Drabble
Category: Uncategorized

Maria Drabble

Maria. Present day. Alucard.

“Centuries I waited for you and now…”

 “Now”, he echoed back to her.

“And what of it?” she asked.

“I am here as you expected me to be and as I allowed myself to be”

The space between them filled with a silence that only they both knew. Maria continued to walk through the dense woodland. She knew he felt her as much as she felt him, even though centuries had passed between them.

“It was easy to find you”

He was, as always, near water. “As soon as I felt—". For a second, Maria felt stifled by her emotions that rose upwards to her chest. But this time she chose not to swallow them down. “You feel different”.

She saw him, from a distance, with her immortal eyes. Alucard sat on a flat rock by the side of a small stream, his long, dark coat draped over his shoulder. Alucard did not turn on her approach. Or speak. Maria stood beside him in silence. The only sound was the faint trickle of the stream and the occasional breeze that rushed through the trees above their heads.  She looked down at the water, but her reflection didn’t catch her eye. His did.

He still looked like a ghost. Pale, distant. She wondered if he carried memories like she carried hers.

“I thought you’d be away from the sun at this hour”, she said finally. Her voice didn’t shake. She had practised this meeting for years. And yet, beneath, she still felt it, the trembling.

Alucard didn’t answer at first. Then. “The sun does not bother me as much at this hour”

There was a pause.

“Neither does the past”

She wanted to tell him she dreamed of the past less and less now. That Katerina still sent letters. That blood tasted differently depending on how guilty she felt that day. That sometimes, she missed herself so deeply it felt like a second death. But she said none of it. Instead, she sat down beside him, not close enough to touch.

“You came a long way,” he said.

“Maybe,” she murmured. “Or maybe I just stopped running.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, barely. Not quite a smile. Maria looked at the stream again. “I still hate what I am,” she admitted. He nodded once, as if that sentence belonged to him too.

Silence settled between them again. Not uncomfortable. Just... waiting.

Then she spoke, voice softer now. “That night. In the library. You remember?”

“I remember,” he said immediately.

She glanced sideways. “You kissed me.”

He didn’t deny it. “You were still warm.”

“And you were still lying to yourself.”

Alucard looked away, but not in shame. “You were human. Bright. Alive. I was...none of those things. Unworthy of you”

Maria tilted her head. “You thought you’d ruin me.”

“I knew I would,” he said, his voice now strained.

“And I thought,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “that for once, someone wanted me. Not because I was brave. Not because I had power. Just... me.”

The wind tugged gently at the hem of her coat. Her hands stayed still in her lap.

“I left before you woke,” he said after a brief silence.  “Because if I had stayed... I wouldn’t have been able to walk away.”

She nodded. “And now?”

He looked at her. Really looked at her. Not with hunger but a knowing.

“Now,” he said quietly, “you wouldn’t let me.”

They didn’t move closer. They didn’t have to.

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