One-shot: Ad vitam aeternam
Title: Ad vitam aeternam
Character: Kuran Kaname
Rating: T
Status: One-shot, complete
Notes: Some random inspiration that came with the concept of Kaname being the founder of the Kuran family. Added twists of my own.
---
Sleep would not come to me easily.
Sometimes I think it’s better that way.
Because sometimes sleep brings memories I would rather forget.
I stand there watching, silent, as the countless tendrils of ethereal, white vapor rise up skyward as if in a storm, or blizzard. The ground beneath my bare feet is hard as stone, cracks spread upon the earth, the soil in no way resembling what it had once been before I waded into the great river and started drying up the water. I shift silently, and the soil cracks beneath my toes. I turn my head and my long, dark hair follows my movement; some strands dancing in the torrent of steam.
My clothes are wet.
I turn my gaze to the faraway citadel, and I can taste the fear and hatred of the humans cooped up inside. Another arrow whizzes past me, and it grazes my cheek. I feel my blood trickling down yet I don’t bother to wipe it off. Behind me, still concealed in the fringes of the forest, I sense my bodyguards shifting restlessly. I could almost hear the clank of their armor, the baring of their fangs. My blood never fails to cause a stir, even if it is only a drop.
Another arrow flies, and this time it hits me. The barbed arrowhead pierces my shoulder deeply, and I let out the faintest gasp as I feel it break through my body. But it is far from causing me any real pain. I reach up with a clawed hand and snap the shaft easily, and pull the arrowhead out without so much as a flinch. Blood spatters my bare feet. The damp gray of my robes is soon darkened with crimson. My bodyguards long to kill.
I turn away and step out of the dead river. The greatest fortress of the humans will only have a week to live, maybe less. When darkness comes, the slaughter will begin.
I see traitors everywhere I look.
I have isolated myself from my own children the moment Sonja’s body crumbled into ashes.
No more, I told myself.
No more.
But there was more to come.
I return to the palace and find a commotion that is not my doing. The moment my foot steps into the threshold, the huddle of vampires break and everyone parts to make way for me. I see soldiers still in their bloodied armors, ladies in their fancy jewelry and awkwardly made hair. Everyone bows low, nobody daring to meet my tri-colored crimson gaze. They reek of hatred and grief. In the far end of the hall I find the Lady Olenka crying tears of blood, monstrous howls escaping her parted and bleeding lips. Her daughter and son, both golden-haired young purebloods, try to restrain her, but there is no stopping her fits. Blood froths from where she gnashes her mouth, her fangs destroying her lips before they could properly heal.
I stop a few way’s away, but my presence calls Olenka from her fit. She crawls toward me, her golden hair torn, her claws reaching. I crouch down and extend my hands, feeling the cold within my gut.
“Father, great father, oh father, oh father!” Olenka collapses into my arms and continues to weep. “Oh father, make them pay! Make them pay! My Inase is no more! His ashes has been scattered by the wind, and his blood is consumed! Oh father, father, great father, make them pay!”
I say nothing and continue holding her to me. A great invisible force sweeps the entire palace, cracking stone and shattering glass. The easterly wind shifts and blows in an entirely new direction. The sky, which had been sunny outside, starts to darken as thunderclouds gather. I smell the rain before it falls, and hear the thunder before it booms. My heart is in pain. Olenka lets out a terrible, keening wail. I feel tears of blood well from my eyes and trail down my cheeks, and before I could realize what I was doing, my lips part, and an anguished cry escapes me, to drown out everything else.
I twist and I turn, unable to escape.
These are the times when I curse sleep.
I want to stay awake and never close my eyes.
I look at the silver goblet in my hand, wondering which castle have they pilfered it from this time. I don’t drink the thick blood inside, and instead put the goblet down on the nearby table. I raise a hand and push my long hair away from my face. Outside, the night is so deep and starless. The air is dry and cold, and I could smell the bloodshed from the battlefields even from here. I could hear vampires baring their fangs, and the hunters unsheathing their swords. I could hear blood-soaked standards waving in the wind. I could smell the first beginnings of rot and decay on the abandoned human corpses. I could smell the ashes scattered in the wind.
I wave a clawed hand. “Leave me.”
The door creaks shut as my royal guards withdraw, leaving me in the darkness and silence of this castle tower that I have confined myself in. But the silence and solitude is brief, and three knocks sound on the doors before the hinges creak. I turn my gaze to a golden-haired boy with crimson eyes. He looks so young. Yet I see hatred in his gaze.
