— Leslie Levire —

I ran a finger along the bite mark on my shoulder. “That was fun~” I teased Prissy as she helped re-tie my dress. I could see a faint blush on her face, it was always easy to make her turn red. So cute, and in contrast to her usual up-tight personality.

“We should get going,” she brushed off my flirt, “Make as much ground as we can before the sun rise.”

Prissy wasn’t the kind of vampire that could stand in the sunlight, so traveling at night was our only option.

I nodded, “We can have more fun when we get to my place~” I shot a coy smile in her direction. Though she managed to maintain total composure, her true emotions were clear as her cheeks grew redder.

From the mouth of the cave, we scaled the steep cliffs. Prissy leveraged her vampiric strength the leap from foothold to foothold, while I allowed my wings to carry me on the wind.

Our destination waited at the top of this mountain, which was aptly named Mt. Lumedia after the city that sat upon its peaks. This was the steepest part of the mountain, the great cliffs which protected the city from the beasts of the the wild that dwelled in the lowlands to the north.

At our current pace, I felt we could easily reach the city of light before sunrise.

— Bridget —

“By the way, about your curse, the one from Haimorrha,” Stacy began as we continued up the road, “I think I know a way we can take care of that. See there are spell breakers in Lumedia—”

“Actually, I don’t think we need to worry about that any more,” I interrupted her. It didn’t activate last night remember? And I don’t feel it here any more.” I rubbed my belly in the spot where I suspected the curse used to sit.

Stacy watched me for a bit before responding, “It must have been that judgement blade or whatever then. It must have identified the curse as something evil within you.”

“I guess I have something to thank that white knight guy for after all.” I thought back for a moment before shaking it off. I still didn’t like him.

We continued walking for a while until I caught on to something Stacy had said. “Wait, if spell breakers can get rid of curses, can they get rid of gifts too?”

Stacy had a tired look on her face, and shook her head. “No, that’s beyond their power. Even getting rid of curses is usually very difficult, because it goes against the will of a god, it usually requires the aid of another god.”

“How long will it take for us to reach Lumedia anyway?”

“At our current pace? A couple days still.”

I felt kinda bad. I knew I was slowing her down. Heck, I was the reason we were going there in the first place. I didn’t have any super speed gifts or anything like that, so we had to travel at the pace of a normal human. I thought for a minute. “What if you carried me?” I suggested.

Suddenly Stacy was behind me, and she swept me off my feet. “Say no more, princess,” she grinned as she held me bridal style.

My face turned bright red, but I held onto her regardless, and the wind blasted past us as she ran with me in her arms.

Stacy leapt into the air and we cleared the top of the trees. The colorful leaves dancing below us bathed in the light of the sun almost appeared as a sea of flame. Stacy landed gracefully on the branch of a tall pine, and I admired the path ahead of us, the road we were traveling on just barely visible through the branches of trees. It wound gracefully up the side of the mountain, vanishing into the distance where the land reached far into the sky.

I gasped in excitement, “This is amazing!”

“I know, it’s beautiful,” Stacy had a wistful look on her face as she took in the view. “This is actually my first time seeing the world from this perspective, too, you know? At least, since becoming a vampire. Until recently, I was weakened by the sun, so I never had this kind of freedom during the day.”

I gazed into Stacy’s crimson eyes as she admired the view, and my eyes found themselves wandering down to her pink lips, which I so wanted to kiss me. As I processed the her words, a question bubbled to the front of my mind.

“Before you became a vampire? What was that like?”