Waking up was always a strange sort of occurrence, when your body moves faster than your mind and starts to stir before you’ve fully remembered how you got into bed and why maybe you shouldn’t be stirring just yet. Unfortunately it didn't exactly dawn on Charlotte exactly why she shouldn’t be groaning softly, shifting about and starting to sit up until her eyes fell on the woman seated in a chair that had been awkwardly wedged against her door. That’s when it all started coming back to her and she was regretting opening her eyes, everything that had happened, what that woman had been doing, what she... probably was.
Charlotte was frozen again half sitting up in her bed… her own bed in her own apartment, these were her sheets and her dirty clothes strewn about the floor and her knicknacks on the shelves. Wait! How did she get here and why was she still alive, and the woman, the vampire, why was she here? Was she going to bite her? Would it feel good? She immediately slammed a hand over her mouth to cut off those sort of thoughts, no bad do not fantasize at all about the vampire that may or may not be here to kill you! While Charlotte was slowly losing her mind spiraling trying to processes the woman shifted uncrossing her legs and standing up, there was an inhuman grace to her movement because, of course there was and a little smile on her face and those same crimson eyes that had frozen the Brunette before still held her in place. It was only here in that half asleep terror stricken state that she could actually look at the woman.
She was tall and easily had a good five inches on Charlotte’s five foot five, and the face that surrounded those amber orbs looked as if it had been carved from marble, a comparison only helped by her icy pale skin. What hugged her body would have looked downright normal on anyone else: a loose blouse that only just barely hid that her figure was beyond human and a pencil skirt that hugged her thighs. She stepped closer until really there was only the span of the bed between them and of course she had set herself right between Charlotte and the window, the only escape that wasn’t blocked already.
Charlotte let out a little squeak something that started towards speech that started towards asking one of the dozen or so questions that flitted through her mind but she was silenced by a finger and the woman spoke, her voice was lightly accented in a way that was hard to place, European of some kind but it was indistinct and faded.
“Now little mouse that was a very foolish thing to do, to try and sneak up on a feeding monster~ tsk tsk, I’d have thought that cute girls should have long learned to not poke their heads into dingy alleyways, where allllll kinds of horrible things might happen~” She put emphasis on the word ‘monster’ a light purr to her words to drive it home that Charlotte had very much seen exactly what she thought she had seen. Something that really only made the trembling that had started in her hands get worse, she was dead, beyond dead right? If vampires were real and well it was looking very much like that was the case, then they had been for a long time and that most likely meant that society as a whole wasn’t aware of them for a reason. The most likely reason? They didn’t want society to know, and the best way to ensure that didn’t spread, well she was fairly certain that she was dead.
Slowly she lifted her head to look fully at the woman.
“Why am I still alive then?” Right go ahead and ask something stupid right away of course, her mouth wasn’t wired the same as her brain and often she just ended up blurting out something but for the moment that just earned her a chuckle.
“Because Charlotte, I haven't decided yet if you should be just yet.” She reached out a hand one that landed on the girl's head. Partly to stop the girl from immediately barraging her with questions should she be capable of it.
“your name wasn’t hard, you had a wallet on you, and from there it was a simple matter to get you home and all snuggly tucked into bed.” She slowly sat down on the edge of the bed her torso turned to face where Charlotte sat, knees pulled up to her chest pressed back against the headboard, small and cute, like a mouse.
“I’m sure you’re very aware that you’ve done something stupid, and that if we played completely by the rules you’d be gone.” she paused letting that statement settle, cementing exactly what Charlotte had been thinking about. “Buuut I like to think I have a soft spot for cute girls so let's make a simple deal okay?”
It wasn’t really a deal Charlotte was aware it was a ‘do as I say and you can go back to pretending life is boring’ and she knew that but beyond that she was still squirming though now there was the added reason that there was something about the woman that drew a flush to her cheeks a light dusting of crimson that started to creep across her face, was it really just being called cute by a stranger? A very dangerous… aaand undeniably sexy stranger?
“Wh- how do you know my name… n-nevermind. W-what kind of deal.. Exactly?” oho! Well done mouth you didn’t say something completely stupid! She was slowly starting to calm down. The initial gut wrenching terror has slowly melted to a dull agitation, she was on edge sure but she couldn’t quite manage to summon up the will to do anything about it, what did it matter? She could bolt for the window but the woman had stopped her from running before and the time it would take to unwedge the door? No she was very stuck and her only real option was to listen and then decide.
“Good girl, now then surely you’re aware that talking about.. Anything you’ve seen would be very bad~” her hand was still resting on Charlotte’s head but slowly it shifted fingers curling to pick up a strand of brown hair, no longer in a ponytail idly teasing it around a finger. “And that since I’ve found your house.. And name so easily it won’t just be something you can lie to me now and run to the media later right? You’re smarter than that I trust.”
“So it’s very simple, forget what you’ve seen, continue your life and don’t do something so stupid again and maybe I’ll decide to let you live okay?” It was a very.. Generous deal wasn’t it? All she had to do was forget everything, forget the woman, who’s name she didn’t even know, forget that she saw something that would forever change her world, forever change how she saw things and just.. Ya that wasn’t going to happen even if she did everything the woman said and didn’t say a peep. How could she look at anyone out there and not wonder, are they a vampire? Are Vampires the only monsters out there? What about ghosts, werewolves? She was already prone to worry, to overthinking things and anxiety now? With a bomb like that dropped right into her lap?
She laughed a choking laugh that turned into a sob halfway through.
“How… I, It’s not…” she couldn’t quite piece together her thoughts into words and the woman’s hand returned to her head petting gently.
“Shhhh~ don’t you worry too much about things you can’t control. Go back to sleep.” slowly she pushed Charlotte down into bed and the girl.. Let her, or at least made zero effort to resist her efforts and by the time the blankets were pulled up to her chin the chair was removed from the door and the woman was halfway out the window her eyes where growing heavy and as she started to slip off the name floated over to her just soon enough to settled in her mind before she was gone.
“.. Maeva”