“Father.” The boy has a hand over his heart and sweeps me an impressive bow. I regard him with little interest. “Your accommodations have always been an issue amongst us, your children. We have procured a fitting castle for you, and it is our greatest hopes that if you would please cut this solitude. Father, your children need you. We need you now more than ever.”
I turn to the boy and prop my head upon my right hand. My hair swings down and seems to conceal me. “Were you so angry with my decision that you betrayed Inase to the humans?”
The silence thickens. I sense the boy stiffen, yet he holds his ground. From where my hair curtains my eyes I could see the crimson glint of the rubies of his earrings.
“I have been your most loyal, father!” the boy’s voice bounces off my cold, lonely walls. “I have always been beside you through your hardest times. I have been every bit as endearing to you and loyal to you as Inase, and yet, and yet--.”
I draw breath and feel the air against my fangs. The boy sputters and stops speaking, yet he still holds his ground. For that alone I would admire him in another time.
“You are ambitious, Asato.” I speak his name. How it brings about a roiling in my gut. I want to shred him to bits, or let Olenka have her way with him. I knew he was afraid of my children. I knew he envied my children. Fear and envy were not the very best of combinations. “And you have a brilliant mind, I give you that. But I cannot make Pure someone whom I know will abuse the gift of my blood. My love for you has never been any less than Inase’s, yet you are blinded by your greed and your fear and your envy.”
He pales and trembles. I know it is because of rage, but he never could bare his fangs against me.
“Uruki is no different!” he cries out, eager to pass on the blame and point out my mistakes. “You loved him and yet what is he doing now with your Gift? He is creating hordes upon hordes of vampires as we speak, to conquer the livestock. Aglaia is no different! And Enkil, and--- and Sonja!”
I stand before him before he could blink, and I feel the skin at my back break as the great bones of my bat-like wings emerge, and impale him against the wall, one in each shoulder. His blood scent fills the room, yet I am distant from it. I drive the foundations of my wings deeper and destroy bone. He starts to cry and babble. I do not have the time to understand the words.
I recall perfectly Sonja’s beautiful features as she stands proud and stoic in the middle of the courtyard, stripped of her title of Queen. Her dark hair trails around her, dancing just above her hips. She turns her crimson gaze to every single pureblood in that assembly, challenging them. Nobody dares speak. Only Sonja could match up against me in that aspect. She turns her gaze to me last, and I recall her words.
Most dearest father, husband and King, this is farewell. I stand now before you humbled and judged because I have committed the greatest crime of plotting to take away the father’s life. I do not deny any of my crimes, nor revoke my reasons and cause. This court will not thrive with a soft ruler. We all know this to be true. I will hold firmly to my cause as just and reasonable, even as the wind finally scatters my ashes. Hear these last words of Sonja the Queen!
The scent of blood pounds my senses ruthlessly as I tear Asato apart against the wall. I let his limbs fall to the ground, to soak in the pool of his blood. His bloodied and ruined eyes still see me as I peer down at him.
“Then this is your curse,” I whisper. “You will forever roam this earth, close to power but never actually holding it in your hands. You will always stand in the shadow of the Pure ones. Forever a servant. Forever groveling. Forever bound.”
My eyes are open but unseeing.
I feel cold.
But I cannot hope to find warmth.
I love the feel of sand crunching beneath my feet, and the feel of the tide coming in, momentarily soaking me before ebbing away. I bend down and pick up an exquisite conch, and I turn it in my hands, temporarily enthralled by its simple beauty.
I am not alone.
I come across a young vampire whom I had never seen at court, and immediately know that he is of the Plebeius rank, a Commoner. The little boy looks up as I approach, awe etched in his young but ageless features. I smile at him and ask for leave to sit down beside the sand castle he builds, and he agrees shyly. I sit down with my knees gathered to me, and watch his progress on the sand castle.
As the afternoon sun makes way for dusk, the boy completes his castle. I find an irresistible tugging at my heart, and a loneliness so deep that I could drown in it for ten thousand eternities. I am unforgivable for biting the first eighteen.
Yet was it wrong of me to seek company?
The boy tells me his name is Gaius. I smile and give him the conch I found earlier, and promises that he will treasure it. As the night gets deeper little Gaius bids me farewell. I watch him leave just as the tide sweeps his little footprints away, as if they had never existed.
