Lullaby of Discord

Proper time is taken to regroup before they make their return to the castle.

As they re-enter the entrance of the castle, Sara makes to look for her bow and arrows. It has served her well this far into the castle, she should like to have it again, in case it might still bring use.

Only she finds her bow, broken and charred, bowstring frayed, utterly destroyed beyond use.

She must rely entirely upon skills acquired with this newly begotten whip of hers, then.

They four push onward, past the foyer, with plans on proceeding back toward the hallways they had once found themselves lost within.

Only… they find there are monsters here no longer.

When first they happened upon this area it was rife with creatures of the night making to attack, and yet…

And yet now they find nothing.

The four find themselves in an eerie hush, as Mathias confirms what they all know. “He knows of our presence.”

“That woman… the one who enthralled you—” Leon starts.

“The Lady Octavia is an opportunist, one who would ally with any she should think to further her goals. As our fate would seem quite grim, she should find her ally in Walter. Yes, she would have told him of us. Yet…”

“If that is the case why not deliver wave upon wave of fiend upon us to halt our progress?” Sara contemplates aloud.

“Perhaps… he seeks to unnerve us in some way?” Leon suggests, though clear that he does not believe so himself.

“No. He is planning something,” Mathias states.

Leon sighs. “I feared you would say as such.”

“Then 'tis best we remain vigilant, I suppose,” states Sara.

———

As their quartet progress further and further, about a circular hall, unsease growing as they progress, their trek continuing to remain vacant of enemies.

And they grow ever more distrustful of their surroundings with every step forth they take.

They cross the threshold of yet another marbled room, and with naught even a warning, the candles synchronously blow themselves dark.

A cackle echoes through the room, encircling them.

Ah. This is moreso the welcome they had expected.

It begins.

“And so the vermin find themselves trapped in my web yet again; truly, Lord Cronqvist, you must have expected Lord Bernhard would plan for this? Specially so after your previous betrayal?”

“Lady Octavia. You must think me a fool. Why exactly do you expect I have brought others with me? Do you expect me to roll over, fetch, entertain, await such a time as he decides to cull me, alone, as some common mongrel?”

“And so you bring more to die? I should have hoped the tragic... death of your dearest friend would have been sufficient a deterrent.”

“After Lord Bernhard so utterly failed to kill my dearest friend, not as such.”

“What!” The creature roars, then begins cackling again. “Surely you cannot be so unbearably naïve as to think Baron Belmont lives? After such time has passed?”

Leon's face affects a grimace, before he answers of his own. “After a fashion.”

“You! You were to be dead, at the hand of the prisoner! And yet instead, he grants you the greatest gift of them all!”

“Gift? This has been naught but a curse—” Leon begins incredulously, before Joachim cuts in.

“Surely you know better than to think I would waste what little opportunity at escape I had? To simply exsanguinate a fighter as skilled as he would be a mistake.”

Sara catches sight of Mathias catching the attention of Leon, speaking into his ear, in private conversation none else remain party to.

“You would sooner starve yourself than waste a potential ally, one who could just as quickly become a dangerous enemy, just as easily perish in the treacherous process as the changing?”

Joachim laughs. “Hardly a waste, the man was practically guaranteed to survive the turn descended of vampiric bloodlines as he is—“

Leon snaps his head to gaze upon Joachim, eyes widened, and Sara knows had the color not already drained of his face, he would be left sheet white. “Joachim, what did you—“

“And far more importantly," Joachim speaks over Leon, "it was hardly a waste. I drained him of all that I could while still allowing him the opportunity to turn, and just as much opportunity to relinquish his grip on the mortal coil altogether. He chose to live. In truth, had I not offered him such an opportunity, had I not infected him, the life would have left him in mere minutes.”

Leon gives a look as though he is attempting to sort some manner of difficult puzzle.

Mathias, for his part, almost appears… scheming? Perhaps she is wrong, though she can consider no better term.

