Chapter Text
Your old village was just as you remembered it—ever dreary and cold. It’d been a few hours since you returned, with nothing more than a single suitcase of essentials and a few dollars on your person. In spite of the spontaneous nature of your arrival, you felt a tinge of nostalgia walking through the well-trodden paths of the village. You may have spent the better half of a few years back in Scotland, but this would always be your home.
Surprisingly enough, there were a few people who recognized you. Old friends of your father, previous priests of the village church, even a girl you used to play kickball with. Camelia was her name. It was a warm feeling, catching up with everyone and seeing where they’d ended up in the few years you were away—but the moment you came face to face with the porch to your childhood home, everything became too real for your liking. The reason you were truly here crept back up into your mind, leaving a hollowed out pit in your stomach.
Your father was still missing after two years.
Recently, back in Scotland, you’d been mailed documents that the case had gone cold, along with his death certificate. It wasn’t exactly surprising that the local police were useless, as you had been insistent on the fact that something wasn’t right with the place you grew up. Multiple times, years ago, you tried to convince your father to come with you, but he’d been steadfast in his stance of staying in your family home. Now it was up to you to find him, whether he was dead or alive, you needed answers.
So much for that, right dad? You thought, slowly walking up the creaky stairs and stopping just before the front door. You damned hard ass.
With a shake of your head, you reach into your trench coat and pull out your father’s house key. It was mailed to you along with the documents. You opened the door and hesitantly stepped through the threshold into the house.
Immediately, the musty scent of a place abandoned hit you square in the face—almost making you gag. Though, the putrid smell was almost overshadowed by the overwhelming sense of nostalgia that overcame you. The living room was just as it was when you were a child, a mismatched thick quilt thrown over the center couch that your father had absolutely refused to get rid of all throughout your teens. In the kitchenette, a few stray dishes had been left in the sink, a few fruit flies swirling around them.
Had the police even stopped throughout those two years?
You walked past the kitchenette and sat your suitcase down on the oak wood coffee table in the front room. Behind the couch, the shelves were stocked full of books and strange antiques from pawn shops from your father’s collection. Untouched.
What the hell?
You gazed out of the front room down the hallway leading to the bathroom and your old bedroom, then turned your attention to the other side hallway just outside the kitchenette. Your father’s room was that way, and for some reason, the idea of venturing that way shot a pang of anxiety up your chest. So, you sat down on the couch, opting to open up your suitcase and sift through the contents of the documents you’d been sent.
Some of them were reports, detailing the state that they’d found your father’s home in, others were witness statements detailing the days leading up to his disappearance. Apparently he’d been last seen just outside in the yard, tending to the gardens just before nightfall. The witness—a man named Alexi—said that he’d seen your father return back into his room after about an hour. Other witness accounts note that your father had recently stopped attending church, followed by erratic and unusual behavior.
One person recalls him saying: She wants me. She wants me, but she wants my daughter more—I’m not safe here, I’m not.
Your eyes rake over the witness statements a few times, the start of a headache brewing just behind your skull. Had no one in this god forsaken place thought to ask him what the hell he was talking about? You’d find that the answer to your question was no, no they hadn’t. Teresa had written that she assumed his wits were fading on him, just a symptom of getting older.
The overall lack of urgency in this place was starting to really piss you off. It reminded you of why you had decided to study abroad in the first place, because it seemed like no one here valued themselves enough to think for themselves. Everyone was so focused on their hopeless prayers to the Black God, that they hadn’t stopped to think of building real community. It was maddening! At the first opportunity of your love of science and microbiology being able to get you a ticket out of Romania, you took it.
Standing up with a sigh, you decided that it’d be better to fully investigate the rest of the house before nightfall, so that at least if you were to be murdered by some squatter still holed up in your father’s room, then everyone would be awake to hear you screaming. You hesitantly made your way down the wall past the kitchenette, ignoring the way the floor cracked beneath your feet.
Once you came face to face with your father’s bedroom door, you took in a deep breath to collect yourself, then pushed it open with one grand motion. The sight that followed was nothing short of grotesque, accompanied by an even more bizarre scent.
Papers and pens littered the floor, almost entirely blotting out the hardwood. The nightstand beside your father’s desk was flipped over, shards of a broken vase scattered around it with dead flowers curled beneath the wood. They’d been dead so long it was hard for you to tell what kind of flowers they could’ve been from this angle—and something more alarming grabbed your attention before you could think about it further.
