summary : For centuries your kind has lived hidden: unknown to the world, shrunk back in the shadows you belong in. The Great Ball is the only time you come out in the light, the only time you allow yourself to feast. Amongst moulded ceilings and cups of wine, Mirkwood’s crown prince finds an interest in you and your red velvet dresses. But Legolas doesn’t know you have teeth to bite him and an inherited bloodlust.
pairing legolas x fem!vampire!reader (no use of y/n)
author's note : i know nobody in the poll voted for the first chapter of bloodborne to be released first but i just had an itch and i thought it was only fair you guys were not inclined to vote for bloodborne since there's not even a first chapter published, only the prologue, so you can't really root for a fanfic that only exists in my mind lmao?? anyways so here's the first proper chapter, raw dogged this in a day instead of studying for my exam tomorrow —don't even wish me luck i don't deserve it i'm too smug
➢ nini’s masterlist
➢ bloodborne’s masterlist
The sun shrinks in the distance, cold and bitting, when the main doors of the manor are shut for the days to come. The Grey Mountains see their first life in four years, they will soon see the end of some of them too. From your spot at the foot of the great stairs, you read the room for the first time. The atmosphere is the same every year: you can smell the nonchalance of the guests, how merry and unbothered they are. Your gaze slides over the sea of people in the reception hall, your heart feels fuller though you know it is a trick of your mind.
Lying in your chest, the organ is too black and atrophied for any kind of movement.
It has been years you have not seen your home in such a lively state. Chandeliers hangs over people’s head, casting a warm glow upon the room; walls echo with laughters and discussions, their red dripping its hue on every reflecting surface; the moulded ceilings are, as always, the talk of many people; and sun is blocked from the stained glass windows by heavy red curtains. In the corners, tables are set with bites of food to eat, and zigzagging between people, you see the annual butler carry a trail of wine glasses that the guests take willingly. Your lips twitch. Their fingers wrap around the stem; from where you stand, you can make out the grain of their skin as if you were right next to them. On an indoor loggia overlooking the first floor, an orchestra plays the first melodies of the weekend. Many more will be heard in the course of the ball.
The merry hum of the reception tickles your sensitive ears, you rejoice in those last minutes of peace. In a minute, people you know will have you hostage to their babbling and the only way you will have to escape it is pretexting you need to greet the other guests, which is partially true. You make a standing point in greeting those who come back every four years, just as your father did.
You know it, the Great Ball is the event of every bissextile year, it cannot fail. Every mighty royal of Middle-Earth is invited to it, if something appears out of the ordinary word would spread as quickly as catching fire. No news is good news, that is why you have to stay on your guard every passing second; nothing can stray out of the carefully carved out path you have intended. The Ball is a tradition, a life or death one, it has to unfold perfectly. For now, everything goes according to plan. People move before you like metronomes with the rhythm of the music, you already see a woman you recognise from hundred years ago attract a lost young man in the darkness of a leaving corridor. Nobody saw them but you, you bet he tastes sweet. You know he does; men have a way of growing tooth-rotting when they believe you love them.
You take a deep breath, close your eyes upon releasing it and plaster an agreeable smile on your face the moment they flutter back open. For a second, you miss the darkness behind your lids and the solitude, but it all disappears as you take your first step on the tiled floor. The red velvet of your gown flows behind you, like a red sea raising where you walk, your shoes do not clasp against the ground. Nobody can see the concealed purple bags under your eyes; it’ll be better in an hour or so, when the sun will have finally descended fully. You move quietly, though unmistakable by your presence. Many lesser people who were not here the time before, who won’t be here in four years, address you courteous signs of the head. You reply to them with your best smile, the one you practiced for hours in front of your window’s reflection. You know it charms them effectively. It always does, poor lambs to the slaughter. You hope they do not see it coming; it is best when they are not polluted by fear and anxiety. The wine and music serve to make their hearts merry, to lull them into indulgent sins.
The spirit for crowds the Great Ball casts in you begins to rise. You find yourself much more inclined to talk to guests and be frivolous all night, all of a sudden. This too, is a carefully rehearsed number. A lie of the finest kind which nobody but those who play it too notice. You will pretend to be pleased by their jokes, pretend to be frivolous, pretend some of them are of interest to you. The truth is less amusing: you care only for your own party, and it is because duty demands it.
