Morality, arduous and usually fruitless, still endures. Altruism exists. Law and order, no matter how violated, is still revered. I do want to live in a world with all those things, but at the same time I yearn to feel the chaotic winds of a world with its blueprint of harmony torn and forgotten, and have the satisfaction of triumphing it. Betrayed into being a fucking bargaining chip, one could say I'd lost a bit of sense and sanity, or it had chipped away.

"Because it's not up to me, man!"

The silence that followed didn't help those festering tensions either, even my father had stopped his pathetic cries in God knows what language at this point.

After the echoes of my voice stopped bouncing off of the walls and rattling the pristine chandeliers above, an awkward silence billowed over us.

Vlad said something. My Romanian sucks, but I could tell that he was calling out to someone that wasn't me, my father, nor the guard. Then, a gust of wind made my infinite layers of skirts swish. I turned around to find either the weirdest lynch mob or the scariest family council that there could ever be.

All people standing there as if they always were instead of this hall being empty enough for my voice to bounce off the walls mere moments ago. Women dressed for the Renaissance faire, but like they meant business instead of just cheap ass cosplay for the Gram. I couldn't compete with the mere regality they exuded just by appearance if I tried my best. The men wore what could only be described as timeless and dark wearing clothes that showed off their masculine figures very well, as if they were military or something. They all seemed pretty important, and probably were vampires, and probably understood English though, because they were all confused at my statement in terms of it not making sense with anything I'd said. These people, far more powerful than me in every way possible- and their attention fixed on me.

Astaghfirullah I sought forgiveness, then went back to muttering my prayer. Like hell would I feel fear here, I couldn't. I was vulnerable enough as it was and if it was going to be the end of the line for me, I didn't want to go down without a fight. If it had been anyone but me standing here, they'd be shitting bricks. Thankfully, I ain't nobody else.

I gave a bored glance at them, and another epiphany hit me along with the one of helplessness. Their arrogant appearance and mannerisms could only be fawned over in this den, they wouldn't have the balls to go out like this. Their immense supernatural strength? It couldn't match even a strand of my willingness to go pound for pound until the last breath. After all, one with nothing to lose neither has anything to fear, but these people had a lot to lose.

I tore away my gawking stare from the creepy Ren-Faire crowd, and looked back at Vlad. He was hunched over and now resting his chin on clasped hands like he was anticipating an answer from me, which made him look more amused than actually mad. That made me mad.

The fuck did you expect, genius? You ain't shit here.

I can't do anything to help myself.

But neither can I stay quiet.

"I mean, uh, I can say I'm married to you all I want it's just that it won't matter if I don't actually mean it." I mentally screamed at the way I mumbled so timidly. It definitely didn't sound the way I thought it would out loud. A chorus of murmurs began at my reaction.

"Do you betray your allegiance so soon?" He asked. His anger made him look a bit older, like some evil hermit that turns folks into toads when they're pissed off.

What the fuck do you want from me, man? Allegiance or my-

How unsettling he was, so calm yet his eyes giving away the sheer phoniness of the evil hermit.

"No! That's not what I meant! I did accept the contract! I am technically your wife now!" I confessed, putting my hands up to shield myself.

A hush fell over the underestimating crowd once again. Sadly, the silence only gave a chance to those demonic voices in my head, which were as loud as if the whole room had begun talking.

What just happened kept replaying in my head, flaying me alive with a rusty blunt knife. Never, had I felt so humiliated.

Dread and disgust flooded inside me. I looked into his eyes. Feel the humiliation, you piece of shit. That's all you deserve. You ain't worth shit. You act big but you're just a balloon, one hit oughta knock the wind out of you.

Not again, not again. It wasn't my first time having a panic attack. I couldn't think straight, I wanted to cry and start punching everything I saw. I needed to get out of here. I didn't want to lose my shit, because all that peace I'd established in the past years would demolish.

Naturally with such pressure, I could only do so much as to grasp at strings for a counter argument, and that's basically pretty much what I did. He might've pulled off this marriage thing, but did he know the extent of its laws? Goodwill definitely existed, but it's the stupidity of antagonists to think that it would benefit them in any way.

The vampire king started his victory speech. "Now that that is settled-

"Hold up!" I shouted. "I said technically, didn't I?" I asked rhetorically. He shut his mouth and looked pretty irritated now.

