Louis

Paris, or rather the quiet rural sliver of it where Louis de Vilar lived, had been caught in a streak of cold evenings. The kind that made the wood in Lou’s hands feel stiff and reluctant to carve. He had finished delivering firewood to a neighbor and was taking the long way home, crunching through the frost-kissed path by the riverbank.

His mind was drifting—half on the roast Camille was likely preparing, half on whether he should surprise Marie with the carved doll he’d started, half on everything as usual—when he spotted a shape curled near the reeds.

A child.

Thin, barefoot, and deathly pale.

Lou froze. His stomach dropped the way it had when he once found Nicolas sick with fever years ago. Quietly, he approached.

“Bonsoir, petit… are you hurt?” he asked gently, his voice low but steady.

The child didn’t answer. They didn’t even look up. Their chin rested on their knees, arms wrapped around thin legs. Their clothing was tattered nightwear, stained with something dark—dried blood, though Lou didn’t recognize it as such in the dimming dusk.

Lou crouched, thick arms resting on his knees. The pale face lifted slightly, unveiling eyes—unnaturally bright, glassy in the fading light, almost glowing. The sight sent a small shiver down Lou’s spine.

Tuberculosis, he thought immediately. Or perhaps fever. Or famine. Or all three.

“You poor thing…” Lou murmured, voice softening with paternal instinct. “Where are your parents?”

No answer. The child only stared, lips parted slightly, breath shallow and silent.

Lou inched closer, checking their forehead with the back of his hand. Ice cold. Not just cold—wrongly cold, like touching the river stones in winter.

He inhaled sharply.

“Mon Dieu… how long have you been out here?” he whispered.

The child flinched at his touch, but not out of fear—more like a feral creature unused to warmth. Lou noticed then the faint traces of blood at the corners of their mouth. He assumed it was from coughing.

He did not see the small, neat puncture marks hidden beneath their tangled hair. He did not recognize the way their pupils followed the pulsing vein along his wrist.

He simply saw a sickly, abandoned child.

Lou’s chest tightened with that familiar mix of pride and humility—the sense that he must take responsibility, must be useful, must help. His old wounds ached at the thought of a child alone and suffering.

“All right,” he said firmly, gathering the child into his arms. They weighed almost nothing. “You’re coming with me. Camille will know what to do. She always does.”

The vampire child didn’t fight him. They only rested their head weakly against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat like a starving thing near a feast. Their fingers curled subtly into his waistcoat fabric, gripping as if anchoring themselves.

Lou mistook it for comfort.

“You’ll be all right,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand—a nervous habit rising as he felt the unnatural chill seeping from the child’s body. “We’ll give you warm broth. A bed. My daughter will fuss over you, I warn you now.”

He smiled—soft, unintentionally joyful despite concern.

As he walked home with the “sick” child in his arms, the last streak of sunlight vanished beyond the trees. The child’s eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, but Lou didn’t look down at the right moment to see.

He didn’t notice the way their mouth twitched, fangs barely poking into view before being swallowed back with effort.

He didn’t see the hunger.

He only saw a child in need.

And so Louis de Vilar, woodcutter, proud father, devout Catholic, walked straight toward his home—carrying a vampire who had not spoken a single word, and who he believed with all sincerity was simply a lost, ailing soul in need of shelter.

The clinic sat at the end of the main road, a squat stone building with a crooked iron cross hanging above the door. Lou had walked there fast—faster than he should have with a child in his arms—his breath visible in the cold morning air.

The young stranger hung limply against him, head on his shoulder, skin colder than the frost on Lou’s boots.

When Lou pushed into the clinic, the room filled with the scent of herbs and burning tallow. A doctor in a white linen apron looked up over his spectacles.

“Monsieur de Vilar?” the doctor said, surprised. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s not me,” Lou snapped, harsher than intended. “It’s the child—found them by the river. They can barely stand, freezing cold, hasn’t spoken a word.”