As you cross the room, you lock eyes with someone you know very well: a man and his wife hanging at his arm; your own party. The air whispers around you as you take the last steps to them, and when you reach the couple you bow to the woman, before holding out your hand for the man to kiss. His lips are cold as death on your skin, her eyes glimmer with a flash of vermeil for a split second only you can catch. Your smile widens, the tension in your muscles ease at the sight of familiar faces.
“How do you like the Ball?“ you ask with a movement of the hand showing it out to them.
“As always, my dear, it is magnificent,“ the woman replies. “The new guests are…“ she lowers her tone in secrecy. “Fresh.“
Your grin turns lopsided. You shrug as if you hadn’t hand picked them yourself for month before the gathering. “I should hope so.“
“Nonsense, you have always had the refined taste of your father,“ the man sips on his wine and holds back a grimace that makes you chuckle. “However, I fear I will never get used to… this. What do you call it, again?“
“Dorwinion wine.“
“Ah, yes.“
From the corner of your eyes, you see another familiar face looking at you. The young man broods in the corner, clad in his black jacket, and there is fire in his eyes that doesn’t stray from you. You know it isn’t meant to be taken personally, Izcasus always has that look in his eyes. It used to excite you when you were younger, the danger that laid about him, but not anymore. Danger was alright when you were still teenagers, but now danger speaks great doom to you, and he does not get it.
“Excuse me,“ you bow to the couple, before heading in the young man’s direction. They look at each other knowingly and swiftly turn on their heels, searching for another entertainment. Your people are often considered vapid beings, all they care for is good distractions and good food. Both are given to them at the Great Ball, it is the sole purpose of it.
Upon seeing you walk his way, Izcasus’ lazy eyes seem to open a bit more, and he straightens, crossed arms loosening to hang at his side. He leans further into the tall porphyry column he is backed upon, sly grin creeping up his face. There are a lot of pretty girls this year, no doubt he’ll slake his lust and hunger thoroughly.
“My lady,“ he charms the moment your steps still in front of him.
You reply with a mocking roll of the eyes. “Izcasus.“
The boy takes his time observing you, not hurried in any way. His gaze inspects your dress, gauges the velvet of it and linger where he has no right in the square cleavage of your collar, on the white pearls adorning your neck. Because he takes you in so unabashedly, you do so too. Though there is not much to say, for he looks like any handsome boy of your kin: black jet hair, snow-white skin, plump red lips and chiseled jaw you could cut yourself onto. You can spot many girl in the ballroom who would like to cut themselves on his skin, to have him bite at their neck. They do not know he means it literally.
It is not your case; Izcasus bores you, he is too reckless, too selfish. You do not know selfishness, as opposed to what one could think, everything you do is for others. The Ball is for others, you are only entitled to its setting up.
“You have outdone yourself, you almost make me believe beauty comes with age, nightingale,“ the tone of his voice annoys you, and the silly nickname he gives you too. You hold back from gritting your teeth. It is hard to know if he refers to you or the room’s stature; probably both.
“You should know all about it,“ you taunt. “How old are you again? Almost three thousand?“
“Two thousand seven hundred years old.“
“Women won’t wait for you anymore once you grow your first white hair.“
Izcasus knows it is impossible, just like you he is trapped in eternal youth, but you see him palm at his hair nevertheless as if there could be a single strand of white in their darkness. It makes you stifle a laugh and he sends you daggers with his eyes.
“A shame you’ll be the only one still able to wait, then,“ you hold your chin higher when he leans in, refusing to back up. His breath is cold, it crashes on the bridge of your nose. “We had fun last time.“
The memory sends a disgusted shiver down your spine. Last time was a bloodbath with him, you remember you almost threw up at how violent he had been. Visions of blood staining the floor and gushing everywhere impose themselves to you: staining your dress, splattering on your face, clogging in your hair. It was all but the clean kills you were used to. And the worst? The bastard seemed to enjoy it. You recall the way his eyes had been wide open and shining red, his lips pursed in a voracious smirk showcasing his bloodied teeth. You remember the colour of sin in his eyes, and the sharp coldness of his fangs when he had thanked you for the last day of the Ball in his own sick and twisted way: with a kiss on the side of your neck. The feeling had burnt uncontrollably for days after, you had scratched it until your skin broke out and drew blood.
