Sep. 10th, 2013

vojvode: (seal)
[ After this. ]

There is no place to hide.  If she can see him like this, from beyond the veil, if she watches over him and has seen the things he has done...  Not even the beast mind can protect him from this horror writhing in his gut.  He always imagined she was lost to him, and by extension, he was lost to her.  But no.  He never stopped to think...
 
Dark trees streak by as he runs, aimless, his body twisted and broken by the fists of a man.  He hears the night calling to him, to take up his place in the hunt, but he runs from it.  His limbs seem detached, the blood flowing through them hot and sweet.  He should tear out his own heart and eat it.  He should find a cliff to hurl himself from, to break his body on the jagged rocks below.  Instead, he runs, head down, the wound at his mouth dropping pearls of scarlet on the dirt trail.  His feet pad silent on the leaf litter, passed the hart and the hind, passed even the foul hares, their red eyes reminding him of the way the Virgin shed tears for him.  
 
He runs, and the hares take chase, and for a moment, he forgets why he's fleeing.  The world is turned on its head, again.  He would laugh if he could, but the throat he wears is still rough, and the sound comes out as a grating yelp.  The hares only take it as encouragement.  He feels the heat of their breath, seeing the tiny puffs of flame they exhale.  His nose is assaulted by the noxious poison they spit at him.  He leaps and snaps, taking one of them in his jaws and crushing the fine bone beneath the black pelt.  The blood beneath is foul, tasting of oil and something bitter and alchemical in nature.  He shakes his head, sending the carcass flying, and its brothers take note, falling back.
 
It doesn't matter.  He keeps running, up into the darkest part of the forest, seeking out the caves he had sheltered in before.  This is surely the land of the Baba Yaga, as the valleys and hills are always shifting, always changing.  The path is never the same twice, and he doesn't care.  He is mad with sorrow, mad with rage, and like any wounded thing, all he wants to do is find safety.  All he wants to do is delve into dark earth and hide himself from her.  From his beloved's gaze.  He does not want her to see him like this.  He lived for her, died for her, and lived again.  And if he had to explain this all to her, he could not justify his actions.
 
If she fell, would she think she dragged him with her?  She'd never known all the things he'd done before the end.  She hadn't seen the field of bodies.  He'd kept all of that from her, but now.  From where she sits, she can see it all.  And surely she knows, she did not do this thing.  God did this.  His enemy, his nemesis.  God took her from him, and God is the one responsible for all his crimes.  If God had not betrayed him, he would never have chosen to walk this path.  If God would give her back...
 
He shies from that thought, his head jerking to one side, and blood spatters.  Abel's blood, bright and sweet.
 
He runs, and runs, and remembers, those huge dark eyes and that playful smirk.  The tzigani boy who had never been afraid of him, who had loved him from the first day he laid eyes on him, even as his grandmothers crossed themselves and prayed for him to be spared.  He'd gathered things for him.  Books that told tales of far away lands.  Maps and treatises on the modern world, sheaves of paper with illustrations showing him the march of progress.  He'd gone into the city of Buda, under the guise of a merchant, and brought him back the modern fashions and perfumes from the far East.  He'd pestered his mother until she taught him the way of the needle and thread, so that he could tailor them to his master's figure.  He'd stayed and talked, playing chess until the morning sun crept over the horizon.  He'd argued God's case, and he'd argued against God.  He'd been as devoted a friend as any man could hope for, under the circumstances.  He'd promised his life, and had defended him when the some of the elders thought their debt might be paid.  He was loyal and true, and the beast had fed upon him. 
 
He'd sank his teeth into his flesh and given him the briefest taste of ecstasy before his life's blood drained away.  And he'd done it because Abel had asked him to.  That was the worst of it.  He'd not been given the chance to die in battle, and he would not want to die in bed, wasting away from old age until he'd become a burden to his master and his clan.  He'd given himself wholly to his service, and to his master.  And for what?  To keep a promise his master had made, to keep his master's word.
 