I try to wake,
But I can’t.
I must wake.
I must.
I only take two servants with me as I fled the court. We travel by day, and though I know they cannot stand the sunlight as well as I did, I still pushed them to their very limits. I was determined to never be found. I drove my poor servants for years, until at last they grew resilient to the sun. We hunted whoever had the unfortunate luck to stray across our paths, may they be vampire or human. The despair inside me had grown to such an extent that I was restless, angry with myself, with my servants, with the earth, the water, the wind. Sometimes I would wander away from them and scream in anguish at the skies until the rains would respond to my voice. Cold, wet, confused, I make my way back to my servants who eye me with fear, yet always make sure I am warm after.
I was delirious with despair, and this increased as the days lengthened into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years.
The journey ends when the three of us find ourselves at the snow-capped mountain peak. The sun was high in the sky but the heat had long stopped bothering us. I look at the gaunt faces of my servants and knew they would follow me without question. I turn my back upon them and shut my eyes.
Blood.
It started as a droplet of blood from my forehead, that eventually gained strength as a trickle. I feel my blood run down my face, as I cleave my own head apart slowly. Behind me, my servants are prostrate on the ground, unmoving, showing no will to stop me. More blood escapes me and stains the snow red.
I will end this here.
No more.
No more.
I will end this here.
For one moment, the world stops to gather its breath. The pain that rips me apart is unbearable. Yet I still live. My blood flows, and only a blow now to end my life, and once my life ends, all vampires would cease to exist. I was determined…
Yet I remember little Gaius.
Little Gaius with my conch.
Little Gaius and his sand castle.
Little Gaius and his smile.
I…
Good grief, I…
I…
My body has lost all the will to move. My consciousness remains, and I sense myself crumple onto the bloodstained snow. I sense my servants lift me into the great stone sarcophagus. I sense the lid close on me. I sense my servants take their own lives after burying me in the permafrost. In the darkness, I feel the need for a second chance.
Perhaps when I wake, things will have changed.
Perhaps…
I finally manage to wake from the nightmare.
I find myself damp with sweat.
My breathing is ragged.
I look out the window and the sun is high up in the sky.
I hear the voices of the Day Class outside.
I feel cold.
Yet I cannot hope to find some warmth.
Character: Kuran Kaname
Rating: T
Status: One-shot, complete
Notes: Some random inspiration that came with the concept of Kaname being the founder of the Kuran family. Added twists of my own.
---
Sleep would not come to me easily.
Sometimes I think it’s better that way.
Because sometimes sleep brings memories I would rather forget.
I stand there watching, silent, as the countless tendrils of ethereal, white vapor rise up skyward as if in a storm, or blizzard. The ground beneath my bare feet is hard as stone, cracks spread upon the earth, the soil in no way resembling what it had once been before I waded into the great river and started drying up the water. I shift silently, and the soil cracks beneath my toes. I turn my head and my long, dark hair follows my movement; some strands dancing in the torrent of steam.
My clothes are wet.
I turn my gaze to the faraway citadel, and I can taste the fear and hatred of the humans cooped up inside. Another arrow whizzes past me, and it grazes my cheek. I feel my blood trickling down yet I don’t bother to wipe it off. Behind me, still concealed in the fringes of the forest, I sense my bodyguards shifting restlessly. I could almost hear the clank of their armor, the baring of their fangs. My blood never fails to cause a stir, even if it is only a drop.
Another arrow flies, and this time it hits me. The barbed arrowhead pierces my shoulder deeply, and I let out the faintest gasp as I feel it break through my body. But it is far from causing me any real pain. I reach up with a clawed hand and snap the shaft easily, and pull the arrowhead out without so much as a flinch. Blood spatters my bare feet. The damp gray of my robes is soon darkened with crimson. My bodyguards long to kill.
I turn away and step out of the dead river. The greatest fortress of the humans will only have a week to live, maybe less. When darkness comes, the slaughter will begin.
I see traitors everywhere I look.
I have isolated myself from my own children the moment Sonja’s body crumbled into ashes.
No more, I told myself.
No more.
But there was more to come.
