Contest Prize: Yue x Vanessa

The darkness was her blanket of safety, and the crisp air and echo of footsteps her only companions. The absence of light had driven the Terrans into hiding and given Vanessa free reign of the streets above the surface. She inhaled deeply but expelled the air in a sharp breath, disgusted by the overwhelming stench of the humans that ran the city of Londinium. If she had her way, these streets would belong to her people alone, the Vatican be damned.

For now, however, the Methuselah were forced to stay underground in the hellhole called the Ghetto.

Vanessa's raging thoughts nearly overwhelmed her other senses, but a sound suddenly interrupted the steady beat of her footsteps on the pavement and called her attention back to that moment. Her muscles coiled, ready for confrontation, and she scanned the street for the source of the noise. Her gaze landed on a dark figure curled on the ground out of the light of the streetlamps. As Vanessa watched, the figure quivered and let out a groan filled with pain. Focusing her adrenaline on keeping quiet, she approached the figure with caution. Once close enough to examine them, Vanessa crouched to try and see their features better.  A familiar smell filled her nose as she leaned close and dissipated her anxiety; he carried the smell unique to the Methuselah.

The person groaned again and anger once more took over Vanessa; there was no doubt this was the handiwork of Terrans. Vanessa looked up and down the street then crept around to look into the stranger's face. The bangs of his black hair covered most of his face, but there were deep bruises and abrasions on the visible skin, and his hands were pressed tightly to a wound on his chest and blood seeped through his fingers. The proximity of the wound to his heart caused Vanessa's own pulse to quicken. Even though the Methuselah had advanced healing abilities, if the heart was damaged then he could potentially die.
A slight panic settled over her and Vanessa gingerly touched the man's arm. He didn't respond to her touch nor to her questions except with anguished grunts and gasps. Vanessa glanced around her before she finally scooped up the man. It took some effort, but she finally managed to hold his weight and stand at the same time, then she proceeded to the Ghetto.

Once home, Vanessa took the battered man to the nearest family she could. The Methuselah stared at the man Vanessa carried with gaping jaws as she hurriedly explained and asked for their help in treating the man. They agreed, and brought him in to tend his wounds.

Vanessa looked on as the stranger was stripped and his skin cleansed with rags and the open wounds disinfected to begin bandaging him. As she watched, a niggling feeling of unease entered her gut, but she couldn't place it until she was called over to assist with the bandaging. She came within a few feet of the table he lay on, but she suddenly stopped and took a step back. Her arm came up to her face as if to guard from an onslaught. The familiar smell of the Methuselah had been scrubbed away and replaced with the foul stench of a Terran. With a scoff of disgust, Vanessa turned toward the door and stormed out so rapidly it caused her long hair to lash about her and animate her rage.

How dare he masquerade as one of them, it was despicable! Vanessa ground her teeth and paced the walkway. She felt her ears burn at having been fooled so easily, which only made her anger grow. As soon as he was awake, she thought to herself, he'll pay for this deceit.

Word came to Vanessa the next evening that the strange Terran had regained consciousness, and Vanessa rushed to the place he was being housed. She entered the room with the force of an erupting volcano and nearly startled the man into falling off the table.

"You," Vanessa hissed without introduction. "What kind of game are you playing? I won't stand for it!" Her words were spun from pure loathing and made the stranger shrink slightly. He glanced around for help that was unavailable; the wise knew to stay away from Vanessa in this state.

“I don’t understand. I don’t even know where I am,” he countered.

Vanessa bared her teeth with the ferocity of a feral animal and loomed over him. “You think ou can fool me, but you’re dead wrong. Now tell me your intentions before I tear your throat out!”

“I don’t understand what’s going on!” The man repeated.

Vanessa’s palms slammed down onto the table and leaned forward to scrutinize his face. Truth flickered in his eyes, but Vanessa deliberately ignored it.

“I’ll give you one last chance,” she snarled. Instead of pleading innocence, the man now stared at her face with a new light. His gaze was fixed on her sharpened canines.

“You’re Methuselah,” he breathed in understanding.

Vanessa’s eyes narrowed and her lips came together to conceal her teeth. He hadn’t called her a vampire. He smelled like them and didn’t use degrading terms; this Terran was an anomaly. She felt her blood boil down to be replaced by confusion, quelling her murderous rage. It left a pit inside her.

“Look, you—” Vanessa began as she jabbed him in the chest with her finger, but the man cringed when she did. He doubled over and Vanessa jumped back so he narrowly missed hitting her head with his, but she did manage to catch a glimpse of his face contorting in agony. She straightened her back and looked down on him, a worm squirming under her talon, and her fists clenched at her sides. Without another word, she turned and marched out of the room.

Several days passed while Vanessa collected herself and cooled down whilst the Terran healed. She felt a small prick of guilt from hassling an injured man, regardless of his race. She watched the house closely, however, for any suspicious activity. During her vigil, she noticed children going in and out of the house with smiles. At first she wanted to bar the door so he couldn’t use their blind trust against them, but eventually rationality returned; the children of the Ghetto had seen so much that innocence and blind trust was the last thing they possessed. This realization only created a bigger enigma around the Terran that Vanessa struggled to understand.



“She just burst in here and started shouting. I didn’t even do anything wrong.”

The people around the dark-haired male nodded, and some even chuckled a bit. “That’s Vanessa for you.”

“Vanessa?” The man echoed in deadpan annoyance. “She didn’t even introduce herself.”

The Methuselah around him looked at him in slight shock, but it soon passed from their expressions. “Well, what with the Queen’s condition she has the right to worry.”