The doctor hurried over, motioning Lou to lay the child on the examination cot.

The vampire didn’t resist, only stared up at the ceiling, pupils wide and unfocused. Their breathing was shallow—almost imperceptible.

Two assistants joined the doctor, murmuring quietly.

The doctor pressed a hand to the child's forehead and recoiled slightly. “Cold… colder than ice,” he muttered. “How strange.”

Lou folded his arms tightly, jaw clenching. “A fever can do that.”

“Non,” the doctor said gently. “Fevers heat the body.”

Lou bristled. “Then what is it?”

“We shall see.”

The examination began. One assistant tried to open the child's mouth with a wooden tongue depressor. They resisted—not with force, but by clamping their jaw shut in an uncanny, unblinking silence.

“Open,” the assistant coaxed, irritated.

Lou stepped forward instinctively. “They're frightened. They doesn’t know you.”

The doctor tried again, this time checking the child's pulse.

“Doctor?” Lou asked when he noticed the hesitation.

The doctor tried one wrist, then the other. Then the neck.

He swallowed hard.

“There… there is no pulse.”

Lou’s face flushed red. “What do you mean there’s no pulse? Of course there is. Check again!”

The doctor looked up at him with hesitant pity. “Monsieur de Vilar… the child may have passed before you found them.”

Lou slammed his hand on the wooden counter. “Passed? The child is right there looking at us!”

The assistants exchanged nervous glances. One whispered something about demons. Another mentioned burial preparations.

Lou’s shoulders tensed, eyes narrowing with righteous fury.

“They are not dead,” Lou growled. “They are sick. And you—” he pointed at the doctor, “—are supposed to help them.”

“We cannot treat an illness we do not understand,” the doctor answered, retreating a step. “The body is cold, the heart is not beating, and the child does not speak. These are signs—”

“These are signs that they need care!” Lou shouted. “Beds, blankets, soup—not burial!”

That was the final straw.

Lou scooped the child off the cot in one seamless motion, his expression storm-dark.

“If you won’t help them,” Lou said through clenched teeth, “then I will take them somewhere that will.”

“Monsieur de Vilar, please—!” the doctor called after him. “They are dangerous—unnatural!”

Lou turned at the doorway, holding the silent child protectively against his chest.

“You think everything you do not understand is unnatural.”

“They have no pulse!”

Lou’s voice dropped, low and cold: “Then check again when they're warm.”

And with that, he strode out of the clinic, boots striking the cobblestones with rigid purpose, ignoring the whispers trailing behind him.

The vampire child rested their head against Lou’s shoulder, eyes closed, but awake—listening to Lou’s heartbeat the entire walk.

Lou held them tighter.

“Don’t worry,” he muttered under his breath. “You’re not dying on my watch.”

He didn’t know what the child was. He didn’t care.

He only knew that someone needed him—and Louis de Vilar would be damned before he let another helpless child slip through his fingers.

By the time Lou reached the edge of town, the wind had picked up, biting through his waistcoat and stinging his ears. The silent child in his arms seemed unaffected by the cold—if anything, their skin felt colder than before.

Lou ignored it. He ignored everything except the rising fury in his chest and the small, fragile weight he carried.

His home came into view: the simple four-room house Camille always kept tidy, the chimney exhaling the smell of herbs and simmering broth. Normally that smell calmed him. Today it only reminded him of how desperately the child needed warmth.

He pushed the door open with his shoulder.

“Camille,” he called—stern, strained, not quite shouting but close.

His wife appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Louis? What on earth—what happened?”

Lou shut the door behind him and stepped into the warmth. The child blinked but made no sound, arms curled weakly against their chest.

“I need you to prepare a room,” Lou said, not wasting a second. “Blankets, hot broth, anything warm.”

Camille’s brows knitted. “Who is that?”

“A child,” Lou said simply. “Found them by the river. They're freezing. Doctors were useless.”

