The Seanchaí Collection Bumbling Stuttering Vampire
#1

outfit



Life had settled into something of a rhythm for Luka. He woke with the night, showered, and came to the collection to work. From painting in the back room, shelving books in the library, to general errands through the building. Anything that was asked of him really, though he still wasn't very comfortable talking to strangers. Tonight was a slow one and he didn't mind to much covering the front desk especially since he could sketch a bit in the down time.

He was leaned back a bit sketchbook in his lap brows furrowed in concentration over the inner details of an ear when the door whistled open. A little startled he would glance up his nose catching the smell of something odd. Almost like a cat. He didn't see anything to speak of said animal, only a woman with thick hair and warm eyes that immediately had his tongue making knots in his mouth.

"H-h-hello."
#2
You know, for all Catrina had said her cats were welcome here, Asha had never really made herself comfortable with the idea of coming in. Maybe because the Cove was very much off-limits to vampires, it felt one-sided to come in. They seemed to understand why, and yet! Just felt kind of unfair.

Maybe someday Asha could close it to everyone else and just invite the vampires over to enjoy swimming or something. Then air it out.

Anyway, she was here being a hypocrite after walking around the city crossed her path along the building. It was nice in here.

She was just opening the door when there was... someone there! Someone who she recognized, but the name was escaping her. A brief inhale told her vampire, but who?! If only everyone on the video call had worn a name tag.

"Oh! Hi. Hope I'm not interrupting anything," she smiled a little, approaching gently. Please don't do that... thing vampires do when they lose it.
#3
Luka was not on the verge of loosing it thankfully, although his speech certainly didn't give that impression. The smell of cat grew stronger as the woman approached. A bit hastily he would try to stand up which would result in the chair tipping over and hitting the floor with a rather noticeable thud. This tended to be his luck so all he could do was wince and stare directly at the desk because eye contact was far to scary.

"N-no I j-just draw w-when its slow."

He was still clutching his sketchbook, the moment he realized he dropped it onto the desk. Pale face unable to blush in embarrassment.

"A-a-are you here to s-see the m-museum?"
#4
He was stuttering, and she wondered why. Was he nervous? He had knocked over the chair too, which made her wince a bit. Why was he scared!

(She did not know much about causes for stutters.)

"Yeah. Uh. Don't be like, scared of me or anything. I'm cool with you guys."

A thumbs up, trying to lighten the mood.
#5
Scared of her, well he couldn't honestly say it was here exactly he was scared of. More of just social interactions in general were what was scary. He really hadn't meant to topple the chair, that had been an accident.

"I-im n-not scared of y-you."

Not exactly. But how could he explain the nerves and how talking made him feel? It all jumbled on his tongue and made the stutter worse. He also didn't know what she meant by being 'cool with you guys'. Cool with museum workers? Or artists? But that seemed a bit odd didn't everyone get along with those people?

"Y-you g-guys?"
#6
Then why was he acting scared!! Asha wanted to ask but didn't get to in time.

"Yeah — weren't you on the video call, dude? I remember your hair."

It was meant to be flattering! Maybe he'd stop stuttering if she just complimented him a lot.
#7
Video call? He remembered then about the meeting at here with the others, Simon, Ender, and Ms Stewart. They had crowded around a computer and he had been have frozen with anxiety over meeting new people. But if she had been from that call it meant she was one of the jaguars. Whose names he absolutely could not recall.

"Oh y-yes you're one of the j-ja-jaguars?"

There had been two on the video but he hadn't looked very closely. Looking meant eye contact and that was the scariest thing ever.

"A-are you here to s-see Ms Stewart?"

He was trying his best even with the stutter to be nice. Afterall the jaguars were friends to some extent.
#8
Yes! One of them! She nodded, deciding to leave off that she was the queen. But also, he was still STAMMERING. Why!