“You are so certain you made no mistake… will you feel the same when he inevitably turns upon you?”

“Leon? Please, the man is capable of no such betrayal so long as you betray not his morality, even were the bond between Sire and Fledgling something to scoff at.”

"You dare claim such loyalty? Even after betraying he who Made you?!”

Joachim's gaze hardens with a cold fury. "Walter betrayed me!"

And without a word further, Joachim lunges the vampire. She swipes at Joachim, channeling all of her immense strength into her attack, and Joachim dodges, sending swords soaring in her direction, though she deflects them with the metal claws she dons attached upon her fingertips. The vampire then begins to spin as a cyclone toward Sara, breaking her cycle to slash at her.

Mathias sneers. “You truly think Walter wouldn’t abandon you the moment you become a liability? For the sole fact that you are his own kind? Do not make me laugh.”

“How dare you, human traitor!” She roars as she moves to attack Mathias, and, though briefly, Mathias and Leon meet eyes, and Leon gives a nod, however slight.

The monster moved toward Mathias, making to slice and swipe at him, as he continues his taunting.

Leon rapidly dashes Sara and Joachim, and, hardly audible, whispers, “come, we must continue.”

Sara frowns, but matches Leon’s tone. “What of Mathias? Are we to simply… leave him?”

Leon sighs, then answers, “Mathias can well hold his own. 'Tis important we continue. Come, I will explain.”

Sara looks to Joachim, who appears eager to heed Leon, and leave. She casts a worried glance at Mathias’s person.

She knows Leon would not leave him to a situation he cannot handle. He is Leon’s closest friend, after all.

“Let us continue, then.”

———

They progress, onward, running far, until they have made it far from that room, before Leon stops, asudden, and breathes deep.

Sara puzzles. "Leon?"

“In that room…" Leon begins, "in that room, when we spoke to that vampire… you made mention of something which puzzles me still, Joachim. You… alluding to my having a ‘vampiric bloodline’. What… what meant you by such a thing?”

Joachim chuckles. “I hardly see how that bears any importance at such a point. You are, after all, now entirely vampiric, and that is hardly like to change. It is best you did not cling to your human past.”

“All the same, I wish to know of this.”

Sara speaks up. “I… should like to know of this as well. True 'tis not my past this concerns, but… all the same.”

Joachim huffs. “Is now truly the time for such a conversation? Should we not advance? It was you who told us it would be best to leave your dear friend in favor of proceeding onward.”

“We may not have any other opportunity. I wish to know,” Leon states, stubbornly.

Joachim rolls his eyes. “Very well! You carry the blood of a vampire, though dilute. You were hardly a full Dhampir, more like to be… the grandchild, or perhaps great-grandchild of one as such. You stated you knew naught of your parents? That they perished tragically while you were a child? More than like you would know of such had this not occurred.”

“It cannot be... I… descended… of a vampire?”

Joachim seems to have little patience for Leon’s incredulity-though, perhaps less impatient than he has been with Sara. “Yes. A vampire. The very same creature you now find yourself as, so I see not what bearing this has.”

“Why… why would you not tell me of such a thing before?”

“Because it matters no longer.”

“Do I not have a right to know of my own birth? My own parents, my own origins?”

“And I am to be at fault for your own failure to notice the signs which should have told you as such?”

“There were hardly any signs—“

“Hardly signs, he cries, ha! And what of the light sensitivity you mentioned to me? Your ability to recognize a vampire by sight alone, and to resist vampiric enthrallment?"

"Joachim, I-"

Your skin, pale as the moon, your hair, so light of yellow it could be taken for ivory in some light? The knowledge that you were nearly buried while you lived and breathed because your heart and your breath had slowed so to such a point you appeared dead?”

“I—the though could never have so much as occurred to me… Sara, surely one could never have expected…?”

