Meredith had always known about magic. Her family was magic, one of the most powerful mage lines out there. Having lost her parents to all the fighting though, she stayed far away from it, focusing on school and lading a primarily normal life.
Unti...
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Her head throbbed, her knee ached, and her hands were still two lead stones as she woke up, but she felt like she was buried in clouds. It took her another moment to remember where she was, what she was, and what she was with. When reality finally solidified, she sat bolt upright. A draft blew across her completely bare chest, and she squeaked as she pulled the cloud floating around her over her exposed skin.
It was a robe. Maybe a robe. Made from some poor dead animal's white, plush fur, it buried her entire body, and when she allowed her hand to explore herself, she discovered that she was completely naked under it. Wonderful.
A shuffling noise drew her attention up to the vampire from before leaning back in a recliner and... reading a newspaper? What could possibly interest it? Were there classifieds for vampires seeking other asshole vampires? It didn't acknowledge her, and it was probably better that she stayed out of its notice, but she had to ask.
"What did you do to me?" The words crawled out of her mouth. She was naked, which meant its hands had been on her to strip her at the least.
"I tried to rouse you," the thing said, setting down its paper and looking over to her. "You were out cold, covered in dirt, and I wasn't going to put something that filthy on my upholstery."
Well, excuse her. She wouldn't have been so filthy had he not tried to till the ground with her face.
"So you took off my clothes?" Mer's voice would have been acid if she were not so terrified, and naked. She was completely naked in front of a vampire who was supposed to be accepting her as a sacrifice.
"What you were wearing wasn't clothing," the vampire retorted, and she bit her lip, looking away and tightening every muscle in her face so that she didn't crack a bitter smile. God it hadn't been, but she had not expected the thing to share any opinion with her.
"What else–"
"I merely bathed you." It cut her off, its voice still lacking any inflection. That must be the normal way it spoke. It wasn't as if creatures of the dark were highly emotional anyway.
With a need to confirm everything it uttered, she touching her hair and did find it less grimy than the day before. The long, frizzy chestnut curls ran to her should blades, and it wasn't the funnest thing to wash. It took a while to dry too, and it was definitely dry.
"I'm not a caveman. I used a hairdryer." It picked up on her thoughts quickly, but it wasn't as if she was trying to hide them.
Mer had expected a castle from medieval times, filled with suits of armor and illuminated by old wax candles, but the lights, dim as they were, hung from an electric chandelier. High ceilings gave the place a real vampire's domain feeling, but the painted walls and arrangement of modern furniture cramped that doom style real quickly. Shelves lined with books and decorative bookends filled one wall, and the desk in the corner wasn't from Ikea but it also wasn't whittled by archaic woodworkers.
