Work Text:
=
Many years ago, more than 1500, there once was a peasant boy, and a seemingly untouchable noble that seemed to command anyone with a single look in her eyes.
The boy, had a different name back then, but we’ll call him by the name we know him now; Walter Deville, and the noble was who we know as Lady (y/n) Deville, though she had a different name back then as well.
Rumors swirled around lady (y/n), some that she bathed in the blood of virgins to keep her beauty, others that she was a witch, Walter-just thought the gods favored her, favored her beauty, her mind, her power; all of her.
He favored her too.
He caught her eye once, when she had been wandering the village, going to the market with one of her handmaidens, she was a hands-on noble, she wasn’t one to shy away from the people that lived in the same town as her. He’d been working at his father’s shop, working on the stupid overhang that had been breaking over and over again over the last week-the carpenter they had paid had only done half the work.
As Walter worked on lifting the two pieces of wood together, his arms straining in the misty sun, his eyes caught onto a shine of gold, glancing to the side to see Lady (y/n), looking right back at him, her gaze intrigued.
Walter swallowed, suddenly feeling shy, and he turned away-nailing the wood together and dropping back to the floor, wiping his hands as he looked up at his handy work. He still felt Lady (y/n)’s eyes on him as she continued through the market, and he felt like he was a fresh apple in a row of bruised plums under her eyes.
He liked the feeling.
-
“Im what?” Walter asked his father as he finished up gathering some well water from the town well, setting the buckets on the floor of the small house they lived in.
“you’ve been summoned by lady (y/n),” his father said gruffly, looking a bit perturbed. “One of ‘er servants came down, asked for you by name. I suggest you get going, maybe gain the family favor-don’t deny her boy.” His father said and Walter swallowed down his nerves.
He got dressed in his best clothes, which were probably the only non-ripped or sewn back together clothes he had, and made the trek up the hill to the manor of lady (y/n). He arrived at the doors and was allowed in by a servant, and then was led through the dark candlelit home. He felt out of place in the immaculate place, everything was so clean and so…pretty.
Why had lady (y/n) called upon him?
He was led to one of the sitting rooms and the doors closed behind him, the room only illuminated by the fireplace, where he could see lady (y/n) sitting by it, her figure shadowed by the flames, a glass in her hands.
Walter swallowed harshly, standing straight. “You asked for me, my lady?” Walter asked and lady (y/n) hummed, setting her glass down, standing up, Walter swallowing again as she began to walk over to him.
Lady (y/n) was quiet for a moment, her eyes gleaming in the flickering light of the fireplace-almost unnaturally, but Walter was hypnotized by her ethereal beauty, eyes locked onto her as her hand reached out, her long black painted nails grazing against his chin-making him shiver.
“would’st thou like to live deliciously?” lady (y/n) asked in a quiet, whispering tone that made Walter’s breathing pick up, his eyes going wide. “Wouldst thou like the taste of…butter, and silver rings?” she asked, in the same tone, stepping closer to him-her eyes gleaming red under the firelight, and Walter’s eyes dropped to her lips, seeing fangs peeking from her mouth.
He swallowed hard. A witch? No, demon? Possibly.
Vampire.
He shuddered, gasping a bit as her hand gently curled around his neck. “All I ask, is your loyalty….and blood, dragostea mea.” Walter shuddered again, his eyes fluttering-his mind a fog of could be’s and desires.
Just blood and loyalty, that’s all he had to give, and she’d give him all the pleasures in the world.
“Yes.” Walter breathed, nearly without hesitation, moaning as her blood red lips descended on his.
-
Walter smiled as he looked upon his baby sisters feasting upon the meal that lady (y/n)’s personal hunters had brought for them, deer and boar, butter and potatoes, yams and fish. It had only been a week and yet his family was already thriving under the gifts of the lady-his father no longer felt any sort of way against his son being the ‘personal whore’ of lady (y/n), not when it allowed them to ‘live like the king.’
Walter rubbed his wrist gently, feeling the scarring marks of where lady (y/n) had fed from him just a few days before, she never took too much-just enough to satisfy during the throes of passion between them.
He looked around his home again, his sisters had new beds, his father new shoes, Walter himself had a new wardrobe, gone the threadbare shirts and pants-and in were the new cotton shirts and breathable trousers that never chafed his skin.
Walter nodded to himself, giving himself to lady (y/n) was well worth it, if not for his family, then for himself-because he knew very well he was enjoying being hers.
It was just too much fun.
-
Walter could barely hear, barely see, coughing up his left lung as the rotting bodies of his family were left in their beds. The plague doctors had already come through the village once, bodies being burned near the cliffs every day.
A sickness had come for the village, wiping out nearly everyone-the Deville’s being one of the last to go, Walter being the only one left of the family of 4. He was the last to fall ill, since he’d been at the manor more often than not-spending a whole week there only to return to find his youngest sister dead, and his father and 2nd youngest sister dying, blood and other bodily fluids staining their skin and beds.
It wasn’t long before he got sick to, and now a week later-he was on deaths door, the house smelled like sick and death, the food that had been delivered by lady (y/n)’s hunters all rotting on the kitchen table.
Walter took a wheezing breath that led into a bloody cough, closing his eyes feebly as he thought he heard the front door open.
There was a cold hand on his face, a familiar one and he opened his eyes to see the blurry form of lady (y/n) above him, her brows furrowed. “My lady,” Walter wheezed, shaking his head. “No-go-I don’t- I don’t,” he coughed, more blood staining his lips and splattering on her hand. “Please.”
Lady (y/n) shook her head, looking around for something and she stood, her dress catching on the rotting chair of the table as she grabbed a iron goblet from the cabinet, hurrying back over to Walter and using her sharp nail to draw nearly black blood from her arm, letting It drip down till there was enough to drink once.
“Drink, you’ll be healthy once more-you’ll never be sick again, never be weak again, you’ll be by my side forever. Please mihi pretiosum.” Lady (y/n) begged, he’d never heard her beg before, usually he was the one doing that. He looked up at her with bleary bloodshot eyes, his skin pale and sunken, he was at death’s door, and she was offering him a way out-a way to be with her forever.
As a vampire.
He didn’t even give it a second thought, he used all his strength to sit up and take the cup, swallowing down her blood.
He felt it instantaneously- his very bones got stronger, he no longer felt the deafening hunger pangs in his stomach, his teeth strengthened, his canines became sharp, his vision cleared and his breathing strengthened.
Walter took his first breath as an immortal being, his gleaming eyes locking onto lady (y/n), who looked utterly relieved, and she took his hand, helping him from his death bed. “amica mea,” lady (y/n) murmured in Latin, and Walter smiled, teeth and all. “Come, let us leave all this death behind.” Lady (y/n) whispered, and he took her hand, leaving the rotting Deville ‘home’ behind.
The village burned two days later, wiping the plague from the map, along with all existence of the village.
Only Lady (y/n) Deville and her husband remained to remember it.
-end :3-