But to the question of Catrina — "Nope! Just looking around here. Haven't really visited before."
#9
Oh she just wanted to look. That was normal. The jaguars could look around right? The place was open to the public and she wasn't here to cause trouble? So it should be fine right? He wasn't sure where Ms Stewart was so he couldn't easily go ask. Was he suppose to go with her? But they were friends with the jaguars and that would seem rude. His mind frantically shuffled between the options. While he internally struggled the color of his eyes developed a ruby hue.

"O-Okay a entry p-pass is t-t-ten dollars."

Were the jaguars suppose to pay the fee??! Or was he just suppose to let them in? There was a sudden burst of energy that he mistook for more anxiety not at all aware of the magic at play.


Him doing the dreamscapeing!

#10
"Cool," she said, still perturbed at his stutter. But maybe there was no helping it. Or something.

Asha was just opening her wallet, closing her fingers on a $20 bill when it happened. "Oh," she said, a strange feeling of drowsiness weakening her. She placed her hand against the edge of the desk as her head tipped forward slightly. Down, maybe? Go... down.

"Think I..." she managed to mumble, sinking herself slowly to the ground, too tired to even question why or process any reaction of his to it. Her head leaned against the base of the front desk, and her eyes rolled back.

And then she was asleep.
#11
Still fully unaware of what he had done he watched in shock as the woman tilted forward and then collapsed. He gave a cry of alarm mind going absolutely blank on what he should do in this situation. He didn't have much time to worry though as the area around him started fading out. Objects becoming fuzzy until everything was just a blur of colors. He jumped back as the desk also seemed to become one with the color brown.

WHAT was going on???

His confusion was more intense then fear and he could only stare wide eyed as the colors once again took shape. But into something very different then the front area of the Collection.
#12
The desk felt cool against her face. Nice and cool and soothing. Asha was comfortable here, not a speck of alarm about how she was literally sleeping in a museum.

(It was funny how history could repeat itself with her, even unintentionally.)

They started as small scenes. Fragments forming a kaleidoscope of existence. Someone was speaking to her, and it was a comforting voice to hear.

She was in her old bedroom. The one she'd shared with Nika and Yue in Hawknell, before they moved to their own places in Ridgefield. And there were voices outside her room.

Asha got out of bed and opened the door, it was to see that she was suddenly downstairs in her old house in Lauderhill, facing her living room and kitchen. The Hawknell apartment didn't have an upstairs and downstairs, but in dream world, this kind of shit made sense.

On the couch, Esfir and Maxine chatting away, and in the kitchen cooking something on the stove, Abraham.

What a peaceful image. She rubbed her eyes, hungry and happy and... completely unaware that there was someone else behind her.
#13
He watched confusion mounting as the colors began to form shapes and muffled voices began filtering into his ears. His first thought was that this was all a dream, except he didn't dream anymore. Second thought was to wonder if he was going crazy. As things settled into a bedroom he had never seen before, he was leaning towards the second. Most surprising was that the lady jaguar was there too. He was pretty sure he had just witnessed her passing out onto the desk of the collection. Was she a fragment of his mind as well? Was he even at the collection? Before thoughts could become words she was walking out the door and some sixth sense was pulling him along as things changed yet again. This time into a living room and kitchen with strangers.

"что за херня"

He finally couldn't hold back his tongue. Slipping into his native language as he turned about on the spot wide eyed and red eyed.


Translation: what the fuck

#14
Asha jumped from a voice to close to her ear. What the FECKLE.

"AHH!" she yelped, and whirled. Her dream people didn't really notice or care, which was nice and also typical of dream people to be honest. But anyway.

"What about a hernia??" she asked, because she did not understand Russian no matter how many times people spoke it at her.
#15
He felt his heart leap into his throat, metaphorically anyways since his heart didn't do much of any movement anymore, at the sound of her scream. When he whirled around at the same time he was clutching his chest the tiniest of fangs poking out from under his lips with very red eyes. It would take a few minutes wordless lip moving before any actual sound made its way out.

"Y-y-y-you p-pa-passed out. I s-s-saw it."

He was floundering like a fish staring all about at everything. Where was he and what was going one. Was this really one of the jaguar's?