The bed. The bed had a pool of dried blood in the center. Not only that, but the walls were covered in some odious brown-green substance that seemed to have splattered across the room. It took everything in you not to throw up or burst into tears from the sight.
“f*cking hell,” You choked out, “They didn’t bother to open a damn window?” You walked the length of the bed to the pillow rest, reaching into your trench coat for your gloves and mask as you did. After quickly securing them onto your person, you peeled back the comforter to reveal the bedsheets.
WHAT THE f*ck!
You can’t contain the scream you let out at the sight before you as you stumble backward. In the center of the bed, there are some kind of thick black worms wriggling and writhing around each other. They’ve seemed to have made their home in the center of the mattress beneath all the blood, a disgusting squelching noise coming from them once they’re exposed to the air. From beside the bed, it doesn’t look like anything else is deeper inside the mattress, which fills you with the slightest bit of hope that your father hasn’t been feasted on—but only slightly.
With a full body shiver, you reach forward and pluck one of the worms from the convulsing center, bringing it closer to you for inspection. The small specimen writhes in your grasp, its body attempting to wrap around your index finger for something to hold onto. You adjust your glasses as you lean in closer and note that the worm isn’t actually black, but that it’s covered in some kind of slick-wet black substance. What could it be?
You squint as you turn it around in your fingers, wondering how the vermin could’ve spawned within an enclosed space like this. Moreover, where was your father? You’d have to swab the sheets to see if the blood was actually his, and if it were, then had he been consumed by these things? How would you even collect evidence of that?
The mere thought was giving you a headache, and filled you with grief. So, you reached into your trench coat (again), pulling out one of the thin collection vials you keep strapped to your innermost pocket. You dropped the worm into, then pocketed the vial, content on further examining it later.
You rounded the bed and pushed back the dusty curtains, throwing open the windows to your father’s room to let in some of the outside air to get rid of that rancid smell. Your timing couldn’t have been more perfect, because right as you did the church house’s bell sounded, beckoning all to meet for morning mass. Was it seriously nine o’clock already?
Church in the village was just as boring as you remembered. The elders rushed to gather in the front of the chapel, while the younger children groaned in mock agony as they were forced by their parents to recite their daily prayer to the center statue of the Black God’s prophet, Mother Miranda. Very rarely did the four lords attend a morning mass, but it wasn’t unheard of. It was even rarer for Miranda herself to show up. Yet, somehow you’d found yourself attending while she was there in the flesh, giving a sermon.
You were in the back, trying to be as undetectable as possible as the other villagers held onto her every word. It was all going to plan before you made one fatal mistake. Towards the end of the final prayer, everyone in the room dropped to their knees before Miranda, saying the words with due reverence. Everyone—except you.
Their words droned in the back of your head as the realization hit you on what you were supposed to be doing—on what you were supposed to be saying. It’d been so long since you prayed here that you didn’t remember the words, nor the customs.
Great ones, hear our voice, together as one in reverence.
Miranda watched as both men and women groveled at her feet, whispering their prayers behind clenched hands with bated breath. It was known that she would pass gifts to those who showed great faith, endless devotion. From where you were standing, she truly did look like a god in the flesh, her golden mask illuminating in the sunlight coming from the tall window panes. Black feathers nearly coated her back side, the front of her priestess robes shrouded by shadow. You hadn’t realized how long you’d been staring at her till she looked upward, toward you.
“sh*t…” You whispered.
We call on thee within the endless dark to deliver us into fate’s hands.
The unnerving weight of her stare sent a chill up your spine. You could see right into her icy eyes behind the mask, her gaze both lifeless yet full of something you couldn’t quite place. Perhaps blind rage at your disobedience, or something akin to disgust.
As the midnight moon rises on black wings, so we make our sacrifice and await the light at the end.
When it became too unbearable, you hunched over into a kneeling position. You fixed your gaze onto the floor, hoping that the feeling of her staring at you would go away. It didn’t.
In life and in death, we give glory, Mother Miranda!
All at once, like trained dogs, the other villagers rose to their feet and bowed. You hesitantly did the same, ignoring the fact that Miranda was still staring directly at you as she addressed the room.