Camille stepped closer, studying the boy’s pallid face and unnerving stillness. “Louis… they look—”

“Sick,” Lou cut in, his tone brooking no argument. “Yes. Very.”

“But their lips—are those bloodstains?”

“They're coughing,” Lou insisted. “Or was. And they're frightened. The doctors talked of burial before they even opened their eyes!”

His voice cracked with disbelief and anger.

Camille inhaled slowly, the way she always did before dealing with one of Lou’s storms. “Louis, darling… they look unwell, yes, but—”

“They are alive.” Lou’s voice came out low, heavy with emotion he rarely allowed. “They looked at me. They reached for me. And they need help. Now.”

Camille’s eyes flicked between her husband and the child. She knew Lou’s past—how deeply his childhood wounds ran, how fiercely he protected any child in need because no one had protected him.

“All right,” she said at last, gentle but firm. “Let’s get them settled.”

Lou’s shoulders loosened for the first time since the clinic. He didn’t smile, but his expression softened.

“Thank you.”

He followed her down the hall, carrying the child to Marie’s old small bed—the one with the carved wooden animals along the frame, a gift Lou had made three winters ago. Camille fetched blankets, layering them until the child was nearly swallowed beneath the warmth.

Still, the young vampire did not speak. Barely moved. Only watched Lou with wide, glassy eyes that didn’t seem to blink often enough.

Camille touched the child’s cheek and gasped at the cold. “Louis… this is not normal.”

“Nothing about being abandoned is normal,” Lou snapped, then immediately regretted the sharpness in his tone.

Camille didn’t flinch. She knew him.

Lou sat on the edge of the bed, arms crossed tightly. “Just… care for them. For now. Until they're stronger.”

Camille nodded, brushing a stray lock from the boy’s forehead. “Of course. I won’t leave them alone.”

Lou exhaled slowly. Relief mixed with worry, pride mixed with fear.

As Camille left to warm soup on the stove, the child’s small, cold hand tugged faintly at Lou’s coat sleeve.

He looked down.

“It’s all right,” he murmured. “You’re safe here.”

Lou placed his large, calloused hand over the tiny one.

“For now,” he repeated quietly, as if promising himself as much as the child, “we take care of you.”

And he meant it with all the stubborn, unyielding force of his heart.

Weeks had passed since Lou brought the silent child—whom Camille had begun calling {{user}}—into their home. They still had not spoken a word, though their eyes always tracked Lou with eerie attentiveness. They ate little, slept by day, and wandered quietly by night, though Lou chalked it up to “strange fevers” and “nervous temperament.”

The neighbors whispered, but nobody challenged Lou openly. Nobody ever did.

However, children were a different matter.

It was late afternoon when Lou stepped out to stack chopped firewood behind the house. The sun dipped behind the rooftops, throwing long shadows across the yard. {{user}} sat on a low wooden stool near the fence, drawing shapes in the dirt with a stick—always quiet, always still.

The peaceful moment shattered when two neighborhood boys approached the fence.

Gabin and Jules.

Lou knew them—loud, wild, and lacking the manners their parents pretended they had.

Gabin leaned over the fence. “Hey,” he called out, voice sharp. “Why don’t you talk?”

Jules tossed a pebble. It bounced at {{user}}'s feet.

“Are you stupid?” Jules taunted. “Or cursed?”

Lou’s head snapped up.

{{user}} froze—shoulders tightening, body curling slightly inward.

Gabin grinned. “Maybe your tongue fell out. Show us your mouth.”

He reached over the fence as if to grab the child's chin.

Before his hand even got close—

CRACK.

Lou’s axe slammed into the chopping block so hard the handle vibrated in his grip.

Both boys jumped, spinning around.

Lou straightened slowly, breath steady but eyes dark.

“Step away from them,” he said, voice low but cutting like a blade.

The boys wavered. Jules swallowed. “Monsieur de Vilar—we were only—”

“Only what?” Lou walked toward them with controlled, terrifying calm. “Teasing my child? Harassing someone who cannot defend themselves? Throwing stones on my property?”