The man nodded and bit his inner cheek in thought. Queen Bridget II was reported to be gravely ill. This caused many to question the line of succession as the Queen had no living heirs and had not named an heir to her throne, either. The Queen had kept the peace and prevented uprisings of rebellion among the Methuselah, but if she died and the Vatican took over, then that would spell worlds of trouble for the Methuselah in the Ghetto. There were murmurings of worry among the Methuselah he was around most of the time and that came to visit him here, but Vanessa seemed particularly impassioned. Where others were disconcerted, she was downright unhinged.

“Why does she care so much?” He wondered aloud.

The Methuselah looked at each other again with the same look as before. There was a long stretch of silence before a young vampire finally spoke up.

“Vanessa is royal. She’s the Countess of Manchester, and she looks out for all of us down here.”

The man felt his spine straighten with shock and understanding made his shoulders stiffen in spite of the pain. The extremity of her interrogation suddenly made perfect sense. She wasn’t insane; she was upholding her duty. He exhaled slowly to the point it felt his lungs would climb up his throat to get to the air themselves, and when he inhaled he was filled to the brim with respect.

“Can I talk to her?”



Vanessa kept her distance, her arms folded, and her eyes narrowed as she watched the injured man sit up with some difficulty. He had healed significantly, but he was still at risk if he left. So, grudgingly, she’d allowed him to stay. But how dare he summon her.

“Look…” she began, but she stopped talking as abruptly as she began. Her face flushed slightly as she realized she still didn’t know his name. He waited for her to continue speaking, but a small smile lifted the corner of his mouth when he realized her predicament.

“My name’s Yue.”

“Look, Yue,” Vanessa went on without missing a beat, “you don’t belong here. You know that, I know that, and the only reason I’ve let you stay so long is because I can’t send a wounded man back onto the streets. That would be a death sentence. Contrary to popular believe, I’m not completely heartless.” Her voice dropped to a growl and her gaze sharpened to a deadly point. “But if I so much as catch a whiff of trouble from you, don’t think I won’t carry out the death sentence myself.”

Yue flinched as her sharp tongue cut a new wound, but he wouldn’t stand down. “I just want to talk to you, I don’t mean to cause trouble.”

“Having this discussion with you is troublesome enough,” Vanessa shot back, slicing the air with her hand. “I have better things to be doing.”

“I know you do, but I—,” Yue tried to interject, but Vanessa wouldn’t give him even an inch.

“If you know, then leave me to my duties.”

Irritation rolled off of her and surrounded her in an invisible yet tangible fog as she left the room abruptly, leaving Yue speechless. Though she’d clearly built a wall between them, Yue was now even more determined to climb it. In the following days as he regained his strength, Yue waited by the window and in the street outside the care facility and called to Vanessa whenever she passed. She brushed him off and tried to push him into a blizzard of cold treatment, but it only gave Yue more urgency to befriend her. God knows she needed a friend in this world.

Finally, Yue gained enough strength back to go any distance he wanted. He hadn’t been cleared for two minutes before he was on the streets searching for Vanessa. He was greeted with warmth and smiling faces from the young people of the Ghetto and many of the Methuselah he had befriended, but there was an undertone hiding in the dullness of their eyes and the hollowness of their greetings that showed him there was more going on than they would let him see. He followed a chilled breeze which he knew would bring him to the storm herself.

At last he found her in a corner out of public eye. He almost didn’t recognize her; instead of a confident and headstrong leader that exuded power, Vanessa had curtained herself in her long, light colored hair with her arms folded to enclose her suddenly fragile looking figure. Her chin was tucked into her chest and she quivered ever so slightly, though from a distance Yue couldn’t tell it if was from tears or rage. He approached quietly, trying to figure out her state before he made himself known, but Vanessa detected him almost immediately. Her head jerked up and surprise filled her expression, but it was quickly replaced with fury.

“You are the last person I want to see, Terran,” she spat. The force of her words knocked Yue back a step, especially the final one. Ever since she had learned his name she had used it, but her sudden regression to generalized terms sent up flags instantly. Vanessa continued to tremble, but she squeezed her arms closer to her body to try and quell them. “The Vatican sent troops into the Ghetto.” Vanessa’s voice was an eerie calm that Yue had never heard pass her lips, and it only added more power to her words. “Almost the entire east side is lying dead in the street.” A heavy silence settled between them and Vanessa held his gaze unflinchingly.

“Vanessa, what can I do to help you?” Yue said in a small voice. “And don’t tell me nothing, you can’t handle this all on your own.”

Vanessa bared her teeth and opened her mouth to shout back a reply, but all that came out was a strangled gasp that shattered the mask. A river of tears flooded down her cheeks and she fell to her knees as if her legs had snapped under the weight upon her shoulders. She used her hair and her hands to try and hide from him, but Yue wouldn’t let herself close herself off to bear this burden alone. He knelt down beside her and put a gentle hand between her shoulder blades. At first Vanessa jerked away from him, but she suddenly threw herself at him. Yue’s heart jumped into his throat, saying his final prayers, but Vanessa wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into his chest, letting sobs wrack her body. Yue relaxed and looped his arms around her and gently trailed his fingertips up and down her spine.

Conflicting voices roared in Vanessa’s head. She was angry at the Vatican, angry at Yue, sorrowful for the families on the east side, exhausted from shoving too many feelings into a small bottle, and, finally, a quiet voice cut through the clamor. Yue was trustworthy. She could confide in him what she could never tell the ones she looked after. He was set apart from them, but at the same time he was the missing piece in their lives. And now that he had seen her in such a vulnerable state, she couldn’t let him leave and spread word of her weakness.

Vanessa, the Countess of the Methuselah, and Yue, the Terran who was shoved into her life one fateful night, formed a bond that would only be broken upon death.