“I’ve never looked as pretty as I do right now,” Violet said softly while she stared in the mirror. It took all her self control and the threat of the seamstress stabbing her with a needle to not do a spin while the dress was finished up.
Sure, she looked the same as always, but the dress she was wearing somehow looked even better than she remembered, now that it fit properly and went over her bosom, then stopped to reveal the delicate soft skin of her collarbone, wrapping around her, tightly on the back while leaving her shoulders exposed, the soft little pink gloves with it going up nearly to her shoulders. She wished she’d worn some prettier earrings to go with it, or maybe done her hair nice. As it was, she felt like a pig stuffed into the prettiest dress imaginable. But a very, very pretty pig.
Violet glanced down at where the dress tightened around her and the way her chubby body felt like it might pop out from it. The dress was absolutely stunning. She, on the other hand, wasn’t. The smile began to fall off her lips. This was too nice for her. Too pretty. She didn’t--
“Holy shit,” Scarlet said.
“What?” Violet asked and started to turn.
“Don’t move,” the seamstress snapped. “You’re going to get a pin if you do. I’m almost done.”
“Right, sorry,” Violet said sheepishly. She looked back at her reflection before peering towards Scarlet in it. Well, her doubts began to fade a bit after that. Sure, she wasn’t exactly the healthiest hunter in the world, but there was no way even she could feel unattractive when Scarlet was staring at her like that. The vampire looked absolutely mesmerized, her eyes bulging behind her cute little glasses, wide as if she was trying to drink in every bit of it before it disappeared. She felt warmth filling her cheeks. Maybe she didn’t look like such a pig afterall.
“Done,” the shopkeeper said. “Can you breathe okay?”
“Perfectly,” Violet said. “Thanks. Uhhhh, how do I look?”
“Damn,” Scarlet said.
“That good?” Violet asked.
“Holy shit,” Scarlet said.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Violet said with a light giggle.
“Okay, if you want to go ahead and change into one of the others, I’ll do those adjustments next,” the seamstress said.
“Wait, others?” Violet asked.
“Oh, right, didn’t I tell you?” Scarlet asked, before, slowly, that predatory grin that was so good at turning Violet’s stomach to mush formed on her lips. “I ordered quite a few. Three of them are ready, right?”
“Four now,” the seamstress said.
Violet’s stomach did another little flip, but she numbly nodded. She then glanced at her reflection before doing one more little twirl. Dress go swishy. “I’ll go and change.”
------
“How much did that cost?” Violet asked.
“Does it matter?” Scarlet asked.
“Yes,” Violet said. “I can’t have you go and dump a bunch of--”
“I’m hundreds of years old, have almost no real expenses, and own a lot of old things that might be considered priceless if I run into issues and need to make money quickly,” Scarlet said. “Not to mention in a lot of ways, those dresses are just as much for me as they are for you. After all, I get a nice little doll to dress up. Besides, I like to spoil those I care about.”
Violet’s cheeks once more went red and she quickly glanced away. “Fine, good points,” she said softly. “Can I at least help carry them?”
“They’re really not that heavy,” Scarlet said with a shrug. “I could carry them and you at the same time. Want to see?”
Violet sighed and then shrugged. Might as well. “Sure, why not?”
“W-what?” Scarlet asked, almost tripping.
“Go ahead, carry me,” Violet said before slowly her grin formed. Oh, now Scarlet was scarlet. “Oh my, are you embarrassed? Didn’t expect me to call your bluff?”
“I-I didn’t mean, I mean, there’s just, there’s people here and I just–” Scarlet attempted to say, but each sentence seemed to get choked in her throat and Violet wondered if the girl might just spontaneously combust from embarrassment.
“It’s good to know that some things embarrass you,” Violet said. “Let’s--”
“Hey, it’s you!” a voice called out.
Violet froze and turned to see what she could only assume was either a bodybuilder or a professional wrestler looking to piledrive someone into the ground power walking towards her. Besides her was an only slightly smaller young man who looked almost vaguely familiar. Both were wearing dark sunglasses despite the night.
“What did you do?” Violet asked, wondering if she’d need to use her knives. Vampires, maybe? Who wore sunglasses at night? They weren’t pale, though.
“What? Me?” Scarlet asked. “I don’t-- oh no. A-are they fans? Oh shit, oh shit. How’s my hair? Do I look okay?”
Violet rolled her eyes. How could the girl be such an easily frazzled mess one moment, then all but pinning her against the wall and torturing her with talk of dresses the next? She supposed she’d need to protect her vampire girlfriend from the scary public. She turned towards the woman again and then realized the woman wasn’t coming towards Scarlet. She was coming to her. “What?” Violet asked.
“You’re Violet, right?” the woman asked. “The hunter?”
“Yesssss?” Violet asked. The woman didn’t look armed, but she supposed that the woman didn’t need to be. She almost hoped the woman was a witch or something. She didn’t want to use her knives on a normal person, even if the person had almost a foot of height on her.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “Oh, uh, my name is Ami, you saved me and my boyfriend the other day?”