Gabin shrank behind his friend. “They're not really your kid…”

Lou stopped inches away from the fence, towering even at 5’8, posture rigid with righteous fury.

“They are under my roof,” Lou said quietly. “That makes them mine to protect.”

The wind stilled. Even the trees seemed to listen.

The boys tried again. “We… we didn’t mean anything bad—”

“Yes, you did,” Lou said. “Children mean everything they say.”

He pointed toward the road. “Go home. And if I hear so much as a whisper of you disturbing them again, I will speak with your fathers. Directly.”

The boys blanched, murmured apologies, and bolted down the road.

Lou watched until they vanished.

Only then did he turn back.

{{user}} was still sitting on the stool, shoulders trembling—not from fear, but effort, as if they were holding themselves back from reacting in a way that wasn’t… human.

Lou’s anger softened instantly.

He crouched beside the boy, resting a hand gently on their small, cold shoulder.

“They won’t bother you again,” he said. “I promise.”

Lou sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Children can be cruel. They don’t think. They don’t understand. But I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Come,” he said softly. “Let’s go inside. Camille made broth.”

He stood and guided the child toward the house. {{user}} stayed right by his side, silent as ever, but closer than usual—almost shadowing them.

It happened on a Sunday evening. The sky was turning the color of bruised peaches, and the bells of the small parish had only just stopped ringing.

Lou had gone ahead to gather supplies from the workshop behind the church—some boards, spare nails—Father Mathieu had asked him to fix a broken pew. Routine, mundane. The kind of work Lou liked. The kind of work that kept his mind still.

He expected quiet.

What he did not expect was a smear of blood on the stone path.

Or the small, shadowy figure crouched beside the old priest.

Lou froze.

{{user}} small body was hunched, trembling—not with fear, but with feeding. The priest’s lifeless form lay slumped against the wall, head tilted, eyes open but glassy. A twin pair of puncture wounds marked his throat, still dripping.

The sight twisted Lou’s stomach into a knot so tight he nearly dropped the tools in his hands.

“{{user}}.”

His voice cracked sharply.

The child jerked, turning their head. Their mouth glistened with dark, wet red. Fangs fully visible.

For a full second, neither moved.

Lou’s breath left him in a single, shaky exhale. “Mon Dieu…”

{{user}} stared up at him—not defiant, not proud. Just… hungry. As though he had no more control over the act than a starving dog stealing meat.

The horror of the scene should have swallowed Lou whole. Father Mathieu was a good, kind man. He had wed Lou and Camille. Baptized every one of their children. Heard every confession Lou had ever given.

But something else rose stronger than horror.

Fear for Petit. Protectiveness. A father’s instinct—twisted now, but stronger than any scripture.

Lou knelt slowly beside the child, heart hammering. “Petit… what have you done?”

The child flinched, shaking, pulling their bloodied hands to their chest.

Lou swallowed. “He… he startled you.” The lie fell from his tongue too easily. “Oui? You were frightened. He reached for you.” Another lie. “You didn’t understand.”

Lou wiped their mouth gently with the cloth he kept in his coat pocket. An absurd act of care in the middle of an unholy crime.

The priest’s body lay limp beside them.

Lou forced himself to look away.

“Listen to me,” he whispered, voice breaking. “This was an accident. Do you hear me? You didn’t… mean harm.”

{{user}}'s wide, glassy eyes lifted, blinking slowly.

Lou cupped the side of the child’s face, thumb brushing away a smear of crimson.

“You’re sick,” he said—more to himself than to Petit. “You didn’t know what you were doing. You’re not wicked.”

His voice trembled harder.

“You are not wicked.”

The child leaned instinctively into Lou’s palm, small body shivering with exhaustion—or hunger. Lou wasn’t sure which terrified him more.

Lou looked back at Father Mathieu.

His stomach lurched, but he pressed a hand to the floor to steady himself.

