Chapter Text
She ascends the hardened path on trembling feet, her shawl drawn over her cheeks and lips against the frost. It bites into her skin with every struggling step like thousands of hungry little ice mouths. She’s at the end of her tether. Just a few more steps, a few more. Soon, she’ll stand before the gates.
The castle looms above her like the vision of a winter tale, its red spires sprinkled with cold moonlight that glides off ice and snow. Finally, atop the final stair, Lisa retrieves her dagger, and beats upon the wide doors.
Her rapping sounds hollow, echoing through the ribcage of the palace. Nature seems asleep or else frozen in time, and there is nothing but the cold white mountains behind her and the black skies above.
Lisa strikes the gates again, but when she raises her hand, a heaviness encumbers her movement. A grip, on her shoulder; she’s spun around, and before she can use her dagger, her world shifts and turns, and with a flash of silver her eyesight sways as cold metal digs into her flesh.
She sees… crimson. Blinking wearily, Lisa tries to regain herself and determine the basics of her surroundings: one, she is reclined. Two, though the chill remains, she is no longer outside. And last, she feels whole, and untethered. The crimson is that of flowing draperies and the night glitters dark beyond them with messy wreaths of stars.
Lisa rises to sit, a hand to her head. She rubs first at her throbbing temple, then the bridge of her nose. She’s laid on a richly covered couch, and upon initial glance finds the furnishings of a study or a living room of sorts. The tallest ceiling she had ever seen is sustained by polished columns, and walls docked with smooth tomes of knowledge. A childish part of her, the part that has no lingering concerns about having been immobilized and brought here, can’t but feel the itch to peel one of those books off a shelf and see for herself. But, manners. “… is there anyone here?” Lisa asks instead, her voice high-strung with disuse.
“There is,” a smooth voice startles her.
Lisa swivels around, towards a tall arch, beneath which a woman stands; a young woman, svelte and silver-haired, wearing a vaporous dark robe that clings to her body. Weaves of gold snake up her fair arms, and her eyes are bright like moonlit ice.
Lisa takes in this neat, festooned appearance at this nightly hour, for a moment wondering if she’d come upon a celebration. Briefly, she regards her own worn shoes and dusty cape; her hand reaches self-consciously, brushing through her windswept hair. “Well met,” Lisa does her best to be civil, “I’ve… were you the one to bring me up here?”
“No, that was one of the guards. Your appearance was quite the surprise to them.” She crosses her arms, rests her cheek in one palm. “At first they thought we were being attacked,” she smirks, and it’s sharp, cruel, almost. Lisa’s not entirely sure she likes it.
She watches the woman’s elegant steps as she then walks towards the shelves and long, thin fingers seek like spider legs before drawing a book from its place.
It doesn’t look like it, but this feels like no chance encounter; the strangeness at the back of her mind tells her she’s being watched. “I am Lisa, from Lupu village, leagues away. I’ve been seeking this place. Or, I think it is this place,” she brings a finger to her chin. Should have sought for more relevant information, in hindsight.
“Carmilla,” the stranger brings a slender manicured hand to her chest. Lisa notices her gaze is ice cold, in contrast to the red of her talon-like nails. “Why have you sought our castle?” she asks politely; it sounds like a demand.
Lisa gains her feet. She feels steadier this way. “The stories say the man who lives here possesses secret knowledge.”
Carmilla glances up from the book cover. “Really.”
“Yes,” Lisa adds, caught by the unearthly gleam to those eyes. But this is what she’s here for. And she is not leaving the way she came. “May I… is he here? Could I see him?”
“You presume,” Carmilla opens the tome, pages through it, “that you’ve come all this way to ask for something of a stranger while offering nothing in return, and that it shall be given to you, because… you wish it?” She raises a skeptical eyebrow.
Lisa bites down on her lip. “No… well. But… but my goal is above me! I want to help people.”
Carmilla tilts her head, as though she were reading a curious thing just then. “... Help.” She knows how to hold a presence, Lisa will give her that. At first, the woman thought this could be a highly ranked aide, but now doubt creeps upon the notion.
Might as well try? “I want to be a doctor. I want to learn.”
“To learn? How to help humans live longer?”
Lisa narrows her eyes. “If you summon your lord, I can tell him all and more.” Certain her motives are being assessed, she is still weary enough to lose this game.
Carmilla leans against the tall desk, her glass beauty an unreadable mask. The tome snaps shut in her hand. She smiles. “Yes, of course. Wait here, Lisa from Lupu…” she says, a bizarre quiver to her red-lipped smile.
“Lady Carmilla, I know how this must look.” Lisa shakes her head. “I show up in the middle of the night, intruding and crudely pounding on the entrance of your home with a knife… I only…” she sighs. “I have searched long for a possibility to learn, for someone willing to teach me. I only want to become better.”
Carmilla had gone around the desk, produced a quill and a piece of parchment, scribbling something. She pauses. “Better than whom?”
The question seems genuine, from what Lisa can tell. For the first time, she has the feeling the other regards her with something other than polite contempt. “... than… myself? Better than before.”
A few seconds pass before the stranger’s robes swish around her body with movement. “I will relay your words in full,” Carmilla announces, already walking away.
“Thank you,” Lisa adds in haste, watching her leave, relieved at having an understanding.
Carmilla steps into the corridor, glancing at the guards posted on each side of the heavy white doors. “You’re welcome,” she replies as an afterthought, nodding subtly at one before departing with a grin on her face.