“I did?” Violet asked.
Ami paused before pointing towards the park. She then gave a sigh and reached up, lifting her sunglasses to show golden eyes. Golden CANINE eyes.
Violet’s eyes went wide and she covered her mouth with her hand. “You were the werewolf?” She should have known those biceps looked familiar.
“Yes,” Ami said.
“Listen, I’m sorry,” Violet said. “But you were on a tear and--”
“I almost tried to eat my boyfriend, it’s fine,” Ami said before she reached back and put a hand on the man’s head, gently stroking his hair. It was oddly cute how he just kind of leaned into it. “Thanks for not trying to finish me off or anything. I uhhh, I hear that kind of stuff can happen when hunters…”
“Yeah,” Violet said sheepishly. “For what it’s worth, you were a real bitch to drop. Err, are you okay now or…?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Better. You made sure I didn’t hurt anyone,” the woman said. “I couldn’t get your information so uhhh, I just wanted to say thank you. For that.”
“What, have you just been prowling the park hoping I’d walk by it again?” Violet asked with a light snicker.
“Yeah? So what?” Ami asked.
Violet quickly stood up a little straighter and stifled her chuckles. “Oh. Err, well then. There’s probably easier ways to– right. Sorry. Uhhh, you’re welcome though. I was just doing my job.”
“Hey, I could have killed my man,” Ami said before giving the man a little tug into her side and she swore she could almost imagine him with a wagging tail. “Job or not, I owe you. So uhh, here. A thank you gift,” she said before pulling out a small blue box.
“Huh?” Violet asked, clumsily taking it from the girl. She opened it and then her eyes narrowed. It looked old, real old. A polished bronze necklace with a teardrop stone? Possibly sapphire. “This looks really expensive.”
“It’s fine,” Ami said, averting her eyes. “I just wanted to thank you. Really, it’s worth way more than just that, for what you did for me. It’s just an old family bauble, anyway.”
“Happy to help,” Violet said, still eyeing the necklace before closing the box, not trusting it enough to put it on. “Thanks. I have just the occasion to wear it for.”
The look of relief on the woman’s face only made her more suspicious, but she kept it quiet. Instead, she just waved as the two left before sighing.
“It’s pretty,” Scarlet said. “Do people often do that?”
“More than you’d think,” Violet said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m like, ninety-percent sure it’s cursed.”
“Wait, what?” Scarlet asked.
“Cursed,” Violet said before waving the box a little. “Happens more often than you’d think. Someone gets something that like, has haunted spirits or something. They freak out, decide to give it as a ‘gift’ to a random hunter. It’s fine, though. Grandma taught me a spell to identify it. I’ve got the stuff in my kit. A bit of dragon blood, some salt, boiled up just right. Once I find out what kind of curse is on it, I’ll just deal with it.”
“If you think it’s cursed, why did you take it?” Scarlet asked.
“Because I’m a professional and I can deal with it,” Violet said with a shrug. “And if it’s not cursed and she is just really grateful? I’d feel like an absolute idiot for overreacting to something so silly. She looked like she could break me like a twig, too. If she’s a werewolf I don’t want to make her mad at me.”
Scarlet couldn’t stop herself from snickering. “You’d rather be cursed or haunted by some vengeful spirit than annoy someone because you assume they were going to give you cursed jewelry?”
Violet’s cheeks went redder and she started walking a little faster, giving a light huff. “It’s just embarrassing, okay? Don’t judge me, lil miss ‘Oh no, do I look okay? What if my fans find out how much of a disast-pire I am?’”
“That’s different,” Scarlet said quickly, though judging by the squeak in the vampire’s tone, Violet felt she’d won that argument at least. Besides, even if it was cursed, what did she care? She was the ‘Hunter of Curses’, she’d been cursed more than most hunters ever dreamed. It was only really an issue if you got too many curses on you at once, then you just started attracting all manner of trouble.
------
“Here we go,” Violet said before dipping the necklace into the small concoction with a pair of tweezers, the pair of them kneeling on the living room floor over the small metal pot. When she pulled the necklace out, it glimmered a bright, dazzling red as if it was made of liquid rubies. After a few moments the liquid dripped off, revealing the normal necklace. “And done.”
“That’s it?” Scarlet asked. “Is that good or bad?”
“Good,” Violet said with relief. “If it’s cursed, the blood would have turned black. But since it stayed that pretty red, it’s safe. No curse, no actual magic.”
“Are you sure?” Scarlet asked. “It’s not like the whole ‘binding’ me thing again, is it? You aren’t going to put it on and then ask me to punch you, are you?”
Violet rolled her eyes. “It’s fine,” she said before unclasping the necklace and wrapping it around her throat. It took her a few seconds to lock it again, but it was a nice fit at least. “There, it-- grk!”
“Violet?” Scarlet asked, her eyes going wide.