The mask you wear does not crack, you have known him too long for it to have a visible effect on you whatsoever.
“Last time was a mistake. Behave,“ you whisper the last word like a shameful secret.
That’s the thing with Izcasus, if you are not careful enough, he can turn against you as easily as he can love you.
Glaring at him, you bow courteously and take your leave without further ado. There are many more deserving guests here than him, and some of them will not spend the night. If you can be the last courteous interaction they have before they meet their end, then it would at least ease your guilt. The first day of the Ball is always like that, you reek of guilt until you sink your teeth in soft flesh and the feeling is like being born anew. What can you do against the animal instincts that control you? How can you escape the primal thirst of your soul? You still have no satisfying answer, but you know you should not blame yourself so much: many are those who do not ask themselves such questions. Your kin surely does not take pity as a virtue, you can deplore it all you want but it is true.
Once again, you take to glide amongst the crowd from guests to guests. The easy smile on your face has returned, though you make a mental note of keeping an eye on a certain someone. You wander about the reception hall, chat cheerfully with people clad in their best attire, compliment them on their manners and decorum. It is all a game of appearances: the Lords come with the hope of forming new connections and strengthening the old ones, lesser nobility shows up just because they have been invited and it is the event of their lives, and people like you are here for far somber things. Things that better stay silenced, things you hide in the shadows at the turn of an hallway, things that minimise the number of guests as days pass. Nobody ever notices anything, royals are too busy with their own selves to care about third-rate bourgeoisie. You are also very proficient at making corpses disappear without a trace; a skill that comes with age and experience.
After a while talking with the same type of people who had nothing in mouth but laudatory praises concerning your qualities they were very much unaware of, boredom starts to get the better out of you. A stroke to the ego flatters you, but too much of it gets sickening. Even if you must remain attentive to everything as the host of the evening, the Great Ball is also a moment for you to try and have fun. If you cannot relax fully, you can at least stop pretending all your smiles with some of the guests. This year, particularly, there are two men on the guest list you have been waiting to meet. A king and a prince, whom had both never attended any of the Balls, had been the object of your particular attention.
Straying from the one-sided discussion you are having with two women Izcasus eyes so much you believe he is not beneath a double as his next meal, your own gaze wanders around the room. You hope to find the men you have been looking for, but it seems vain when it comes to the point where you have seen every face in this crowd at least twice. In fact, it is vain; you don’t even know if they have bothered to come.
You are about to give up on any hope of real entertainment when a sort of soft glow catches your attention. In the corner of your vision, something radiates of a pure essence against the closed space of the Hall felted with red walls and red curtains, hushed in the low buzz of never-ending chatters, and swaying with the movement of every ball gown gathered here. Something your soul recognises immediately, something your instincts now scream for. Something, or someone.
When you turn your head to it, there are blue eyes that pierce yours at the same time, as if they foreshadowed your upcoming staring, and the most utterly perfect face you have ever seen. The way your muscles jolt under your skin and your ears block out every sound to a dull hum is nothing but primal. It is instinct hitting back at you, making you erase everything in your line of sight but the aquiline nose and pale cheekbones of your next prey. Except it is not a prey, far from it. It is an elf.
An elf-prince; the one you have been searching for.
Your eyes gleams a flash of crimson for a split second, something unnoticeable; yet Legolas notices it. He notices it because his eyes have forced their way upon you and now that he looks at you the prince cannot help but feel his heart miss a beat. Or two. Maybe four. He frowns at the weird hue that just passed in your eyes, but the wrinkles he has turned into ease as soon as he sees you excuse yourself to your interlocutors to take a step towards him. Next to him, Aragorn looks at you come their way too. There is something slightly unsettling about you; something he would have had a hard time putting his finger on even in his time as a ranger.