“Walk with duty, in darkness and grace,” Miranda lifted her arms, her golden nail guards gleaming in the sunlight. With a flourish, she waved you all off. “My flock, you are dismissed.”
As everyone made their way out of the chapel’s double doors, you attempted to slip between the crowd and go unnoticed on your way out. You were almost out the door when you heard Miranda speak again.
“You, girl. Stay.”
You glanced backward, silently hoping that she wasn’t speaking to you, but alas fate was not on your side. On the contrary, she was looking directly at you, the weight of presence practically pinning you in place. You stood stock still, the sound of the wooden double doors closing behind the last person being the only noise between the two of you. Though there was an entire aisle worth of feet between you two, it felt as though Miranda was towering directly over you.
“So you do know how to follow directions,” She nodded to herself, beckoning you to come closer. “Come to me.”
Truth be told, you could’ve just ran out the door right then. There was nothing preventing you from it, and the other villagers surely hadn’t gotten far enough to not be able to help you if she started to maim you. But, for whatever reason, you obeyed her. Why? You couldn’t be exactly sure, but it felt as though your body moved before you could really think it through.
You crossed the aisle down to her, and once you were within reach, she snatched the front of your turtleneck and brought you even closer to her. Miranda’s words were hushed, loud enough to be heard but low and commanding enough to make your stomach drop.
“I have never seen you before. What is your name, girl?”
“I-I—” You lurched at the sound of your own voice, stumbling a bit as you struggled in her grasp. Miranda’s grasp was firm, and it seemed she was intent on not releasing you until she got her answer. “Fraser! My name is Fraser!” You gasp.
This appears to give Miranda pause as she regards you. After a long moment, she shoves you backward, causing you to trip backward on the carpet in front of her. Your glasses go flying in front of you, leaving you disorientedly scrambling for them.
“Fraser. A strange name for a girl. Also a name I’ve never heard before.” said Miranda. She kicks what must be your glasses at you, because you feel something slide up against your palms. Through blurry vision you grab them and put them back on, looking up at her.
From this angle, Miranda towers over you. She was already a bit taller than you while you were standing, but this… was too much. You go to stand back up but she puts a firm hand to your shoulder, forcing you back down to a groveling position.
“I didn’t tell you to stand,” Miranda said, leveling you with a look. Behind her mask, you could see her eyes narrowing in discontent. “Who are you and what do you want? You clearly are not respectful enough of our local customs to even pray properly.”
“I’m—” Why was it so damn hard for you to get a word out? “This is my home, from when I was a young,” You managed to huff out. “I left nine years ago to study abroad when I was 18. My father stayed here, thou—”
“Your father? Who is he?” Miranda bulldozed over you so quickly that you hardly could recuperate from being interrupted. Her hand was still on your shoulder, her grip tightening upon her question. The nail guards on her slender fingers dug into the fabric of your trench coat.
You wanted to wince from the pain, but instead bit your inner cheek. Damn it, if only you had remembered that stupid prayer, you needed to find a way out of here to go investigate! “His name is Francis Whitaker—he’s an old farmhand near Luiza’s… Or was, I-I guess…”
Something in Miranda’s presence shifts, whether it be from recognition or realization. She releases you momentarily, only to circle you and grab onto your shoulders from behind. Without her in front, you gazed upon the statue of her, in the center of an altar surrounded by paintings and crests of the other four prominent families in this region. The Dimitrescus, the Moreaus, the Heisenbergs, and the Benevientos. You didn’t have long to gawk at the altar before Miranda shoved you forward again, only this time she didn’t let you go.
“I know the man,” Miranda noted, right after the sound of you yelping from the impact. “Surely he raised you well enough to know when to pay respects to your betters.”
“H-He did! He raised me well, Mother Miranda!” In your haste to defend yourself, you nearly allowed your glasses to slam down into the floor again. “If you would just let me get a word in!”
Your tone seems to amuse Miranda, because she laughs. Surprisingly enough she even releases her death grip on your shoulders. “Speak then. Say what you must.”
You manage to sit up onto your butt, fidgeting with your turtleneck and catching your breath after the whole ordeal. You look back up at her, and the frustration must be clear on your face, because she beckons you to speak with a wave of her hand.