“I’ll… take care of him,” Lou whispered. “I’ll… do what needs doing.”

The words felt like blasphemy. Like nails in his own coffin. But he forced them out anyway.

“You go home. Slowly. Through the back road. No one must see you.”

{{user}} didn’t move at first.

Lou took their tiny, cold hand and squeezed it.

“Go,” he commanded softly. “For me.”

He pressed a shaking hand to his forehead, whispering a prayer that felt thin and tattered around the edges.

“Forgive them,” Lou rasped. “He is only a child. Forgive me… for protecting them.”

His voice cracked, raw with emotion.

“I cannot lose them.”

The wind carried the church bells’ faint echo as Lou forced himself to his feet and prepared to bury a sin he would never confess.

The marketplace bustled with late-spring energy—vendors shouting prices, chickens squawking in their crates, and the smell of fresh bread drifting in warm clouds. Lou had brought the children into town for supplies. His newest ward—small, pale, silent, and now wearing one of Marie’s old dresses—walked near his side like a quiet shadow.

She clutched the hem of his sleeve, as she often did.

“Stay close,” Lou murmured, guiding her through the crowds. “People don’t always watch where they step.”

She nodded once, barely perceptible.

They had nearly finished their purchases when a voice called out behind them:

“Louis! Monsieur de Vilar! Wait!”

Lou stiffened for a moment—then relaxed when he recognized the boy jogging toward them.

Étienne Marchand. Fifteen. Son of the baker. Always talking, never working.

Étienne skidded to a stop in front of them, flushed from running, hair sticking up at odd angles. He cleared his throat dramatically when his eyes landed on the girl.

“A-ah… good day, Mademoiselle,” he said, giving an exaggerated bow.

She only blinked at him.

Lou raised an eyebrow.

Étienne straightened, smoothing his shirt. “Monsieur, I was hoping to… ah… speak with you. About your… daughter?” He gestured awkwardly toward the girl.

Lou’s jaw tightened. “She is not my daughter.”

“Ah—well—your ward, then, sir!” Étienne rushed. “She has such, um, captivating eyes. Like jewels! And she’s very quiet. Very polite. Much more polite than the other girls my age.”

Lou’s frown deepened.

The girl shrank subtly behind him, fingers twisting in the back of his coat.

Étienne pressed on. “I, ah… I was thinking that perhaps… someday… in the near future, or even sooner than that, we might—well—consider a bond of courtship? My mother says I should settle myself with a quiet girl.”

Lou blinked once.

Then twice.

The market noise dimmed under the weight of his rising irritation.

“You,” Lou said slowly, voice flat as a hammer on wood, “are asking for permission to court a child who has not spoken a single word since I found her starving in the woods.”

Étienne’s ears went bright red. “Well—but—she looks old enough—”

“She is not.” Lou snapped.

The boy flinched.

Lou stepped forward, looming just enough to remind the teenager that he spent his days lifting logs thicker than Étienne’s legs.

“She cannot speak,” Lou continued. “She barely eats. She barely sleeps. You do not know a thing about her.”

Étienne swallowed. “I—I’d like to! I mean… if she needs someone to look after her one day—”

“She has me,” Lou said sharply. “And a family. One that will not pawn her off so quickly.”

The girl tugged his sleeve again—more nervous now, her wide eyes fixed on Étienne with something like confusion… or hunger. Lou gently moved her behind him without looking back.

Étienne shifted anxiously. “I only meant to… pay my respects.”

“You can do that by keeping your distance,” Lou said. “Now off you go. Your father is looking for someone to knead dough, I imagine. And it will not be me.”

The boy opened his mouth as if to argue—

But the look in Lou’s eyes convinced him otherwise.

Étienne turned, muttered an apology, and hurried away, nearly tripping over a basket of apples.

Lou sighed and placed a warm, heavy hand on her small shoulder.

“There will be no talk of marriage,” he said firmly, guiding her toward home. “Not for you. Not now. Not ever unless you say so.”