It takes you but seconds before standing in front of the two men, welcoming smile plastered to your face, though it is not as fake this time. You bow.
“My King,“ you address Aragorn.
The man takes your hand to press his forehead on the back of it.
“My Prince,“ you turn to Legolas and he does the same with your hand. It is abnormally cold. Freezing, even.
When you feel he presses against the skin more than what is safe, you gently pull back your hand and address him a small smile. For a little while, you stay here silent. Every fibber of your body screams at you, the hand he has touched trickles with small fireworks. You take a small breath, keeping your composure. Of course your own mind would betray you in front of an elf. It is in your nature to be enthralled by them, the excitement you feel in front of the prince is your very first instincts being reminded to you. It is also punishment from the gods for your sins. Beings of darkness should not yearn for those of light, yet your kind does.
It does against all that is right in this world, because vampires have always felt elves were the closest thing to their own perfection. You crave for a light that can never reach you, for a perfection so akin to your own yet so far. The first children of Illuvatar: the alter dei; and then the last: the fallen angels.
“I am glad you could come. I understand it is your first Great Ball,“ you say, though it is evident.
Legolas’s father, king Thranduil, used to come by himself to represent Mirkwood —when he would bother to come; you remember despite being an elf he was not as appealing to you as his son. Perhaps his aloof character made it so. And for Aragorn, it has only been three years since he became king; you had not invited Gondor’s attendant to the last Ball, you did not like the man very much.
“I understand why you call it the ‘Great‘ Ball. You have nothing to envy to the royal feasts of elven and human realms,“ Legolas compliments, and for the first time you are allowed to hear his voice. It catches you off of guard the tiniest bit at first, you had not expected it to be so soft, yet so confident. You think you could do with hearing it all night.
His golden locks fall in front his shoulders as he talks, the subtle movement of the air is enough to bring his scent to your heightened senses. You curse the unslaked ache that has rotted for far too long without relief in your belly. Did every elf smell this mouth-watering or just him? The singular odour clings to your nose, presses like an anvil upon your chest and rushes through your vein. You know the feeling very well: hunger. Bloodlust, more precisely, for it is not his scent you smell but his blood: metallic, and sweet like flower sap.
You force up another tight smile as your stomach coils. It is a scent you have never smelt, and it’s worse than everything that it should be so unfamiliar to you. You have no time to adapt to it, and you have still not fed. There is a filthy want in your stomach that awakes like a monster. One for flesh and bones, one for blood as sweet as Legolas’s must taste. You mentally shake the thought away.
The more you stay in front of him, the more anguish fills your mind. You need to go. You need to tame the creature you are in your core back to its den. You’ll return to him when you will not have the irrepressible carnivorous want to eat him alive
“Thank you,“ you say as you glance behind you, prefiguring you are making for a way out. “I should go greet the other guests; I hope we can talk more in the nearest future. It is such a pleasure having you here,“ you excuse yourself, bowing courteously and taking a step back before fully turning around.
Legolas looks at you go, the velvet fabric of your dress still imprinted in his mind. If he closes his eyes, he thinks he can make it out in the emptiness as well as the black lace emphasising your waist and collar. He feels a weird tug in his stomach, a weak growl he does not like. In the back of his mind, Legolas misses completely the plague that is starting to spread.
There is something off about you; something raw. But to the prince, it is so much more than that. He feels this oddity spreads to the whole manor, like the stonewalls murmur to him half-whispers of concealed secrets he cannot make out. And something lacks in the ballroom.
“There is no mirror.“
“Indeed?“ Aragorn frowns, amused. The king does not quite understands the problem with the lack of mirrors, and he certainly did not know his friend a firm judge of decors.
“One should think a ball is the one important place to look at one’s apparel and showcase it,“ Legolas explains.
The observation lands quietly in the atmosphere, but it reinforces its uneasiness. It is too early to be making assumptions, but the prince’s instinct rarely proves him wrong. And above all that, there is you and you perfectly rehearsed smiles and greetings; you and the youth upon your face; you and the quietness of your footsteps. Legolas doesn’t know if you are twenty or a thousand years old, it seems you could be both in the very particular way of the elves; he convinces himself it is merely this which makes him dote on you.
