Lullaby of Discord

Days, or weeks, pass in this darkened cave, with only Joachim for company, and Leon is so starved, he can but hardly think.

“I… I need drink of blood,” Leon complains, hardly aware of his own words.

“How quickly the 'noble human' forgets himself,” states the vampire. “As do I. Yet your whinging will hardly bring more blood,” Joachim remarks, with tone rather more blasé than Leon would like.

Leon is silent for a moment.

“How am I expected to survive in such conditions? You turn me as a creature of the night like yourself rather than let me die, yet it seems I am more like to starve to death.” Leon asks.

Joachim chuckles. “You will hardly die of lack of blood. You are a man no longer, and starvation will not end your life. Instead, it will drive you utterly mad.”

Leon recoils slightly. “I… I have no wish for such a fate.”

“Oh? And you believe I do?" Joachim hisses. "It matters not. Either way, you, like me, are now doomed to such a fate.”

———

Leon had thought himself starved beyond thought before, yet now he finds he struggles to so much as think.

He stalks the cavern, almost as if in mindless search of something, anything, to eat.

There have been rats, on occasion, which he and Joachim have fought over, the both of them far too starved to think rationally.

Rats do little to quell the dog-hunger Leon faces.

He has never known hunger like this. Could never conceive of such before this.

It consumes his every waking moment and thought, it consumes his actions, it goes so far as to consume his very sleep. It is inescapable.

It is utterly maddening.

———

“How exactly is it you’ve found yourself here?”

Joachim sighs, his eyes appearing to roll for but a moment. “My answer is the same as when last you asked. I do not wish to discuss it with one such as yourself, as it does not concern you. All you need know is that we have a shared enemy in this hellish place.”

But Leon finds himself caught upon the first words which adorned Joachim’s response. “When… last I asked?”

“It must have been…. but a few minutes, or perhaps hours, or days ago. Not so long.”

“I… apologize, I have no memory of—”

“Of course you haven't.” Joachim snaps. “It is this damned place, it would rob you of your mind.” He sighs deeply, placing his head in his hands. “Have the visions begun?”

Leon’s eyes grow wide as he recoils. “visions? Why would you speak of such things?”

“So you are still free of them. They will come in time, mark my words.”

———

Leon can hear the voices of others, and searches for their source, yet seems to find none. Perhaps they are without this small cavern? After all, only him and Joachim are within the walls of this cave.

He sits, awaiting for them to fade, to dissipate entire, but they do not; they seem only to grow more near. He swears he hears the voice of one he recognizes. Yet… that could hardly be… could it?

Leon listens closer, yet… finds the familiar voice does not seem to come again. It must be in his mind.

He makes attempt to adjust his attention to another source of sound, expecting them to simply depart, eventually, yet finds the sounds of the cavern itself, even the roaring waterfall, cannot dampen the sound.

After all, even were these interlopers trustworthy, they would hardly be willing to rescue a damned creature—two, even—of their piteous fate, would they?

But then… could this be his singular hope at freedom? Should he call out?

Before he comes to a decision, the voices fade, after a time, and he takes that to mean they have left.

He holds his head in his hands.

He hears someone walk towards him. He thinks it to be Joachim until he hears them.

And, by God it is her.

”Leon!” Sara says. “Leon, I am so relieved to see you! I have sought you out!”

“Sara!” Leon bolts to stand upright. “I… Sara! it has been far too long without your presence,” Leon says, voice of melancholy, small smile upon his face.

“Leon—”

“She is not there,” comes the voice of Joachim.

“What speak you of? Of course she is here.”

“Your woman is not there. Were she truly here, she would be dead in seconds, killed by the both of us. I have seen such illusions before. Your lady-wife is not here.”

Leon looks to Joachim, far off in the corner of the room, then returns his gaze to Sara. She is so very real, and he can near reach out and touch the warmth of her skin.

And yet… given the way this ravenous hunger has consumed him, though it runs counter to every other seeming fact his mind delivers him, he knows Joachim tells no lie.

———

“Sara is not my wife,” Leon says, seeming little prompting him.

In truth, it has simmered within his mind since Joachim first referred to her as such, minutes—or perhaps hours—ago.

“No?”

“No. She is my intended, yes, though we had not yet wed. By the time I—”

Silence.

“In truth, we were to be wed but two days' time from the day I had been taken. But… I am sure it had been more than that time since, difficult to tell as it is within this cavern, and such union… never came to pass.”

Leon heaves a quiet sigh, whispering to himself “perhaps never will.”

