If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

[beloyaltome]

Lenore's immediately curious about their 'guest' in the dungeons from what Striga had to say: a swordswoman of exceptional skill, the most satisfying fight Striga had enjoyed in years and she only regretted that the woman was so tired out already before Striga got to her, if she'd been fresher in the fight and had vampiric advantages, she would have been a 'true opponent'.

The soldiers who had survived the battle spoke of it like something out of legend, to the point that Lenore almost had to roll her eyes at the way the story was already getting embroidered and exaggerated. (She thought it very unlikely that their captive was eight feet tall with eyes of flame.) There was little useful information from any of them--run down castle practically in ruins, aging retainers, decrepit king and queen, none of them even healthy enough to save for feeding purposes. Morana had plenty to say about that, the waste of losing forty-seven good soldiers for the gain of an ugly, crumbling castle in an ugly, barren land and if she'd known it was going to be this much bother they would have just gone around. Carmilla had already expressed her opinion in the original conversation, and the entirety of that opinion was a disgusted scoff.

Thus armed with as much information as she was going to get, Lenore dressed herself elegantly and went to the kitchens to collect a basket of freshly baked spice cakes, temptingly aromatic, before she descended to the dungeon.

Only one of the cells was filled at this time--none of the sisters were especially inclined toward taking prisoners unless they were of political value in some way, and their food captives were kept elsewhere under relatively minimal restraint.

"Well," Lenore comments, stopping in front of the dungeon cell and looking over the captive within with interest, chained on her knees. A heavy collar around her throat was chained to a ring in the floor in front of her, while her wrists were pulled out to either side and secured to more heavy iron rings and the cuffs on her ankles were attached to a ball and chain. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone in quite that many chains."

Comments

[frontlinetitties]

This is all startlingly unexpected. Why anyone would bother attacking the crumbling little kingdom she'd been indentured to at birth is utterly beyond her. Like, why not take literally anywhere else? The place was little more than a mausoleum even before the vampires attacked, death having touched the place when she was barely a few weeks old and having lain waste to (almost) an entire generation. It had been a veritable extinction event. The invaders may as well have sat back on their haunches and waited for everyone to die out, it would have been a hell of a lot less hassle. Admittedly though, this would have forced Gideon to miss out on the most exciting day of her fucking life.

Even if it has ultimately culminated in failure, even if - in the end - she'd been felled at the last by some terrible brute who under different circumstances might have instilled in her a girlish sense of hero-worship, at least she had got to fight. After days and weeks and months and years that had stretched endlessly, dismally on in their insignificance, the very thing she had always been made for had - at last - had the audacity to find her. And man had she fought, adrenaline fizzing through her bones, caught up in the fierce bright animal joy of the fight for one's life. She'd shown them maybe, the fucking captors who'd only ever viewed her through a lens of bitter contempt, that she was worth something. Worth more than the daughter they had lost. Gideon – if she says so herself - is the best damned asset they'd ever had.

It's just a pity it had all ended like this. No doubt her new captors will slaughter her soon enough, once they discover she'll give them fuck all. But hey, at least she'd really had the chance to shine, to get her sword red and wet the way it had been made for. There's some honour to be found in that. Better to have been killed on the battlefield, but hey, beggars can hardly be choosers.

Gideon's chin snaps upwards when the scent of warm, fresh pastry fills the room, and she tries to ignore the sharp twist of hunger it arouses. Aureate eyes narrow down to cut-glass slivers as she beholds the woman approaching her now. Someone new, someone they haven't already tried on her, and she hopes this bitch is as ready to be disappointed as the ones who came before her. The smile she throws the woman's way is crooked and feral as sin.

"You could try taking them off. See what happens," she doesn't even try to conceal the promise of violence in her answer.