Chapter Text
Being shrouded in eternal night had its perks.
As a vampire, Victor was prone to having frequent dreams while he slept and while he was awake.
Normally he would dream about the outside world. All he had ever known was Shadyside and while he enjoyed his life there with his friends, he had often longed for more.
He longed for a change.
In his dreams, his subconscious imagined up beautiful cities filled with all different kinds of people, places like Shadyside but without limitations. He’d never seen a human before, hell he’d never even seen a daywalker, but he often dreamed up what these civilizations would be like.
Daywalkers. Now that was a touchy subject.
The very mention of them to any elder in Shadyside was met with vitriol of the highest kind and that hatred was consistently carried down through generations until the point where one would never truly be able to know where said hatred came from. There have been many wars between vampires and daywalkers, but none of the history books seem to have a real explanation on how or why they started besides ‘we hate them’.
Victor never understood that and he probably never would, but he figured it didn’t matter too much as he would most likely never come into contact with a daywalker anyways. As soon as he hit 18, he would leave Shadyside and he wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d ever look back.
If he was to never return, he certainly wouldn’t miss his intimidating responsibilities, his controlling aunt, the sameness of his village, or any other constricting parts of his life at Shadyside, but he sure would miss his friends. He’s tried to convince them to run away with him before but they just don’t see things like he does.
Vera would never sneak out her house let alone sneak out the village. She was strict when it came to vampire law and trusted in it entirely. And Vargas would never leave his parents behind, unlike Victor who didn't even have parents to leave behind, only Auntie E who was more like an angry babysitter than a mother figure.
If he wanted to follow his dreams-figuratively and kind of literally-he would have to do it alone. And that was fine with him…or at least that’s what he’s been trying to convince himself of.
He didn’t wanna be alone.
It was a subconscious fear of his, which is why when he started having dreams of a girl, he didn’t question it. He was a lonely guy who believed his future would only bring more loneliness, it’s no wonder his subconscious mind tried to reassure him otherwise.
She had silky blond hair that shined in the sunlight and eyes a shade of blue that he’d never seen before. It wasn’t the dark blue of the ocean or vibrant blue that the lightning was in the wind vampires produced. Instead, it was soft and sweet.
It was something he’d never seen before and he loved it.
Each time he dreamed about her, she was wearing red, just like him except for where black would be on his clothes, she had white and gold on hers. Despite how different it was from everything he had seen in Shadyside, he thought it was a lovely combination and even imagined wearing those colors himself.
Everything about her seemed to illuminate like the moonlight shining down through the trees, but somehow brighter.
She was light. A concept that had always been foreign to Victor and his life of eternal night.
Many of his dreams about her consisted of her dancing on a beach. She moved with such grace, doing flips on top of the sand like it was nothing. He would never admit it to anyone but Victor sometimes tried dancing the way she did, mimicking her choreography.
He didn’t have her flexibility, but it was the most fun he’d had in a while. It was refreshing, it was…new.
As his dream girl danced, Victor would catch glimpses of the water and sky around her…they were the same color as her eyes! He never knew the sky and ocean could look like that bright and he never once considered how golden the sand he walked on could be if touched by the sun.
Occasionally his dream girl would hum and sing various melodies that got stuck in Victor’s head. Her voice was so beautiful, so lovely, so perfect. The girl seemed truly happy, truly free on that beach and that was something Victor longed for more than anything.
Never had a dream felt so much like reality than when he was dreaming about sun girl. And never had a dream reoccured as much as his dreams of sun girl. It was as if he mentally couldn’t stop dreaming of her and if he was being honest, he didn’t want it to stop.
He never wanted to stop seeing her, even if it was just a dream.
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Nova had always known what she wanted: to be a kind and fair leader to her people. Just like her parents were and their parents were and so on.
She had her whole life planned out before her and was itching for that life to begin. However, she knew that she was too young and inexperienced. It would be a long while before she fulfilled her goals, but she was okay with that because these goals didn’t come without drawbacks.
Her father was a strict, traditional mentor and oftentimes failed to listen to her ideas. He claimed she would understand when she was older, but that didn’t mean the rejection hurt any less. There was so much she wanted to see changed, but until she was at least 18, she was practically powerless.
Before being told her destiny and before wanting to lead her people though, she remembered a much simpler time where she had a much simpler desire.
As a child, she was prone to nightmares, so her mother would sing her to sleep almost every night. That’s where her love of music started.
Nova had always been musically inclined and was trained—like many other daywalker children—to be fit and flexible from an early age, so it was no surprise she found just as much of a skill in dancing as she did fighting.
However this skill would inevitably become a passion that often accompanied her mother’s singing.
When her mother got sick though, she was relieved of her duties as a leader so she could recover. While her father continued to lead alone, Nova and her mom would often visit the beach. There, Nova would dance to distract her mom from a particular sadness that she didn’t quite understand at the time.
“Mama, what do you like about the beach?” Nova remembered frequently asking her mother as they laid in the sand, looking out on the ocean.
Her mother had a different reply every time she was asked:
“…The way the sunlight makes the water glisten…”
“…the warmth of the sand as it soaks up the sun’s rays…”
But there was one particular reply that stayed with Nova the most:
“…the sound of the waves crashing into the sand…”
“But, doesn’t that mean the water and sand don’t like each other. They’re so different from each other and they're always fighting.” Little Nova had replied watching as the water snuck up on the sand, throwing itself at it.
