Left Alone

[Erika Leroux]

Along The River, 17 December 1881, after Elysium

Almost unnoticed, Erika slipped away from Elysium that night, her initial intention simply being that of taking some air and finding quiet away from the crowd, before returning to the theatre.

His offer – the jumped-up Neonate who had shown great interest in her ward – had changed that. How dare he? How DARE he presume that an offer to give her back her mobility would make things right between them? That it might offset the boon he now owed her? There had been a reason she’d demanded how much Christine’s services were worth in that respect. She needed to know how serious he was. How much of a threat he was to luring her songbird away.

He’d offered a major boon.

The white heat of fury suddenly raging inside her, fury at both the doctor and Christine’s simpering response to his attentions, Erika decided instead to return to the potential haven that she’d been considering for both her and her ward, and spend the daylight hours there. Her recent trip away had fuelled Christine’s realisation of how much she relied on her Maestra, how much she needed her. Those flames needed further fanning. And the gnawing hunger inside her was stealing away the little patience left for Christine’s wittering aimlessly about the evening’s trivialities.

Erika limped her way through the city, head veiled and down, mind reeling through the recent developments. Her desire to stay in the city, no longer swayed by Christine’s needs overriding her own urge to move on, to remain that constant step ahead of any potential issues. Now she found herself wishing to stay here, wanting to be accepted by her clan, to become one of them. She recalled Viktor’s words, the wisdom contained therein painfully apparent.

"When you release your hold on what you were you will be accepting what you are. They will not have won as it will be your choice to let such go not his. They may have created you but it is by your hand that you find yourself here, shaped and moulded by thy own years and experiences into the one who I speak with."

Elder she might be, but she accepted that she still had much to learn. Visiting Swindon’s Nosferatu clan had been enlightening to say the least. As had Viktor’s asking her why she had not chosen to stay with her Family in Aquae Sulis. She had been running away – hah! - from what she truly was for so long. She had not considered any before as Family. Now was the time to finally learn what clan was, and what she could truly become.

Erika considered her decision upon letting Christine hunt with her own clan. She didn’t feel comfortable with it, but she respected Christine’s requirements, and decided that it would be good to hunt by herself, without the worry of cleaning up her ward’s mess. Perhaps Christine would disgrace herself, be thrown back to her Maestra. Or perhaps she might calm down a little, allowing for more quality in their time together. If only she could do something about the doctor who watched Christine so closely…

She glared out into the waters of the river for a while, a frown etched upon her face. It was obvious from the time Christine spent talking and playing chess, the way she acted with him, the smiling. Did Christine think she was that stupid? That she hadn’t noticed? Or perhaps that, because of her appearance, that she had never known such interaction herself? That she had never…loved? She reached instinctively to the locket that she always wore, before realising what she was doing.

She paused then, ripped the locket from her neck, gazed at it for a moment, before raising it to her lips a final time, and flinging it as hard as she possibly could into the river below her, smiling faintly at the quiet splash as it hit the water.

“I release my hold on what I was. I accept what I am.”

And then she hobbled her way to her new haven, considering with malevolent glee a myriad painful ways of ridding of Doctor Taylor from Christine’s existence...