"Lysbelle… the spirits whispered to me… did you finally sire a pure blood?"
The voice was a dry rasp, like stone grinding on bone.
It came from the center of the pavilion, where a sickly man knelt, shrouded in a scarlet robe before an empty casket.
Around them stretched a bridge without end, paved with the bleached skulls of dragons, horses and kings, its edges swallowed by a murky ocean of blood, akin to an abyss that drank the light of the ghastly lit candles.
"…And do you care much… Luscaine…"
Lsybelle walked ahead of the kneeling man, draped in a similar scarlet robe.
She circled the empty casket thrice and picked a silver ceremonial dagger that was placed at one end of the coffer.
Then she walked to the other end where a golden chalice remained. Revealing her pale arms, she made a slight cut upon her skin.
Blood painted black dripped from her veins into the golden chalice which devoured it with a gluttonous hunger.
"Here to pay your respects to Father?"
The man still had his head down. He didn't look up once, not even at Lysbelle. His raspy voice however followed through.
"Yes… I hadn't been to the temple in a while…" The duchess replied.
The man scoffed. A sarcastic chuckle followed.
"When do you ever come here? Impious sister of mine. Not since the last time you embarrassed us."
Lysbelle carefully kept the silver blade back into its place and knelt beside the sickly man in complete surrender to the unholy sarcophagus.
"Last I remember it was you who embarrassed us. Didn't one of your pure bloods die in the Siege of Maccadonus? We lost an entire domain because of it. The humans have enslaved the residents of his fiefdom. What an absolute mockery. This is the first time it's happened in our immortal history."
The sickly man was silent. Lysbelle's eyes though widened.
"You dare…"
The vampyre opened his eyes softly. They were empty sockets. Pure blood red… that contained living horrors within.
An infinite number of souls were screaming in agony.
"My apologies Lysbelle." Tears of black flowed from those sockets. He quickly wiped them with his frail hand.
"Old habits. I forgot I cannot paralyze a fellow monarch. Only the blood god, father could ever immobilize us."
Lysbelle clicked her tongue in annoyance. She glanced at the man in question and took a deep breath in as if settling her thoughts.
Sighing she spoke softly, "Drink some blood. You are getting frail."
The sickly man did not reply. A few minutes passed. Lysbelle stood up. She stared at the monarch completely covered in the scarlet robe.
"The Third Legion appeared at my imperial seat. Begging me to bring forth your return. They need their progenitor."
Her words lingered in the dread of the dimly lit expanse.
Other than that only the echoes of her steps pursued as she gracefully strolled across the memories of all that had been sacrificed to the golden chalice.
She looked back one final time and whispered after a moment of hesitation.
"Luscaine… the spirits whispered to me as well. Father dreams about you. He shed a tear."
Hours passed after Lysbelle's exit. The starving monarch slowly lifted his head, his gaze fixed upon the golden chalice.
He crawled in front of the casket and opened his mouth wide as his decrepit fingers held the chalice.
Slowly but firmly he shook the ceremonial instrument thrice. From underneath the deepest and darkest depths of the chalice… almost as if awakening a slumbering beast.
A singular drop of dew trickled upon his tongue.
The taste was not of blood, wine, or memory. It was the taste of silence after a scream. It was the taste of a weeping deity.
…And it was the taste of claiming back what belonged to him.
The sickly man's frail fingers… bones that threatened to slip through at any moment stopped twitching altogether as the skin covering them began to tighten.
For a moment, just for a moment, the screams in his sockets went quiet, and instead a fresh pair of eyes laid its gaze upon the world.
In that quiet dimly lit expanse that swallowed all courage. A ripple formed upon the edges of the bridge.
When it was perfectly still… all that remained in the center of the pavillion was the unholy sarcophagus.
~
Vesper stared into the swirling bowl, his mercurial blood red eyes reflecting water.
A profound philosophical thought entered his mind.
'God I miss shitting.'
That was the best part of being human.
Just something about waking up early in the morning to take a massive dump, read the newspaper on the pot, or smoke a cigarette with a cup of coffee…
There was something deeply relieving about it. A moment where a person truly feels as if he has escaped from reality itself.
'And now…? Even that simple pleasure has been snatched from me.'
It didn't quite help that he couldn't even sleep anymore. How was one to truly escape from the curse of being a vampire??
It was a little too much self-awareness. A little too more than necessary.
'At least I still get drunk… and can taste coffee…'
Vesper stretched his legs and stretched his arms. He had been meditating lately, concentrating upon the blood essence in his body.
With each passing moment, he could feel it, his undead body was still transitioning and getting used to the immense curse that had been cast into his very DNA.
'Oh, man… I gotta go and sweep the graveyard, it's already midnight…' The silver-haired boy couldn't help but lampoon.
'Classes are starting from tomorrow in the morning. I hope the grave warden comes on time so I can give him the keys without delay.'
Sighing, Vesper shook his head in dismay. He glanced at the bathtub and began to add soap from a few bottles of shampoo he had quietly stolen from the other cadets when they'd been in the Trojan Hall.
Turning the tap, hot water began filling the tub as vapor began to steam up the bathroom.
When the water was finally up to the level Vesper wanted, he closed the tap, stripped his clothes, and got into the comforting embrace of the salts.
He moaned slightly and closed his eyes in quiet meditation.
'Who said a vampyre can't enjoy a beauty bath every once in a while??'