Wrap The Cloak Of Night Around His Shoulders (58042 words) by
calliopes_penChapters: 1/1
Fandom:
Dracula (TV 1968)Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mina Harker/John Seward, Count Dracula/Jonathan Harker
Characters: John Seward, Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker, Lucy Weston, Count Dracula, Abraham Van Helsing
Additional Tags: When Vampires Attack, Exorcisms, Hypnotism, Possession, Bats, Temptation, Friendship, Mind Control, Jonathan runs away with Dracula, Van Helsing is clever, Mina protects Lucy, Seward needs a blood transfusion and blanket right about now, There's something in the basement, Vampire Bites, Hurt/Comfort, Character Turned Into Vampire, Elements of Lucy/Mina, staking, Vampirism Causes Irreconcilable Differences, Suspense, Nightmares, Fog, Journey to the Castle, Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Adventure, Alternate Universe
Summary:
What if Seward and Van Helsing told Mina about the danger Lucy was in sooner? What if Lucy wasn’t bitten a final time that night, because Mina was in the house? This gives them a reprieve. Everything changes for the better and for the worse. Each takes a more active role in their fate as they fight to keep Dracula away from Lucy, and the darkness closes in around them.
Yes,
thisbluespirit. I guessed you may have written at least one (The Poison Tree) of the stories I received, but I didn’t guess that it was both of them. So thank you
so much.
This story clocked in at a whopping 114 pages in Microsoft Word, for a grand total (no matter what Ao3 says—it might register the scene breaks) of 57,748 words. This is, by far, the longest thing I have ever written. The outline alone was 10 pages. I printed it, so I could have access to it at all times that I was away from the computer. I did
not print the story, but I’m still genuinely amused that you
did.*
I should have made it into separate chapters, but I didn’t even think of it at the time after all the edits were completed. Sorry about that. I do see in retrospect where a few chapter breaks could be, as one scene in particular was nearly 10,000 words.
I really must thank you, by the way, specifically for
this post. The Picspam came in handy. So did the gif set in another post where you showed Seward fainting,
and these promo shots in color. I might have used the fainting gifs for reference.
I can’t post the story to Livejournal, just like I couldn’t post it there last year, since it exceeds the word count limit. This year, I’m almost certain that I cannot post it to Dreamwidth, either, for that very reason. So…if someone ever feels the desire to comment on the story, you can do so in this post, or the cross-post on LJ, or just go to Ao3 by way of the link in this post if one happens to have an account there.
*Tomorrow or the next day, I plan another post about trivia from the writing process. I’ll try to make notes of all the random references sprinkled throughout the story that I alluded to in my author’s notes. There are a couple extra deleted moments that you can decide if you do or do not wish to see after they're described.
Edit: Or I could (and did) just post it today, since I gathered everything sooner than expected.