#(n)ever loved

Hey thanks for asking about this story!!

So, my idea per her backstory links into my idea for Dracula's backstory. I didn't just want to make him Vlad Dracula cuz that's been over done to (un)death :p

But then he does clearly identify himself as a member of the Dracula family who did actually exist, and who he seems to be quite proud of.

So I got digging to see if I could find anything that might work to slot into actual history.

And low and behold, Wikipedia has an extremely dubious little mention of Vlad Dracula'a son, "Minhea the Evil" , having has a purported third son, "Morus Atrum"

Which, it so happens translates from Latin into something approximately like "Dark Bite"

Which, all of its absolutely dubious historicity aside, sounds like a fang-tastic sort of "real name struck from the records in shame and evil moniker put in it's place" sort of name for a vampire! >:D

(My birth name name for him Mihail Imre Dracula, with credit to @animate-mush for the middle name—I liked the idea of the Devil’s favorite student having the name of the Archangel who tossed him out of heaven)

So my backstory for Dracula is that he's the illegitimate grandson of Vlad Dracula, the son of Minhea with a Romanian peasant woman, who grew up hearing all these amazing (and gory) stories of his lineage and determined he would be the greates of them, and the friendly fallen monk who helped corrupt raise him helps set him up to become a Scholomance alumni and all around terror

(His being raised amoung the so called "lower classes" is also my justification of why my version of Dracula speaks Romanian privately when the upper classes

After he's achieved full undead status after wizardly warlording his mortal life away, he decides it's probably high time he got down to spreading evil in new and creative ways, and sets his eye on finding a suitable bride he can make unholy offspring with (kinda fudging/adjusting the idea of a person being born a vampire if they're the illegitimate child of two illegitimate people—one of whom happens to be a vampire wizard)

And of course, being a proper nobleman, he wants to keep it in the family. So he sends out his dark magic feelers into the world, looking through all his half-siblings descendants

So then I set about trying to find a suitable Dracula descendant to throw an ill-fates child onto 😅

When low and freakin behold--there actually was an Elena Dracula that fit perfectly into the time period I wanted and who was the illegitimate daughter of Peter the Lame, the nephew of my version of Dracula!!

So that just seemed like Fate xD I did elect to keep her name as Ileana, since this is a fictional character and not in any way a true reflection of who Elena Draculesti might have been, but it was a fun little bit of serendipity

So Ileana is seen by some of Dracula’s contacts, witches, who know of his preference to see himself as the destined third son of fables, the one who passes through the trials that destroy all others, the one who is promised Youth without Age and Life without Death, the one who wins the beautiful golden haired princess…

And they steal the child away, raising her to be a dutiful bride to her awaiting lord and master, who will come to claim her on her 18th birthday…

Finished another snapshot into the early days of Ileana’s marriage. Dracula does love to leave people scrambling in the dark

(Click for better quality)