“They may be different, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like each other or that they have to fight. The water doesn’t want to hurt the sand. It only crashes on the sand because it is forced to by the moon.”
The moon. That is something Nova has always wanted to see.
“Have you seen the moon?” Little Nova asked.
“Plenty of times.”
“Really!?” Little Nova squealed, standing up from excitement and startling her mother a little bit in the process.
“I used to see it everytime the harvesters and I left Sunnyside to carry back blood fruit from the outside orchard.” Her mother said enthusiastically reminiscing.
“I wanna see it too!” Little Nova said jumping up and down from excitement.
“And you will.” Her mother replied smiling.
“Will you take me?” Nova asked still giddy with excitement, but the smile on her mother’s face dimmed.
“You will see it someday, but I don’t think I’ll be well enough to take you.”
Little Nova caught on quick, her smiling fading as well. Her mother had been sick for a long time and showed no sign of recovery.
This thought made Nova start to tear up, which in turn led her mother to get up and wrap her arms around Nova in the strongest hug she could muster. They stayed like that for a little while, until little Nova could stop sniffling to ask:
“Is the moon making something hurt you too?”
“The moon is not evil, Nova. It is just doing what it needs is to, so that the world can stay balanced.” Her mother pulled apart from the hug and lifted Nova into her arms, “Besides, the sand doesn’t get hurt when the waves crash on it.”
“It doesn’t?” Little Nova replied confused.
“Of course not silly.” Her mother said booping her nose, which made her giggle in return, “The sand needs the waves to crash on it because the water takes the sand’s heat away. This way the sand doesn’t get burnt by the sun and the water gets to feel the warmth it’s been missing.”
“Awesome!”
“I think so too. The sun, moon, water, and sand all work together in harmony.” Her mother said staring into the distance with her smile back.
Nova mimicked the gesture, forming a smile of her own as her mother continued, “They all need each other and that’s beautiful. I’ve never seen something that wonderful anywhere but the beach.”
“Me too, mama.”
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Predictably, ever since her mother passed, nightmares became common place again.
Nova’s nightmares consistented of a variety of things: her leading her people to misery, her not being good enough, memories of her losing her father in the same way she lost her mother, and vampires attacking her village and destroying everything, etc..
She’d never seen a vampire, but stories of them have haunted her for a long time.
She didn’t have her mother’s voice to bring her peace anymore, so she hummed to herself what she could remember her mother used to sing, but it wasn't the same.
Eventually though, the nightmares started to disappear. No not disappear, they were being replaced.
She began to dream of a boy instead, one she had never met, but wished she could.
At first she believed she was having visions, it wasn’t a completely unheard of concept. Apparently visions of one’s future was supposedly a special daywalker ability that was common centuries ago, but Nova didn’t know how much she believed that.
His hair was dark with lots of red streaks, not unlike the clothes he often wore. What caught her attention though was that every dream she had of him, it was nighttime. Obviously she had never seen night, but she’d always been curious about it.
Nothing but the moonlight, fire, or artificial light like lamps and such would light him up enough to let her see him clearly. Otherwise he'd be shrouded in darkness. It was such a strange concept to her, but that only intrigued her more.
Was he human?
In her dreams, it was usually the moonlight on an otherwise dark balcony that would allow her to see his face. She would often see him sit on the ledge, staring at the moon and the ocean.
Occasionally he would be drawing something in a notepad. He would draw all kinds of things, but her brain sometimes made it too fuzzy for her to see what he was so invested in sketching.
The moon was a beautiful sight, but the first time she saw the ocean like that, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She had never seen the water look dark, it was almost...scary?
It made sense though. Night was the absence of sun and the absence of sun was basically the absence of light. Of course, everything would look darker.
She took a second to think how lucky she was to be born a daywalker. Thankfully, she would never have to experience such darkness.
That train of thought led her to the vampires. As nightwalkers, they supposedly lived in eternal night and even preferred it to the sun.
Nova couldn’t ever imagine that and for a moment-just for a moment-she felt sad for them. She knew the only thing she was supposed to feel towards their kind was hatred, but she truly pitied them in that moment and wished them better.
Then again, the vampires had probably never known any different than what they were raised in, just like her. They didn’t know what they were missing and she guessed that she didn’t either.
She shrugged it off as another dream started to play in her head. This time she saw the boy walking towards the beach. This was the first time she got to see the water up close. It was still dark, but she could see blue of the water much better now.
Despite how different it was to look at, she found the commonalities: the ocean was still blue albeit darker, and the moonlight glistened over the water not unlike how the sunlight does when she went to the beach.
All of a sudden, the boy looked both ways, presumably making sure he was alone before starting to dance. And not just any dance.
It was reminiscent of the choreo she had been working on recently.
There was no way these were visions of the future. They must’ve been dreams, how else would he know her choreo?
What further convinced her that he wasn’t real though was when she started to hear him in her head, singing the same melodies she did. How could he know those exact melodies?
Her mother’s melodies.
Most nights she heard him right before she went to asleep. His voice calmed her in a similar way that her mother’s used to do and that’s was what truly solidified it for her.
She refused to believe that anyone but her mother would have the power to bring her such peace and joy through a simple song. That’s how she knew for sure that he wasn’t real.
Just a dream.
A sweet and lovely dream that chased away her nightmares and made her smile with glee.
But a dream nonetheless.