Title: Mother
Fandom: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Rating: G
Length: ~ 700
Author notes: Written for the Family prompt for Amnesty Round
Summary: Lisa contemplates her little son and the two sides of her life.



Lisa can hear the castle groan as it begins to shift through space and time. All the giant cogwheels start to move in unison, turning like clockwork to set the structure into motion. In the beginning, the constant noise of the machines made her anxious. Now the sounds are comforting. It’s the sound of home.

She loves her life out there in the human world she comes from — especially now with all that Dracula has taught her about medicine and science. Out there she’s making a difference, helping people, living among humans like herself, and doing what she can to bring some semblance of relief. She’s grateful for the knowledge and the freedom to live her life the way she always wanted to. Lisa is a healer, a woman of science, not just a feeble wife letting others decide her fate.

But this is the other side of her life now.

Here with her husband - her family.

She watches the baby in the crib - the small, pale bundle of not-quite-human being that’s all hers. Adrian makes a soft sound and she pulls up his blanket, grinning as he clumsily but eerily fast grabs for her fingers before her hand can retreat.

“Awake?” she whispers and pulls him up into her arms.

His pale golden eyes go wide, focus on her face and there’s the smallest hint of a grin there on the tiny face echoing her smile. Adrian picks up expression and mannerism much faster than a normal toddler. His expressions are that of a much older child sometimes and it amazes her every time she recognizes his mien is a perfect mimicry of one of Dracula’s expressions.

She pulls her son up and they giggle together. His tiny fingers tangle in her long blonde hair.

“My little boy,” she says, “my, my, look at you, Adrian! How you have grown already! So fast! So much faster than any human child. It’s marvelous!”

Adrian squeaks happily and points at something beyond her shoulder before there’s anything to see.

“Is he awake?”

Her husband has the ability to appear without making a sound and sometimes his vampiric abilities still startle her but these days she has come to expect his presence in the nursery. He is as charmed by their little darling as Lisa is. And it works in her favor that little Adrian can tell when Dracula’s approaching - already sensing things that her human senses can’t perceive as easily.

“Of course, he is,” she coos at the toddler. “There’s so much to see and know, who has time for sleep?”

Slowly Dracula’s lips curl into a smile. They both thirst for knowledge, they are both teaching the other - science, philosophy, love, and compassion, to see their two worlds with different eyes.

What will Adrian see looking at all of it one day?

“Tell me, my love, when you came to me seeking a teacher - did you dream of finding a family?”

She laughs softly, kisses the top of Adran’s head. “No,” she admits - nor had she been looking for love. “Did you ever dream of it in your timeless castle? Did you imagine you’d fall in love?”

There’s something fathomless and sad in his eyes when he starts laughing loudly. The noise startles Adrian who stares open-mouthed at Dracula, putting this new expression and emotion to memory. “I dreamed of it once - a long time ago, so very long ago that it might as well have been a dream only. I don’t think the ma- person still exists.”

Lisa sighs and kisses Adrian’s cheek before she hands the toddler over.

“The dreamer still exists. So does the dream.”

Dracula hugs Adrian close, eyes softening. “Perhaps you’re right,” he agrees and looks at her lovingly.

It’s astonishing and precious - the monster, the scourge of humanity, the blood-lusting myth that haunts people’s stories holding his son, smiling at his wife. Who would believe that Dracula is a loving husband, a dreamer - when love tames his violence, his arrogance, and darkness.

“Where are we going? You’re moving the castle?”

“Further south,” he says while Adrian pulls at his long black tresses mercilessly.

She doesn’t care where they’ll end up - as long as they’re all together.