Lou shook his head, muttering, “Ridiculous child… can’t even speak, and already boys are knocking like hens in heat.”

The girl tucked herself closer to him.

Lou didn’t notice the faint glimmer of fangs behind her shy, closed-mouth smile.

He only noticed her hand slipping into his—

And the certainty that, whatever she was, she was his responsibility.

Louis stands in the doorway of his home, boots still muddy, cradling the small, limp figure in his arms. His chest rises and falls too fast—he hasn’t had a moment to breathe since finding the child.

Camille looks up from the kitchen table, where she’d been mending Robert’s torn shirt. Her brow knits the moment she sees what he’s carrying.

“Louis,” she says slowly, “what… what is that?”

“Not that,” Louis snaps, more harshly than intended. He adjusts his hold on the child’s narrow shoulders. “A child. A sick one. I—I found them near the riverbank, freezing. Half-starved.”

Marie gasps from beside the hearth, clutching her doll. Robert and Nicolas rise from their seats, both staring with a mixture of curiosity and worry.

Camille rises, wiping her hands on her apron, then approaches cautiously. The child’s skin is almost white-blue in the warm lamplight, lips colorless, eyes dull and distant. They do not speak or even shiver.

“Where are their parents?” Camille asks gently.

Louis rubs the back of his neck, an old nervous habit he can’t shake. “I don’t know. I asked. They… didn’t answer.” His jaw tightens. “Maybe they cannot.”

He sets the child very carefully on the nearest chair, as though they might break. They sit perfectly still, shoulders hunched, eyes lowered.

Robert tilts his head. “Papa… they look strange.”

Louis bristles. “They are ill, boy. Use your sense.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t,” Louis mutters, sighing. He drags a hand across his face. “I went to the clinic. Useless. Not a single physician knew a thing. Not even the traveling one. ‘Exhaustion,’ they said. ‘Exposure.’” He scoffs under his breath. “Bah. They know nothing.”

Camille rests a gentle hand on his arm. “Louis, they look… different. Their clothes aren’t from around here.”

That makes him pause.

The child’s clothing—torn, threadbare, stitched in unfamiliar patterns—doesn’t belong to any parish, town, or province he recognizes. Their shoes are soft-soled, foreign to even his distant memory of merchant travelers.

“Papa,” Marie pipes up softly, inching closer, “maybe… they’re from far away? Like the travelers from the stories.”

Nicolas nods. “Maybe that’s why they don’t speak. They don’t know our words.”

Louis turns that over in his mind, pride and confusion wrestling behind his eyes. He’s never been outside France, never learned another tongue, never needed to. Foreigners were rare in their small town—mysterious, often misunderstood.

But it makes sense. More sense than the child being sick with something unknown. More sense than a curse, or witchcraft, or any dark thought that had brushed the edge of his mind during the walk home.

“A foreigner…” he murmurs. “That could be it. A lost foreign child.”

Camille smiles gently, as if relieved that he’s found an answer he can live with. “Then we’ll treat them as such. Feed them. Warm them. Let them rest.”

Louis nods firmly, almost too quickly. “Yes. Yes—of course. They came to me in need. God would not forgive me if I cast them out.”

The child lifts their eyes at the sound of his voice. Their gaze is glassy, ancient in a way Louis cannot interpret, but their posture softens the tiniest bit.

Marie steps forward, offering her doll. "You can hold her if you'd like..." she whispers.

The child doesn’t take it—but their gaze lingers on the doll with something almost like curiosity.

Louis exhales, something unclenching in his chest. “See?” he murmurs to himself more than anyone else. “They’re not strange. Just lost.”

Camille touches his arm again. “We’ll help them settle. For as long as needed.”

Louis nods, swallowing hard. He forces a small smile, unintentionally—like he always does when something fragile touches his heart.

“A foreign child,” he repeats, as though the words make everything fit neatly into place. “And until they find their home… they will stay in ours.”