Zelda was walking back to her own bedroom after preparing Violette for bed. It was rarer and rarer that she got to spend these moments with her daughter anymore. As she grew older it was more likely for her to ask her father to bring her to bed after an afternoon in the farmyard; or, as was her new habit, to insist on her independence by asserting that she could wrap up her own hair and tuck herself into her embroidered sheets alone.
So as Zelda turned the door handle and stepped over the threshold, the last thing she expected to hear was a small voice calling Momma from behind her. Immediately, Zelda turned around to see Violette with an uncharacteristic fear in her eyes. But she had grown quiet, so Zelda tried to prompt her to speak again by asking if everything was alright. When she didn't answer, Zelda walked nearer, trying to ignore the voice in her mind that told her maybe she had only imagined her daughter calling out after her.
As she sat on the bed, her repeated question only prompted another bout of silence, before Violette brought her knees up to her chest and spoke looking at them, "Momma, do you - do you ever have nights when you can’t sleep?”
A rush of memories distracted Zelda from the question, vivid sounds of waterfalls and the smell of trees in the damp morning air. She pushed them aside to speak to the child in front of her who knew nothing of those nights. “Of course, my love. Do you want to tell me what’s keeping you up? Are you afraid?”
Violette shook her head vigorously, “I’m not afraid. Of anything. It’s just..why’s it so quiet here? I try to sleep and there’s nothing. Back at home - I mean New Orleans, it was never quiet. When I would lie in bed I would just listen to you and Poppa and then I could always sleep.”
Zelda’s focus on keeping herself in the moment distracted her from her daughters accidental admittance that she still knew of her parent’s late night careers, or the way she still called New Orleans home. “You know when I was a girl I could never sleep. It was like the thoughts in my head wouldn’t quiet down on their own, especially when they were supposed to and everything else had gone silent, is that how you feel?”
When Violette nodded in agreement Zelda brought her hand to her face, “Do you mind if I go and grab something for you? I’ll only be gone a minute.”
For a moment Violette looked nervous but she signaled for her mother to go, only for Zelda to return a moment later with a book in her hand. She sat next to Violette and opened it, “This was my favorite growing up. It’s part of the reason I came here, to America, where I met your father. The girl reminds me an awful lot of you, so when you can’t sleep or your mind won’t quiet, you can go here, into a new world in your imagination for a little while.”
Violette eyes scanned the golden script of the title page intently. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Then she turned the page, and another, and another. It was unlike any other book she had ever seen. All of the words were set alongside pictures, fanciful drawings of a girl with her hair in pigtails as she walked alongside a proud lion and a shining man made of metal.
Zelda watched Violette’s fingers trace along the words, exactly where her own had hundreds of times before. Knowing that her daughter was already gone yet again, she looked down at her a bit sadly, “And if you still can’t sleep just come find me or your Poppa, okay? We’re right next door.”
But Violette was too engrossed in the colorful drawings to answer, so Zelda rose to her feet and walked back to her own room where she had always kept the book near her pillow before that night.
Night after night as she read it, Violette never took her mother up on her offer, although she still rarely slept. Rather she laid in bed reading and rereading the book her mother had given her and imagining that she was Dorothy, swept up in something so powerful and grand that it turned everything upside down and suddenly she was in a land of magic and fantasy.
Then finally, somewhere between the pages, she would drift off into a dream-filled sleep. Through the corridors of slumber she would walk amongst a city just like Oz, one that was never quiet or dark like the desert outside her window. Each and every corner was filled with beauty and life, luminous with people who danced and sang more magnificently than anyone could ever imagine.
The lights there twinkled even more brightly than the night sky ever did; and in her mind she would stand between them, halfway between the ground below and the sky above, shining more dazzlingly than either. It was a place made just for her, one where all her dreams would come true. A land of fantasy and wonder and endless lights shining just for her in the darkness…
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TRANSCRIPT
picture 1
Lilith: Now, where did you run off to this time?
picture 2
Lilith: [ scoffs ] Ugh. What are you doing out?
picture 3
Lilith: ...Oh?
picture 5
Breanna: Um... hello? Uh... are you Mr. Straud?
picture 6
Vladislaus: You dare step foot into my home without an invitation?
Breanna: U-Uh, I, um...
picture 7
Vladislaus: Who are you?
Breanna: Um...
Vladislaus: Your name, child. I haven't all day.
Breanna: Uh, Breanna Turner...
picture 8
Vladislaus: You must be the human Vatore spoke of. You gamble with your life, Breanna Turner.
picture 9
Vladislaus: The decision to discard your humanity is not one made lightly. I wonder what it is that could lead a young girl down such a path.
picture 10
Breanna: I... uh... I don't wanna talk about it.
Vladislaus: You don't wish to speak of it. How quaint.
picture 11
Vladislaus: Do you understand the things you ask for? I struggle to believe you do.
Breanna: Excuse me? I'm not stupid.
Vladislaus: To be a vampire is to leave everything you've ever known.
Breanna: I know. I don't care.
picture 12
Vladislaus: You should. You ask me to turn you into a monster. Your family, your friends, your life will be forfeit. How will you reckon with this?
Breanna: I-I said I don't care!
picture 13
Vladislaus: I'm going to erase your memories. Run home and grovel at your family's feet, insolent child, before I change my mind.
picture 14
Breanna: Don't fucking touch me!
picture 15
Breanna: I didn't leave anybody! They left me.
picture 16
Breanna: They should be the ones fucking groveling at me
picture 17
Breanna: [ sniffling ] Please, please don't make me go back. I'll do anything.
picture 18
Breanna: Please, sir, you gotta help me.
picture 19
Vladislaus: I... well... [ clears throat ] if this is truly what you desire...
Breanna: It is.
Vladislaus: [ exhales ] Then so be it. I will give you my wretched blood.
picture 20
Vladislaus: Go, now. Run along. Leave me be. Rest tonight. Tomorrow, you will be born anew.
Breanna: R-Really? You're not gonna kill me?
Vladislaus: I am a vampire, not a monster. Run along, now.
picture 21
Breanna: Uh... thanks, by the way.
picture 22
Vladislaus: I beg your pardon?
picture 23
Breanna: For being nice to me.
picture 25
Vladislaus: ...[ clears throat ]
picture 26
Breanna: Okay, bye Mr. Straud, I'll see you around.
Vladislaus: I... yes. I suppose you will.
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how do you do the photo portraits in your character moodboards? ive seen other people do them but i can't figure out how
Hi! I think you're referring to the realistic portraits. I create them with ToolMe, which is a phone app. You scroll down, and there you can find the option 'create your own AI'. Then, you just write, for example, 'male 1900 portrait'. And that's it, I hope I've helped you.
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Little by little, winter faded away, making way for spring. With it came sunny days and bright light. Some afternoons, the women of the village gathered in the tea room at Sophie Longhurst's home, the mayor's wife.
There, the women gathered to enjoy conversations over tea or while embroidering. They discussed their husbands, the recent marriages in the village, and for those with children or the desire to have them, motherhood.
Kate and Marissa joked about if they were animals, Kate would be a hen and Marissa a duck. Some ladies, upon hearing their mischievous conversations, whispered about their lack of manners. However, the tone shifted when Marissa's recent attempts to get pregnant were brought up.
The topic left the other women scandalized.
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After everything had calmed down, Michael enters the room to meet his son, whom they have decided to name John Edmund.
Michael feels like the happiest man on Earth, and Kate can't stop talking about resemblances regarding the newborn, who has her hair color. John Edmund was born on the eve of winter in 1860.
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