"W-w-we where a-at the c-c-col-lection and n-now"

A flap of his hands in a frightened gesture towards the living room and kitchen.
#16
"Uhhhh?" she listened, trying to process the words as they came and he stuttered them out.

Oh, right! Stuttering! AHH?? "Oh no, I remember —" she started, and then stopped as her room began to melt, one wall morphing into the side of the glass dome of the butterfly garden. Whaaaah.

She turned around again, staring at the kitchen. Abraham cooking. Abraham didn't really cook, not unless she wasn't feeling good. Not that he wouldn't, she just wouldn't let him usually. Actually Esfir probably wouldn't let him either? And Maxine?? Just chatting away with her naturally??

"YO??" she asked to everyone. Including the vampire, even if she wasn't facing him. But then she looked back at him. "Why- why won't they say anything to me?"

They acted liked she wasn't even there.
#17
One of the walls was morphing again. This time though his eyes were on it the whole time, absolutely terrified and enthralled. It was as he stared that he noticed the edges seemed to almost blur if he looked to close. As if it wasn't tangible to stand up to scrutiny, like a bad brush stroke in a painting. Which he thought was a bit odd if he was going crazy. Weren't hallucinations suppose to be realer then life? Not that he had personal experience before now. Still with this thought process he would reach out to try and touch the coffee table. Except his hand went right through it as if it was a cloud.

For the second time he would yelp and jump back, clutching his hand to his chest.

"I-i-it's n-not r-r-re-real."

He stuttered violently. There wasn't much time to dwell on this fact as the jaguar lady was talking to him again.

"I d-don't k-know. I d-d-don't k-know w-where t-this i-is."

Luka was not good with any form of confrontation on the best of days and her yelling coupled with this strange experience was bringing tears to his eyes.
#18
She wanted to hush him as she watched it all. She wanted to understand whatever was happening and his stuttering was so distracting. "Maybe someone... dropped us into some kind of... purgatory???" she asked? ROO ROO ROO, WAS SHE DEAD.

Wait. There was distinctly no rooing in her head. She stared at her hands and willed herself to shift.

Nothing.

"Uh. Hey...? I think... I'm human?"
#19
His mind picked up every hint of displeasure in her face and body movements, even some that wasn't there. He knew it, she hated him. Everyone hated him. The tears were fully flowing now and he couldn't even muster any words to say.

They were in purgatory? That meant he was dead. He couldn't be. Not after everything. He hadn't wanted to be a vampire yet it had meant living, and now he was dead again. It was so utterly unfair.

"Net, etogo ne mozhet byt'. YA ne byl khoroshim vampirom, no ya ochen' staralsya. YA ne khochu umirat'."

He was crying and talking more to himself then to her.
#20
Now he was talking in a whole other language. And crying? What the fuck.

Feelings invaded the confusion of the moment. There were three people she cared about not even pretending not to see her. And there was this guy, who... was a vampire, she guessed? And he looked all stressed, and if she was dead and here doomed to this eternity, well, she guessed.

"Hey. Stop crying. Come... drink some blood or whatever."
#21
Telling someone to stop crying generally didn't have the affect the speaker wanted, this was the case here as well. Luka did not stop crying he just got quieter about it. Holding the sniffles back and keeping his head down so that she wouldn't see the tears. She wanted him to drink blood just like the car crash with Ms Vashti. He shook his head.

"N-no im already a t-terrible vampire."

He rubbed at his eyes.

"I d-don't want to die a-again."

And he broke out into more crying that he tried to keep quiet.
#22
Of course he kept crying, because it was soooo awful to be dead with her apparently.

"Well we're stuck here and you're the only person paying any attention to me", she mumbled petulantly. "So you might as well."
#23
It would be a few minutes of quiet crying before any relief came to the fear, anxiety, confusion, and dread Luka was feeling. As the last of the tears slipped down his cheek his mind through back to that evening and what could have possible gone wrong. When the sun had set he had woken up, gotten ready and then headed out to the collection to work. That's where he had been when the jaguar lady came in. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would have killed him. An even bigger question was could he even go to purgatory. What happened when a vampire died?