Only, your eyes cross multiple times in the evening and it can hardly be justified as coincidence anymore. So much that you are now both fully aware you observe each other from the other end of the room. Still, you keep on staring, letting him know he is not discreet. A glance above the rim of your glass while sipping on wine, another when speaking to someone who doesn’t quite entertain you as the prince’s ogling does. It burns your skin how attentively he observes you, makes you tingle in anticipation. Whatever this year’s Ball will bring, you are quite sure Legolas’s attention is something you won’t be able to escape for long. A chance you have never been one to deny most welcome attention bestowed upon you. Especially if it was from an elf. Especially if the elf in question made you drool with the idea of his blood coating your tongue.
You know it is just a dream, silly and foolish. You would not wish to hurt him, you love his kind too much, it is ingrained in you like a pattern. You do not like the prince, not yet; but he makes you curious. Curiosity is a dangerous beast for a woman like you to have; it kills the cat. Yet, something tells you all your reactions to the elf will be driven by sheer instinct, whether you like it or not. It is treacherous, but you have never learnt to step away from a warm fire because it burnt: because at least it warmed you, did it not? Because there is something soothing in the burn. A thrill, a pain.
It takes just a second of inattention from Legolas for him to lose you completely.
You’ve disappeared from the crowd. Simply vanished like you’ve never been there in the first place. Your presence does not linger in the atmosphere, it’s like he dreamt you altogether. Legolas blinks at the spot where he was supposed to find you, meanwhile you cross an empty corridor with a guest you’ve lured here.
The corridor stays quiet when you plant your canines in the side of his neck, except for a single whimper he lets out and the slow stopping of his breath. You lick the wound and the blood flows more easily upon touching your saliva; it’ll take a minute for you to suck him dry. With each famished gulp you take, it’s like being reborn full of bad deeds, full of the ugliest sins you will still cradle in your heart until the guilt disappears.
For now, you feel no guilt. Nothing but pure red dripping bliss, a mental Eden that crawls through your veins. You can feel the blood inside of you thicken, get more dense to flow slower and coax your system into a well deserved hibernation. There is a lazy vigour that stretches in your muscles, one you will keep for the rest of the night but will have to sleep off in the morning, like a cat.
It has been so long since you’ve last tasted human blood, and single boy won’t make you last four years. He is the first of a long row; for the better good, you convince yourself. The taste of your first prey in years will linger on your tastebuds until the second one, and at length you won’t even remember his face; how it contorts in ugly blissed out pain. You will come to look past how odd it is that humans always look like they are enjoying the agony. Some of them even moan like you bring them relief. You like to think perhaps it is a pleasurable end for them.
Beneath you, the drawn-out beat of a heart stops. What was his name again? You’re not sure you even asked.
This a reference to people saying Wednesday is too dark while being a gothic television show.
Out of the mainstream filmmakers with gothic storytelling vibes, the fans of Wednesday who are not fans of gothic literature or film or television or gothic art in general should be happy that Tim Burton is the director.
Some people are going to disagree but most of his films are very family friendly and kid friendly gothic stories and horror stories.
While Guillermo del Toro had literal and explicit incest in Crimson Peak and literal monsterfucking in The Shape Of Water. Robert Eggers had Ellen killed at that end and didn’t give us a happy ending plus, the explicit and implied sexual pleasure, csa and violence in Nosferatu.
Tim tends to give us either happy endings or bittersweet endings but not tragic endings.
There are implications of darker parts of the human experience in Tim Burton projects but a lot is not explicitly said and or not as in scary or intense.
If either of those directors got a hold on Wednesday it would probably a lot more gothic and scary and intense.
I am not saying this as a drag I love all these directors. Tim Burton is my favorite director, so. It is just an observation.
My mind has been marinating in all the delicious gothic themes in Eggers' Nosferatu, especially Christianity and how the story wrestles with it but also makes use of its symbolic language. Full disclosure, I am not religious personally, but I did go to Catholic school for a while and I minored in Classical/Medieval/Renaissance studies, so this stuff is usually near the surface of my media interpretations.