And Sara finds that she is very suddenly taken by the craftmanship of the fabric of the carpet. So very intricate, so very skillfully woven, surely it must remain difficult to maintain with creatures so numerous—

“Sara. Please. Surely I could never have expected—“

“It… was always… odd, to me, how… you explained to me… you had told me, you found your belief in God so staunch, because… you told me, for many reasons, yet among so many reasons, it stood out… because it hurt you, you told me, or, near hurt you… the cathedral, you had said of it that you felt the presence of God in such a holy place so strongly, it near hurt you. And… and the battle wounds you found yourself with, they… some such wounds should have left you dead, Leon.”

“Sara,” he sounded… hurt. Betrayed. But Sara had begun and found she could not stop.

“I had assumed it divine in nature, though… you... You had always seemed more… lively. During the night. Though in the day, tiredness dogged at your heels; you… you recall, us two, we… we had found ourself in a vast field one day, and we had talked, for hours we talked, and… and you dozed in my lap, and I… you… you were cold Leon. Not so cold as a corpse, though still… colder than you had right to be, and… I could scarce feel your heart as it beat in your chest… and your breath… and I, I woke you in a panic—“

“You told me I sleep as the dead.” Leon closes his eyes, and breathes deep. “You pleaded that I not scare you in such ways again. My God, I had not thought to consider such things so related, yet… how could I have been so ignorant?”

“How tragic,” speaks a yet unknown voice, breaking Leon from his melancholy.

“The orphan discovers his true nature, yet far too late. It changes nothing. Such an unexpected end to a story I once expected to end in your blood spilled upon the stone of the Aqueducts below.”

“You,” Joachim growls.

The vampire lifts their head in triumph. “An end nonetheless, however. Kazamir shall writhe within his grave to discover such a lackluster end to the last of his blood. I should know, for it was I who put him in such a grave.”

“You—”

“Amdis, dear. I do bear a name, and you would do well to fear it.”

“Amdis. Who is it you claim to be?” Leon interrogates of them.

“I am the one who convinced Walter to feed you to Joachim, who could not even be bothered to do a job so simple as kill a man. And 'tis I who will finish this, and bring your doom.”

They strike at Leon with their axe, which Leon deflects, then delivers a riposte.

“How lovely! A skilled combatant. I had hoped this battle would not be utterly boresome.

They strike again, a flurry of blows, which Leon deflects.

“Sara. Joachim. Go. I will take care of this,” Leon addresses they two.

Sara protests, “but… Leon—”

“Please Sara. This is the first, the only I shall ever know of my own blood.”

The other vampire watches them leave, but removes not their focus from Leon’s barrage of attacks, as if to say, “you are allowed to flee because I let you. Do not forget this.”

The two continue onward, until they find themselves in an area seemingly safe from retaliation.

“And so, only we two remain.”

Sara huffs. “Had I known no better, I should think they seek to separate us.”

“No doubt. 'Tis you who have caught Walter’s eye, and 'tis you he will seek to fight. No doubt I shall find myself an opponent shortly.”

“But… the spell, how am I to—”

“You misunderstand. You are not. That is the point. Walter will give you a chance, however slight, to emerge victorious, for such a confrontation would bear no interest to him should this be untrue, but do not be mistaken, he would never allow you to win.”

“How astute,” states a vampire which approaches them, at the foot of a grand staircase. “I need not explain my purpose to you, then?”

“Melchior.”

“This is all you greet me with, Joachim? A simple, ‘Melchior’, not even so much as a ‘how do you fare?’”

“I have naught else I wish to speak to you.”

“And yet I had so hoped to mend things. Very well; I suppose rending your flesh of your corpse shall need suffice,” the vampire says, lunging for Joachim as Joachcim sends his blades flying towards him.

Joachim meets Sara’s eyes, gesturing onward, toward the staircase.

And Sara marches up the staircase, alone. And she approaches the final door. And she pushes it open, to meet her true enemy.