Hey, guys! Little late to the Wentworth game, but over the past couple of years I’ve become a fan after giving the show a chance with my wife on Netflix. I do miss the Frerica ship. It was left unresolved though I am happy that Franky found happiness down the road. I’ve always loved gothic/horror romance and have been inspired by works such as Dracula and Camilla. I thought with the tension that brewed between Erica and Franky would be perfect for a fic like this where Franky is a vampire Countess from Hungary. She ends up finding her new home in a large estate in Melbourne where she will meet Erica. The story is starkly similar to Dracula, with some flavor of my own. I wanted to post this on A03, but am on a waitlist to join. I thought I’d give you all the first chapter and see what you think. I do have two more chapters written and will post them hopefully soon when I get access to A03.
The story takes place in 1887. Franky and Erica both have shared dreams which tie their fates together. They both dream of a forest filled with cherry blossoms (inspired by the artwork and design of Erica’s office in Wentworth). The story is mainly in first person perspectives switching between characters.
I started life as any would-a human finding her way through the world.
I began as a young girl with the name of Francesca Doyle, daughter of a blacksmith and a mother sporting no nobility to her name. In other words, we were not as fortunate.
We attempted to float with my father’s work. He would provide weapons of excellent steelwork and dexterity.
The steel, its sheen and swiftness allured me. I found that its efficiency, its silence, even its portability was and are still qualities to be admired; it can take away one’s essence in one slice or it can pierce its steely fangs into flesh. A dangerous tool, a dangerous weapon a blade is and it thrilled me.
I wanted to fight. I wanted to take my anger through the thrust of a blade into my enemies, an anger no child should have collected in their past.
The anger stemmed from the lack of presence. My father stayed away in his work, hardly a word to my mother like love lost. He hated her just as I had, but he could escape, crawl away as a worm would-what he became.
My mother brought her anger onto me. Unhappy woman she was. Every blow she dealt, every strike in rhythm to lightning in the sky when I spoke out, will forever stain my memories.
“Weak child.”, she sneered. “stand up and stop your crying.”
There are days I’d wander to my father’s shop, the ‘Devil’s Den’, I’d call it. The heat is a constant in a blacksmith’s hovel. You cannot escape the drops of sweat that cascaded down your skin. He did not speak to me, but allowed my presence. I’d admire his handiwork, picturing a scenario where I took a blade home and used it on the poor excuse of my live-giver.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think that someday I’d do the same, but sort of in reverse.
I am getting ahead of myself.
Years pass. My father is no where to be seen. He disappeared one day without a trace, without a word. An opportunity must have been granted to him to create more weapons for the war in my old country-my Hungary. I knew the moment he sealed himself away in the past, I lost him. He paid no care, so I should not weep.
My mother passed, an illness that swept through the village and ironically passing over myself.
It’s always been just me. I relied on myself from childhood. There is one other place I knew I could run to. My dreamworld.
As I grew and grew the dreams became more frequent-well this particular one anyway.
This time, being of age (as mothers would prepare their daughters for courtship), I start to delve deeper into this peculiar dream.
It starts off with me lying deep in the woods. I gather myself to my feet. The strangest visuals fill my vision, pink petals falling from the sky it seemed.
I had never seen anything like these petals. I needed to know more. I did not speak with most people in my village, so I taught myself to read (I’ll find a book sometime I told myself).
The dream developed. Before my eyes, there stood a slender figure. A red silky dress blew against the wind, some of the fabric hugging the figure. At this point, I knew I adored the form of a woman. It took me ages to realize it, but whether it came from decadent paintings or images from a book, the curiosity spread within me. I wanted to feel the touch of another woman. I wanted to feel the softness of her skin.
The curiosity that I birthed must have now manifested into this recurring dream of mine. My wonderland.
Now a woman stands before me. She’s summoned by my inner thoughts and desires, I’m sure of it.
The torment of it all begins. When I venture closer, she’d depart from me. This caused me to wake up.
Night after night, I begged for the dream to return, but it only came to me when I did not ask for it. Each time, I stepped toward her, she’d vanish. I barely made out her complete form. Sometimes the sun beamed right at what may have been her hair. The way it shone gave her some sort of halo. Golden hair, I presume.
I sought out fortune tellers in the market for answers. I needed to know what it all meant.
I asked about the flowers. They told me what they were called: Cherry blossoms. One told me she happened upon them on her travels to Germany. Now this, I have to see for myself.
They also told me that the woman is a messenger or a guide. They never are too sure. I pay them too much of my wares (earned by selling crops I grew on my own) only for hogwash.
I give up trying for answers. The dream comes to me relentlessly and it torments me so. For what reason, I still do not know, but if I pretend it doesn’t affect me, then it should go away. Out of sight, out of mind.
The dream almost is forgotten when I laid eyes on a widowed woman harvesting her crops on a small field. There stood a small cottage behind her. I happened upon this road after one long walk-another route I have taken on my way home.
There is something about her. She looks worn, yet beauty graces her all the same. She is older than me, probably ten years my senior. The way her sharp blue eyes meet mine with a smile so warm beckons my heart to flutter.