Joachim hums, seeming disinterested, and a silence follows.

“I do so regret missing our wedding. I had so looked forward to it.”

———

What feels to be roundabouts a… days? A week? passes, and Leon gushes about Sara, about Mathias, about those dear to him, as he misses them, and has seemingly little else to do, and suddenly stops.

He smells blood.

The hunger swirls within him again, and he cannot think of anything but the blood which beats through the body whomever lie without.

The gush of it into his mouth as the heart beats, and slows, the taste as it bathes his tongue in rich flavor like nothing he has ever consumed in his life, the warmth as it travels down his throat and into his belly, the feeling of satisfaction as he is filled by it, everything.

He salivates, awaiting what is like to be a filling meal, focusing on nothing else.

And he smells blood spilled, far more potent than its scent within the body, as the heart of the man slows, and the blood is wasted, spilled upon the earth.

It haunts him for weeks following.

As does his own mindlessness during this such incident.

———

Leon loses his head one day. “I cannot continue this way, I cannot live in this way!”

Joachim gives an unnerving cackle, before giving his hysterical response. “And yet you must. There is no way in which to end your life.”

“And why is that? Who, exactly, was it to put me in such a position? To take my very life, and damn me to this… this Godless existence?”

“And what would you prefer me do? Kill you?" Joachim gives him the intent stare of a madman, "To drain you entirely and leave your corpse lying forgotten and rotten and curdling and putrid with your own lifeless decay, in this dank dark waste, likely never to be recovered as your bones turn to ash and dust and blow away with what breeze remains in this cavern?”

“Perhaps it would be better than an eternity trapped in here with a crazed monster, tormented with an endless hunger I loathe and visions of those I will never see again!”

Joachim simmers with anger. “Very well! The next, I shall leave you to die and myself killed by Walter, alone, nary an ally! I'm sure a such a fate might remain preferable than finding yourself a monster.”

Leon, seething, makes no response.

———

“Joachim… I offer my… apology. For losing my temper with you. It appears I have forgotten myself.”

Joachim offers no response.

“I know you must hold this against me but I should rather need not worry about undue tension around our interactions. Do I or do I not have your forgiveness?”

There, yet again, comes no response.

“Joachim?” Leon inquires, approaching the place where Joachim sit, facing away from Leon.

Ah, he sleeps. This explains his lack of response.

Leon has come to realize that vampires require no sleep; still, 'tis a way of passing time in the dark isolation of this cavern.

A lock of snow-white hair falls upon Joachim’s face, and Leon brushes it back with little thought.

Joachim’s eyes snap open, losing their sharp, warning edge as they fall upon Leon.

“Joachim. You wake.”

“Yes.”

Leon allows himself a heavy sigh. “I wished to apologize.”

———

Leon sits, drawing idly upon the stone, with a small piece of silver, disregarding as it burns at his hand. True, he has not been given to artistic endeavors all too greatly in past, but something of this place… he finds himself bored, more oft than not.

As he gazes upon the dark ground, fleeting light guiding his hand, he thinks to hear the door opening. Though he must force himself, he does not look up.

“Leon?”

He stills. Leon knows this voice. He knows it well. Yet…

He looks upward, meeting the gaze of the man who seems to stand near.

“Mathias?” Leon asks, unsteadily, squinting his eyes as he does so, a frown overtaking his face.

Leon catches the muted scuffling of Joachim readjusting his attention to the newfound noise for a moment, as he looks upon Mathias for a moment.

He turns his head to meet Joachim’s gaze, brow furrowed, head slightly tilted.

A difficult to parse expression overtakes Joachim’s face, squinting as his eyes appear to take on a distance, and he shakes his head.

Leon breathes a small sigh, then settles back into his aimless glide of silver against hard, cold rock, as the vision of Mathias continues his endeavoring to speak with Leon.

Leon makes attempt to disregard him, though finds the effort begin surmounting him, as one thought begins to center itself within his mind.

“Why is it you have abandoned me, Mathias?”

“I haven’t. You’ve gone, Leon. None have succeeded in finding you, until myself. Until now. And I will deliver us from this place.”

Leon meets his eyes for but a moment. Hoping against hope that he is truly here, that he truly wishes to help.

Yet he knows this not to be the case.

The specter seems to continue milling about, though Leon attempts to put the man out of his mind, as Joachim breaks his own din of silence to ask of Leon.

“Who is this Mathias?”

Leon smiles softly, answering, “a dear friend.”

———

“This dear friend of yours, this Mathias. What manner of man is he?”