"How d-did we d-die?"

He asked meekly raising his head a little. It was easier to talk when he didn't look at her.

"I don't r-remember d-dying. Just you p-passing out."
#24
"I guess that's when I died," she shrugged, accepting her new reality.

What she didn't like was that he cried for a few minutes and then still totally ignored her offer. That was kind of insulting. What kind of vampire didn't want blood. Maybe they only liked it when they had to do their shitty mind control for it.

Asha felt lonely and unwanted, so she moved to walk to Abraham, to see what he was cooking so fastidiously. It turned out to be pizza rolls. In a pan. On the stove.

At least that made her burst into a laugh.
#25
Most vampires didn't want shifter blood, but he wouldn't tell her that. Not unless she asked of course.

She was moving away from him, which was good. Very good less scary with space. He could look around again with out feeling like he was doing something wrong. The place was entirely foreign to him. A house with people he didn't know. Though the jaguar lady seemed to know them.

"A-are they friends?"

He was almost hesitant to ask.
#26
"Yeah," she nodded, a little sad after the brief laugh. "This is Abraham. I was gonna propose to him. On the couch is Esfir and Maxine. They're... well, Esfir's like my mom. And Maxine is like my best friend."

Sigh.

"But none of them care that I'm here, so." A shrug and she moved to sit on the kitchen island itself since no one could stop her. This place was weird.
#27
Not threatened under a mountain of anxiety he could actually take in the smells and the room. Which looked rather odd with half a wall being glass with butterflies. Wasn't that from the botanical garden? The oddest thing was that he didn't smell shifter at all. Nothing. But he was positive, absolutely positive that this woman was one of the jaguars. The new question had him turning his ruby eyes back onto her.

"You smell human."

Surprise, managed to knock the stutter off kilter for a moment. His voice was smoothed out even with his little accent. Human and yet he wasn't hungry when he looked at her. It was like she was and wasn't human.

"But Im not h-hungry for blood?"

He turned to her friends, the boyfriend and the other two. Taking in breaths.

"They don't s-smell like anything."
#28
What a response. She smelled human? Asha looked at her hands again. Not a single jaguar thought. In fact, she couldn't even remember what it meant to have jaguar thoughts. She tried to chase them, and just ended up with caricatures at best.

And then, none of them smelled like anything. So what did this mean? Did they not exist? She looked at the other wall, too. The glass wall. The sight beyond it, familiar. But that didn't make sense here.

Was she trapped in a...

"Nightmare," she said. Well, a soft nightmare, by any standards. But to go utterly ignored by those she loved was a special kind of Asha-branded nightmare.
#29
Nightmare? He wasn't following the train of thought from the non jaguar lady. Still very confused by what was going on. None of this seemed real. If he wasn't going crazy, which didn't seem to be the case, the only other explanation he could come up with was magic. He had seen a bit of Ms Stewarts illusions and this seemed more in line with that.

"Ms Stewart makes i-illusions."

He blurted out in an attempt to be helpful. Although it came out like he was saying Ms Stewart had done this to them ;_;

"She w-wouldn't do this t-though."

It was just knowledge to offer when he couldn't put the pieces together.
#30
"Nah dude. I'm saying this is a nightmare."

She was lucky she'd run into a vampire that could do this before. She was lucky she knew some of this ability. And finally, she was lucky some spark in her brain allowed her to realize she was lucidly... "dreaming."

"My nightmare. These are all places I've been before but it's not a single real place. It's all up mixed together. And these people are all people who love me and would never ignore me but here they are. And you aren't getting anything from them, but you're saying I passed out."

Big inhale.

"I'm having a nightmare, and you're the one that controls it."
#31
She was back on the nightmare part and he tried to understand where she was going. He knew this wasn't real and didn't make sense which was why he thought of illusions. She was firm that this was a dream though and he wasn't sure why. How could they be inside a dream? Although really it was about on the same level as what Ms Stewart could do. Was there some magic that made this possible? But he certainly wasn't the one doing this.

