Desires and Illusions

"She's not human?!" Misa cried, her eyes bugging out of her head. "How come I thought she was human? I mean, I've never seen a Fae in real life, but shouldn't there have been a way for me to tell?"

Misa thought of the woman's pallid complexion, dead brown eyes, and starved appearance. She had seemed like a malnutritioned human by all accounts, not like a powerful magical being.

Prince Ran answered Misa as he busied himself with the horses. He reached into a small pocket of the saddle and slipped out a vial that looked much like the one Ida had forced her to drink on her first day in this world. "She had been shackled in iron cuffs. Iron depletes the magic of a Fae. We kept her in a weakened state and held her captive in the guard tower until we had need of her."

"Okay," Misa said, nodding. She was eyeballing that vial of what had to be pure blood that the prince had just slipped into a pocket of his overcoat. "Why keep her captive, though? You said she was your bargaining chip. What for?

"And you were taking her to the human village of Copperwood, right? Which is what makes me confused. You, who hate humans. What would a lowly human have for you or your kind that would be vital enough for you to strike a deal with them using the Fae?"

The prince whirled around and leveled a mean glare at Misa, causing her lips to bend into a deep frown. "What?" She asked defensively.

"Human. Do you always feel the need to ask this many useless questions? Can't you keep quiet? Ever?"

"And what do we do about Leto?" Misa asked instantly, enjoying the way Prince Ran's face tightened as he let out a rough sigh and closed his eyes to her. "Are we going to try saving him? I mean, he's out there with her somewhere."

"Exactly," Ida answered as the prince rubbed his forefinger and thumb against the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache.

Misa couldn't help thinking, Do vamps even get headaches? She was feeling the urge to ask him, but her personal aide continued speaking first.

"As you said, m'lady, he is out there somewhere with the weakened female Fae who was shackled in iron chains. It was likely Leto who helped us into this wonderful situation. That creature..." She paused to toss a look at Prince Ran. "He is the Queen's favorite."

Misa's mouth dropped open and her mind immediately reeled back to the Queen's eerie threat that Misa would never be queen of this vampire land. Her throat was dry as she commented, "The Queen...? No wonder that guy seems off. She's... You know. No doubt evil and hateful as hell. 

"No hate intended for your mother, Mr. Prince."

"Don't call me that. Plus, you're human. Of course she hates you."

"Wow. Thanks."

Prince Ran sighed, "I only mean that we haven't been human for hundreds of years. We've been "reborn" and awarded superiority over you--" he seemed to hesitate and rephrase to Misa's utter surprise, "over humankind. Except that we rely on human blood to sustain our previously human bodies."

He said it in a voice as if he'd like to spit onto the ground and crush the world under his feet for damning such a fate unto his species. "The joke is that we need humans to remain alive ourselves. Humans, who are charmed by our allure but scream and cry and flail at any sight of our fangs. The true bane of our existence."

"Well, excuse us for valuing our lives as ya'll are terrorizing people against their will... But go off, king." Misa mumbled under her breath.

Prince Ran either had no idea what she meant or didn't care. Instead, he continued after his rant to explain that the shackled Fae would have been offered as trade for a few humans lives once every moon. "With both her hands and feet bound, her power is completely depleted. Removing one shackle gives her just enough power to dull a human's aching pain.

"Remove two and she can heal minor wounds and call fresher crops to sprout. Remove three, and she can heal wounds. Her speed increases. She can call forth the wind to do her bidding, speak her voice into the air. Removing all four," the prince handed Ida and Isel each a vial of blood to keep in reserve, unlatched the horses from the carriage, and, with Isel, led and secured the horses to a nearby tree, "would be the true mark of stupidity. But we can't set constraints upon how puny the human brain is." He finished.

Misa rolled her eyes at the human-hating vampire she was somehow supposed to marry but still asked, "Would she be that powerful?"

Isel answered her in the prince's stead, "At full power, those humans would easily fall under her powers of suggestion. She could manipulate the weather, change form, or even slip into invisibility right before their eyes. The blood of a Fae is valuable for those reasons. For a human, it will give them Sight, magic. With enough, my guess is it could probably even make them a Fae.

"For one of us, it's power."

Power. Misa thought as the conversation stopped there. She wondered, if the vampires were willing to offer a trade, then, Why not find a way to work with humans without involving human sacrifices? 

And also, was it even right to kidnap a Fae to use them as a means of trade, anyway? Enemy or not, to Misa, that left a bad taste in her mouth.

"Let's go." Prince Ran said once preparations had been made and immediately set forward at a brisk pace. He, doing the princely thing, never looked back, always assuming the group was following behind.

