Chapter Text
When Leon awakens, the first thing he notices is how absolutely awful he feels. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet and he already wants to go back to sleep and get rid of whatever illness he contracted during the night. He remembers nothing of the prior day that could have made him feel so ill, as he had simply been riding his horse for most of the day. Maybe the water from the spring he had stopped to drink from? Perhaps God just wanted him to have a really bad time of things, which seemed pretty likely, considering how his life had turned out so far.
The second thing Leon notices is that he is most assuredly not where he was when he fell asleep the previous night. Wherever he is now is noticeably softer than the hard earth he had been forced to rest on, and it smells different. There’s some kind of floral scent in the air, and while not completely unlike the forest Leon had rested in prior, it is most definitely not the same either. Something was most assuredly awry, but he wasn’t sure if it was something he particularly wanted to worry about yet. Whatever had happened, it was assuredly going to make him feel worse.
Unfortunately for Leon, he hears the footsteps of shoes on… stone, perhaps? It sounds distinctly different from what he’s used to when he hears boots on stone floors, and the thought puts him even more ill at ease. He continues to feign sleep, hoping that whoever it is will leave him be. He’s awake now though, and more aware of his surroundings. At least the bed he’s on here is comfortable, wherever here even is.
Leon's eyebrows knit together as he strains to hear what is going on outside of the room he’s in, and recognizes two pairs of shoes walking on the floor and voices speaking in a language he does not recognize. One sounds distinctly feminine, and the other fairly masculine, though they are both speaking in hushed tones, and though he cannot make out what they are saying, Leon recognizes that the woman’s voice sounds worried about something, though the man speaks calmly, as if whatever is troubling the woman is no concern to him. The footsteps had stopped again, but they were picking back up now, and heading vaguely in his direction. Instinctively, Leon reached for the whip always attached to his belt.
The Vampire Killer, his Sara, ws missing.
Leon’s eyes shoot open, and immediately he closes them again. Wherever he was was too damn bright to be tolerable, with white ceilings and some sort of strange lantern casting a harsh glow into the room. Opting to not open his eyes this time, he slowly sits up, and starts feeling around for the whip, wondering if she maybe fell off his waist somewhere nearby in the night. The bedding of wherever he was currently located was incredibly soft, but he could not locate the whip at all. He should not be here, he was under some large trees the night before, and now he's in some sort of room with unnaturally bright lanterns and a ceiling more white than snow.
Slowly this time, Leon opens his eyes again, taking in the information of the room he’s in. The bed has dark sheets, and whatever sleeping quarter he’s in is cluttered with objects he has never seen before. There is a shelf with books and what looks like highly detailed and painted carvings of people, as well as some books. There’s a wardrobe, and a window that looks into a… village? Whatever village it is is strange, and there are lots of lanterns. Baffled, Leon then looks up at the lantern above him, that has somehow been attached to the ceiling. That seemed impractical, as it would be hard to reach to light. In fact, most of this room seemed impractical, with objects he had never seen before. What strange person slept here? Where was the Vampire Killer, had it been lost somewhere in the clutter of the room?
The window seems to be slightly open, and is letting in a breeze that chills the room. Whoever the people talking are, they’ve stopped moving and are now standing right outside the door to this room. Leon doesn’t bother to strain to understand the people this time, his mind is too scattered over the whip being gone. With stiff joints, he moves to begin searching for Sara.
Whoever is outside the room must hear him shifting, because they stop talking almost immediately, and the door begins to open slightly. Leon feels his joints lock up as he stares at the door, wide-eyed as a man with black hair and black clothes begins to enter the room. For a moment, the figure before him almost reminds him of Mathias, down to even the waviness of the man’s hair, and the aura he possesses. This is clearly not Mathias, there’s something different about his eyes, but he would recognize someone like that instantly regardless.
“Fiend! Wretched creature! Where am I? What have you done to my possessions?” Leon tries to shout, but his voice sounds raspy, like he hasn’t had any water or used his voice in multiple days. The man before him looks shocked, for a moment, and then his brow knits as if in confusion. The woman behind him looks worried as well, but makes no move to speak, looking like she’s trying to work out a problem in her head.
“I… I’m sorry? I don’t think I understood what you said,” is what the man seems to reply with, but Leon struggles to parse his words. His accent is unfamiliar, and his pronunciation is absolutely atrocious, and sounds nothing like the Romanian he had grown up with. He’s not even entirely sure that he heard the man right, his accent is so astoundingly foreign to him.
“Fiend with a vampire’s aura! What have you done to me, where are my things! Speak plainly, do not toy with me!” Leon tries again, hoping that an aggressive stance will make the Mathias look-alike back down and leave. He is utterly defenseless here, and feels a bit like a caged animal, or maybe prey staring motionless at a predator.
“I’ve done nothing to you, and I know not what things you speak of. I would also ask you do not refer to me as a fiend, seeing as you are the one to appear without warning at my door and then have a 2 day long fainting spell,” is the reply he gets, the man replies with a measured tone, though his accent is still incredibly foreign to him.
Leon sits still for perhaps too long at this statement, trying to think back to if he remembers entering a village at all. He remembers falling asleep in a forest and then… that’s it. He had been looking for Mathias and had been traveling from village to village in search of leads, but had never slept at any person’s house.
“You’re lying! I told you to speak plainly. Where is my whip?” Leon balls his hands into fists, prepared to break out of this room by force to find the Vampire Killer, regardless of how stupid an idea it is.
“Whip? This may have gotten more complicated than I first thought, I knew something was amiss about your accent,” the man turns to the woman and speaks to her, and her face becomes one of shock as she glances from the man to Leon, before nodding quickly and running off, her blond hair the last he sees of her. “I feel there may be a misunderstanding, allow me to introduce myself, I am Arikado Genya.”