"I d-d-didn't do a-anything."

He gave a very vigorous shake of his head.

"I c-can't d-do any m-magic."

There was no way he could do anything like Ms Stewart. He was a failure at being a vampire, even hunting was difficult for him.
#32
He could deny and stutter it all he wanted. But it was very firm in her brain: she'd been knocked out, and he was the vampire that knocked her out. In a museum no less. First time for her was in the Planetarium. That had been a whole mess too. She wondered if Catrina would get as mad as Beauregard had.

Eh. Nothing to worry about now. Asha was sure of this fact the same way dreams made people stupidly sure of Weird Facts.

"You couldn't do any magic until today," she corrected. "Don't vampires take a while sometimes? Lucky me."

How could she prove it to him, that he was in her dream world?

...maybe...

"Hey. Talk without a stutter."

And Asha would push for it herself, mentally. All he needed to do was will it to happen.
#33
Luka had learned a bit more about being a vampire with Ms Stewarts help. So he had an idea that vampires did get more powerful over time, he had just never thought he would. It seemed so impossible with how he was. He could barely make eye contact for the tiniest of suggestions, which made feeding a bit dismal. None of it really mattered much to Luka, he didn't want to be strong. He just wanted to do what he had always do, paint. The reasoning was starting to win him over when a fatal attack to his self esteem was launched.

She hated his stutter.

He knew it was awful. That people hated it. That it was hard to understand him. The more he thought about how much people hated his voice, his speech, him, the worse his social anxiety became. Usually resulting in the panicked sobbing that had happened earlier.

"I-i'm s-s-sorry i s-stutter."

Tiny tears were forming in his eyes again.
#34
Oh my God he was crying again. Fantastic. And still stuttering, so maybe she was dead.

On the plus side, maybe watching a vampire cry over nothing three times in her dream would kill her own crying habit. Just. Knock it dead. It was annoying to watch and be at a total loss. In the meantime, she was still stuck here.

Asha took a second before she burst into frustration. Speak calmly to the most sensitive boy in the world.

"I didn't say that, or intend that, I was trying to help prove it to you, but I've clearly touched a nerve, so just. Cry it out and knock on my door when you're ready to actually figure this out."

She went into her room where she didn't have to look at people she loved ignoring her because this sucked.
#35
How else was he suppose to take someone telling him not to stutter? And how was it suppose to prove that this was a dream? Luka didn't know, he also didn't have much time to think as whatever force was making the world had also seemed to tether him to the jaguar lady and he was pulled into the bedroom as well. He wasn't crying just yet, his eyes were only moist. And as much as he just wanted to cry and hide away from the weird things that were happening that didn't seem like it was an option. Still everything put together had made the jaguar lady very scary and even not looking at her wasn't helping him speak.

He hadn't been this scared and stressed in a long time. Not since the first night as a vampire with Ms Vashti. What did Ms Stewart say when the anxiety got to bad? Deep breaths. He knew that. There needed to be something so that he wasn't focused on the lady and how scary she was. An inkling of an idea began in his mind. Perhaps if he could sketch her they could talk?

"D-do you h-have p-paper, p-pencil."
#36
Dang it, she couldn't even get away from the crying for one SECOND. Asha cracked her neck and breathed evenly for patience. Was her crying this bothersome to Abraham. Could she just like, cure it. From a dream.

Hey focus the baby was asking for something.

"Check on the bed," she nodded. And where there would wouldn't have been anything initially, between the two of them deciding there might be something there, a pencil with a good eraser and a fancy sketchbook would appear.
#37
He wasn't sure that there had been a sketchbook before but there was one now and he would gratefully pick it up and flip to a page. The crisp smell of the paper and the grooves of the pencil against his fingers did a bit to calm down the nerves. He sat down perhaps more gracefully then his previous demeanor suggested. He took a few seconds to simply test out the pencil on the paper the shaking of his hands slowly subsiding.

"O-okay we can t-talk like this."