“C-can’t… breathe…” Violet said before falling onto her side, mock flailing at the air. “Noooo. My life. It is the over. Only the kiss of a beautiful maiden can save me now.”
Scarlet blinked a few times before glaring at her. “That is not funny.”
“I disagree,” Violet said with a wide grin. She was thankful she’d at least vacuumed the carpet now. “See? Safe. No angry spirits, no pain, no gasping for air.”
“Shouldn’t you have washed it before you put it on?” Scarlet asked. “It did get soaked in dragon’s blood. It didn’t look fresh, either.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “After that spell it’s probably the cleanest thing in this house. Come on, though. How does it look? Pretty?”
“Yeah, it does look nice on you,” Scarlet said softly. “I should have been the person giving you jewelry, though. What even is that rock supposed to be?”
“I don’t know,” Violet said before sitting up and holding it to the light. “Kind of looks like a weird cocoon or a deformed water drop. I thought it was sapphire before, but it feels kind of gummy. I think it’s just cheap plastic. Heh. I bet she picked it up in some old thrift store and decided to pawn it off on me. ‘Old family bauble’, sure.”
Scarlet snickered before getting to her feet and moving up behind Violet, gently stroking a finger through her hair. “Mmmmm, don’t forget. Tonight that’s not the only thing you’ll be wearing. You did promise you’d dance for me. Didn’t you?”
Violet felt her cheeks burn and she shook her head. “I-I didn’t say I would, I mean, tonight, I just--”
“Fiiiiine, I won’t make you tonight,” Scarlet said.
Violet felt her stomach tighten into another knot. Why did Scarlet have to say no so quickly? No. Wait. Shouldn’t she be, no. She did want to dance for her. Didn’t she? But now the idea of it was just so embarrassing she felt like she could die. A part of her wanted to grab those dresses and put them on, another part of her wanted to shove them aside and just shriek and go do some pushups or something until she stopped feeling embarrassed for wanting it. Both. Both sounded good.
Oh no.
She saw that predatorial grin on Scarlet’s lips again. She could quickly feel her doom approaching. Why did it feel so exciting?
“We were out pretty late even before this little spell of yours, anyway,” Scarlet said in a mischievous tone. “You usually go to bed around this time, after all. So I wouldn’t want to rush it. I think it sounds far, far, far more exciting to take these nice, pretty little dresses up to my room and hang them out. Let them rest there. Let you spend all day tomorrow squirming and blushing and thinking about how I’m going to put you in them. How I’m going to make you wear so many cute little dresses and make you my adorable little dancing princess. And later? Well… the maid one should hopefully be done soon. So many, many things I’m going to put you in,” Scarlet whispered, her finger gently stroking Violet’s cheek. “Last time I asked you if you wanted me to. You came oh so very, very close to saying no.”
Scarlet then leaned forward and pressed a soft little upside down kiss on her lips.
“I think it’s a much funner idea to have you spend all day thinking about it, waiting for me to get up… then see if you can find it in you to say no,” Scarlet said.
Violet stared up at the woman. She was pretty sure she would have said yes to anything she said then. How in the world was she supposed to sleep NOW? Her stomach felt like it was going to hop out of her throat!
Scarlet then gave a light chuckle and tapped her cheek. “In the meantime, you should go clean all this up. And don’t toss that shit in the sink, I don’t know what dragon blood would do to the plumbing.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to dump it down the drain, I’m not dumb.” She’d learned that lesson years ago. “Just go write your evil romance books.”
“Hey!” Scarlet said with a hmph. “They’re not evil, they’re trashy.”
“Fine, trashy romance books about fairies,” Violet said with a smirk.
“That’s better,” Scarlet said before turning to flounce off. “You should be grateful. Me writing all those trashy romances is why it’s so easy to court you.”
Violet blinked a few times and struggled to process that. “Hey! I’m not trashy romance-able!”
“You totally are, princess,” Scarlet called from the other room.
“And I’m courting you!” Violet yelled after her.
“Sure you are, sweetling,” Scarlet yelled back in a tone that was anything but agreeing.
Violet rolled her eyes. She swore that vampire was just evil. Pure evil. Just the perfect amount of evil for her. She couldn’t wait to see how evil.
------
Violet groaned and, groggily, kicked her blankets off. She was sweating buckets. Why was it so hot? Did Scarlet turn on the heater? Did this place even have internal heating? She felt like she was going to throw up.
Ugh, Violet hoped she wasn’t coming down with anything. She sluggishly crawled out of bed, her tail plopping down onto the ground behind her, and made her way to the window. It was still night outside at least, she doubted Scarlet had even gone to her coffin yet. Violet shoved the window open and felt the cold night wind rush in. Ahhhhh, that felt good. Amazing, even. Why was it so hot and stuffy?
Violet’s eyes suddenly shot open.
Since when did she have a tail? She didn’t--
Violet looked down at her hands and arms, now covered in a thin layer of dark green scales that she could make out even in the dark. She then glanced back at the long, scaled tail that was poking out from under her shirt and over her underwear.
Violet screamed.