The white wolf keeps his eyes to the trail, his other senses blurred, his way obscured.  He does not grieve.  The centuries have taken too many of them from him, and grief would take away the pain.  The pain fueled his rage.  And without his rage, he was nothing.
 
~~~
 
He'd ran until he could no longer run, and had taken up a ground eating stride.  The scents here seemed familiar.  The rotting, gutted corpse of his dinner from many weeks ago was a landmark he recognized.  It wasn't far.
 
He lifted his head, and a white light filled his vision.  There was a man stood in his path, and from his shoulders stretched the light of Heaven, white feathered wings that blinded him with their brilliance.  He turned his face away, but his body was too heavy to continue running.
 
'Thought you might be headed this way.'
 
Leave me be.  The thought is communicated in a sharp snarl.
 
'Not until I've had a word with you.  Come on, Mister Dog-Faced Boy.  Get bipedal again.'
 
Who are you to command me?  The wolf circles, head down, lips peeled back in a grimace of pain and fury.
 
'Who do you think?  C'mon.  I haven't got time for this.  I have to be on a golf course in Boca in fifteen minutes.'  The angel snaps his fingers, and Vlad stands before him, clothed as he was when he left his world this morning.  'There.  That's better.'
 
Above them, the clouds roiled, thick black ropes of vapor, tangling like the shadows about Dracula's feet.  Not even the thunder above could equal the storm upon his brow.  'Leave.  Me.  Be.'
 
'Sucks, don't it?  When someone plays with you like you're a doll?'
 
'I didn't not play with him.  I tried.  To help.'
 
'Oh well, then.  That makes it all better. Do you think you're going to get an A for Effort?'
 
'What do you care?'  He spits the words, unconsciously pacing back in forth, eyes fixed on the dark hole behind the angel.  'He fell.  He chose to fall.  He is beyond your grasp now.'
 
'He survived.  And he's here now.'
 
'Did you save him?'  He glares up into the blinding light.
 
'No, you know I didn't.'
 
'If he could save that fool, why could he not save her?'
 
Earl sighs, crossing his arms over his chest.  'You're like a dog with a bone.  I've told you, I don't know why He makes the choices he does.  I just know that He sees things we don't.  You could give Him the benefit of the doubt, maybe?'
 
Dracula snarls, and the beast within transforms the lines of his face.  He's burning precious blood here, but the bones in his face knit like putty, reshaping beneath his skin.  The wounds close over and seal.  Not even a scar remains to be seen.  'He is a tyrant, a vicious, petty child god who takes things from us just to watch us suffer.  Who is toying with who, now, Angel?  Who is set up only to be knocked down, for His amusement?'
 
'It's not like that...'
 
'It is from down here, amongst His faithful, His devout.  Look at Javert. Look at the way his heart stands empty.  What kind of cruelty left him so bereft?  Did God simply forget to shine His mercy upon the man?'
 
'Listen...'
 
'No, you listen.  Your master is more of a monster than I will ever be.  To deny that man even the smallest taste of Love?  If that is His justice, then I am proud to stand separate from you and your Court of Lies.  Now, begone from this place or I will call upon the Old Gods, and take up a visage so terrible, even you will tremble before me.'
 
Earl glared at the vampire, his mouth set in a fine line.
 
'You swore you'd never do that.'
 
'That was before I met him.'
 
There is a long and tense silence between them, the still figure of the angel and the pacing, savage beast in a man's clothes.
 
'Fine.  But just so you know, he's on my docket now.  You'd best be careful with him.'
 
'Go choke on your mamaliga.'
 
Earl winced. He liked mamaliga.  Anything that involved corn meal and fried cheese was a slice of heaven in his book.  'Suit yourself. But you've been warned.'
 
Dracula looked him dead in the eye, and spit on the ground at his feet.  He turned his back on the angel and walked away, the shadows dragging him in and clutching him to their breast.
 
Earl stood and watched him walk away, even when it started to rain.  Someone was going to have to keep an eye on that boy.
vojvode: (seal)
 He'd spent the last few hours ghosting through the woods, trying to find a way back to his home, but it was proving a fruitless search.

And so, he finds himself outside the bar, looking up at the door Javert disappeared through just yesterday.  He doesn't want to go in.  He doesn't want to face Rae again, not now.  Maybe not ever.  And he doesn't want to face the man, either.  Not like this.  He's whole again, but the wolf still clings to him.  He feels like a barbarian, or a wildling.  He doesn't feel like a Prince right now.  He feels like a beast of the wood.

So he retreats to the rooftops, finding the highest place he can with a bit of cover from the wind.  He settles in with his back against the wall, his white shirt unpinned, and his cuffs hanging lose.  His trousers are tucked into the tops of his riding boots, and he doesn't want to think about how his boots look.  (Or who is going to polish them, now that Abel is gone.)  He sits with one knee drawn up, and his arm resting on it.  The other is clutched across his body.

He keeps his mind closed, shutting out the dim roar of the minds below.  He doesn't want to think anymore right now.  He just wants a moment of stillness.
(Be still.  Stay with me.)
This place will surely be the end of him. 

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Prince Vlad, Dracula

November 2013

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