisters. This was all her fault.
“Do we, now?”
And yet... No matter how much Cassandra tried to frighten her, to make her feel scared and vulnerable and lonely like them; Bela could see right through her sister’s terrible, crumbling act. The tears welling up in her eyes weren’t helping her case either, anyway.
“Do we really know that, hm?” Cassandra continued quietly, cracking her famously sadistic smirk despite the clear breathlessness in her voice.
Bela gritted her teeth, desperate to end the confrontation already. To make amends with her sisters. “Yes, of course you do! Look— Listen, I’m really sorry I forgot about—”
“What about the other times?” Daniela asked, staring at her bare hands. “I asked you to come to my room a few days ago. I wanted to show you something I’d— I— I waited for you, but you didn’t come. I found you in the library reading Les Misérables before Mother called us for dinner.”
That made her wince.
Daniela must’ve been really impatient and annoyed, perhaps even desperate, if she’d willingly stepped into the library while looking for her. After the incident with the Winters manthing, her little sister had vehemently refused to go anywhere near the room for months as it often triggered memories from that fateful day.
“Since I cannot clean my collection of daggers alone—” Cassandra raised her spasming hands to get her point across, “—I asked you to help me out. Two weeks ago. And you said you would... But, instead, you jumped at the opportunity to help Mother with... with something. I don’t even remember what it fucking was.”
Tears flowed freely down Daniela’s pallid cheeks now.
“You know why you haven’t noticed any of this?” Cassandra hissed, returning to Daniela’s side in a heartbeat. “Because you’re never here.”
The crack in Cassandra’s voice made her heart bleed.
“You haven’t spent time with us in ages. This has been going on for months. Fucking months! We live in the castle together and yet we barely see you around, Bela, for fuck’s sake!” Cassandra spat, lowering her head a bit to hide her teary eyes from her. “We only see you at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and even that is a stretch!”
“I wanted to play something for you,” Daniela added quietly, looking at Bela with saddened eyes. “The day I found you reading Les Misérables, I mean. I— I wanted to surprise you with something, so I learned how to play Canon in D for you.”
Words refused to leave Bela’s lips, leaving her completely helpless in front of her sisters. Her claws itched to grab their hands, to hold them close, to wipe the tears away. But she was frozen in place, mute and useless.
“You didn’t notice we wanted to spend time with you,” Cassandra muttered, her voice becoming strained and raspy. “Because you’re a daughter before you’re a sister. You put Mother’s needs and approval before ours. And I get it! I fucking do. Mother’s approval and love mean the world to me, too, but so do yours.”
Something wet and cold rushed down Bela’s cheeks. Tears. She was crying as well.
“No, I—”
“You do!” The crack in Cassandra’s voice became even more clear. It was heartbreaking. “Don’t you fucking deny it. And, again, I fucking get it. We all compete for Mother’s approval and love from time to time. It’s fun. Bickering and butting our heads is fun. But this?” She gestured between the three of them. “This isn’t fun anymore. You go above and beyond for Mother’s sake, but you don’t do the same for us. We’re left behind all the time by your need to be the perfect little daughter in Mother’s eyes.”
“That’s— I—”
Cassandra took a deep breath. “Last chance,” she warned in a broken voice. “We’ll go deer hunting this afternoon, right after lunch. Are you coming or not?”
Before Bela could even think of something to say, her traitorous mouth was answering Cassandra in the worst way possible.
“You know I don’t like hunting animals.”
As if on cue, Daniela rushed out of the hall in two strides, her clothes a blur of undulating black fabric. If she focused hard enough, Bela could hear her sister’s little whimpers bouncing on and off the castle’s narrow hallways.
Cassandra huffed, trying to keep her bravado and emotions under control but failing miserably as her own tears started rushing down her cheeks as well. She walked past Bela, refusing to look her in the eye as she went.
“Hm. Why am I not surprised?”
And just like that, her younger sisters walked away from her, leaving a gaping hole in her bleeding heart.
Bela didn’t show up at lunch.