The daughters of Dracula
When Vlad Dracula first hears the prophecy he laughs and bellows with a voice that shakes his castle to the bone.
Him? Falling in love with a mortal woman? Inconceivable, unheard of, simply a figment of an old man's scribbling imagination.
But then Vlad Dracula starts to think. And wonder. Because for all of his wealth and goods he managed to accumulate he was born a beggar and a thinker, as such happens when one learns life on the streets.
Prophecies have power.
So Vlad Dracula devises a plan. To make sure, he won't fall for the novelty that is a mortal woman, much less give her a son to fulfil the damned prophecy.
The first step he takes, he scours the village for his prey.
Mortal women, of all height and weight, from the plump daughter of the baker to the muscled heiress of the mercenary group. He kidnaps them from ungrateful families and bargains for them and soon his castle is filled with women's voices, their whimpers and terrified sobs.
He avoids the young ones, as pretty as they might appear because Vlad Dracula might be a monster, but even he had rules by which to live his immortal life.
He never harms the women, despite their hostility and suspicion towards him. He leaves them be for the longest of times and watches as they slowly make the castle their home.
The women clean the spider webs, dust the old forgotten rooms and chambers.
As they slowly grow more bold, they begin to take down the most horrid paintings from the walls, wash their clothes in the well in the middle of the cursed garden, stringing lines of laundry between the sculptures of demons and gargoyles.
Vlad watches it all happen from his tower, curiosity taking over him as he waits. Observes. Studies.
Finally, one woman seeks him out.
A pretty one, with her hair the color of honey, tangled way past her knees with her unable to cut it without any sharp object.
She demands a knife with a trembling voice and desperation laced with fear.
"Give it back soon." Says Dracula in his velvet voice as he gives her a dagger.
The woman never takes her eyes off of him as she backs away from the room, weapon held tightly in her hand.
By the end of the next week, most women have their hair cut, or braided into something new.
The honey-colored woman comes back with the dagger, placing it delicately in Vlad's outstretched hand.
And she stays to talk.
A few years pass before most of the women warm up to Dracula, even if for him, it hadn't been much more than a blink.
They smile at him when he passes the corridors of his once gloomy castle, some wave to him, kneeled over the freshly planted potatoes in the gardens that once hosted the most exquisite of Louvre's hedges.
They come to him for his judgement, they trust him with their pleas and for his part, Dracula does his best to judge fairly. Years after Dracula's decision, the first woman wishes for more. He does not chase her away, even if his dark heart remains unchanged, curiosity driving him dangerously close to the edge of destiny's sword.
Vlad wonders if he should kill the woman before she can give birth to his descendant. If she were to bear a boy, the prophecy would come true and everything Dracula had done would have been for naught.
"It's a girl." announces one of the women as she comes out of the birth chamber, hands covered in blood up to her elbows. Vlad tries to not stare at them much as the relief washes over him.
A daughter, no son to slay him, no vengeance to come forth from his mother's mistreatment.
His plan is saved.
There are two more births that follow, and with each child being born a female Vlad grows more confident. Convinced he managed to beat the prophecy, he once again disappears into his tower.
He meets his daughters sometimes.
Pretty creatures, not a flaw to be seen on them. With hair the color of honey, mahogany and obsidian, they look at him with eyes of crimson and sunlight and moonlight, their sharpened ears uncovered proudly in the safety of his home, his vast galleries and libraries.
Dracula goes down deep into the guts of his castle and brings up the jewelry, old dress materials and sewing kits for them to use. He does not care what they do with the gift, but something like pride flashes in his eyes as he catches a glimpse of them covered in gold and silk.
As they grow, they get more and more bold, coming to his tower and asking questions about the world and life outside their castle.
Their Inquiries rarely go unanswered.
Dracula begins to let the mortal women go, the youngest of them past the age of her prime now. Some of them leave, but some of them stay, unwilling to uproot their lives again and comfortable with what they learned. Dracula begins to travel, living his years free of the burden of the prophecy, confident that his fate has finally been changed.
So when an angry woman shows up at the door of the castle, a three-year-old with crimson eyes' hand, gripped in hers, it comes as quite a surprise.
Dracula kills the woman, for she was not one of his, one of them, despite the claim she made upon Dracula's paternal role in the child's life.