The movie is full to the brim with crucifixes: the window panes of Knock's office, the graves, the shrine on the road to the castle, an old Romanian woman gives one to Thomas and Anna gives one to Ellen. But the mere image of a crucifix does nothing to repel Orlok; the only thing that can defeat him is a metaphorical crucifixion, a selfless sacrifice. Von Franz tells Ellen that only she can "redeem" the people of Wisborg, and that in order to defeat the darkness we must find it within ourselves and crucify it. Ellen, who is uniquely aware of internal darkness, has to carry out this crucifixion as both sacrifice and executioner.
The metaphor is even built into the timeline - Orlok gives Ellen three nights, but when he tells her the first night has already passed. This is similar to how there are supposedly three nights in between Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection, but the way they count the days is a bit weird, there aren't three full days and nights in between Good Friday and Easter morning. The rising sun is also a common symbol of Easter and resurrection, the ultimate triumph over death.
Ellen parallels Jesus from the very start, because she is uniquely spiritual and uniquely innocent in a world that doesn't trust her. As a teen she is emotionally abandoned by her father, which mirrors the only moment of Jesus' doubt, when he cries out to God the Father and asks why he has abandoned him. I can't give Eggers credit for this part because Thomas was Thomas' name since 1922, but it's super interesting that Thomas the apostle is called Thomas the Doubter, the one who refused to believe in Jesus' resurrection until he was shown his stigmata, which is sometimes used as a sexual imagery. Our boy Thomas also got to see lots of bleeding holes on Orlok .
Ellen sacrifices herself willingly out of pure love, but this is a gothic narrative and the ending is tragic, it leaves us unsatisfied in the moral sense. Right before the final shot we see von Franz starting directly into the sunrise, his face illuminated in the mirror, but its not really a pay-off for his ecstatic calls for redemption! redemption! earlier. Were they really redeemed, or just spared? The crucifixion is the foundation for European society's entire moral framework, the shame of sins that can only be forgiven through sacrifice, but that is exactly the framework that failed Ellen and set off this whole horrific story. Shame and a false need for forgiveness is what turned Ellen's spiritual power into a monstrosity, so how can it redeem them?
I love that Nosferatu was released on Christmas day for these reasons. Obviously Christmas is just a big box office day, but the fact that it's Christmas within the story highlights the cognitive dissonance of it all. This is a dark, inverted version of this fable, and the redemption at the end is meagre and tragic.
“While it is unclear to what extent [Bram] Stoker was aware that his vampire represents the evil or repressed fantasies of his characters, it is the case that the associations of violence with madness and vampirism with sexuality are typical in the Gothic. True to the nature of the Gothic, Dracula is the external representation of Renfield's insanity, Lucy and Mina's sexuality, and Harker's episodes both of delirium and passivity […] vampirism is associated not only with death, immortality, and orality, but also with sexuality.
Further, in psychoanalytic terms, the vampirism is a manifestation of greatly desired and equally strongly feared fantasies. These fantasies have encouraged critics to point to the Oedipus complex at the center of the novel. Dracula, for example, is seen as the “father-figure of huge potency”.
— Phyllis A. Roth; “Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (in “Dracula: Criticism” edited by Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal, 1997)
“I have never been so happy as that moment… as I held hands with Death.” // “I might ease your wound” // “Think you there is no burden upon myself? […] I fear little Friedrich is so strong and hungry, he's eating me weary.” // “I cannot resist you, my love.”
I finally finished Ammonia’s dress design for the Nevermore Gala! Strangely, not nearly as fun designing and drawing Larissa in hers, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have any fun at all, of course!
Notes not listed due to space include - the dress itself is velvet, the sheer fabric tulle. Gothic bell sleeves because yes. Glitter eyeshadow to match with Larissa because she can. Built-in corset ribbing to make up for the design preventing me from adding a more traditional corset on top (I wanted it to be beaded, but alas, I needed space to focus on the sleeve-wings)! Faux fur for a moth’s fluff, of course <3
I hope I get to design outfits for Ammonia (and Larissa, and perhaps others?) more often! I also hope that I get to write more with my moots soon <3
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