Misa, on the other hand, was falling behind, hesitant to move. "Wait!" She hissed into the thick fog. Her mind was now on the Fae woman after all that talk about her power returning. "How do we know she isn't still out there just waiting to pounce on us like some predator? We can't even see around us!"

"We can see, human. This fog has little effect on us. Refrain from lumping us together with the likes of you." Prince Ran called over his shoulder, the sneer audible in his voice.

"Wait. Really?" Misa was genuinely too bothered by the news to roll her eyes at the prince's snub. I can see farther and clearer with these vampire eyes, but I'm too human to see through fog? How does that make sense?

Her thoughts were interrupted as Ida pulled her by the cuff of her long sleeve shirt. "Let us get going, m'lady. We know that she is out there, the Fae. But she is still weak. Her power must not have come back completely just yet. As such, we might be able to catch up to her before she reunites with her kind. And if it was her that brought forth this fog, then there will be a way out of it as per her weakness."

With that, they set off into the fog, moving at a much greater speed than Misa would have cared to. 

I can't see. I can't see! She kept thinking, feeling helpless as she relied on the trio of vampires to help her maneuver through the dense wood. 

It was her first time since being transported to the world of previously fictitious monsters that she felt ridiculously inadequate and useless. Jealous, even.

These feelings of hers scared her. She realized with startling clarity that she was getting closer to these vampires every day. Liking them more. And it had only been a week!

She could imagine how in deep she'd be in a month, granted she survived that long.

Seemingly making a point of her inner thoughts, Misa's eyes were naturally drawn up ahead. Prince Ran led the group through the hazy space, and his back from where she saw it was strong and gave off an air of confidence. All of his movements were sure-footed and light. She watched the whip of his long, sleek ponytail and the billowing fabric of his dark overcoat as they dashed along beneath fuzzy peaks of light filtered through a scattering of dark tree leaves. 

Further surprising herself, Misa said aloud on an awed breath of air that the sight was dumbfoundingly, "Beautiful." 

Despite his icicle cold demeanor, Prince Ran was undeniably beautiful. Misa would be lying if she said the ever-unwelcoming prince wasn't growing on her little by little. He just was.

And so, pulling away from Ida and forcing herself to draw from the borrowed power inside her, Misa darted forward until she reached Prince Ran's side, satisfying her desire to be next to him in that exact moment.

Faster, she told herself. More graceful.

More like a vampire.

Just minutes later, the group ran straight into a sudden clearing, a massive circle of grass so green that the color reflected onto the palatial building set right in the middle of it. The building was a pearly white tower with a grand set of stairs, an arching white door, and sharp corners painted as blue as the deep, dark sea. A very large clock was attached to the center of the tower, the ticking of its hands rhythmic and melodic, not at all the sound of a clock from Misa's world.

Small butterflies fluttered around the base of the tower where beautiful, pastel-colored flowers were in full bloom. It, paired with the orange glow of the sun descending into the horizon, offered the sort of ethereal feeling Misa had only ever thought existed in dreams.

Now, she stood with her mouth agape at the beauty before her, her nerves lulled. Her heart pulled. This... This is... 

She trailed off, unable to finish the thought, her feet inching forward.

Meanwhile, Prince Ran jutted his right arm out to where Misa was, holding her back without a backwards glance as if he knew she would be enchanted by the tower's beauty. "This is an illusion." He explained. "Especially effective on the weak human mind. The Faes' specialty. We've run right into another of their bothersome little tricks. This species enjoys making travelers delirious with fanciful imagery, ensuring that they end up lost forever and perish somewhere far from home. And they are unlikely to miss out on the fun," the prince said.

He looked around, his yellow eyes glowing with purposeful intensity, searching. His incisors elongated as his concentration grew. "One's certain to be watching from somewhere nearby."

"What will you have us do, Your Highness?" Isel asked, crouching a little as he, too, searched the incredibly clear and brightly colored clearing. Ida approached the prince's other side, waiting as she usually did, in silence.

"Hunt." came Prince Ran's reply. "Backwards. We don't go farther into their territory, we stay out. And we get them before they get us."

"Right." The pair of attendants answered.

Then a sudden breeze pushed the tiny tower butterflies into the air and swept them toward the group of wary vampires, rustling their clothes and hair. Within it, a sound so lovely it was as if the wind whistled a song right into her ear snatched Misa's attention toward the large tower once more, and she moved forward at once. Leaping lightly on her toes, more limber than she had known she could be under the influence of the so-called "vampire potion," Misa left her group behind.

It was fun, and she felt free. The tower was so pretty.

"No, Misa!" She heard Prince Ran's voice call out. She heard rapid footfalls coming up behind her, and then the nose of her polished black boot touched the first of the pearly white steps.

And then, she heard nothing.