“Yes, well…. You know who my father is right? Well, he’s been missing for the last two years.”
“Has he now?” Miranda asks, “And you are back because?”
At the risk of potentially angering her again, you stand up and brush off your pant legs, making sure to adjust your trench coat as the two of you make eye contact. “Because I intend to find him.”
For a moment, Miranda says nothing. Only crosses by you and stands back in front of the altar with her hands behind her back. She’s facing you, and the height difference between the two of you becomes incredibly apparent to you. The edge of her golden mask is at your chin, just barely brushing against your forehead.
You finally decide to break the silence with a question. “You said you knew him. Do you know what happened to him?”
“Many people have gone missing in the last few years, girl,” Miranda scoffs, as though annoyed by your line of questioning. She waves you off, turning on her heel to face the altar. “It isn’t unheard of, nor is it worth further investigation. You ought to head home, lest a beast find you in the night.” The latter half of that she says lowly, more like a threat than a warning.
Miranda’s flippant response only seems to spur you on further however, as her dismissive nature stirs something akin to frustration in your chest. “Those people may be of little value to you, priestess, but one of them is my father,” You bit back the venom in your tone, lest you further annoy her and get thrown to the floor again, but the displeasure on your face was clear. “and I will find out what happened to him. If he’s out there—if he’s alive.”
“And if he is dead?”
You blink in confusion. “What?”
“If you find out he’s dead, what then?” Miranda repeats her question, demeanor entirely unfazed by the sudden panic rising on your face. There’s something unnerving—and not entirely human—about the way she tilts her head to the left as she turns to face you again.
“I… If he’s dead, I…” You try to piece together what you’d do, if your father was truly gone from this world. It’s a reasonable assumption, given the state of his home and the fact that it’s been two years. Not only that, but he’s been now legally declared dead. Everything in you is screaming that this is the inevitable answer to your question, and yet…
Something inside you believes otherwise. Something isn’t right with the story, and even more isn’t right with the circ*mstances of his disappearance. You will not rest until you feel his arms wrapped around you again. That, or you see his body in the dirt with your own two eyes.
You level Miranda with a look, perhaps more determined than you had been before. She blinks at you behind her mask, caught off guard, maybe. “If he’s truly dead, then I’d tear this world apart just to bring him back to me.”
At that, Miranda froze. “You’d what?” She asked, voice low.
“I’d tear the world apart.” You repeated, “I’m a geneticist, so perhaps I could gather his DNA, maybe… Help cure him or try to r—”
Miranda suddenly reaches upward and takes off her mask, leaving you momentarily speechless. She’s breathtaking. The way her blonde eyelashes flutter against her high cheekbones, the endless pit that is her eyes, and the way her lips slightly quirk upward in a flat smile makes you feel like you’ve just been punched in the chest. This is the woman that had you yelping at her feet?
“You’re a geneticist?” She asks the question with reverence— like you are the one in the priestess robes, like you are the one who is the prophet of the Black God. You couldn’t discern whether or not she was faking it, and before you could think about it for a second longer, she leaned closer, a predatory look in her eyes. “I could use you. Yes, I believe I could.”
“You could use me? What does that ev—”
“Silence.” Miranda interrupted, “You will let me speak uninterrupted, and you will agree.”
There’s a part of you that wants to protest this, but ultimately you decide against it, lest Miranda lean forward and slash you across the face. Perhaps under different circ*mstances, you might even find that enjoyable. With your arms crossed, she begins her proposal to you.
“Tomorrow at noon, you will come to my tower just west of here. You will not miss it, it overlooks the village.” Miranda fits her mask back onto her face, and you feel the faintest tinge of disappointment at the loss. “I have some matters I want the two of us to look into. If you can assist me with this, then I will aid you in the search for your father. How does that sound?”
You can’t stop your eyes from lighting up. Admittedly, you went into this thinking that you’d be trying to pick up a two year old trail on your own, so having Mother Miranda’s help could prove useful. Even if she is a bit… volatile at times. You nod your head in agreement, reaching out to shake on it. “I’m in.”
Miranda does not take your hand. Instead, she turns back around to face the altar as though she hadn’t asked you anything at all.
“Good,” she says, “You are dismissed.
Though her constant changes in demeanor throw you off—and quite frankly annoy you—you give a content bow, then exit the building. The feeling of knowing that you won’t be alone in this investigation outweighs your annoyance with the priestess.
