The Fallen Vampire

76  Lucia Has Feet!

Lucia was someone who didn't really dream all that often.

Even when she did, they were so brief and uninteresting that she hardly remembered them afterwards.

However, as she found herself lying on her back in a cold and black space, she knew that this would be one of the select few that she remembered for a while.

'Scary…' she thought. 'I want to wake up already!'

As she started to feel a small twinge of fear, a very deep and monstrous voice spoke to her from the shadows.

"Since you are the wife of that man, your future is bound to be prosperous… I can use this well."

Lucia felt significantly more afraid after she heard a voice she didn't recognize mention Taira and her relationship to him.

"I-Is this a dream..? Who are you?! Why did you bring up my husband?!"

However, Lucia received no answers from the darkness no matter how much she asked, and she began to panic internally.

Suddenly, the being started to speak in a tongue that she didn't recognize.

The language was old and more terrible than anything she had ever heard before, and just listening made her feel slightly woozy.

When she could no longer maintain consciousness, she fell back onto the ground and let her eyes drift to a close.

"I hope that you will not dissapoint me… our clan's prosperity is riding on your success."

-

Taira awoke with his whole body wrapped in a cold sweat and with a towel placed over his forehead.

As soon as he opened his eyes and sat up on the bed, he was immediately knocked back down.

"You're awake!"

"Oof!"

With the expertise of a professional linebacker; Enyo barreled into Taira's chest and knocked out any accumulated air in his lungs.

While her embrace would always be a welcome one to him, he would be lying if he said that this time it didn't feel like a little much.

"Have I missed something, love?" He asked with a chuckle.

"You were tossing and turning in your sleep all night and I couldn't wake you! A-And then Lucia just…"

"Lucia?"

Taira finally looked over to the right side of his bed and found a woman who he admittedly did not recognize at first.

Tanned skin that was a shade lighter than Enyo's, a cute black bob that framed her delicate and somewhat childish face perfectly, and a body that any sane man would drool over.

Iridescent black scales could be seen on her hands and feet, and there was a miraculous tattoo of a serpent that encompassed her entire left leg.

"This is… Lucia…?" Taira muttered in shock.

As if responding to his call, the young woman finally stirred within her sleep and opened her yellow-gold eyes.

"I-I'm awake, darling… good morning…!"

Lucia opened her eyes and stared lovingly at the furry earred kitsune in her bed.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that, you're making me feel shy…"

Enyo slipped out of bed and grabbed a mirror from her dresser before she brought it to Lucia's face.

"Just like our husband, you suddenly started burning up in the middle of the night and then… this." She explained.

Making an expression of pure shock, Lucia held her hands out in front of her.

She inspected the rest of her body with morbid fascination, and when she got to her lower half, her mind seemed to malfunction.

"I-I…"

Taira took the young girl by the hand and tried to offer her any kind of calming words.

"Lucia, I know this must be strange but-"

"Darling, I have legs!! I-I have feet and even toes!!"

Lucia wiggled her legs up into the air and dangled her feet from side to side like a giant child.

"T-This is so great, I have to go tell the others!!"

Throwing off the covers, she ran across the room excitedly before throwing open the door and rushing outside.

Taira only got a moment to appreciate the sight of his wife's new and impressive bottom before he heard her running into the rooms of the other residents of this house.

Lucia: "Keran, look! I have legs and toes!"

Keran: "T-That's great, Luc but why do you look so different and why are you naked…?"

Lucia: "I-I don't know, I was just so excited to have feet when I woke up that I had to show you guys! I gotta go tell Vermeil!"

Taira heard the pitter patter of his wife's newly acquired feet as she ran to the room across the hall and threw open the door.

Lucia: "Vermeil, look! I have feet now!"

Vermeil: "Christ above, why are your tits so much bigger than mine..?!"

Lucia: "I-I don't know anything about that, but look at my cute little toes!!"

Taira finally felt like he'd been listening long enough and he chuckled as he finally climbed out of bed.

His home was certainly lively, but he still wanted to get to the bottom of everything that happened last night and why his wife had changed so dramatically.

-

It took a full twenty minutes to calm Lucia down and convince her to stop wagging her toes in others faces so early in the morning.

Once they got her to calm down, together they were able to learn that Lucia didn't actually know anything.

She only vaguely recalled a strange dream where she was lying alone in a dark space and talking to some strange entity.

Unlike Taira who had been granted a new name that forced his change, Luca didn't have anything like that.

No one could tell exactly what the cause of her change could have been, least of all Lucia herself.

Currently, Taira had pulled up Lucia's dress just a bit so that he could further examine the new tattoo on her leg.

As stated, it was in the form of a rising black serpent that traveled all the way up to her upper thigh.

When she focused on it, her body would change back into that of a lamia with a large black tail that swayed from side to side.

Taira placed a hand over the ink and passed a bit of his qi through her leg, hoping to feel any familiar traces of the beast god's influence.

He only knew him to be someone capable of meddling in the lives of those in the lower realm like this, so he figured that it was worth confirming.

However, Taira's search did not yield the results that he was expecting.

'I can't feel him, so it seems he didn't do this… I wonder if he'll know who-' n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Darling, what did you just do? My leg feels cold all of a sudden." Lucia said.

"Ah sorry, my love. I was just using a bit of my qi to…"

Taira's words gradually trailed off, and he stared up at Lucia like she'd grown a second head.

"My wife… You can feel my qi?"

Lucia also made a bit of a surprised expression as she realized exactly what the cold feeling she felt in her leg was.

"It.. would seem that I can. Does this mean..?"

 Taira placed a hand directly on the center of Lucia's chest and injected a bit of his energy into her.

When she closed her eyes and started to pass it throughout her body, their guess was fully confirmed.

Lucia could now cultivate.

it was like 60 degrees today I was so tempted to cut on my Christmas specials early and go buy eggnog AnathaShesha

Creator's Thought