unlikely acolyte

the sky felt lonesome tonight, clouds looming as all was hidden except the occasional glimpse of light from the barely exposed moon. blue, big and glaring, it felt unnatural. the sky felt unnatural. leaves almost jittered in the biting wind, soft but cruel, yet she could still feel her fingertips. francesca knew she was cold, but didn't feel it - that's how she distinguished reality from a dream. it helped that this was a recurring one of hers, only changing little details every now and then that she failed to notice the last time she was here.

"ah," she breathed, basking in the familiarity of it all. "this place."

stone paths, unsteady and cracked from wear. moss filling the empty spaces, save for the odd dandelion in the more spacious openings. she was outside of a church, again, and if this was anything like all of the previous nights, she was looking for something; a relic.

on the wall.

this voice is her own. disembodied, but familiar. the girl whipped her head around to look at the wall, and surely enough, there it was. the thing she was looking for, this time being a mask. sometimes it wasn't, of course - she had been sent to find keys, books, pieces of glass and the like - but this, this lacked that unfulfilled feeling that came with her little scavenger hunts. this strange little mask, which she was delicately holding in both hands now, was the objective.

she stared at it.

it stared back.

she suddenly found herself in a completely different location - only realising this when she lost her balance, and instead of scuffing her hands upon impact with the rough stone, she was met by a carpet - no, a rug. a soft, plush rug, which she felt better than she could see, with the lighting being notably .. lacking, save for a better word, with a few candelabras decorating the distant windowsills. this place was a manor; clearly lived in, but something still felt very unwelcoming about it. she picked herself up, no longer holding the mask - struggled to see the floor very clearly, but just assumed that it had vanished, and was nowhere to be seen as of this current moment.

"turn around," a voice called, seemingly out of nowhere - the suddenness had the girl startled, her back still facing this new presence.

"do you understand me? turn around." it called again. francesca followed suit.

a face that she couldn't see, but was burned into her mind nonetheless; the figure seemed unamused, resting its chin on a propped up arm, sitting cross-legged on an almost throne-like living chair.

it shifted slightly, the dim light catching its eyes; harsh, gold. she immediately avoided eye contact as if it was instinct. it sort of was for her, but not so quickly. 

the thing she was faced with most definitely wasn't human, she concluded. reminding herself once again that this was a dream, she spoke out.

"what are you?" 

silence.

"i..in terms of-"

"i am not one of you, if that's what you're asking." it replied, firmly at that. this one had no problems with interrupting the girl, who was far too reserved to even consider reacting to such thing.

she blinked. answers just raised more questions, and this individual didn't come off as the chatty type. fran bit her tongue before continuing,

"then what are you?"

she swallowed.

"if..you don't mind me asking."

again, she was met with silence - a different type, specifically, the figure seemed just a little bit amused, or intrigued at the girl's curiosity; this felt like both a good and a bad thing, but one could mull over that later. this shadowed mind was contemplating its next words.

"answer me this, girl - what do you see as the absolute opposite to a little human?"

she simply breathed in response. eyes were glaring daggers into her as she stood.

"a god, perhaps? or would you see it as more of a monster?"

this thing, before her. it was picking her brain for such pointless answers. it left her confused, but compliant nonetheless.

"the two aren't mutually exclusive." she replied. the figure paused for a moment, throwing its head back in a deep laugh. of all things, she did not expect it to find her funny.

"you're absolutely right," it began, another chuckle escaping its throat between sentences. "gods and monsters are one in the same, more often than not."

the atmosphere dwindled with the figure's content response, the strange air of lightheartedness and muffled, soul-scarring terror wilting with extended silence. she hardly noticed the shuffling of footsteps as her gaze shifted around the room, before meeting the very thing she was intentionally trying to avoid - and now, it was standing in front of her, about a metre away. yellow eyes studied her as her stance shrunk, gripping her forearms with her hands in a sort of huddling motion. this thing - no, this person was almost twice her height, tilting its head down to meet her line of sight in an attempt to lock her focus onto itself, narrowing its eyes.

"tell me your name," it stated. this was not a question, francesca noted, this was a command, and something indescribable had her fully understanding of the fact that she had no authority in this situation. she did as she was told, subconsciously tensing up her shoulders and standing up straight.

"francesca." she replied, almost automatically. she sounded formal, strained. it was unlike her to be so level headed on demand.

"francesca.." it repeated; the name rolling off of its tongue, oddly fascinated. the figure shifted again, barely edging closer to the girl - it was just enough for the light to catch the corners of its face, figure carved out by the dim glow of the assorted candelabras. shadows skimmed its features, masculine; sharp cheekbones, broad, rigid shoulders and hair half tamed, the light shyly bouncing off it like a halo - blonde, a much richer, golden tone than hers, leaving francesca washed out in comparison. she could have sworn the man was paler than she was, and francesca was pale - like, sickly pale. it warranted a lot of "undead" comments, classmates claiming to have seen a ghost before them, or a corpse, maybe. she'd correct them, saying "no, i'm a vampire", and hiss at them 'til they ran off. if she couldn't make friends, she was content with being the scary monster that everyone made her out to be, despite looking fragile and physically harmless. she wasn't harmless, that was a fact - she could easily hurt someone if she so wanted to. she just didn't. perhaps the others could sense that about her, hence the comments. the memories were dusty and fogged, like an old polaroid, but still brought out a giggle at the thought.

oh- she coughed, masking her little slip-up.

her mind drifted, and she was pulled back into focus by the man before giving her an unamused glare. he looked impatient, like he was waiting for a response, and here she was, completely out of it. she shook her head, breathed some sort of apology, and looked back up at him - the blonde was sort of limited on where to focus her line of sight without it being obvious that she was absolutely terrified of making eye contact with this person, whose prying eyes made her feel like an open book, whilst he was bound by lock and key. unfair, in her opinion. but anyway, what really caught her attention was not the daggerlike glow of amber eyes not dwindling in their focus on her whatsoever, but the teeth. the pair of pointy, razor sharp canines that were exposed, peeking out from his top lip - the mere sight of them had her feeling threatened, like a gazelle running face first into a lion, met with its demise spelled out in piano ivories; the melody cacophonous and deadly.

those were fangs.