Chapter Text
Rem’s soft, barely audible footsteps echoed through the cluttered hideout hallways. He slipped out from his space in the ventilation, dropping a couple feet and landing with a soft “oof!” on the cold concrete floor. His head darted around, wide glowing eyes shining over the darkened room, and he let out a small sigh of relief when nobody stirred. This was his favorite time of night.
Thanks to the upcoming ritual, the hideout, which was previously a dilapidated building in the worse parts of the Cursed Apple, had rapidly been transformed into an all-purpose base of operations for the chosen champions of the Archmother. And right now, those champions were getting a good night’s sleep. A few of them, namely Haze, had been reluctant to get any rest in preparation for the ritual, but Rem eventually wore her down, and she succumbed at her desk. He didn’t understand why people would ever pass up a good nap. Fortunately for them, Rem was more than happy to lend assistance to people struggling to get to bed.
He crept out from behind the bookshelf concealing the vent. His pillow caught on an old dusty book, forcing two helpers to dart over and hold it from falling, but Rem didn’t notice. He was on a mission.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t sleep by himself. Rem had never had an issue with getting his 8 (or 18) hours per night, and when all you have is a pillow, every surface looks like a bed. After arriving on the physical plane, he liked to make fun games for himself of finding places to sleep where nobody would bother him. Or chase him away with brooms. Or try to “assess him as a threat” while holding a very very sharp knife. He wasted no time mapping out the vents system as soon as he got to the hideout, and staked his claim in an unused storage area deep in its recesses. However, he soon got lonely in his own little hidey-hole, and decided that scary friends were better than no friends at all.
Creeping on all fours, Rem made his way across the dimly lit room to the projecting theater, where a small air mattress supported a thin figure barely visible under blankets. The room, almost exclusively used for movie nights in-between training drills, was now only lit by cracks of light through the window in the adjacent room. Rem craned his neck over the inflated mattress, barely able to rest his beak atop the edge. He looked into the sleeping mask of the vampire who rested there. “Mina. Mina. You awake?” He whispered. Soft breathing was the only response.
On first moving to the hideout, Mina’s excessive packing was the butt of many jokes. Her bags and suitcases easily outnumbered everyone else’s combined, and the necessity of her four hairbrushes and dozens of outfits was routinely questioned. However, although nobody would admit it, plenty of them found themselves envious of her seemingly endless supplies. Worse still, Mina would generously donate extra toothbrushes, toiletries, snacks, and even spare clothes to her companions, each time accompanied by snide remarks about their preparedness. If you wanted a luxury, you went to Mina, and she very much enjoyed the power that came with that.
Her sleeping setup was similarly auspicious. Nobody had wanted to challenge her immediate claim of the only room with any privacy, and Rem already had his hidden in the vents, so he didn’t mind either way. Her air bed dominated the room. The blankets she was swaddled in nearly outweighed her; her eyes were covered by a sleeping mask, and the only part of her truly visible was a mess of black hair. Rem knew she would be bossy when she woke up, but sleeping like this she seemed downright nice. Rem thought everyone looked nicer when they were sleeping.
Deciding that the vampire was really, truly asleep, Rem attempted to pull himself onto the air mattress with considerable effort. Finally resigning to precariously stacking himself on top of three helpers, he heaved himself next to her onto the fluffy comforter. She exhaled, and her breath smelled like blood. Rem wondered if vampires smell like that always.
Either way, she had by far the comfiest bed in the whole place, maybe contested by his own. He burrowed into the top layer of blankets, freezing momentarily when she rolled over, but after a heart-stopping moment she proved asleep and Rem curled up next to her. She wasn’t warm, unfortunately, but he was, and he was always happy to share body heat. With the sound of her soft breathing comforting him, he found sleep in no time at all.
Oh no, oh god, she was late for school. On her first day of school, too! The sidewalk stretched endlessly long in front of her as Mina sprinted down the campus. Each footstep met the sidewalk with a resounding clack, the shockwave jolting her body. Faces of the crowd stood out to her and yet all blended together, disgust, amusement, and disappointment. For some reason, even that weird bird kid was standing there, waving to her. She didn’t give him a second glance. Tripping over her own feet, she slammed herself into the main door and crashed into a crowded classroom. Everyone immediately turned to look at her.
“So sorry! Sorry I’m late!” She couldn’t get words out. Her tongue felt like a loose flap of rubber in her mouth. She tried to command herself to speak properly.
