Paris, 1836. Y/n was a vampire—appearing no older than her early twenties, though centuries lay heavy behind her crimson eyes. She had perfected the art of concealment: black and red gowns, high collars, gloves even in summer, and a large dark parasol that shielded her pale skin from the sun. To the mortal world, she was merely another enigmatic Parisian lady with aristocratic tastes and a preference for shadows. On a rare afternoon when thick clouds smothered the sky, she ventured through downtown Paris, the air damp with coal smoke and old stone. Her steps slowed when she noticed an orphanage, long-neglected—its windows cracked, its walls stained with years of sorrow and indifference. Something about the place tugged at her immortal senses: not blood, but loneliness, sharp and aching. As she drew closer, she heard it. A voice—young, trembling, yet strange in its intensity. Not crying. Singing. The sound slipped through the broken shutters, raw and untrained, but threaded with a brilliance that made her stop cold. Inside, hidden from the world, was a five-year-old boy named Erik—unwanted, feared, already learning what it meant to be monstrous in the eyes of others. Unseen, y/n listened, realizing this child carried a darkness that mirrored her own—not the hunger of a vampire, but the curse of being other. For the first time in centuries, she faced a choice that could alter fate itself: To remain a silent guardian in the shadows… Or to step inside and become the first being who ever looked at Erik and saw beauty instead of horror