I return to the palace and find a commotion that is not my doing. The moment my foot steps into the threshold, the huddle of vampires break and everyone parts to make way for me. I see soldiers still in their bloodied armors, ladies in their fancy jewelry and awkwardly made hair. Everyone bows low, nobody daring to meet my tri-colored crimson gaze. They reek of hatred and grief. In the far end of the hall I find the Lady Olenka crying tears of blood, monstrous howls escaping her parted and bleeding lips. Her daughter and son, both golden-haired young purebloods, try to restrain her, but there is no stopping her fits. Blood froths from where she gnashes her mouth, her fangs destroying her lips before they could properly heal.
I stop a few way’s away, but my presence calls Olenka from her fit. She crawls toward me, her golden hair torn, her claws reaching. I crouch down and extend my hands, feeling the cold within my gut.
“Father, great father, oh father, oh father!” Olenka collapses into my arms and continues to weep. “Oh father, make them pay! Make them pay! My Inase is no more! His ashes has been scattered by the wind, and his blood is consumed! Oh father, father, great father, make them pay!”
I say nothing and continue holding her to me. A great invisible force sweeps the entire palace, cracking stone and shattering glass. The easterly wind shifts and blows in an entirely new direction. The sky, which had been sunny outside, starts to darken as thunderclouds gather. I smell the rain before it falls, and hear the thunder before it booms. My heart is in pain. Olenka lets out a terrible, keening wail. I feel tears of blood well from my eyes and trail down my cheeks, and before I could realize what I was doing, my lips part, and an anguished cry escapes me, to drown out everything else.
I twist and I turn, unable to escape.
These are the times when I curse sleep.
I want to stay awake and never close my eyes.
I look at the silver goblet in my hand, wondering which castle have they pilfered it from this time. I don’t drink the thick blood inside, and instead put the goblet down on the nearby table. I raise a hand and push my long hair away from my face. Outside, the night is so deep and starless. The air is dry and cold, and I could smell the bloodshed from the battlefields even from here. I could hear vampires baring their fangs, and the hunters unsheathing their swords. I could hear blood-soaked standards waving in the wind. I could smell the first beginnings of rot and decay on the abandoned human corpses. I could smell the ashes scattered in the wind.
I wave a clawed hand. “Leave me.”
The door creaks shut as my royal guards withdraw, leaving me in the darkness and silence of this castle tower that I have confined myself in. But the silence and solitude is brief, and three knocks sound on the doors before the hinges creak. I turn my gaze to a golden-haired boy with crimson eyes. He looks so young. Yet I see hatred in his gaze.
“Father.” The boy has a hand over his heart and sweeps me an impressive bow. I regard him with little interest. “Your accommodations have always been an issue amongst us, your children. We have procured a fitting castle for you, and it is our greatest hopes that if you would please cut this solitude. Father, your children need you. We need you now more than ever.”
I turn to the boy and prop my head upon my right hand. My hair swings down and seems to conceal me. “Were you so angry with my decision that you betrayed Inase to the humans?”
The silence thickens. I sense the boy stiffen, yet he holds his ground. From where my hair curtains my eyes I could see the crimson glint of the rubies of his earrings.
“I have been your most loyal, father!” the boy’s voice bounces off my cold, lonely walls. “I have always been beside you through your hardest times. I have been every bit as endearing to you and loyal to you as Inase, and yet, and yet--.”
I draw breath and feel the air against my fangs. The boy sputters and stops speaking, yet he still holds his ground. For that alone I would admire him in another time.
“You are ambitious, Asato.” I speak his name. How it brings about a roiling in my gut. I want to shred him to bits, or let Olenka have her way with him. I knew he was afraid of my children. I knew he envied my children. Fear and envy were not the very best of combinations. “And you have a brilliant mind, I give you that. But I cannot make Pure someone whom I know will abuse the gift of my blood. My love for you has never been any less than Inase’s, yet you are blinded by your greed and your fear and your envy.”
He pales and trembles. I know it is because of rage, but he never could bare his fangs against me.
“Uruki is no different!” he cries out, eager to pass on the blame and point out my mistakes. “You loved him and yet what is he doing now with your Gift? He is creating hordes upon hordes of vampires as we speak, to conquer the livestock. Aglaia is no different! And Enkil, and--- and Sonja!”
I stand before him before he could blink, and I feel the skin at my back break as the great bones of my bat-like wings emerge, and impale him against the wall, one in each shoulder. His blood scent fills the room, yet I am distant from it. I drive the foundations of my wings deeper and destroy bone. He starts to cry and babble. I do not have the time to understand the words.