There wasn't any looking up yet. He wasn't ready for that. For now he simply traced out the beginning of a face from memory.
#38
What was he doing? She didn't look, just sat cross-legged on the floor.

But now what did she have to talk about?

"I mean. Those things weren't there when I was in the bedroom before," she offered.
#39
The sound of the pencil scratching over the paper was soothing. Almost like a half forgotten lullaby. His mind was trailing away from scary, from the talking the changes, everything he didn't understand. Like writing thoughts down it was easier to think with his hands moving. He was a vampire. Vampires could have magic abilities like Ms Stewart's illusion. He had never been able to do something like that until now. But it was hard to realize some sort of magic was going on.

"S-so this is a d-dream. Is there an a-ability that does t-this?"

He really only knew about Ms Stewarts magic. Even living with Ender he hadn't actually seen the man's healing ability.

"I d-don't know much about magic."

His stutter improved less nervous he was.
#40
She did hear an improvement in his voice, but it was hard to tell for her just yet if it was imagination or real.

"Yeah. You're not the first vampire I've run into with it. But like. You can knock people out and then control their dream. Or be in it."
#41
Knock people out didn't sound like a good thing. He imagined it would just make people even more angry with him. That wasn't important to think about though. They were already in a dream and the focus should be on getting out.

"I d-don't feel like i'm controlling anything."

If anything it felt more like he was along for the whatever ride this dream took. He hadn't had a say on coming into the bedroom.
#42
"Well, try to? I think it's sorta give and take. Think of something you want to see and don't tell me what it is, just make it exist."

She pointed to an empty spot by the window. There was space!
#43
"Well, try to? I think it's sorta give and take. Think of something you want to see and don't tell me what it is, just make it exist."

She pointed to an empty spot by the window. There was space!
#44
Give and take? He frowned trying to work his mind around this. Raising his eyes slightly he managed to see her pointing towards the window and the offer to think of something appearing. Well he could picture something that wasn't hard. Wracking his brain he came up with the image of the stained glass window that he had seen in a book. With trees and sunlight floating down in rays. It had caught his attention because of the detail.


something like this

#45
And with a blink, there it was, regular glass replaced by color and lovely design. She certainly hadn't thought in that direction.

"Hey! That was you, right?" she asked, pointing in pleased surprise.
#46
He was just as surprised as Asha was. There it was the very stained glass window he had been picturing in his mind.

"Y-yes"

It had been him, had to have been. Which meant everything she said was true. This was a dream and he was the one who had caused it. But how was he suppose to get them back to the real world? Was he just suppose to think about it? Will it or something like that. He thought back to the collection and the front desk where this had all begun.
#47
A stuttered "yes" was the last thing she got. Suddenly everything was fading out, and her eyes were opening, and there she was.

In the museum. On the ground.

The confusion of sleeping to waking was what she got first before anything else, and she hummed with a question mark at the end as she squinted upwards.
#48
Just like before everything began to blur into colors and then start to reform. Except they didn't fully turn fully back into shapes, remaining half blurred to his sight. But he could tell he was standing and there was no sketchbook or pencil in his hands. It was as if someone had put a lens in front of his eyes that made everything hazy. He could make out the shape of a desk in front of him and the dark brown of the wood floor but nothing clear or defined.

"Did it work?"

He called out not even sure if the jaguar lady was around. With his limited sight he grabbed the desk so that he could lean over remembering that the lady had fallen. There was a blur on the ground that wasn't wood.
#49
Vampire voice. Vampire smell.

Asha blinked a few times, breathing. Her mind coalesced into the invasion of another being — the jaguar waking and joining her consciousness.

Did it work?

"Yeah," she answered, everything inching back into her memory.
#50
Yes he could here her voice coming from the weirdly shaped blur. It worked. Seemed so simple now though the whole thing had been a experience he wasn't keen to repeat. Having identified the jaguar lady he would move back to his position behind the desk. Not sure that he should move at all as things didn't seem to be getting any better vision wise.

"I don't think it's g-gone back for me?"

Was he in some kind of in-between space? Not fully in the dream but not back either? Still everything felt real.
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