The teacher’s hair was done up in an extravagant swoop, and expensive looking earrings and other jewelry dripped off of her. Her glowing green arm held a ruler pensively. “You’d better have a good excuse for being late, Mrs. Ha.” She tapped the ruler against the table impatiently.
“I didn’t mean to, teacher, I-” Mina started.
The woman cut her off. “Unacceptable, Mina Ha. Simply unacceptable.” She glided across the room towards her, drawing the leering gazes of the student body. “This is going on your permanent record. I expected better than you.”
The crowd around her laughed and jeered. Mina felt like she was sinking to the center of the earth.
“Teacher, I think you should be nice to her.” The bird child spoke up from a corner of the room. Why did he look so familiar? It didn’t matter, there was no time. “Mrs. Geist, I swear-” An odd sensation stopped her sentence short. She quickly put a hand over her mouth, before bringing it to eye level. One of her fangs sat, glistening, in her open palm. Her right canine felt loose as well. She fell to her knees, tears pricking the corner of her eyes as more teeth fell from her mouth. It wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be a big entrance. Now everyone would think she was a loser, a failure, some kind of pathetic-
“Why do you dream about this?” It was the bird thing. Rem. She remembered his name now. He must have approached her when she wasn’t looking. And what was he talking about, ‘dreaming about this’, if anything this was more of a…
Oh. A nightmare. She was having a nightmare. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stared at the creature. He was kinda cute, now that she got a good look at him, although she couldn’t begin to pin down what kind of animal he was.
“Sorry that your teeth all fell out.“ Rem said, looking genuinely guilty enough that she nearly snickered.
Mina gave him a tired look. “I don’t think they really did.” She stared at her surroundings again, wondering how she thought this was real in the first place. God, how long has it been since she was even at school? That was embarrassing. “So, why are you in my dream?” She asks, finally.
“I like watching dreams. Some people have this one and they always get sad. You got sad too!” Rem was bouncing around the room now, giggling and colliding with furniture regardless of gravity, and it occurred to Mina that he probably didn’t have to follow any real world rules in this place. Currently, he busied himself with creating a small fuzzball in his claws and making it dance around the room. “I don’t get it. But it’s really fun to watch!
Mina had to adjust her view of this little guy. If he really was powerful enough to enter people’s dreams at will, what kinds of things had he seen? Just the thought of the gossip he could get on people was enough to get her brain working. Unfortunately, looking at this little bundle of joy, he probably wouldn’t have cared about much more than the exciting ones. Oh well, maybe. he could still do something for her.
“Hey, rem, do you like soda?” Mina was no good with kids. They were endless responsibilities, and all of her fantasies about marrying into the Fairfax lineage involved her husband dying just before touching her, hopefully with no evidence left behind and her name firmly in the will. That being said, it didn’t take a schoolteacher to understand that kids like sugar.
Rem fixed his weird, glowing gaze on her, his attention fully captured. “Yes!” He squawked. “Haze says it’s bad for me and makes me not sleep, but I think she’s just not fun.” He hovered down to her eye level.
“I’ve got a full can in my suitcase. The red one. It’s all yours if you do something for me real quick.”
She whispered something in his ear, and Rem’s eyes lit up like midnight on main street.
The throne was red. Plush. Just like she always dreamed it would be. Chromatic light filtered through stained glass windows, illuminating the long carpeted pathway leading to her seat. The high, vaulted ceilings were painted with various memorials of vampires whose lineages were long in the past, unlike hers. The broad set of iron double doors at the end of the room creaked open; her two hooded bodyguards next to her tensed almost imperceptibly, and she knew they would lay down their lives for her at a moment's notice. She didn’t need them, though. The power she herself owned was more than enough.
“Allow them in.” She lounged back in her throne, idly gazing at the door. It swung open wider, revealing a figure cowering behind an olive-green scarf. The sheer size of the stone brick hall around them made them look infinitely small, so much less powerful than Mina, and the imposing doors looked ready to crush them outright. They took silent, unsteady steps across the long carpet, lugging a tattered briefcase, and quickly dropped to their knees in front of the throne with their head bowed.
“Arin.” Mina addressed them.
They bowed their head lower, hair brushing the red carpet. “Viscount Ha. I’ve been sleeping on the streets for so long, living out of dumpsters, completely homeless.” They looked up at her with those huge brown eyes. “If you’ll please accept my sincerest apologies, I have come to beg for your hand in marriage.”
Mina could only grin.