"You do understand, that this 'contract' you're so proud of, A, needs to have two believing parties and both willing. B, all technicalities aside is a religious contract- oh and requires two other Muslim witnesses. So with thiat ien mahnd, sir, you can scare me or mah father all ya wanna, it ain't gon' do nuthin' jus' cause you or ah say so, 'cause it ain't gon' make it the truth, your Majesty."

I took a deep breath when I finished, and realized that I was probably starving right now. To mess up my epic moment, my stomach started growling for food as well. I sort of lost my self somewhere in between my speech, you know, there was a real heart-to-heart moment there.

As for Dracula, his jaw was practically dropped to the floor and his eyebrows furrowed. I think he was trying to comprehend what just happened.

Sara tera ghuroor chakna choor! (All your pride shattered far and wide!)

Little did I know, I just set myself up.

"So I should not consider you my wife?" He asked.

"Puh-lease don't." I said smugly as I crossed my arms, reveling in my little bubble of glory.

"Then I suppose you are alright with sharing my bed and being my companion for the rest of your life unwed." He grinned, also taking in the thought of his filthy words. His glittering eyes as ugly as a fish's, his slow growing grin on his age-beaten brutal face contrasting my fading smirk.

"Huh?" I squeaked, I looked away because there was no way I could focus.

"Tsk, my wife would have been deserving of those privileges, and you are not, are you? It was my father-in-law whose life I was sparing." He asked, quirking his brow, his growing amusement making my knees buckle in fear. "Tsk tsk tsk, esti prins acum..." (you're caught now...)

It was my turn to look like I had the wind knocked out of me. The shock had quite literally, sent me to my knees.

Now, all my instincts commanded me to crawl, grab the back of his ankles, and wail out my fears while begging for his forgiveness and telling him how much of an honor it would be to be his wife.

I looked at my father who had his head down in shame. The command for womankind was to submit to the will of the men who were their caretakers and protectors. Here, I saw none who fit that description.

Should I bow down to evil just to save him? Should I willingly choose hellfire just as he did by forsaking me?

But he is my father, he sired me. I have a responsibility to defend him.

But I am his daughter, he had the responsibility to defend and protect me.

We all have to die one day, and we all must answer for our deeds in this life.

Ironically, it was the the thought that we were all going to die one day that calmed me to a degree. It assured me that in ten years or ten seconds, all of this can be over. It assured me, that I was responsible for my own actions and others for theirs.

"As for your aforementioned technicalities, look behind you." Vlad said.

Having no other sound option but to obey him, I turned around.

The crowd parted to reveal Sonia and Azra walking up to the front. It was so surreal that my brain forced me to have another moment.

My eyes darted around like crazy, hoping this was a dream, hoping the sky would fall or the ground would open up and swallow me.

There I was, sitting on the floor like a pauper. There they both were, risen among the elites.

"You left me to die...." I rasped, slowly standing up to my feet while keeping my eyes on them.

I wondered if the people in this court knew who the two that they respectfully made way for truly were. I wondered if they knew who the person they were ogling so rudely at truly was.

"Mavis, we had no choice." Sonia said. I turned to look at her.

"Everyone has a choice, Sonia." I said as I started walking towards them both, saying her name at the end the way she said mine. My name on her tongue sounded like an ugly curse word.

"Calm down." Said Azra, looking at me like I was a wild beast that escaped its chains. Suddenly, something in my head clicked, it all came together perfectly like a dovetail joint.

My eyes widened as I recalled the events of last night.

The tavern.

The dare. She was the one who brought it up. She kept insisting

The coke bottle. It was already opened. It was drugged.

I saw red for a moment before grabbing Azra's scarf and swinging a right hook right into her protruding cheekbone.

Before I could do anything else, I felt my arms being restricted painfully to the sides as though they might be torn out of their sockets.

I could barely register Sonia's gasp and her well manicured hands over her mouth only showing her frightened eyes open wide. I kept trying to pull my arms away and ran on the spot, my hair cascading around my face since my headpiece had fallen off.

But none of that mattered, what did matter was the sobbing green-eyed girl collapsed to her knees and clutching her face.

"BITCH! YOU DRUGGED ME, BETRAYED ME, SOLD ME LIKE A WHORE! HOW HAVEN'T YOU DIED IN SHAME?!" I roared at her in Urdu on the top of my lungs, still struggling to get free.

"Mavis, calm down." My father finally said. I felt like there was fire under my face, tears blurred my vision, and the pain of holding down sobs was catching up to me. I had enough.