You spend the rest of the day going door to door, reinterviewing those who gave testimonies to local authorities about what happened to your father. Something interesting came up in your findings, though. Alexi, the man who had claimed to have seen your father last, had actually gone missing as well last year. Upon finding out this information, you doubled back in your rounds, this time asking about him, only to be met with similarly mixed answers.
The circ*mstances around his disappearance mirrored your father’s almost exactly. Knowing that this could be a potential lead, you asked after his sister, who relinquished a key to his old lodgings to you. By the time you obtained it however, it was nightfall, so you decided it’d be best to swing back to Alexi's place after your meet up with Miranda.
You walked back up your porch that night, the weight of the day hanging on your shoulders like a dew heavy leaf. You were so wrapped up in how much you wanted to sleep that you almost didn’t notice the giant crow perched politely on the porch’s guard railing.
The crow turned its head as you looked at it, regarding you with a strange level of caution as though you weren’t meant to see it. It squawks at you as you approach, but doesn’t fly away.
“Oh hey there, little guy…” You whistle and click your tongue. “What are you doing out here huh?”
As you reach toward the bird, it inches forward hesitantly before nibbling on the edge of your index finger. Its large beak looks strong enough to break each of your fingers off like carrots even in the dark, but you decide against caution to brush its feathers with your other hand.
This seemingly pans out well for you, as the crow begins to coo into your touches, bobbing its head against your palm. So, you decide to take it a step further and lift the crow up gently into your arms.
“I could use a friend tonight, don’t you think?” you whisper to the bird. It makes no attempt to fly away from you, so you take that as agreement to join you in your home. You usher in the animal, turning on all the lights inside the house as you pass them because you want to get snatched up in the middle of the night like your father.
Admittedly, you were a bit restless that first night, with you opting to sleep on the couch in the front room. The crow perches on the edge of one of the couch’s armrests, and as you drift off, you swear you feel the bird’s beady red eyes staring straight at you.
The next morning, you awoke and hesitantly used your father’s archaic shower which proved to be just as gross as you expected. You’d have to run and get cleaning supplies at some point and give this whole place a scrub down. There was no time for that, however. You’d slept in a bit, and if the clock in the hallway was any good—it was almost noon.
You rushed into the front room and grabbed your clothes from your suitcase, making short work of getting dressed and slicking back your hair. Unnervingly enough, the crow resting on your armrest hadn’t moved an inch since you got up. Rather, its head and eyes followed you wherever you moved. When you pulled your trench coat on, the crow flew upward to land on your shoulder.
“You want to come with me, huh?” you coo at the crow, and it arches its head forward for you to scratch under its chin. It lets out a low pleased rumble. “I’m sure it’s no big deal if you tag along.”
You leave the house, heading west to where Mother Miranda told you her quarters were. The trek there was a bit tedious, as you had to pass through multiple gates and at one point had to cower in a bush to hide from a lycan, but all things considered you made it to the front two gates in one piece.
The lycans were something of a curiosity to you though, now that you thought about it. In your childhood, your father had told you that certain people were marked as cursed from birth by the Black God, perhaps for some transgression they committed in a previous life, and thus were doomed to eventually turn into beast men.
Something about that story always seemed off to you, though. Was the Black God truly that unfair that it would subject its followers to potential madness? A simple loss in the genetic lottery that was birth could spell one’s eventual demise, and that hardly seemed right. Perhaps when you had more time on your hands—after finding your father, that is—you’d look into the existence of the lycans further.
For now, you were standing in front of the golden gates in front of Miranda’s tower, a sense of anxiety crawling up your spine. Miranda hadn’t disclosed what exactly you’d be helping her with, and that realization was just now hitting you. Moreover, you weren’t exactly sure she’d fulfill her end of the bargain by aiding you in the search for your father—truth be told, once she’s gotten what she needs from you, who’s to say that she won’t just send you away?
The mere prospect made your brow tense in worry. The crow on your shoulder makes a chirping sound, likely due to your sudden stillness in front of the gates. You snap out of your head and coo at it, forcing the lump in your throat down and pushing from the grand gates.