The daughters that greeted her warmly once she arrived had not known such violence before. They lick their lips and wrangle their hands at the sight of blood before them, and when Dracula sees that he gives them the woman's body to feast upon.
The boy is spared, if only for the foolishness of one of the women who rushes him outside when the carnage begins.
He runs and when Vlad finds out about it, he flies after him in hot pursuit, but the boy is nowhere to be found. The prophecy protects him and fate is on his side and no matter where Dracula looks he cannot find him.
No harm befalls the woman who helped him, but upon hearing about the prophecy she weeps, for she did not know what calamity she brought upon her host. She leaves the castle in shame.
Three daughters of the Dracula grow hungry for blood, their beauty shining in its ethereal light brighter than before. Vlad feeds them and begins to teach them. Slowly but steadily he allows them entrance upon his dark and shrunken heart. They become his confidants as Dracula admits his defeat against the prophecy, preparing for the final act of the play.
If his daughters showed promise even unattended, they shine with brilliance under his attention. Soon the castle is alive with the sound of magic, verbal disputes and turned pages.
When the child, now a man fully grown, comes back, bearing the Alucard title, Dracula steps forward to battle his destiny. He makes his daughters swear not to join him, and stay far away from the fight, for he had made arrangements for his knowledge to live on in them were he to fail.
Alucard is strong, but not as strong as his father.
He is quick, but not as quick as Dracula.
He is vengeful and drunk on the prophecy's promises, but not quite as desperate as Vlad is.
And yet, what finally brings The almighty Dracula to his knees is the fact that Alucard isn't quite as honorable as him.
When the edge of Alucard's blade rests against the honey-haired daughter of the Dracula he stops fighting.
After many years of undead existence, his daughters became his legacy, and he refuses to lose even a slight part of it.
Dracula's pause gives Alucard a chance to defeat him, and as he does that, all three daughters cry out in anguish.
Dracula's body caves in itself and turns to ash, and as Alucard lifts his fist in triumph, ready to claim the castle and all of its wealth as he was promised, he is met not with the radiant smiles of the saved woman but with weeping and sneers. The woman may have hardly loved the monster who kidnapped them, but his presence meant safety. It meant freedom to pursue what they desired, no mortal husband or any kin present to dictate their lives.
Three daughters of the Dracula weep the loudest, and through their tears they growl and hiss, blind in their rage. They chase Alucard out of the castle, the man unable to defend himself against their fury.
The brown and dark-haired ones stay on the stairs of the castle, but the honey-colored one chases Alucard to the edge of the woods, red droplets of blood flying from the spot where he threatened her. She almost gets him, her claws marking the tree, behind which he ducked with three deep lines.
And when the dust finally settles and the castle stops trembling with the sobs of the grieving women, they all come together to plan.
The rumors grow, ones of an imposing castle deep in the woods, that one day disappeared from all maps.
Some say it's still there, just concealed with the magic of a really powerful witch, no matter what the church claims about having burned them all.
Others think it crumbled to the ground, unable to stand any more without its master there to keep it together.
The Vatican claims to have destroyed it in the name of God, the village men grow bold enough to boast about the treasure they supposedly stole from there.
Alucard's tale grows, even as the man shrinks into itself, once his prophecy has been fulfilled and his sole reason to exist finally slayed.
Very few remember Vlad Dracula's daughters, but there are traces of them left in the history.
Hushed female voices telling each other stories over the fire. Tales of the place where husbands' heavy hand won't ever reach.
Rumors of libraries and workshops where all the knowledge is at your fingertips, your fate finally yours to choose.
Whispered clues to find the farthest tree on the south of the main road, its bark marked with three fine lines in the shape of the hand, and to march three hundred steps north of it.
And finally, three names to call forth when you reach the clearing, given to their daughters by the desperate mothers who wish for a better life to happen upon them.
Do you know the names?
Did you ever have to call for them, deep in the night, three hundred steps away from the tree where a daughter almost avenged her father's death?
Don't you know the heart of greed and entitled desires? Have you ever heard of self-fulfilled prophecies? Didn't you see the hate in the eyes of the people?
Don't let them know.
Whisper the daughters names in the night, gain their strength.
And don't let the world know where we are.