The choice between rebellion and submission, those guards walking towards me to do God knows what, and the demon sitting on a throne of elitism reveling in my demise, all of it just drove me to liking the thought of death. So much for the 'easy way out', right now it wasn't.

I glared one final time at my defeated patriarch, once pride of House Ansari and now a debt slave on his knees throwing his own daughter under the bus for his business empire.

I did what I had to do. I remained silent. Knowing that this could be the final time I was ever seeing him, I obeyed.

Through clenched teeth, I watched  get back onto her feet and straighten herself up. Every breath she took mocked me. I burned within, knowing that both of them and my father would walk out of here and I wouldn't.

Nevertheless, I stayed still and relaxed my arms. I looked at the two guards beside me with a look of reassurance and they looked towards Vlad, before letting me go. I felt like my biceps had been torn and pulled at, and would probably need a shit load of rest before I could even lift a finger.

This is by far, the weirdest proposal- if you could even call it that- I've gotten. And that's saying a lot.

"A pleasure to know you see it as a proposal." Vlad said awkwardly. I blushed as I realized I said that out loud, but turned around to face him again.

If I didn't dare to look into his eyes or didn't spend more than a minute with this guy, I'd probably buy the 'nervous date' act he was putting up.

"Listen man, I'll be clear with you," I started slowly, careful to keep my accent neutral. It didn't matter now, but it would at least give off a bit of composure on my part. I heard my own tone getting more high-pitched and my reasoning crumble the longer I thought of anything. Thankfully, the panic helped me not acknowledge what I said after this.

"I'm really not your type."

Vlad's expression changed from pensive to a mortified cringe. A light shove from behind sent me tumbling to my knees. I couldn't believe I let Dracula sidetrack me. Man, was I stupid.

I turned around to see who pushed me, and saw a large knight They didn't want to stomp me to death, that's for sure, because they surely could've.

"Owie, ants in your mothers- ugh!" I swore when my back hit the leg of Vlad's very ornate chair. Fear sprang my heart when I felt his fingers clasping the back of my neck again and his shin against my back.

He could slam my head into anything like a coconut or snap my neck like a cinnamon stick. Just follow his movements, and attack when the momentum favors you.

Or I could just beg for my life right now and hope he wouldn't kill me. God knows how much I wanted to, but I just couldn't. I couldn't do so to save my life, so I'd do what I could to do whatever the fuck I wanted.

As Vlad grabbed my bicep with his other hand, pulling me up. When I realized what he was doing, I pushed at his chest, but it made me stumble and fall right onto him.

He grabbed my shimmying shoulders, and lifted me back up on my feet and off of the chair.

"I felt your heart beating faster than normal earlier, but now I believe you are going into a panic attack."

"Ha! In your dreams," I said before laughing in a way I never would've if it was natural. I leisurely backed up until I was a safe distance away, and tripping over a guard's boot and landed back on my ass.

My laughter picked up on its own until it turned into a full-on cackle that twisted my guts enough to make me clutch onto them.

Why am I laughing? A voice in my head finally asked. Nevertheless, it made me snap out of my trance and take in my actions- which truthfully, weren't in my control anymore.

I forced my giggles to stop in order to try and say something, but instead ended up sputtering into laughter again. I felt a burning sensation starting to grow in the sides of my head.

Ignoring my embarrassing moment, he looked over my shoulder and briskly waved his hands as if to say 'go away', before fixing a worried gaze on me again.

A random thought, something I'd been thinking over and over since I woke up, hit me once again. This time it just so happened to pull at my heartstrings hard enough to make tears spring into my eyes and start trickling down my cheeks, and my grinning mouth to contort.

I opened my misty eyes only to meet his that were still fixed on me. It only felt more embarrassing after my cackles gargled into loud sobs.

All these years relying on myself, making my own identity, all gone. Somehow, fate had again made me my father's weakness. I was Mehwish, the rich pretentious snob with big claims and no merit of her own, a liability.

Soon enough, I could feel my eyes were still open, but I couldn't see anything- I suppose I had mentally just shut it all out. Soon enough, the sound of my own giggles and cries had taken over my hearing, and that deafening awkward silence reminding me of my fate wasn't there anymore. I just didn't realize it until even my own sounds had begun to fade, followed by the ache in my throat from screaming so much.

"Compose yourself, woman!" I faintly heard a voice with a thick accent behind me.

Vlad's angry Romanian boomed after that, followed by huge stomps past me and then a shrill scream before

CRACK!

THUD!