Leon meets the eyes of Joachim, pausing for a moment, then frowns. “Mathias? I’ve made no mention of him to you.”

“Surely you have; you appeared to find yourself vision of him you seemed to endure not long previous, and lamented how you mourned his abscence.”

Leon’s frown but deepens, bringing a hand to his chin.

“I… I have no recollection of such a vision. Nor… the following exchange.”

“And yet, I assure you, it did indeed take place.”

Leon heaves a sigh. This place, it continues to play its varying ruses on his mind. True, Joachim, too, experiences mirages, he himself made mention of such things, though he rarely wishes to discuss them; Leon feels the temptation to assume this is simply a case of such a thing, yet Joachim seems rather certain of this.

And another thing which unsettles him, to boot. How else might it be that Joachim has learned his name?

True, Leon has learned that being held prisoner in this place distorts his own understanding of time, his own memory. Yet to find it does so in such an indisputable way… it haunts him.

———

Leon sits, thinking deeply to himself, as he has found himself wont to with little else to do in this cave.

“Joachim… do you believe in God?”

He hears Joachim shuffle, before he makes a response. “A strange question to ask with little prompting. Should I give it some thought, I should think to say yes.”

“And… do you think He is benevolent?”

Joachim tilts his head. “Why do you ask such things.”

There is a long silence.

“I told you of my dear friend Mathias, correct? Near one year before I was captured, his beloved wife, Elisabetha, tragically died of Consumption. We had previously commanded our own company jointly, Mathias in charge of tactical and logistical aspects, myself taking charge of battlefield command. Yet with his departure I was to take sole command of the unit. I… managed well enough to begin, but as time passed it became more and more clear I had not the mind for much of the tactical aspects Mathias once took charge of.

“In… addition to this it the church took to giving me harsher and harsher orders, those unlike I had received in past. I had known Mathias to shelter me from the darker aspects of what it is God ordains of the church, but… it was not until he left to grieve Elisabetha that I truly realized the extent of it.”

“Ah. You suffer a crisis of faith,” is all Joachim offers in response.

There is a period of silence following this, before Joachim adds, “if I am to answer your question, should God exist, I believe He is either cruel or uncaring.”

———

Leon tilts his head. “I do not believe you can read.”

Joachim lets out a snort, “a fortunate guess. And you?”

“I learned… whence I was granted my title. Though, Mathias and Sara both have known for much of their lives; I would swear it that there were periods where Mathias could not be seen without some book.”

Joachim hums.

Leon thinks to himself for a moment. “Alright. I… I was once nearly buried while I yet lived, my mother was a tailor, and… and I was born a girl (though decided I vastly prefer living as a man.)”

“The last, surely!”

Leon laughs. “Ah, not so! My mother was not a tailor! Or so have I been told; in truth I never met my parents, they died of the pox when I was far too young to remember.”

“I find myself more interested in how it was you nearly came to find yourself upon an early grave!”

“I… I had been injured in a skirmish, I remember not the opponent, and took a deep blow to my side. Upon the battle ending, I sought out a medic, and after being bandaged, I took my leave to rest for the night. Upon the next morn, I discovered myself inside a pit of dirt, looking upwards at my comrades, all appearing as startled as I had felt. Apparently, I had slept so long, and could not be woken, that they had thought me dead. They claim my pulse was very weak, though I felt fine upon waking, so I assume this a lie which they convinced themselves of.”

Joachim bursts into uproarious laughter. “How could something such as this happen? Surely they would think to check thoroughly before burying a comrade!”

Leon chuckles, “one should think so! We were all quite inexperienced, I myself had only just been knighted. Our commanders were… unamused, to say the least.”

Joachim continues his guffaws, appearing to laugh so hard he begins sprouting tears of blood.

“It has been—far too long since I laughed as such.”

“I am gladdened to see you find my misfortune humorous!”

After a moment, Joachim takes another turn.

“Walter is—though not direct—the one who turned my hair as pale as snow, I once enjoyed visiting lakes as a human, before this… accursed place, and… I have once visited the Byzantine.”

“Surely one cannot change another man’s color of hair?”

“You would be mistaken. I have never once travelled east of Bohemia,” Joachim answers.

“And how.. is it that that accursed vampire came to change the hue of your hair, then?”

“It is… a long tale.”

“I hardly have any other matters to attend to.”