Miranda’s tower looked exactly how you would expect, dreary and gothic, the dark stone only contrasted by the snow that gathered along the roof. The long staircase leading to the front entrance made your ascent tedious, and by the time you reached the top, you were breathing heavily.
The large dark wood door leading into the grand chambers is engraved with some kind of ancient text that you can’t decipher. You grab a hold of the golden door knocker shaped like a raven’s wing and knock it, immediately being met with the low sound of Mother Miranda beckoning you to come in.
The priestess’ main chamber was larger than life, and rather medieval in its nature. A giant copper and gold chandelier hung from the highest point in the center of the room, its sage stained glass panes opaque. This room looked more like an ancient library than proper lodgings, as countless shelves stocked full with books and trinkets surrounded the main table—where Miranda herself was sitting. She’d been drinking from a teacup with a thick log book in front of her. Behind her, further down the hall towards the back of the chamber, there was a black door with rusty iron bars and a strange insignia on it.
Multiple crows squawked and fluttered high above on the banisters and beams, circling the light fixtures. Upon your entry however, they all fluttered downward, onto a single beam, their attention turned directly to you and the crow on your shoulder.
You walked further into the room, ignoring the sinking feeling that accompanied all the animalistic eyes on you. “Mother Miranda.” you bowed in greeting, “You wished to see me.”
“Ah, you’re here. Join me, girl.” Miranda’s greeting was unexpectedly casual, given her previous behavior in the church. As you approached the table, you could smell the scent of the tea she was drinking wafting through the air. Something dark and earthy that you couldn’t quite place. “How was your first night back in your old childhood home?”
“Strange… I mean, there’s the bird.” You motion to the crow on your shoulder, who doesn’t shy from making his presence known by squawking on cue. “And the fact that my father’s room reeks of bile—or death. But all things considered, I’d say I’ve slept well.” You take a seat in front of Miranda.
Miranda eyes the crow on your shoulder for a moment, then nods to herself. “Good. Cornelius, to me.” In one swift motion, the crow—whose name is Cornelius apparently—flies from your shoulder to Miranda’s outstretched arm.
You blink. “Wait, he’s yours?” That, admittedly, was a dumb question. Though you’d only pieced it together the moment you stepped into her home, to be fair.
Rather than dignify your question with a verbal response, the priestess ignores you entirely in favor of stroking Cornelius’ feathers. Suddenly, she stands up, and you shoot up from your seat right after.
“Why was he at my place last night then?” you ask, following behind Miranda like a lost child as she walks toward the caged door at the back of the chamber. Swiftly, she pulls a mangled key from the depths of her robes, and you note that the key has a strange parasite at its center with four darkened wings jutting from it. Cornelius squawks.
“Silence.” she says finally, “You ask too many questions for your own good. Suffice it to say that I’ve a vested interest in keeping an eye on you.”
Oh, you were spying on me. You thought, But why?
As though she’d read your mind from our facial expression alone, Miranda scoffs. “I don’t need you running off and getting killed by beasts in the night, while you pointlessly look for that father of yours. You are an asset to me among simpletons.” she says while walking through the threshold of the doorway. You hesitantly follow her, trying to ignore the half-assed compliment she’d given you. Beyond the door, the sight you are met with opens up a hole in your stomach.
There was a single desk in the center of the room, covered in blueprints and documents that presumably contained research on something. On the further side, there was a shelf stocked to the brim with jars containing various human organs, ranging from hearts to intestines. What’s worse is that you swear some of the hearts are still beating. Some kind of medieval torture device has been drilled onto the back wall, it’s metal well-worn and rusted. Next to that, on the opposite wall, a holding cell of some kind had been placed and kept as some kind of supply area, seeing as Miranda has a desk and various blueprints tacked to the wall inside of it.
As you take in the sight before you, you instinctively step backward, only to find that the door has been shut behind you both. You quickly turn, panic suddenly arising in your bones. What the f*ck have you gotten yourself into.
Cornelius chirps lowly behind you, only this time it sounds different than before. It’s chilling. You know you’ve alerted them both to your apprehension when you turn again, and Miranda has taken off her mask and spread the six wings on her back out, revealing the entirety of her robes and figure.
“Now then,” she says, something inhuman in the way she tilts her head downward toward you. As your eyes widen, the realization that you’ve backed yourself into a corner as her prey sets in, Miranda grins. “Let us begin, shall we?”
