Chapter Text
The first thing Apo does when she leaves Oakhurst is buy a hood. The woman selling it to her makes a wide-eyed expression at the sight of her stark white hair, but says nothing. She ties it around her neck and wanders along the side streets of this town, whose name she does not know. Buildings rise three stories over the narrow streets. The uneven cobbles trip her every few steps. The people she passes keep their bags close to themselves. She does not look out of place here, with her head covered and her eyes on her feet.
She… isn’t sure what to do now. She had contemplated staying in Oakhurst, finishing out her assignment, then going home on schedule. But in the face of everything that has happened to her over the last few weeks, a military posting in an abandoned town seems woefully unimportant.
Her next thought, of course, is going home. That is a no-brainer. She hasn’t been able to send a letter in weeks. Cherri is probably worried. But then she catches sight of her reflection in a dark shop window, and is reminded of her circumstances. The fangs that don’t sit right in her mouth. The unnatural pallor, reminiscent of someone with a permanent flu. The blood-red eyes. And of course, the bone-white hair.
How can she go home looking like this? How could she possibly explain it? Would it be better to stay away, prevent Cherri from being dragged into her world of crimson and coven?
But even as soon as she has the thought, she knows that she could never stay away for long. She tears her gaze away from where it had been fixed on her pitiful reflection, and makes up her mind. She’s going home.
The sun is setting, and the shops will be shut soon. Not much time to get the things she needs. She steps into a building, asks the shopkeep for what she needs, and plonks down enough coins on the counter. She leaves the place with her arms full of things. A folded map, two boxes of hair dye, a towel, a new dress, and a plain shirt.
She finds her way to the train station. It is a low, long building. Few people are there at this time of night, and even fewer of them are departing. She finds the ticket desk unstaffed, and has to shout her presence to get someone to come out of the back room and sell her a ticket.
Unfortunately, the town she and Cherri live in does not get frequent train service, and it is quite far away from here. The next train will not depart until tomorrow morning, and it will take her almost all day to get back home. With a huff, she hands over her payment and resigns herself to wait.
The seating area is a series of long wooden benches, lined up facing all the same way. They might have been uncomfortable to her once, a while ago, but now they are not. Her flesh does not concern itself with such particularities anymore.
She passes the benches and enters the restroom, again grateful that there is no one else around. She locks the door behind her, double-checks that it will not come open, and begins to take off the dress she has been wearing since the day she stepped into that cursed ruin. As she pulls it over her head, she is suddenly grateful to be out of the thing. It is military-issue, handed out to her among a line of other soldiers during basic training. It is technically her ‘civilian’ clothes, with her actual uniform being a more practical tunic and trousers. That uniform is now folded at the bottom of a trunk in Oakhurst, left behind with everything else she could not or would not carry with her. But the dress still identifies her as a soldier, and she does not want to be recognized. She is a deserter now, after all.
She takes a moment to look at herself in the mirror. Her skin has lost the healthy color it once had, from long hours spent outside. The tone in her muscles is starting to ebb. She looks sickly. It’s quite different from the way the other vampires had looked. Shelby had once described to her how the gift made her able to run longer, lift heavier, and jump farther. It hadn’t done that for Apo. It had only made her feel weak and shaky every hour of the day. The only other one who had looked as dismal as her was Owen, and well, he probably didn’t look too good even before he was a vampire.
She knows why, of course. She hasn’t been consuming nearly enough of the vital life-force that would give her the ability to do all these things. She’s essentially been starving herself. The yawning pit in her stomach is somewhat tolerable, as long as she doesn’t linger on it.
She sighs. Nothing can be done about it now, anyway. She lets her gaze briefly linger on the two messy scars on her neck. They nearly merge into one, covered over with thin, taut scar tissue. Scott hadn’t been neat when he turned her. She fought the entire time, but he was too strong. He overpowered her like it was nothing. And by the way he’d been talking, it essentially was nothing. Apparently he’s turned hundreds of people in his centuries of existence. It is cruel, the way he tore open her throat. She knows he is capable of bites that barely scar. But he’d purposely given her one that she could never ignore. He’d, quite literally, imprinted himself on her body.
She does not want to think about Scott Goldsmith anymore. She steps towards the sink and considers the two boxes in her hands. One is red hair dye, the other black. She figures she can mix them to get close to her old color. And luckily, she chuckles, she does not need to worry about bleach anymore. She turns on the sink, and awkwardly wets her hair in the cold thin stream. It is tangled from neglect.
The reason she’s dyeing her hair is twofold. One, she does not want to stand out. If she is caught, she will be arrested for leaving her post. White hair would not be very conducive to the goal. Two, she thinks that if she is to see Cherri soon, it would be best not to shock her. She can ease her into the whole ‘vampire’ thing.
She tears open the boxes, mixes the two colors in what seems to be an appropriate proportion, and paints it into her hair. It turns her long curls stringy. She’s trying to be careful, but this is a messy job being done with improper tools. She pulls her hands away from her head and notices her finger tips are stained red. It invokes visions of what she imagines might have happened in the castle, had there been the time.
She thinks of The literal blood fountain, gurgling in their ballroom. Did they actually plan to have balls? She pictures a room full of vampires, mingling and intervisiting in the dim evening light, sipping on wine mixed with blood. Would it be animal blood, or human? Though of course, it would be human. If the vampires are throwing a ball, they would go all out. Scott Goldsmith does not know how to do things halfway.
She can picture how it might have been, the events he may have hosted before he was put to sleep. Cups of human blood. Drained right from the source, into one’s chalice. A human sacrifice, kneeling on a plinth, hands tied behind their back. Still alive, but drugged out of their mind. Once one runs dry, throw out the old, and bring in another. No different then grabbing a new bottle of champagne. Drops of blood running out of the mouths of the undead, as they laugh, drink, and get drunk.
She blinks. She is back in the depressing train station bathroom, and she is gripping her arm so tight she fears she might have drawn blood. She takes a deep breath. She is alright. She is away from that awful castle, that building of terrors, and all of its inhabitants. She never has to go back.
She deems that enough time has passed, and rinses the dye out of her hair. She tries to avoid cringing at the way the red liquid drains into the sink. She ruffles her hair with the towel. Again, the unset dye turns the fabric deep red. It looks like it has been used to sop up a frightening amount of blood. Her hands tremble as she tucks her hair behind her ears. The color is pretty good. It isn’t 100% accurate to the way it used to be, but it’s close enough. The sight of it gives her a complicated feeling. It’s a little bittersweet. It’s nice to eliminate a reminder of her vampiric affliction, but it’s upsetting to know that she will have to do this for the rest of her life if she wants to feel normal.
Once her hair is dry enough that she thinks it will not stain her clothes, she puts on the new dress. It’s simple, practical, and dark, like her old one. But it is different enough to make her harder to recognize as a soldier. Finally, she exits the restroom, more than half an hour after she went in. Still, nobody is at the station. It is now the dead of night. Her train leaves early tomorrow. She will have to stay here for the night. She huffs, pulls her hood low over her eyes, and sits down on a bench to wait.