I recall perfectly Sonja’s beautiful features as she stands proud and stoic in the middle of the courtyard, stripped of her title of Queen. Her dark hair trails around her, dancing just above her hips. She turns her crimson gaze to every single pureblood in that assembly, challenging them. Nobody dares speak. Only Sonja could match up against me in that aspect. She turns her gaze to me last, and I recall her words.
Most dearest father, husband and King, this is farewell. I stand now before you humbled and judged because I have committed the greatest crime of plotting to take away the father’s life. I do not deny any of my crimes, nor revoke my reasons and cause. This court will not thrive with a soft ruler. We all know this to be true. I will hold firmly to my cause as just and reasonable, even as the wind finally scatters my ashes. Hear these last words of Sonja the Queen!
The scent of blood pounds my senses ruthlessly as I tear Asato apart against the wall. I let his limbs fall to the ground, to soak in the pool of his blood. His bloodied and ruined eyes still see me as I peer down at him.
“Then this is your curse,” I whisper. “You will forever roam this earth, close to power but never actually holding it in your hands. You will always stand in the shadow of the Pure ones. Forever a servant. Forever groveling. Forever bound.”
My eyes are open but unseeing.
I feel cold.
But I cannot hope to find warmth.
I love the feel of sand crunching beneath my feet, and the feel of the tide coming in, momentarily soaking me before ebbing away. I bend down and pick up an exquisite conch, and I turn it in my hands, temporarily enthralled by its simple beauty.
I am not alone.
I come across a young vampire whom I had never seen at court, and immediately know that he is of the Plebeius rank, a Commoner. The little boy looks up as I approach, awe etched in his young but ageless features. I smile at him and ask for leave to sit down beside the sand castle he builds, and he agrees shyly. I sit down with my knees gathered to me, and watch his progress on the sand castle.
As the afternoon sun makes way for dusk, the boy completes his castle. I find an irresistible tugging at my heart, and a loneliness so deep that I could drown in it for ten thousand eternities. I am unforgivable for biting the first eighteen.
Yet was it wrong of me to seek company?
The boy tells me his name is Gaius. I smile and give him the conch I found earlier, and promises that he will treasure it. As the night gets deeper little Gaius bids me farewell. I watch him leave just as the tide sweeps his little footprints away, as if they had never existed.
I try to wake,
But I can’t.
I must wake.
I must.
I only take two servants with me as I fled the court. We travel by day, and though I know they cannot stand the sunlight as well as I did, I still pushed them to their very limits. I was determined to never be found. I drove my poor servants for years, until at last they grew resilient to the sun. We hunted whoever had the unfortunate luck to stray across our paths, may they be vampire or human. The despair inside me had grown to such an extent that I was restless, angry with myself, with my servants, with the earth, the water, the wind. Sometimes I would wander away from them and scream in anguish at the skies until the rains would respond to my voice. Cold, wet, confused, I make my way back to my servants who eye me with fear, yet always make sure I am warm after.
I was delirious with despair, and this increased as the days lengthened into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years.
The journey ends when the three of us find ourselves at the snow-capped mountain peak. The sun was high in the sky but the heat had long stopped bothering us. I look at the gaunt faces of my servants and knew they would follow me without question. I turn my back upon them and shut my eyes.
Blood.
It started as a droplet of blood from my forehead, that eventually gained strength as a trickle. I feel my blood run down my face, as I cleave my own head apart slowly. Behind me, my servants are prostrate on the ground, unmoving, showing no will to stop me. More blood escapes me and stains the snow red.
I will end this here.
No more.
No more.
I will end this here.
For one moment, the world stops to gather its breath. The pain that rips me apart is unbearable. Yet I still live. My blood flows, and only a blow now to end my life, and once my life ends, all vampires would cease to exist. I was determined…
Yet I remember little Gaius.
Little Gaius with my conch.
Little Gaius and his sand castle.
Little Gaius and his smile.
I…
Good grief, I…
I…
My body has lost all the will to move. My consciousness remains, and I sense myself crumple onto the bloodstained snow. I sense my servants lift me into the great stone sarcophagus. I sense the lid close on me. I sense my servants take their own lives after burying me in the permafrost. In the darkness, I feel the need for a second chance.
Perhaps when I wake, things will have changed.
Perhaps…
I finally manage to wake from the nightmare.
I find myself damp with sweat.
My breathing is ragged.
I look out the window and the sun is high up in the sky.
I hear the voices of the Day Class outside.
I feel cold.
Yet I cannot hope to find some warmth.