She greets me and silly me, I nearly stumble over her fence to introduce myself. After realizing I grazed my knee with a scrape against her fence, she invited me in (out of pity, I am certain).
She tells me her name is Bridget. She came from England with her late husband. He passed a year prior. As she wove me her tale, I couldn’t help but hold her gaze. Women are pure, they don’t know it, but underneath that allure from their appearance and femininity, I know strength is rooted there.
It stayed firm in Bridget, always had.
Women also used their promiscuity to their advantage. They can be so slimy, conniving, wretched and cruel as my mother.
Bridget never held any of those qualities.
I fell in love with Bridget.
Visit after visit to her cottage led to talks lasting through the night. I sometimes fell asleep on one of her spare cots. My mind whirred and hoped she’d return my affections.
One day she did. All it took was one chaste kiss shared in a strange, but inspiring moment. I remember it as if it happened yesterday: I assisted her with her harvest. When it began to rain, we made haste to her cottage only for my clumsy self to slip in the mud and into her bosom. We laughed and laughed until she grabbed my face and kissed my lips.
A great light surged in me. I never felt love until then.
She gave me that gift. When we made love, I knew nothing could get better than this.
I wished that she’d join me in my cherry blossom adventures in dream world, but that dream didn’t invade for quite some time. It made me wonder if the woman in my dream resembled Bridget, although when the sun hit her hair it didn’t glow, yet still brightened like the sands on a shore I dreamed to visit with her. The woman in red is the guide to her, right?
As all fantasies come, they go.
Whispers about the widow’s new companion bustled in town nearby. The time we spent together became too suspicious in the eyes of the simple people.
The whispers turned into gossips about sinful liaisons. The gossips then unfolded the accusations,
‘The woman is lonely. She misses the comfort in her bed. The young temptress is influencing her unholiness on her’.
The church followed. Their involvement took a turn for the worst.
‘Holy’ men infested Bridget’s grounds, warning her that if she stopped committing her sins and repented, that she’d be saved.
Bridget and her strength. She did not back down. I begged her, begged that we should run.
‘We can flee across the world’, I pled. ‘Our love cannot be tarnished and ridiculed by so-called men of God.’
Bridget refuses to leave. She wanted to fight for our love.
‘This is our home. They shall not chase us away’.
I listened. I listened because I wanted to believe we can be safe, that they dared not to harm us. If they truly were men of God.
They stormed her home the next evening. We were torn away, I can still feel the rope around my wrists and hear her cries.
Every shout, every cry, every blow to the ground we’d take from the ‘holy’ men. The knife to my throat, the whispers against my ear repeatedly telling me I was a ‘demon’.
The moment she lurched forward to stop them, when she pushed one of the men away from me, is when it all ended.
A sword, my favorite weapon of choice, is now embedded into the woman I loved. The wielder’s eyes shone a brief moment of remorse then turned into scorn. He is reminded of why they were here, to stop the evil.
My heart wrenched. My anguish deafened their ears. Good, they heard it. They all heard it for one day, they will hear no more. Their lives will end.
Instead of killing me, they thought up something worse. A curse. They call themselves holy, though a curse it is.
An old curse from the gypsies of yore, a Goetia of sorts compiled by their ancestors. A demon will come forth before me in the witching hour and do with me what it wished. Little did they know, it severely backfired on them.
I wished for death, however when the demon came to me from the darkness, it offered me…a chance. The chance given to me would be vengeance. I can slice down my enemies, one by one, to quell my ferocity, the anger that plagued me deeply from the greatest loss. This, came with a price. I’d live with this for centuries, immortality I’d be granted with only the thirst for blood. I’d feel no pain, no sorrow, no love.
I took the offer. I took it only to avenge my Bridget. If I no longer felt emotions, it is the price I’d gladly pay, a reprieve from pain. I will succumb.
I destroyed them all. A mindless monster in my deadly wake. I tore through their flesh and drained them of their life force. The taste, so decadent, unlike any other flavor I delighted myself in my waking life.
Emptiness. I wake during the evening mostly to feast. I am more rested during this time. The more I have, the more I am able to still walk under the sunlight. Even though I did not fancy company all the time, the warm body of a woman called my name. A warm meal some nights, the random bursts of lust another. The demon didn’t take that from me. Empty I remain.
Torment from the dream invades again. It fuels me with a rage I did not miss. The demon tricked me. Vile, it is. How is it that rage seeped in? Did it all wear off or has it simply dulled over the centuries?
I scream at the woman within the falling blossoms.
‘What do you want?!’ I cry out. ‘Why have you returned?’
The woman does not move, back turned to me. It’s as if she contemplates to face me or she is frightened. I am a monster now. I do not deserve the ethereal presence.
It may also anger me that it isn’t Bridget. I must stuff her memory in a box, lest I recall what it is to be human. Curse that demon.
I angle my head to have a better look. It offends me that she does not face me, but all I can gather is a pair of red lips tilted up into a sideways smile.
I wake laid now beside three women. My protégés. I have learned to sire others into my madness as Countess.
They are a foolish attempt to fill the emptiness, but how can they fill it when there’s a hole?
stormborns
titsay
jbbartram-illu
yousharknotpass
janainaart