Joachim sighs. “Very well. Walter and a… human lord had devised some manner of plan. There are four treasures of the vampires, two thought destroyed, two lost to time, that were created by an alchemist long ago. I caught little of their scheme, outside the knowledge that the human Lord, and his family before him, had a long history studying many arts some in the church may frown upon, and alchemy as one of them.

“The… creation of these treasures, small stones which could fit within your palm, was meant to be some… some manner of path to creating what he referred to as ‘the great work’, or some such. The scheme they two had laid before them was to gain possession of all four stones, and seek after this ‘great work’.

“One of the stones which was lost, the Ebony Stone, was recovered and is now held by Walter, and creates the eternal night which shrouds the castle and the forest which surrounds it. The Crimson Stone, the last of the four and the other which yet survives, appeared a fool’s errand. Perhaps it, too, was destroyed. If they sought to recreate it, they might need first the second and third, the Ivory and Golden stones. This I knew even before imprisonment; Walter’s search for the stones has yet been long. But with the aid of this human lord, he began searching for how best to recreate them, and declared he would need a vampire which he could use to experiment upon. Of course, Walter had imprisoned me near a century earlier, and found me to be a convenient subject to test their experiment upon.

“They brought me out of this accursed dungeon for the first in... perhaps a decade, perhaps near a century, into Walter’s laboratory. Their attempts to recreate the Ivory Stone are the very thing which leeched the hue from my hair.”

Leon nods, taking all in. “I… see. This… human lord. Be there any chance you recall his name? I should hope never to run afoul of him.”

Joachim laughs. “I did not bother to learn it. He is but a lowly human, after all, and Walter will kill him once he achieves his ends,” after a period he amends, “I do recall he was foreign, however, at the least to my own self. And black of hair.”

Foreign and black of hair. That curtails possibilities little; Leon himself knows a man that description could fit.

“And have they abandoned these attempts? I have seen neither here since arriving.”

“That is best. Walter would kill you knew he you yet live,” Joachim sighs. “I know not why I have seen naught of either. Perhaps they have discontinued their work.”

“…Perhaps.”

Joachim is silent for a time, before whispering to himself words which Leon does not hear.

———

Leon finds himself seated, legs crossed, hand tracing the ground, as Joachim sleeps.

Footfalls come dashing into the room, before a voice says. “Leon? I would never have thought to find you here, how…?” A pause. “That matters not now, come, let us take our leave of this place.”

“Leon.”

Leon does not look up. He has grown familiar to this routine.

“Leon.”

The voice comes again. Leon will not humor this vision.

He hears someone sigh, settling to sit in front of him.

A deep green gabardine gives way to a curtain of raven hair appears in Leon’s line of sight.

The vision of Mathias reaches out and grabs Leon’s arm. He feels so very… solid, real, yet—

“Leon. Are you able to hear me.”

Leon wrenches his arm out of his grasp.

“Leon…?”

“I have had enough.”

The vision of Mathias seems taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are not real. You know this to be true. I know this to be true. There is no reason to continue this charade. I have had enough.”

He pauses. “Leon, I am truly here.”

Leon huffs a cynical laugh.

“What must I do to persuade you that it is truly I?”

Leon slowly pulls himself to stand, not even so much as meeting the false eyes of this vision.

“Leon, it has been months—”

And he ignores this vision, settling into a sheltered corner of the room which he has found he prefers to sleep within, whence he so chooses to do so.

“Please. Let us leave this place.”

He places a hand upon Leon’s shoulder, a comforting gesture Mathias would often use, and this is too much for Leon to bear. He bears his fangs fiercely, hissing at the vision in threat.

“Leave me.”

“Leon—”

“Leave.”

And Leon curls in upon himself as the footsteps retreat.

———

Leon dreams frequently of freedom. Dreams which allow him into the light of the moon, dreams which allow him see, truly see, Sara and Mathias again.

Dreams that he will not spend eternity unable to escape this prison.

Despite his initial mistrust and hesitance, in his time within, Leon has grown quite close to Joachim, admittedly even… fond of him, for more than simply his company, even.

They are the only one the other truly has, after all.

It is a quite uneventful day when they both percieve the sound of rusted metal grinding, followed by...

“I… I am not imagining… the waterfall, it has stopped, yes?” Leon asks, very suddenly alert.

Both had smelled blood in the caves all day, salivating at the thought of their meal, yet assuming, like most others, this latest victim would die before reaching them.

And yet…

“I no longer hear it. We must leave. Now. Before 'tis enabled once again,” Joachim says, vehemence clear in his voice.

The two succeed in attempt to unlock the door, and they are, at long, long last, free.